More on Bestial Wrath Changes
Ghostcrawler posted more today on the upcoming changes to Bestial Wrath and The Beast Within that are currently on the PTR.
Given the depth of discussion that the previous post has already engendered, I wanted to give these notes their own post so they have plenty of visibility.
First, a quick recap. Yesterday MMO Champion reported that:
- The Beast Within now lasts 10 sec (Down from 18 sec) but now also increases all damage you deal by 10% at all time.
- Bestial Wrath now lasts 10 sec. (Down from 18 sec)
Hunters quickly began discussing this change on Blizzard’s Damage Dealing forum, and Ghostcrawler popped in to respond:
I love data-mined patch note day.
It should be no surprise to anyone who has been on these boards for long that we’re trying to chill out abilities that convey offensive and defensive bonuses with the same button press. At the same time, BM damage was a little low and too dependent on the pet. With this change, hopefully, Bestial Wrath becomes more of a defensive ability while taking Beast Within will boost hunter (and just the hunter) damage at all times.
I call it more of a defensive cooldown because it now breaks all CC like a PvP trinket.
Since then there has been a metric tonne more discussion, and Ghostcrawler posted several additional comments in the same thread. First, he described the actual changes to the talents:
Since the changes seem to be causing confusion, here is the new tooltip.
“Send your pet into a rage causing 50% additional damage for 10 sec (down from 18). While enraged, the beast does not feel pity or remorse or fear and it cannot be stopped unless killed.”
The tooltip doesn’t say this, but it now breaks all forms of CC that a PvP trinket would break (including Cyclone, Sap, etc.).
“Increases all damage you deal by 10% and while your pet is under the effects of Bestial Wrath, you also go into a rage causing 10% additional damage and reducing mana costs of all spells by 20% for 10 sec (down from 18). While enraged, you do not feel pity or remorse or fear and you cannot be stopped unless killed.”
So the changes are:
Duration lowered.
Passive hunter damage buff added.
Now breaks all forms of CC (whatever a PvP trinket breaks, including Sap and Cyclone).
Later, he added this note about mana:
It wasn’t our intent to push BM hunters into Viper more often with this change so we are discussing buffing the mana cost portion of the talent from 20% to perhaps as high as 50%.
Now I know this change is a contentious one, which is a big reason I am posting about it again instead of just updating the previous post. But please do remember to be respectful of other hunters in your comments. You can attack their arguments, but please do not attack each other.
117 Comments
I’d be okay with this change if they just reduced the cooldown. A minute long cooldown would be a huge improvement, as it’d work with Kill Command’s cooldown better.
…I also still want BM to get their own shot.
Yeah I want BM to get a shot equivelent too, or a shot itself… nowadays BW and TBW don’t just work that way anymore… *sigh*
‘You can attack their arguments, but please do not attack each other.’ so i can’t tackle Ryai for fun? darn… =D jk, hes pretty cool xD
Consensual attacks are fine, but I’ll need a signed permission slip. *grin*
lol =D
@Kelwina: for deep BM, the BW cooldown is already only 64 seconds (120 base, -36 for 3/3 Longevity, -20 for glyph).
Oh good, that means Rikaku can’t randomly glomp me…..can she?
And I feel the need to defend Nimizar here. I may disagree with him, but that has nothing to do with his skill. As far as I am aware, he is a perfectly capable player. For him, who is mainly a PvE’er, it will be a buff over long boss fights. For me, who is some what of an open player, it will be a nerf in a very prominent area, the burst damage in PvP. It’s just a difference of opinion.
Ah, I just noticed that, well then they should lower the cooldown to 30 seconds hehe
Palla:
OH yes I can!! *glomps* >=D Glomping isn’t considered an attack, it’s a special skill….like Pokemon Charm! XD
On topic:
But seriously yes, I do try to stick to only debating (tho I can get mean XD) others’ arguments. I never try to actually offend someone (unless you’re a DK!), so if I have, my apologies.
OIn Hunter topic:
Well at least they’re considering a Viper change for tbw/BW
ACK! *Is glomped* Oh well. I actually enjoy the glomps, its the whole coming out of no where and giving me a heart attack that worries me.
That’s supposed to help make up for the time that we aren’t getting reduced mana costs. I suppose they are trying to make sure the nerf has a bright side, but its still…..just….I hate the arena. I hate it with a passion. SO many changes have been made in WoW JUST for the sake of that damn arena.
Which brings me to another issue. Balance. Used to, Blizzards motto was “We are going to balance PvP to a 1v1 ratio.” Which meant that any class would have a fighting chance against any other chance. When did that change? And why? I am not saying balance the game around duels, but give each class a spec that has a fighting chance in PvP. It would be great if they could manage every spec for it, but for the moment a lot of classes are just meh at PvP, while other classes are just massive balls of destruction.
But that is where the problem comes in. In order to fully balance PvP, Blizzard has to balance it on a smaller scale first, or class to class, which they are not doing. That is why PRM is so dominant. That is why you find it so hard to kill certain classes in PvP no matter gear or skill, while only the best geared or best played of other classes even stand a chance. I play a hunter in PvP. I know how hard core boned we are. I know that the only way I am even partially capable with my class is just because I have certain reactions hard wired into me at this point. These are things I DON’T have to do with my other classes in PvP, I don’t HAVE to go through such great lengths just to SURVIVE, let alone deal damage.
As a beast master in PvP, Beastial wrath is my out right, honest to god go to attack. It lets me, or rather my pet, deal a good bit of damage, while I run like hell. As a hunter in PvP, you do a LOT of running. Most of your damage comes from your instant shots and your pets, with some chip damage from traps and the occasional shot where you get to stand still. And my main go to damage ability just got halved, while roughly only half of my repotiore, my instant cast shots, got a buff. And one of those instant casts, aimed shot, I have to spec into marksman for. I hope that makes it a bit easier for you to understand why I am so angry about this change.
Thanks for the support Palla, but I’m learning today that a couple of things I thought I knew about BM theorycrafting have been shown to be incorrect since I last looked closely at the topic (I went SV for raiding when I hit 80, and only got BM back as a questing spec when dual spec came out).
The comparison to warlock Metamorphosis intrigued me though, so I did some quick comparisons (both sets of numbers assume the respective glyph, the BM numbers assume Longevity):
Metamorphosis: 36 seconds every 3 minutes = 20.0% uptime
BW/TBW (old): 18 seconds every 64 seconds = 28.1% uptime
BW/TBW (new): 10 seconds every 64 seconds = 15.6% uptime
Given that Meta is a CC reduction rather than an immunity, I would say that those numbers probably support the nerf.
The other thing I am trying figure out is the impact on the number of GCDs affected by TBW. The old one was simple: it was 12 GCDs long, so no matter when you triggered it relative to the current GCD you would always have 12 GCDs available over the course of its duration, with the buff expiring shortly before the 12th GCD actually finished. With the new one, it is now only 6 and 2/3 GCDs long. For offensive purposes, it is going to become important that you use the ability in a way that lets you make use of 7 GCDs while under the effect (specifically, ensuring that the current GCD has less than a second to go when you hit TBW).
I wonder if Blizzard could be persuaded to bump the duration up to 12 seconds? That would give an 18.75% uptime and consistent availability of 8 GCDs while under the effect.
@Palla: when did you get the impression that Blizzard ever balanced around duels? Ever since I’ve started playing the mantra from them (when they said anything at all in the early days) has been “We don’t balance PvP around 1v1″. They’ve been softening hard counters over the years since Arena started, but duels have never been even.
Not duels, Nim, though I guess 1v1 is pretty close. And back when I started playing, in May of 05, they stated that they wanted to make things fair on a 1v1 level. They did a whole series of revamps on talent trees for PvE and PvP purposes to support this, and everyone got free respecs. Then Wrath came out, or perhaps it was in the months preceeding wrath, and that ideology disappeared entirely.
Your a little off on Meta, Nim. It’s got Nemsis to support it, bringing the total cooldown to 2 minutes instead of three. So it’s 36 seconds every 2 minutes, so it’s not up for a total of 1:24 seconds. In other words, its up more then 25% of the time, though I don’t know the exact number.
I am going to second myself, because I think it is important. Meta also brings immolation aura to the table, which, for close quarters, is probably the most lethal ability in game. It deals an insane amount of fire damage to ALL surrounding targets ((Level 75 it hits all in an eight yard radius for 800 fire damage)) EVERY SECOND, for fifteen seconds. I think that might be an important distinction between the two as well. It also has shadow cleave and a charge ability.
*sigh*
A passive +X% damage is not what BM needs to be raid-viable (and really fun to play) again.
