Hunter Talent Calulator

[Kalliope]

Posthaste is where the 3m cd rapid fire ended up. It's a must-have for raiding, IMO.

[Kayb]

True enough indeed. I'm not a raider anymore so that's where my thought comes from I guess.

In any case, it still feels boxed in, but without being able to actually play it, who knows. Kiss the hybrid players goodbye hey

[Anansi]

Mixed feelings on these trees. At first glance they are very underwhelming but then the conversion of some talents to skills (ie Aimed Shot, Explosive Shot) makes perfect sense. That said, there is no flexibility with these trees and we're still going to have cookie cutter specs, perhaps even more so now (it was my impression that Blizzard wanted to implement the trees to get away from cookie cutter specs). So I'm not sure if I'd say Blizzard's goals have been achieved here; yes, they pared down the size of the trees but to what end? I feel I have no options with my build at all, I have to take certain talents and not take others that are more attractive and would, under the old system, be perfectly accessible. I don't want 2/2 Go For The Throat and 2/2 Sic 'Em, I want 1/2 of each, and 2/2 Improved Serpent Sting and be able to get Readiness and Chimera Shot. Or, optionally, I have no desire for Concussive and Dazzled Prey. Those are great for questing and PVP, but not for raiding. People tend to get a bit bent out of shape when a target is unexpectedly stunned, and if current design holds, bosses cannot be Dazed or Stunned so that's *four* wasted talents for a raider, which given the current economy of the trees totally breaks the bank.

Hopefully things will change a bit to allow more flexibility. Choice here should not be punitive as it is now, but one of personal preference and character vision. One of the other things I'm very concerned about is a lack of a Hit talent. Right now, I'm running with 2/3 Focused Aim for Hit, if that's taken away I'm going to be severely hurting as are most Marksman Hunters. With no option to talent into Hit, are we going to be forced to run with less desirable gear just because it has Hit?

[Ryai]

Hopefully things will change a bit to allow more flexibility. Choice here should not be punitive as it is now, but one of personal preference and character vision. One of the other things I'm very concerned about is a lack of a Hit talent. Right now, I'm running with 2/3 Focused Aim for Hit, if that's taken away I'm going to be severely hurting as are most Marksman Hunters. With no option to talent into Hit, are we going to be forced to run with less desirable gear just because it has Hit?

And Hit will most likely be thrown at you as much as it was in Wrath. Yas is still sitting at 400 of it bunfortunately.


Then also;

Hunter (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator)
Hunter - Marksmanship
A master archer or sharpshooter who excels in bringing down enemies from afar.

* Aimed Shot
* Marksmanship Hunter (+ ranged hit, pushback reduction)

You get +Ranged hit for being MM/BM/SV, anyways.

[Saturo]

Aye, Palladia pointed that out. Every melee spec gets something interesting like +20 energy and +15% damage from daggers. Ranged? Pushback reduction which is barely useful and some hit.

Talk about boring,

[Anansi]

And Hit will most likely be thrown at you as much as it was in Wrath. Yas is still sitting at 400 of it bunfortunately.

Well that's kind of my point, but in the inverse of your experience. ICC raid gear does not throw any Hit my way, hence having to spec into 2/3 Focused Aim in order to be Hit capped. If Cataclysm throws as much Hit at me in raid gear as Wrath, I need those Hit talents.

Then also;

Hunter (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator)
Hunter - Marksmanship
A master archer or sharpshooter who excels in bringing down enemies from afar.

* Aimed Shot
* Marksmanship Hunter (+ ranged hit, pushback reduction)

You get +Ranged hit for being MM/BM/SV, anyways.

Right, ok, that's good, but I'm not in control of how much Hit I can have, I'm stuck with a pre-defined number that I have to work with, meaning I'm very likely to either need to gem and enchant for Hit or I will have too much of it and thus the Mastery feature is wasted. With Hit talents there is far more control over how Hit is obtained and thus allowing for maximised use of gems, enchants, gear and talents.

[Ryai]

Right, ok, that's good, but I'm not in control of how much Hit I can have, I'm stuck with a pre-defined number that I have to work with, meaning I'm very likely to either need to gem and enchant for Hit or I will have too much of it and thus the Mastery feature is wasted. With Hit talents there is far more control over how Hit is obtained and thus allowing for maximised use of gems, enchants, gear and talents.

You may not be in control of it but all three speccs now get +Hit. And I would assume it's probably 3/5%. No one knows right now, because it's just +hit. There's no percentage. You could just wait until more information is released, as it's most likely on the same ground as tanks getting that skill Vengence.

