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News: Season 3 Armor, Glove Bonuses and more Hunter love?
October 17th, 2007 by Magog ·

arena season 3 vendor The Season 3 armor pieces appeared on my test server, albeit briefly — gg at Blizzard putting only one vendor in that tiny hut. Luckily the folks over at MMO-Champion got all the goods on the armor pieces.

If you’ve been feeling a little metro from wondering about the color of the Season 3 sets more than anything else, don’t worry you probably weren’t alone.

Although the armor penetration is a welcome addition to the melee sets, the rest of the Season 3 sets are just S2 with 10 item levels of stats sprinkled in. Nothing too surprising for anyone with rudimentary powers of extrapolation.

Although taking a closer examination, we noticed some interesting updates to the glove bonuses…

New Glove Bonuses
Not all gloves bonuses were created equal, and in the never ending quest for balance, Blizzard has made a few changes for Season 3. On first inspection, the bonuses are a mixed bag.

The mini-silence added to the Druid Maim is a little odd — it’s kind of like a Kick effect added to a Gouge. For the Mages, Blizzard is reinforcing that a Mage’s job to spam Rank 1 Poly in the arenas is the correct way to play (haha). Kidding aside, it is a solid bonus. The Shadow Priest one is pretty ‘meh’. With the healing gloves now just offering 12 less spell damage, I don’t see why anyone would take that over a 3 sec reduction in the Psychic Scream cooldown. Enhancement shaman now have the same 5 yd shock bonus as the Elementals. Resto Shaman should still continue to wear the Elemental gloves with Rank 1 Earth Shock still the best bread-and-butter interrupt in the game and Frost Shock getting taken off DR.

*** EDIT (10.20): shadowpriest gloves now have the same fear cooldown bonus as the other priest gloves.

Here are all the changes:

Druid (Feral)
Equip: Causes your Maim ability to interrupt spellcasting and prevent any spell in that school from being cast for 3 sec.

Mage
Equip: Give you a 50% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting Polymorph.

Paladin (Retribution)
Equip: Increases the damage dealt by your Crusader Strike ability by 5%.

Priest
Equip: Reduces the cooldown of your Psychic Scream ability by 3 sec.

~~Priest (Shadow)~~
~~Equip: Reduces the damage you take from your own Shadow Word: Death by 10%.~~

Shaman (Enhancement)
Equip: Increases the range of your Earth Shock, Flame Shock and Frost Shock abilities by 5 yds.

Proposed Hunter Buffs Justified?
Although there are many class changes all around, most of the talk is about the changes to hunters. We’ve already mentioned the added dispel attached to Arcane Shot, the new Disarming Shot and the proposed changes to remove the dead zone — now Kalgan has said they are considering adding a mortal strike debuff to aimed shot.

Meanwhile, over at Vhairi’s Scratchpad we can see, from his graphs of class representation in the arenas on the Euro servers, that Hunters are by far the lowest represented class across all brackets.

Is this a case where Blizzard is making changes based on consequentialism (where the end justifies the means) — the end being more Hunter participation in the arenas — or do these Hunter changes legitimately address specific problems with the class in and out of the arenas?

Tags: News

18 Responses to “Season 3 Armor, Glove Bonuses and more Hunter love?”

XTR3YU Says:
October 17th, 2007 at 9:01 am
these changes are not fixing anything wrong with hunters, they “blizzard” just feels that this will get more hunters into more arenas, all i know is that before these changes go into effect, I have gone up against numerous hunters and they are quite bothersome, my arena teams are never like hey forget about the hunter worry about everyone else, we usually in most cases go for the hunter first depending on grp composition.

but hey what do i know … sure Blizz realy thought this one out.
Skel Says:
October 17th, 2007 at 9:32 am
Ok fine, remove dead zone. That might get hunters to stop QQing. But come on, MS debuff ranged shot , disarming shot, and a purge on arcane shot! lawlz gg
Syn Says:
October 17th, 2007 at 10:21 am
Ok, This “hunter love” is simply becoming ridiculous. Why in gods name will a hunter be having a damn “Disarming Shot” and a “Dispell shot” and thinking about a “MS shot”? Lol, for us melee, having to get to the hunter and having a pet scratching ur back, will be a bit difficult. So since hunters were not such a huge demand, now Bliz wants to Over Power them?
Kags Says:
October 17th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Honestly a good hunter might need a little extra help kiting in arena, but that would be way too godly for a non enclosed space.

They do need some love, but giving them copycat abilities doesnt make them more useful in arena.

If they DO in fact get a MS shot, it shouldnt be instant, because that would be absurd.
Ricky Says:
October 17th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
This is just stupid… Hunters are for me ( ench shaman) difficult as it is… Disarming shot and “MS” shot wtf!?!? If this Sh*it goes live im going to be very mad… hUnters gonna be ultimate pvpers… (btw nerf warriors
Monroebot Says:
October 17th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Well, these will be some lovely features for me, a rogue, to have to deal with against the 2v2 hunter teams in arena. It’s hard enough getting close to them and staying on them when they use the Beast Within, but now I get to do it disarmed too? Woohoo!
Durkula Says:
October 17th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
why not just give them healing shots for friendly targets too????
Alk Says:
October 17th, 2007 at 11:58 pm
From what i’ve heard, Aimed shot is actually not used very often, if at all, in arena due to the fact that it takes a considerable amount of time to cast and it also resets the shot timer. The duration on a MS type debuff would have to last long enough to outweigh the disadvantage for a hunter to have to sit there and try and get one off. I’d wait before jumping to conclusions about this MS debuff aimed shot.
nevermore Says:
October 18th, 2007 at 12:18 am
Kalgan said if MS is added to Aimed, then Aimed would be reworked.

