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Droves of people are rushing to the Blizzard forums to post their
grievances, while QQing abounds in trade chat, guild chat, and even on
Ventrilo. Angry players threaten to delete their toons, change classes,
or even pull the plug completely and quit WoW for [insert any other
random game here].



Anyone who has played World of Warcraft for an extended period of time
know that these signs can only mean one thing; a new patch has been
announced and the rumors as to which class will get beaten with the
nerf stick are abundant. Nothing serves to stir the World of Warcraft
community into a frenzy quite like the announcement of a new patch.



Earlier this month Blizzard released the official href="http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html"
target="_blank">Patch 3.2 PTR Notes
which will introduce a new 5, 10, and 25 man instance, as well as a new
40 man battleground. Along with these new additions are big and small
changes to every class. This week we will be taking a look at what
changes will be made to the hunter.

  • style="font-style: italic;">Aspect of the Cheetah:
    Can now be learned at level 16.

With the href="http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=17730154175&sid=1"
target="_blank">announcement
of mounts being available at level 20, I was more than a little
concerned that Aspect of the Cheetah (and other movement enhancing
abilities such as Ghostwolf and Travel Form) would be rendered useless
only to be brought out for nostalgia. To avoid this happening Blizzard
has decided to reduce the level requirement for the Aspect of the
Cheetah and the like, which will allow us to leave those poor souls
without such movement enhancing abilities in the dust at level 16. This
can only make leveling that much less painful.

  • style="font-style: italic;">Deterrence now has a new
    visual spell effect.
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Although not a major change, it is a welcome one nonetheless. Currently
Deterrence looks oddly similar to a Warrior’s Retaliation
ability. While it is understandable that Blizzard would choose to use
the same graphics from time to time, I feel the abilities are different
enough to warrant different spell effects. Let’s hope that
this spell effect will be on par to the changes Blizzard made with the
druid’s Moonfire spell effect.

  • style="font-style: italic;">The time that traps will
    exist in the world after being put down has been reduced to 30 seconds,
    down from 1 minute.

A hit from the almighty nerf stick, but a very small one in my humble
opinion. If something has not walked into your trap within 30 seconds,
I don’t really know if another 30 seconds is going to make
any difference. This will mean that hunters trapping for any reason
will have to pay closer attention to when their traps will expire, and
drop them that much sooner.

  • Traps now have separate 30
    second cooldown categories: Fire (Immolation Trap, Explosive Trap and
    Black Arrow), Frost (Freezing Trap, Frost Trap) and Nature (Snake
    Trap). A hunter can have one trap of each category placed at one time.

This more than makes up for the small nerf listed above. Finally, the
ability for hunters to fire Black Arrow, drop a trap from the Frost
category and Snake Trap pretty much at the same time.  I for
one can’t wait to test this myself.





style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Talents



style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;">Beast
Mastery
  • style="font-style: italic;">Catlike Reflexes now also
    reduces the cooldown of your Kill Command ability by 10/20/30 seconds.

Blizzard dishes out some love for the Beast Mastery Hunters. Reducing
the cool down of Kill Command is an amazing thing, and should help the
Beast Masters DPS significantly.

 

style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;">Survival

  • style="font-style: italic;">Entrapment: This talent
    no longer works with Immolation Trap or Explosive Trap.

Another slight nerf, but once again nothing that I feel is overly
serious. While Entrapment will no longer work with Immolation or
Explosive Trap, it will still be useable with Frost Trap. Since
Immolation and Explosive Trap both share a cool down with Black Arrow,
you will most likely be using Frost Trap anyway.

  • style="font-style: italic;">Lock and Load: Now has a
    22 second cooldown. The Lock and Load effect cannot be obtained on
    targets immune to snare effects when Frost Trap is used.

Survival Hunters should be pleased when they see the extra procs they
will be getting when this change is made, taking the now 30 second
internal cool down to 22 seconds. The fact that the effect cannot be
obtained on targets immune to snare effects when Frost Trap is used
should be of little concern to PvE hunters, as they probably will be
using very few Frost Traps, if any at all. However PvP hunters will
notice the change and will have to play smarter, and be more aware of
the immunities of their opponent..





style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Pets


  • Roar of Sacrifice:
    Redesigned. This ability can now be used on any friendly target to make
    that target immune to critical strikes, but the Hunter pet takes 20% of
    all damage taken by that friendly target. Cool down increased to 2
    minutes.

Wow, what an awesome change. The ability to cast this on a fellow party
member could mean the difference between your raid wiping or not,
winning your arena, or saving your own butt when the need arises. Place
this on a healer, and by saving their life, save the raid, and probably
yourself, cast it on your PvP buddy whom the other team as decided to
zerg, and make your arena a win, or even cast it on the tank in a last
ditch effort to allow the healers to catch up.  



Another added bonus to the change is the damage taken by the pet has
been reduced ten percent, from thirty percent to twenty percent. Even
with this change you may want to consider changing some pet talents
around if you plan to use this ability, to give your little friend some
more health in order to cope with the extra damage.



As with most everything there is a downside to this change, the cool
down on this ability has been increased from 30 seconds to 2 minutes.
This means PvPers will probably only get to use this ability once in
the arena, and PvEers will probably only be able to use this once on
the shorter boss fights, perhaps twice on longer fights, if timed
correctly.



Overall the powers that be at Blizzard have smiled down on hunters this
round, and we have little to complain about. Let us comfort our less
fortunate friends, and try to keep our tempers in check if next patch
we aren‘t so fortunate. Please bear in mind that while these
patch notes are the official ones released by Blizzard they are subject
to change up until the time (and even after) they become live.



Until we meet again, may your pet get extra heals, may your shots never
miss, and when in doubt, every weapon is a hunter weapon.


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our World of Warcraft Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

About The Author

Amunet, also fondly known as Memtron, is an organic life form best known for its ongoing obsession with Blizzard Entertainment's numerous properties. To that end, Amu has authored hundreds (thousands?) of the most popular World of Warcraft guides, editorials, and Top 10 lists on the planet. When not gaming and writing, Amu is busy chasing after her three children in a perpetual loop of ongoing disaster.

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