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Review – Piano no Mori: The Perfect World of Kai 钢琴之森
Love it:
Browsing through the net and able to found the anime adaptation of Makoto Isshiki ongoing manga Piano no Mori: The Perfect World of Kai (ピアノの森 -The perfect world of KAI-?, lit. “Piano Forest”). I first get introduced to this manga way back in my secondary school, probably 10 years back, i found myself attracted by the simplicity of the story well and the uniqueness of the storyline – Piano. I am a total big fans of piano play. Too bad, i’m not having chance to learn it when i was young.
General details from wikipedia:
Piano no Mori: The Perfect World of Kai (ピアノの森 -The perfect world of KAI-?, lit. “Piano Forest”) is an ongoing manga by Makoto Isshiki, about Shuhei Amamiya, who transfers to Moriwaki Elementary filled with hope and ambition about his new life. But it doesn’t take long before he gets picked on by the class bullies, and gets involved in a dare to play the mysterious piano in the forest, leading to his meeting an enigmatic child that goes by the name of Kai Ichinose, who seems to be the only one capable getting sound out of the thought to be broken piano. His ability earns him the respect of Shuhei and his music teacher, former master pianist Sosuke Ajino. At first Kai is resistant to refining his art but after hearing Sosuke play a Chopin piece he just can’t seem to play by himself, he relents.
It has been serialized by Kodansha since 1998, initially in Young Magazine Uppers before transferring to Weekly Morning. Serialization is irregular, and went on hiatus in 2002 before resuming in 2006. The serial chapters have been collected in 16 bound volumes to date.
The series was adapted as a 2007 Japanese animated feature film by director Masayuki Kojima and production company Madhouse. The film featured performances by the renowned pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy.
Here’s the mandarin version of the summary (contain spoiler):
故事主要讲述日本天才钢琴家阿宇野因为意外而导致手部受伤，至不能在钢琴上攀上世界的高峰，在心灰意冷之下，阿宇野抛弃了他的钢琴。殊不知被弃在森林里的 钢琴郤为一小孩发现，而小孩慢慢与钢琴发展出深厚感情，在缘份的牵引下，阿字野发现这小孩便是自己的学生海，最令他惊讶的是，海竟透过森林中的钢琴孕育出 天才的音乐感，那是能在世界发光发热的音乐感，阿宇野决定把海带到世界去…
这是只属于一个人的钢琴。立志成为钢琴家的少年雨宫修平因为要给奶奶治病而从东京搬到了乡下。穿着、谈吐、爱好都那么与众不同的都市男孩自然受到了排挤和 欺负。因为他有朋友——真正的朋友。
朋友的名字是一濑海。他是一个漂亮得超过女孩的男孩，不过却野性十足。海的母亲是住在贫民窟板条屋的妓女， 他因此常常被班里的小霸王欺负。也因为同样都被欺负，修平与海相识了。最令人意想不到的是，海居然会弹钢琴！
在贫民窟海简陋的家楼旁边， 有一个小树林，在那树林里，有一架只有海才能弹奏的钢琴。老旧的钢琴在海的弹奏下发出温柔的声音，抚慰着住在板条屋当中人们的心灵。因为 有着共同的爱好，修平与海成为了好朋友。自从发现了海的才能以后，修平的心中就有隐约的不安。因为，修平的父亲是知名的钢琴家，他自己也 一直以父亲为榜样而努力着。然而无师自通学会弹奏钢琴的海的琴声却让他体验到了自己所缺乏的那种感动人心的素质。“我要证明……在小学
生 里我是最好的！”修平这样说，也这样努力着——目标是全日本学生钢琴大赛。
海他们就读的小学的音乐 老师阿字野先生。二十年前，阿字野壮介以高度的技巧与华丽的风姿活跃于钢琴界，是日本的明日之星。但是命运弄人，一次事故让他失去了生命 中最重要的两样东西：他的爱人和弹钢琴的左手。意志消沉的阿字野将只有自己才能弹奏的专用钢琴丢弃，等到他回神过来再次找到这架钢琴的时 候，它已经被丢在一个乡下的小树林当中了。阿字野悲哀地发现，自己已经无法再用这架钢琴弹出任何声音来了！意志消沉的他到附近的小学当了音乐教 师，十年。如今，当阿字野再度涉足这座森林时，他听到了钢琴声，那曲子正是他所作。走进森林，他看到一位赤脚的少年在月光下入神地弹奏着。那正是他曾失去的钢琴！那正是他曾失去的琴声！
“一濑，我们一起弹钢琴吧。”然而，海拒绝了阿字野教导他弹钢琴的好意。一方面是因为事情太突如其来难以接受；另一方面，修平求教于阿字野却被拒绝，海敏锐地感觉到了友人的心 情而不想让修平难过。可是，他没有意识到，自己其实是真正的喜欢弹钢琴的！肖邦、莫扎特、贝多芬……那些大师们美妙乐曲的诱惑是海所无法 拒绝的。为了学会弹奏肖邦的曲 子，他终于求教于阿字野，而阿字野的交换条件正是——参加全日本学生钢琴大赛。
Review
While i have read through all the manga release todate, i have never expect or thought that there will be an anime adaptation of the manga, i felt so lucky today, to be able to revise the story line with a well done anime.
