It’s a fun site and something that Banya actively maintains. With all the new animals introduced via pet battles I’m sure she’ll have plenty to add in the coming months. I encourage you to give the article a read and to check out one of the unique works of a fellow Hunter.

I like the tool because it’s fairly easy to use, and it gives you multiple options to reforge your gear allowing you to base decisions on stat redistribution and even cost. One of the issues with this tool is that it doesn’t account for item upgrades when reforging your gear. Well, it doesn’t import the upgraded stats from the Armory.

I have an upgraded Fang Kung, which has expertise on it, and every time I reforge, the tool usually recommends that I reforge out of expertise on this item. If the tool isn’t taking into account the actual expertise on the item, it calculates it wrong, and I end up be blow the cap.

It turns out that you can modify the stats on any given item. To do this, just click on any item and then modify its stats. Just type in the numbers you wish to modify and click ‘Apply’. I changed the crit and expertise stats to reflect that my item was upgraded twice.

Now when you click the ‘Optimize’ button it will reforge based on your modified stats.

So simple, and yet it’s a feature I didn’t realize existed until very recently. Perhaps you overlooked this too?

Happy Hunting!

Keep in mind that this is still early on in the PTR cycle, so I fully expect Blizzard to announce the addition of 50 new spirit beasts before all is said and done. Until that happens, rejoice in knowing that you can have ‘em all.

Here’s a quick video from Where the Wild Things Are explaining the change.

I saw this little nugget data-mined from the PTR. It looks like we’ll be able to have three talent specializations in patch 5.3. That right three! This is great news, unless of course you’re a Druid, but really, who cares about Druids. For us Hunters it simply means that we can have an MM, SV, and BM spec – all with the click of a button.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better to be a Hunter!

• Aimed Shot damage +10%.
• Chimera Shot damage +50%.
• Steady Shot damage +20%.
• Black Arrow and Explosive Shot damage +15%.

Big buffs for MM and nice buffs for SV. BM remains in the “baby bear” spot, at least in the eyes of Blizzard. So the big question is what does this all mean? Are all the specs equal, is BM’s day in the sun over, did MM just make a colossal comeback? The answer of course is it’s too soon to tell. Patch 5.1 data doesn’t help us, so we’re waiting on the theorycrafters to give us an answer.

My thought is that all three specs will be very close in performance. There will always be an order of one, two, three, but the relevance of that positioning will be greatly diminished.

We may actually be at a point where players should just choose to play the spec they love. We may also be at a point where we look at the specs less in terms of overall dps and more in terms of how they deliver that dps, and how it might apply to each individual encounter.

What you could end up with is all three specs looking something like this,

• MM – Strongest single target dps; mediocre AoE dps.
• BM – Strong single target dps; great burst dps; mediocre AoE dps; able to fill in missing buffs with exotic pets.
• SV – Stong single target dps (slightly behind BM); best AoE dps.

We might be on the verge of Hunters being in as good a position as they ever have been in WoW. At the very least it means we have some news to talk about the on the podcast, and that alone makes me happy.

As we all know, Blizzard loves to announce big things at this event and I suspect this year will be fraught with major news. I would expect an update on the Warcraft movie, information about the next WoW expansion, and plans for WoW’s 10th anniversary in 2014. The big announcement that seems long overdue is Titan. What exactly is it, and will this be the WoW killer? Something I think we all want to know. Maybe this Blizzcon will shed some light for us.

I definitely would love to hear what Titan is all about, but I also want to know about the next expansion (return of the Burning Legion?) and all the cool things they have in store for the Hunter Class.

So what do you want to see announced at Blizzcon, xpac, Titan, Hunter changes?

Targeting for Powershot and Glaive Toss has been improved. These abilities will now always hit the primary target and are much more responsive about which secondary targets they hit.

So it looks like the fix for these abilities will indeed be part of patch 5.2. The fix should be more noticeable among players who use Powershot in PvP.

Glaive Toss tends to be the purview of PvE, and I don’t know that there have been too many complaints from players regarding it’s functionality in raids. In other words, just know that it’s working, but don’t expect to see a huge increase in DPS or performance as a result.

Given the ilevels on the new LFR and normal raid gear, you’ll be better off saving your valor rather than upgrading your current gear. A heroic weapon may be worth bumping up, but for the most part you’ll want to carry over all of your valor.

Happy Hunting!

Kalliope over at Where the Wild Things Are posted a nice teaser video on some of the pets coming our way in the next patch. It’s chock full of cool new dino skins, Direhorns, and at last, three new porcupine spirit beasts. These red, green and blue beauties come with their own unique taming challenges similar to what we saw in patch 4.2.

The real challenge won’t be taming any of these guys, it will be finding the stable slots to hold them. It’s safe to say that whatever rationale existed to limit our stable slots no longer applies in patch 5.2. We need more, and fast.

I remember when Frostheim first talked about doing this project and how cool it sounded. He asked me if I wanted to participate, and I said “absolutely!”, and then he asked me to sing. My hat is off to Balthazar who managed to turn what must of sounded like a sick cat singing “We love our podcasts” into something respectable.

Obviously a lot of time has gone by since this was started and the landscape of the Hunter community has changed. I’m sure if the project was starting today the list of participating Hunters would be much larger. Still this remains a fantastic tribute to the most awesome class in the World of Warcraft.

I’m Darkbrew, and I love my Hunter.