Latest Beta Build for Hunters

This is the latest beta build with some new and interesting changes to hunters.

Beast Mastery

• Aspect of the Fox now procs from melee attacks you receive instead of whenever you take damage.
• Kill Command now requires your pet to be in combat.
• Tame Beast no longer reduces your armor by 100%.
• Envenomation renamed to Killing Streak and revamped - When you score two Kill Command critical hits in a row, your third will deal 15/30% more damage and have its cost reduced by 5/10 focus.
• Cobra Strikes now has a 5/10/15% chance to proc from any Arcane Shot instead of a 20/40/60% chance to proc from a critical Arcane Shot or Kill Command.

Marksmanship

• Multi-Shot now deals 55% of weapon damage to all enemies within 8 yards of the target.
• Chimera Shot revamped - An instant shot that causes ranged weapon damage plus [ 24% of RAP + 401 ], refreshing the duration of your Serpent Sting and healing you for 5% of your total health.
• Careful Aim now affects target above 80% health, up from 60%.

Survival

• Traps had their description modified, apparently the restriction of "Only one trap can be active at a time." no longer exists.
• Cobra Shot is now a Survival skill (Old - Beast Mastery) and now deals weapon damage plus [ 8.6% of RAP + 276.81 ] in the form of Nature damage.
• Frost Trap is now Ice Trap
• Black Arrow now only shares a cooldown with Explosive Trap and Immolation Trap.
• Improved Tracking revamped - now Increases ranged haste by 1/2/3%.

 I'm a little confused right now with the new change to Aspect of the Fox. It appears that when struck by melee you would lose your current aspect and switch to fox. Since there is no apparent time limit on how long it would last from procing, I would assume that to be correct and you would have to switch back to Dragonhawk if you wanted.

I like the change to Chimera Shot, but it sounds like the damage has been nerfed quite a bit. I believe the main shot for MM is going to be aimed now. Chimera Shot will be good for the 5% health and the refreshing serpent sting, but the 50 focus cost is still a little high and it might be more worth it so just use the 25 focus serpent sting.

Careful Aim I believe is going to be a pretty worthless talent even more so now. Unless its going to be really hard to get bosses from 100% to 80% then it's really not going to be worth the points.

I don't believe Cobra Shot moving to Survival is going to have any real impact on anything. I'm pretty sure BM should still be able to learn the shot and use it but their main focus will be spent on Arcane Shot.

I like that Frost Trap has been renamed to Ice Trap. I always felt the name was too similar to freezing trap and can be confusing to new players since they are similar in names.

Improved Tracking change I believe to be a nerf, but it all depends on the numbers in the end. Haste is going to play a lot bigger role in Cataclysm with the fact that it will increase focus regen as well as increase ranged attack speed and reduce casting time.


In the end right now I'm really enjoying the direction hunters are going for the new expansion. I can't wait to see the end result and try it all out. Those in beta, enjoy the changes!

Hyolith