The anime itself is less than satisfaction in my opinion. It is too short to slot in all the neccesary plot and storyline. The best thing about the story is where we will be able to see the Kai Ichinose, the genius pianist grow up to understand, love and share the happiness of playing a piano. This anime is simply too short and unable to capture the whole essence of the story line. Due to this limitation, it is only able to cover only one district tournament, where Kai, play a piece by Mozart in the tournament, only to stop, and play his own version of Mozart because his sensei told him so. This is where the story really bright up, and from what i can see from the ending of the anime, it opens up oppourtunities to continue the storyline, in the form of anime serialize, much like TomokoNinomiya’s Nodame_Cantabile (交响情人梦).
Reception sumamry from wikipedia:
Piano no Mori received the Grand Prize for best manga at the 2008 Japan Media Arts Festival.
The movie adaptation debuted in 9th place at the Japanese box office the week it came out, unusually high for a non-franchise animated film. By the end of the year, it had grossed the equivalent of $1,555,297, ranking 119 on the overall yearly box office chart for Japan. In South Korea, the film played for 50 weeks and grossed the equivalent of $182,884. The film was nominated for the 2008 Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year. It was also nominated in the Theatrical Film category at the 2008 Annecy International Animated Film Festival. The film made its Canadian / North American premiere at the 2008 Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema.
Conclusion
Go google about this anime / manga and watch it / read it. You will definitely love it.
Greentea 16 April 2010 – Friday night random / Work / Life
- Image via Wikipedia
Its friday night in Malaysia, finally able to fix my headphone to allow speaking in ventrillo, now, its my time to trash the vent.
Busy as always in the office, but seriously started to feel jaded, repetition of work, lack of challenge, no clear objectives, lack of clear KPI, is killing me. Trying hard to wear a smile whole day long, no point being all stressed up just because of some not so lucky break in work. Playing wow there, listening to some music, downloading some songs / movie, surfing net, pretty standard friday night for me, sigh, gonna change this lifestyle as soon as possible. Need an impetus for the change, wonder when i can get cf for my new family house, so me and my family can finally move, a move which i believe will be a life changer for me. It’s the start of a fresh and renew life, more fruitful, and positive life.
Love life still pretty dry at the moment, not sure how happy she is, but at least she made up her mind, something that i seriously think that she lack all this while. Her work neighbour / colleague seems to be under love stress, not sure what happened there, but to see him under so much love trouble, make me wonder who is he to give critical advice to her when he himself is struggling with his love life. Get a lot of cheer and ask from friends, colleagues and even call from my ex, chatting with me and ask me to hold on and cheer up. In truth, i’m all wound up this round, gonna take me a while to ever start to fall in love again.
Since i miss my MBA graduation ceremony on 12 April 2010, roughly a week ago from today, just done sending email to my University to get them to sent me my testamur for completion, gonna get my official cert and start searching for alternative career opportunities. no matter how satisfy i am with our current job, its always a good idea to keep looking, meh, i read that from the book “Who move my cheese?”….
Doubt that i can achieve the goal that i set for myself by the next appraisal, the job that i’m currently assigned to are simply too insignificant to get notice. I felt like a raw diamond waiting to get polish, the sad part is, i am still under the ground waiting for ppl to realize my existence. I get advice from friend to take action, be aggressive to sell myself, but hey, that is simply not my way of principal, i hate overselling. Don’t feel like going to my boss to clarify my position, someone her stature, should knows and understand my expectation and feelings, getting an MBA graduate with reasonable working experience plus managerial experience to work on excel mainly day in day out is not something i call optimizing the resources. To her credit, in my 9 months work so far in the organization, spanning two separate unit, im now feeling more confident, better equipped and BATTLE ready.
