Focusing on Cataclysm

One of the big changes for us hunters in Cataclysm is the removal of Mana, which will be replaced with Focus.

Focus will work much like Energy does for Rogues. It goes from 0 to 100 and using different shots spends some of our Focus, which replenishes itself at a rate of 5 Focus per second. Steady Shots help too, recovering 1 Focus per shot. But numbers are numbers and while some are looking for them, right now I think the important question is: how does it feel like?
Well I like it. I like it for 2 reasons: first of all, we are Hunters. We use our guns or our bows or our crossbows or whatever throws bullets or arrows to mobs and other players. We use traps. We have pets. We rock. We’re not casters, we don’t use magic. Mana is a magic thing and it should be used by caster for their castering things. We, hunters have no business on using Mana for our huntering. Cataclysm brings Focus. And I’m happy that it did. It’s OUR resource. To shoot stuff. Yeah!

Now for the second reason...

Hunters have been using Mana since… Well… Ever? Now Blizzard throws is this whole new resource. Hunter gear had Intellect on it and we relied on huge Mana pools to get us going and going. And whenever something went wrong or we were forced to fight long battles -- such as Boss fights, we could pop Aspect of the Viper and there we go again. On regular fights you didn’t have to worry that much about Mana management. Hunters usually had huge amounts of Mana that could support them for a few fights before having to replenish somehow. Resource management has been quite dead for us hunters. Realistically, how much do we really worry about our Mana management when compared to Shaman or Priests or Warlocks or whatever other class that uses Mana? Yes we keep an eye on it but do we really have to do some real management? No, we don’t. Most of us at least.

Now, with Focus… That’s a whole different game. We don’t have a Focus pool of a gazillion points and shots that spend 5-10% of our pool. We have 100 points and our abilities spend 25, 30, 50 focus. That’s right. 25%, 30% or even 50% of our pool. Throw a couple of Aimed Shots and poof: there goes all your Focus. Four Arcane Shots? Ditto. Right now you could shoot 20 Steady Shots or Arcane Shots before running out of Mana (a bit more actually due to the casting time or cooldown). Quite a difference, heh?
Focus brings more fun to our class. We now have to manage our resource. We have to be on top of it, get ways of replenishing it and use it the best way while still maximizing our DPS and this, for us, highly increases the fun!