Are Hunters really THAT difficult?

[Bolty]

I've always considered Warlocks to be the most "complex" class in World of Warcraft. They have an obscene number of spells, along with multiple pets that all perform different functions. As a result, the difference between a good Warlock and a great Warlock is very substantial, moreso than say the difference between a good Priest and a great Priest. The more difficult a class is to "master," the greater the gap between the average player and the truly awesome one.

A recent thread over on the Elitist Jerks forum has me thinking, though. I quote one post in it:

Part of the reason for this specific problem, I'd gather, is that the basic shot mechanics operate on a completely different principle from any other class's combat mechanics.

There is no other class where you can completely screw yourself because you're just mashing buttons. Sure, mindlessly mashing #%@& left and right will make you look like a complete idiot when someone critiques your performance (and they'd be right) regardless of your class/spec, but with Hunters the problem is two fold:

1.) Auto-shot is everything. Interrupting your auto-attack is something that simply does not exist for any other class in the game.
2.) (OP noted this.) The mechanics are completely obfuscated within the game. There is NO explanation, NO UI implementation, and no real way beyond constantly perusing WoW-related forums to access any information relating to the BASIC FUNCTIONS OF THE CLASS.

Honestly, shot mechanics, in my opinion, are completely retarded at this point. Their initial reasoning behind Steady Shot was to negate the old-school "Slower == better" rule that made Ashjre'thul the single best Hunter weapon in the game until a much, much higher iLvl drop from a boss most people never even saw. The problem with Steady was, and is, that they screwed that up as well. Steady effectively sped up the rotations, and while that's fine, it also means you have less time to work in another shot after a Steady. That means doing your job is HARDER than it was back in the pre-2.0 days. That also means that 3.0-ish weapons are STILL the most common, which STILL isn't quite slow enough to comfortably fit in an Arcane/Multi after a Steady, and is TOO slow for BM to get their optimal rotations going. In short, their initial reasoning for Steady Shot's introduction has backfired, and resurrected the same exact problem as before, while creating another.

That also means that the difference between a theorycrafting Hunter, and some random guy who may have been a Hunter for longer than I have, but just doesn't understand/know/care about shot mechanics, is going to be absurdly massive. The shot mechanics, as they exist right now on the Live servers, are just endlessly punishing, as the OP noted.

You can take a player of any class, the best Rogue/Warrior/Shaman/Mage/Warlock/Priest/Druid/Paladin you can think of, and put them up against someone you just dropped into the class, and, while the latter SOB will get trounced, he SHOULD be at least capable enough to figure out how to mash buttons in some reasonably acceptable form, so that he's not getting demolished too badly. If you did that with a Hunter, the newbie will still get completely and utterly slaughtered, but, more than likely, he will have no clue why this is happening.

There's your "Huntard gap", as I like to call it. You've got the theorycrafting raiding Hunters, the more casual people that "get it" (and they probably understand what they do from skimming forum threads such as these), but aren't going to be able to spout off the optimal rotations/spec/gear for X, and your mouth-breathing masses that simply don't know what the hell, and, probably, don't care to. Our mouth-breathing friends probably don't understand why a Mage can DPS by mashing one button repeatedly (though not exceptionally, but you know where I'm going with this), but a Hunter can't. I'm almost certain that, when told how to play their class, or simply that "they suck", they either completely ignore this, get offended and leave, or simply just don't give a rat's ass.

Regardless of the reasons, it does nothing to help the image of the class, and it CERTAINLY doesn't help when attempting to recruit people, or explain the intricacies of the class to others. 90% of the people I talk to, even if they're experienced raiders, that don't play Hunters simply think that all we do all day is mash Steady Shot (a la our Mages) and "maybe Feign once in a while". Surely, Hunters cannot be THAT difficult to play, considering that they have "EZ Mode" with a full threat wipe every 30 seconds. I've been told, on multiple occasions, by varying and otherwise intelligent people, that they could "rape the DMs if [they] had access to Feign Death". That shows a clear misunderstanding of how we work, how Feign works, and, honestly, how little they really care about Hunters, our mechanics, or our "whiny bitching". In summary: "You get a complete threat wipe every 30 seconds. I am jealous. I want a complete threat wipe every 30 seconds. I will not get one. Thusly I will make random, overarching, baseless statements to prove my superiority over you, at least in my head, because I still beat you on DMs without that complete threat wipe every 30 seconds that I want. PS- **** Hunters."

Basically, Blizzard needs to either change the shot mechanics entirely to make them function/scale in a much more logical manner (i.e., making Haste effects not a complete pain in the ass to work with, etc.), or, at the very least, give the Huntard masses some sort of indicator inside the game that might cause what few neurons they possess to fire in such a sequence that they may, at the very least, have some sort of inkling as to why they can't even beat their tank on DMs. Until this happens, Huntards will be the most common thing in this game, unless you count naked dancing elven women.