I’d rather like to see something out of the box and awesome like dual pets (come on, it works for enhancement shaman’s spirit wolves!) or an own shot…
I hope one of those comes with the “complete talent tree revamp” we’ll get along with our new focus resource system in cataclysm.
GC quote: “It wasn’t our intent to push BM hunters into Viper more often with this change so we are discussing buffing the mana cost portion of the talent from 20% to perhaps as high as 50%.”
Ok, maybe because it’s late in the day, and/or my slow, exhausted brain is not working properly, but…
I don’t get what he’s saying here. There’re thinking of increasing the mana cost of BW to 50% more?! How is that a good thing, or a way to push BM Hunters away from Viper?! It seems to me that I’ll need to keep Viper on all the time just to keep up with laying down the DPS.
Like I said, brain function sleep no without.
No Wh33ls, what he is saying is that Beastial Wrath would reduce the mana cost of shots and such by 50%, not just the 20% of right now.
@Wheels: TBW currently gives the hunter a 20% reduction in mana costs as part of the buff effect. They’re talking about increasing that cost reduction so that the total mana saving over the 10 seconds matches what a hunter used to save over 18 seconds (e.g. the current TBW will typically give 20% off, say, a Serpent Sting, 3x Arcane Shot and 8x Steady Shot. Increasing the cost reduction to 40% would give a slightly greater mana saving from just Serpent Sting, 2x Arcane Shot and 4x Steady Shot).
@Palla: good info about Metamorphosis there. Adding in the additional CD reduction from Nemesis brings the Meta uptime all the way to 28.6% (36/126), so it actually already has a higher uptime than pre-nerf BW/TBW.
It’s probably predictable of me, but my warlock is demonology, and metamorphosis brings a lot to the playing field. That being said, Meta is a 51, while beastial Wrath is a 31 point talent. Wrath also grants full CC immunity instead of 50% less time spent CCed, which is an important clarification, though the double time of Meta makes it more useful in the end then beastial wrath. It means that no CC can last for more then five seconds, and only gets two uses before becoming useless, AND it lasts for 36 seconds, while giving several large bonuses. 20% more damage, 600% more armor ((Which actually just brings you up to mail level, and halfway between mail and plate with higher level armor)) 6% reduced chance to critical, an insane AoE damage ability, a charge like ability to get you in range, and poor shadow cleave. There are only two downsides to Metamorphosis. The first is that in order to use your uber kick ass immolation aura, you have to be in range. The second is that being a demon means you can be additionally CCed by paladins, priest, and embarrassingly other warlocks.
It would have been a better idea to have left just the PET immune to CC’s and snares, and had TBW do something similar to meta and halve CC time, as well as breaking existing forms of it. I just can not tell you how badly chopping off eight seconds is going to hurt beast master hunters in PvP.
Immolation aura requires melee range* And just to clarify, I mean only the hunter having the 50% CC reduction, hence TBW. But I wanted to make sure that was understood.
Really the issue is perspective. We are still trying to view BW in a offensive light. While GC wants it to be a defensive ability. So what they need to do is add more offensive abilities for us BM hunters somewhere.
On a side note Palla, I too pvp on my two 80s as a BM hunter and demo warlock. (Ive played since open beta of classic as those specs lol)
‘@Kelwina: for deep BM, the BW cooldown is already only 64 seconds (120 base, -36 for 3/3 Longevity, -20 for glyph).’
Only thing is NOW YOU DO HAVE TO GLYPH FOR IT. Sure I do but I didn’t want to have to be forced to glyph for it, mean I still don’t know what other glyphs to get [mean there's the two SS ones, the HM one, yada yada] as it is half the time.
This is like Typhoon, they made it better- but only if you glyph for it. AND IT TAKES AWAY WHAT TYPHOON DOES YAAY. Tho tbh when I’m tanking in the future for my friends that might actually come in handy. But in pvp?
Whenever a boomkin uses it. EVERYTHING GOES FLYING EVERYWHERE.
I’m just very, very mad that now all my BM hunters, no matter the realm will need to buy a stupid glyph, when they get TBW just to make it work.
I mean it’s nice to NOT get choices :/
If GC wants BW to be defensive then they’d better rework the whole thing from scratch! >< I'm a PvE player and have NEVER used BW as a defensive ability. The closest I've come to it is when fighting mobs like Onyxia and popping BW just before she fears the raid. Even then it's more of a "just ignore the big old lady and -keep piling on the damage-".
The extra 10% damage buff is nice, but I really doubt it will help much. I've been BM since the day I hit L10 almost 5 years ago and only now as my guild is trying Ulduar I've dualspecced MM to actually be able to do some real damage for crying out loud! Whoever thought of "Beastmaster hunters should not use their pet for damage" should have his head examined.
Heh, I don’t really have a warlock yet (I sort of do, but she’s all of level 14 or something), but I’ve already decided that I’m going to roll a Worgen lock come Cataclysm :)
To me, the point of BM is that you bring your own tank with you.
If the change makes it so BM starts to have more issues with the pet holding agro, then it ultimately is a negative change, even if BM starts doing more damage overall.
Not to toss smoke on an already raging fire here, but the cooldown WITH the glyph and talents is 70 seconds (not 64).
The 20 second reduction from the glyph is applied BEFORE the reduction from talents, so you really only get 14 seconds from it. Which is kind of a hose job in itself.
Anytime PVE takes a big nerf for the purpose of balancing PVP, i feel frustrated. I often wish they blizzard would find a way to balance seperately. Maybe even Have the functionality of spells be different in PVP/PVE. In this example, they could have BW/TBW last the 18 seconds, but only 10 while in an arena. Or, if its more about the CC issue than anything, chance the spell to have the dmg component last 18 seconds, while the un-CC-able part only lasts 10 seconds. Oh well. I suspect when Cataclysm comes, Blizzard may just totally wipe and rebuild the BM tree.
@Noba
I’m actually expecting a complete “ground-up” wipe of all 10 classes in Cataclysm. I watched a lot of the Blizcon events on the restructuring… and my theory on it is that they are kind of trying to “boob-proof” the talent trees as much as possible.
From the looks of it, you will be picking the “fun” or “usefull” abilities and the damage stuff will just kind of be assigned to you depending on what tree you favor. I like the idea of it generally, as it helps the casual players who do not have the time (or will) to study this stuff like a bar exam.
On the fact that we BMs. Arnt the best dps (but with skoll we are) we should both be gettin a shot and the ablity to summon two pets for 10 or 15 sec. Our shot should be like the tuskarr move where penguins attack
Balance?
As far as balance goes there ain’t no such thing as balance for Hunters, especially BM Hunters. The other day I was doing the fishing daily in Wintergrasp and not paying attention to much of anything. Another Hordie was fishing nearby and we waved at each other making a temporary peace. I had tracking set to minerals – bad mistake – and my pet was stuck on stupid (passive). A hordie squishy slipped up behind me and took me out with two shots of whatever he used. Dunno if it was a Lock without his companion, a Priest, or Mage. I have 19.6K health unbuffed and I was down in two shots. Two! I didn’t even have a chance to turn around.
Since then I’ve watched squishies closely and most are able to take out same level mobs with two shots of whatever it is they use. DKs and Warriors are just as powerful.
Let’s talk about balance when Hunters are able to take down same level mobs or other pvp players in two shots. Even with the pet chewing butt and taking names I’ve never seen a Hunter two shot a damn thing at the same level. Although I do occasionally return to the coast of Westfall and one shot Murlocks.
I totally agree with Rock there.
Sure, it makes you totally immune to the stun fest which is PvP and causes you to do more damage.
But 10 seconds kills the tree even more for me.
Possibly a warlock, Rock. I’ve had a destruction warlock critical me for 11,000 before, and they usually start off the party with immolate, combustion, and THEN chaos bolt, and lemme tell you, that’s pretty much it right there. I’ve had star fire critical me for 10,000, Fireball for 9,000, and everything in between. I am still in the thought process of “Whoa, that five thousand critical was massive!” so being hit for numbers that large just blew my mind. Hunters can’t really match that because our damage is split between two damaging factors, and we don’t have anything with cast times anymore. That being said, it always pleases me greatly when arcane shot criticals for 4,000 or wolverine bite for 3,500 or so.
The problem is, and I think I have ranted about this before, that damage is tooled to high right now. The changes made in Wrath ((And this started in the patch BEFORE Wrath, the major bridging patch. I was in the beta going “They are NOT going to let this go.” And they did.)) offered a ton of DPS to nearly everyone, but not enough defensive stats for anyone to live for very long. It was apparenty at SEVENTY, before anyone even had any Northrend gear, that this was the case. Damage went up exponentially, but things like hit points, dodge, and armor really didn’t, UNLESS you specced that way. The only other thing that did go up in a similar manner was healing. So all of a sudden, you have this weird scenario whether people either die way to fast, or people don’t die at all. Now, mind you, this is from the PvP point of view, but from my understanding they had to retool raid encounters boss hit points and damage to compensate.
