When Blizzard announced the Cataclysm expansion at Blizzcon ‘09, one of the things they also announced was the redesign of Hunters so that they use the Focus resource like their pets use instead of mana. This is a cool announcement especially because hunters have been complaining about their mana consumption and the mechanics of abilities like Aspect of the Viper to deal with this problem. The shift to focus will break their dependence on mana altogether and instead use something more reliable since Focus works something like the Energy resource that rogues and kitty druids use.
This switch to Focus come …read more

Blizzard is almost done with the Class Q&A feature which started with the Shaman class and now it’s time for Hunters to take the spotlight. As you may know, the Q&A feature is there to find out what the development team is thinking about the classes for patch 3.2 and beyond. They go through things like design philosophy and changes they want to make or are thinking of making.
Hunters are unique in that they are the only ranged damage dealers that rely on the mostly physical damage of their ranged weapon rather than spells. But what also makes them unique …read more

Ghostcrawler has just admitted that the developers think hunter dps is still too low. Since Ulduar is the latest raiding dungeon, Blizzard decided to immediately implement changes concerning that range of progression. A change has been implemented to all level 226 guns, bows, and crossbows (Kel’thuzad, Ulduar and Furious Gladiator pieces) so that they will do 30 more dps, resulting in an increase to overall dps done.
Before you complain that this change only affects people who have that gear, it seems Ulduar isn’t the only thing in Blizard’s mind when it comes to hunter damage. Ghostcrawler also revealed that there …read more

MMO Champion tells of a patch 3.09 that could be coming out this week. Since I haven’t tried checking the PTR or even if it’s up at all and the PTR forum is currently out for me, I can’t really check if this is really true. There isn’t even a patch 3.09 PTR notes so that makes the situation a bit worse. In any case, there’s something out there and it’s going to change a few things, even glyphs. Some of the change entries I’ve seen before as legit changes for the future so that might lend some credence to …read more

The last installment of the class changes for patch 3.1 are here and like the first two parts, this one didn’t disappoint. In fact this final edition has some pleasant surprises that should be making a lot of people rejoice by now. In this final edition, we get to see the changes for paladins, mages, death knights and hunters. You can find the previous editions in the following links: Part 1 | Part 2
MAGE
# Improved Water Elemental – this talent has been removed and replaced with a new talent that grants Replenishment (similar to Shadow priests).
# We are also working …read more

I’m not really familiar with the exact classes that sit at the top of the DPS meters right now but I guess that really varies from case to case and who you run with. I know Death Knights are up there and i guess Ret Pallies, Warlocks, and Mages are also frequent chart toppers. But it seems like certain specs of certain classes aren’t doing so well in their dps output and Blizzard has taken notice. Blizzard is currently monitoring how the classes are doing so that they can potentially make some changes to help boost the output of those …read more

I haven’t had the time to check into all the glyphs and inscription stuff that has been coming out in the beta patches but from what I’ve seen, it really looks like another fun profession. That’s why I decided that I’m going to make the druid I’m leveling now and Inscriptionist when the Wrath of the Lich King expansion comes out.
One of the things that caught my eye a few weeks ago while browsing through the new Inscription stuff that has been coming out is this nifty thing they can craft called Certificate of Ownership. Basically it’s something hunters can …read more

It seems like every pet hunters can tame so far have nothing that caters to players who love cute and cuddly things… at least no until Wrath of the Lich King comes out. The Artic Grizzly Cub shown in the videos above is such a cute little thing that it makes me think that’s what a gnome druid bear form should look like if only gnomes could be druids. I’m actually getting thoughts about playing a hunter because of this cub. Nothing beats the panda cub non combat pet in terms of cuteness but for me this takes the cake …read more

As the rest of the classes got a look at their cool new WoTLK talents, hunters and paladins were made to wait quite a while. But at last, they’re finally here, again thanks to Wowhead. The paladin trees got quite a bit of a shake up, which probably was one of the reasons why it look longer to come out.
Click here to see the WoTLK Hunter talents.
I’d have to say that the new hunter talents look really nice. I don’t play one but I understand enough about them to say that the new stuff will make a lot of hunters …read more

The new talent trees for WoTLK are out in Wowhead (still the alpha versions) but hunters and paladins are still left in the dark about theirs. Thankfully, Wowhead has a few new features for hunters to cheer about.
The most interesting new feature for me is the new talent calculator for hunter pets. As you might know, hunter pets will be switching from the training points system to the talent tree system in the next expansion. there’s a calculator for every pet type – raptor, cat, boar, ravager, you name it!
Wowhead also has two other tools in choosing the pet that …read more