Quote:
Those who feel that Hunters are 'just fine' in the Arena have failed to understand just how awful it is against a higher rated team,
I don't see how advocating the conclusion that Hunters are effective in Arena means that someone doesn't understand. I question the perception of 'eliminating the hunter' by being a priority target makes hunters 'less' effective as a class in the Arena, I say it proves the opposite.
Oddly, like Kompera, I play Arena for the EXACT same reasons and have the EXACT same results as he does. I've come to a different understanding of Hunter effectiveness in the Arena. I don't know if he is playing MM/SV spec in Arena or what, but I do know I have never left my PvP MM/SV spec since I started Arena. Like RAIDing, spec makes a difference and not all specs are good at all things.
As a dedicated Arena Hunter I've found that I fully understand what Kompera is saying and I agree with everything but his conclusion. My disagreement stems from the inclusion of the idea that all classes can be marginalized by elimination and an understanding of the higherarchy of Arena influences. The more dangerous the class, the higher up the targeting list they go. That has little to do with balance issues IMO, it speaks more to threat levels and class roles. All of that is even trumped by Arena Lottery and Gear levels. Team composition is less critical the higher number of team members, but even then, Arena Lottery can kill certain classes of a team and make one team have a handicap out of the gate and give their foes an advantage.
Nobody likes dying early or being the early target. That probably has more to do with fewer Hunter's being used in Arena or on winning teams than any fault of the class. That's how I'm looking at it. You can say I'm wrong, and that's fine, but how can you 'fix' an issue that nobody can even properly define? How do you expect Blizz to fix it? I don't think any minor tweak will be able to fix it.
Simply put, Arena doctrine is pretty solid and Blizzard would really have to redesign both the Arena's themselves and how they work to prevent current doctrine from dominating a match, even at the highest levels of play. Even then, new doctrine would take it's place and some other class would be 'unfun' to play because of X,Y,Z reasons and they would be unrepresented.
I'd rather they leave us alone and work on bigger issues with the class balance, not focus on Arena unless it's to totally rework it. As it stands, I have much bigger complaints about Arena than being a Hunter in it.