They KNOW about this screw up. One of the reasons for the stat simplification is an attempt to fix it. If you’ve read, the left over AP, SP, and what have you stats are being transferred over to stamina. They didn’t say anything about making those stats into damaging stats, just that they were changing pre-existing stats to support them, such as more AP per agility, and intellect into SP. The previous AP and SP stats will become stamina. Which means everyones damage is going to roughly stay the same, but everyone’s hit points are going to, more then likely, sky rocket.
Hunters, and in specific beast masters, are hard to balance. One of the main and primary offenders of this at the moment is the double buff dilemma that is making full buffed pets have insane stats. My fully double raid buffed wolf has MORE DPS THEN I DO. And that’s without beastial wrath or a critical hit. But the other issue comes from the difficulty of maintaining and keeping your pet alive in heavy combat. There are times when your pet is just flat out going to eat it. It’s unavoidable. PvE, PvP, it happens some times. You were a second to late from calling them back from a boss. It just so happened that a mage, a warrior, a death knight, and a rogue all took offense to your little snake slithering around. Either way, when it happens, the hunter takes a DPS loss which varies based on spec.
For those of us who are pet lovers, that’s okay. It’s a risk we take. The pet is a large part of why we play the class anyway, not just the DPS. For the min/maxers or the more ‘hard core’ players, this is NOT okay.
My solution? First off, fix double buffing. I think they are doing that in Cata, with pets gaining all of the stats from the hunter. They’ll probably just make the pet unbuffable. My second suggestion might seem a little strange, though. I call it the ‘Loner’ buff. Make it a high level ability that makes it so that when your pet dies, you get a DPS increase of 20-45% for five minutes. Beast masters would obviously be at the 45% mark through a talent, with MM and SV being around 20%. I think ‘when the pet dies’ is an important distinction to make, since we wouldn’t want people just running around petless just to have the buff, eh?
whats the point of having pvp/pve servers now then when Blizzard is so bent on making us all pvp? I dont like pvp, thats why I dont play on a pvp server. Shouldnt they make the huge pvp changes and pushes for players who play on a pvp server, and make pve changes for those of us on pve servers? or better yet, give each class a PVP telant tree set?
for example, you have a choice of bm/mm/surv spec that is like a side tree that is ONLY usable when flagged, and is activated automatically when you become flagged for pvp. this would allow blizzard to impliment all the pvp based changes, without affecting pve play.
and on pve servers, they should have a different way to aquire pvp mounts like the deadly gladiators frostwyrm. and to keep things fair, dont allow transfers of characters from pvp servers to pve servers and vice versa.
Personally, BW and TBW are my offensive not deffensive abilities, I sue them for bursts of damage, and the only defensive time I use them is before a mob casts fear. also, the tooltip is wrong on these abilities “Cannot be stopped unless killed” Well that damn spider in naxx can wrap me while I am under the effects, infact a lot of bosses have moves that “stop” me without killing me.
I do like that one suggestion though, about duel-wield pets. That would make BM somewhat more survivable.
oopsy, “I sue them…” should read “I use them…”
Just thought I’d jump in to mention this, I can get My Chimera shots and Arcanes to crit for 7k, aimed for 5k and Kill shot for 15k, although this is all in MM *grin* but i still see pretty decent numbers for Arcane in BM too… just not 7k =D
Gimlion, in that case you probably don’t need a pet.
Gimlion – I forgot to smile when I said that. *Grin*
I don’t count Kill Shot. *Laughs* But yes, I forgot about seven thousand kill shot criticals.
… Excuse my bragging, this is of course all throughout raid buffs, and these are my highest crits-ish, the usual numbers aren’t quite as high, 500-1500 less on a reg crit… *sigh* now i feel like a big mean bragging bully, *snicker* =D
And I am starting to think that my Evil shark-toothed bubblegum-bubble is out to get me… it is a very frightening avatar… *hides under desk*
Eh, keep in mind Gimilion that I am not exactly well geared, and my numbers will vary wildly depending on what I am popping bullets at. *Chuckles* For example, an unprotected clothy will take much more, but a mid-defensive cooldown plate wearer will take less.
Eh, I’ll double it. It’s kind of hard to get ‘precise’ numbers for PvP when you never quite know what buffs your gonna have. *Chuckles* You may get into a group and be full raid buffed, or you may get into a buff and not get any.
Plus you have the memory factor. As in Palladia hasn’t been doing much on high levels lately. *Laughs*
……May get into a group and not get any*
I posted this on the official Damage-Dealing Role forums on the World of Warcraft website. The title is simply “Beast Mastery Hunters.”
This isn’t just over the controversial change that’s recently been put down to be in the works for Bestial Wrath. This is about fixing Beast Mastery hunters in general, what should be done in the way of things to save the class. Right now I see even little more reason to stay the die-hard Beast Mastery hunter that I am. I’ll list the problems I see and the possible solutions I see to them.
The Problems
1. My pets die too easily. Paladins and a few other plate-wearing DPS classes will pull my pet into a building to kill it during a battleground. Almost instantly is about 40% of my damage gone. It’s then that they come after me and kill me in about the same amount of time they took beating the hell out of my Devilsaur or whatever other pet I happened to have with me at the time. My pets have a ton more survivability than a MM or SV hunter’s pet and it’s still a perfectly good tactic. Even in duels where I have great range is my pet focused on and killed with me being next in line.
2. Bestial Wrath in patch 3.2. Chop off 8 seconds of my survivability and burst at the same time and that’s what you get. Wasn’t survivability for hunters something that was on the agenda to be fixed? Mages can iceblock and wait out Bestial Wrath in its entireity now not to mention many classes that were considered a challenge even with the eighteen second duration will likely find Beast Mastery hunters a joke next patch because it’ll be so much easier to live through with such a small buff in compensation for what was taken out of it. Bestial Wrath was used to be offensive ever since Beast Mastery has been around and I don’t see why you would want to change it now since it’s worked out so well for the class. If you’re using Bestial Wrath in a defensive manner it’s likely you’re about to die anyways and if it’s being made into our defensive ability where is our offensive ability? Where did our burst go? Eight seconds was quite a bit to chop off of the duration and more went with it than just the time we’re immune to most CC. All the damage done during that time is gone as well. I’d have settled for three seconds cut out of the duration, five at the most. Eight? I hope there’s much more to the final patch notes for Beast Mastery than just what’s been datamined so there might be some more hope for saving the BM spec in PvP.
3. Arcane shot was talked about quite a bit at one point in-depth and the discussion looked pretty promising. Why isn’t it buffed already in the patch notes? Survival hunters have incredible burst and if I were to duel against one to compare there’s no way I’d survive without stunning them with my pet and staying in melee range for at least a third of the time if not more. I’ve almost typed the response to this problem in this section already since it seems so desirable as one of the major changes that would benefit Beast Mastery hunters.
My Two Cents
The solutions? Here’s my idea, my two cents into fixing everything. Keep pets the way they are with maybe a sliver of a boost to their ability to be beaten upon as they won’t need much more with the following proposed changes I have in mind. Keep Bestial Wrath the same as it is in the data-mined patch notes but buff Arcane shot to be the equivalent of a Survival hunter’s Explosive shot but put the talent to do so into where the current optional increase to Arcane shot is now, in Ferocious Inspiration. I’ve talked to several people on a PvP server, including other classes and they feel that because of Bestial Wrath being cut in half that a shot like Explosive shot for Beast Mastery hunters would suffice as compensation and allowing Bestial Wrath to be used defensively instead of offensively. It would fix the pet survivability because people would no longer be able to exclusively focus on the pet and then mow down the Beast Mastery hunter immediately after that. Burst would be restored, and Beast Mastery would be a good PvP spec for hunters again let alone getting a PvE buff from all of this as well. I’d really like some constructive feedback on this idea of mine. People I’ve talked about it with have accepted it thus far and I see it as a pretty big fix among things that could be done for the Beast Mastery tree.
As a defensive ability, beastial wrath is damn near crap, pardon my English. For eighteen/ten seconds, we are immune to CC. What this means is that we can run away freely. If it has any sort of ranged attack, Beastial wrath does nothing. If it’s in melee range and can run faster then you ((Ala sprint, pursuit of justice, beastial swiftness, etc)) then your still porked. We do not take less damage. We are not any less susceptible to spells. For TBC, we don’t even do that much more DAMAGE during the duration, though we do get a mana cut. If beastial wrath reduced damage by, say 30% or something, then they’d have the right to call it an offensive AND defensive ability.
