Ghostcrawler posted today on the Blizzard Damage Dealing forum about upcoming hunter changes. I’ll quote the rather longish post and then make some comments afterwards.
First, the body of Ghostcrawler’s post:
Hunters of all specs, and particularly Beastmaster, are doing too much damage in PvE.
We tested this a lot internally in beta and knew hunters were high but we hoped other classes would be able to catch up in a way they have as yet been unable to do. We want to be careful not to hurt hunter dps too much in PvP, so we’re taking most of the damage out of Steady Shot and Volley. Beastmaster hunters are in addition losing some of their pet dps. We still want BMs to have the best pets, but pet dps numbers are a little high at the moment. We are also still concerned about hunter survivability in PvP and taking the opportunity to jazz up Deterrence into something that looks and plays a little more interesting.
These are not all of the changes we are working on for hunters, but those changes we feel are ready for testing. We hope to get these changes up on the PTR so players will have a chance to test them out and respond before they go live.
- Steady Shot – now only gains 10% of attack power as damage (down from 20%).
- Volley – reduced the damage by about 30% for all ranks. Note that AE damage from many classes is very high right now and we are looking at all of them. Volley in particular had reached the point where some hunters were using it to the exclusion of most other attacks.
- Readiness – no longer affects the cooldown of Bestial Wrath.
- Deterrence – has been completely overhauled. It now allows you to deflect 100% of incoming melee or spell damage for 5 seconds, but prevents you from attacking while active. You still must be facing the attacker to deflect the damage (this is a limitation we are trying and might end up removing). 60 sec cooldown.
- Kill Shot – cooldown reduced to 15 sec (from 35 sec).
- Kindred Spirits – now only grants 3/6/9/12/15% pet damage.
- Serpent’s Swiftness – now only grants 2/4/6/8/10% bonus attack speed to pet.
- All hunter pet abilities with a cooldown longer than 30 sec have been moved off the global cooldown.
- Growl— threat generation increased by 20% (same for Voidwalker Torment).
- Call of the Wild – now benefits only the hunter and his or her pet.
- Rake and Scorpid Poison – slightly nerfed to bring them into line with other pet abilities.
- Spirit Strike – reduced the period on the dot so it will work better with Longevity.
- Improved Tracking – now benefits damage to all included creature types as long as you are tracking one of them. You don’t have to swap around what you are tracking as much.
- Aspect of the Wild – now raid-wide.
EDIT: The “only” on Serpent’s Swiftness meant 10% pet attack speed instead of 20%. The hunter bonus is unchanged.
And now, some commentary.
WoW Insider is already calling this the Great Hunter Nerf of 2008, which I think is somewhat premature. (Aside: WoW Insider also paired their post with a pic of a screaming baby. Sometimes I really dislike the way that they treat their readers.) We should have a chance to test this and give feedback on the PTR, probably pretty soon. Many of these changes may be modified significantly before they go live, and others may not make it live at all.
But clearly there are many nerfs in this set of changes. There are also some hopeful signs, especially the increased threat from Growl. Ghostcrawler posted about pet threat generation yesterday, in fact:
Now pet threat generation (Voidwalkers too) is something we are looking at right now.
The Growl change is probably a decent part of their solution. On the other hand, with pet damage being reduced in several ways I am concerned that the boost in Growl threat will only balance that reduction and not increase threat overall. We won’t really know until we see how it plays out on the PTR, though.
I’m also pleased to see that pet abilities with a cooldown of more than 30 seconds have been moved off the Global Cooldown, and that Spirit Strike is being fixed to work better with Longevity. I also like the change to Improved Tracking — it’s very convenient for lackadaisical hunters like myself.
I’m a little disappointed that Ghostcrawler hasn’t mentioned fixes to some other annoying hunter pet bugs (like the Cower thing), but he does say that this is not a comprehensive list of changes. Nor would I necessarily expect bug fixes in a post like this. So hopefully some of those are being worked on as well.
Ghostcrawler’s post is probably going to cause some consternation among hunters. For myself, though, I will merely await the Public Test Realm with great anticipation. And then we shall see how it plays out!
I still maintain that these ‘numbers’ and stuff are being taken from online movies where an awesomely spec’d and super lvl 80 all purple epic geared hunter is running instances with lackluster groups to back him up. It’d be the same if a lvl 80 mage in straight purples all top of the rep list gear went into an instance with a so so hunter in greens and blues. The mage would blow him out of the water in DPS. But.. there’s videos of Hunter’s doing it, with great commentary and bunches of numbers thrown up on sites that get alot of traffic. I don’t see or hear about mage sites like that. Ect add infin.
I still think someone saw a few of the ‘hunter highlight’ movies and just said ‘Nerf um’ The nerfs are so spread out as to not make sense for what Ghostcrawler is saying they’re trying to fix.
So Blizz has done it again…
What bothers me the most is that they dont care about fixing the bugs that haunt our pets they just care to nerf the heck out of us…
:/
Jeez blizz when are you gonna grow up?
WTB fix to steady shot auto-targetting!
And if they’re nerfing us, nerf the bloody retadins already. I have a hard enough time staying on top of the guild ret in Naxx, and I dread PvP anymore, with the OPness of resilience-geared pallies of the elven variety.
