From the Class Panel at the Blizzard Invitational…
The shot clipping will be removed from Steady Shot, you’ll be able to use it without “interrupting” your autoshot. Hunters will be able to just smash their button.
I… really can’t tell you how I feel about this. Is it nice? Well yeah, and I bet a lot of hunters will be very happy about this. It will be a huge DPS increase, afterall. But for me, this was always one of my very favorite parts of the hunter class. Hearing that it’s going to be replaced with “hunters will be able to just smash their button”, which sounds very macro-like… I dunno. It’s almost as though they said they were going to take away pets or something. Not quite as bad, but, still. I took a certain pride in being able to manually weave and time my rotations. I guess for me, it’s not “all about the DPS” like it is to so many other people.
I will have to think on this one, and hope that there is still some way to “feel the rhythm” in WotLK. For example, maybe we’ll get a new fun shot or new abilities or something so we don’t just have to sit there and hit one button. I hope so, at least!
(And hey, there are still at least fifteen non-shot rotation things that I like about hunters. My love for the class is going nowhere unless Blizz really botches stuff up, I think.)
That said, pets are getting a bunch of super nifty exciting stuff:
All kind of pets will have their own talent tree. A tanking talent tree, a DPS talent tree, and an utility talent tree. Each kind of pet family will have its own talent tree and its own unique ability.
There are going to be new pets in WotLK.
The skill points for each pets are being changed to the new “Pet talents” and will disappear.
I’m really excited for all that stuff. Tanking talent tree? Like… one that focuses on threat generation and stuff? So I can finally have a true soloing/grinding pet? Yes please! And “pet utility”, you can’t help but wonder what that is. I’m definitely looking forward to that.
And does this mean you won’t have to tame new pets for new skills anymore? So I can keep my current three?? /happydance
Blizz’s Final Score from Pike: One thumb up, one thumb down. I’ll be sad to see my beloved shot rotation mechanics go byebye, but the pet stuff is super epic.
I can live with the Steady Shot changes. Heck, I can live with just about anything. Because that pet stuff is freaking sexsauce.
At first when I heard about the steady shot change, I was excited. “Awesome, I’ll be able to get off more shots, and haste won’t matter so much, etc, etc…” But then I kinda sat there and thought about it. “So… how am I supposed to play? What do I do now?” It was like they took away my theoretical bicycle said “We’re going to fix it!” and brought be back a dune buggy or something. Yeah, I suppose that a dune buggy is ‘better’ than a bicycle, but I don’t know how to make it work!
However, Hunters have been complaining about Steady Shot (at least as far as I understand) since it was released. I never played pre-BC, so I don’t know what Hunter-ing was like back then. But according to Blizz and a lot of pre-BC hunters, Steady Shot was a problem. Blizz themselves said (as quoted by WoWInsider I believe; I read it yesterday) Hunters were hurting their own dps “by using their skills” which in the case of some Hunters, is true. Blizz is trying to make us more like other classes. Classes who get to use their abilities when they are up.
I can understand both sides of the coin with the apprehension towards the Steady Shot change… on one side I’m happy that I can use my skills however and whenever. On the other side, I’m going to miss ‘getting into the groove’ of shot rotations. It took me a while to let go of the Macro training wheels, but once I did, I really fell in love with the rhythm.
And yeah… the pet changes do make me super-super-happy. =3
If we no longer need to tame pets to learn skills, then Blizzard will have increased our stable slots . . . without increasing our stable slots. Hmmm . . .
I love the idea of pets having their own talent tree, especially since the normalization of pets a few patches back. As for Steady Shot, I don’t think it’s a bad thing but for those who enjoy weaving their shots manually it may get a little boring, but I doubt it will kill the class. ^_^
For the love of Orion, no! Pet Talent Trees look and sound great, but at the cost of Stable Slots?
No…freaking…WAY!
Blizzard better not drop the ball on this. If I don’t see Hunters getting more Stable Slots with WoLK I’m not buying it.
I may not cancel my Sub, but I won’t be buying WoLK.
Personally, I’m sick and tired of spamming my 1:1 macro in instances and gladly welcome this change.
The difference between spamming steady shot and spamming the macro is that if I stop mashing my macro for 2 seconds, I stop shooting (due to the /stopcasting in it).
So, when are they changing the steady shot clipping?
p.s. Love your blog.