While i am sitting on the bench waiting for substitution, i am eager and driven to prove myself on the field. Stay positive is all that i can do now. a diamond shine forever, maybe what i need is time.
Until then, later.
Stargate Universe Review – Ep 10 – 12 Crap…
- Image via Wikipedia
Episode 10
Is it me or everyone else also think that the new Stargate Universe are boring? Watching episode ten now, and a homicide investigation on the ship? Come on, leave the investigation thing to CSI. Then with suspicion on Young, and the distrust atmosphere on the ship, its gives me carbon of LOST (TV-series) feeling – crap. Then it become some court stuff, defendant and court hearing, omg, PRACTICE, and NCIS? I don’t even bother to finish the episode.
Sgt. Spencer is found dead, and Col. Young is implicated in his possible murder. Meanwhile, a crew member tries to use the chair interface and Rush is abandoned on an alien planet, when Col. Young discovers that Rush is the one who framed him.
Get creative…
Episode 11
OMG, there’s alien. Now that’s fun. OMG again, space ships… haha.. alien speaks English and tell: U BADASS, SURRENDER! OMG again, fighter alien ships…. Cool… first real space battle.. haha.. well, alien fighters not cool, looks dull, the design looks dull…
Alien in the house (well ship)… haha they capture someone (Chloe), and the alien looks like octopus head…
A malfunction with the communication stones puts Young accidentally finding himself onboard an alien vessel before quickly transporting back onto Destiny. When the expedition tries to get into contact with the aliens, they find themselves under attack. Chloe is kidnapped and when Col. Young attempts a rescue, he finds Rush as a prisoner on the ship. Together Rush and Chloe escape and Rush supposedly makes peace with Col. Young.
Haha, go to their ship and rescue.. the succeed. crap, but at least there’s alien… What they really want, is Destiny!
Episode 12
Nightmare… bla, Lost again… Haha spy ship. BOOM, shuttle vaporize… hahha…., internal power shifting… haha alien onboard… Cool tracking device on the chest, never thought of that. Dialing the shield. ER. to take off tracking device. Hyberspace jump before shield wear off.
Rush suspects that following the events of “Space”, there may be a tracking device on Destiny’s hull, while a group executes a coup d’état onboard. The Destiny then comes under attack from the aliens. The military members of the crew are locked up in a section of the ship. Young and Greer escape and let the rest of the military go, and find out that Rush was implanted with a tracking device, and he was afraid that if Young knew about it, he would be killed. The tracking device is removed, and the Destiny jumps into FTL.
Not too bad episode, just the ship fighting scene = boring, and i have to really comment on the design of those ships, its terrible. The alien newly met alien enemy is not so high tech after all, overall, lets hope that we can learn more about the enemy in the future episodes.
Summary:
The series is starting to show some promising, hopefully it will be more phew phew and less qq in the future episodes.
Edit: added StargateWiki summary for the episode.
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Time of EVE – Android and the future
- Image via Wikipedia
Well, today’s wow maintenance day. Just finish watching the first three episode of anime – Time of Eve (イヴの時間, Ivu no Jikan?).
According to wiki,
Time of eve is an anime produced by Studio Rikka and DIRECTIONS, Inc. using 2D characters with 3D background. The first episode was streamed on 1 August 2008 on Yahoo! Japan, the second on 1 October 2008, the third on 1 December 2008, the fourth on 1 May 2009, the fifth on 1 July 2009 and the sixth on 18 September 2009. The official website mentions the series as “first season” leaving the second season a possibility, but it has not been confirmed. “Time of Eve the Movie: First Season Complete Edition” premieres theatrically in Japan on March 6, 2010.
After watching the first three episode (only three episode accessible to me now), i have felt greatly captivated by the deepness of the story telling.
In the not too distant future androids have come into common usage. Rikuo, who has taken robots for granted for his entire life, one day discovers that Sammy, his home android, has been acting independently and coming and going on her own. He finds a strange phrase recorded in her activity log, “Are you enjoying the Time of Eve?”. He, along with his friend Masaki, traces Sammy’s movements and finds an unusual cafe, “The Time of Eve”. Nagi, the waitress, informs them that the cafe’s main rule is to not discriminate between humans and androids. Within the cafe androids do not display their status rings, and, when patrons depart, the door is automatically locked for two minutes to prevent someone from following them to discover their true nature.
