Aspect of the Fox

[Spl4sh3r]

Aspect of the Fox is a new ability for all Hunters.

• Aspect of the Fox: Party and raid members within 40 yards take on the aspects of a fox, allowing them to move while casting all spells for 6 seconds. Only one Aspect can be active at a time. 3 minute cooldown.

I feel this raid utility isn't good enough for the casual/normal raid group. I mean don't get me wrong, it is nice that everyone will be able to cast and move. However I can only see it useful on some fights where there is a lot of moving. Think Lei Shen in Throne of Thunder when you move between pillars. The wording on it seems weird also. A 3 minute cooldown does that mean that the Aspect will turn off after 6 seconds even though Aspects lasts until cancelled? Also everyone in the raid group has to learn to cast spells while moving all of the sudden, which most won't be used to unless they have similar abilities themselves that will let them cast on the movie. Those that have those abilities tend to be restricted to certain spells, will Fox also have those restriction?

[Teph]

The average person won't even notice it is active. Only works if you plan ahead in your raidgroup and call it. Then it's nice to have maybe, but 6s is too short.

[khatian]

If you didn't see:

"Aspect of the Fox: Party and raid members within 40 yards take on the aspects of a fox, allowing them to move while casting all spells for 6 seconds. Only one Aspect can be active at a time. 3 minute cooldown."

I don't think the aspect of the fox raid cool down provides enough utility for hunters. Six seconds is too short for something your raid group needs to react to and also stop using prematurely and requires everyone in your group to have additional addons to get the full use of the cooldown.

In the best case scenario the cool down provides not that much more defensive power as many other defensive/healing cooldown (plus of course a slight dps gain). Let's look at a best case scenario, massive raid damage while forcing movement, something like whirls on garrosh or maze phase on durumu. Does fox provide any more gain then something like a healing tide totem? A healing tide totem that is also useful in EVERY other fight!!! Yes there is a dps gain, but how much are you really gaining off those few seconds overall?

I can see this being somewhat useful for toptop guilds really pushing gear limits and clever strats may be used for some fights with multiple hunters on some select fights, but it's general usefulness on most fights is pretty low.

Duration is too low! If it was possible with tech so anyspell you start casting with the fox on would complete that wouldn't be as bad, but right now:
-You're middle of gcd/starting to hit your next one, fox hits, you need to react to fox hitting
-Have your current gcd finish
-Hope you can react dam fast and didn't already start your next gcd
-Decide now to use a cast time spell
-Get a few casts off in what's now a 4.5-5 second window of fox
-Stop casting before fox ends so you don't have a cast interrupted

Feels like you're getting more like 4 seconds of casting in the end, unless it's extremely well timed and planned to a raid event (which sure it will be in those super useful places).

Players in your raid also need to have a way to track the duration of the buff to really get the full use of it. While crit banner and other items may change you're behavior, you're not loosing a half a spell cast when you don't time them properly.

Again don't get me wrong, the ability, especially when stacked with another hunter or two provides some interesting utility on some fights, but again there are so many fights where the gains are SO minor. I realize this is using the current line of thinking, where casters can do more on the move and fights aren't "tuned" to have more abilities like this, but they're also tuned knowing healers and casters can do pretty well now moving.

[Renedric]

It's meant more as a "move from point A to point B as a group" utility without dps downtime. If it takes you more than 6 seconds to get out of fire then that's your problem.

[Noctifer616]

I don't know about other players, but in my guild everyone uses Weakauras, so all they would have to do for Fox CD is add another auras which is easy.

[arbos]

I don't think hunters should even get this. Thematically, it doesn't fit, same as the the mage healing increase cooldown. These two cooldowns offer nothing to their respective classes outside of raids. If it was mages (or any other caster) getting Aspect of the fox (with a different name of course), and a healing class (or at least a hybrid) the healing cooldown, it would make much more sense.

Not exactly sure what happening with hunter aspects, since I haven't really checked hunter ability pruning, but isn't switching out for Aspect of the fox also a dps loss for the hunter using it?

[Noctifer616]

Not exactly sure what happening with hunter aspects, since I haven't really checked hunter ability pruning, but isn't switching out for Aspect of the fox also a dps loss for the hunter using it?

Aspects are gone. It's a regular raid wide CD, not an aura.

[arbos]

Aspects are gone. It's a regular raid wide CD, not an aura.

Ok, fair enough. The "Only one Aspect can be active at a time" threw me off.

[khatian]

It's meant more as a "move from point A to point B as a group" utility without dps downtime. If it takes you more than 6 seconds to get out of fire then that's your problem.

Point is, you don't really have 6 seconds. How much of a dps gain is, what 2 casts from the whole group vs. what else they might have been able to do with those few seconds (refresh dots, use a proc etc). Difference is so minor.

If you had to blow up add (s) on a fight while moving around quickly, sure, but again very situational.

[reef]

Not exactly sure what happening with hunter aspects, since I haven't really checked hunter ability pruning, but isn't switching out for Aspect of the fox also a dps loss for the hunter using it?

nope, aspect of the hawk/iron hawk is passive now so there won't be a dps loss unless its on the gcd.