Oh, well, great. Hunters finally get good again after BC and Blizz screws us up again. I was just starting to think, “hey, people might actually want us for instance runs again.” Well, not anymore. I agree with Regolith, if we’re not meant to be doing as much damage as other classes, then what are hunters for? I don’t want Steady Shot nerfed. I like using it as my main attack (thanks to Mania’s post about hunter abilities awhile back). Also, if our pets aren’t doing anything much anymore, what’s their use? My usual group (which also makes up the entirety of my guild. Damn, we’re tiny.) love using my pet as the off-tank, but will the nerf make them not worth doing that anymore?
Aside from your husband anyway, Mania.
Come on, you left it open for that.
Our hunter channel last night was filled with cries of shock and dismay. This is disastrous for raiding hunters, who in my opinion were competitive with other pure-dps classes – not overpowered by any means. Yes, hunters can put out good numbers, but not without min-maxing and squeezing every drop from shot rotations, gear, gems, enchants, flasks. We work hard at it. Yes, volley was a bit overpowered, and it was nice to be able to finally do some AOE damage. We had fun. So, we all re-spec MM, and in doing what is anticipated to be about 30% less dps, we don’t justify our raid spots. We don’t bring healing, totems or yummy buffs to the raid…we bring damage. Yaay for a situation where a raid brings a single hunter for misdirection.
This is to big a nerf. I will be quitting wow and going back to xbox. I know about 30 other people in my friend group that agree that this is no longer about stats. Blizzard clearly don’t like hunters.
3. Readiness/BW.
It was 50/21 + cat vs 51+/xx + devilsaur. Now, raiding Beastmasters will be pigeonholed to single spec/single pet for top DPS. To make things worse, they nerf rake. Again.
4. Deterrence.
Nice way to let your opponent(s) regain some energy/runes/mp/whatever while you cannot do anything. Run, Forrest, run. Oh, wait, you have to face your opponent. Backpedal, Forest, backpedal. If 2+ enemies attack you from different angles, the new Deterrence is more than just “useless”, you will actually harm yourself by using it.
8. Cooldowns.
Blizzard way to implement pet changes taught me to expect the worst. Like… Before, they messed up with Spirit Strike and Longevity? Now, I expect 40 sec CD pet abilities (down to 28 sec with 3/3 Longevity) will actually stay ON GCD.
9. Growl.
Nice for MM/SV, but for Beastmasters, 20% more threat from Growl will probably just cover the loss of threat generation from damage.
10. Call of the Wild.
So, other dps classes were inferior to Hunter [b]while buffed by Hunter’s CotW[/b], and now you make it self-only? Nice logic, Blizzard. Why balance, when we can nerf their damage AND make them worthless buff-wise.
No comments on Steady/Volley nerfs, as their percentages will likely change before going live. In the mean time, I’m going to stay in my corner crying :~(
I must admit, my approach to this topic is less calm than Mania’s. I play bm hunters since betatest and release, because I like that class. And what I don’t like is my class being nerfed.
My suggestion to the developing team (not that they would listen to me, but still): fix pet bugs* first, adress hunter issues** and then do the class balancing.
And that damage “correction” surprises me. Let me explain.
We are doing a lot of instances with the guild at the moment, mostly heroic, because we are preparing for Naxx. We have damage meters running, and while I am top dps in some cases, it is not like I am millions of damage away from others. It’s just like it was in raids and instances at lvl 70. I am good damage, but that is what a hunter is supposed to be.
And the statement, that hunter is no designed/intended AoE class. Almost every class has an AoE attack. Is warrior a declared AoE class? A paladin? Or are only people wearing dresses allowed to do AoE damage?
In my opinion it is unfair to blame volley shot for the new dungeon design (AoEing to the bosses being the easiest way).
Whatever, what I am more concerned about is the bestial wrath change, since it is my only pvp tool. Reducing the cooldown is a talent, that requires lots of points to get to. Taking it away makes me again weaker in PvP.
*disappearing pet bar, pet color changes, auto-(de)activating skills, …
**target swapping, dino size in heroics, too short pet bar, …
The biggest problem is that these extremely high numbers being put out are fights like Patchwerk that allow the hunter to plant his or her feet and just unload steadies and don’t have any hazards that require micromanagement of the pet. Still, these changes aren’t even on the PTR so I’m taking the ‘wait and see’ approach. If they only revert the steady shot change, I’ll be happy.
I believe DPS specs should do/contribute about equal DPS, but of course there will be a huge gap if you’re comparing DPS of the casual instance-goer VS. the “hardcore” badge/epic grinder, that’s just the way the game will always work. Not everyone is at the same experience/gear level yet, so I feel like it’s a bit too early for this seemingly big change (and if I recall correctly, there was supposed to be a “beta” or something where there were supposed to test/fix the many bugs and class imbalances that still exist, but I think that was just a dream…).
As for the complaining, I think if everyone was given the identical class with different names, people would still team up and whine to constantly change everything. I’m not attacking you guys specifically or anything, every class does it ;P
I’m thinking this is going to hurt our mana management a lot as well. Less damage from abilities, yet for the same mana cost. Shouldn’t the cost be reduced in proportion to the damage reduction? Damage output vs. mana use would make an interesting theorycraft, but I’m not a math person.
