Quote:
Dead-zone has been largely removed, has it not?
It's more then just about having our dead-zone removed. Our sole damage is our ranged weapons. You don't see a Warrior trying to gun down a mage when he suddenly blinks do you? Or a mage pulling out his dagger and stabbing some one the second they get into melee range?
Granted we can do a lot of damage with our new S3 Axe while in melee, but our damage is limited to auto-attack and one ability, Raptor Strike which only adds additional damage to your next auto-attack. Wing-Clip is our snare, Mongoose is dodge based, and Counter-Strike is Parry based not to mention only available to SV hunters. Deterrence is great, if you're up against a rogue or a warrior for all of 10 seconds. Against a caster who just puts himself in your face, there isn't much that deterrence is going to do against them.
The main thing this guy is pointing out in his post is our lack of participation in arena's. We are awesome DPS in the PVE world, no doubt. In a typical Battleground or a 1v1 fight we can hold our own as well. However the arena is where we are just decimated.
Now everyone has Line of Sight Issues. But not everyone has the ranged issue where if a person gets within melee range, your damage just got shot down to 1/2 to 1/4th of what you normally do. Rogues, Warriors, Enh Shamans, and Feral Druids all keep their sustained 100% damage in melee range. As do all casters. Hunters are literally the only class to deal 50-75% less damage when confronted in melee. It is our weak spot and greater then any other class within an arena setting.
Now I'm not saying that casters don't have problems when melee gets in their faces, they do. But let's face facts, a warlock can still dot you up while taking heavy damage from a warrior. A hunter can sit there, try to wing-clip the warrior and get back to ranged combat, assuming the warrior wasn't smart enough to hamstring the hunter. Scatter Shot/Intimidation works for all of 3 seconds, and a trap won't last long with diminishing returns not to mention our cooldowns for traps is 30 seconds (typically). I could go on, but back to the point.
Arena's themselves are very situational for a hunter. A typical 2v2 fight, hunters do alright. Higher rated 3v3 the other team will typically CC your healer, and beat down the hunter while the other DPS tries to do what they can to keep them A) either off the hunter or B) stop the healer from getting CC'd. And if you want to know what a 5v5 is like, go find a hunter with a high rating and ask how much he likes being the center of attention with the typical 3-4 DPSers on top of them.
Personally speaking, I gave up on arena's with my hunter. At the higher rated levels I found myself constantly picked out to be killed first. It didn't matter what spec I was, if they saw a hunter in a 3v3 or a 5v5 group I was almost always picked first to die.
Just ask yourself, would you rather be shot by a hunter or melee'd? Answer that question truthfully and you'll see our problem in arena's.