Cataclysm news

[Legolei]

And for all hunters there is more good news: BigRedKitty was in the alpha and is in the beta. So, new BigRedKitty Hunter Guide Movies!!!

[DFE]

I looked at the hunter talent trees and I just thought: it is broken.
Lets have a look at MM tree. At lvl 10 you get Aimed shot which is cool for leveling It hits like a truck and  together with Careful Aim 3/3 talent that increases crit % by 60% on mobs with +90% health, with Rapid Killing 2/2 increasing damage of first shot by 20% and Marked for Death increasing damage by 3% and crit bonus by 6% that is Chuck Norris Shot. You can just finish it with either Chimera dealing 190% weapon damage or Kill Shot dealing 200% weapon damage.

But I am looking at the talents as a raider so what do we have here?
Aimed shot as is will not be used in MM rotation unless Master Marksman procs. Why? Because it clips current Auto shot cast and auto-shot is not fired during Aimed Shot is cast. That is unacceptable...

Tier 1:
Efficiency 3/3: lowers focus cost of Arcane and Chimera from 50 to 44... It is a must have but the cost reduction seems too low
Go For The Throat 2/2: Auto-shot crits generate pet 6 focus.... It is way worse than as it is now but pets will work differently in Cata so should be ok.
Rapid Killing: Killing blow gives your next Aimed, Steady or Cobra 10/20% more damage... Useles for raiders. Even on adds fight, how many times you deal a killing blow?

Tier 2:
After having "chosen" 5 points from 5 usefu in tier 1 we have this:
Improved Steady Shot 3/3: Two steadies in a row grant 15% haste for 8 seconds... Nice one, this should be up all the time on stationary fights and skilled hunters will have it up most time even on movement fights
SicÃ,´Em 2/2: Crits of Kill Command (we dont use it), Explosive Shot (we dont have it), Aimed (ok, we use it on procs) and Arcane Shot  causes next 2 pet focus dump abilities to be focus-free.... That is nice but not much MM-centric imho.
Careful Aim: Increases Aimed shot crit chance by 20/40/60% on targets above 90%... Soo are we going to spend 3 point for a talent that we will benefit 2 times on a boss fight? No, waste of points

Tier 3:
So after having the great option of spending our 10 talent points for 10 worthwile talent points out of 15, we get to tier 3 where we have to take all possible talents to get to next tier and 4 of those 5 talent point are useless on bosses and useless on most of adds - because they are PvP. Wow, that is what I call a choice!

To be continued...

[DFE]

So we got to tier 3.
Silencing Shot: it is a must. Still off cooldown and could be macroed to our shots but I still prefer to have it available for interrupting adds or even the boss (Deathwhisper)
Concussive Barrage 2/2: Chimera and Multi-Shot will daze the target for 4 seconds.... Extremely useful in BGs or leveling but for raiding? Come on, every boss is immune to it and even some adds are...
Dazzled Prey 2/2: Arcane, Chimera and Steady deal 10% more on dazed target... Why the hell is this on the same tier as Concussive Barrage? Shoudnt CB be prereq for this?  And again - 0% utility on bosses, may be useful on some adds.

Tier 4
This is the first tier where we actually will have the possibility to choose. Or not?
Termination 2/2: Steady and Cobra will grant 6 more focus on targets below 25% when in Dragonhawk aspect... Very nice, this is a must. More focus = more Kill Shots = boss dead
Trueshot Aura: Increases AP for you and raid by 10%...  Very nice talent. Unfortunately it is not possible to skip it in case you know other hunter / enh shammy / DK will raid with you.  There are simply not enough other useful options to spend talents.
Bombardment: 15/30% increased crit % for Volley, Multi-shot crits cause next Multi cost reduced by 25/50%... Well, because Multi-Shot is not a part of or boss fight rotation, it will only be useful for adds-heavy fights
Resistance Is Futile: When your marked target attempts to run, flee or move, your next Kill Command within 8 secs has increased crit chance by 4/8/12%... This one is a real pearl.... So in 4th tier we have a  3-point PvP talent, that boosts signature ability of BM tree, that is NEVER going to be used by MM because of its incredible focus costs, and what is coolest about it, it is a prereq  for Marked For Death (that is extremely useful) in Tier 6. Bravo!...