And that is something that bugs me. Hunter survivability at high levels is god awful. One on one, a hunter’s chances at survival are pitiful right now. This goes for hunters AND pets. Not that they should be able to, but my pets aren’t soloing anyone, and if any DPS class ((Or protection class, as much as I cringe to type that)) can kill my pet if they really take a notion to. In high AoE instances, even with that 75% AoE reduction, pets are commonly dead in the water. And yet Blizzard just made the one thing that hunters HAVE to do to survive EVEN HARDER. Running away. Keeping moving. Not to mention the damage dealt to pet burst damage.
It just…..boggles my mind that they have decided to nerf before doing any sort of buffing. No promised melee range buff, no survivability buff. Quite the opposite, PvP hunters just got a survivability NERF. Just….why?
Nanotrev,
Those are all good ideas, but adding a shot tot he hunter rotation is still taking focus away from the beast you control. rather than give BM hunters another shot, how about give the pet another passive damage ability that costs no focus? I love my BW and I only use it defensively when I am doing dailies and ther are horde around. If i know a horde is around, i save it in case I am ambushed. Other than that, if I am raiding or in a dungeon, I pop BW everytime it is available. So i am very disappointed in the “revamp” of the ability. So, rather than seeing my hunter get an additional shot, i would rather see my pet get another passive attack that costs no focus to boost up my dps.
My problem is that I never really understood the concept or need for balance in PVE. For example: who could possible be jealous of another player who can do more damage to a mob or boss than another player. In a raid or instance aren’t we all fighting for the common goal of taking down the brutal knucklehead mobs and bosses with everything you can toss at them and do it now? Why would anyone complain that another player or class is too powerful in a fight they have in common? If a Lock tops the damage meters, good for him I say. Good fight. Job well done. Yes, I suppose that theoretically the designated tank should top the DPS meters. In a long fight I modify my shot rotation to keep from pulling agro from the tank, thus reducing my DPS. Even if the tank is my pet. And what difference does it make to anyone that a player can take down a random mob better and faster than anyone else? Especially in PVE? What possible difference does it make to Blizzard that a hunter in PVE is killing mobs better than expected? Nerfing the Hunter and Pet ain’t the solution to something that don’t amount to a hill of beans. I was happy when Blizzard buffed up MM and SV hunters.But then turned right around and nerfed them too. But why stomp down BM hunters and pets in the process? Didn’t Ghostcrawler say it was because the BM hunter population was too high? Gimme a break! That made about as much sense as mammary glands on a bore.
I’ve been a BM hunter since Nov o6 and have seen a lot of changes come and go. But the Great Hunter Nerf of 09 emasculated BM hunters and their pets. Prior to Burning Crusade I could take down Elite Mobs three levels higher than I was. TBC and updates eliminated that. Either just before or when Wrath went live I thought that BM hunters were about where we needed to be … even volley shot was usable again. Then came The BM Hunter Nerf 09. Now I’m emasculated and impotent. I depend on Bestial Wrath, intimidation, and TBW and other pet talents and skills for the pet to grab and hold agro while I plink the target to death. Experience has taught me that when Blizzard piddles with Hunter and pet attributes look out for a Nerf, and often it’s a stealth Nerf not published.
I understand the need for balance in PVP. But Still, when a squishy can take me down with two shots – something ain,t right until the hunter can do the same.
Please excuse the rant folks. *Grin*
BM should totally have a shot that causes a flock of birds to attack doing damage and having some debuff after.
I dont think its fun at all that they have to rely so heavily on pets.. i mean, sure, its Beast Master, but since when is shooting an arrow that attracts hundreds of ravenous birds not Beasty?
Weesnaw….
WOODLAND SHOT: Masses of level one critters attack the target for X amount of damage. It could have squirrels, rabbits, snakes, birds and skunks all in one shot. That would be funny to see. Let the critters get revenge for the achievement that has all the players kill them. lol
I really don’t think that would solve our problem, putting even more reliance on the pet. Ghostcrawler himself said he didn’t want us to be too dependent on our pets despite being the Beast Mastery tree. If our pet dies everything goes down the tubes, and I can also see his point about making our pets too hard to kill as a bad thing. If they were indeed buffed in damage and so hard to kill that the opposing class would have no choice put to focus on us we’d have little we’d need to do but run and add an additional shot as our pet did most of the damage. I myself can see that as being ridiculously easy in PvP without comparing it to other classes. I can see the QQ that would follow. We really would be reduced to winning with just a couple of button presses and adequate time since our pets have quite a bit of CC if you choose the right ones as Beast Mastery. There really wouldn’t be much effort on our part if our pet was buffed so much it was literally another player, and we became the pet they would have to kill to get it out of the way.
Excuse the double post, but I’ve also thought of something else. It was brought up that if our pet was to do more damage it would have to be easier to kill. This was reinforced by Ghostcrawler as well, as he could see the consequences if our pet were too hard to kill and did too much of our damage. I think the balance would be near-perfect if Arcane shot became our signature shot as BM. Our burst would be back, let alone we’d be getting some more additional burst damage we’d been previously missing out on. Our ability, Bestial Wrath could then be used as a defensive ability as Ghostcrawler intends to make it.
This is the forum.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=19820324171&postId=198185217718&sid=1#39
I sure would like Arcane Shot to do at the very least as much damage as ONE TICK OF EXPLOSIVE SHOT. I will say they need to rename it though. Since we’re not going to be using mana for much longer, being able to charge an arrow/bullet with arcane magic doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
This is off topic so I apologize, but I figured if anyone would know this it’d be you guys. I noticed some cat pets seem bigger than others. I saw some that were huge and awesome. Did I just never know how big cats can get at 80 or are there special ones that grow larger than others?
Bullet, there are some cats, as you might know, that are larger than others, the Best case of this is the case of Sabers to Reg cats, with the latter being smaller… but all pets get bigger as you level, so if you saw a 75 cat compared to an 80 cat of the same skin the 80 would be bigger. I’m not quite sure on the sizes of lynx cats are, but the Lions are the same ar reg cats so this is also the case for them
Thanks Gim :)
NP =D
Let me start off by saying that while I don’t think beast masters need a new shot per se, we do need a new attack. Either a shot fired by the hunter, or a button in the vein of intimidation that we hit ourselves to make our pet do damage. In the extreme, a talent that provides a new attack for every pet tree type, though I am almost loathe to add another auto cast ability.
And now for an update from the PvP front. I did multiple BGs last night, and two Wintergrasps just to test the water for hunters in PvP, and it actually wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. My damage was a bit off in my projection, but that was under the line, and not over it. I was some what surprised to see my beastial wrathed spirit beast criticaling for over 1,500 on plate with regular attacks. Spirit strike still needs help, but what are you gonna do? Anyway, on to my point. My pet did not die that much last night. From the straight out battles in AB or the massive turtles in AV, to eating flag runners in Warsong or Eye of the storm. Strand of the ancients she caught a bit more attention from eating war machines, same with Isle of Conquest. But overall, most people couldn’t keep up with her self healing and mend pet, which I don’t remember happening before. Raid buffed it was even worse, since she had around 23,000 hit points, and was usually healed up next to full before the horde could burst her down again. Overall the only things that really gave me any problems ((Massive gear differences aside)) were paladins and well played death knights. Notice I did not say well played paladins, since most of the ones who did manage to beat me only did so through the use of lay on hands and divine shield. Though I do have to, painfully, admit that I caught a few nasty lavaburst criticals in the face.
On the whole, I am still doing just fine in PvP, even with the new rank of gear out. That eight seconds won’t maim me, like so many people are crying, but it will definitely hurt more then it’s two buffs will help.
Makes me a little bummed more people aren’t posting on my thread. It was pretty good at first but I guess I have nothing close to the shock value the OP had in the “Beastial Wrath Nerf” thread that got Ghostcrawler to post in it thus the many more replies of other posters.
Thx Palla for the info on the ptr pvp aspect. might I ask what talent build you use for your pets?