The Hunter class is a mystery on the scale of Atlantis to most people, and all too frequently this includes those that also happen to play the class.

I played a Hunter to level 20, that was it. Never had much interest in the class. Now, I've played every class to at least level 20, just to get a taste of them. I remember being amused that of all the classes, my Hunter got to level 20 the fastest by quite a stretch (8 1/2 hours!). I can see why the class is so attractive. It's so easy to solo with them. But apparently they're reaching Warlock-level in terms of "mastering" them.

I can speak of PvP experience - there may not be many Hunters around at the level of Arenas I'm playing in, but the ones that are there are GOOD. It made me rethink my class' power against Hunters, who I traditionally dominated, because perhaps I just never played against truly great Hunter players.

Thoughts?

-Bolty

[Mirajj]

Edited:Double post. Sorry.

[Mirajj]

Well, briefly (I have work soon) I'd have to say that the OP hit it right on the head. PLAYING a hunter is quite easy. You can autoshot your way to 70, if you really wanted to (I did it till 50, when I started wising up...). Playing a GOOD hunter gets quite a bit harder. And even good hunters can have off nights where no matter what they do, they trounce their dps by clipping autoshots, or not paying quite enough attention and having their pet killed, etc.

There is a lot going on being a hunter in every fight, even trash. You are doing a shot cycle that if you even screw up by .5 seconds, you start to lose dps. You may or may not be trapping. You are dealing with your pet. You settle into a decent rotation and oops, there goes a haste proc, change your cycle again. Haste cycle's done, and just as it finished a different one procs, so you change your cycle again. Oops, forgot to heal your pet, so it's almost dead, so break your cycle to heal, but wait...

"Why is your dps sucking, huntard?"

Yeah.

Don't forget that hunters also use an intense amount of mana, but seem to be the last when it comes to any thought of group synergy. I often get stuck in with a group of healers, so there goes my useful raid buff (which is kind of sad, considering it's +3% damage to any damage dealer. ANY one at all. But can I get put into a group with damage dealers? No...)

So it does amuse me when folks say hunters suck, considering all that's stacked against us. When we get a good group, or even a passable decent one (2 BM hunters together, for instance) we start to shine a little brighter. Toss a hunter or two an in combat mana regen effect like a shadow priest, and watch us soar. Remember, the only current way we have to regenerate mana in combat (that isn't a pot) costs us total dps (FD and Drink, which is a popular "Why don't you do this?" thing) or costs us a lot of RAP and potential haste effects (AotViper). While we can dps without mana, it's a very poor showing at best

I will admit that warlocks are also quite tricky to play, keeping all those DoT's managed, and ticking away. But consider doing that, with a pet that you HAVE to have out and in melee range of the mob you are attacking to do even remotely "acceptable" dps. Warlocks can put their pets away (or even better, sacrifice them for various personal buffs) and not have to worry about them anymore. If a hunter pet dies in midfight, their dps takes an immediate and noticable nosedive.

So I'll agree. Levelling a hunter is probably the fastest and easiest thing to do. PLAYING a hunter, and playing one well...is pretty damn hard.

[Lissa]

I've always considered Warlocks to be the most "complex" class in World of Warcraft. They have an obscene number of spells, along with multiple pets that all perform different functions. As a result, the difference between a good Warlock and a great Warlock is very substantial, moreso than say the difference between a good Priest and a great Priest. The more difficult a class is to "master," the greater the gap between the average player and the truly awesome one.

A recent thread over on the Elitist Jerks forum has me thinking, though. I quote one post in it:
I played a Hunter to level 20, that was it. Never had much interest in the class. Now, I've played every class to at least level 20, just to get a taste of them. I remember being amused that of all the classes, my Hunter got to level 20 the fastest by quite a stretch (8 1/2 hours!). I can see why the class is so attractive. It's so easy to solo with them. But apparently they're reaching Warlock-level in terms of "mastering" them.

I can speak of PvP experience - there may not be many Hunters around at the level of Arenas I'm playing in, but the ones that are there are GOOD. It made me rethink my class' power against Hunters, who I traditionally dominated, because perhaps I just never played against truly great Hunter players.

Thoughts?

-Bolty

The biggest problem I have seen is that you have to thread Steady Shot between two Autoshots which typically requires some kind of Autoshot timer. If you have Rapid Fire up, this becomes more difficult to manage due to the amount of haste Rapid Fire brings in. Weaving the instant shots into it are much more easy though since they're, well, instant... (instant shots being Arcane, Multi, and the Stings).

Multi also presents its own problem in knowing when you can fire it and when you can't. At distance it can be difficult to judge if a CC'd mob is too close to the target your group is after or not, so it becomes quite easy to end up breaking the CC if you're not paying attention. And if the mob is too close to the CC'd mob, that blows some of the Hunter's DPS as well.

