Hunter Changes on the Patch 5.1 PTR

Patch notes for the first major content patch for MoP (Patch 5.1) were posted earlier today.

Here’s what’s happening with Hunters right now on the PTR…

No more Aspect of the Fox

Aspect of the Fox has been chucked from the spell book, and now Steady Shot, Cobra Shot and Barrage can now all be cast while moving. This is no doubt another move by Blizzard to streamline the class and make it simpler to play. Good call. 🙂

Honestly, since I’ve been using Thrill of the Hunt, I can probably count on one hand how many times I’ve switched to Fox in this expansion. I never cared much for the Aspect of the Fox mechanic anyway, so I’m happy to see it go. 🙂

Lynx Rush is now a bleed effect

Lynx Rush will now function as a bleed effect which will cause damage every 3 seconds, for a period of 15 seconds – stacking up to 9 times. I’m guessing it’s also now a single-target attack..? I’m a bit unclear on that one.

Bestial Wrath is getting nerfed…again

Bestial Wrath will no longer render your pet immune from all crowd control, but it will still break crowd control when activated. This means it’s going to be really important you have good hotkeys for Master’s Call and Bullheaded – mainly for PvP.

Of course, none of this is set in stone, as always with the PTR. Any or all of these could change prior to 5.1 going live, but this is a quick rundown of what could possibly be in store for the Hunter class when 5.1 hits.

14 thoughts on “Hunter Changes on the Patch 5.1 PTR”

  1. I’ve seen reference to Stampede a few times here and a gazillion times in other places. As WHU reported, it was bugged in Arena, doing 100% damage and heals as opposed to 25%. This was an exploit that anyone with half a brain new about. So, we were god like for awhile because of a bug, now we get Bestial Wrath nerfed and shall suck enormously in 2’s, marginally less so in 3’s.

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  2. im really upset theyre taking the only thing about us away. Every other class is fricking OP’ed, and we get nerfed. Locks and Shammys hit ridiculously high. Fricking classes that heal 100% in a second. Warriors cant be kite’d. But we get nerfed and every other spec we have is useless in arena pvp. BS

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  3. Shrike i dont know where did you hear or see that hunters are doing 40k arcane shot?Dont imagine numbers and post what ever you like.Next, pet is not unkillable, it can be dead very easy and quick and you would know that if you have ever been attacking or cc-ing one.Plizz dont make up things or dont pvp in geens:P.
    I know that we are in great position now in pvp tbh,but we are no gods,belive it or not.

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  4. well i think that lynx rush may actualy be good for arena becouse we will have some sustained damage instead of burst and we NEED that.So it may not be a bad thing afterall along with all the burst we have …. sry if my eng.is not so good:P.

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  5. good god, these nerfs are needed. take out the stampede multi-heal and hunters will be back where they belong. balanced. having one class be a bursty swarm with 50k pet crits on 60% resil + 20% damage reduction, plus 40k arcane spams, plus stampedes hitting for 7k each, 15 full heals per second and two deterrences and unkillable unCCable pet … you hunters cannot POSSIBLY believe you weren’t gods. every last one of you have earned your nerfs. E-V-E-R-Y. L-A-S-T. O-N-E.

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  6. Lynx Rush gets kills in arena. Will be forced to Blink Strike. I know some PVP hunters have a visceral hatred of BM but every hunter needs to oppose the loss of control by Bestial Wrath. Even if it takes non stop QQ. Fill the forum with your tears because MM has not been buffed and is gimped. Any hunter that MM will automatically get buffs is delusional. GC has said his internal numbers put him on a happy place regarding MM. A BW nerf will put all 3 specs back out of PVP usefulness and you can wish your teams goodbye. Fight the nerfs now.

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  7. From a PvP Arena perspective the proposed BM changes are a huge nerf. The BW change is brutal. Not so much Lynx Rush, though it was nice to be on par with a lock or shaman etc. for damage and rip apart an opponent.
    Ever since MoP was released all I’ve heard is how OP BM hunters are. Hunters were all doing handstands and yes, we’re definitely in a better spot than we were in Cataclysm. For the most part all this raving is because we were so gimped in Arena and not all that great in BG’s before MoP. Watch this vid to see the actual numbers on the classes in MoP-it’s a good eye opener.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISqZKaiArN0
    Now given that the vast majority of hunter pvp’ers, even though a lot like to think they are, aren’t a Zumio or Braindeadly etc. the nerf to Bestial Wrath is huge. CC the pet during Bestial Wrath? You might as well give us a fishing pole instead of a pet because we’re gonna be useless. Sure we can the CC but that involves blowing more CD’s and we need all of them at the moment to even be close to half-assed competitive without burning them on this. I’d expect MM to again be the default spec for Arena PvP and frankly, that really pisses me off.

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  8. Lynx Rush will work the same way but it’ll be 9 DoTs instead of 9 attacks. Works for single or multi-targets since the DoT can stack. So in other words, less burst dmg, which sucks imo.

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    • Yea, I see…so 1 target can have 9 stacks ticking away for 15 secs, or 3 targets can have 3 stacks ticking for 15 seconds, for example.

      BW + Lynx Rush is pretty devastating for opponents in PvP, so I can understand why they’re doing this. The damage should probably equal out, but it will be much less bursty.

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  9. I’m not going to loose sleep over fox being gone. After the failed attempt to put aspects on the GCD only to revert it, it seems to me this is an attempt to break aspect macroing to shots and pissing off everyone around you.

    I’ve never used Lynx Rush so I don’t really know how that change effects the talent and as foe the BW nerf all I can say is WTF are the thinking

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