Hunter talents coming soon!Follow

This from the official site:

Hunter Talent Sneak Peek! | 10/13/2004 9:37:12 PM GMTDT


Since the Hunter talents are done internally, I managed to get you a sneak peek of what's coming up. Without further ado, here are the trees and a sample talent from each!

Beast Mastery
This talent tab focuses on improving the Hunter's pets, Aspects, and the Hunter's interaction with their pet.

Sneak Peek Talent - Spirit Bond: Each time the Hunter's pet strikes an enemy, the Hunter gains some life.


Marksmanship
This talent tab allows the hunter to specialize in ranged combat, focusing on enhancing their shots and stings.

Sneak Peek Talent - Scatter Shot: A short-range shot (no min range), that deals less damage then normal but confuses the target for several seconds.


Survival
This talent tab gives the Hunter the opportunity to specialize in close combat, enhancing their melee abilities and traps.

Sneak Peek Talent - Deterrence: When activated, this spell significantly increases the Hunter's dodge and parry chance for several seconds.
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- Caydiem -
Assistant Community Manager, WoW


Read the replies here:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-hunter&t=8399#Post8399



All I have to say are those are some really good choices for the class!! You must decide if you should improve your Pet, Ranged ability, or Melee ability!! If that isn't a tough choice, I don't know what is.

I'll say this about melee: We weren't meant to be very effective so I do kind of feel this is a wasted area. If you want to be effective at melee, play a more melee intensive class.

Our main strengths are ranged damage and our pets. Picking between which skills to take should be tough. I think we'll have a lot of fun with these.


Off the Hunter topic, Paladin talents should come soon after. With all the complaints about Paladins being poor soloers, I expect to see one area of talents that improve melee ability in general, one that focuses on spells and auras, and one that focuses on "Holy" things like heals and undead. Time will tell though.

I'm really glad for this insight into the Hunter though, can't wait to see what all the talents are.

I don't mind it too much. Unless I'm mistaken, hunters from medieval England used to have hawks and such to kill and/or retrieve their prey, so it isn't unrealistic.

I'll be doing what Smily is doing. Ranged talents first, pet talents second, melee mostly ignored(or very minor). Ranged is the heart of our damage and should be our main focus. We are a ranged DPS class and should focus on what we are rather than trying to make ourselves a class we aren't.

Editing to add:

I like that we have pets. In EQ I always felt Rangers should have some form of animal pet. I think Blizzard made Rangers just right! Even thought they are called Hunters.

Edited, Sat Oct 16 19:19:22 2004 by KerikDaven

I wouldn't count out melee talents just yet, especially if you're going to do PvP. Pet taunting won't work on other players, so you'll have to be prepared for the worst. Let's take an example: Wing Clip, the Hunter snare, is a melee ability, right? Some talent points to boost that would be wonderful even if you prefer ranged damage. Also, they said that the Survival tree will also boost traps. I'm not sure how much use a hunter typically gets out of traps, but it would be interesting to play around with, at least.

Keep in mind pets will still be free DPS even in PvP. Some of their other abilities might make a difference too(example: if the have a Web(snare or root ability), damage procs, fear, stun(for spell casting interruption) etc..). I really wouldn't count out pets completely.

Right now Mages and Priests are the top two PvP targets, Hunters are a bit lower on the list. Just think about it, if no one takes the pet as a real threat, how much damage could it get in if it's left unchecked?? How many spells might it interrupt if it can bash/stun?

Sure, growl might not matter in PvP, but their are a lot of other abilities it has to add starting from as simple of a thing as its damage. Expect the Pet Talents to add even more pet fun.

In a 1 on 1 fight, if you can get your pet a stun/bash of even a single second, it becomes PRICELESS. How? Simple, when they close to fight the Hunter, RUN!! The pet will still be hitting them taking down their HPs. If they stop to fight the pet, heal it and use your bow. If they try to run, they pet will be doing its damage, and you can use a concussive shot to slow them and keep them in range. If the pet is able to stun/bash for a 1 second stun, all the easier to keep them in range.

I wouldn't discount the pet, especially with a large number of talents to make things more possible. The most important melee skill you might be able to get though would be one that allows you to stop root/snare effects from sticking on you.

As i said before, marsmanship main, pet sub, and the only thing id put into mele is for raptor stioke, which is one of the most handy abilites (unless theres sumthign that makes wing clip better)