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Holy stupid O-boards (and some info about buffs)Follow

#1 Aug 29 2008 at 3:39 AM Rating: Decent
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I remember way back when I used to browse these forums a lot, I heard a lot of people ***** about the O-boards. I was getting all of the information I needed from alla, so I never bothered going there.

Today, however, I came across the more detailed plan Blizz has for buffs and debuffs in Lich King. I went to go find the post and read up on it, and, unfortunately, I read a few of the replies.

Fun and informative thread!

Oh my god.

I appreciate the alla forums even more now. In the above-linked thread there are 10 idiotic "their rooning teh game lol! Imma quit wow and play warhammer!!!!" for every one even remotely worthwhile post. Are the O-boards always like this? Have I been spoiled by the intelligent and generally thoughtful, well-written posts in alla?

Aside from that, how do you guys feel about these changes? Personally, I don't care too much. Our guild isn't very serious, so we'll take most anyone on a raid that's geared for it. Buffs are nice, but for us, it's more about the player as to whether or not you'll go. We've done raids without shammies, and it generally doesn't seem to wipe us. I can't speak for the guilds raiding Sunwell, though.

*Edit - we did just the other day find out how much it sucks to raid without any pallies and their wonderful salvation. Zul'Jin does not care for our dps without salv.

Edited, Aug 29th 2008 7:38am by mikeyvach
#2 Aug 29 2008 at 4:10 AM Rating: Good
Congratulations, you just realized that intelligence on the intarwebz is a rare thing. Legibility even more so.

On the matter of these changes, I am ambivalent. On the one side, this does remove some of the "We must have so and so many of that class, so and so many of this one, the speccs have to be like so and so, the group composition must be thus and that.".

Still, I am not sure I like that. Proper raidmanagement and raid planning is an aspect of the game I really like. Setting up groups and adjusting the strategy and so on is a tactical part of the game which can be both challenging and fun. The way they do it now, it's nowhere near as difficult nor demanding of the guild. Lesser skilled/knowledgeable people will perform as well as the skilled and knowledgeable.

I'm not so sure this is a good thing. I will still wait and see...
#3 Aug 29 2008 at 6:07 AM Rating: Decent
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I look at it like this: you have a 10-man raid consisting of 3 healers, a mage, 2 tanks (one a feral druid), a rogue, an enhancement shaman, and a ret pally, as well as your hunter. If you do the math, that leaves 6 people dealing physical damage, so the hunter could benefit from the pally's aura, strenght of the earth totem (will give agility in LK, I'm not talking about the strength), windfury, and leader of the pack...but so will all of the other meleers. With this change, you dont have the people fighting over the spot in the melee buffing group.

Also, it means if you're stacking melee DPS you don't need to have the proper auras in EVERY group. I like the change, as it will make raiding less about spending 5 minutes trying to figure out whether to put person A in group 1 or person B in group 1, and more about killing stuff. It takes enough time to form raids already.

I'm just a bit curious about exactly how the mana regen will work. How long will it last? Does it refresh the affected players every second, or every time it's applied? Does it stack at all? Is there an internal cooldown?
#4 Aug 29 2008 at 6:55 AM Rating: Good
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Expose Weakness: Buffs only self.


What... The... ****...

So much for my hybrid build with TSA, IHM and EW. QQ
#5 Aug 29 2008 at 7:09 AM Rating: Good
Huh, if that's going live we can kiss Surv builds goodbye.
#6 Aug 29 2008 at 7:24 AM Rating: Good
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830 posts
Wow... a 'group support' Hunter... didn't know such a critter could exist leatrocks! So much for our solo persona you maverick you.

I agree, if EW doesn't buff party, SV becomes far less viable. Personally, I think 3 months after LK comes out Blizz will be revamping ALOT since all the players will have figured out all the 'best' combinations by then and they will want to keep us on our toes.

