Hi guys! The non-disclosure has been lifted, and what we know about hunters in Cataclysm’s beta is postable. I’m not in the beta or alpha because I didn’t sign up for it, however my co-host and dwarven chauvinist, Frostheim, has been chewing his tongue trying not to tell us all on the podcast about the cool stuff he was seeing in Alpha.
Well, I’m glad that’s over! He just posted everything we know about hunters so far on his site. Here’s some of my favorite parts:
Camouflage
You camouflage, causing you and your pet to blend into your surroundings. After 3 sec., you will enter a camouflaged state for 1 min, making you untargetable and providing stealth while stationary. While camouflaged, you and your pet’s movement speed is reduced by 30%, but the damage done by your next attack is increased by 15%.
You can lay traps while under the effect, but any damage done by you or your pet will cancel the effect. Cannot be cast while in combat.
-45 Focus, Instant, 1 min cooldown
This is going to be a big one in PvP. I imagine we might use it for trash pulls in PvE and openers as well, but this will be huge for BGs and arena.
Additionally, we’re getting a bunch of nice new abilities:
- Trap launcher- lets us use any trap like we currently use freezing arrow.
- Cobra Shot- regens focus and replaces steady shot for BM.
- Venoms- we now only have one sting; serpent sting. We can apply a venom (one per hunter) on top of the sting, however. There’s the MS debuff Widow Venom, the armor reducing Scorpid Venom, and a cast time debuff Viper Venom. If you’re marks, Chimera shot will perform a bonus effect based on the venom you’ve selected: Scorpid disarms, Widow heals you, and Viper burns 5% of the enemy mana.
Now here’s a big change that I’m really excited about:
Aspect of the Fox
The hunter takes on the aspects of a fox, increasing your focus regeneration by 20% and allows you to Auto-shot while moving.
-Instant, 1 sec cooldown
To me, this aspect means a few things. Stylistically, and in the eyes of the designer, I totally get this. In aspect of the fox, you go all John Rambo on your opponents, crouching and sprinting while sending metric tons of ammunition in the general direction of your target. Balance wise, in-game, what this looks like to me is the aspect that hunters will turn to when they need to kite, and when they need to run for a boss so long that they run out of focus for instants. Here’s the thing: the better skilled at positioning a hunter is (and the less they have to move), the more likely they are to be able to stay in some other, more damaging aspect. I’ll always support mechanics that allow exceptionally skilled hunters to perform better!
I really really like these changes. It sounds like the devs have been playing hunters while making these decisions- what about you? What do you guys think of them?
the sting and venom idea sounds great to me. i am a huge fan of finally giving hunters a way to heal themselves. it will have limited PvE use, but in PvP this is big depending on how substantial the heal is.
Also, camouflage really seem to harken towards the people who want to be “snipers”. your stationary, near invisible, death dealers from range.
When under camouflage, do the traps remain stealthed or are they visible? Would be sweet if they were invisible, but otherwise they do kind of give your position away.
Traps are currently invisible to enemy players when placed. I imagine it would be the same in cataclysm.
that is win. not even marcko can avoid a trap he cant see.
Traps are not invisible to rogues, so you still might want to consider the value of placing them when in camo.
Sub spec rogues also have increased stealth detection, so they can reliably get the opener on cat druids. I am assuming the same would apply to us hunters.
Still this is a huge addition to hunter pvp, especially since Blizz is trying to shift the focus of pvp to the battlegrounds.
but didnt it say once we are fully in camo stealth, that we are not targettable? so a rogue cant open on us unless they AoE us first to break out stealth. right? that seems silly that they can see us but not start a stun lock.
I think that they listened to BRK quite a bit. I can’t wait to play around with this stuff. I’ve always preferred my nelf hunter to my dwarf as he had a stealth mode.. now the dwarf can have some fun too, and move around to boot!
so, a camo hunter, with a stealthed cat pet, + some traps set, = lotsa fun….
AOTF sounds nice, but i’ll probably stick to BM and be using the cobra shot.. I still want to tame loq and use him in battle… grr.
I reread all the BM talents and none of them said anything about modifying damage or cast speed of Cobra Shot. Maybe they didn’t update the tooltip?
I’m also really, really excited for Rhumba. That talent is the main reason I’m switching back to try BM for PvE. But will Rhumba be able to be applied to multiple targets (making it awesome-er)? Will all 3 snakes strike at once or will they strike one at a time? It seems to me like one snake will strike with each opponent’s attack, dealing damage and then despawning. It’s like a shootable snaketrap that nom noms on opposing faces! It reminds me of Piercing Shots but seems so much better.
Rhumba has been removed as a bm talent
My only question is, when are you guys gonna do a podcast about this? =p
Saturday, 6 PM eastern.
Awesome, keep up the good work guys <3
I love the Venom idea. Aspect of the Fox seems neat too. The only thing I’m concerned about is the Focus mechanic, but I’ll have to test that out myself before I form an opinion.
I am glad to see we so far are not seeing anything like a combo point system for hunters. Having created both a rogue and feral druid for start learning a world with focus, this was one of biggest concern especially when they are multiple targets.
There will be our own Slice and Dice! But it doesn’t matter what target you’re shooting, because the combo points will be on our pet!