The Burning Crusade Hunter Changes Part 1: Beastmastery Talents.

Well there was a lot changed in the new Hunter Talents, so I'm going to cover it in multiple posts. First up, I'll look at the changes to the Beastmastery Tree, which deals with a Hunters realtionship with his pet.

Improved Aspect of the Hawk: In it's current form, it's one of the staples of Wulf's Damage-dealing ability. It's not been nerfed so much as altered. Rather than the old version that gave your shots a 5% chance to trigger a 30% speed increase, the new version gives a 10% chance to trigger a 15% speed increase. It's still a nice talent, but I imagine that unless I take a Marksman-oriented build, I'll be spending a lot of time with the new Aspect of the Viper on, which means my use of this talent will be limited.

Endurance Training: Interesting change in this talent. As well as giving your pet an additional 10% health, it now gives the Hunter himself an additional 5% health. Whilst this doesn't directly affect Wulf's damage output, the additional 250 or so health will keep him in the game a bit longer when things get nasty.

Focussed Fire: An extra 2% damage when the Hunter's pet is active is a great bonus, not to mention the +20% crit chance on the new Kill Command ability. This is a must really for a minimal investment in BM.

Improved Aspect of the Monkey: No real change there, and not a talent Wulf has ever invested in.

Thick Hide: Like Endurance Training, this now shares a buff with the Hunter. Pets get +20% armour, Hunters get +10%. Nice!

Improved Revive Pet: This is a nice grinding talent, since it saves you time and mana when your pet dies. It's something I'd invest spare talent points in, but I wouldn't make it a feature of the build.

Pathfinding: Bonuses to skills I rarely use in any situation where it's vital for me to have another 8% speed. I'll pass.

Bestial Swiftness: Every time I watch Wulf's pet walk to the next mob whilst grinding, I wish I had this talent. That said, it's use is situational, and like Improved Revive Pet, I wouldn't make it a main feature of the build.

Unleashed Fury: Unchanged since 1.9/1.10, but then again, +20% pet damage is not to be sniffed at.

Improved Mend Pet: Useful for solo play, and it saves healer mana in instances. Wulf'll probably take it if I take him this far down Beastmastery.

Ferocity: Like Unleashed Fury, an unchanged staple of the BM tree. It gives a flat +10% crit chance and opens the door to Frenzy.

Spirit Bond: I've sneered at this talent in the past, but considering Wulf can reach around 6K health when buffed, this offers 120 health to him and his pet every 10 secs. It's a nice top-up and something that once again reduces downtime whilst grinding in the wilderness.

Intimidation: A good move to use when your pet loses aggro on a mob, or when another player tries to attack you. Also opens the doorway to the higher-end BM talents, and as a result is essential.

Bestial Discipline: I used to swear by this talent back when Wulf was BM-specced before. Since I was using a Cat with both Claw and Bite, the talent let me keep up a stupid stream of damage by ensuring it always had enough Focus to use all it's abilities. However, Go For The Throat in the Marksmanship Tree renders this kinda useless for me.

Frenzy: Your pet's critical Strikes will cause it to increase it's attack speed by 30%. This is beyond nasty. When Wulf was a Beastmaster before, he could keep this buff on his cat almost constantly.

Animal Handler: Interesting talent, if only for the +hit it offers the pet, which will help it keep up a steady stream of damage on Raid-level targets.

Ferocious Inspiration: This excited me when I heard about it. It causes your pet's critical strikes to boost party damage by 6% for 10 secs. At last, the BM Hunter gets the ability to support the raid and a reason to send the pet into combat.

Bestial Wrath: The reason all other PVPing classes think BM hunters are cheap. For 18 seconds, your pet cannot be feared, trapped, stunned or otherwise stopped, and deals 50% extra damage.

Catlike Reflexes: Another "two-in-one" talent: +9% Dodge for the Pet, +3% Dodge for the Hunter. If I had spare points, I'd definatley invest in this to help my pet's survivability.

Serpent's Swiftness: This is beyond awesome. Both Pet and Hunter gain +20% attack speed; actually giving the BM Hunter some decent Damage-dealing ability, and boosting his pet to levels of sickness previously unimagined. (+50% speed in Frenzy, thank you very much).

The Beast Within: The final talent and it's a doozy. When the pet enters Bestial Wrath, the Hunter does as well. He is similarly immune to any form of Crowd Control, but "only" does an additional 30% damage.