4.0.6 is here

Finally, something to talk about!  This patch took sooooo long to come out, but now it's finally out.  This patch changes how we hunters will be raiding significantly, from what talents to pick, to what gems to use.  I've listed below the final patch notes for hunters but you can find all the changes here:

• Aimed Shot weapon damage has been increased to 200%, up from 150%. In addition, the base cast time has been reduced to 2.4 seconds, down from 3.
• Arcane Shot damage has been increased by 15%.
• Aspect of the Wild, Aspect of the Hawk, and Aspect of the Fox can now be cast while mounted.
• Hunters can now use Auto Shot while moving.
• Casting Trap Launcher, Distracting Shot, and Scare Beast now cancel Auto Shot when cast. This is to make it easier to crowd control creatures with Auto Shot while moving enabled.
• Concussive Shot duration has been increased to 6 seconds, up from 4.
• Deterrence now provides 100% chance for melee attacks to miss instead of 100% parry chance. This means that attacks that cannot be parried, notably some rogue abilities, can now be prevented by Deterrence, and the hunter will gain the benefit of Deterrence even if disarmed.
• Dust Cloud's cooldown and duration have been modified to make it closer aligned with Tailspin (same effect, different pet).
• Freezing Trap now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Kill Command's damage has been increased by 20%.
• Kill Shot's attack power scaling has been increased by 50%.
• Master's Call now has a 35-second cooldown, down from 1 minute, and its range has been increased to 40 yards, up from 25. In addition, the visual effect is more obvious.
• Wing Clip now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Talent Specializations
  • Beast Mastery
    • Animal Handler now provides a passive 25% bonus to attack power, up from 15%.
  • Marksmanship
    • Chimera Shot's overall damage has been increased by roughly 50%.
    • Wild Quiver (Mastery): Chance for this to trigger per mastery has been increased by approximately 17%.
  • Survival
    • Black Arrow damage has been reduced by 15%.
    • Explosive Shot damage has been reduced by 15%.
    • Hunter vs. Wild has been increased to 5/10/15% Stamina, up from 4/8/12%.
    • Into the Wilderness (passive) has been reduced to a 10% Agility increase, down from 15%.
• Pets
  • Pets now have 70% of the master's armor, rather than a different value based on which type of pet they are.
  • Shale Spiders now correctly have a special ability (Web Wrap).
  • Bad Manner (monkey) now properly breaks from damage.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Concussive Shot redesigned. It now limits the maximum run speed of the target while Concussive Shot is active.
• Hunter Bug Fixes
  • Aimed Shot no longer ignores the Fire! buff when cast by macro.
  • Camouflage is now breaking when the hunter's traps deal damage to a target.
  • Chimera Shot's particle effect animations should now display correctly.
  • Cobra Shot now properly increases the duration of the Serpent Spread Serpent Sting.
  • The Focus Fire spell effect is now cooler than your best collection of green rectangles.
  • Wild Quiver's effect per point of mastery value should now be consistent.
  • Before shooting, male undead hunters will no longer look away from their targets.
  • Pet Fixes
    • Pet families added in Cataclysm should not be missing talents.
    • Pets should fight all underwater creatures, even if the hunter is out of melee range.
    • Ancient Hysteria should not able to affect low-level characters.
    • Ancient Hysteria now correctly affects pets.
    • Embrace of the Shale Spider now provides resistances so that those resistances are not lost if this buff overwrites Blessing of Forgotten Kings.
    • Ferocity-category pets in the dog and fox families now have access to the pet talent Charge.
    • Mobility can correctly be learned by land-based hunter pets.
    • Ravage no longer counts toward stun diminishing returns.
    • Undead hunters now start with Revive Pet on the action bar.
    • The pet Spellbook entry for Serpent Swiftness now shows its rank.
    • Shale Spiders are no longer missing a special ability.
    • The Shell Shield (Terrorpene) visual has been enlarged and should now be seen when cast.
    • The tooltip for the armor value in the Character pane should now be showing the correct amount of armor granted to pets.

In the upcoming days, I will be posting more regularly on all sorts of things.  Hopefully by tomorrow I'll have the optimum raiding spec ready

Helpful tricks for the raiding hunter.

Hey guys, sorry about the lack of posts, news is kinda dry nowadays since patch 4.0.6. hasn't hit yet, so today I've decided to share some useful tips and tricks for this tier of raiding that I have learned thus far.  I'll go through each boss individually and list as many things I can.

Magmaw:

1. Make sure to stand extra far back when DPSing his downed head, its hitbox is bigger than you would think
2. Frost traps really help control the adds
3. The hunter's mark that's on the boss is different than one on his head, so make sure to have marks on both
   

Omnitron Council:

1.   If Magmatron targets you with the red beam o' death, just feign death and it will be gone.  He won't cast on you nor will he go to someone else.
2. Make "/cast Cobra Shot /petattack" macros to make it easy to have your pet move to your current target.  It really helps to make sure your pet is attacking what you are.
3. Using trap launcher to launch a frost trap under Toxitron's hand when he is dropping his little oozelings is pro.
   

Maloriak:

1. I honestly can't think of anything special hunters can do on this fight :(

Atramedes:

1. If you are being chased by the breath, you turn around and disengage to propel yourself forward, throw up aspect of the pack and then run.  If the fire still catches up with you, deterrence will save you from damage.  Hunters make great gong hitter because of how long they can kite the fire.
2. Disengaging over fire that is in the way won't hurt you and you won't get any sound.
3. Feigning death is a bad idea if being chased by breath because it may save you, but someone else won't be ready for it and will probably die.

Chimaeron:

1. If at the end of the fight your tanks are dead and you have aggro, you can throw up deterrence and live a little longer to hopefully get the kill.

Nefarian:

1. Make sure to dismiss your pet when phase 2 starts or else he'll die in the lava.  Summon him back when you are up on the pillar and have him attack the mob there.
2. Frost traps may seem like a good idea to slow down the skeletons that run around, but beware, if there is fire near and the skeletons are slowed down by the trap, the add tank won't be able to kite them away fast enough and the adds will get powered up.  Only slow the adds if you adds tank(s) die.

Halfus Wyrmbreaker:

1. Misdirection followed by multi-shot is a great way to get the whelps to your tank.

Valiona and Theralion:

1. If you get Engulfing Magic, just disengage away from the raid and continue DPSing, feign death if you are getting close to pulling aggro.
2. Disengage is also a great way to get out of in front of Valiona when she does her breath attack.

Ascendant Council:

1. Another fight where disengage is extremely useful for getting to the tornadoes and vortexes, but I prefer to save it for if I ever get lightning rod.  It is priority to get away from the raid if you get that debuff.  Disengage, turn around, throw up aspect of the cheetah, and run towards a far wall.

Cho'gall

1. Make a line of frost traps between where the big mobs are killed and the raid to slow all the slimes that come out.

Conclave of Wind

1. Frost traps are helpful for rounding up the mobs on Anshal's platform.
2. Use disengage to get to the wind jets if you aren't going to make it in time.

Al'akir 

1. If you are on the edge of the platform and you can't make it to the hole in the tornado wall, what you can do is just before the wall gets to you, jump off the ledge, then disengage back onto the platform on the other side of the wall.
2. Master's call can help get across the ice on the ground easier.
3. When phase 2 starts, make sure to call you pet back to you and have him attack the boss from where you move to just in case an add spawns in the back or if you need to use mend pet.
   

By all means, if you guys have any handy tips or tricks, leave me a comment and I'll put it up here.  But for now this is all I can think of.  (Oh also, my guild and I defeated Halfus Wyrmbreaker on heroic :D 1 down, 12 to go.)