The entire post by GC seemed like a placebo to calm other classes honestly.
Volley currently is WAY WAY OP. Pre-LK Volley was junk, and only used in some rare situations as it did squat for damage. In LK though, if you haven’t tried it…don’t, after all you don’t know what you’ll be missing after the nerf lol. In heroics, I use it a lot, and I’m doing roughly 1500 DPS PER TARGET! That’s crazy. We are not an AOE class, volley was an extra shot for certain situations, not a mainstay shot. If you used only heroics for dmg comparison, and the hunter is abusing Volley, then yes, hunters do WAY too much dps. Volley isn’t that effective in raids as you have a single target usually.
The steady shot nerf kinda sucks, but it’s not like they cut dmg in half or anything.
Pet dmg and attack speed are bad news, but minor.
The kill shot change is actually going to increase our DPS in raids and PvP.
The change to call of the wild is gain to the hunter when comparing DPS to other classes.
Deterrence is a gain for us.
While they are hitting volley with a nerf bat (which it deserves), they are not just taking away, they are actually adding some stuff that should make up for at least some of the losses.
I do however think they are jumping the gun a little. Sure, some guilds have cleared all the content, but the vast majority of players haven’t even done an Arch raid yet. It seems a little early to say that hunters are OP. And honestly, while mages, boomkins, DKs, and ret palies are running around 2 shotting people, it seems like that should be the primary focus for balancing right now lol.
There’s plenty above about the bad points to this news.
The global cooldown on long cd pet skills is actually a major “broken” part of pets at the moment, as it means that “reaction” skills are currently almost impossible to use when the focus dump is running. This will help spiders, nether rays, silithids, rhinos and similar. It will also mean that one can reliably manually use call of the wild, roar of sacrifice, intervene, roar of recovery etc. without having to deactivate part of the pet’s damage.
The Aspect of the Wild change is nice. The growl buff is either nice, or at least necessary given the nerfs (and especially nice for tenacity pets). The Kill Shot change is really nice. They’ve fixed Spirit Strike, although I’d want to hear more about wasps and sporebats myself. However, I can confirm what intrepid hunters on the forum have claimed – the sporebat bug is with rank 5 spore cloud having a given range of 0 rather than 5 – once the pet hits 80 (a somewhat joyless grind in the circumstances) and gets rank 6 it works as intended.
I’m pretty mad about this.
Usually I sit there and let them hit me with the nerf bat.
But this is just wrong!
Okay… For the first time since I played my main hunter, I felt that I could survive PvEing with the Survival spec instead of BM. And I’ve been doing great! I’ve never had epic raid gear, not even a full PvP set, maybe throw in a fancy blue weapon here and there… But my motto is usually, “Fear the green!” Now, with all of these nerfs to me and my new cat (that I finally for the first time decided to try out), I really don’t know what to say. I already suck at PvP. I’ve never raided before. But these changes might really screw me up!
On the other hand, I do like the Aspect of the Wild change. Believe it or not, I love to use that against spiders and what not. Things that poison you. And druids too. Hehe.
I am quite disappointed.
@ mania or when you are without your camera, huh Mania… :)
Well, the other day I was saying to myself, “self, that big red monkey is awfully powerful, especially when using volley.” (level 62 Tauren hunter with a lvl 62 monkey). I sure hopes Blizz doesn’t take that away, but I just knows they are cuz Palla said something on Mania’s blogg a while back.”.
Well it seems that may be coming true. But you know with the way mana has to be juggled even with a BRM and volley, I was thinking it would not be so.
If über equiped hunters are leading the dps, maybe the gear needs to be reduce, instead of the hunter/pet talents.
Wait and see is better than getting all our insides twisted in knots over something we won’t be able to change.
This is silly. Everyone here is “wtf!? Where did this come from!?” I think some of us are living under rocks. The nerf to steady shot is because it is being used to the exclusion of all other skills by BM hunters. If blizz is lucky, the hunter picked up glyph of serpent sting + steady shot to increase dps by a small enough margin that keeping up serpent sting is worthwhile. The reason for the nerf to overall raid dps is also quite simple: Hunters are around 15-20% higher on dps than any other class. (this being on single target, you-don’t-move fights such as patchwerk) Hunters are doing 6k dps, nearly everyone else is doing 5k (if they’re lucky enough to be THAT high. Some classes are in the 3k’s if VERY well geared.)
However, I do feel that this nerf is a little premature (as would any rogue buff be.) At the moment, hunters (and 2h dps classes) have it VERY easy in which the biggest upgrade to dps they can get is craftable. Once we start seeing DW classes picking up naxx25 level weapons, and start grabbing the stats they need (more hit?), things will balance out a bit more. The nerf is most likely to put you (as well as my hunter) in line with the other physical dps classes. Now if only they’d buff caster classes to mage/lock dps levels, this game would be a little more fun. (balance druid main, but lover of beasts.)
Palla: He doesn’t read this blog, thankfully. :>
Sigrdrífa: I … I think that would be even worse. Unless you’re talking about blackmail.
I’m not ignoring everybody else, I just don’t have anything to add. I hope the PTR opens up soon.
