Hunters in Cataclysm beta

[natulcien]

completely true about serpent sting not being useful for leveling, but I didn't spec for leveling.

That's a little funny, considering leveling is all you can do in the beta at the moment pretty much ;)

I use BM for that but it all dies so fast anyway ;)
I got into beta through the guild contest so we've been trying the new instances...

[Kruf]

If they'd only fix it so we could swap aspects while casting

I bet Blizzard made it the way it is for good. You'd have to constantly aspect dance in order to do max dps, e.g if you auto shot and start to steady shot, you'd have to swap to focus regen aspect (w/e its called) and switch back to hawk before the shots go off. You gain just a little focus by doing that and lose nothing. If you want to min/max, stuff like that is very hard if not impossible to pull off perfectly and too valuable to just ignore.

Mainly the problem is that since you're casting almost all the time, and you can't change aspect while casting, and aspects are instants which don't spellqueue, it's impossible to change aspect at all unless you a) wait for the next instant which isn't spellqueued or b) actually leave a short break between your casts. I wouldn't mind if they made the aspect cooldown longer but allowed us to swap while casting, so I could in fact get the aspect changed when I press my button instead of getting frustrated when nothing happens.

I checked wowwiki and it says that aspects have 1 sec global cooldown, so this would be even possible.

There's no real GCD on aspects, there's an aspects-only CD to stop you from switching very fast (though you can still accidentally remove your current aspect, unless you've macroed all of them to avoid this).

[Jubeto]

a) wait for the next instant which isn't spellqueued or b) actually leave a short break between your casts.

Isn't it possible to macro those together with an ability like /cast aspect of lol./cast steady shot? I think it should swap your aspect without giving any delay whatsoever.

I wouldn't mind if they made the aspect cooldown longer but allowed us to swap while casting, so I could in fact get the aspect changed when I press my button instead of getting frustrated when nothing happens.

Myeah, pretty decent idea. But then again it might cause some whine in pvp department.

There's no real GCD on aspects, there's an aspects-only CD to stop you from switching very fast (though you can still accidentally remove your current aspect, unless you've macroed all of them to avoid this).

I phrased that incorrectly without thinking enough, that is correct and it supports this aspect dancing shiz.

[Kruf]

a) wait for the next instant which isn't spellqueued or b) actually leave a short break between your casts.

Isn't it possible to macro those together with an ability like /cast aspect of lol./cast steady shot? I think it should swap your aspect without giving any delay whatsoever.

Sadly this fails because you can only have one spell cast from a macro. Some kind of /castsequence trick might work better, though you still get the annoying queued->nonqueued->queued sequence which causes some delays. Would still be better than trying to time it by hand, though, so I think I shall test this.

[Jubeto]

Sadly this fails because you can only have one spell cast from a macro. Some kind of /castsequence trick might work better, though you still get the annoying queued->nonqueued->queued sequence which causes some delays. Would still be better than trying to time it by hand, though, so I think I shall test this.

Yeah, now that I think of it, that might be similar with warriors switching stances weps and trying to spell reflect, you need to spam that macro a lot. But if you have g15 keyboard, that shouldn't cause too much trouble nor delay.

Is it possible to make some macro which casts a spell/macro (preferably in a keybind)
X amount of times?

[Kruf]

Is it possible to make some macro which casts a spell/macro (preferably in a keybind)
X amount of times?

With in-game stuff, no. You're allowed one cast per keypress (with some exceptions for non-GCD abilities, if memory serves).

[Jubeto]

With in-game stuff, no. You're allowed one cast per keypress (with some exceptions for non-GCD abilities, if memory serves).[/quote]

I knew that already, I made some ppl disconnect with /cast fel intelligence macro and I think its still functional 8D
(similar to the well-known fishing macro)

Very useful in world PvP, although I suggest not to use it.

[Kruf]

Here's my solution to Trap Launcher:

/castsequence Trap Launcher, Explosive Trap

Sadly you'll have to press the key, then wait a little, then press it again, since it seems the game needs some kind of confirmation from the server after you cast Trap Launcher before you try casting the trap itself, otherwise it just cancels the cast. Probably not going to be horribly bad on live realms, though it is rather annoying with the latency I have on beta.

Tested survival a little, it seems to be quite lackluster on the damage department and really feels like it's "missing a key" now that Aimed Shot isn't available in the spec.

[Mana]

I don't have access to any beta atm but I'm reading as much as I can about how hunters will work in cata. One thing I've been finding almost no info about are pets. Blizzard has announced "big changes" regarding pet abilities and that they are now stronger in the sense that they can contribute with good raid abilities (but in weaker versions) like mangle, blood frenzy ect.

I'm wondering if anyone has made any pet testing and what seems to be the strongest pet for pve raiding so far? I know no big raids are out but someone must have a fairly good sense of what's best considering the differeces between a wolf and say any other pet have been pretty big in wotl.

Also, with haste improving focus reg, what would be the "haste cap" or the best amount of haste for hunters in mm spec?

[Kruf]

Does Improved Serpent Sting actually work with Chimera Shot?

To answer myself:

No, not in this build at least.