2.1.0 Patch Notes

[Lissa]

All other things being equal, if you're spending gems on MP5, you're not spending them on agi/AP/crit.

Hunters do have Blue sockets you know. Considering their is a blue gem that is pure MP5, there's an option right there because AP/Agi are both Red based and Hit/Crit are Yellow based.

I'm sorry, what?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but what you want from a set is agility, attack power, crit, intellect, MP5, stamina, and +hit (and mostly in that order--at least as soon as you have a moderate amount of +hit already). Now, I'm no expert, but Rift Stalker seems to have all of that. That's not mentioning the three yellow sockets and the three red sockets, the meta socket and the blue socket. How is that junk? From what I can see, it has basically no wasted stats at all. Compare that to the live version of Nordrassil Harness or Malorne Harness--littered with almost worthless spirit, crit rating (which is crap for a Feral druid), too much int, and barely any increased armor.

The current Nordrassil Harness is almost perfect. Good armor, nice array of stats, mostly focused on strength and stamina, with plenty of agility and some int thrown in (which is utterly useless to me, as I'll be tanking most of the time, but it's useful for DPS, so whatever). Current Malorne is good, though the gloves are utter crap. No agility, instead crit rating--and they cost the same in terms of item points.

While Demon Stalker and Rift Stalker aren't perfect, they seem like good sets to me. The set bonuses look somewhat useless at first glance, but then, it's the same with mine.

And Ranger-General's Chestguard is better gives you a better chest piece than Rift Stalker chest piece. Also you have the Void Reaver Greaves which is again superior to the Rift Stalker legs. The fact is, the tier pieces are inferior to random drops from bosses. Everytime they've updated one, the others have been updated and Tiers have been worse.

And uh, what's with the name repetition? We can easily see whom you're replying to.
As far as I know, gear isn't restricted to spec, so what exactly is your point...? A BM or MM hunter could go for agility as well.

And then they do even less damage then they do now. Survival can go for max Agi because they have a talent that boosts it even further. They also have a talent that gives them another 3% crit and a talent that gives them 3% hit. This means that for a Survival Hunter they can get away with about 40 less hit rating to still max out their hit thus allowing them to look at getting more Agi and more Crit.

Bosses are immune. I doubt trash is, though of course I've not set foot in anything beyond Gruul's Lair. (And Maulgar's adds at least are stunnable.)

Wait till you get to Mag's Lair and find out the truth about trash mobs being susceptible to CC. You have to kill 12 mobs before getting to Mag's himself and they're all immune to CC.

Maybe the voices you're speaking of aren't taking everything into perspective. Sounds like it, from my point of view as an outsider on the class.

They're looking at ways to do things differently to make themselves less dependent on raid stacking. Sounds to me like they're actually trying to look at everything and find the best balance to achieve this.

"Baby steps", my ass. They're not exactly on Blizzard's track record.

2.0.10: "We've tested things extensively and Druids are dealing too much damage right now" --> net effect: Mangle nerfed hard (went from 156% to 100%). Hotfixed right after the patch for threat issues (which the forums had already told them would happen).
2.1: Mangle damage buffed (to 115%), threat bonus lessened to keep it more or less the same.

Yeah, "baby steps". Sorry, I'm a little bitter.:angry:

Nope, it hasn't been Blizzard's track record, but there's hope that they are changing their attitude to make things work out better.