Ranshiin Gives Feedback

[Ranshiin]

It's been a while since I was around here, unfortunately I have been unable to pay for my WoW account so can't post this on the normal forums. If anyone would like to copy/paste this little bit of feedback please do. Now then.....

Though I didn’t get into the Beta that won’t stop me from giving some feedback! So without further adieu here is some of my feedback on stuff I read on MMO-Champ.

[NEW] Cobra Shot
It’s kinda difficult to see where you’re going with Cobra at this time, in the class preview it was supposed to replace Steady for a BM hunter, currently it has the same cast time and focus generation as Steady. Additionally the talents that were supposed to make Cobra superior to Steady for BM don’t seem to be there or state that you can use Steady for the same effect. The most obvious reason is that you get Cobra at level 81 while you get Steady at 3, if BM was full of talents that propped up Cobra no one would go BM until 81 because the extra damage that they should be getting doesn’t exist yet.

I will say I am intrigued by Cobra’s second effect, increasing our Serpent Sting duration by 3 seconds when we hit with it, I’m curious to know if there is a limit to just how many times we can increase the duration before we’re forced to let it fall off (the tooltip currently does not state a limit).

[NEW] Venoms
We get three; Viper, Widow, and Scorpid, and each provides a nice debuff (cast slowing, healing reduction, and ’major’ armor reduction respectively) which is refreshing since it gives all hunters a nice boost to our utility. It is also very nice that we can use these venoms in addition to our Serpent Sting, thus not making us decide between a DPS increase for ourselves or other utilities. This also prevents hunters from fighting over who has to debuff the target and who gets to do more damage.

I’m a little wary of Scorpid though, it may argue with other ‘major’ armor reductions as it builds stacks, namely Sunder Armor and Expose Armor so I’ll have to wait and see.

[NEW] Trap Launcher
I’m surprised this is being added at level 48 but I am in no way complaining, it will help many hunters get used to placing traps at range rather then introducing it shortly before they’re expected to start raiding current game content.

[NEW] Aspect of the Fox
I am very intrigued by this as well, obviously we loose the AP bonus of Hawk, but we gain a lot of mobility and focus generation, I can see this having excellent use in PVP and PVE encounters that require movement on the raid’s part (such as say Professor Putricide or Halion).

[CHANGED] Kill Command
The change to Kill Command is interesting, it feels like it’s going back to how it used to work but I’m curious as to how this damage will be effected by our pet’s stats. Will it increase with our pet’s AP? Or will it increase with our pet’s SP?

The BM Tree
The changes thus far are interesting, I will go through a few of the ones I really like and add some dynamic gameplay to BM.

> [CHANGED] Frenzy & [CHANGED] Focus Fire - The fact that Frenzy is a ‘wind up’ for our pet rather then a proc is nice, what I really like is the synergy the new Focus Fire does. It gives us reason to pay attention to our pets stacks of Frenzy.

>[NEW] Aspect of the Monkey - Certainly a PVP talent, I know we’re gonna have larger health pools in Cata but I question the need for the hit to be a critical strike.

> [NEW] Rhumba - As stated with Cobra Shot, this ability can be triggered by both Cobra and Steady Shot. The effect is interesting to say the least, damage reactive to your target attacking is interesting and could certainly spell doom in PVP if a player isn’t careful. Though I highly suspect these cobras will be targetable and have barely any health, and since every class in the game has AOE now this talent may be easily disabled in PVP.

The MM Tree
Interestingly enough, the coolest changes to this tree are in the lower tiers.

> [CHANGED] Rapid Killing - It effects Steady, Aimed, and Cobra now, making it a very worthy talent for any hunter to obtain.

> [CHANGED] Go For The Throat - Only triggers on an auto-shot crit, which is a hefty nerf, but considering our pet would gain unlimited focus when we Volley a pack of mobs it’s not entirely expected.

> [CHANGED] Aimed Shot - Basically, it’s been reverted to the classic aimed shot with a cast time and no debuff. Since we got Venoms now there was no point for the debuff.

> [NEW] Sic ‘Em - The name made me chuckle, now the tooltip can be a bit scary to those uninformed; a ‘basic attack’ is just a new name for our pets focus dumps.

> [CHANGED] Careful Aim - Basically, it makes Aimed Shot an ideal opening attack and early fight attack for the hunter. In PVP I can see it being useful to chop down someone getting healed to full health.

> [NEW] Resistance Is Futile - I had to lol, this ranks up there with the Nom Nom Nom talent for feral druids. On a serious note, this talent is very nice, I can see its biggest use being in PVP where everyone is on the move.

> [CHANGED] Chimera Shot - Chimera now works off our Vemons and doesn’t include Serpent Sting. The effects are as follows, Viper burns 5% total mana, Scorpid disarms, and Widow heals the hunter for 15% max health. Very interesting effects indeed!

The Surv Tree
Not as many interesting changes as the other trees to be honest, none the less here are the ones I found cool.

> [NEW] Improved Serpent Sting - Like several other DoT talents before it, this makes Serpent Sting deal instant damage at the start of its duration.

> [NEW] Toxicology - A big boost to the damage of Serpent Sting and Black Arrow, it synergizes well with Imp. Serpent Sting.


My Final Thoughts
The changes thus far are interesting and I like the direction the hunter class is going and would like to ask a few questions.

> Has the design intent for Cobra Shot changed as it appears to have?

> Since so much of BM damage is going to rely on the pet will hunters see even more survivability in PVE environments to ensure they aren’t crippled by Boss A’s special ability?

> How would you say pet’s survivability currently is in PVP? Any plans to give pet dependent classes a new tool to help manage their pet in PVP?

> Will we see an update to the pet character sheet for all pet classes this expansion? Ex; Showing our pet’s chance to crit, chance to dodge, etc.

> Will there be a new tier in the pet talent trees? Only BM would have enough points to get to the new tier so it has potential add great distinction to a BM hunter’s pets.

Thank you for reading, hope to have lots of fun in Cataclysm!!