I’ve been respecing and testing to find a setup that I could fit into stamina/hunter vs wild talenting. I actually, for the first time went deep into BM ever. I’d say the folks here would be proud but it’s juuuust hybrid enough. You’ll gasp as I don’t even bother with the last 3 points in the BM tree and pull away from crit enhancing abilities for the hunter in favor of cc, damage reduction and boosting the pet. (It’s nice to have hawk eye back…)
I miss my old Sapphire Hive Drone very much. But the Hive Wasp one will do. It’s pretty awesome sending a very pissed off drake-sized hornet with about 28-30k hp down someone’s throat – was seeing many 1-2k crits on regular attacks even! I’m sure it’s supposed to be far higher with proper gems/spec, but considering I only ever saw my wolf crit for 1k once in a blue moon on a 25-man raid and all the procs lined up juuust right, I was pretty shocked.
It took like 4 tweaks before I found my stride. Unfortunately, I’m not finding it suited for larger-scale battles at all, but that could be I don’t have enough practice with it yet (and it’s kinda hard to sneak and stalk with a huge neon sign for a buddy, enormous nametag and all!)
It’s funny, the past few years I’ve played hunter, and I never BW until now. It’s just sad that I see how fun it can be, it gets tweaked up. I can’t help but think all the Big Red folks out there have to be fuming. Hell, I’m still not a fan of the Tree in general and I’m angry about the change because though Blizzard denies it, the MLG tourney was most likely a big influence on the decision to change the skill.
From a completely PvE perspective (as I’ve never really PvP’ed a day in my life), I believe that if Blizzard wants to make BM a worthwhile spec in any regards, they will not only have to buff the player, but also improve the pet’s blasted ability to stay alive. It doesn’t matter if you buff Bestial Wrath so that you get 10% more damage if your pet is dead most of the time! Sure, they’re okay against certain AoE attacks with Avoidance, but I’m tired of my pet getting blasted half to hell with Sarth’s Fire Walls, or one accidentally standing in a hockey puck and getting itself killed.
Trying to improve BM by removing some reliance on the pet is just ludicrous. It’s “Beast Mastery” for a reason! Want to make us less reliant on the pet? Make sure we don’t have to constantly watch the pet to make sure it doesn’t die. IMO.
I dont think this is fair for hunters
So they removed the hammer of the righteous nerf from protection paladins, making it back into holy damage…..and no change to beastial wrath. Needless to say, I am a bit angry.
Indeed, the Beast Mastery spec is about the pet, but I think it’s reliance on the pet is as far as it is going to get right now. If they have to CC it they might as well kill the pet if it’s so much of a threat that they have to worry about it that much, and without buffing the hunter we would be next to useless once that happened. If you buffed the Arcane shot the pet would be a real threat indeed in that the hunter would be a bigger priority yet they still have our pet hitting them as they try and catch us. We would just be the of equal threat since killing the pet alone would no longer make us completely useless not to mention focusing on the pet would be very detrimental. Our damage coming from us would make the more time they spent on the pet more time we have to DPS their health down thus reducing their chance of succeeding in killing us if they wanted to kill our pet in an effort to handicap the hunter. That would be hunter-pet synergy, having the hunter and the pet work together instead of having the pet be of more importance than the hunter. The class as a whole includes all three specs. We are hunters. We just rely on our pets a little more than the other two specs whereas SV and MM hunters still have quite a bit of DPS left if their pet died. With a change like a buff to Arcane shot we would still have quite a bit more damage invested in the pet, more so than SV and MM to retain being unique as Beast Mastery while not wagering everything we have on the pet.
That was a response I used in one of the threads. Minus the bit about freezing trap, I believe it fits well with people saying it needs to be more about the pet. I can see increasing stuns/roots used by BM pets but overall I think that’s one of the only places you can put improvement for the pets in. Already, they’re on a blade’s edge of being OP or too frail so it’s simply best to leave them the way they are. The pets are pretty good now as is with stuns possibly being desirable as mentioned earlier. Hunter-pet synergy would be the hunter and the pet working together, not having the pet do all the work and therefore get focused on and DPS’ed down to the ground as a method of handicapping hunters.
I disagree, Nanotrev. A large part of being a beast master is knowing what to do with your pet and when. I think speccing as beast master should mean having to actually know how to control your NPC pet, and not just about spamming shots everytime they are off of cool down. As I previously stated, my pets are actually doing very well, to the point that even a three-tenacity stacked tauren warrior wasn’t able to kill my spirit beast in to much of a hurry. I’ve also been on the other side of the fence with my death knight, and while I CAN kill pets, it actually takes a good deal longer to off the pet then the hunter.
SV and MM pets may be frail, but my pets as beast master aren’t. Maybe it’s a spec difference, maybe it’s a play style difference, but I tend to put my pet where the fighting is thickest, with mend pet up, and just let them go. The OP part comes from when pets are raid buffed. Raid buffed, my pet has around as much DPS as I do, and that’s before a critical or beastial wrath.
Nanotrev, I apologize if this sounds insulting, but do you even play a beast master hunter? A good BM is anywhere from 60-40 to 55-45 with the pet. That isn’t the pet doing all the work, even though the tree is meant to focus on the pet. I think a large part of the problem associated with the BM tree is that everyone thinks its the easiest tree to play in the game. From a solo perspective, this isn’t to far off the mark. In a raiding and PvP perspective, its far from the truth. I’ll let Nimizar, Rikaku, or Ryai tell you about the raiding aspect of the hunter, but for PvP, if I don’t focus my pet correctly then I am literally nearly halving my damage potential one a single target. If I don’t properly care for my pet, I am potentially losing the same. Add that onto how much a hunter has to keep themselves out of trouble, and you find yourself juggling the survival of TWO characters as opposed to just one.
I think the balance between hunter and pet for beast master is about right, damage wise. However, as I have previously stated, that nerf to beastial wrath is going to hurt that in the short term. Hell, it’s going to hurt it in the long term, since it buffs the hunter over a period of time instead of the pet or both. Personally, and this is coming from a PvPer and retired raider, I don’t see that as a good thing. Like I said, we’re going to need some kind of compensation for that short term burst we are losing, and I don’t mean that 10% hunter damage increase. A new shot, a new pet attack ability on use by the hunter ala intimidation, something.
I do play a Beast Mastery hunter. I really can’t believe how you hit what I was thinking of right on the money.
“I’ll admit that most of my PvP occurs in duels, BGs, and world PvP with BGs taking the cake. Hunter pet damage is fine. Pet survivability is fine, despite them getting killed half of the time. People will outgear you in BGs and it’s something I run across from time to time. We don’t have weak pets. The point is getting the pet buffed, and getting the hunter buffed in a way that will be balanced. A new shot, and longer CC for pets to use, sounds like the key to me. Why? The nerf to Bestial Wrath will hurt a lot in PvP. Take how long you can avoid CC and cut that in half, as I’ve been trying to get across but the person who has responded to me in another forum who I’ve just quoted hit things right on the money.”
I quoted the bottom paragraph of what you posted in the official forums. Our pets don’t need to last longer, that’s no my complaint. I’d like longer stuns from the pets, and a nice shot to boost our burst up to where it should be. Perhaps I just have bad luck with my pet.
Curious, but do you spec into Thick Hide?
Nanotrev:
“I’d like longer stuns from the pets”
I agree. I’d love a longer (or even a more reliable!) stun from pets. BTW I’m just speaking from “Intimidation” here, not so much any pet skills that use them XD
I do spec thick hide, I was wondering if that might have been one of the differences, since I don’t see a lot of beast masters with it. And I have to agree, intimidation should last for at least five seconds. Two seconds is kind of piddly for a talented stun.
I think a lot of beast masters pets are just getting focus fired. I think ANYTHING and ANYONE taking focus fire should die, our pets included, so I have no complaints there. PvE hunters have a bit less and a bit more to worry about. Some boss AoEs are plain and simple instant death for a pet, and it’s easy to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Palla: I’ve only got one point into Thick Hide because I use the other two points I could put in there for range with Hawk Eye. I’m not really sure if that would help all that much or not. On getting focus-fired, I can definitely say that my Devilsaur gets some attention yet people will actually ignore my Silithid. A horrible, horrible mistake.
Rikaku: I really thought Intimidation was three? Even then I’ve gotten a comment from a Mage saying it wasn’t worth blinking out of. I’d snatch up a Ravager in a heartbeat if those changes went through that let us pick the pet’s talent tree. I’d have a total of five seconds of stun time and a very bad-ass looking Ferocity pet. If only they had Gore as well ;)
It’s two seconds, unfortunately. And I like Hawkeye, but not enough to sacrifice any of my ‘nessecary’ talents. Speaking of which, http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?hunter#9fDWR2UE2DpG-,,10433 is my spec, and http://www.wowhead.com/?petcalc#mdd00fc0zhkob is my spirit beastie. My wolf is a little different, but the general idea is the same. With the coming nerf, I may have to drop lick your wounds for charge or boars swiftness, though. We’ll see how badly it screw up my mobility come live patch.