You're getting free Hit. Meaning in the end of the day, you won't have to worry about not having enough hit or having to respecc-respecc-respecc for +hit talents when you have to much or to little hit.

[Anansi]

It may be free but it's essentially wasted, thus that part of the Mastery is pointless (pushback resilience is a waste already). With Hit being a selectable talent, we have much more control over itemization and the economy of spending talent points for the most gain. If I'm hit capped via gear, that Mastery plus Hit does nothing for me, so I get no benefit. It's like having a Glyph for a spell you never use, a waste of a resource.

[Ryai]

It may be free but it's essentially wasted, thus that part of the Mastery is pointless (pushback resilience is a waste already). With Hit being a selectable talent, we have much more control over itemization and the economy of spending talent points for the most gain. If I'm hit capped via gear, that Mastery plus Hit does nothing for me, so I get no benefit. It's like having a Glyph for a spell you never use, a waste of a resource.

You're not even really listening to yourself anyways- it's not a waste of resource. Because it's always there you never have to worry about getting hitcapped with gear. You can always feel certain you can sacrifice hit on the go for an upgrade because of the permanent +hit that you will always have. You will always have it with no gear, you will always have it with gear. It's not a waste of resource because it's not a glyph, gem, piece of gear or anything else that you use. It's like getting a free enchant with no enchant.

Now instead of spending +3 talents for hit AND might I add Pushback resistance, you get it. For free.

ICC raid gear does not throw any Hit my way, hence having to spec into 2/3 Focused Aim in order to be Hit capped. If Cataclysm throws as much Hit at me in raid gear as Wrath, I need those Hit talents.

And now look, you get them. For free.

Meaning you don't have to spend something you'd say you'd spend for anyways.

[Anansi]

Hmm, I don't think I quite got my point across.

Currently, if I need Hit I can opt to put one, two or three talent points to get 1% per point of Hit. So if I need 2% Hit, I take two talent points and keep the third one in another useful talent. If I get a piece of gear that boosts my Hit without sacrificing other useful stats, I can remove a talent point from Hit and put it somewhere else useful. If I need no Hit at all, I put those talents into other DPS talents.

Under the new system, if I do not need any Hit, I've still got that Mastery Hit sitting there doing me no good, but the class is balanced under the notion that yes, that Hit via Mastery is a quantifiable resource. But if I don't need it, I would rather have a different quantifiable resource that is useful. Selecting Hit talents allows this, because I have control over where my character itemization (essentially) points are spent.

If I only need 1% Hit but the Mastery gives 3%, I can't opt for something else to use in place.

That Mastery Hit is actually not free, it is taking up a "power slot" if you will, which could be totally useless. With talents, I control that "power slot" and choose the economy of my character, under the new system I do not and have wasted values. If the Mastery Hit were really free, it would exist alongside some other trait, but it does not.

Does that make sense?

From an end game raiding perspective, my concern is not nitpicky but comes basically from a min-max perspective where every value, point etc comes at a cost and it's my responsibility to balance wisely. This however does not seem to be the case in Cataclysm, but we have not really seen the specific details yet so perhaps I will have more choice than it seems right now.

[Ryai]

I am getting your point, but the problem is, if we didn't get Hit via 'mastery' where else would we get it. It's been taken out of the MM tree, and as a hunter I would assume that '+hit' would be natural for a ranged class. We're already getting the 'base masteries' still as it is, the +hit is just a bonus. And if you're rolling MM/SV, you're still going to get shot buffing skills to an extent anyways.

MM still has marked for death and rapid killing. It also has a talent boosting Volley's crit chance and Multi Shot crit chance.

From an end game raiding perspective, my concern is not nitpicky but comes basically from a min-max perspective where every value, point etc comes at a cost and it's my responsibility to balance wisely. This however does not seem to be the case in Cataclysm, but we have not really seen the specific details yet so perhaps I will have more choice than it seems right now.

Then also the fact that if I remember right, needed hit for lv 85 is double what we have currently for soft hitcap/hitcap. And we've not seen any endgame gear. So it's possible that yes we really need that +hit, as I remember that they were complaining casters were getting Haste far to easily- and I would assume that Hit would be the same. So come Cata the Hit + Haste stats could pretty much be nearly non existant or very, very hard to come by.

Edit: correction Multishot just gets focus reduction on a multishot crit.

[Anansi]

Yes, that's true, it may be that gear Hit is itemized explicitly to account for the amount of Hit gained via Mastery. If in the span of five levels the Hit cap is effectively doubled, we're going to need all the Hit we can possibly scrape together, because that's nuts.