The first few episodes involve conversations between Rikuo (usually accompanied by Masaki) and the cafe regulars: the bubbly Akiko, child Chie and her elderly guardian, the lovers Koji and Rina, and others. These conversations make frequent allusion to Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, often highlighting surprising interpretations of those laws, some of which form apparent loopholes. The overarching plot involves the beginnings of independence displayed by the androids, what they do with that independence within the bounds of the three laws, and what motivates them. Secondary plots involve the individual stories of each android the protagonists encounter in the cafe, and how they come to discover which patrons are androids and which are not.
Cool, it will happen to us in the not long distant future.
Well, i am not going to spoil much about the content, just look at the awards that the anime received:
Awards/honors:
- New York International Children’s Film Festival 2010 (NYICFF) Official Selection (Act 01 Akiko, Flicker Lounge Program, short films)
- 2010 Tokyo International Anime Fair’s 9th Tokyo Anime Award, Original Video Animation Category Excellence Award
Screenings:
- SCI-FI-LONDON 2009, UK (Episodes 1-6, OKTOBERFEST 2009 event)
- ICon Festival 2009, Israel (Episodes 1-6)
- Future Film Festival, Italy (Episodes 1-3, non-competition special event)
- Polymanga 2009, Switzerland (Episode 1)
Do not miss this if you get the chance to watch it…
Cataclysm Class Preview: Hunter (09-04-2010)
- Image via Wikipedia
Kind of disapointed with all this changes, these stuff, camo and trap launcher are not new to us… its been tested in WOTLK beta before it goes live… the changes from mana to focus seems really fuckup the class, a few things to note, some of the shots are way too focus expensive, well, i guess we will need a whole season to learn the class again…
With the upcoming World of Warcraft: Cataclysm many game elements will be changing, and each class will be receiving a number of tweaks. Here, we will explore the changes that are being made to the gun-wielding, pet-training hunter. The information you’re about to read is certainly not complete, and is only meant to act as a preview of some of the exciting new things to come. Without further ado, let’s take a look at the new hunter abilities! Cant wait for this….
Edit 1: April 13 2010: added comment by Megatf the pvp hunter hero
Edit 2: April 13 2010: added Blue post on additional information
New Hunter Abilities
Cobra Shot (level 81): A new shot that deals Nature damage instead of Physical damage. This ability will share a cooldown with Steady Shot. This will give hunters an alternative to Steady Shot on heavily-armored targets, and we will have talent incentives in the Beast Mastery tree to make this a signature shot. zzz a new cast shot… That’s pretty cool. Will provide great damage against plate targets unless they are focusing Hunters.
Trap Launcher (level 83): When used, the next trap can be shot to a location within 40 yards. This provides the current Freezing Arrow treatment to all traps and, as a result, we will be removing the current ability Freezing Arrow. 1-minute cooldown. No global cooldown. Remove freezing arrow and Trap launcher = 1 min cd?
The way I’m reading this ability is that it will just make Freezing Arrow a 1 minute cooldown and force us to use the Old trap inbetween this CD. So now Hunters gain a new keybind to do the same thing they are currently doing except now we can do it with frost trap.
Pro’s:
We can shoot frost traps at our teammates so they can kite away easier.
Cons:
We lose a clutch ability. Freeze Trap for a 1 minute cooldown to do the same thing.
If this ability is on CD we now have to physically run to our target scatter shot and drop a tr ap at their feet.
Questions:
Will this be targeted? It isn’t a 100% clear, like our own real targeted CC?
Or will it be exactly like Freezing Arrows current implementation but allow us to use it on all our traps?
Why remove Freezing Arrow? To me it feels like an overall nerf to our CC ability. As it stands Hunters already currently have the most unreliable CC. Especially since Spell Penetration STILL does not effect Hunter traps.
Camouflage (level 85): The hunter enters an obscured state that prevents him or her from taking ranged damage. The character would still be subject to melee or area-of-effect attacks, and dealing or taking damage will break the Camouflage effect. The hunter can move and set traps when under Camouflage, and will receive a damage bonus when attacking while under Camouflage (which will then break the effect). Do we get stealth or invisible when camouflage?