Whoops, I lied, 3 seconds.
As my third, that’ll make sense when Mania saves that comment from the claws of the address catcher thingie.
Just to issue an idea since some hunters have said this.
THis is just an idea.
Impaling Shot: Fires an impaling shot dealing x damage and then bleeding for y damage over 9 seconds. Also increases pet damage done to that target when the bleed is in effect by 15%. 12 second cooldown.
That would actually give people a reason to use a rhino again, and isn’t a bad idea at all. I like that shot idea, Kalimac.
Yeah but the question is would Blizzard impliment a shot that can cause bleed damage when they did a bleed talent in mm? :/ I doubt it.
Mean look at pets, they give Ferocity the most survival, granted at the expense of dps, but those talents could really work out in cunning and tenacity, yet they don’t have them. And all Tenacity gets is a +heal every time pet growls.
I mean hell +heal/happiness would be better- like what Ferocity has. How hard is it to incorperate that. But meh that’s pet talking and not TBW.
I don’t like this change- was in a nexus run on my orc, and the only reason we didn’t wipe when the dps and tank decided to lol pull was guess what. Me. And my Devilsaur. And it took everything I had to surviuve getting slammed on, kite and then take down the path mobs. INCLUDING an 18 sec TBW.
Which I just managed to pull off just before Dante died to the onslaught.
Easily 95% of the time when I use BW it’s for offensive purposes, so while the “trinket” change is nice, it’s going to have very limited impact overall.
50% mana reduction, IF they actually do it, would be sort of neat but not great – I mean it’s not like I’m coming off BW particularly low on mana even now with 18 seconds of it so not sure why they think this is such a great idea – now if they were also talking about dropping the CD on BW that could be a very different matter (on several levels), but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.
Although it’s tempting to say “Blizzard hates hunters!” my gut tells me this is more of a “change for the sake of change” than anything else. We’ll see.
Unfortunately Scott, it’s more of a “Change for the sake of arena”. I’d probably be less aggrivated if it were just for the sake of change.
I guess – I can’t really comment on PVP much for lack of firsthand experience, but from what I’ve heard secondhand, BM hunters haven’t seriously been considered to “own” at PVP for a long time, so if it is a PVP oriented nerf the grounds would seem especially weak (not that that would stop Blizzard, I know)…
Personally I have no objection to changes that allow BM hunters to retain their overall power but require a finer degree of pet micromanagement, if only to try and shut up people who say BM spec is “easy” due to so much power being invested in an AI creature… instead of a chimaera or explosive shot, for example, the BM hunter might have “pounce” which causes the pet to deliver an extra hard melee hit in exchange for some of your mana, which shares CD with a (limited) shell shield effect that is also manually triggered only, and powered by hunter mana, etc etc.
But instead it just seems they are taking away 3 or 4 things and giving back 2. I don’t want BM spec to just be considered good for taming spirit beasts…
Let me explain, Scott. In one of the recent arena tournaments, there was a particular team type consisting of an enhancement shaman, a beast master, and I think a paladin. The team make up revolved around not being CC-able, through talented earthbind pulses and beastial wrath/the beast within. This team composition did well enough to actually win the tournament. The idea behind it was to resist or outright forgo the CC of the popular RMP team, since basically anyone fighting an RPM team is down a member most of the match.
So I wasn’t exactly right, they didn’t nerf it because of PvP, they nerfed it because of arena. Maybe I am just inflexible, but I have never considered arena to be real PvP. Rather, it’s just glorified multi-person dueling which focus’s on class imbalance and whose healer can run away the best.
As my second, and further proof of this being the reason behind the Beastial wrath/The beast within nerf, they’ve also nerfed the enhancement shamans talented earthbind so that it no longer makes anyone immune to CC. Now it….increases the slowing speed from earth shock.
As my third, and for clarification, Earthbind totem talented just made people immune to snares for five seconds after being dropped, and then upon pulsing freed people from snares. Now it just does the pulse, and drops attack speed by 10%. But you get the picture. A team combination was ‘to good’ and had to be nerfed.
@Rock: PvE balance matters in cutting edge progression guilds where players are competing for slots in the raid group. Blizzard have done a good job in getting the various DPS specs closer than they have been in the past, but you are still highly unlikely to see something like a frost mage or BM hunter in the raid group for a world first kill – the difference in DPS is just too great (for hunters, we’re talking over 1000 dps, or more than 10%, difference between the highest theoretical BM DPS and the highest theoretical MM DPS).
@Palla (re. pet raiding survivability): I haven’t actually raided as BM in Wrath (I was behind the gear curve due to taking a few months break, so I went SV in order to at least contribute Replenishment to the other mana users). However, there are definitely still quite a few fights where AoE is utterly brutal to pets, even with 3/3 Avoidance (Heigan in Naxx and Mimiron in Ulduar come to mind). One advantage of going SV or MM is that the impact of the pet dying is lower. (Note that BM pet health isn’t actually all that much higher than non-BM in a DPS spec, since you skip the survivability talents in favour of MOAR DPS. The only advantage I can think of is from going 2/2 Wild Hunt instead of 1/2).
Weren’t Druids nerfed cause of LOL ARENA- and it didn’t even affect resto druids really, it affected the others. And then the scare beast change? You know with the instant cast and druids CRIED OVER IT!? It was because evidently one dev couldn’t beat a druid in pvp. And I still like it when people whined it’d be spam castable! Yeah I mean it has a 20 sec cd, it barely would last 10 seconds now, and yeah it’s to OP!? A cat is eating my face and it’s to OP!? And even now when I do get it off on lower alts it misses, MISSES!? or is resisted! I mean I barely even bother with it anymore it’s useless.
USELESS.
aurg.
And now we get nerfed thanks to arena. WAY TO GO GUYS. Cause really Arena is what EVERYONE plays! Like EVERYONE is a raider! Or EVERYONE PVPs!
/facepalm
I’m not happy atm.
I dont know if anyone has thought of this but just an idea, I think this would solve some of our melee and burst prob and be perfect talent for bm, take something of a mix of a locks meta, and a druid bear, let us turn into a beast for x amount of seconds, and give us increased melee atk power, more armor and some beastly skills, maybe even add a bwish buff to pet while we transform?
Dont know how good this really is but just something thats ben floatin in my mind
Actually Pika, I had a slightly different idea for Cataclysm, though I doubt they’d go with it. Ranged weapons that go into the melee slots for characters, like one handed pistols or short range shot guns. Make them the same strength or maybe a bit weaker then melee weapons of the same level, and allow us to use our shots in melee range. It’d fix pretty much all of our problems. The only real issue is that it’d probably require adding a new weapon type into the game, and Blizzard seems really loathe to do that.
Okay, not ALL of our problems, but our short range ones.
And that was what I’d heard Nim. Like this or that boss being able to hit for 9999999999999999999999 damage on certain AoEs that no one is logically supposed to be within range of, that sometimes pets can’t make it out of, or even day to day AoE that finally just wears them down faster then you can keep them up. What I am afraid of is that Blizzard is going to decide that pet are basically meant to be little tanks, ala voidwalker, and nerf their damage to hell, while buffing hunter damage to make up for it.
to palla
good idea, but even if i dont use my swords/axes/w/e i still like having a cool looking weapon at my side =P
another id ea i had was maybe instead of transforming into an animal maybe transform into a race worgen kinda mix, u know grow some claws get mad and start wailing on stuff in melee for awhile =P
In Vanilla WoW, and in TBC it’s safe to say my main was my BM Hunter. I like the big-pet-thing. In Anarchy Online, I played an Engineer, with a robot that rivals any Prot Warrior.
Now my BM Hunter is mostly a crafting alt. I play the new-and-improved BM Hunter. It’s called an Unholy Death Knight. Why, for one glyph and far fewer talents, I have a pet to rival any BM pet. Even has the stun, and I can call one back instantly if it dies.
Not only that, but my Unholy DK has better crowd control, self-heals, still has tons of ranged damage and abilities, takes much less damage, gives all my chums 155 str + 155 agil + 13% additional magic damage, and has even MORE PETS! Every 3 minutes I can whip out a gargoyle that puts any BM pet to shame, and every ten minutes I can summon an ARMY that will very quickly solo (while I lay down for a nap) any BM Hunter that still hasn’t figured out that Blizzard intends them to become Unholy DKs to be able to have all the things that BM Hunters have always deserved.
I have to ask if anyone at Blizzard has really sat down and compared BM Hunter to Unholy DK. Because the similarity is high, but the disparity in ability and power is GIGANTIC.
