Review of Patch 3.0.8 Hunter Changes
Alright you guys.. Patch 3.0.8 is getting closer and closer. So I thought it might be time to take a look at ome of the things that might actually impact hunters. I’ll offer some commentary, but this isn’t the purpose of this post, it’s more to help highlight some of the changes that will have an impact on Hunters.
General
Bonus Armor: The mechanics for items with bonus armor on them has changed (any cloth, leather, mail, or plate items with extra armor, or any other items with any armor). Bonus armor beyond the base armor of an item will no longer be multiplied by any talents or by the bonuses of Bear Form, Dire Bear Form, or Frost Presence.
You might be wondering why this is a big deal. Well, think of Stoneform for Dwarves and nwo you’ll see that this could impact the additional armor gains that one acheives from this racial.
Racial Resistances: These can now be mitigated against by gaining additional chance to hit.
Here’s another one of this changes that will have a direct impact on dwarves. But I’m also thinking that we’ll see Night Elves may see an impact from this change.
All Silence spells now have diminishing returns. This includes: Arcane Torrent, Garrote silence effect, Improved Counterspell effect, Improved Kick effect, Silence, Gag Order, Silencing Shot, Spell Lock, and Strangulate.
What!?! One of our major defenses against casters now going to start suffering deminishing returns!?!? Great.. Time to rethink strategies in those long fights were we use Silence Shot. This might make this into a nothing more than a pull shot eventually.
Hunters
(Alright, when they first announced Hunter changes it was a pretty small list. Well, now look at it.)
Hunter Aspects are now off the Global Cooldown again. They still have a shared 1 second cooldown.
Ok. this is good.. Will help with Aspect Mastery to switch between Viper and Dragonhawk.
All Hunter pet abilities with a cooldown of 30 seconds or more are no longer on the global cooldown.
Nice – so now we’ll see some pets specials be able to happen more often.. Now only if I could remember what those are that have a cooldown longer than 30 seconds (Beast Within and Kill Command?)
Arcane Shot: Mana cost lowered to match the cost of Steady Shot.
Nice.. BM Hunters now have a viable shot rotation. Only problem will be all those Magic resistant targets that Arcane doesn’t work on. Oh well, time to start looking at shot rotations and macros.
Aspect of the Wild – This aspect is now raid-wide.
COOL!! We can now protect everyone from natural damage. (And how often do we actually use this nowadays??)
Call of the Wild: The benefit from this pet talent now applies to only the Hunter and their own pet.
Well this sux. We finally had a buff to be one of the positive reasons for bringing us along and it’s now only goint to be applied to the hunter and pet.
Deterrence: Design changed to grant 100% parry and 100% chance to “deflect” spells coming from the front, but prevents the Hunter from attacking. Lasts 5 seconds and has a 90 second cooldown.
Hmm.. I guess this is suppose to be our bubble.. But all I know is it’s the nasty rogues that typically take me out. But it’s only a 5 second bubble.. This will need to be played with and see how you Arena players take advantage of it. For the PvE players, combine this with FD and we will be able to start eating while others are doing their faster corpse runs. 
Explosive Shot: Damage increased substantially, and additional scaling added to compensate Survival Hunters for the decrease in power of Steady Shot. No longer deals damage to secondary targets.
This is nice. SV hunters really needed something. I hope it stays.
Ferocious Inspiration: This talent now also increase the damage the Hunter does with Arcane Shot by 3/6/9%.
So.. Blizz is REALLY pushing for Hunters to use something other than Steady Shot. This is nice, if we can get a solid rotation down, this might help put us back in competition to be on top of the meters.
Improved Tracking(Survival): This talent has been slightly re-designed. Now reads: While tracking Beasts, Demons, Dragonkin, Elementals, Giants, Humanoids and Undead, all ranged damage done to those types is increased by 1/2/3/4/5%.
