It has been a week since the patchy goodness of 3.3. I have to say that I’m quite pleased. First off the new LFG system is awesome. As DPS I may have to wait longer for a group, but for the most part it operates quite smoothly (once the bugs were removed). I went for the 100 random pug achievement for my Perky Pug and my experience was more positive than negative. Even when it looked like the people in my group were hopeless, the opportunity to vote people out or queue up to replace someone who left the group is brilliant.

The other bonus using the Random LFG feature is upon the completion of a dungeon you will receive an extra Badge of Triumph and 13 gold. Not too shabby if you don’t like to do dailies.

One real downside to the LFG system is every realm seems to have their own loot rules. I actually learned this early on when someone in a full Hellscream pug rolled Need on an item. When asked, “why” the guy replied, “I’m a server transfer and that’s how we did things on my old server.” So when I noticed some people rolling Need on Frost Orbs I quickly learned to do the same. “When in Rome, do as the Romans.”

The three new 5-man Dungeons are quite fun. They progress the Lich King story quite nicely and the loot inside isn’t half bad. Though I may not need much in the way of gear or weapons, I can see that Foxx will be able to upgrade the rest of her i200 gear, providing the loot gnomes are on her side. I did manage to snag a new 20 slot bag and a trinket.  By the way, my favorite fight out of all the new 5man dungeon bosses happens to be against, Bronjahm in Forge of Souls.  Make sure you have the game’s music on for this fight. It’s AWESOME!!

Raid progression wise, my guild and I have cleared through Icecrown Citadel’s 25 and 10 man content.  I even upgraded my bow.

We were even lucky enough to see the infamous, Deathbringer’s Will trinket drop. Unfortunately for me, I was not in attendance for that boss but my low DKP would not have scored it anyway. I’m not going to lie, I would love to have that trinket. Along with the other physical DPSers my guild.

There are only a few downsides that I’ve noticed about 3.3 which have come in the way of bugs. The first one that I noticed was the color of my boots have changed. Some of you may not care, but I do like to match. All the mail boots that drop out of  ToC have changed from the matching blue to the “eww gross” green.

I did put in a ticket for this, waste of time you think? Pfft – this is major in my opinion. I received the typical letter from Blizzard which thanked me for my assistance for this matter.  We can only hope that they’ll correct this ASAP! (I know I’m dreaming).

The other bug I found is probably worth fixing first. Last night, I decided to swap my BM spec for Marks again. There was some new glyphs and talents I wanted to test drive during our 10m ICC run. However, Kiba became bugged after the swap. His talent tree read that he had 19 points specced but 16 points unspecced. By glancing at the tree it looked as if he was specced, but none of his spells showed up in his spell book.  I’m sure if I had the time to visit a stable master and manually reset his talents it would have been fine, but that I don’t even know for sure.

There are a few other things I still need to check out, like the new fishing contest and the Quel’Delar quest line.

I hope you all are enjoying 3.3 as much as I am. :3

Patch 3.3 has been released today!! So,while we wait for the servers to come up and hope for minimal lag and server crashes, here is a list of what Hunters should know about this newest patch:

• Call Stabled Pet: Cooldown reduced from 30 minutes to 5 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.
• Deterrence: Now also increases the chance for ranged attacks to miss the hunter by 100% while under its effect.
• Misdirection: Redesigned. Instead of having finite charges, it now begins a 4-second timer when the hunter using Misdirection performs a threat-generating attack, during which all threat generated by the hunter goes to the friendly target. In addition, multiple hunters can now misdirect threat to the same friendly target simultaneously.
• Talents
  • Beast Mastery
    • Intimidation: If the hunter’s pet is in melee range of its target, the stun from Intimidation will now be applied immediately instead of on the pet’s next swing or attack.
• Pets
  • Avoidance: This talent has been replaced by Culling the Herd. Hunter pets now innately take 90% less damage from area-of-effect abilities like all other class pets. This does not apply to area-of-effect damage caused by other players.
  • Cower: Redesigned. This ability no longer affects threat, and instead reduces damage taken by the pet by 40% for 6 seconds with a 45-second cooldown. While cowering, the pet’s movement speed is 50% of normal speed. Cower now only has a single rank and is available at pet level 20.
  • Culling the Herd: This pet talent has replaced the Avoidance talent in the pet trees (Hunter pets now gain that benefit automatically without expenditure of talent points). Culling the Herd increases pet and hunter damage by 1/2/3% for 10 seconds each time the pet deals a critical strike with Claw, Bite, or Smack.
  • Demoralizing Screech: The attack power reduction from this ability has been increased by 40%, equaling the maximum possible attack power reduction from the abilities of other classes.
  • Improved Cower: Redesigned. This ability now reduces the movement penalty of Cower by 50%/100%.
  • Pet Leveling: Hunter pets now need only 5% of the experience a player needs to level, down from 10%.
  • Venom Web Spray: Range increased from 20 yards to 30 yards.
  • Web: Range increased from 20 yards to 30 yards.
  • Wolverine Bite: This talent is now enabled when the pet lands a critical strike rather than from the target dodging the pet’s attacks. In addition, this talent no longer has a prerequisite.

We also have new ammo to look forward to.

As you can see, the ammo requires an engineer to be Honored with the newest Faction Rep, Ashen Verdict, so don’t expect to find any right away. Also an engineer cannot craft both sets of ammo (silly imo). Blizzard decided to divide the ammo between the two classes of engineering. So unless you know an engineer of both trade skills, be ready to pay more than anticipated for the updated ammo – at least until the price bottoms out. This is also a great time to sell those Eternal Shadows and Earths for a nice chunk of change.

If you’re a Beastmaster Hunter and you love the Spirit Beast Class AND Bears then this patch is for you.

This is Arcturis and he’s a level 74, non-aggressive elite who likes to roam around Amberpine Lodge in Grizzly Hills. If any of you Hunters have plans to tame him, I wish you the best of luck!!

In addition to new ammo and a new Spirit Beast, we have a whole new set of Tier Armor to collect from Icecrown Citadel,  the Ahn’Kahar Blood Hunter set. We will need to purchase these pieces with the new Frost Badges, but the way to do so is slightly different from the ToC gear. One must purchase the i251 gear first, then upgrade to i264 with a token that drops in the 25 man dungeons. If you have a guild who does Heroic 25′s then you can upgrade your i264 to i277 with the token that will only drop in the Heroic 25.

Here is what our Tier armor and bonuses look like if you have yet to see them:

• (2pc) Your Auto Shots have a 5% chance to cause you and your pet to deal 15% additional damage for 10 sec.
• (4pc) When your Serpent Sting and Wyvern Sting abilities deal damage, you have a 5% chance to gain 20% attack power for 10 sec.

I’m not sure why they included Wyvern Sting into the 4pc bonus, I suppose it could change. It seems  a little imba to give the SV spec 2 ways to give themselves a boost in damage.

I also went to the trouble to pull out some other notes that Hunters should know, but aren’t tailored specifically for our class:

• Many of the tail sweeps with knockback effects will no longer hit players’ pets.
• Pet Resilience: All player pets now get 100% of their master’s resilience.

Finally here is  a small list of  fixes for Hunters:

• Concussive Barrage: This ability is no longer subject to spell reflects.
• Explosive Trap: The damage from this trap will now scale properly with the hunter’s attack power.
• Glyph of Immolation Trap: Now properly increases damage by 100%. In addition, this glyph will now modify the tooltip of Immolation Trap correctly.
• Glyph of Mending: This glyph will now modify the amount healed in the tooltip on Mend Pet.
• Point of No Escape: It is no longer possible to gain benefit from this talent multiple times by having a target affected by multiple of the same hunter’s traps. In addition, Freezing Arrow will no longer incorrectly provide a critical strike bonus to players beyond the hunter with this talent.
• Roar of Sacrifice: Corrected tooltip error.
• Silencing Shot: Updated tooltip to include the functionality that this ability also interrupts spellcasting on NPCs.
• Volley: The tooltip for this ability will now update properly from haste.

