Latest Hunter Changes

With the new build for Cataclysm comes some interesting new changes to hunters.

Beast Mastery

* Viper Venom and Scorpid Venom seems to be gone.
* Widow Venom no longer mentions "Only one Venom per Hunter can be active on any one target.", I guess the 2 previous venoms are indeed gone.
* Focus Fire now has a 15 sec cooldown. Down from 30 sec.
* Improved Kill Command now Increases the critical strike chance of your Kill Command by 5/10% instead of reducing its cooldown.


Marksmanship

* Kill Shot now deals 150% weapon damage (down from 200%) and scales with 30% of your Attack Power (down from 40%). Base damage reduced by 50%. Cooldown increased from 6 sec to 10 sec. Focus cost removed.
* Multi-Shot - Fires several missiles, hitting your current target and all enemies within yards of that target for x% of weapon damage. / 40 Focus, 5-35 yd range, Instant
* Aimed Shot no longer deals 300% of weapon damage, now deals [ 40% of RAP + 681 ] damage. Cast time increased from 2 sec to 3 sec.
* Arcane Shot base damage reduced by 60%, now scales from 19% of Attack Power, up from 17%.
* Chimera Shot no longer deals 190% weapon damage, now deals [ 24% of RAP + 401 ].


Survival

* Serpent Spread - Targets hit by your Multi-Shot are also afflicted by your Serpent Sting equal to 6/9 sec of its total duration.
* Point of No Escape no longer affects Freezing Arrow.

 O-Boards

There has been a lot of discussion all around about these changes. Some people are saying they are good and that some are buffs, but a lot of people are complaining that there are a lot of nerfs to hunters in this build.

A few of the biggest concerns are the loss of Viper and Scorpid Venom. This is a pretty big hit to hunters and pvp. Another hit has come from the dmg reduction of Aimed Shot. According to some people aimed shot was critting (self buffed) for about 30k. They also increased the cast time of aimed shot by 1 sec. Kill Shot also had its damage reduced and its cooldown lengthened but it now requires so focus cost which could really help for that last 20% of a boss.

A lot of the hunters shots are being changed from base damage to a percentage of their ranged attack power. There is no real calculation yet as to whether this is actually a nerf or a buff, but we can all assume it's a nerf with the damage that has been reported from beta.

Everyone needs to remember that it's still really early in the beta process and that things can and will change by the time Cataclysm is released. Blizzard is working hard to balance classes and things should be cleared up by release.