MoP Beta Build – 15544

According to MMO-C, Blizzard will deploy a new beta build before the end of the week. There was only one note pertaining to Hunters.

• Frenzy now lasts 30 sec, up from 20 sec.

This may not sound like a big a change, but it may very well be. In episode 125 of the Hunting Party Podcast we talked about Frenzy and Focus Fire and there was some confusion on how it was implemented in the beta. Since doing that episode I had a chance to logon to the beta and play around with it.

Basically it works similarly to how it does in live. Your pet attacks, builds up stacks of Frenzy, and then you can use Focus Fire to consume those stacks and get a haste buff per stack. Now in the beta your pet only has a 40% chance to get Frenzy, but you get an 8% haste buff per stack, meaning a full five stacks of Frenzy will give you 40% haste. Yes, 40%.

On the surface this sounds good, but what I noticed was happening is that it was virtually impossible for your pet to get a full five stacks of Frenzy. Your pet would get a couple of stacks of Frenzy, hit a bad streak, and then the stacks would drop off.

Because Frenzy has a strong chance of dropping off your pet, it means you have to monitor your pet’s Frenzy stacks and make a decision to hit Focus Fire if it looks like they’re going fall off. By increasing the duration of Frenzy to 30 sec., it increases the likelihood that your pet will continue to build up stacks. We’ll have to see how this plays out.

One thing that should be noted is that my character in the beta has zero expertise, so it’s possible that my pet isn’t landing as many attacks as it should, thus contributing to the slow build up of Frenzy stacks. Note to self – hit the reforger ASAP.