I was going to do a class overview with the information we have so far about 6.0 but it was largely going to be bitching and pitting the 3 specs against each other to illustrate which look to be the weakest link for WoD.

Instead I'm going to talk about class usability stuff so that our Hunters or people looking to boost or level a Hunter for use in WoD can prepare for the coming shift. Some of you guys might want to tame some new pets -- I know I will be.

First up: Misdirection will last an hour in WoD.

This information comes to us via tweet from Celestalon. Now you will just set your MD on somebody (who isn't a healer, Grasen) for the whole of your dungeon run or whatever. That's pretty cool. It also makes MD more useful for BM Hunters which has been kind of an issue before. So good job Blizzard.

Second: Pet abilities are being swapped around again. Exotic abilities are becoming non-exotic.

Exotic pets will still exist; and if you want one of the new WoD Dragonfly pets you will need to be Beastmastery to have one. But the appeal of Exotics is diminishing a lot. As it stands today you need to be Beastmastery in order to use a battle rez or Heroism through a pet. In WoD that is no longer true.

Crane and Moth pets will be able to cast a battle rez for Hunters of any spec. (The spells are called Gift of Chi-ji and Dust of Life respectively if you want to go look 'em up on WoWhead or WoWDB). Hunter brezz has always been unresponsive and wonky compared to the DK / Druid / Warlock versions but it's still worth having in your arsenal so I highly endorse that every Hunter in guild go out and tame one of these things.

Heroism will also be accessible by Marks and Surv Hunters through Nether Ray pets. This is absolutely amazing utility to have so get get a Nether Ray.

Alpha is alpha so I don't want to make too many "Go out and tame this" statements. But historically Blizzard usually doesn't reiterate on assigned pet specials too much once they have their first draft ready for an expansion and then they ignore pets again until they eff 'em all up next expansion and we have to rememorize what all pets use which specials again. Goddamnit Blizzard just stop redefining pet specials every expansion.

Blargh.

Third: Marks and Surv Hunters who take the Lone Wolf talent will still get to cast some pet buffs.

I absolutely hate the Lone Wolf talent but that's a rant for another post. Hunters who take it will be able to still buff basic things like Mastery and Stats and all that jazz. You won't be able to do the more complex stuff like Heroism and Brezz but you don't deserve those things as a petless Hunter anyways, ya jerk.

At any rate, I don't want to make this post too big. If people want to discuss other 6.0 Hunter stuff or want me to rant about our new perks / talents / specs as they stand right now in Alpha then let us have at it here.