A moment of silence before we begin.
The PTR was updated on July 12, 2013, and Blizzard began implementing some of the changes mentioned in the Big Blue Post. Most notable was the removal of Readiness from the game. It had already been modified to no longer affect our DPS abilities, but now its power in resetting our utility is gone as well. To help compensate for its loss we now have the following changes.
- Deterrence now has a 3-minute cooldown (up from 2 minutes) but has 2 charges.
- Disengage now has a cooldown of 20 seconds (down from 25 seconds).
- Stampede damage dealt by pets when the ability is used outside of an Arena or Battleground is no longer reduced by 75%
So Readiness has essentially been baked into Deterrence, and Stampede has had its PvE damage increased. Readiness didn’t impact Stampede, but Hunters needed a DPS boost to make up for the loss of Readiness, and this is a start.
Readiness was introduced in the Burning Crusade as a Survival talent. That was back in 2007 for anyone keeping track. That’s six years of the game’s nine year life that Hunter’s have had this ability in some capacity. It’s always been a powerful ability and Blizzard has managed to keep it in check. The one time where it really go out of hand was the BM hybrid build in the beginning of Wrath.
Marksman is the one spec that’s needed some love this expansion, and it would’ve been nice to see it returned as an MM only ability like it had been in much of Wrath and Cataclysm. Would it have made MM too good? Maybe. But alas, it seems the decision has been made, and Readiness is gone. More changes are needed to help Hunter DPS in PvE, and we should see something in the next couple of weeks. Until then all we can do is take a moment and say goodbye old friend. You shall be missed.
/cue Taps
