OutDPS!

Several new updates to the 4.3 patch notes affect hunters, including the removal of some prominent pet bugs and the implementation of some mechanical changes that, to put it bluntly, do not even work.

Class Notes

The new hunter-specific notes can be found here and are highlighted in red among the older class notes below:

• Monstrous Bite now reduces the target’s healing received by 25%, up from 10%.
• Talent Specializations
  • Beast Mastery
    • Animal Handler now increases Attack Power by 30%, up from 25%.
    • Widow Venom now reduces the target’s healing received by 25%, up from 10%.
    • Burrow Attack now does approximately 20% more damage, and has an increased area of effect.
    • Froststorm Breath now does approximately 20% more damage, and has an increased area of effect.
  • Marksmanship
    • Bombardment now only affects the next Multi-shot cast. [Does not appear to be in effect.]
    • Resistance is Futile! is now activated by targets affected by Marked for Death. [Appears to be broken.]
  • Survival
    • Explosive Shot damage has been increased by 15%.
• Bug Fixes
  • Point of No Escape no longer affects melee abilities.
  • The casting bar for Tame Beast should now always indicate the correct cast duration at high values of haste.

The largest change (at least in appearance) in the hunter-specific notes is to Bombardment. Instead of affecting all Multi-shots cast within five seconds, it only affects the next Multi-shot.  The weird thing is, though, that I am not seeing the change in effect.  To all appearances the Bombardment buff is currently functioning the same as it did before 4.3.  In search of evidence that I was not crazy, I came across posters over at EJ and the official forums saying the same thing.

Edit 12/3/11: The Resistance is Futile change appears to be broken.  When it procs from Marked for Death it does not return the Focus or consume the buff.  It does still work off of Hunter’s Mark, though.  I am frankly confused at these patch changes.  They are very clearly not working but they implemented them anyway.

Bug Fixes

The bigger news, though, is this: “pet bars will no longer sometimes disappear when zoning.”  Casual testing via zoning into an instance while on flying mount suggests that the bug is indeed gone.  Fantastic.  Also: “pets should now more reliably keep up with mounted players.”

Blizzard says of macros that “using #showtooltip in a macro should now cause the action bar icon to become highlight [sic] at the appropriate times.”  This means that you can have Aimed Shot in a macro, and it will still highlight when Master Marksman triggers.  Likewise for Explosive Shot and Arcane Shot with Lock and Load, Focus Fire at full Frenzy stacks and so on.

PVP

In PVP news, random BGs that result in ties now award Honor equal to that earned in a loss to both sides.  Conquest Points earned in this pre-season week will stick around when the next season starts.