Trueshot Aura

Here we go...

Wednesday, October 24, 2007 by Aura

I've been asked to post my thoughts on the upcoming patch 2.3.0. I've also been putting it off, because let's face it: this is going to be massive. So I'm going to break it down. Today is for the General and Hunter-specific changes, tomorrow I'll try and cover PVP/Raids/items, and Friday I'll hit up everything else. Sound good? I hope so, 'cause we're off!

General

• Experience: The amount of experience needed to gain a level has been decreased between levels 20 and 60. In addition, the amount of experience granted by quests has been increased between levels 30 and 60.
  On one hand, "Hey! I ground it out, everyone should have to!" On the other hand, maybe I'll actually level my alts past 20 now. Heh. Perhaps a good compromise would be that you have to level your first toon the old-fashioned way and then your others get the fast track?
  
• Silence effects now have diminishing returns when used on PvP targets.
  Huh-oh. Not sure exactly how this is going to play out, but could be reeeeally annoying when that annoying mage with a deathwish comes after me in AB again.
  
• Weapon Skill: All items and abilities that granted weapon skill have been changed. In most cases, they were converted to expertise or expertise rating. Ranged attacks do not benefit from expertise, so ranged weapon skill has generally been replaced by critical strike bonuses or hit bonuses. In a few cases, talents have been changed to other effects to avoid granting players excessive amounts of expertise.
  WTF, guys. Are you going to decrease the cooldown on Kill Command? Because mine already procs more than I can use it due to the cooldown, and you're compensating for screwing the rangies on weapon skill by giving us additional +crit? As my undead would say, "Gee, thanks."
  
• A new flight path has been added to the Rebel Camp in northern Stranglethorn Vale.
  About freakin' time is all I can say.
  
• Flying units can see ground units and vice versa at any altitude.
  Oh, hell yes. Halaa just got that much better.
  
• Client spell cast requests are now sent to the server even if your player is already casting another spell. This eliminates the need for /stopcasting in macros to compensate for latency.
  Undoubtedly a bonus for my friends with high-latency connections.
  
• Vendor Discounts: All vendors with an associate faction now give discounts at all levels above neutral.
  
  • Friendly: 5% discount
    
  • Honored: 10% discount
    
  • Revered: 15% discount
    
  • Exalted: 20% discount
  
  This is really how I always thought it should be, but now I'm going to have to be more careful about where I buy stuff! Aldor/Scryer rep is now even more important, and it's just that much more annoying that I can't buy the arrows/bullets I like from non-outlands factions.
  
• Quest givers who have available daily quests will have a blue exclamation point instead of a yellow one.

Clarity is good! The real question I have about this is, will daily quests that I no longer see the exclamation point for show up now as blue? (Honor Hold PVP quest, I'm looking at you.)

• Pets will try to get behind their targets when engaging in melee combat.
  This could be very good or very bad, or even both at the same time. Good for damage mitigation from spray and other area effects, bad if our pets spend a bunch of extra time running around to stay at the back of the target.
  
• You can now obtain a tiny Sporebat pet with exalted Sporeggar faction.
  Wow, a reason to get exalted with Sporregar! I love sporebats, and maybe this will be good consolation for the captured firefly's absolute refusal to drop for me.
  
• An Azure Whelp pet now drops from the blue dragonkin in Azshara.
  Holy crap, people may actually head out to Azshara now.
  
• If you are seated and try to use abilities that require you to be standing, you will stand up and use them. This can be disabled with: /console autoStand 0 .
  I hate it when I stand up in the middle of eating because I've done something dumb like hit my feed pet button, and this probably won't help. I may actually use the command to disable this.
  
• Racial Abilities
  
  • Dwarf: Gun Specialization now increases chance to critically hit with Guns by 1% rather than increasing weapon skill.
    Gnome: Escape Artist cooldown increased to 1 min, 45 sec.
    
  • Humans: Sword Skill now increases the critical strike chance with swords and two-handed swords by 1%.
    
