Sorry for delay in writing about this, but I’ve been out of town since Thursday. I’ll be back home on Wednesday, and will be able to check out the changes first hand then.
Most of the changes focus around Marksmanship and Survival, with Marks perhaps getting the bigger of the two.
Marksmanship
The big news is the change to Chimaera Shot.
- Chimera Shot has been renamed Chimaera Shot. It is now a two-headed shot that hits two targets, and deals Frost or Nature damage. It no longer heals the Hunter.
I think this is a good start, but there are a couple of things I don’t like about it. I’m not a big fan of rotational abilities doing AoE.
There are very few single target encounters these days, and having a key ability that does AoE that you can’t control is problematic. Bendak has already reported that it breaks CC.
I think of General Nazgrim’s defensive stance where you don’t want to do any DPS to him, but there are adds you need to DPS down. Chimaera shot becomes a liability in that circumstance.
The trash leading up to Garrosh needs to be CC’d. Chimaera Shot will be detrimental in that situation as well.
I know that Glaive Toss is an AoE ability that is part of the main rotation, but at least with that shot you have some control over which targets it hits. Not so with Chimaera.
My other gripe is that it is still just a shot that doesn’t connect with the spec. There’s no synergy between it and the rest of the rotation. It’s something you fire on cooldown because it’s there.
I’d like to see the AoE component removed and have the two heads hit a single target. I’d also like to see it get a chance to proc something like a small haste buff, or put a debuff on the target that enhances other abilities.
One thing that I like is that the Glyph of Chimaera shot is staying in the game, and it still grants the Hunter a self heal. Losing the built in self heal was disappointing, but the fact that it can be retained via a Glyph is a nice option.
There was a change to one of Marksmanship’s perks. Improved Shots is now Improved Multi-Shot.
- Multi-Shot costs 5 less Focus and deals 20% increased damage.
Marksmanship needed help with AoE and this is a step in the right direction. The loss of the additional range is disappointing, but it should be noted that we will recoup some of that with Sniper Training.
Survival
Survival also got a baseline 10% increased chance to Multistrike. This of course will increase the chance of Lock and Load proc’ing at lower gear levels and make Survival more viable as you level to 100.
When patch 6.0 drops there won’t be any Multistrike on gear. If you want to play Survival you really need some version of Harom’s Talisman and one of the following pets that will give you the Multistrike buff.
- Basilisk
- Dragonhawk
- Fox
- Wind Serpent
The Survival perk Improved Viper Venom was changed to Improved Serpent Sting.
- Serpent Sting deals 20% increased damage.
Lock and Load’s duration was increased to 30 seconds which will make pooling charges much easier.
Thrill of the Hunt got a visual indicator. Previously the only indication was a highlight of affected abilities on your toolbar. The new visual is now centered on your character allowing you to track the charges without needing to stare at your toolbar. I like this change.
Here is an image of the new visual taken by Bendak from this post at Eyes of the Beast.
That about covers the changes for this beta build. Remember this is an iterative process, and that Hunters are still being worked on.
It’s sad to watch, as Blizz is ruining MM and SV.
Sniper training as Mastery for MM works against the mobility aspect of the class and with the removal of the Enhanced Shots perk, the spec lost its unique selling point of having the longest range ingame. Yes I know Sniper Training also adds range, but this is hardly usable at all. Why should I spec into MM now, what are marks advantages over BM or SV?
The new Lock and Load looks great until you realize, that stacking the buff is a DPS decrease since you can’t use ES or you will loose a stack, so the best way is to use it immediately. This is one of this cases, where Blizz decided to fix something that wasn’t broken. Or more likely, they needed something to tie into Multistrike.
Chimaera shot has always seemed to me to fit more thematically with Survival.. Now even more so!