Pikalay,
I still like the idea of getting rid of “Eyes of the Beast” and making the 51-point talent for BM the ability to permanently become your pet. Then we could melee dps or tank (if your pet is set to tenacity skills). They already have the system to do it. just look at Druids. I think that would be a very cool ability for huntewrs, and it would kinda fix the problem of “We want the hunter to be more powerful than the pet” thing. If we become the pet, there will only be opne toon’s power to worry about.
What about a Stampede ability? Soemthign to replace a little used talent deep in the BM tree. Basically empty your stables for X seconds to wail one someone/their friends. Channeling maybe?
@Dweezill
Well instead of becoming your pet, I like the idea of riding your pet to combat as one unit, think back huntress in WC3. They could also work with Aspect of the Beast in that regard as it is useless at the moment.
off topic, my randomly chosen avatar beats anyone here! (with their random avatar)
No, Dwezil. Just no. Part of being a hunter, and one of my favorite parts, is the synergy between hunter and pet. Literally the last thing I want for the class is to destroy that through getting rid of the pet in any way. Maybe for a limited amount of time, ala metamorphosis, but honestly even then I don’t think it fits, or feels right. We’re hunters, not druids. Shape shifting ain’t our thing.
Agreed with Palla
Also, if we gained any sort of ability to tank, we would overall have our dps nerfed. We wouldn’t be pure-dps anymore, we’d be like shamans and druids who are hybrids.
I’ve just posted this and it’s generated some discussion. Although, here’s what the conclusions have come to.
Other poster-
I was not suggesting that they should actually change the shot names. I was just making a random observation about what might happen if they started from scratch. Sorry for the confusion there.
To help understand my other point, remember that the only reason MM hunters use chimera shot and arcane shot is because chimera shot has a cooldown. If chimera shot did not have a cooldown, then they would just spam chimera shot over and over, because that one does more damage.
That is one of the things that could (should?) change with a focus system. It will be like energy. Instead of being limited by cooldowns, we will be limited by focus regen, just like rogues and feral druids. The thing that keeps them from spamming mutilate or shred or backstab is that those moves cost 60 energy (before talents) and they only have 100 energy (before talents). So they can do one (usually) but then have to wait until they have enough energy for the second one. That’s how Blizzard controls spamming. It’s different with mana using classes, because their mana pool is larger than an energy pool by comparison, so they can fire off a ton of attacks in rapid succession unless they are limited by cooldowns.
So, imagine that chimera shot and arcane shot cost 60 focus. If you’re a marksman hunter, whenever you have 60 focus, you’ll fire a chimera shot. Chimera does more damage than arcane shot, so barring immunities, you would never have any reason to use arcane shot. Survival will be similar. There probably won’t be a shared cooldown on arcane and explosive anymore (in fact, there probably shouldn’t be shared cooldowns on any shots) because again, why spend 60 focus to use an arcane shot when you can use that same 60 focus on an explosive shot, which does much more damage.
This is why feral druids don’t use claw. Mangle costs the same amount of energy and does more damage. Assassination rogues won’t use backstab, for similar reasons (plus the positioning issue).
One of the things the developers specifically said they wanted to do with a focus system is get rid of many (all?) cooldowns on hunter shots and let focus be the limiting factor instead, like those other classes. We will be about smart resource management instead of watching which ability comes off cooldown and mashing it. We won’t need to have more shots added to our arsenal just so we have something to do while waiting for other abilities to be available.
Myself-
I like the idea, not to mention it puts even more dependency on kiting. That’s not a bad thing, as for hunters that kite well already then it’ll be natural for us. I see feral druids doing well enough with their energy as feral. It makes more sense then, to add a more reliable shot that’s good for our burst damage or buff one that already exists and then perhaps add more help from the pet to keep us at range since if we use our focus on attacks we may not have any left over to use our spells that help us escape such as Deterrence in case they stay in melee for too long or Disengage. It would be much more useful to therefore give the Beast Mastery pet a larger role in keeping our enemies at range. MM hunters might have their talents that are based around regenerating mana changed to regenerating focus, while a SV hunter might have something similar to that as well like they do now with Scatter Shot staying as an SV talent since they’d need more time to get their focus back, Steady Shot helping all three specs out in a raiding environment.
Other poster-
Right. And as between those two choices, I prefer “buff one that already exists” because if they add a new shot, then either that shot never gets used because it’s not as good as arcane shot, or it’s better than arcane shot and then arcane shot disappears from every hunter’s bars. Arcane shot isn’t particularly interesting by itself anyway, but if it’s going to be there then they need to make sure at least one spec wants to use it. Otherwise they need to just kill it and replace it with something else entirely.
Myself-
Exactly, but it still brings up a good question. While we’re busy regenerating our focus, what kind of CC from us or our pets would be the most favorable for us while retaining balance so that our spec doesn’t become overpowered? While it may be required I’d hate to waste focus on Concussive shot and have to continue reapplying it. A stun or slowing ability would be much more favorable, along with keeping Intimidation at the cost of 0 focus being that it comes from our pet anyways. It’s just a command from the hunter. I’d like to stress that improved stuns and root durations from Beast Mastery pet would be a very nice thing to have along with possibly having a short daze effect being worked into Arcane as well.
Edit
Another thing is, which abilities should cost focus, and which shouldn’t? Should it just be our shots being that they’re the main source of hunter damage or all of our other abilities as well? Pets already work off of their own source of focus so there’s no need to think much into what their abilities will cost unless there’s a new idea for a pet skill.
————–
So, what do you guys think? It sounds like things in the way of shots have been worked out already (or so it appears) and that we would use our pet for CC, but what forms of CC would be appeal to us yet remain balanced? I took some ideas from multiple places (including this thread) and posted them for everyone to see on the official WoW damage dealing forum. I know there’s been a moderator snooping around in that thread as two trolls were attacking it this morning and both were reported and removed in less than five minutes after they’d been flagged for being detrimental. There are scores of good, balanced ideas I’ve posted in that thread and would very much appreciate feedback in this thread here.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=19820636232&sid=1
I really REALLY don’t want to be Focus based, we are NOT BROKEN, repeat NOT BROKEN using mana/cooldowns and it seems to work JUST FINE!!! the fact that they are now doing a switch like this after several years of mana working great makes me more then a little steamed, it’ll be like relearning the feel of a Hunter, which i really don’t want to do, so in my mind it is plain and utterly stupid. my 2 cents worth
I like the idea, at least, as Beast Mastery. Our pet does a lot of the work anyways and if you’re good at kiting it shouldn’t be a problem if they do things correctly in giving us adequate defensive abilities as well as some things that don’t cost any focus.
Here is the thing though, Nanotrev, and I think it is an important distinction. Melee classes have to get into melee range to use their abilities, however most melee feature some way, form, or fashion to allow them to get into range. Casters are more comfortable from a distance, but ALL casters have some defensive ability to help them in melee, to allow them to regain distance, or both. They can also deal their damage just fine from melee, and in fact some caster classes exhibit the ability to deal certain other forms of damage in melee range. Hunters do not feature a REAL defensive ability in melee range ((Deterrence is a joke, plain and simple)) and REQUIRE at least six yards between hunter and target to deal the bulk of their damage. On the flip side, hunters gain traps in melee, however traps are both mostly ineffectual and easy to avoid. Concussive, wing clip, and disengage are our only really effective defensive abilities, and disengage has to be the most finicky defensive maneuver I have ever had the head ache of using.
What this means is that it is nearly 100% necessary for a hunter to be able to kite in PvP. And even then, at eighty there are so many counters to a kiting hunter that it isn’t even funny. Basically, hunters are the only class that A: Requires an entirely different playstyle from PvE to PvP and B:has to rely on a play style that literally cuts their damage just to be able to stay alive a little longer. Warlocks can still send in their demon and just DoT the crap out of everything ((Personal experience speaking)) and while kiting does help, I have never found it absolutely necessary. IN fact there are times when trying to kite as a warlock is a very bad idea, thanks to the some what slow nature of DoTs. However warlocks also have more defensive mechanisms to use, from death coil and fear to health stones.
Obviously I am being a little unfair. There are some differences for most classes between PvE and PvP, but for most it’s something as simple as adding a snare, or learning to silence at the right time. For hunters, it’s literally learning how to fire at a target while running away, and finding the best possible way to stay out of melee range. One of the greatest abilities as far as kiting goes is being able to jump, turn in mid-jump, fire off a shot, and then turn and keep running in the same direction without breaking stride.
*Takes a deep breath* What I am saying is that it’s already complicated enough to play a hunter in PvP. I am having a really hard time seeing how Focus is going to help us any. My big fear is that our defensive abilities are going to cost focus, and we are going to have to worry about not having the focus we need to disengage at the right time or what have you. But…..we shall see, I suppose.
