WoW Petopia Community

Blizzard has posted new details on how stats on equipment will be changing with the coming Cataclysm expansion. You can read the entire book-length post here: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/threa ... 6414&sid=1

But here's the hunter-specific bit:

If you are a melee DPS class, druid tank, or hunter, expect to see:

• A lot more Stamina. Bear-form Stamina scaling will be lowered as a result.
• Strength if you wear plate. Agility if you wear mail or leather.
• Existing Attack Power becomes Agility and Stamina. Armor Penetration becomes Haste or Crit.
• No Intellect on melee gear. Hunters won’t need Intellect since they will no longer use mana. Shaman and Retribution paladins will get mana and spell damage in other ways.

Wow, that's quite a lot to digest! o.o

I'm wondering how the Attack Power change will affect BM hunters. I'm assuming they're going to change how pets benefit from our AP and merge it with Agility or something.

Still, from my brief scan of the post I do have to say it all sounds exciting. I like that they're trying organize all of these stats a bit more. There's honestly so many right now, and a lot of them seem to overlap or are just confusing as to exactly what they do.

It also reminded me how much I'm anticipating this change for us to use Energy instead Mana. Gah, I can't wait for Cataclysm.

Vephriel wrote:Energy

Focus. But who am I to complain? I called Mana Energy for about three months when I first started playing...

And that list is quite long. But very interesting.

Aha, sorry. xD I was thinking of Rogues, so I slip up with that sometimes. Energy and Focus are more or less the same thing anyways. ^^

Vephriel wrote:Aha, sorry. xD I was thinking of Rogues, so I slip up with that sometimes. Energy and Focus are more or less the same thing anyways. ^^

Nah, from what I've heard, Focus will regenerate slowly, similar to the rate of our pets. Haste will make it come back faster. Also, Steady Shot will give some of it back too, so I think we can expect some pretty funny rotations.

Once they introduce the full pet scaling, pets probably will get their AP straight from our Agility.

For beast masters, this will be a very, very good thing, because it means we can gem and enchant like all other hunters instead of having to prefer straight Attack Power because it gives more benefit to our pets than Agility does.

If we don't get any new shots with Cataclysm, our rotation (for BM anyway) might wind up being something like Arcane - Multi - Serpent - Steady - Steady - Steady to build Focus back up. All that would depend on Focus costs for shots as well as all the other changes they're wanting to throw at us, so we'll have to wait and see. Although...if Haste and Steady Shot increase Focus regen, I bet you might see hunters of all specs taking the Improved Aspect of the Hawk/Dragonhawk talent and glyphing it to maximize the haste they can get to help keep their regen up.


/wants in the beta so very very badly....

Tahlian wrote:Once they introduce the full pet scaling, pets probably will get their AP straight from our Agility.

For beast masters, this will be a very, very good thing, because it means we can gem and enchant like all other hunters instead of having to prefer straight Attack Power because it gives more benefit to our pets than Agility does.

I may be a complete and utter noob here, but could someone explain to me how pets benefit more from straight AP than agility? I know that when you mouse over the stats in your character pane, it says that pets gain x amount of your attack power, and that currently they don't gain anything directly from agility. However, doesn't agility affect a hunter's attack power, which would then affect the pet's attack power? So, agility indirectly gives pets more AP? I guess I'm just confused in that agility gives you attack power, and attack power gives you attack power, and pets get your attack power. So...it looks the same to me.

Hm, if they make BM less boring for raiding/PvPing, respecing ASAP! Currently surv/mm (mm = pvp spec), and I can feel that they'll nerf one of the two.. most likely SV considering it's easy in raiding, and I'm usually at the top of the meters with the press of 2 buttons >_< But, nevertheless, I'm generally excited for the small changes in hunters =) ,like the new stats =D, been playing hunters ever since Vanilla Pre-BC WoW (mainly cuz I suck at all the other classes.. =x)

I am extremely worried about the whole Focus jumbo, I'm sure they won't make it exactly like Energy, but still, I hope I don't have to learn how to play my hunter all over again, hehe worked my ass off all these years to get where I'm at now! Gaaah >.<

WTB Beta plz Blizz!! For the sake of my curiosity x_x I promise I'll be good! ^.^;

Also, I have no clue how that whole deal with BM hunters work, I haven't played BM ever since I switched to Alliance after the release of WotLK (I miss my BE :< ) But! If you have questions about SV/MM, I'm pro at those :] *flex*

Edrawr wrote:I may be a complete and utter noob here, but could someone explain to me how pets benefit more from straight AP than agility? I know that when you mouse over the stats in your character pane, it says that pets gain x amount of your attack power, and that currently they don't gain anything directly from agility. However, doesn't agility affect a hunter's attack power, which would then affect the pet's attack power? So, agility indirectly gives pets more AP? I guess I'm just confused in that agility gives you attack power, and attack power gives you attack power, and pets get your attack power. So...it looks the same to me.