As for controlling the pet, it's different for a hunter than it is for a Warlock. Where as a Warlock is using their pet for CC typically, a Hunter has to know when to put the pet in and pull the pet out to allow the pet to survive more easily and add in valuable DPS and potentially buffs. Warlock pets usually don't go in harms way while Hunter pets do. So for a Warlock it's matter of knowing how to control the pets special powers while for a Hunter it's knowing when to attack and when to return.

[Pesmerga]

Weaving the instant shots into it are much more easy though since they're, well, instant... (instant shots being Arcane, Multi, and the Stings).

Not entirely true. Like Auto Shot, Multi Shot also has a hidden .5 sec cast time. Which adds a nice new layer to knowing when you can and can't shoot it.

I've completely taken Multi-Shot out of my rotation because it breaks CC and costs way too much for single target DPS.

[NiteFox]

I've completely taken Multi-Shot out of my rotation because it breaks CC and costs way too much for single target DPS.

Agreed. Multi Shot as used in a shot rotation is more frequently a curse than a blessing. I never really used it in a rotation, and now I only ever use it for the following:

1) PvP battles, with me being the hunter standing in the optimal place (Behind a wall of tanks, rogues, and other poor saps willing to stop those mean ol' meleers getting to me), where a Multi can do some damage.

2) Rarely while kiting. Typically while my Arcane Shot is on CD and I have a little more distance on my target than I need (Truth is, the .5 cast time does give my target a little time to stay in optimal range if I've sprinted on too far ahead)

3) "Aggro and crowd control"

Now "aggro and crowd control", with the quote fingers-gesture thing, is a fairly nebulous term. It's too unreliable to add to an already set up CC situation, so I prefer using it to set up a CC situation.

What is pretty versatile about MS is the amount of aggro it can create. It'll almost certainly pull off any extras beating on my pet if they haven't been affected by Growl, and with Misdirection on my pet, it can solidly anchor threat of multiple targets onto my pet. At the most basic level, that is what I use it for: If I want to keep multiple targets on my pet without having them come for me the first time I throw up a Mend Pet, MD Cannis, let him Growl the first target of a pack, and then throw a MS and a DS somewhere in the three shots.

If, however, I want those extras off my pet, I lay a Freezing Trap down, vanilla Multi Shot them, and watch them come running. In solo situations this really only works for two targets (Otherwise the third would be pounding on me, messing up my Steady Shots). In a small pug, where I can rely on someone else to deal with the third target I freely use MS+trap.

MS has pretty much been relegated to the level of a situational utility skill now as opposed to a nice addition to single target DPS. Let's put it next to all the other hunter situational utility skills.

[Lissa]

Not entirely true. Like Auto Shot, Multi Shot also has a hidden .5 sec cast time. Which adds a nice new layer to knowing when you can and can't shoot it.

I've completely taken Multi-Shot out of my rotation because it breaks CC and costs way too much for single target DPS.

True, but, it's far more easy to thread MS in a shot than Steady, especially when Rapid Fire is up. So long as you have that shot timer no shot, outside of Steady, should every break the cycle.

[Pesmerga]

True, but, it's far more easy to thread MS in a shot than Steady, especially when Rapid Fire is up. So long as you have that shot timer no shot, outside of Steady, should every break the cycle.

While it might be easier to thread, you don't gain a significant amount of DPS doing so, and your DPM goes down the tube. In those situations, you're better off clipping Auto Shot with Steady Shot still.

With Efficiency, Steady Shot costs 99 mana, and Multi-Shot costs 248. You are not doing twice as much damage, so I see it as a waste. Below I've got numbers for when Rapid Fire is up.

Auto + Steady = 1,420 damage (average with crits included): 14.34 DPM
Auto + Multi = 1,553 damage (average with crits included): 6.26 DPM

And any hunter worth anything will only be clipping Auto Shot by at most, .1 seconds. It can honestly be down to less than .1 seconds of clip time (with 200ms lag)

[Mirajj]

Take a look at this.

And then keep in mind that we are also trying to manage a pet, our positioning, and our mana. All for "acceptable" to "good" dps.

[Artega]

Take a look at this.

And then keep in mind that we are also trying to manage a pet, our positioning, and our mana. All for "acceptable" to "good" dps.

Reminds me learning how to tank with my Pally. Pallies don't really have any GCD "soak" abilities like Warriors do (Heroic Strike and Cleave, for example), so maximizing your TPS (and DPS in five-mans and pre-70 content, since pallies often do some significant DPS while AE tanking) requires learning "threat rotations" and timing things well, moreso than my Warrior. My warrior has a threat rotation as well, but because I can soak the GCD with Heroic Strike (or Cleave if I'm tanking two mobs), timing is a little less of a factor.