Random Comments on Patch notes 3.1

Lots of new crazy interesting stuff coming out with patch 3.1. I highlighted a few of the hunter changes, but mostly stuck to the BM hunter stuff.

Highlighted Changes to Hunter Glyphs (the ones I choose to comment on anyway):

Glyph - Aimed Shot -- Reduces the cooldown of your Aimed Shot ability by 2 sec. (Old: Reduces the mana cost of your aimed shot ability by 20%)

Why?? well, I guess I didn't use this one anyway. That extra mana reduction was so nice before, especially when the reduction done with the hunter nerf.

Glyph of Snake Trap -- Snakes generated by your Snake Trap take 90% reduced damge from area of effect spells. (Old: Your Snake Trap creates 2 additional snakes)

I think mage AoE will still probably be able to take them out easily, but not as easily as before, this would be better for PvP I think (I could be wrong). Those darn pesky buggers.

Glyph of Explosive Trap *new* -- The periodic damage from your Explosive Trap can now be critical strikes.

Oooo, that's nice if you are an SV hunter.

More hunter changes (or at least those that I choose to comment on):

*New Skill* Call Stabled Pet - A pet of your choice busts out of its stable and joins you no matter where you are, replacing your current pet. Cannot be used in combat. Instant. 30 min cooldown. Requires Level 80.

Yay!!! 30 min cooldown isn't bad at all. The hinted to it being a lot worse. Boo on the level 80 requirement.

Improved Aspect of the Hawk now has a new spell effect.

What? What is it??? New spell effect, ah, too bad I don't have enough time to get on the PTR. Does anybody know what this is?

Duel Specing:

Characters level 40 and up may now use the dual-spec system.

So they decided to lower the level to be able to do this to level 40? That's cool, it'll help leveling (group vs solo) big time. So, you can level as a shadow priest, but still group holy. Not so bad I think. I'll like this for my DK, yes I will. I like unholy spec (because I like having a pet - and its been fun up to this point), but then I could switch over to frost easy enough to tank if someone needs it. That's nice

The cost to activate the ability is 1000 gold.

This was expected, a good money sink for the economy. I'm glad its not like 5000 gold or anything.

The ability no longer requires a Lexicon of Power.

This is nice for everybody, but those who thought they could make money with inscription. I don't have inscription, so good news to me, I wouldn't hold my breath though.

Switching specs has a 5-second cast time. It may not be used in combat, or in battlegrounds or arenas.

Fair enough, I still like the fact that you don't have to go to a capital city to do this.

There is no cooldown on switching specs.

Nice. That makes me happy.

New mounts:

Aquatic Riding Ray

- aquatic ray??? oh cool, now if you could make it so you don't have to breath while riding it. With something like this coming I just got my mind thinking about a whole expansion based on water. That would be soooo cool. Again, as long as they made an improved scuba helmet or gave somekind of buff or something so everybody doesn't drown. And also, if they bring Jar jar binks into the game with something like this??? /quit, I'm pretty confident that blizzard wouldn't do something so stupid.

"Mimiron's Head - Summons and dismisses a rideable mechanical gnome head. This is a very fast construction. This construction can only be summoned in Outland or Northrend."

Okay this is kind of creepy, a mechanical gnomes head??? As long as we don't make this a trend and started making other gnome body part mounts. Who came up with this idea anyway???

New Vanity Pets:

Lots of new cool pets, woot!! I know I only have 40 pets and I am not even close to being obsessed compared to some, but I'm so glad that more pets are being introduced. Woot! Here are a few of the pets that are coming out: Durotar Scorpion, Teldrassil Sproutling, Alarming Clockbot (that would be so cool if you could set this thing to remind you of something, lol), Enchanted Broom (a little reminiscent of Mickey Mouse from Fantasia if you ask me), Gorloc Orphan/Wolvar Orphan (yeah, this means they are adding northrend children's week quests - I suppose we didn't really think they weren't, right?), Sen'jin Fetish (I don't even know what the heck that's going to be), and last, but not least the Plump Turkey - don't pull him out during November.

Duel spec news regarding Hunters

Just read an interview with Ghostcrawler where he tells us all about duel specing (Talent Spec Q&A). Interesting stuff.

This is what GC had to say about hunters in regards to duel-specing:

Nethaera: What about hunters? Often their pet talents are set up to match the talents of the hunter. Will they be able to switch their pet specs as well?
Ghostcrawler: We will wipe the pet talents. However we are going to remove the respec cost for pet talents so that players won’t feel like they need to jump through an additional hoop to respec their pet. In addition, we are going to provide hunters a new core ability to let them remotely access their stable on a long cooldown. This way if their exotic pet heads off to the stable, they will be able to get a different pet. We hope to be able to discuss this new spell in more detail when we get a little further along.

Sounds like you are going to have to respec your pet every time, but for free. Pain in the butt to have to do that constantly, but more flexibility. I would have liked to see a way that you could save at least 2 different specs for your pets where all you have to do is hit a button to switch.

As for this new ability to remotely get your pets from the stables? That is awesome, no longer will Locks be able to tease me with their summon demon spell. Too bad it has a long cool down time. It would be nice to be able to pull out the Gorilla when ever you happened to need an off tank in an instance. I don't know how many times this would have been useful in the past.

One other thing:

Nethaera: Will players be confined to only setting up two specs?
Ghostcrawler: We will be launching the feature with just two specs, but depending on how we feel it works out, we might consider additional specs in the future.

More than 2 specs in the future??? Are you serious? Part of me thinks that would be cool, but then another part of me thinks it sucks. Why, because we're losing our individuality of we can every spec we ever dreamed of. Even with that said, I'm excited to have 2 specs. That way I can stay a BM hunter and do some trap dancing to boot! So, I may be losing my uniqueness, but I'll fun in the process.