Contrary to popular belief!
There are a couple of hunter changes that have happened lately/are going to happen that I figured were worth mentioning. Typically I don’t really consider myself to be a “newsy” sort of site, but then I figured, why the heck not.
Improved weapon damage on ranged weapons item level 226 or higher
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Pretty sure this happened last week. What it means is: If you have an Ulduar weapon, a Furious Gladiator’s weapon, or Envoy of Mortality from 25man Kel’Thuzad, your DPS has just gone up by about 30, and you didn’t have to do anything. Snazzy, no?
Hunter’s Mark: The ranged attack power bonus from this ability has been increased from 300 to 500.
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This is coming up in the next patch, which means it hasn’t gone live yet. Since every hunter should be using Hunter’s Mark, this is basically an extra 200 attack power for you. One small buff for a hunter, one giant… er, yeah. You know what I miss though, is Hunter’s Mark also applying to melee (aka your pet) if you took Improved Hunter’s Mark. I was a staunch IHM loyalist who always always took it over Efficiency pre-WotLK. WTB oldschool Improved Hunter’s Mark, PST. Still, this may just be a small buff like the previous one, but it’s a buff nonetheless. Thanks Blizz!
Master Marksman: This talent now also decreases the cost of Aimed Shot and Chimera Shot by 5/10/15/20/25%.
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And it came to pass that the Marksmen did rejoice and offer up their prayers of gratitude on this holy day. =P Doesn’t affect us Beast Masters, but much congrats to my Marksmen brothers and sisters. <3 This, like the Hunter's Mark change, is coming up in the next patch. This one may not be huntery, but if you haven't heard the news yet, druids are getting an overhaul of cat/bear form in the next content patch (which means it’s still a ways away). Well we all know that mine’s a tree (4 life! though my moonkin dualspec is surprisingly very fun, and doing more DPS than my similarly-leveled hunter /cough), but I’m still excited about this. Gonna jump on the bandwagon here and say I’m looking forward to the tauren cat options…
That’s all I’ve heard so far on hunter buffs. Pike’s thoughts? Heck, I’ll take ’em. The great part for me is that they are here because hunter DPS in Ulduar is supposedly low. But since I’ve yet to run Ulduar, my usual position as ichiban DPS in Naxx is just getting further solidified with this, and hey, I’m nooooot complaining! >.>
By the way, if you liked hearing my take on “hunter news”, let me know, and I’ll cover it more often in the future. Speak now or forever hold your peace. *nods*
The ranged damage increase did go into effect last week. I’d just gotten Siren’s Cry and was ecstatic to see the damage go up even higher after the minipatch. 😀
I squeed a little bit about the HM buff, though not as much as the squee that was heard ’round the world by the druids yesterday. 😀
As a MM hunter, frack yes to the Master Marksman change! I would’ve have jumped for joy with just the Chimera decrease, but throw in Aimed and I’m really luvn’ it!
As a MM hunter who a) is currently having to manage mana in Naxx more than I used to, and b) did find himself a bit low on dps in Ulduar I did a little dance of joy to this news. Now I just need a 226 weapon to drop. I’m pretty sure I hold some sort of record for the number of tiumes I’ve killed KT and never seen the gun drop. To add insult to injury, the only gun to drop in Ulduar so far was a warrior weapon, lol.
Rogue got Envoy the one time I’ve seen it. Seen the tank gun in Uludar twice. Not a sniff at other hunter ranged weapons. I’m still using the drake mounted crossbow. Still, it’s a buff. Might even look at IHM, but I’m not sure where the points will come from as SV.
Liked the news stuffs. Straight to the point and I did not find my self skimming for the important stuff or Ctrl-F to find anything that had “hunter” in it like I would at MMO champion or Wow.com. Cheers!
Oh, and I am very happy about the changes!
Utterly thrilled about the changes to Hunter’s Mark and Master Marksman. Particularly the latter as Marksmanship chews through mana at a voracious rate. The HM change does mean that speccing out of Aspect Mastery and into IHM is pretty much a given now, however. So 3/3 IHM and 1/1 Silencing Shot here I come.
I’m an Engineer.
Blizzard doesn’t love a damn thing about me.
@ Mintaka… I feel your pain. I have yet to see the gun or the staff drop. 🙁
You are awesome for using the phrase “ichiban DPS”.
Poor Rilgon. 🙁
The Marked for Death change makes me happy. Very happy. The Hunter’s Mark change might actually make it worthwhile to bite the big one for the raid and spec and glyph for it. Those two would bump hunter’s mark to give 750 RAP, which is pretty decent for something that costs no mana after talented.
ichiban dps!!! :3
it sounds awesome but something in me says that is grammartically incorrect… but the other meaning of the phrase makes it awesomer, so ah wells ^_^
Btw, what do hunters DO that gets 2k+ dps? I really want to know what hunters do to get 2~4k dps.
Kohaku
Regarding hunter DPS from Naxx to Ulduar, I went from being able to top meters in my guild on a number of Naxx-25 fights, to struggling to keep in the top 5 on most fights in Ulduar-25. The only fight I can regularly hit #1 on now is Iron Council, and that’s primarily because the melee that’s normally topping the other fights (Looking at the rogues primarily), aren’t getting the rune buff most times. It also doesn’t help I’m still using Final Voyage, an ilvl 213 ranged weapon. We’ve had horrible, horrible luck on Envoy drops (A total of zero times seen in 15+ weeks), and still pretty bad luck on Ulduar ranged drops.