Umm definately want to get more clarification on this ability, hard to comment with the limited data we have. Like here are a couple questions:
What is the cooldown?
Am I reading it correctly that we have to break camoflauge by doing the damage?
I’m assuming it cannot be up indefinately so what is the duration?
How big will the damage bonus be?
Taking any damage at all from melee will make it extremely difficult and buggy to use, right now from the previews I’ve seen it looks like Cataclysm is going to feel more like pinball PvP based on Lifegrip, Deathgrip, Charge, Heroic Leap, etc.
It sounds like it could possibly be too good or really bad against range classes. Essentially an extra deterrence if no melee are touching me
Resource Mechanic Change
Here we come to the meat of the upcoming hunter changes.
* Hunters will no longer use mana; instead the class will use Focus. Focus generates much like Energy, by building up. It will not be affected by Intellect at all. Haste will improve its generation. Hunters will generate roughly 6 Focus per second, slightly less than rogues’ Energy generation rate of around 10 Energy per second. Below, we have listed some examples of how we intend Focus costs to operate: 6 focus per sec seems like forever to save to shot an aim shot…
o Steady Shot/Cobra Shot: No cost. Generates 9 Focus per shot (or 12 per second instead of 6).
o Arcane Shot/Chimera Shot /Explosive Shot: 45 Focus.
o Aimed Shot/Multi-Shot: 60 Focus.
o Concussive Shot/Tranquilizing Shot: 35 Focus.
o Rapid Fire/Master’s Call/Disengage: 30 Focus.
Okay, with efficiency lowering the cost on shots I can understand the energy cost on these abilities.. Wait for it… Except Master’s Call and Disengage. These moves are meant to be twitch moves, to be used offensively or defensively and if not used correctly or not quick enough can and frequently results in deaths or hard to recover situations.
I’m going to use Rogues as a reference since their resource system resembles Hunters so closely.
Sprint, Evasion, and Vanish cost 0 focus. Can also be prepped and done again. Sprint is their form of disengage with evasion + vanish being huge survivability tools that have to be used at split second times similar to master’s call. They have no resource cost. Putting nearly 1/3rd of our energy into these abilities is going to seriously hurt Hunter survivability. Frequently when being trained against teams Hunters use both Disengage + Master’s call to quickly get out of a really bad situation (DG + COI + Bladestorm for example).
This will easily use up two-thirds of our entire resource bar giving us the ability to only cast ONE shot (If we haven’t already done so), and only under the circumstance that we need to use both these abilities and/or have at least 60 energy up.
I don’t think I can make this any more clear, IMO these are not abilities that need to have focus costs on them. This problem will carry over into PVE as well for disengaging hunters. Hunters who use disengage/masters call to quickly get back into range and continue DPS are going to be seriously penalized by this change as well.
If you feel that Hunters need an extra focus dump (I know some Hunters are going to hate this opinion), then give Frost Trap and Freezing Trap the 30 focus cost. Blind is an ability that costs 30 focus for rogues, let this carry over to Hunters as well. Make us plan ahead on using our CC. If I use this damaging attack will I have enough resources to make sure I CC the healer?
My opinion.
Changes to Abilities and Mechanics
In addition to the resource change and new abilities listed above, we intend to make adjustments to some of the other abilities and mechanics you already know well. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we’re going for with each spec.
* A major change coming for the hunter is the removal of ammunition. Guns, bows, and crossbows will now do damage without consuming ammunition at all. There will be no more ammo slot on the hunter’s character display. Any ammunition that a hunter has at the time of the change will become gray sellable items. Existing quivers will be converted into large bags — though each hunter can only have one and non-hunters will not benefit from this change — and we will not be making any additional quivers. Magic bullet and arrow?
* Pet management will also change. Hunters will now have two types of attainable pets: active pets and stored pets. Hunters will be able to have up to three active pets (perhaps five for Beast Mastery specialized players) and will have the ability to switch among these pets any time they are out of combat, without going to town. They will also be able to have a large number of pets in storage at the stables. In order to swap a pet from active to passive, a hunter will still need to visit their local Stable Master. However, this should afford ample storage for the many Spirit Beasts wandering the lands of Azeroth. Pokemon?