Forty Two – as I’m wandering around with the Ebon Blade revered 2-hander, which I thought was nice (stat wise. Physically it’s hideous beyond measure) – could you specify which craftable you mean? I may have to go shopping.
The nice 2h mace (titansteel destroyer, methinks?) is a VERY nice upgrade for any 2hdps class (that can wield it, of course), and for hunters, the nesingwary 5000 come to mind, as well as the engineer-crafted bullets. Other than that, the blue mail gear is pretty well designed (though, farming heroics will net you better, as well as this stuff also being in the same area as other classes), plus a couple random pieces of epic crafted gear. Naxx 25 doesn’t offer MUCH better til Kel’ish in the way of ranged slots… I haven’t looked at Ebon Blade for hunters, but I do know DWing the 2.6ish hitsoaked crafted weapons looks pretty good until you GET an epic.
Thank god, Mania, I’d be dead otherwise…. *Grins*
I have….. a theory. Mind you, this is JUST a theory, and is a bit on the pessimistic side, even for me. How many people play hunters? As far as I am aware, it is one of the most played classes. What if all those nice little buffs were just meant to lure people into continuing to play WoW for a while longer, and into buying Wrath? If that was the plan, then I have to say it worked wonderfully. And now its more or less past the time when most people who have bought it are going to buy it ((more or less, people, I am aware of Christmas)) so its safe to start tossing out the major nerfs now. Clever. Nasty, but clever.
I am not buying the DPS crap. I think….scratch that, I KNOW the problem is that it is just easier to DO DPS as a hunter, especially beast master. A beast master doesn’t have to do much of anything to make a good deal of damage pop up, and fast. I think it is less hunters being to far ahead in DPS, and more other people not knowing fully how to play their classes. Of COURSE the hunter is going to have a massive showing on DPS when no one else is fully picking up the slack. I realize this isn’t always the case, but in a large number of cases I believe it to be. However, Blizzard does not as yet have a cure for stupid, sadly. *Chuckles* No, I am not calling any of other of you dear readers stupid, before you try to whack me for that.
I have several high level characters, as you all may or may not know. With the recent demonology warlock and after finally being able to add siphon life to my aresenal, that ones damage went from really good to slightly insane. I think the DPS race between my hunter and my warlock would be fairly even as long as my timing on my warlock were right. ((Cuz thats hard to do. It’ll suck if they change DoT lengths though.)) My feral druid…. is….I dunno. It feels to much like Savage roar is the band aid fix for cat form DPS. It helps, yes, but it also really makes the class feel overly dependant on straight out one form to keep them up to speed with everyone else, and makes me feel rather blaugh about my feral in general. My rogue got a fairly nice buff in the way of poison damage, and fan of knives is starting to shape up into a decent AoE ability, if your obsessed with that kind of thing. All in all he doesn’t feel to different, and his damage is only slightly below my hunters, mostly due to gear. My warrior…. *twitches*…..Titans grip is close to the best talent ever. Of all time. I can’t really stress the importance of stacking hit chance, but with that in mind, the talent is a flat out, MASSIVE DPS boost. With equal gear to me hunter, I honestly think my fury warrior could out DPS him. The down side is that the healing component on bloodthirst still sucks, and overall it can be a bit dull, but it is no less a powerhouse for it.
It has also come to my attention that mages got their buff. *rolls his eyes* Those guys….are the kings of whining. I’ve looked over our nerfs again, and they aren’t THAT bad. Serpents swiftness makes me angry, I’d rather lose the haste then my pet, since I can stack it to make up for it, and I always thought 20% on kindred spirits was a bit much. I am probably just about the only beastmaster left who actually USES arcane, multi, and/or aimed and THEN suppliments those with steady shots, so that nerf doesn’t really bother me. Same with the volley nerf, volley was useful in instances, but otherwise I tend to burn the !@#$ out of my main target, and then move on to the next.
We’ll have to wait and see. But the immediate buffing of both death knights and mages directly after the nerfing post of the hunters isn’t sitting well with me right now. *Grumbles and goes back to his white lion and knight of the blazing sun*
Any Hunter who is Pissed is either
1. Not in End Game Raiding.
2. Has no idea about class balance.
These are welcome changes ESP THE VOLLEY CHANGE.
Pet dps needed to be nerfed big time.
And it’s not like these are patch notes. I swear some people get soo worked up over Pixels.
If you don’t agree with these nerfs than you are 100% Biased.
@Pal:
The issue with ACTUALLY using arcane and serpent sting, is, without the glyphs, you do nothing but lose damage for it. At 80, if your bow(gun, what have you) hits for at least 240 damage (white)… Steady shot is ALWAYS a better use of your GCD, with more mana efficiency to boot! With both Glyph of Serpent Sting and Steady Shot, you could feasibly squeeze out more dps, but without both (why wouldn’t you have them, really?) you’re better off just spamming steady unless you can be bothered to move… so maybe the reason your other characters are able to keep up is because you’re actually bothering to use arcane :P (more mana = more time in viper + less damage in general.)
In addition, the buffs to mage are NOT to the overpowered frostfire court… it’s to arcane which currently needs a bit of love in pve (and a bit of a nerf in pvp) which I think they’re succeeding at.