I'm not going to go into QQ mode over prerelease stuff. Even post release it'll take a couple of months to figure all the permutations out.
#7 Aug 29 2008 at 8:09 AM Rating: Good
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I'm wondering if this will make Marksman more viable as a raid DPS increase. Since Trueshot is raid-wide now, will it take the place of EW?

On another note, since Shadow Priests have pretty much lost their "mana batteryness" do you think SV Hunters will be replacing them in raids as the Battery? I mean in BC raiding, SV Hunters already out DPS shadow priests, so why bring in a less-efficient battery?

Of course, beta notes are beta, and none of this reflects set in stone changes. I'd just like to hear some opinions on the matter. (As a SV Hunter I, personally, am shocked.)
#8 Aug 29 2008 at 9:38 AM Rating: Decent
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Quote:
I'm wondering if this will make Marksman more viable as a raid DPS increase. Since Trueshot is raid-wide now, will it take the place of EW?

In theory yes, it would seem that Marksman would be the better choice for a raid DPS buff. In my opinion this change came about because Blizzard didn't want two specs having the same exact affects: EW VS TSA raid buff wise. Although between the two I think most would agree they would rather have EW over TSA, since TSA doesn't scale and our idea's to make TSA scale with RAP just seem to be falling on deaf ears.

Quote:
On another note, since Shadow Priests have pretty much lost their "mana batteryness" do you think SV Hunters will be replacing them in raids as the Battery? I mean in BC raiding, SV Hunters already out DPS shadow priests, so why bring in a less-efficient battery?

Yes and no, the biggest problem most people foresee with Shadow Priests is the scaling of their damage. If the damage doesn't scale as well as a Survival Hunter then there might be no point in even bringing one along to the raid. However you have to remember the buff now counts towards 10 people in the raid at any given time, and is based on who has the lowest amount of mana at the time when it procs.

Personally speaking my typical raids consist of 3 Tanks (1 paladin), anywhere from 7-8 healers, 5 Melee DPS (1 Ret Paladin, 1 Enh Shaman), 3 Hunters, and the rest are typically casters, warlocks, mages, elemental shamans, and a balance druid. Among everything in a typical raid you're looking at around 19-20 total mana users. Now granted in the high end SV should be critting a lot for their special shots, Explosive, Multi, Steady, and Kill-Shot (although I hope they change this ability before release), however when they crit they're only going to be getting half the raid, roughly. Now without proper testing it's hard to say if when it procs again, will it hit those same people who have the lowest mana? So out of the 10 you just hit with the buff, let's say 5 of them still have the lowest mana overall, will the buff restack on them and just start over?

Taking it a step further, if the Shadow Priest buff does not stack with the Survival Hunter buff, it should in theory move onto the next 10 people that it couldn't previously buff before. This is all in theory mind you since we can't test it on beta. I could see the benefits to having both classes in the raid, but would it make you choose a Shadow Priest over a Survival Hunter that's hard to say. I personally don't think it will change to much how raids are setup at the moment with current guilds. We've always used what works for us in the past, and even with talent changes from TBC there wasn't a whole lot of changes made to what you bring along in a raid.

You're going to want tanks, you're going to want healers, and you're going to want DPS. Yes specs will change, and one spec will more then likely be optimal over the other for Raid Buffs, Personal DPS, and Utility, but we'll just have to wait and see how this really affects us in the long run.

Quote:
Of course, beta notes are beta, and none of this reflects set in stone changes. I'd just like to hear some opinions on the matter. (As a SV Hunter I, personally, am shocked.)

From my own opinion, it appears that blizzard is trying to make all specs viable for DPS (hunter perspective not talking about any other class).