* Additionally, hunters will now start with a race-appropriate pet at level 1 and will be able to tame a different pet at level 10. We are also changing many pet family abilities to provide important buffs and debuffs. The intention is to allow the hunter to be able to swap pets and fill a position if a certain role is missing from the group. The goal is to have all pets provide a damage increase that is very similar and no greater than any other pet. Some examples of the changes we are making to the pet families are listed below:
o Wind Serpents: Will provide a debuff that increases the amount of spell damage taken by an enemy (similar to a weaker version of the warlock ability Curse of Elements). We pet a warlock
o Ravagers: Will provide a debuff that will increase an enemy’s Physical damage vulnerability (similar to a weaker version of the warrior ability Rampage). We pet a Warrior
o Hyenas: Will provide bleed damage (similar to a weaker version of the druid ability Mangle). We finally able to pet a druid… thanks Blizzard
* Stings and other periodic effects will now benefit from haste and critical strike ratings. Hasted damage-over-time abilities do not lose duration, but instead add additional damage ticks. Z
* Viper Sting will now restore 9 Focus every 3 seconds.
* We are reinforcing hunters as a ranged class. To this end, the class will now start with ranged abilities at level 1, and we will be removing some melee abilities, such as Mongoose Bite. Ranged class…
New Talents and Talent Changes
* Beast Mastery hunters will have a new talent called Careful Aim, which increases the damage of the next Steady Shot or Cobra Shot, but also increases the cast time of these abilities. The intention is to make the combination of spells into a decent damage opener, especially in conjunction with the new ability Camouflage. Woot…. Big number shot… Huge increase for BM PvE DPS and PvP especially if left alone.
* Beast Mastery hunters will also have talents that make Cobra Shot superior to Steady Shot, such as Longevity reducing the cast time of Cobra Shot to 1.5 seconds. Why all BM changes? How will this work with careful aim? If careful aim increases the cast time on steady shot and cobra shot, will this ability still make cobra shot a 1.5 second cooldown?
* Rapid Recuperation will cause Rapid Fire to give 20/40/60 Focus immediately and will cause Rapid Killing to generate 3 Focus per second. Why no Survivor hunter changes? I like the ability be able to quickly gain focus on the fly which Hunters will need, BUT I do not like that it is tied to Rapid Fire. I feel as though Rapid Fire should be seperate, something I would want to use to pop off a ton of steady shots if I’m left alone for enough time. If I pop rapid fire, gain 60 energy, I will then have to start dumping that focus before I can start weaving the lowered cast speed steady/cobra shots in my rotation.
* Efficiency will reduce the Focus cost of Chimera Shot, Aimed Shot, and Arcane Shot.
* Thrill of the Hunt grants Focus when you land a critical strike. Why mentioned it when its effect remain the same, the only different is the mana to focus thingy. Great for survival, but only for survival. Can’t be mixed and matched with other talent trees really limiting this ability, would be nice to hopefully see this lowered in the tree and more accessible to other specs
* Hunter vs. Wild increases the hunter’s Focus generation when his or her pet is snared, stunned, or rooted. Hunter get wild therefore more focus… I know I shouldn’t assume, but, I am taking it that it will be a 30% focus increase? Causing us to gain 8 energy instead of 6 while not casting steady/cobra shot, and 16 energy while casting steady/cobra? But ONLY if our pet is snared, rooted or stunned?
I’m not a fan of this, I think the previous incarnation was better due to the fact we won’t have to rely on our pets being focused to make use of this ability. (Or a frost nova, druid root, or actually taking serious damage)
Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses
Beast Mastery
Ranged Damage
Haste
Pet Damage
Since we are going into BM I want to know about pet scaling. Will Resilience continue to scale with our pets? Will our pets gain our passive stats and gain more of the Hunters HP? I’m hoping Haste will scale with BM pets.
Marksmanship
Ranged Damage
Armor Penetration
Double Shot
I’m confused, I was under the impression that Cataclysm was going away with Armor Penetration after we saw the mess that Warriors have made with this stat? Is this stating that we’ll have future seasons of Warriors and possibly Hunters reducing targets down to 50% of their armor? I really hope not, I was looking forward to not having this dreaded stat for future seasons of Arena.
Survival
Ranged Damage
Ranged Critical Damage
Elemental Damage (well im pretty exited with this one)
Nothing really changing here
Pet Damage: Many of the passive benefits to pet damage will no longer be available in the Beast Mastery talent tree. However, these will be provided through the new Mastery mechanic. Cannot really comment until we see this new mastery.