The DK changes are honestly mostly fluff in the way of smoothing them away from the whole “I tank well for 5 swings every minute” mantra that people are getting from them. Overall, I don’t see much of a buff or nerf there, just smoothing :)
Fourtytwo, thats the kind of min/maxing bull!@#$ that ticks me off. The difference is not huge, and my beastmaster is STILL top of the charts, and always has been. I suggest you actually, I dunno, TRY things out before mouthing off. Steady shot can’t match the damge of either multi or aimed, and arcane is an instant cast. More mana, sure, but you get what you pay for, and my steady shots are in there. Don’t knock my damage or play style without having a clue of what your talking about, buddy.
I tried to read all of the posts, I really did. But DAMN you people post a lot! I’m still quite frankly pissed that viper reduces dmg by %50, and they throw this crap on. I mean, I understand if they nerfed like, arcane shot or something, but My steady shots only crit 1500 at lvl 77! My arcane can top 2300, and my kills go for 3800, and that does not seem too bad, considering I had a shammy friend critting 3k at 67! I’m just sick of the OP classes bitching about hunters bc we finally stand a god damn chance at doing decent damage.
TBH, I’ve seen hunters with cunning pets outdamage hunters with devilsaurs due to Roar of Recovery and (sometimes) Invigoration, which has nothing to do with pet damage. But people in the hunter community tend to be the least flexible overall that I know. :P Or maybe that’s a trait inherent to WoW players, I don’t know.
Anyway.
I play a BM specced hunter, and I am all for all of these changes. It’s not the “uber equipped” hunters that are doing too much damage. It’s the BM hunters that have Glyph of Steady Shot and Glyph of Bestial Wrath that brings the cooldown down to 1m8s, throw on a Serpent Sting and just cast Steady Shot for the rest of the fight with no rotations, regardless of gear. I have an Enhancement Shammy friend that is second in DPS in his uber guild (they got the server first 25-man Malygos the other day. I’m not boasting, I just want to support my claims). He’s epicced out the wazoo and is pretty assuredly the best equipped Enh shammy on the server. He knows his class well and usually doubles or triples the dps of any pug we decide to take on a normal 5-man group.
I’m guildless and out-DPS him in crafted 78 swiftarrow blues and a Crossbow of Relentlass Strikes (lvl 70 badge reward) and have never touched a heroic. I don’t even want to go into how much more damage the epicced out hunter in their guild does. The fact I could conceivably walk in there having never even set foot in a heroic, and be second on the DPS list of a raid geared out in Tier 7, only to get better as I get more gear simply because I play a hunter is overpowered.
I agree with the Steadyshot change. It’s only affecting the bonus damage. Overall that’ll only translate out to like a 2% drop in my overall DPS mathematically. Volley needs to be nerfed HARD. On a pull of 3 mobs or more, volley rules all. Regular hits of ~900 with crits of ~2100, every second, to each mob. That’s 3600dps on four mobs even if none of the hits crit. I usually get 1-2 crits which brings the DPS closer to 5000-6000dps on a pull of 4 mobs in a regular 5-man with Kings and GotW as my only buffs. Overpowered.
Pet damage can take the hit as long as growl gets increased. My pet alone usually does more damage than PUGs I’ve grouped with according to Recount. I use a Wolf for a pet to give the group a constant attack power boost (which I feel is a larger increase in overall DPS).
Another change they could consider (and not changing some other things like pet damage) is bumping up the cost of Steadyshot by 30-50%. More mana use translates out to more time in viper, and while in viper the mana regen will be slower when casting steadyshot at the same time as well. Decreases hunter damage, doesn’t change the pet’s threat output, hits BM hunters the hardest. Viable workaround that might be worth taking a look at.
Sorry about the wall of text. If you want to compare the gear between me and my Shammy friend, look up Sheryssa and Taanu on the Moon Guard server. Let me assure you right now, he does NOT suck at his class. He knows exactly what he is doing, and I outdps him in 5-mans on a regular basis. (Though, he has been known to have to hold back due to aggro issues).
Honestly after my guild’s first trip into Naxx 10man, I fully expected this. If you read carefully we’re not being “nerfed to the ground baby”. Pets especially need nerfed for the BM hunter. Most any of my pets are doing 1/3 or so of my overall dps. As far as Volley, well lets just say I was embarrasing our mage too. Come on, mages have to be good at something! Aspect of the Viper on, and you can chain Volley and NEVER run out of mana.
I don’t mind a bit of “nerf” but while they are “fixing” that. . . is there anyway we can get a few more spaces on our pet bars. . . Growl, Cower, Focus dump, 2-3 talented skills, prowl (cats and Spirit beasts) if we could just have 6 instead of the 4 current spots it would be a major blessing.
Also if they would return the “Auto Attack/Auto Shot” feature to where it won’t make auto targeting and fireing at a (Sheep, trap, etc. . .) when the current target dies after you’ve pressed steady shot but before it goes off, this would be a MASSIVE “buff” in the midst of a “nerf patch”
@ Pal:
Nothing I said insulted your playstyle, more to the point, you insinuated that everyone else didn’t know how to play theirs when you yourself had flaws in your rotation (in that you actually have one.) I left multi/aimed out completely, because those actually ARE good for damage (and aimed is actually mana efficient.). I simply didn’t feel that hunter’s mark (if you’re the only hunter) and aimed shot really mattered in terms of “rotation” as it’s basically just mash steady and make sure to keep serpent up and aimed every time it’s up.