BM Tree for example is more or less emphasized on the talents themselves then anything else. Now you have a lower cooldown on your abilities to continue to use the same buff during a PVE or PVP situation. Will this sustain their #1 spot as the DPS spec for a hunter? Hard to tell due to the other changes of the other tree's. A lower cooldown on Beastial Wrath doesn't exactly mean you'll be able to dish out more damage then say a MM or SV right now. Not to mention Separation Anxiety seems a little lack luster to me and will probably need a buff, although again it's hard to theorize for a raid setting over a normal 5-man or PVP perspective. The exotic pet choice just seems more like a fun thing at the moment that they decided to put at the bottom of the tree. According to blizz they shouldn't be able to do more damage then another type of pet, just have "Exotic" abilities. So my raptor can claw you, but my T-rex can eat you kind of thing.

MM now looks like a better choice for DPS. The tree itself is very top heavy and most every other spec will be able to get some of the basic DPS talents this tree has to offer, but looking further down into the tree, it would seem that they are trying to buff this class out with even more damage and a more efficient way to do so. We may even see more hunters spec into Imp. Stings for better Chimera Shot effects. It appears that this class will be focused on a shot rotation consisting of Steady Shots, Chimera Shots, and Multi-Shots with a constant refreshing of stings on whatever it is you're fighting.

SV is still the utility raiding spec with a bit more DPS. With EW changing to self only this just means more personal DPS for us. It also appears that Blizzard is trying to make us use our stings more often with the new talent of Lock and Load. I've personally tested this on the beta and I have to say it's awesome. You get a 10 second buff to fire off 3 explosive shots free of cost. Currently it's bugged for the trapping portion of it and just doesn't work at all, but the sting does work quite well. I'll constantly round up 5 mobs and sting them all as I run them through a frost trap and lay waste with Explosive Shots everywhere, it's great fun.

Although the emphasis of Survival appears to based solely around Explosive Shot. T.N.T., Lock And Load, and Sniper Training all benefit Explosive Shot directly or in a small portion. In fact I don't see any other spec being able to successfully spec into Lock and Load without giving up something in their respective talent tree's. Not to mention it wouldn't do them any good since Arcane Shot is on the same cooldown as Chimera and Explosive Shot, and it's hard to say if BM's will be using Arcane Shots in their shot rotations with the new changes made to Steady Shot.

All of the specs appear to have the makeup for equal or on par DPS with each other. Although again it's hard to say just yet with all the changes coming about. We have yet to see anything in terms of raiding on the beta side, so all we can do is wait.

As far as PVP goes, MM and SV appear to be the real contenders right now. Personally speaking I think MM still may reign supreme, but I believe SV will give it a run for it's money. BM did receive some extra PVP perspectives in their talents but not nearly as much as these two tree's, at least in my opinion anyway.


Edited, Aug 29th 2008 10:45am by Joobishwun
#9 Aug 29 2008 at 12:17 PM Rating: Good
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I still see BM as being the highest dps. 20% aditional damage is just hard to beat, especially considering it doesn't factor in any of the other damage boosting talents in BM. If you go over to tka something azuarc has posted some very intesting graphs about Cobra strikes uptime, which indicate that with a fairly low amount of hunter crit, it's going to be up almost all the time. This means that with CS all of BM's +damage on pets now is essentially close to twice as effective. I'm pretty excited about playing a hunter.

the EW nerf is too bad, but it makes sense, as it was scaling far too well and would have been crazy in wotlk. Having it as a self buff puts SV hunters in line with Spriest, and allows them to buff EW to the level that will make the dps acceptable. Essentially with a self EW SV can do any dps that blizzard wants them to.

Edited, Aug 29th 2008 3:20pm by Xsarus
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#10 Aug 29 2008 at 3:58 PM Rating: Default
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DO PEOPLE EVEN READ MORE THAN ONE CHANGE AT A TIME???
Quote:


Attack Power Buff (Flat Add): Battle Shout, Blessing of Might
Attack Power Buff (Multiplier): Abomination's Might, Trueshot Aura, Unleashed Rage


