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Thursday, May 12, 2011

A Small Qualm with Focus Fire


As a main spec BM hunter I use Focus Fire extensively. The mechanics of the move are great and feel very BM. Based on your pet's Frenzy stacks you gain additional haste, awesome. But it stops there. Even though this move has very BM feeling mechanics nothing else about it feels BM. Both the animation and the name feel very Marksman-y. It's understandable for some hunter moves to feel very general hunter, but the problem here is that this move is in the BM talent tree. If it were just a general Hunter move, it would be alright. Then again if it were a general hunter move it probably wouldn't be BM. The thing is BM hunters already had a Haste talent back in Wrath, called Serpent's Swiftness, and it was a must have for any BM specs. The talent pretty much gave us a 1.5 sec cast on our steady shots, which meant we didn't ever need to stack haste to get it.

Now I understand they didn't like that Hunters had Serpent's Swiftness and pets and Serpent Swiftness which increased pet attack speed but look at the mechanics of the move. When you activate Focus Fire you consume your pets Frenzy stacks, which increase it's attack speed, to increase your own. Thus in a way we are gaining the Serpent Swiftness our pets have. Now i'm not saying that the move should be renamed Serpent's Swiftness, that's just the easiest option. BM hunters and Feral druid essential have the same naming conventions. Anything with animal names, wild places, instinct, or synonyms/variations of the word beast work, plus anything implying connection to your pet is game for BM. In truth you don't even need to change the icon, maybe pallet swap it to green or something, toss one of the old aspect animations into the current one (aspect of the beast, viper, monkey are unused, plus the never used aspect of the wolf animation) and give it a new sound effect. When i activate this move I should feel like I'm gaining my pets frenzy, not activating a mini Rapid Fire. That's cool for a general hunter move but for a spec move it takes away from the feel of the spec. 

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