Hunting Party Podcast: Episode 95 Recap

With Frostheim mysteriously absent, Euripides and Darkbrew went on without him, talking about the tank threat, transmogrification, and answered listener questions, which were mostly PvP related, on this week’s Hunting Party Podcast!

Threat Generation Mechanic

With our Misdirect ability, hunters have played a role in helping tanks gain aggro since the days of Karazhan. Now, Blizzard has changed the scene. Tanks do 500% of their damage as threat, up from 300%. Ghostcrawler has said that the idea is for tanks to play more of a role in their own survival, through active mitigation abilities. Unfortunately, this change does not extend to our pets. Both our hosts think it would be really cool if it did, as pets could be viable tanks for instances and raids. Darkbrew likes the idea of queuing in the dungeon finder as both a tank and a dps. But what does this change mean for our Misdirect ability? Euripides still points out that there are pulls where a MD or Tricks of the Trade is needed. Ghostcrawler himself has said that MD and Tricks would still be needed on pulls or boss fights with adds. And let’s not forget that MD is still incredibly useful in the dungeon finder, whether it’s a bad pull or an undergeared tank.

Transmogrification

Or, “giving hunters the ability to become even more good-looking than they were before,” as our hosts say. Transmogrification is a new service coming in Patch 4.3. This allows you to change the look of your gear or armor, with a few restrictions. 1) You must have the item you are looking to swap appearances. For example, if I want to change my current bow to look like the Wolfslayer Sniper Rifle, I’d first need to have that item in my inventory or bank. 2) You cannot change an item to look like a legendary. Sorry folks, Thori’dal’s will not be possible. 3) You won’t be able to change your armor to look like another class’s tier gear. 4) No silly gear. Dark Herring, I’m looking at you. 5) You can’t make one armor type look like another. No plate looking like cloth robes.

Darkbrew thinks that legendaries should be able to be transmogrified. It takes time to get one, and they’re still incredibly rare. Either they should be transmogrifiable, or the legendaries should become heirloom-like items that scale with level, and at least be on par with the current 5-man instance gear. They are legendary, after all. Euripides believes Blizzard will start conservative, and then add items or lift restrictions once the player reaction is known and gauged.

Listener Q&A

• “Is it a good idea to use Rapid Fire with other hast cooldowns, like Heroism?”

Darkbrew believes you should only do it if you get the full effect of the Potion of the Tol’vir with your normal rotation. As in, if you’re MM, be careful as Aimed Shot clips your autoshot casts and resets the autoshot timer. Otherwise, the general suggestion is to save it for after/before Heroism.

• “Is there a macro where you can bust rogues out of stealth?”

No, but there is Track Hidden, and our hosts suggest a mouseover macro with Hunter’s Mark or Scatter Shot.

• “Could you give me tips for gaining distance from other classes in PvP?”

First, it’s pretty important to know what class you’re dealing with before you can make a proper strategy. Euripides recommends an addon like Tidyplates, or anything else that shows enemy nameplates in class color. Disengage is by far the best tool for gaining ranged, and he also recommends glyphing it and, if you’re MM, spending a talent point or two on it. As for preventative measures, Aspect of the Fox should be on, and you should strafe straight away from your target. If you are sucked in, disengage out if you can. If not, trap the target or use Master’s Call, which Euripides advises a macro for. He also recommends using the Glyph of Raptor Strike to further reduce the damage when you’re stuck in melee range. Roar of Sacrifice is another tool, and if you have that along with the Glyph of Raptor Strike, that poor melee is doing normal damage to an uncrittable, 20% reduced damage-you. If you’re a SV hunter or have points to spend in another tree, Entrapment is a great talent to have. . BM hunters with Bestial Wrath can also use it as a kind of extra trinket to remove any movement impairing effects. Lastly, Scatter Shot is also available to all specs.

• “What are your opinions on the raid finder?”

Euripides and Darkbrew are pretty much agreed that they are not too fond of this idea. Based on experiences in the dungeon finder and the added level of complexity of raids, they don’t think this is such a good idea, and are especially wary of anyone who wants to do serious raiding being able to in the finder. Tank queues would be horrendous, Vent issues with players, not knowing the skill of the PuG raider to not stand in fire, boss strategy issues….Darkbrew thinks it would be cool if this applied to older raids, like Sunwell or Black Temple. It might even be good if you had one or two missing raiders, provided a filter on ilevel and less stringent kicking policies.

• “What would be your preference on the next level cap hunter ability: Stampede or the ability to tame feral druids temporarily?”

Darkbrew is all for Stampede. This hypothetical ability was made up on another Podcast episode, and would essentially call the pets in your stable to come and fight with you for a short period of time. Euripides is all for druid-taming. Although he does agree that a Stampede of 25 sporebats would be awesome.

As always the link to the recorded show can be found here. Happy hunting!