Trueshot aura will SCALE (that's what multiplier means). I'm sick and tired of people reading one change and going "Omygawd queue queue." Read the other stuff, too, people. With the buffs to TSA, it made TSA and EW somewhat redundant (okay, not exactly, since TSA will be a multiplier based on the individual player, while EW was based only on the hunter, but they both are raid-wide, scaling AP buffs).
While survival may not have those multipliers anymore...guess what? It has mana regeneration! We probably won't supplant shadow priests (Blizzard said they will work on shadow priest scaling soon so they can pump more damage) but we will certainly be viable substitutes. SV hunters may pump out more DPS, or Spriests may pump out more DPS, but either way we will both be good mana batteries with pretty good DPS.
BM hunters are likely to still have the highest DPS, simply since they don't add too much to the raid. Yeah, their pet specials have less cooldowns, but overall they're not buffing raid mana efficiency or damage like an SV or MM hunter. However, I don't expect BM hunters to be doing like 30% more damage, just they'll be top DPS while an MM/SV hunter will probably be 3rd or 4th (assuming the players are of similar gear and skill, if you put me into a scrub salad I could probably go 1st with 0 talent points).
#11 Aug 29 2008 at 4:17 PM Rating: Decent
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Hunting Party better get a buff. Looks like that's all SV hunters will have in terms of raid synergy, and it's only for their group..Edit: 10 random people in the raid. That's just the buff I was looking for.

Hmm.. Lock and Load + Hunting Party. Three free, no-cooldown, no-ammo arcane or explosive shots, where each crit gives 2% mana. I would actually ask to be on Scorpid Sting duty just to hope for procs.

Edited, Aug 29th 2008 8:15pm by Ehcks
#12 Aug 29 2008 at 4:58 PM Rating: Default
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Again, READ MORE CHANGES.

Quote:

In addition to this change, we also needed to address the "mana battery" roles in a raid. The mana regeneration effect they grant is no longer limited to their own party, and it no longer depends on the amount of damage they deal. Each time they trigger the mana regeneration effect, 10 people in their raid group will receive a buff which causes them to regenerate 0.5% of their maximum mana each second. This buff, Replenishment, will be given preferentially to raid members with the lowest mana, but will re-evaluate which raid members receive it each time it is fired. Replenishment is provided by Shadow Priests, Survival Hunters, and Retribution Paladins.

Quote:

Hunting Party: Grants Replenishment mana regeneration buff to up to 10 raid members on specified shots.

(Note that all of the changes I've quoted are from THIS post).

It's not 2% mana back, it's going to be some shots (likely arcane and explosive) which cause this effect, not sure yet how long it lasts though.
#13 Aug 29 2008 at 6:58 PM Rating: Good
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Honestly though, I think this may have killed my hunter as my main in Wrath. EW and the survival playstyle of stacking ridiculous amounts of Agi is why I loved playing him at 70. I guess I'm just a buffing ***** which is why I was looking forward to picking up IHM, EW, and TSA in one build.

Oh well, time will tell, but arcane mage is looking pretty fun right now.

Overall I think this is probably a good change in the end. The guilds going for world firsts will still min/max to get the best possible raid comp, but for the people following a couple of months behind it will allow you to bring just about anybody to a raid, at least as long as Blizz gets the balance right. You really shouldn't be forced to bring any particular class, imo, as long as there is a reason to bring them. Being able to account for only certain ranges in buff and numbers of BL/Heros will allow blizz hopefully balance the dps numbers more easily which will is what this whole plan revolves around. One obvious example is how crazy hunter DPS gets with coordinated drums/haste pots/Rapid Fires/Heroes since we're virtually threatless. I don't think this is something Blizz thought of when tuning things for BC and being able to limit the variables allows them to more tightly tune class/spec dps and fights. If they get it right it should be nice. If they don't...

I do find all the QQ from rogues pretty funny though. Mages have been laughable through almost all of BC, yet they still get raid spots even through Sunwell where their one buff is completely negated. Good rogues can out dps worse (not necessarily bad)hunters/mages/locks, and if you're numbers are high you'll get a spot regardless of class, especially after this change.
#14 Aug 29 2008 at 7:26 PM Rating: Decent
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NorthAI the Hand wrote:
Huh, if that's going live we can kiss Surv builds goodbye.

