Thursday, October 14, 2010

Oh no, Bugs! 4.0.1

I have been checking out the Bug Forum lately for any significant hunter bugs.

There is a pretty big bug with hunters pets in the stables going missing. You can view the thread here. I would be advised to be careful what rare pets you have obtained put into your stable. I could suggest keeping them in your Call Stable Pet for now until this bug has been resolved as to not risk losing your beloved.

Some people appear to be have trouble with the Master Marksman effect not providing a free non cast Aimed Shot at 5 stacks. If this is you, check out this thread.

There are also multiple threads about pets Dash ability. It appears to unlearn itself from Core Hounds and Devilsaurs and some players can't find the spell in the spell book after a pet learns it. Check them out here.

I believe that is all I have been able to find so far. Hopefully all gets fixed pretty quickly as I know we all want to go out and catch all kinds of new pets!

4.0.1 Rotations

Thanks to Midnight at EJ using FaceShooter we have a little bit of a rotation for each spec we can play around with.

SV:
if HM is not on target or running out in less than a set time and there´s no MfD on target and focus/cooldowns/target heath don´t allow for KS, ES or BA
--> cast HM
if KS is off CD and target health is at or below 20%
--> cast KS
if ES is off CD and either enough focus or LnL charges left and last ES cast is 2 or more seconds ago
--> cast ES
if BA is off CD and enough focus
--> cast BA
if SpS is not on target and enough focus
--> cast SpS
if focus over or at 75 (modified by Efficiency) and there´s no LnL buff
--> cast AS
if KC is off CD and enough focus and LnL buff up
--> cast KC
none of the above
--> cast CoS

BM:

if HM is not on target or running out in less than a set time and there´s no MfD on target and focus/cooldowns/target heath don´t allow for KS or KC
--> cast HM
if KS is off CD and target health is at or below 20%
--> cast KS
if KC is off CD and enough focus
--> cast KC
if SpS is not on target and enough focus
--> cast SpS
if focus over or at 75 (modified by Efficiency)
--> cast AS
none of the above
--> cast CoS

MM:

if HM is not on target or running out in less than a set time and there´s no MfD on target and MfD is not talented and focus/cooldowns/target heath don´t allow for KS or CS
--> cast HM
if KS is off CD and target health is at or below 20%
--> cast KS
if CS is off CD and enough focus
--> cast CS
if MMM buff is up
--> cast AimS
if SpS is not on target and enough focus
--> cast SpS
if SS won´t overcap focus and last spell has been SS and the spell before last spell has not been SS
--> cast SS
if enough focus to cast AS now and still enough to cast CS whenever it comes off CD
--> cast AS
none of the above
--> cast SS
 Source
 They also bring up a good point right now with using ISS over Pathing in 4.0.1. ISS provides much more haste than Pathing does.

EDIT: I mentioned getting ISS for the other 2 specs. I forgot that isn't possible in 4.0.1 because we only have 5 left over talents. Please disregard what I said, I misunderstood it. They were only talking about getting ISS over Pathing for the MM spec.

Pet of the Week 10/14

I have really been slacking with 4.0.1 coming out. I've been trying to download the patch and get everything working. The download speeds I have been experiencing are atrocious so it's taking me awhile and distracting me.

So this weeks pet of the week is the Green Devilsaur. There is only one green skin Devilsaur in the game and that is King Krush that is a rare elite found in Sholazar Basin.

Devilsaurs bring an increased crit chance as well as a mortal strike. Also I picked out the green skin because basically it reminds me of Reptar. Any one remember the old Rugrats show on Nick? Tommy's favorite dinosaur was Reptar so I'm kicking it back old school!

Enjoy your Devilsaur and I hope everyone is enjoying the new changes in 4.0.1.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

4.0.1 Overview

Here is a quick brief overview for what hunters can expect in the new patch.


1. Talent System - As most of you should know by now there is a new 41 point system system with 31 point trees. You have to put 31 points in a single tree before you can move on to a second tree. This pretty much prevents any hybrid builds, which is perfectly fine, I don't think you would want to dip half way down 2 trees anyways.

2. Focus - There is no more mana for hunters, we can now stop complaining about going oom half way through a fight and losing precious dps going into Aspect of the Viper. With that, any spells or abilities dealing with mana have been removed. Focus is what our pets have been using this entire time and it works just like energy does. It regens over time and we have 2 shots that cost no focus and give us 9 focus instantly, Cobra and Steady Shot.

3. Glyphs - A lot of glyphs have changed around. They have a new tier of glyphs called prime glyphs. These effect our damage dealing shots mostly. You also no longer have to buy multiple glyphs if you ever need to replace you. Once you learn a glyph you can replace it and go back to it later. All you need it a dust of disappearance from any inscription vendor.

4. Stats - Armor Penetration is no longer a stat. All arp gems have been replaced by crit. On gear if the piece already had crit it was turned to haste and if it already had haste it was turned to crit. Same goes for the trinkets like NES, Runestone, Banner of Victory, and so on.

There is also a new stat called mastery. Each spec is given a different mastery. They are unique to that spec and can be pretty beneficial. Gear found around level 78 will start carrying the mastery stats.

5. Gems - Agility gems are still red. Haste and mastery are yellow. Hit is now blue.

6. Reforging - This allows you to reforge a secondary stat to another secondary stat. You can reforge up to 40% of that stat. Meaning if you have 100 hit on a piece you can reforge 40 of that hit into another secondary stat.

For hunters that would be: crit, haste, mastery, and hit.

7. Pets - The new pet abilities will be available and ready to use. Along with the new Call Pet system which allows you to hold onto 5 pets for easy changing and allows you to hold 20 pets at the stable master.

8. Currency Changes - Currency is being converted to a new points system. As of 4.0.1 Frost and Triumph badges will be converted to Justice Points (JP) which will be used for the first tier of raiding. In raids you will acquire Valor Points (VP). Honor will also be converted into an Honor Points system. All points will have a cap. I know JP caps at 4000. I'm not sure about the rest.

All other emblems below triumph will be converted into gold.

9. Ammo - There is also no more ammo so you can vendor all left over arrows and bullets. Thanks Sandinmygum for pointing that out.

While there have been a lot of tweaking in numbers I believe you will now see a diversity in specs. With the changes BM and SV have become more in tune with the MM spec and you won't see every hunter running MM just to be the best in DPS. It will take a lot of tuning to get rotations/priorities down so be patient.

This can be found at the ZAM Hunter Forums

Monday, October 11, 2010

Cataclysm Guide on ZAM


I have been working on a Cataclysm Guide for the ZAM website. I have tried to streamline all the information I have posted and have found to create a thread that incorporates all the information so far regarding the upcoming expansion.

You can view the guide here. I am also working on an updated FAQ written by Aethien from ZAM, you can view that here.