Hmm.. This SV talent needs to be thought out. 5/5 gives a 5% Ranged Damage increase… Hmm.. that means for every 100pts of damage we get a free 5pts. This sounds really interesting.
Kill Shot – Cooldown reduced to 15 seconds, down from 35 sec.
I like this. I found Kill Shot a good prospect, but had difficulty when to put it into my rotation.
Kindred Spirits: This talent now grants only 3/6/9/12/15% pet damage.
Hmm…. Well.. if I put 5/5 into Kindred Spirits I get 15% pet damage, I’m starting to see a trend here. I think we’re being forced deeper into the BM tree than before.
Lock and Load: Now has a 30 second cooldown.
I’m no Survival expert, but a 30 second cooldown? So this will be one of those things that can possibly be combined with Readiness and see some serious damage with the Survival tree. I’d like to see some numbers on this. All in all, I’m glad to see that some attention is being given to the SV tree, but I’m not sure it’s really enough.
Readiness: No longer resets the cooldown on Bestial Wrath.
Well we knew this was coming. It bites, but really isn’t such a HUGE deal.
Steady Shot: Now gains 10% of attack power as damage instead of 20%.
Well, we’ve all done the numbers on this one. Basically yes it sucks, but isn’t that why they added Arcane Shot?
Serpent’s Swiftness: This talent now grants only 2/4/6/8/10% bonus attack speed to pet. The hunter attack speed bonus is unchanged.
This is to help reduce our pet damage. I have to agree with this one. Many people (including myself) was reporting outrageous pet damage compared to the hunter. Yes, BM Hunters should see increased pet damage, but not necessarily to the extent we’ve been noticing.
Tranquilizing Shot (Hunter): Cooldown increased to 8 sec, up from 6. Mana cost reduced to 8%, down from 12%.
Am I missing something here??? I still don’t understand this shot. I barely use it personally. So the change is really doesn’t have a major impact for me. I keep on thinking that this should be replaced with Wyvern Sting, and just making it a sleep spell. But, hey! That’s me.
Unleashed Fury: This talent now grants only 3/6/9/12/15% pet damage.
So ultimately this 5/5 talent has a 5% reduction of pet damage.. Hmm… Another trend here. I seem BM getting hit pretty hard, but mostly on the pet side. It will be interesting to see how the changes in 3.1 will be impact all of these.
Viper Sting: Now drains a percentage of maximum mana.
ooo.. A percentage of maximum mana. Nice!! This helps the drain teams. Only problem is, what’s that percentage??
Volley: The damage has been reduced on all ranks by approximately 30% (including attack power scaling).
Ok.. we’ve talked about this one. Volley needed to be reduced. It was pretty silly to see a bunch of hunters running through Heroics and Raids just Volleying their way through. That being the case. I’m concerned that now we don’t have an effective AoE.
Pets
All Hunter pet abilities with a cooldown of 30 seconds or more are no longer on the global cooldown.
Well.. we talked about this one.
The coefficient of Rake (Cat) and Scorpid Poison (Scorpid) has been lowered.
Hmm.. so let’s go out and attack Cats and Scorpids!!! So we’ll just go pick up Wasps or something else. Every Hunter knows, tame the best DPS pet and use that one. So if it’s not Cats and Scorpids, we’ll just see others being used.
Rake: This hunter pet ability has had its damage adjusted to prevent unreasonable scaling with attack power.
Ok.. we just saw that they adjusted Rake for cats.. Now another adjustment?? Hmm… this concerns me that we’ll see problems with this nerf.
Scorpid Poison: No longer stacks. The damage has been adjusted to prevent unreasonable scaling with attack power.
Another attack against Scorpids?? Hmm.. just like Rake, I’m seeing another trend. Yes Scorpids may not be used, but I’m afraid that this will end up being a double nerf.
Spirit Strike (hunter pet ability) now has an initial attack (which can crit) and then a single dot. Damage overall is higher.