Surv Hunters will become mana batteries. And, highly geared SV Hunters can do the same DPS as BM Hunters, and LK drops should keep this status quo. So this might make sense after all, even if I'll lament the loss of raid-wide EW.

Also keep in mind that it's not set in stone. They have a concept, and I think it's a good one overall, and now they are looking to shake out the cobwebs. I hope EW reverts, because it has long been the shining ability for SV Hunters. But that's just nostalgia and they changed it now it sucks speaking.
#15 Aug 29 2008 at 9:45 PM Rating: Decent
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I'm glad we can get some better conversation going here. I can see some problems with it, but I think people aren't willing to give Blizz a chance to tweak it. It's as though people think everything they see is set in stone. I mean, just a few hours ago they released another round of talent redos, and I haven't looked through it too closely, but BM's separation anxiety is now up to 20% damage. I thought it looked sort of worthwhile before...now I'm thinking I need to calculate whether the 5% damage to tracked targets or this 20% for pets does more damage.

I just get irritated by how seriously people take things like this. I enjoy playing my hunter and my warrior, but jesus...do they not realize that Blizz is in this to make money, so they're not going to actively try to get people to quit?

Whatever. Sorry, I'm *******

It is too bad about the expose weakness change. Between that and the mana battery role, survival hunters would have been great to have along on a raid. They still aren't too specific on the hunting party talent, though. According to the talent calculator I'm looking at, they haven't specified how it works. The tooltip says it gives everyone back .5% of their mana every second, but it doesn't say how long the effect is. When you get a crit, does it trigger an effect that lasts for 10 seconds?
#16 Aug 29 2008 at 9:59 PM Rating: Default
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Actually, I believed SA was better before (when it was only 10%), now that it's 20% I'm gonna send in my pet and stand 20 yards back.
#17 Aug 29 2008 at 10:33 PM Rating: Decent
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139 posts
Wow, and another change I didn't notice before - they're changing how aspect of the viper works...

Quote:
Aspect of the viper changed to: The hunter takes on the aspect of the viper, instantly regenerating mana equal to 100% of the damage done by any ranged attack or ability, but reduces your total damage done by 50%. Only one Aspect can be active at a time.


If they weren't giving BM hunters the mana regen through their pets, this would be incredible. I mean, lets pick a nice round number and say you're doing 1000 dps (not including your pet). You put up aspect of the viper, leave it up for 5 seconds, and you have 2500 mana back. This is oversimplifying, of course - it disregards the global cooldowns and such, but man...I wish I had this now. No more wasting money and time on mana pots! You lose a little damage, but nothing significant. I mean, on raid bosses you ususally do, what, over 500k damage? I wonder if this will stick? With the mana battery classes and the mana regen we have, is it necessary?
#18 Aug 30 2008 at 4:09 AM Rating: Default
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Quote:

If they weren't giving BM hunters the mana regen through their pets, this would be incredible. I mean, lets pick a nice round number and say you're doing 1000 dps (not including your pet). You put up aspect of the viper, leave it up for 5 seconds, and you have 2500 mana back. This is oversimplifying, of course - it disregards the global cooldowns and such, but man...I wish I had this now. No more wasting money and time on mana pots! You lose a little damage, but nothing significant. I mean, on raid bosses you ususally do, what, over 500k damage? I wonder if this will stick? With the mana battery classes and the mana regen we have, is it necessary?


Yes...I also made a post about this. However, you are wrong - it doesn't disregard the global cooldown (if you do 1000 DPS before the change you'll do 500 after), but you do have to consider you still spend mana on the shots.

Also, remember that BM isn't the only spec. You got survival hunters, who got a bit nerfed in how quick they can regenerate mana, and marksmanship hunters who only regenerate mana while under rapid killing (which is the proc when you kill someone, not the increased attack speed).
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