There you have it! For more patch notes, head on over to the official World of Warcraft site and take advantage of all the other goodies which come out today. Time to get myself a new non-combat pet!!

Hunter
Beast Mastery

• The Beast Within now lasts 10 sec (Down from 18 sec) but now also increases all damage you deal by 10% at all time.
• Bestial Wrath now lasts 10 sec. (Down from 18 sec)

Okay, first unclench your teeth (it’s bad for your jaw) and next breathe. In with the good air, out with the bad… I had to do this as well.

So I found this new Hunter tid-bit interesting to say the least. My first reaction, “WHY ARE THEY NERFING THAT? BM DOESN’T NEED TO BE NERFED!!!” However, the tool tip explains that even though BMs lose 8 seconds of their rage mode, they gain a perma 10% damage increase.  Not you and your pet – just the hunter.  Hrm…

Ghostcrawler also posted his thoughts/reasons for this change:

It should be no surprise to anyone who has been on these boards for long that we’re trying to chill out abilities that convey offensive and defensive bonuses with the same button press. At the same time, BM damage was a little low and too dependent on the pet. With this change, hopefully, Bestial Wrath becomes more of a defensive ability while taking Beast Within will boost hunter (and just the hunter) damage at all times.

I call it more of a defensive cooldown because it now breaks all CC like a PvP trinket.(Source)

These bonuses he’s talking about must be the rage you and your pet go into that ups your damage (offense) yet at the same time you’re immune to any effects that would normally cause you to lose control of toon (defense). We are fully aware that Blizzard has issues with their intent to the BM spec. They don’t want to make the pet too powerful nor the Hunter. We also know that as a BM Hunter if your pet dies your DPS falls to almost half.  With this 10% boost for the Hunter, will it solve that problem? Probably not, but it may help a little. Though Beastmasters require heavier pet management than the other two specs, this damange boost to Beastial Wrath talent hopefully will solve the huge DPS loss if something was to happen to your pet.  Of course, this is all speculation on my end and the talent could change or revert to its old self before 3.2.2 goes live.

Lastly, it’s interesting that Ghostcrawlers thinks of Beastial Wrath/Beast Within as a defensive talent since it “breaks everything like a PvP trinket.” Correct me if I’m wrong but hasn’t that talent always done that in the past? It’s been a while since I have done heavy PvP, especially as BM.

I fully immersed myself into this recent patch, hence the lack of updates. There has been so much new content and I can’t stop myself from exploring it all.

First off was my tame of Skoll. I am still surprised that I found him when I did. Plus it was a server first. Woot.  Since my tame, I have met 3 other hunters who have successfully tamed Skoll and many other hunters who are still on the look out for him. Best of luck to them all.

I’ve received TONS of tells of people asking where I got my pet or where they can find him. A common mistake is a lot of people assume he’s a wolf pet rather than a Spirit Beast. They laugh when I tell them he can prowl like a cat, but seriously Blizzard – take away prowl and give him Furious Howl. Or revamp the Spirit Beasts so they have their own focus dump skills/buffs/debuffs.

Since I had such a gorgeous pet, I decided to give Beastmastery another try. I’ve done a few instances and a few raids as BM and I’m quite surprised by the damage I’ve put out. The DPS is still a bit low compared to Marks and Survival, but it’s nice to see this spec on it’s way up. I believe that tweaks need to be made with BM before it’s on-par. Whether it’s a signature shot like Ghostcrawler mentioned or a tweek to talents in the deep in the tree. My vote, still, let BM Hunters control two pets: 2 normal or 1 exotic/1 normal. Overpowered? Perhaps but I don’t care. You’re a Beastmaster Hunter for a reason, I think one would be able to handle 2 pets.

