Here’s a look at the Hunter related updates in World Of Warcraft Client Patch 2.3. As always, the latest patch notes can be found on the Official World of Warcraft site.

Now, on with the Hunter goodness!

General

  • Weapon Skill: All items and abilities that granted weapon skill have been changed. In most cases, they were converted to expertise or expertise rating. Ranged attacks do not benefit from expertise, so ranged weapon skill has generally been replaced by critical strike bonuses or hit bonuses. In a few cases, talents have been changed to other effects to avoid granting players excessive amounts of expertise.
  • Pets will try to get behind their targets when engaging in melee combat
  • You can now obtain a tiny Sporebat pet with exalted Sporeggar faction. Ok, ok, this isn’t a “real” pet, but still cool.
  • Dwarf: Gun Specialization now increases chance to critically hit with Guns by 1% rather than increasing weapon skill.
  • Troll: Bow and Thrown Specialization now increases chance to critically hit with those weapons by 1% rather than increasing weapon skill.

Hunters

  • Aimed Shot (Marksmanship) now reduces healing done to that target by 50% for 10 seconds, shot time reduced by 0.5 seconds.
  • Arcane Shot (Ranks 6 and above) now dispel 1 Magic effect in addition to their normal damage.
  • Explosive Trap: The initial damage dealt by this trap is now also increased by 10% of your ranged attack power.
  • Expose Weakness: The triggered effect from this talent will no longer use up charges of Misdirection.
  • Immolation Trap: The total damage dealt by this trap is now also increased by 10% of your ranged attack power.
  • Misdirection: This spell will now always be removed correctly if multiple Hunters overwrite each other’s Misdirection.
  • Misdirection: If a Hunter attempts to use this ability on a target which already has an active Misdirection, the spell will fail to apply due to a more powerful spell already being in effect. This will not trigger the cooldown or cost any mana.
  • Readiness: This talent now finishes the cooldown on Kill Command.
  • Serpent Sting, Immolation Trap and Explosive Trap all gain additional damage based on ranged attack power.
  • Serpent Sting: The total damage dealt by this sting is now also increased by 10% of your ranged attack power.
  • Steady Shot: Tooltip clarified to indicate base weapon damage is used in the damage calculation.
  • Trueshot Aura (Marksmanship) no longer costs mana to cast and will last until cancelled.
  • Wyvern Sting (Survival) is now instant cast and has a maximum duration of 10 seconds in PvP.
  • Wyvern Sting: This ability will no longer be overwritten by lower ranks of Wyvern Sting.

If you have thoughts on these changes, let us know!

Date: Nov 13th, 2007 · Tags: Patches · Comments RSS