Well…. So here’s another push for BM Hunter’s to spec in Exotic Pets then go out and camp Lok. In my opinion?? We’ve just seen Cats replaced by Lok in some circumstances.
Cooking
A new recipe for Worg Tartare is now available for purchase with Dalaran Cooking Awards. This delicacy imbues hit rating and Stamina upon those brave enough to eat it.
Well if your having problems achieving your Hit Rating. Well, here you go. A new recipe to go for.
Skinning
Increased the critical strike rating granted by ranks 5 and 6 of Master of Anatomy.
If this is what I think it is. It will be good for some hunters to think of this new skill to be a way to increase their Crit Rating.
User Interface
For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros forum.
Well.. we better go check out what Macro changes will be coming our way. Not to mention, get ready to fix your UIs and Addons.
Items
Deadly Gladiator’s Staff has had the Agility and Critical strike rating restored to ratios consistent with other instances of the Gladiator’s Staff.
I’m not so sure if this is a great thing, especially with the push towards AP over Agi in WoTLK. But hey.. Anything that increases Agi and Crit! That’s got to be a good thing. 
Reduced the stats on the Savage Cobalt Slicer to match the weapon’s level.
Well… Our favorite Cobalt Slicer has been reduced. I haven’t looked at the others, but either way. This nerf will mean some weapon changes for us.
Bug Fixes – Racials
Berserking: Can now be used properly while under the affects of Hand of Protection.
YAY!! Trolls. (was this really an issue???)
Shadowmeld: This ability will now properly restore threat when it is cancelled. In addition, it will correctly remove a player from combat if it is active when that player is the last person left alive that the creature hates. This ability is now also unusable while affected by Faerie Fire.
/SIGH So we thought NElves finally had an ability to stealth and a possible good PvP and PvE threat reduction mechanism. Well, not as much anymore.
Will of the Forsaken: Using this ability while disoriented would trigger it’s cooldown to no affect; it is no longer useable while disoriented.
Okay.. So dizzy Forsaken can’t use this. Umm… Again, is this REALLY an issue??
Bug Fixes – Hunters
Aspects: All aspects now have a 1 second global cooldown. Aspect of the Beast: Will now increase Hunter pet attack power by the correct amount. Aspect of the Viper: Beast Lore, Scare Beast, and Tame Beast will no longer trigger mana regeneration from this ability. Call of the Wild: Now only works on the pet and their own master. Carrion Feeder: No longer causes extremely large amounts of threat when the pet gains happiness. Chimera Shot: The secondary effects of this shot will now still be triggered even when the target dies from the ability’s damage. Cower: Now longer shares a cooldown with Growl, but has its own separate cooldown. Dust Cloud: This pet ability will now be cast by the pet at the target instead of while they are moving toward the target. Marked for Death: Now works properly for Steady Shot and Glyph of Steady Shot. Master’s Call: Now makes the pet immune to roots and snares for the duration as well, allowing the pet to break roots on the target even when the pet is rooted. Nether Shock: Pets will now correctly use this ability on all targets, not just mana users. Noxious Stings: When this talent triggers Wyvern Sting, the Wyvern Sting will now last the proper duration. Owl’s Focus: Free abilities will no longer consume this effect. Prowl: This ability will no longer sometimes turn autocast on by itself. Sniper Training: Now increases the damage of Aimed Shot by the correct amount. Spirit Strike: This pet ability’s duration and period have both been reduced to 6 seconds. Spore Cloud: This ability will now work properly. Swipe: The tooltip has been adjusted. Tracking: Entering an arena no longer disables tracking types. Fixed a bug that allowed Viper’s Sting to target death knights. They are now invalid targets.
Not much to say about all of these that haven’t been said before.
So there you go.. This wall of text has about every change proposed in the 3.0.8 change that is currently on the PTR (Source). Also, make sure you go check out the Test Realm Forum, for the latest discussions on what’s going on.
It’s my personal opinion that well see this released soon. If not this week, probably next week. Especially, since they are talking about 3.1.