I also stated that arcane had the purpose of being used on the move, whereas you can’t always stand still for 1.5ish seconds to knock off another steady, but again, if you have a choice, steady is the far greater choice.
My entire post is to help point out that steady is OP. It’s better damage, always, than arcane. This is a problem that they’re fixing. You’ll be affected less by the overall nerf of hunter dps, because you’re already using the rotation they WANTED us to use :P
@Palla sezs in black and white – “I am probably just about the only beastmaster left who actually USES arcane, multi, and/or aimed and THEN suppliments those with steady shots…”
Nope you sure aren’t. Though I don’t rate myself up there with you, and while every one of my hunters are either working on being full BM or they are there (I have 2, a 62 and a 70), I use those same shots all the time, weaving them in and around Steady Shot. I also use Serpent Sting, alot!
To me, the changes if they come won’t make me quit the game, only getting older will, lol.
Now on the other parts of your thoughts, I believe you are pretty much dead on. Thank you for everytime you leave them.
I didn’t insinuate anything about anyone else, just said that I actually USE my shots, bucko. YOU, however, flatly stated that my rotation was sub par because I didn’t use steady shot to the exclusion of all else, and I didn’t appreciate it. Different does not equal bad, my friend, keep that in mind. I do apologize for snapping, but the whole “OMG, STEADY SHOT RULZ!!” thing is old, and was never intended to be. Steady shot is a supplimental shot, something to boost your DPS, a form of bread and butter shot, but not the only thing you should be firing. BUT that is also my opinion, and the way I play. It certainly doesn’t kill my DPS, but I’m not going to try to convince everyone of that.
Sigrdrífa…. *Laughs and hugs Sig* Your to hard on yourself. I think your a great hunter. I think that of most of the hunters who post here. Just everyone has a different style. A different way of playing, a different focus. There is nothing wrong with that. At all. I’d love to actually be able to play with some of you guys sometimes, but I have a spring deadline I have to meet, so I has to do more writing, less playing of MMOs in general.
@Pal:
It’s intended that all hunters play the way you do, however, currently, it’s just simply less damage to play your way, and more work… so, option a: lose dps (no matter how little) and pay attention… or option b: spam macro and watch tv. I don’t know many people who would choose option a… so blizz is making it much more clear that they intend for the class to not be 100% a nobrainer.
Gotta take the good with the bad though. They’re trying to reduce the “hunters are obviously the best class right now” in pve, while making up for the lackluster/hardmode pvp by giving you more decent options. (like aimed shot = instant, not 3s cast of /sigh)
You can add me to the ‘prefers option a’ column.
I’m usually the hunter who volunteers to kite or ranged-tank things, or peels mobs off clothies.
“Readiness – no longer affects the cooldown of Bestial Wrath”
This is certainly a double-edged sword.
Boo for hugh nerf to potential 2x GOD MODE.
/cheer for making Exotics a bit more viable for endgame.
So quick to take any positive advantage away from hunters.
Insanely slow to fix any hunter disadvantages.
Case in point: hunters were virtually a no-show statistically in all combinations of arena all last season. Any fix ever come? NO!
Hunters are a free HK in pvp now. People run to see who can get them first. Any fix coming? NO!
Case in point: RET Pally is a monster hack that can shield, stun, and kill before you can even fight back. Any “real” nerf coming for RET monsters? NO!
DKs are doing insane damage in pvp and eating hunters like candy. Any nerf coming for DK? NO!
Time to drop your hunters and play the OP classes that Bliz protects from nerfs, balance, and fair play.
Case in point: arena for money was played by only 3 classes at the top anywhere in the world (druid, warrior, warlock). Any fix come for the other classes at any time during the entire season? NO! Any nerfs come for those 3 OP classes anytime during the entire season? NO!
First, I’m not Level 80 and I’m not in the No. 1 raiding guild on my server – in the eyes of the majority of the posters I’m just too dumb to play my class :(.
I’m far away from 6000DPS – and out-DPSed by far lower level Death Knights and every other DPS class.
Reducing auto shot is a big nerf, I can’t use Arcane or other shots often, because I don’t have enough mana nor the mana regen (since the mana regen “fix” in BC and the lousy itemization (rewards) of WotLK).
There are still issues with broken mechanics (auto activating/deactivating pet abilities/skills, nerfed “defensive stance”), but Blizzard insists on nerfing the class – fixing it would require brains…
I don’t care about PvP, it was broken from day one!
I reactivated my account, due to the changes to the hunter class, it looks like I will cancel it again.
(I can’t post to the US forums of the Gods that are – EU customers are not allowed to voice their opinions).
@Palla, Thank you for the kind words. My question is what are you writing? Is it fiction, manuals, non-fiction, or some other kind of manuals?
@Ghanur Please please please don’t cancel your account. You and I are extremely close in how we play from your description. But at least you are in a guild, I’m not (really too lousy, I guess). Of course though, unless you really are angry about everything, quit. I would just hate to see ya go.
