Upcoming Hunter Changes (12/9/08)Follow

I'll admit it, I'm bummed about being nerfed. I loved/lived by Volley. Questing where you need X# of drops or kill X# of mobs and Volley was soooo nice. Actually I like Multi shot better but the timer is too slow. Multi shot is only shot that I see a high % of crits usually 3x 2k crits on even level mobs. Volley crits nicely too, but something about Multi that I just like.

I only started doing raids and 5-mans a few weeks before WoTLK came out, so I didnt get many chances to "old school" with me getting to trap a mob and dps the others down 1 by 1. Everyone was already getting into the AoE for fast runs. If not for Volley, I would have been at bottom of charts. Volley was my top DPS attack as was other AoE for other classes. If they bring down everyones AoE to a somewhat close balance, then ok, I'm fine with the Volley nerf. But if groups and raids continue with AoE runs, Hunter will be left behind in favor of the AoE dealers.

The Kill shot change is nice. Can't help but love faster big hitting instant shots.

Growl change is kinda meh. I guess they have to up the threat if they are gonna lower the pets damage. But I see no use of this in a raid or PvP. Most raids/groups are being burnt down with fast dps so your pet shouldnt be off tanking much if at all.

If they are going to lower of damage from "bread and butter" shots, then they should reduce mana cost of other shots to make them more attractive to mana/dps ratio. I used to love Aimed shot before the patch. Even with a long cast on it, I could finish a mob off quickly with 2k+ crits often. 2k crits were huge for me as I was not decked out in all epics.

I know we will get a nerf of some kind, and we will just have to re-learn our jobs to get the max dps out of what we have. We will live on and hopefully still top the charts more often than not.


BUT, It does bother me that they are talking nerfs already and they still havent fixed the damn bugs from last patch. I guess they think doing to much damage is a bug that needs fixing first...

How about fixing pathing issues with pets? I'm tired of walking over a ledge or around a tree only to get my pet stuck on the terrain. Trying to run close enough to your pet and dismiss him and re-summon him while getting the crap beat out of you sucks.

How about fixing Prowl? Have to turn it off every time you get off a mount. Have to keep re-summoning your pet because he falls to far behind and fades away. Annoying, not game breaking, but annoying anyway.

How about fixing the missing pet bar when you exit a vehicle? Again have to dismiss and re-summon to get your pet controls back.

I dont PvP beside BGs here and there, so I'm not gonna QQ about any of that crap. I would like to try arenas but would have to be 4's or 5's for some back up.

We're not.
We work decent in BG's, but in arena without a team to hide behind and room to run away we're useless.

And we have been since the release of arena.

Added some new info to the OP, as Blizzard is going to buff Arcane Shot (lowered mana cost) and Explosive Shot (higher base damage, AP scaling, single-target) on the PTR to try to help out Survival Hunters that were going to get tossed in the dung heap with these latest changes.

So I finally got around to reading the 308 patch notes and I have to say its ridiculous.

First, if you think hunters are OP for PVP you're not playing at 80. This being said not only have they nerfed us, but as far as I can tell they're buffing death knights. As if the fact that they're always at the top in kills and dmg wasnt good enough for blizzard, so now they're lowering all their cooldowns, increasing damage on abilities and increasing health regen. WTF.

I dont see how you can blame hunters for leading raid dps. I'll concede the aoe thing...its been over the top dps. On average we've always been competing for the top dps slots. We do comparable dps to all the other range classes and we die the least. Of course we're going to end up on top. Its not our fault that 95% of the bosses are range biased fights.

I guess its finally time to face the fact that ret paladins are no longer the red-headed step child and we apparently are.

No. Just no.

There is NOTHING wrong with Steady the way it is right now. 2.0 second cast that can be reduced through haste, and the damage is fine the way it is.

This nerf is exactly where Blizzard is going overboard. Regardless of what the devs say, only BM was OP on boss fights, and really even then it was due to gimmicks like stacking Call of the Wild and readiness resetting TBW. Nerfing steady shot in any way only serves to gimp every single spec a hunter could conceivably take.

MM were not OPed at all. If anything, they are slightly underpowered. Mana concerns mean way too much time in viper to do zomgdamage without Judgement of light, mana totems, and any other buffs staving off mana starvation. Where MM topped the charts was on trash, or boss fights where lots of AoE was needed (I'm looking at you, Noth). If volley is truly OPed, it is exceptionally OPed in a MM hunter's hands who specs to make it even stronger (for the record, a 30% reduction seems harsh - 15-20% would be just right). Nerfing steady shot kills a lot of the synergy MM hunters had for single target DPS. Granted, if they fix the bug that keeps glyph of steady shot from working for MM, maybe it'll even out somewhat, but it's still bad.

Explosive shot being buffed MAY make SV a very good DPS spec (assuming a buff actually goes through when they seem determined to nerf us into the ground). But a lot of that boost will be cancelled out by a steady shot that barely hits for the same amount as autoshot (autoshot!), and will scale even worse.

They already took windfury away from us. Now all of this too? In a time where other classes are quickly catching up to hunters in DPS as gear level rises? Way too much, way too soon.

I also don't want to appear as if I'm just QQing. But we sat through 4 seasons, over a year of near complete uselessness in arena, and were always told they needed more info, wait and see, yadayadayada. But give us 4 raid resets tops, and out come the nerfhammer for PvE. WTB: consistency.