Pets get a percentage of attack power from us from our RAP (Ranged Attack Power) stat. They do not get anything at all from our Agility stat, beyond any contribution to RAP it gives us. So for a beast master, it can be better to go for straight AP gems and enchants because the pets get a greater contribution from that stat. Simply put, a BM hunter can get more "mileage" or "bang for your buck" (pun intended) from a +40 Attack Power Bright Cardinal Ruby, because they get 40 AP and the pet gets, say, 20 of that (I am not 100% solid on the actual scaling percentage, so this is just for purposes of illustration). The 20 Agility Delicate Cardinal Ruby gives us 20 AP, a little crit, a little dodge, and a little armor, so the pet would only get perhaps 10 AP from that gem.

Is that a little clearer? Really, the difference between the two winds up being rather minute. I gem and enchant for AP rather than Agi, and I ran my stats on the spreadsheet today to see if I perhaps needed to switch to gemming Agi. The result? Totally regemming would net me a whopping 2 DPS improvement. I don't know about you, but 2 DPS is not enough for me to totally redo every slot's worth of epic gems.

Hmm interesting things in the works. The reforging sounds interesting. Not sure to what extent they will do it though or if it will just be minor tweaks you can do. Can't wait till this hits live wonder if there going to give us new talent trees before cata hits to like in BC and WotLK.

Reforging - While these changes will go a long way to making a wider variety of stats more attractive, we understand that sometimes you simply don’t want more Hit Rating on your gear or you’d rather have more Haste than more Crit. In Cataclysm, we are going to give players a way to replace stats on gear as part of the existing profession system. As a general rule of thumb, you’ll be able to convert one stat to 50% of another stat. While some conversions (like converting Stamina to Strength) won’t be permitted, the goal is to let you customize your gear more.

Tahlian wrote:

Edrawr wrote:I may be a complete and utter noob here, but could someone explain to me how pets benefit more from straight AP than agility? I know that when you mouse over the stats in your character pane, it says that pets gain x amount of your attack power, and that currently they don't gain anything directly from agility. However, doesn't agility affect a hunter's attack power, which would then affect the pet's attack power? So, agility indirectly gives pets more AP? I guess I'm just confused in that agility gives you attack power, and attack power gives you attack power, and pets get your attack power. So...it looks the same to me.

Pets get a percentage of attack power from us from our RAP (Ranged Attack Power) stat. They do not get anything at all from our Agility stat, beyond any contribution to RAP it gives us. So for a beast master, it can be better to go for straight AP gems and enchants because the pets get a greater contribution from that stat. Simply put, a BM hunter can get more "mileage" or "bang for your buck" (pun intended) from a +40 Attack Power Bright Cardinal Ruby, because they get 40 AP and the pet gets, say, 20 of that (I am not 100% solid on the actual scaling percentage, so this is just for purposes of illustration). The 20 Agility Delicate Cardinal Ruby gives us 20 AP, a little crit, a little dodge, and a little armor, so the pet would only get perhaps 10 AP from that gem.

Is that a little clearer? Really, the difference between the two winds up being rather minute. I gem and enchant for AP rather than Agi, and I ran my stats on the spreadsheet today to see if I perhaps needed to switch to gemming Agi. The result? Totally regemming would net me a whopping 2 DPS improvement. I don't know about you, but 2 DPS is not enough for me to totally redo every slot's worth of epic gems.

Aaah, ok, that made it a lot clearer - thank you!!! ^_^

Guess they're gonna revamp the talent trees. Goodbye Careful Aim.... we hardly knew ye....

To be honest, I'm reallly apprehensive about the Mana to Focus change. I admit to being someone who thinks Hunters using Mana for their shots is rather silly, but I'm not sure how well the whole Focus thing is going to work. Because, what happens if it doesn't work out? What if the change becomes the Nerf To End All Nerfs? D:
It scares meeeeeee.....

Edit for using the wrong word somewhere...

I agree Dragon. I like mana atm, and tbh, don't think it's broken for us at all. It could definitely destroy us, but then again it could push us up to gods and Goddesses. We just can't know. My main problem with it is all the massive changes to us, and to everything... Cata is basically WoW2, and all these changes is gunna make it like learning a new class, or joining a new game. And me being rather Lore/storyline uptight/OCD, change in this large of a scale doesn't suit me one bit. All I can do is wait and pray *crosses fingers*

Mmm, it'll be nice to see how hunters play. With focus being added, you can bet that in the next expansion, after Cataclysm, if they put in a new class or classes, one will use focus at least, hehe.

I can't even begin to guess what the marks rotation will be like...blow all instant shots, then massive steady spam like the others? And what will happen with surv's replen? We won't need it anymore....

We won't need it anymore...but the other caster classes still will. They may leave it in Survival's tree as raid utility, or they may bake in an effect so that it will give back Focus as well so that the hunter isn't buffing everyone but himself.

Yeah, that's kind of what I was getting at - either it'll be removed or modified to include focus.

I wonder if there will be pots or food that increase focus regen or instantly give focus like mana and health pots??

sargeaw wrote:I wonder if there will be pots or food that increase focus regen or instantly give focus like mana and health pots??

I'd assume there would be. Rogues have things like Thistle Tea, so I'm sure there will be some potion options available.