I was at the same fork in the road as you about 4 weeks into the new 3.0 patch. I play a hunter not for the rewards, not for the pvp nor the friendly conversation of a guild, but because of the pets. I love the pets. Maybe this will label me as a heretic, but I actually prefer the old pre patch 3 way of getting pets for each different aspect of claw or bite, etc., than the new way. Why?!? Because I was able to try out the different animals without having to commit to one. I got to see how a turtle would be. Or a crab (I know Mania has a thing for crabs, but to me they are to be enjoyed with butter and a nice salad :) ), then go back to my one true loyal pet and teach her what I learned. Now, all I am worried about is “dang” BRM (big red monkey) made a new level, does she have a training point to put somewhere? I also feel that until I make lvl 80, my animals dont have a snowball’s chance in Hades with higher level mobs or idiots who pvp flag next to me. Did I brag that I actually killed 2 DK’s who were a level higher than me? Very rare for me to flag pvp myself, but I so dis-like DK’s. It seems that one has to have a least one pet in each of the different trees to be consider a non-huntard (for some strange reason). One for pve, one for pvp, one for raid, etc, etc, etc. And what do I find? (what! what!) I have all 5 pets in the same tree. Dang, how did that happen? As far as our different shots, I use them all and even volley (but volley is used for a selfish reason – so I get the hit on a mob so someone else can’t take it away – you heard this right all you danged Death Knights!). I have have even started dabbing in macros! Thats scarey, truely a sight to see when it fails because I don’t understand something :) – Siggy is not a programmer, my mind doesn’t think that way. If it looks like code, /fingers in a cross and shout out “get behind me Satan”) Well, enough of this.
Well, I am sure someone will write and tell me that I am full of blueberry muffins, but I don’t care. I like the old way. The new way is ok, but I just prefer the old. Will that or even with the latest thinking that Blizz has with ideas that hasn’t even been put on the public test realms make me quit? No.
So you see Ghanur, we all have things we don’t like or care for, but I still like playing and even though the chances of us ever meeting in WOW are slim, maybe we will. So keep playing my friend…..
They’re TESTING these changes. Let’s see which ones actually go live before we threaten to cancel our accounts.
@Palla, I apologize to you and all the others who write for a living. I can really murder the English language. :) Now you know why I do not write for a living or have a blog. Thank goodness no one criticises for this skill I have. :)
I find it amazing that Blizzard can be surprised about the DPS of a class that they designed. I mean, they did do the calculations a la Elitist Jerks but without the uncertainty, right?
Given that they don’t seem to understand that, what confidence should we give them that _these_ changes will fix things (conceding for now, that things need changing). If you don’t know what you are doing prudence would recommend making simple changes and at most a few at a time.
Also looking a DPS statistics alone would seem to be a one-sided approach. How about looking a raid composition compared to the composition of active characters? Are hunters overrepresented in raids? If not, I would claim there is no problem, regardless of DPS numbers.
Fiction. My grammar can be really horrible, and as it is my first foray into the novel world I plan on having two seperate editors go over it, then I’ll go back over it to make sure it isn’t altered, and then considering it complete. One particular character ((A tribute to my deceased nephew, actually)) causes my spell checker to break out in hives. I apologize for being light on the details at the moment, but I want to get it out the door first, and THEN I’ll let everyone know whats going on, I promise.
Its interesting, in hindsight. To watch your writing style change. I guess it was a year ago now, I was a quarter of the way done with my original. Then one day, while listening to music, I had one of those rather massive ideas that causes your head to hurt, and won’t let you sleep until you put it down. This was bad considering I was out at a friends at the time. When I finally managed to get to my computer, I hammered it out what I had before I forgot it. Thus began the current incarnation of my novel. Typos, grammar mistakes, and all. *LAUGHS* I have no illusions of grandeur on where this might go, but I am honestly enjoying writing it, and I want to tell people an interesting, compelling story.
Wish me luck. *Grins*
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Palladiamors: We look forward to hearing more when you’re ready!
Ghanur, being in a number 1 raiding guild doesn’t really mean much. This blog isn’t about skill. It isn’t about the DPS you can put out. It isn’t even about skill. Its about having a love of pets, and the hunter class in general. Your voice does mean something here, I prommise.
Hunter PvP has never been easy. Doable, but not easy. So much more complicated then other classes PvP, even casters. That being said, anything caster is screwed from the get go against hunters. Just remember to keep them at range with disengage and you’ll be fine if your not under geared compared to them.
But thats never been the problem, eh? The problem was the OTHER six melee capable classes. And still is. The problem is, there are more and more counters to our counters for them. The basics go like this: Fire from a protected, non-obvious position. I don’t mean stand up on top of a cliff and fire down. If you can manage to be out of intercept or death grip range, go for it. Otherwise your just begging to be singled out. Stay with as many people you can find. Seriously. Don’t try to go solo as a hunter in PvP. USE YOUR PET. I am going to say that again, because of the sheer number of people I see with their pets on passive. Sometimes exotic pets on passive. USE YOUR PET. Find a healer, and ctrl 1 or whatever your pet attack is them. No healer, find the next squishiest thing. This ALSO applies to you, the hunter. Your job is to find the easiest to kill thing on the field or the thing healing, and wipe them out. No healing equals dead melee. Your pet assisting equals dead melee. Also, keep mend pet up at all times. Use your talents. This applies mainly to scatter shot, silencing shot, chimera shot ((Side note, KEEP STINGS ON THINGS. Scorpid for melee’ers, serpent or viper for everything else.)) explosive shot, aimed shot, BEASTIAL WRATH, beastial wrath, intmidation. Whatever your forte is, USE IT. Everytime the cooldown is up on some, or at important times ((Healers or casters for silencing and intimidation, intmidation if you need breathing room)). Beast masters, we can have a talented beastial wrath of just over a minute cooldown now. Use it, love it. These are the basics.
