Wipus Frequentus

So I finally got a bunch of my characters on the PTR. Rogue, Hunter, Paladin - all 80. Shaman - 78. Warrior - 74.

First things to note: The skills page is big and ugly and shows you in bright icons what you can get from a trainer. You don't get ranks of stuff any more either. If you've been following Cata at all, you'll know the talent trees are completely redesigned - far fewer points available and you MUST spend a certain amount in your tree of choice before you can spend elsewhere. There's innate bonuses you get for choosing your primary tree.

Bear in mind that this is a few hours of dicking around and getting impressions from my own chars, nothing that can't be contradicted by cold hard fact and a spreadsheet or two. I'll do a post on each one I guess, it's too much text for one post.

First up: The Hunter

I specced BM like this. It may not be optimal - 3% haste vs cheaper arcane shots. Still, it felt about right. Don't think it'd make a major difference.

Anyway, the big change for hunters in general is that mana is gone. Instead we have a focus system, which is basically the rogue energy system / your pet's focus bar. No more running out of mana and requiring Aspect of the Viper (zzz). What we do have is an ability that gives us more focus - the old favourite, Steady Shot.

Now this is where BM already loses out for 4.0. I am told BM is balanced around Cobra Shot, which is a level 81 alternative to Steady Shot that does Nature damage and bypasses armour as a result. It also increases the duration of Serpent Sting, and gives us 9 focus. Obviously we don't get this at level 80. But here's a problem - I don't get why Cobra Shot is BM's thing rather than a general all-trees ability. It looks to be just a simple case of using it on high-armour targets, or as a SS extender, and keeping Steady Shot for the squishies. I need to research this a little more.

Anyway, BM as a spec has changed a little and there's now a lot more synergy with the pet in the form of Focus Fire. BM Pets have Frenzy, which is a haste effect that stacks 5 times for a total of 30% extra haste. Focus Fire is a hunter talent that allows you to nick the haste from the pet - not the full 30%, but 3% per stack, lasting for 15 seconds. With 5 full stacks that's 15% haste for 15 seconds. This is the New Big Thing for BM hunters, and I'm not convinced it's all that cool. It's a button that lights up regularly and you press it and shoot faster. Hmm.

The other major ability is Kill Command, an old favourite that's been redesigned a million times by now. Kill Command uses a lot of focus (40!), is on a 6s cooldown, and does a metric fuckton of damage. BM talents increase the damage and crit chance, and there's also a talent which increases the damage + reduces the cost of the next KC after 2 crit KCs which frankly strikes me as a bit of a waste of 2 points but there's little else to spend it on. KC will be a big chunk of damage. It certainly has some nice crits, bearing in mind that BM is mostly about fast damage rather than big damage.

With all this in mind, it seemed to me that the BM hunter does the following. Hunter's mark, Serpent Sting, Kill Command on cooldown, Arcane Shot till dry, Steady Shot to some yet-to-be-determined level of focus, then repeat. Focus Fire when it's lit up (i.e. Frenzy is at 5 stacks). Bestial Wrath when it's available. Rapid Fire when it's available. Refresh Serpent Sting if you remember.

It's not all that exciting. Bestial Wrath is more fun for a hunter now because the reduced cost of abilities lets you spam the living shit out of Arcane Shot, but beyond that you're spending 90% of your time spamming Arcane, hitting KC every 6 seconds, then Steady Shot a couple of times. That's the majority of it, and that ain't all that engaging.

So, how about the DPS? Well, it felt low, to be honest. I have yet to try out an alternative - Survival is what I use in live - but the DPS was 2200 or so which for a 4500~ GS character is dire. My wolf was doing under 1000 DPS which is pretty terrible. This worried me a little.

So I went and fiddled with my stable (wahey) - don't forget that we can stable a ton of pets now, and can call any of 4 whenever we like, 5 in Cata - and took out my Spirit Beast to test it. Spirit Beats have had their old moonfire-esque ability removed, and now they have Spirit Mend, which is an instant heal with a HoT component, kinda like Regrowth. It scales with AP, and is a reasonable heal, along with being on a fairly short CD of 28s after talents. In my average gear I was getting >4k crits for the initial heal, and 5 ticks of 1100ish for the HoT - which is A Good Heal for anything that isn't a main tank. Not bad, and much better than I expected. The pet itself gets healed for a lot more for some reason I don't yet understand. Needs more testing.

The other cool thing is that exotics have 2 special abilities - a unique one, and a 'buff' one. Pets in 4.0 / Cata are intended to fill gaps in groups with their own buffs. My Spirit Beasts get Roar of Courage, which is basically a replacement for Strength of Earth Totem or Horn of Winter, giving 155 Agi and Str to all party members. It's pretty much permanently up and is a nice addition. This buff gave my hunter a little more DPS and the Spirit Beast did around 1250DPS itself, with my total DPS getting nearer to 3k.

Still not awesome, but until I try another spec I don't really have anything to compare it to. Certainly I think the pet buffs/abilities are pretty neat (Core Hound = Bloodlust!) and it's nice to have a reason to use Exotics. I'm not sure but I think Exotics are intended to do more DPS as well by default. 

So, to sum up - DPS not amazing, rotation not all that engaging, pet stuff quite cool. I'm sitting firmly on the fence for this one.