OH! My other point! I think it’s a load of crap that you pretty much HAVE to be good at kiting in order to PvP effectively, when no other class has a restriction like that! It just goes back to not being able to do most of our damage under the five yard line!
Knew I was aiming for something else there.
Gimlion:
Actually I don’t like the focus change either as there is alot of other crap Blizz should be focusing on for Hunters. However, I will not say it’s going to suck. We don’t know how it’ll work for one. We only know “Haste will affect it”. That’s all we sort of know about it. And, random fact, Hunters in WoW’s original beta used Focus (from what I’ve understood from beta-players of WoW). So this concept isn’t new.
Mania’s Arcania » PTR3.2.2: TBW Saga Continues - September 16th, 2009 @ 3:34 am UTC
[...] change is not unexpected — Ghostcrawler mentioned the possibility when discussing the last set of changes to The Beast Within. And now it looks quasi-official. [...]
-Earlier post
“Exactly, but it still brings up a good question. While we’re busy regenerating our focus, what kind of CC from us or our pets would be the most favorable for us while retaining balance so that our spec doesn’t become overpowered? While it may be required I’d hate to waste focus on Concussive shot and have to continue reapplying it. A stun or slowing ability would be much more favorable, along with keeping Intimidation at the cost of 0 focus being that it comes from our pet anyways. It’s just a command from the hunter. I’d like to stress that improved stuns and root durations from Beast Mastery pet would be a very nice thing to have along with possibly having a short daze effect being worked into Arcane as well.”
I do realize it’s required that we need range to be any good. That’s why I was stressing that we needed our pets to be able to stun or root more often or have longer durations of their current stuns and/or roots.
“I really REALLY don’t want to be Focus based, we are NOT BROKEN, repeat NOT BROKEN using mana/cooldowns and it seems to work JUST FINE!!! the fact that they are now doing a switch like this after several years of mana working great makes me more then a little steamed, it’ll be like relearning the feel of a Hunter, which i really don’t want to do, so in my mind it is plain and utterly stupid. my 2 cents worth”
@Gimlion,
Unfortunately, you are sadly blinded by your personal perspective so that you are not able to see a bigger picture here.
Yes mana worked fairly decently at least until TBC, but from then on there were many clear signs that proved flaws inherent for hunters with mana (and int from gear).
1. In order to have mana as our resource mechanic, we require int in our gear, which ultimately spreads out item budget and this chips off from other area. Many of you seen this happening in Sunwell gear as well as PvP gear.
2. After disallowing us to FD+drink in combat they introduced Aspect of the Viper. This has always been changing and always seemed to be just band-aiding the issue. No one liked it, but it was best what Blizzard devs could think of at the moment which is closest to any problems regarding mana regen issues.
3. Having mana as a resource system pushes us to be balanced similar to casters, cooldown is a factor in balancing main set of damage abilities because we could spam those other wise but unlike other casters hunters do small chunks of damage justified by auto shots and instant shots. Unfortunately they scale pitifully compare to those of casters, in another words casters may have less instant cast but their abilities are more bang for a buck.
Edit for #1. This was band-aided by devs as a talent for hunters and shamans in WOTLK to receive AP per int so they are not nearly useless.
One more to the list.
4. Buttons – Let me elaborate how this is related to mana system.
As I stated in #3, because can spam or use abilities in succession to certain extent otherwise limited by cooldown we are able to chain our numerous but LACKLUSTER CC/snare abilities if we choose to do so.
Because our class is balanced similar to casters, managed by cooldown and mana as resource they gave us many but weak CC/snare to be used in combination at cost of many GCD, because we can chain them if we choose to do so as long as they are not in CD or OOM. Thus we get all these neat skills which sound dandy at first but you eventually come to manage 2-3 types of each version you got to choose when to use, and of course bind them all other wise not being able bring out full potential.
Summary: many weak abilities to spam/watch cd but nothing interesting or feel “good” about using them.
I am almost never binded to gear with Intel on it, i get a lil extra mana from it, and a few points of AP, but if there is leather gear that is better for me then my Intel baring item, i will roll/bid/ what have you for it unless there is a rogue/kitty in the party, plain and simple… so i do not see it as a binding/impairing atribute
Gimlion, I think you are still bit off from the “perspective” you should be on to look at why devs do what they do, in this case focus instead of mana.
Sure, you are entitled to take leather if you see it as better upgrade but think this way for a second. First of all, back before WOTLK, Sunwell content, they didn’t have int -> AP talent for hunters and shamans. Because all hunters get out of int was just a larger mana pool, it chipped off from other DPS stats. Thus, many hunters sported rogue gear because it’s simply better.
Now you say what is the problem here right? From dev/designer perspective when certain gear designed to be useful for certain class is no longer desirable and compete for other ones designed to be used mainly by other set of classes, it raises red flag.
There was actually a prelude to this problem with ret pally gear. Their old ret gears were so spread out in stats and how their talent/skills worked out, it was not working at all and that’s why you saw a big overhaul.
@ palla I agree with ya totally
I have been playing since 2005 myself and have seen so many changes and nerfs to hunter i just sit back and shake my head!!
1.) they need to leave TBW and BW alone period end of story!!
2.) At one time and i believe the older players my have had seen it but at one time I was doing more damge with arcane then aim shot would ever do then NERF !!!
3.) scattershot and silent shot needs to be longer!! dazing a warrior that has just rend and hamstringed you gives you no time to run away But what about disengaged gives ya the distance but does not take away the movement imparing affect and hence the new charge and warrior in face yet again… When traps actually worked before most came immune to them they where great!! now not so great
what am I getting at I also Have a Paladin and with my paladin i can stun a hunter
mutli times and stomp his pet and i know this from both sides doing it and having it done to me Ret pally’s have 2 stuns of course hammer and the least know of the 2 repentance!!
Example I can stun the hunter with hammer and he could use his trinket and get out but then hit him with repentance and as long as no one takes him out i can wail on the beast and let hammers cool down finish and then stun him again if need or just wail on the hunter!! works on locks to only deadlier because of there Demon pets!!
and I believe that all Hunter specs need a get away move and sorry but nerfing TBW and the BW is totally not the way for blizz to do it
Sorry for Double but seriously look at the length of time for Fear and polymorph
and pally stuns and druids entanglement and we get a very short time with BW and scattershot and silent shots please needs more time but hey warlocks now get Teleport and mages blink and ice block granted they are squishies but sure dont hit like one
Something else they absolutely need to nerf in PvP is crippling poison. I fail to see how it is fair that most slows are around the 50% mark, yet crippling is 70% and reapplied constantly.
Some class changes are majorly for the better though. As much fun as it was to be topping meters in TBC with Steady Shot spam it was a seriously *dumb* situation for the class to be in. Unlinking auto shot so Steady couldn’t interrupt it, and then nerfing steady so that it was a filler shot rather than hands down our highest damage-per-mana shot made it possible for there to actually be interesting hunter rotations.
That kind of thing is why I always laugh when people try to claim that hunters never get any love from the devs though… (pet talent trees, anyone?)
Personally, I’m hopeful that when focus goes we’ll see Aspects disappear as well. Hunters have too many different class mechanics (shots, pet, stings, traps, aspects, melee attacks, pet-linked abilities like Master’s Call and BW, miscellaneous abilities like Disengage and Deterrence). Something needs to give and with one of our current major aspects rendered null and void by the switch to focus, they’re the most obvious candidate for culling.
Started skimming some of the comments on the linked WHU site… “We will be shooting steady more often, so it will be a significant loss of DPS”.
/rolleyes
I mean, it’s not like Blizzard are completely overhauling the itemisation, talent trees and ability scaling for the whole frakking game and will have to rebalance everything from scratch… oh, wait, yeah it is.
Ah well, at least one of their admins chimed in to say pretty much the same thing. The hunter mana->focus change is almost trivial compared to the impact of the removal of ability ranks, the restructure of nearly all gear stat allocations (except DPS plate) and the changes to the talent trees due to the mastery system.
That’s something that kind of worries me, actually. They are changing a HUGE chunk of WoW on us. Will it still be as fun afterwards? I’m already feeling burned, so this will either make me stay a bit longer, or totally break me of WoW.
Mania’s Arcania » Patch 3.2.2 Hunter Changes - September 22nd, 2009 @ 2:39 pm UTC
[...] napping), Patch 3.2.2 made its way onto the live realms today. We’ve been talking about the hunter changes on the 3.2.2 PTR for a bit, and now we can see the changes in [...]
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