2.1.0 Patch Notes

[Kevin]

Snippit::

I'm mostly staying out of this thread, but this does point out something else that is wrong with the hunter. No other class has so many people focusing on just one tree. This has always been a problem for hunters. It means that 2 of the trees are just completely out of whack for many aspects of the game because people don't want it for solo, small group, raids, or PvP if 72% of the players are speccing for just 1 tree. I think there were even more marks spec hunters before TBC than there are now as well. And I have fully agreed that the 3 hunters trees have not been created equal for quite some time. Pre TBC, a beast hunter + pet could in fact out damage a marks or survival hunter + pet in MC until the hunters got about 3 or 4 pieces of the T1 set. At that point beast didn't have a chance because the pet was static damage, it wasn't going to get better for the beast hunter. A lot of people didn't realize this because there are a lot of hunters that don't play hunters, they play archers. They either can't or won't use the pet. Some of the pet stuff is because at times pets could be a liability for the raid because of the way mob abilities worked. I had to fight several members of our sister guild about pet usage in MC, BWL, ZG, and AQ20 because they believe things that were just flat our wrong, some of it information that was still being posted a lot on forums like Elitist Jerks as well because there are Archers on that forum as well. But even I, a die hard beastmaster swapped to Marks for a bit and the survival for raiding (survival and marks were equal on raid damage with the gearing that was available but I was still doing PvP and I felt survival was better for that, and I've always felt that marks brought the least utility to a 5 man of the 3 specs).


I'm also not sure the hunter class problems are as fundamentally bad as others do. I did break down and grab BigTrouble (I still don't like zHunter that so many others swear by) because it is true that you simply can't maximize hunter DPS without an autoshot cast bar and I always did my timing just by sound and feel before and I know I did it well as I topped the damage meters (not just for hunters but for all classes) in MC, BWL, ZG, and AQ20. I'm not sure we are more lag/latency sensative than other classes, or even more demanding on timing. Warlocks not watching the timing on DoTs and shadowbolts take just as much attention to maximize as a hunter for me. Pre TBC, what had hunters falling back in Naxx was that hunter gear wasn't itemized as well as it was for other classes (coupled with pets being even harder to use due to encounter design) and the situation with gearing being able to effectively scale for hunters and actually provide options in gearing (i.e. wanting to choose something other than a ton of agi) was part of the reason for the class redesign. Putting more value on the weapon damage, less on the weapon speed, less on agi, more on AP and crit rating. I'm still only in the Kara and Gruul levels of raiding, and the gearing while not as good as it should be for hunters still let's hunters top the damage charts in those instances. Looking at the way itemization for hunters continues I still worry about that and can still believe that is part of the problem, even a major part of the problem.


As for the mana usage. I play horde. I had to use demonic runes or mana pots to maximize damage as soon as I started to raid. I realize alliance didn't have to do this because Blessing of Wisdom and judgement of wisdom returned that much mana to the hunters. Even though I knew the theorycrafting of the power of those, the times I run with pallies I still get surprised at how much longer my mana pool lasts. Knowing that a pally should be around for hunter longevity for raid content encounters starting taking this into account. Given all that, the Curator is the first fight in Kara where I will ask for BoW over BoM on the hunter and that would still depend on the group composition I'm with as I still should be able to get through that one. Kara is not end game though. I don't follow other classes as much, but I kind of assumed that all mana using classes were slamming mana pots if they wanted to maximize. I know that when I read about warlocks, if you want to max damage and you aren't threat limited chugging mana pots is better than tapping and draining (or taking healer mana after a tap). Mages had to drink mana pots pre TBC to stay at the top of the meters. If they aren't still doing this all the time now because they either have other methods or are still having to hold back enough from threat limits so that the mana lasts longer then hunters should get more help than I am currently thinking on this.

I also agree that Marks hunters and even survival hunters could use something else for a synergy tool. Beast hunters provide 3% more damage for everyone in their group and that uptime varies from 25-80%. I know that if the DPS get to set up groups most of them want me pretty early in the line of choices. So this skews my personal views a bit. You can put a beast anywhere (but the healer group) and they help and will likely get something back. Battle shout doesn't help RAP (I've debated on how changing that, like they did with BoM would work, the issue is I think it could be too strong for non end game content) but it's significant for the pet which when I read what the BM hunters in SSC and The Eye say are still usable even though there is still a lot of "Archer" bias against them and they will become more usable. Of course BS like trueshot are both static boosts and become less and less valuable the deeper into content you get. If you are in a melee group it also means you are likely in with a shaman getting SoE for the pet as well. But again this all helps a beast more than marks or survival. Changing the enh shaman unleashed rage buff to affect RAP is another option for helping the hunter who is still bringing something to that group.