Double Shot: The hunter will have a chance to launch a free attack off of the global cooldown for 50% damage.
Sword specilization? Will this proc off of all attacks or will it launch off of only autoshots? I am guessing it will be more like the Warrior incarnation and have an ICD as getting wild quiver procs, then this proc, plus autoshot damage and a special ability (And an extra proc or two in the mix) would be ridiculous burst.
Elemental Damage: Hunter abilities such as traps, Black Arrow, and Explosive Shot will do elemental damage of the following types: Arcane, Fire, Frost, Nature, and Shadow. So, we can choose a certain elements to focus? More details needed on this pls….
So does this mean we’ll finally not have to worry about trap resists or explosive shot resists? If so, it will be extremely nice not to have to gem spell penetration for Survival but if you are going to make Explosive shot do elemental damage, Chimera should fall in this category as well since it is in fact the MM 51 pointer just like the Explosive shot 51 pointer.
We hope you enjoyed this preview, and ask that you provide your initial thoughts and feedback on what was presented here. Please keep in mind that what you’ve just reviewed is a work in progress and as we move closer to the Cataclysm beta, you’ll see these planned changes as well as others continue to develop in response to feedback and testing. More.. more…
Now that my review has been said. I know I have had a tendency to be a huge douchebag in the past. (You can say it GC I won’t be mad), but I’m trying to be really constructive and give a good opinion. I would appreciate constructive replies so that way GC has a good post to go on. Even have a collaboration of ideas between lots of Hunters.
Even if you do not agree with me, I promise I won’t call you names, I’ll continue to state my points and listen to yours for proper discussion.
Additional Information
How much focus Hunters will get?
100. (Source)
Abilities focus cost
The focus costs are just examples. I wouldn’t obsess too much with trying to min / max your rotations just yet. In general, the basic rotations of all three hunters work okay on live today. With focus you might hit moments where you don’t need to Steady at all, and you’ll never run dry again for long periods of time like you might with mana.
If the costs of some of the defensive cooldowns are too expensive or even need to be free that’s certainly the kind of thing we’ll consider. (Source)
Ammo in Cataclysm
There is no ammo slot on your character sheet in Cataclysm. It no longer exists. (Source)
Elemental Damage clarification
Improves the Arcane, Fire, Frost, Nature or Shadow damage of abilities like traps, Black Arrow and Explosive Shot. (Source)
Camouflage
It is *not* stealth. Your enemies will never wonder where you are. We’re trying to use the new Cataclysm water effect to put a shimmering PREDATORy visual on you. It’s protection from ranged attacks and it gives you some combat bonuses, but it’s not like Shadowmeld or rogue / druid stealth where players can’t find you.
As most of you know, we tried Camo once before, but because it was true stealth it was very hard to balance, plus it felt like we were just handing out the same cool abilities to every class instead of coming with unique mechanics. Hunters were so overwhelmingly excited about the basic idea that we wanted to try it again, but not as stealth.
[…] The idea is you are only vulnerable to melee attacks or ranged AEs.
[…] If you target a camo hunter or a rogue using Smoke Bomb, you will get an error message saying something like “Target obscured.” You can see them and target them, but can’t use your attacks. Imagine they are behind a pillar or something. You can try and get off an AE near them or you can move to melee.(Source)
Cobra Shot / Steady Shot shared “cooldown”
At this point in time it’s not actually a cooldown. Cobra Shot has a 2 sec cast time, but Beastmaster has a talent to reduce the cast time to 1.5 sec (as well as a few damage hooks). Both generate focus so there is no reason for BM to ever use Steady again. (Source)
Healing reduction effects in Cataclysm
“All equivalent debuffs” means if you have the debuff today, you will have it in Cataclysm, but at 20% healing received. To avoid further confusion, we are talking about Mortal Strike, Furious Strikes, Wound Poison, Aimed Shot, Permafrost and Improved Mind Blast.
We are also strongly considering having all of these effect cause the same debuff, called Mortal Wounds, which is a physical effect and therefore undispellable. This allows the behavior to be more consistent regardless of who is applying it and lets us consider things like how easy it should be to dispel poisons (since Mortal Wounds would not be affected).
Heals will be smaller and health pools will be larger in Cataclysm, so we don’t expect Mortal Wounds to feel as mandatory as it does today, but this is clearly the kind of thing that will require a lot of playtesting and feedback. (Source)
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