  • Orcs: Axe Skill now increases the critical strike chance with axes and two-handed axes by 1%.
    
  • Troll: Bow and Thrown Specialization now increases chance to critically hit with those weapons by 1% rather than increasing weapon skill.
  
  Look! Reasons not to play an Elven Hunter! (Still no damn reason to play a Human, though. Heh.)

Hunters

• Aimed Shot (Marksmanship) now reduces healing done to that target by 50% for 10 seconds.
  This is going to be soo much fun in Arena. Honestly, this shot needs all the help it can get, as it's not really viable for anything other than an opener as the cast time is so long. I usually only use it for Misdirection aggro, but I'll have to dust it off and see how it functions in PVP after this. Plate wearers, this one is coming for you.
  
• Arcane Shot (Ranks 6 and above) now dispel 1 Magic effect in addition to their normal damage.
  This is possibly the most exciting thing on the list, right up there with my beloved Trueshot Aura getting some much-needed tweaking. In fact, this may be more exciting. But does it work in Opera? Hmm...
  
• Explosive Trap: The initial damage dealt by this trap is now also increased by 10% of your ranged attack power.
  I'm all for this. Explosive trap just got a bit better. Only downside is that additional threat when using this in an instance/raid to knock down a big pull of nonelites.
  
• Immolation Trap: The total damage dealt by this trap is now also increased by 10% of your ranged attack power.
  I'm all for my traps doing more damage, though this is going to be a much bigger bonus for those who are levelling and/or soloing.
  
• Misdirection: This spell will now always be removed correctly if multiple Hunters overwrite each other's Misdirection.
  Ahh, the duplication of misdirection. This really shouldn't be a necessary change. If you are in a party with another hunter, always work out who's doing the initial MD vs. any subsequent MDs. That ability has a looong cooldown. Seriously.
  
• Readiness: This talent now finishes the cooldown on Kill Command.
  It's bloody well about time for this to work properly. 'Nuff said.
  
• Serpent Sting, Immolation Trap and Explosive Trap all gain additional damage based on ranged attack power.
  Word. As a MM hunter, I'm all about getting more out of my RAP. I suspect that this will make a dent in that tired old "MM SUX B/C BM DOES THE MOST DPS!!1!one" argument, but I'm not terribly optimistic. The way the comparisons are done doesn't really take traps into account, which is one of my beefs with the whole flawed comparison in the first place. *sigh*
  
• Serpent Sting: The total damage dealt by this sting is now also increased by 10% of your ranged attack power.
  Blizzard, you just said this. See above.
  
• Steady Shot: Tooltip clarified to indicate base weapon damage is used in the damage calculation.
  I believe I've already stated I'm all for clarity. ;)
  
• Trueshot Aura (Marksmanship) no longer costs mana to cast and will last until cancelled.
  YESSSS!!!! TA has always been an annoying mana-chunk to cast, and a PITA to track. Two annoyances of mine removed from the game! Score. Can't wait for this, and that's a sure thing.
  
• Wyvern Sting (Survival) is now instant cast and has a maximum duration of 10 seconds in PvP.
  ...I don't have this ability, so I can't really give my opinion, can I?

Overall, this stuff looks to be all to the good for Hunters. Still not sure how I feel about the change to the 20-60 grind, though.

Posted in: 2.3, patch | | |

2 comments:

On October 26, 2007 at 6:55 AM Shifttusk said...

Woohoo!

Thanks for the link! I love this site expecialy since I've done very very very little PvE as marksman in the BC. I went to kara to help out my 3 healer's guild. Keeled nightbane and had a blast. I saw your part on macros I sooo need to put up some of the things I use in PVP.


On October 30, 2007 at 2:14 PM Aura said...

I would love to see some PVP macros! I'm also enjoying your take on the Hunter changed in the upcoming patch. I'm probably going to back up raiding and work heroics a bit more, since I just changed my spec. Don't want to be trying to get a handle while trying to down Romulo & Julianne, right?

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