I agree that Survival hunters only bring a buff for the whole raid and nothing for the group and they aren't as much DPS as a rogue so why buff them? I do agree that is an issue. I also agree that trueshot is underpowered. Just based on the name of it, I would be happy with it giving the fixed AP and then adding some hit rating trueshot feels more like it should help you hit anyway. This makes it much harder on those specs. A class as opposed to talent synergy effect might not be out of line, but each tree could also have a talent synergy that helps the group. The other option is to up DPS so much that hunters are ranged rogues and are worth being the class that is getting all the buffs (at least I still don't know of any rogue synergy that only helps the group and not everyone attacking that mob). My preference is that when something happens on this that it's the hunter providing more buffs to the group simply because I do agree that a hunter isn't as easy to fit in, unless they are beast.

Hunters gear around the level of mob they are facing (other classes do to an extent as well but I don't think they do it as much). I change gear in instances on a pull by pull basis as I can reach a +hit cap. If the mob is L70 I get to the hit cap then put the rest in AP/crit. If the mobs are L71 I get to that hit cap for that, etc. This is why looking at my armory profile doesn't really help as pretty much every slot has 1 or 2 other items I can put in there to modify hit/AP/crit/stam levels (stam is more for what I'm using the pet for, or if I'm trapping on heroics). I do have a gear set that gets me to 136 hit rating but I rarely log out in that as I rarely log out after facing an L73 (or skull con) mob. My spec is certainly not a raid spec either. I'm set up so that I can pretty easily pet tank a normal five me if we don't have a druid/warrior/pally around and so that I can do CC better in Kara and heroics, the content I'm running the most. I could get more damage in several places and despite this I can still get to #1 or #2 in heroics and Kara on the damage meters. But as I've said several times, in this thread and others; Hunter gearing still has me worried, it failed hunters pre-TBC and it looks like it will fail them again after the first raiding tier is done. Small things like changing from AP to RAP on the hunter sets would help a lot. Hunters don't really need melee AP for anything but PvP where there are simply times that you can not get at range and doing melee damage over no damage is good and sometimes the best choice. But the PvP gear can keep the straight AP boosts.


So I agree and I have for awhile that the hunter trees are not done right. I prefer for a primarily DPS/support class that all 3 trees can work equally well in all phases of the game (raids, 5 mans, heroics, PvP, soloing) and the personal preference dictates the choice. I can live with something like the rogues have where it seems to me that one tree is better for PvP, one is better for raids, and one is better for small group content. Hunters don't have either of those right now. I do agree that trees, especially survival need work. But what I don't necessarily agree on is what those changes should focus on.

As I mentioned since some of the problems are synergy problems, changing the buffs that other classes can provide to the hunter as well as changing the buffs that hunters can bring to others along with fixing the itemization (and I'm not sure that the problem with it is because hunters are more mana starved than any other class mana using class or that it's always better to go for AP/crit over regen or mana) might be all that is needed.

I do not think the hunter is fundamentally broken. I think that the survival tree still needs work (but so do trees for other classes). I think that traps still need work, and I do agree that they were pretty much worthless pre TBC, it's not something I spoke up about much but other than for CC with freezing trap, or for PvP there wasn't much use for them. Fixing that and adding more complexity to the class is fine by me and they took some steps towards that. Assuming the pet changes make the pets as usable and as much of a boost as I feel they will, I still think a Marks and survival hunter need to bring more to the group they are put in. Hunters always should have been a DPS/support class as opposed to a pure DPS class in my mind and from the on paper design so actually getting them to work that way doesn't bother me. I do understand that since they use to play as mostly a DPS class how that could bother some hunters. It bothered me that I wasn't as much of a support class as I felt hunters should be before and that I lost more and more support ability (things like off tanking, viable CC, AoE support, etc) as I progressed in end game content. TBC restored some of this. I'm better CC than I used to be. I can still offtank in Kara and heroics as a beast spec, I still provide group buffs. But this is not true for all trees. So they need to add more support. They could even up marks damage more and take away more of the support roles as long as they allow the support roles of beast and survival to still work in raids, because I'm not a fan of "spec marks for raids or don't raid".


The class has issues, but I don't think they are class breaking. I can write just as much about the issues with druids, warriors, priests, paladins, and shaman for example as I did for hunters as well. That doesn't mean they are broken. This game has always been a work in progress. What I've seen them changing for hunters, with the big exception being the gearing, is still good enough for me. I think they have a handle on all of it but the gearing so I'm not worried. I'm getting some pretty significant buffs in the next patch, I'm not used to hunters getting buffed at all since I don't think they've generally ever needed it. So I'm still very happy.