Another goody 3.2 has brought was the new Trial of the Crusader 5 man instance. If you’re not up for the Heroic version, normal is a great way to farm Abysal Shards (which has also lowered the price on the Auction House) and to gear up any alts you may have. The drops in both instances are very nice. The Heroic version also allows one to collect Champion Badges which is a  nice bonus f you have your eyes on some of the new Argent Tournament Mounts or even Bind on Account Gear.

Some of you may not know that I’m also an avid pet collector. Yes, yes – my dirty little secret. So, of course, I’ve been on a non-stop farm session of the new Raptor (or Reptar as I call them) Hatchlings. Pand..er…Shamwowz and I have been on the hunt since they came out. The first Hatchling I found was dropped from Takk the Leaper, who Sham suggested we check out on our way to Wailing Caverns. To our surprise he was up. Since then (with a little luck) I collected the WC, Wetlands and Dustwallow Marsh Raptor. The Gundrak Raptor wasn’t too bad, I estimate that I spent about 4 hours of farming, but not consecutively. The Zul’Gurub Raptor, and it’s 1-100 drop rate, made me want to pull out my hair. I must have ran the instance at least 20 times and finally had one drop last night.  Though all that time spent inside ZG was not a complete waste. I reached exalted with the Zandalar Tribe, and Sham and I were lucky to see the Tiger Mount drop. Congrats Sham.

Out of the 8 Hatchlings, I have one more to go and it’s probably the worst one on the worst timer – the Ungoro Rare Spawn, Ravasaur Matron. /sigh

As for the guild, Armored Justice has successfully downed the first two trials in the new 25-man instance, Crusader’s Collseum. If you have yet to try this instance, it is a lot of fun. Zero trash, boss after boss and nice loot. What I find interesting with this instance is how they introduce the bosses. Rather than throw all of them at us Blizzard has decided to release a new boss (or trial) each week up to 5 weeks. Pretty clever and in th mean time we can still raid Ulduar and continue to upgrade gear. Which I happened to snag my 4pc T8.5 bonus. /flex

We eagrly await for next tuesday’s next trial of the Faction Champions.

What about this recent patch have you enjoyed or hated so far? Can you believe that 3.2.2 is already on the PTRs? I have two words for you: Onyxia Mount! Go check it out!!

Happy Patch Day! Check out:

• New minipets and mounts
• Faster cast time on mounts
• New BG
  
• New heirlooms (the chest xp bonus stacks with the shoulder one)
  
• New dungeon (5-10-25man)
• New quest hub for dailies
  
• New druid feral forms
• Major changes to Engineering

As for Hunters, here is what we can look forward to:

• Aspect of the Cheetah: Can now be learned at level 16.
• Deterrence: This ability now allows the hunter to parry spells and attacks from behind as well as in front. Now has a new visual spell effect.
• The time that traps will exist in the world after being put down has been reduced to 30 seconds, down from 1 minute.
• Frost Trap: Will no longer “fizzle” on targets immune to snare effects, however Lock and Load will not succeed when using Frost Trap if the target is immune to snare effects.
• Snake Trap: The Mind-numbing Poison effect has been reduced to a 30% increase in casting time, down from 50% to match similar effects.
• 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.
• Talents
  • Beast Mastery
    • Catlike Reflexes now also reduces the cooldown of your Kill Command ability by 10/20/30 seconds.
  • Survival
    • Entrapment: This talent no longer works with Immolation Trap or Explosive Trap.
    • 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.
  • 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. Cooldown is now 1 minute, up from 30 seconds.
    • All pets now receive 40% of their master’s resilience and 100% of their master’s spell penetration. In addition, if a player is at their appropriate spell hit chance or hit chance maximum, their pet will be at the maximum for spell hit chance, hit chance, and expertise. If they are below the maximum, their pet will be proportionately below those maximums.

For more 3.2 patch notes check out the following link. Or visit MMO-Champion to see their in-depth look into 3.2.