The content creators for this Blog are good writers, and very knowledgable.

The same cannot be said of the commentors here.
Serph Says:
October 18th, 2007 at 10:24 am
Conent Creators failed to mention the new hunter glove changes btw

Magog: Hmm, interesting. I didn’t notice the 1% increase in multishot damage from current S2 honor gloves to S3 because apparently they upgraded the S2 gloves on test to 5% as well.
Chilaun Says:
October 18th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
I would like to emphasize that Disarming Shot was never discussed by any Blizzard official and it does not appear on any of the hunter trainers on the PTR. It is actually very likely it is simply an ability given to the NPCs of Zul’Aman. Just because it has “Shot” in its name and appears in the files it does not mean it is intended for the Hunter class. Do not waste your time discussing about an ability which was mentioned only on mmo-champion, once, and it was connected to hunters only because of the name.

As to the other changes. The Mortal Shot is actually not very likely to make it in 2.3 anyway, so again, it is too early to even take it into consideration.

Only the dead zone removal and the Arcane Shot “purge” effect seem certain and their impact still remains to be seen.
Chilaun Says:
October 18th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
One more thing: anyone who evaluates class PvP performance through the damage and killing blows one obtains in a battleground has no idea what “evaluation” means. It leaves me baffled that people can even bring it into a serious discussion. Having a hunter using multi-shot from 40 yards into a group of fighting players is something a bot can be programmed to do. Battlegrounds are not relevant for PvP, battlegrounds are a past-time.
Krigaren Says:
October 18th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
Oh boy oh boy, as though giving rogues a spellcast interrupt and spell tree lock wasn’t enough, they’re now giving it to druids too?

Does Blizz simply not understand balance in even the slightest bit? Do they not realize that rogues and druids can already shut down spellcasters and especially healers? Kidney Shot, Gouge, Kick, Blind, Cyclone, Feral Charge, Bash? This wasn’t enough?
Zure Says:
October 19th, 2007 at 8:12 am
Worth noting that Aimed Shot is mainly difficult to cast because it isn’t worth prioritizing now

Aimed shot cast time in seconds:
2.60 — Base (15% quiver/ammo pouch haste)
2.27 — non-BM hunter with Quick shots
2.17 — BM hunter
1.89 — BM hunter with Quick Shots
1.86 — non-BM hunter under Rapid Fire
1.62 — non-BM hunter under Rapid Fire, Quick shots
1.55 — BM hunter under Rapid Fire
1.43 — non-BM hunter under Rapid Fire, Bloodlust (max controllable speed for the dominant arena spec)
1.35 — BM hunter under Quick Shots, Rapid Fire
1.19 BM hunter under Rapid Fire, Bloodlust (max controllable speed)

For fun:
1.04 — BM hunter under Quick Shots, Rapid Fire, Bloodlust
0.49 — BM hunter, under Quick Shots, Rapid Fire, Bloodlust, Troll Berserking, Abacus of Violet Odds, Dragonspine Trophy, Haste Potion, haste gear in every available slot
Ketsui Says:
October 19th, 2007 at 8:49 am
I dont get it why people are complaining about the maim change, i kinda dont understand how effective itll be, isnt the point of using a gouge finsihing move to keep the opponent occupied for the time it takes for it to wear off? As in if a player is maimed for 5 seconds whats the point of having 3 second not casting from a school? Maybe im missing something but wouldnt the 3 second interrupt wear off before the maim if the maim isnt broken by physical hits or trinket?
skph Says:
October 19th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
maim with 1cp.
bife Says:
October 19th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
the maim change allows druids to interrupt a pally heal and during the lockout he can’t bubble. Also in pve this gives them an interrupt that works on bosses that are immune to the incapacitate.
Nac Says:
November 1st, 2007 at 9:00 pm
To the first poster…

I think you are GREATLY exaggerating the effect these ” buffs” will have on hunters.

First of all, the deadzone change was a fix, and the only time you will really notice a difference, is if you play a frost mage. This will more or less act like a cushion for lag issues, so we can actually shoot people that look like they are 10 yards away.

Secondly, Aimedshot is a 3.5 second casts. Once I cast aimed shot, i wont be able to begin auto attacking for another 2.5 seconds ( roughly) so that gives me 7.5 seconds of the target being under the affect of reduced healing, with me being able to do damage.

IF you actually let a hunter get off a 3.5 seconds cast, which can be interupted, pushed back, cancelled by LoS, and/or cancelled by simply running into melee range of the hunter, you are probably not a good player anyway, and this shouldnt even concern you.

To everyone else saying hunters will be overpowered? ITs obvious you arent very good if you see BM hunters in arena, as they are VERY rare at high ratings. ITs also obvious that your a scrub if you think these changes will make hunters overpowered, because they address none of the issues that make hunters grossly UNDERpowered in arena, and other then the deadzone fix, these changes do not play to ANY of our strengths.

Finally, imo, with the exception of the deadzone, these hunter changes really wont change much, because like i said, they really dont help us where we need it at all.

IF we had gotten some sort of snare removal, or a more reliable way to keep viper sting on someone after a warrior 2 shots our pet, or even some sort of cooldown focus fire mitigation ability, then we would possibly become balanced. But giving a class weaker versions of abilities whose main users are already very common in 5v5 isnt going to magically make us needed.