3.3 PTR notes - MD super change

From PTR notes for Patch 3.3 - A superb change to Misdirection

Hunters

Misdirection: Redesigned. Instead of having finite charges, it now begins a 4-second timer when the hunter using Misdirection performs a threat-generating attack, during which all threat generated by the hunter goes to the friendly target. In addition, multiple hunters can now misdirect threat to the same friendly target simultaneously.

Pure win
- More threat on single target
- More burst with extra hunters adding MD
- MD + super volley = reliable AOE Threat.

And, if im reading this right, you could pop MD, rush in with your pet and lay a Explosive trap - which will trigger the effect after the arming delay - so you could swill wallop in with a channelled volley for extra threat. Tho prob a bit fiddley for the extra damge gained.

This is also a lovely boost for Surv raiders like myself who can get off an awful lot of damage in 4 secs with Explosive shot & rocket gloves on one GCD.


Other changes:

Talents
◦Beast Mastery
◦Intimidation: If the hunter's pet is in melee range of its target, the stun from Intimidation will now be applied immediately instead of on the pet's next swing or attack.
Pets
◦Avoidance: Now reduces the damage your pet takes from area-of-effect damage by 30/60/90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players.

So uber threat and a increase to 90% on AOE avoidance... Blizzard is loving us this patch

The MD change is very, very, very exciting to me.

I love the intimidation and MD buffs. Oh, and the AoE avoidance is IMBA!


However, one thing I noted, there's not a single DPS buff yet for BM. However, there's is one for Surv, which doesn't even need a buff. I'm talking about the L&L proc. This change is very vital to get L&L more often per BA.



Other changes that was posted today:
Hunter
Beast Mastery

* Mend Pet, Scare Beast had the mana cost of their lower ranks reduced.


Marksmanship

* Silencing Shot additional tooltip text - Non-player victim spellcasting is also interrupted for 3 sec.
* Aimed Shot, Arcane Shot, Multi-Shot, Serpent Sting, Volley, Hunter's Mark had the mana cost of their lower ranks reduced.



Survival

* Explosive Trap now burns all enemies for [ Ranged AP + 900 ] additional Fire damage over 20 sec. (Up from 900)
* Point of No Escape now increases the critical strike chance of all of your attacks on targets affected by your Frost Trap, Freezing Trap and Freezing Arrow. (Old - "Increases the critical strike chance of all attacks")
* Misdirection redesigned - The current party or raid member targeted will received the threat caused by your next damaging attack and all actions taken for 4 sec afterwards.
* Lock and Load now has a 22 sec cooldown. (Down from 30 sec)
* Wyvern Sting, Mongoose Bite, Raptor Strike, Counterattack, Freezing Trap, Explosive Shot had the mana cost of their lower ranks reduced.

We certainly don't think pet resilience is useless. We are considering increasing it to 100% of master's resilience to make up for the increased AE damage pets will take in PvP. We don't want pets to explode on contact (neither do we want pet classes to be twice as difficult to kill) but we did think it was a little goofy and unintuitive that pets could just shrug off AE attacks in PvP. We'd rather make pets tougher against all types of damage than be vulnerable to some and nearly immune to others.

This may or may not be awesomesauce.

The best case scenario is that this goes through, and the links in the tree are culled, meaning that we can get crit immune through gear alone and get a good proportion of the useful talents at the same time. It would basically be three bonus points to spend in charge/avoidance/taunt/Silverback/Spiked Collar.


Worst case scenario is the trees are unchanged and we waste tons of itemisation and talents to be way over the crit cap.