Between the comprehensive patch notes, the data mining, and developer interviews and responses on Twitter, it was quite a weekend for those starving for information on Warlords of Draenor. We learned a lot about the expansion in general, and we learned a lot about Hunters. I’m generally excited about what I read, and here a five things for you to get excited about for Hunters in WoD.
Misdirection
During the interview on Fat Boss TV, Celestalon revealed that when you put Misdirection up on a target it will last for one hour. That’s great for raids, that’s great for questing and solo tanking, and it’s probably great for other nefarious reasons.
Glyph of Play Dead
This new minor glyph will cause your pet to play dead when you Feign Death. The ability for you and the your pet to do a full aggro dump and escape combat is huge. The fact that this is a minor glyph makes it all the better. Whether it’s trying to stay alive during a wipe or trying to get out of combat because you pulled too much stuff, this glyph will make living much easier.
Camouflage
I was always disappointed that I could never find much use for this in PvE. Now thanks to the new Hunter perks, Camouflage just got a whole lot more interesting. All Hunters will get Enhanced Camouflage and Survival Hunters will also get Improved Camouflage.
For MM and SV this is mostly an out of combat self heal. BM/MM could likely use it in combat if they pair it with Deterrence. Survival on the other hand don’t have to worry about it’s effect breaking, so it’s a 30% self heal every minute. If Readiness affects it like Assurance of Consequence does, then that CD can be reduced further.
It looks like we’ll be in Predator mode a lot in Warlords of Draenor.
Pet Buff/Debuffs
We learned that in Warlords of Draenor every buff/debuff and raid utility will be available to all specs. This includes battle rez and heroism. Exotic pets will still have the advantage of having 2-3 abilities, but Hunters will be able to bring whatever the raid needs without having to worry about their spec. A very nice quality of life change.
New Pet Families
Hunters are getting some cool new pet families including Hydras, River Beasts (i.e., Hippos), Dragonflys, and new skins of some old favorites likes wolves and boars, and the might sporebat. MMO-Champion posted some of the new looks on their site. Is it too soon to ask for more stable slots?
The misdirection change can be a nice quality of life change, but I cannot see it compete with other raid-utility options from other classes. I can see a benefit for MD with soloing or bad PUG/LFR tanks. However, with normal raiding it shouldn’t be that big a deal if your group members are half-decent.
MD will also be the utility a hunter brings to a raid. However, compared to something like Amplify Magic brought by mages it seems very minor. Amplify Magic increases healing done/received for x secs, which can save you from a wipe, I don’t think the same can be said for MD.
I can also see issues with tank-swap fights whereby it can be very inconvenient if 2-3 hunters keep dumping all their threat on Tank A, while tank B is supposed to be tanking. Of course the hunters could swap their MD target as well, but that would be very annoying.
I think that for MD to be on par with other raid utility it should also increase the armor/damage reduction of its target (even though that makes no sense lorewise).
The Slow Fall ability from dragonflies looks like fun too!
Yes… combine that slow fall with Disengage for extra fun
Even if we got five new families of hunter pets, we’d still have enough slots to have one pet of every family, and a few spare ones. I think we’re safe when it comes to that.
What I really want to tame in WoD is dread ravens (maybe they could be birds of prey), clefthooves (rhinos, potentially) and elekks (come on, we’ve been waiting for them for so long).