For melee…run away. Concussive, and run. Wing clip, and run. Sick your pet on it, and keep moving. Used to, this was easy. Beyond the initial charge or intercept from a warrior, you were home free. This is not so easy anymore, and I’ma tell you why, and why hunters are having such a !@#$ed hard time in PvP. Every class, its mother, and the family dog have ways out of concussive and wing clip now. Fury warriors have heroic inspiration ((Don’t think thats the talent name, but you get the point)) which breaks ALL snares and resets the cooldown on intercept. Arms has blade storm, which ALSO breaks CC. Protection has in-battle charge. Retri’s have hammer of justice, blessing of freedom, and pursuit of justice. Protection paladins have avengers shield and blessing of freedom. Shaman have frost shock. Feral druids have feral charge and their own snare from mangle and shred now, and feral swiftness works everywhere. Death knights….. har har har. Death grip and chains of ice, and chains of ice has no cooldown aside from requiring one frost rune every ten seconds.
In short, kiting is now nearly impossible in PvP, which is a huge, HUGE problem. Hunters have no other way of dealing with melee. None. Zip. Zero. Even if we could fire zero-range shots, that wouldn’t aleviate our problems. Disengage was and is a nice addition, but with all the counter counters, it barely counts as a stall now. I can’t see to many ways to fix this, either.
@Palla “Break a leg!” (don’t want to say break a finger, for you are keyboarding, lol) :) and ty for the tips. I am going to reread them again a few more times.
Sic* And slight edit, paladins also have judgement of justice, which works as a snare. I play a holy paladin, and that is always on my hotbar when I PvP, and I forgot it… *Facepalm*
Sig, a lot of it is timing, and honestly experience. You really have to feel PvP out. Your not always fighting the same things or people, so the tactics will change. Your group will change, your opponent will change, and you have to learn to flow with it. Sadly, the most important piece of advice I have offered is to stay with people. Hunters are a destructive force unto themselves, so long as they can stay at a range. Aimed single targets, multi if enough people are in close, stay behind people. Especially healers. They’ll try to eat healers before they try to eat you, and that is your cue to nuke the daylights out of whatever is eating your healer. Anyone can do it, it just takes time, and some common sense, and judgement calls.
I agree with half of you why take out the only buff we hunter’s can give to the party with out useing wolfs. The only only thing I am likeing from this is the reduced kill shot CD. And to make pets do even less damage the only point of BM is getting out of fear. And to someone who said the 51 BM talent is dumb for the exotic pets is right, the only nice part to that talent is the bouns talent points your pet gets. First a long time ago before TBC they took away pet speed(because casters were QQing about the broken tooth’s attack speed) and now they want to take away more. I just dont see what they are thinking when they decided these changes.
And when hunters get out dpsed by so many classes( about all of them) they might as well make hunters a melee class.
I’m not thrilled at all about the changes. I’ve tried really hard to take a wait and see approach to this and for the most part I think its a mixed bag. But:
The post from GC about nerfing Steady shot to get hunters to use other shots… WTF? I already use the other shots – the problem on them isn’t that they don’t do as much damage its that the bloody CDs are FOREVER AND A DAY!!! You want me to use Arcane Shot, Aimed Shot or Multi-shot? Cut the CDs on those bad boys.
Cutting pet dps? Seriously, what is the point of being 51P BM if you don’t get more damage off the exotic pets and of all the pets in general? In fact, what is the point of being a Hunter at all without Strong DPS from your Pet?
Volley – I’ll admit it does need a bit of a nerf, but seriously a full 30%? 15% would do. For once in its sorry existence Volley had a reason to exist.
Deterrence – sounds great, until you hit that whole “from the front” business… So what? If its a rogue I am officially a sitting duck because i can’t attack it. And in reality – lets look at who the major nemesis for a hunter is… its not a lock or a mage – its a Rogue. And speaking of Rogues, I really hate to be the one to point this out… but WHY THE HELL AREN’T THE ROGUES GETTING ANY OF NERFS??? I HAVEN’T SEEN ROGUES GET A SERIOUS NERF IN AGES – And the ones on my server: They BRAG about that! And honestly – I hear a lot more people screaming day in and day out about some Rogue ganking them.
Maybe some hunters are pulling that kind of crazy DPS, but in general I haven’t seen it. Again, I’ll concede that Volley needed to be worked on – it really shouldn’t be the Only shot being used in a raid. But some of these cuts are a little bit too deep.
I’m kinda tired of the “anti-hunter” sentiment that I see all the time, I’m tired of hearing/seeing the term “huntard’. In BC we were the first Class to get bent over, and this time we almost pulled that honor again – barely beaten out by Ret paladins.