[Noctifer616]

Sorry. Aspects are still a thing, but Hawk was removed.

Aspect of the Cheetah and Aspect of the Pack both now share a 10-second cooldown and no longer appears on the stance bar.

- - - Updated - - -

Point is, you don't really have 6 seconds. How much of a dps gain is, what 2 casts from the whole group vs. what else they might have been able to do with those few seconds (refresh dots, use a proc etc). Difference is so minor.

If you had to blow up add (s) on a fight while moving around quickly, sure, but again very situational.

It can be 12 seconds if you have two hunters. But yes, depending on the fight it might be minor or extremely powerful.

[Asrialol]

I find it useful. For instance, on Sha in SoO. When people have over 25 pride and you'll get that "bomb" on the ground, pop fox before his cast ends and people can dps / heal on the move which is very useful. It's also very useful on Garrosh when moving from left to right on desecrated weapon, if you run that tactic.

I'm sure there are encounters in WoD that are similar.

[khatian]

Quick math.

I'd say you're only getting roughly a 4.5 second gain on doing full dps versus what you would loose to movement normally for the OP listed reasons. If you would normally do 60% of your stand still dps as a caster while moving, keep in mind you often have instants, procs, dot refreshes you can do while moving (plus dots are still ticking etc) and the fact that you know this movement is coming up to prepare for it (being you are able to coordinate the fox usage), then this equals a 1% dps gain each time it's used. You could argue you do 40-70% dps while moving, but whatever the number is, it's roughly a 1% gain for the casters. Raid of half melee, half ranged minus you're hunters, you're looking at what a 0.4% raid dps gain each "good" use. Hardly a huge impact.
It's not something like crit banner when you were stacking that with all your massive CDs for a multiplicative gain. Oh and where warriors also got a shatter...It's dps impacts are minor, unless there is something that has to be burned down while moving or you are down to the wire on a dps check.

[mistahwilshire]

I proposed this exact idea just months ago and was stoned to death for proposing such an "overpowered" idea.

[Keiyra]

Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth. You get a free raid utility cd and still bitch about it.

Do you realize how useful 5-6 secs of a moving Tranquility or Divine Hymn can be!? (There's a reason nearly every resto druid tries to symbiosis a shaman).
With symbiosis gone, Aspect of the Fox is the next best thing, on top of the added benefits of on the move regular healing/dpsing.

And yes, it wont be great every fight, but it will be wonderful on the fights where it can be used to its fullest.

[Keiyra]

The average person won't even notice it is active. Only works if you plan ahead in your raidgroup and call it. Then it's nice to have maybe, but 6s is too short.

If your group isn't planning ahead on how to use its cd's (or calling out for things when needed) then it doesn't matter what you do anyhow because your raid isn't trying to play very well.

[khatian]

Gift horse in the mouth. They told us we'd get some type of raid utility TBD for months now.

The issue is it's not long enough for tranq or divine hymn. They both last 8 seconds, plus time to see your buff on your screen. I'm mostly argueing the CD needs to be a little longer. And yes, of course you can start the tranq and then fox and then move. Also would mean you need to start the fox a little bit before you actually have to move to make sure it's on in time to move (buffs take a bit to register), so you're loosing even more time.

if Tranq or hymn were shorter or fox was longer, this would be a much bigger help.

[Keiyra]

Gift horse in the mouth. They told us we'd get some type of raid utility TBD for months now.

The issue is it's not long enough for tranq or divine hymn. They both last 8 seconds, plus time to see your buff on your screen. I'm mostly argueing the CD needs to be a little longer. And yes, of course you can start the tranq and then fox and then move. Also would mean you need to start the fox a little bit before you actually have to move to make sure it's on in time to move (buffs take a bit to register), so you're loosing even more time.

if Tranq or hymn were shorter or fox was longer, this would be a much bigger help.

Its not hard to properly time the fox to go off before - proper raid communication handles that.
Haste will also shorten the cast of tranq/hymn by a fair bit...and no one says we need to move for the whole duration of the cast, we can move for 4-5 secs and then stand still to finish the rest of it. Even that could be hugely worthwhile.

[Halyon]

Its not hard to properly time the fox to go off before - proper raid communication handles that.
Haste will also shorten the cast of tranq/hymn by a fair bit...and no one says we need to move for the whole duration of the cast, we can move for 4-5 secs and then stand still to finish the rest of it. Even that could be hugely worthwhile.

What AoF is, is a raid clutch button. A rather specific one. It doesn't benefit dps, it takes up a slot, the duration is hardly worth even using it, over other personal CD's or pots or what have you. If this CD is what saves your raid, I think you have bigger problems. You have to bump haste a whole lot to make this thing work, that means something like saving BL and other things for a MINOR boost.

[Nnug]

Would be incredibly useful for mechanics that are damage + movement intensive, such as Emp Whirls on Garrosh. I may not like it thematically, but people should really stop looking a gifthorse in the mouth