Tier 5
6 points to be spent in this tier and IÃ,´ll tel you something: they are all really good for raiding, finally
Rapid Recuperation 2/2: You gain 12 focus per 3 sec while under effect of Rapid Fire. You also gain 50 focus when activating RF... I love this talent. This is going to be deadly when used in last 20% of boss health. You grants you 110 extra focus to burn! Yay, more Kill Shots!
Readiness: Finishes cooldowns on all abilities except for Bestial Wrath... Nothing new here, this is a must, epecially when coupled with Rapid Fire (boosted by Rapid Recuperation). The tooltip needs to be updated, there is really no way you can have both Readiness and Bestial Wrath.
Master Marksman 3/3:  Steady shot has 60% chance to grant a stack of Master Marksman effect. After reaching 5 stacks, you get Aimed Shot that costs 0 focus and has 0 cast time.... Amazing! These are the talents I was looking forward, these are those fun talents! This will separate good hunters from bad. Aimed shot is hitting so hard that you will love the talent - if you will be able to use it as often as possible.

Tier 6
Only 5 points to spend here but they are juicy.
Posthaste 2/2: Reduces Rapid Fire cooldown by 2 minutes and increases your movement speed by 30% for 4 secs after you disengage.... Another nice talent. It is a must for its RF part but that Disengage movement thingy is really cool! Maybe it will learn even more people hunters to use Disengage properly.
Marked For Death 3/3: On marked targets: increases damage of pet specials by 3% (meh) and your crit damage bonus of Chimera, Aimed, Arcane, Steady and Kill shot.... This is a nice talent. Shame it has such a stupid and illogical prereq.

Tier 7
We got to the last tier finally. Only one point in here and you will want it, again.
Chimera Shot:  You deal 190% weapon damage, refreshing serpent sting and triggering an effect based on venom present on target:
Viper Venom: burns 5% of targetÃ,´s mana
Scorpid Venom: Disarms target for 10 secs. Cannot be triggered more that once a minute
Widow Venom: Instantly heals you for 15% of your health
What is amazing on new Chimera is 190% weapon damage. It went up from 125% possibly to compensate for the loss of Serpent portion.  The venom effects are not extremely amazing for raiding, though... Still I think this should be MM inherent ability - such as Explosive Shot for SV.

Talent I really miss here is Piercing Shots. It as amazing one, and I am not happy to see it go away.
Anyways, lets move on to pick low tier talents from other trees. We will most likely have spent 32 points in MM tree.

Our choice in other trees will be affected by absolute necessity to take Hunter vs. Wild from SV tree that turns 30% of your stamina into AP. And we will have TONS of stamina in cataclysm. but this talent is in secon tier so we will have to spent 5 points in tier 1. This is a problem because tier 1 both in SV and BM seems to be unfinished. There are only two talent there and one of them, Improved tracking has 5 points in contrary to what Blizzard said  (talents will have max 3 points). So we will take either 3 or 5 talent here. Why only 3? Lets see:
Improved Serpent Sting 2/2: Serpent sting also does instant damage equal to 30% of its periodic damage... There is a question if Serpent Sting refreshed by Chimera will trigger this effect. If yes, we will NEED to take this talent. If not, than hands off!
Tier 2
Hunter vs. Wild 3/3: Your and your petÃ,´s AP is increased by 30% of your stamina... This is a no-brainer, a must have.

Now we have spent 40 talent point and have one more to spent. it will be either
Trap mastery 1/3: Among other increases Explosive shot damage by 10% - and we will be focus free and possible to shoot from distance
or
One with Nature 1/3: (from BM tree) Increases AP bonus from Hawk aspect by 5% and increases focus generation from Fox aspect by 2%... we dont know numbers yet but it looks like this is not going to be as powerful as Trap mastery. Anyways, we will see.

[Jim]

Good write up DFE - Was thinking of doing the same for all 3 priest specs... But ofc Talent's are probably gonna change alot so nothing is guaranteed atm

[Tirkad]

Good write up DFE - Was thinking of doing the same for all 3 priest specs... But ofc Talent's are probably gonna change alot so nothing is guaranteed atm

True. Many people showed their disappointment on the official and unofficial forums for those new 31-points trees. The devs stated that those are just first thoughts on what could be in cata, but they also stated that lots of classes (druids, paladins, mages and rogues above all) are still on the early stages of designing. I'm pretty sure the talent trees are gonna be reworked more than once before cata goes live, so i'd not take those too seriously.