World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Hunter Balance-Blizzard's opinion. attempt 2

Ghostcrawler

Blizzard Poster

20. Re: Hunter Balance-Blizzard's opinion. attem 05/09/2009 11:57:43 AM PDT

Okay, here is just a slew of our current thoughts on the topic.

PvE

1) Hunter dps was just too high through much of Naxx. Ideally hunters should be competing with locks, rogues and mages and for a lot of the LK content they were just head and shoulders above the rest.

2) Currently, hunter dps might be a little low, but we're not 100% convinced yet. Some of the earlier fights in Ulduar are very melee friendly. XT is a rogue and cat's dream. We were pretty harsh to melee in Naxx with a lot of run-out moments and cleaves. Kologarn and other parts of Ulduar turn that on the ranged a little and require them to focus more on situational awareness. We think the later fights in Ulduar are a little more ranged-friendly, and we're waiting to get more parses from those. Plenty of guilds are on or have beaten Yogg by now, but the current data are pretty noisy since people are still learning the encounters.

3) We understand Vezax is a special case for hunters. By the same token, our goal is not to have every class do the same relative dps on every boss. Some fights are just better for some than others. Our goal isn't even to have "the shadow priest fight" or "the fury warrior fight." We just want diversity. We really wanted the Ulduar encounters to push players more towards "What can I do to improve my dps on this fight?" and less on "What is my dps?"

4) Survival may still be slightly higher than BM or MM. We don't think it's off by 1000 dps in most cases. It's something we want to keep looking at. We understand some Marks hunters say they'd be fine if it weren't for mana.

PvP

1) The TNT stuns and the uber mana drains were just too good last season. Sorry. Those aren't coming back.

2) Last season, burst spell damage was very high. That put a premium on active defenses, which ended up being a good niche for hunters. Last season there was almost no reason to bring a warrior; rogues and hunters brought the MS debuff in a stronger form as well as a host of additional utility. Warriors are back now, which means more competition for that spot.

3) This season has seen different classes rising to the top. Priests are rogues are good. Arms and Ret are good, depending on who you believe. We are nerfing or have nerfed some of those classes, which should open up the top playing-field a little. We are getting rid of Exorcism allowing paladins to two-shot pets. I'd agree that hunter representation is a little low at the moment, but we're not sure the class needs massive buffs so much as others need some nerfs.

4) Hunters are betters in 5s than 2s. It's really challenging to have every class or spec have the same representation in small teams as large, which is one of the reasons we offer multiple sizes. Recently the community seems to be focusing on 2s even more than 3s. We are taking some steps to make sure the larger brackets are as rewarding as the smaller ones. (I'm not saying it's a goal that some classes are only viable for some brackets. But it is nice that if you aren't as good for some brackets, you always have the others to fall back on.)

Ghostcrawler
Lead Systems Designer

Snewdy

< Black Blood Battalio… >

The Forgotten Coast

21. Re: Hunter Balance-Blizzard's opinion. attem 05/09/2009 11:58:44 AM PDT

Q u o t e:
4) Hunters are betters in 5s than 2s. It's really challenging to have every class or spec have the same representation in small teams as large, which is one of the reasons we offer multiple sizes. Recently the community seems to be focusing on 2s even more than 3s. We are taking some steps to make sure the larger brackets are as rewarding as the smaller ones. (I'm not saying it's a goal that some classes are only viable for some brackets. But it is nice that if you aren't as good for some brackets, you always have the others to fall back on.)

It seems shamans, priests, and paladins are almost a requirement for 5v5. I don't think the fact that you can throw a hunter in a 5v5 team randomly as long as it has the three manditory classes really justifies them as "good in 5v5"

oh yeah, and first

[ Post edited by Snewdy ]

Thefinancier

< Bank of America >

Burning Legion

22. Re: Hunter Balance-Blizzard's opinion. attem 05/09/2009 11:59:35 AM PDT

Q u o t e:

Steady Shot revert would not help all that much IMO, it would just make MM/BM ignore arcane shot in their rotations.

I want rotations as opposed to % modifers on 1 shot that makes it more important than every other shot.

Possible help on some fights would be allowing us to autoshot on the run

autoshot on the run would hurt pvp i think i could see alot of CC being broken

anyway, doesn't every class have abilities they ignore because they simply don't fit in the max dps rotation or priority system?

Every DPS class/spec I have played will totally ignore some abilities. Why should Hunters be any different?

Ghostcrawler

Blizzard Poster

23. Re: Hunter Balance-Blizzard's opinion. attem 05/09/2009 12:01:33 PM PDT

Q u o t e:
Steady Shot revert would not help all that much IMO, it would just make MM/BM ignore arcane shot in their rotations.

We'd be unlikely to buff Steady Shot, for the same reasons we nerfed it before. If we need to buff hunters, we'd likely do it in other ways. We'd also be unlikely to buff pet damage.

Q u o t e:
And Blizzard bows down and caters to forum QQ about 99.9% of the time.

Unless it's *your* post, and then Blizzard never listens to the community, amirite? :)

Ghostcrawler
Lead Systems Designer

Barnabyjonez

< Retribution >

Drak'thul

26. Re: Hunter Balance-Blizzard's opinion. attem 05/09/2009 12:05:56 PM PDT

Q u o t e:
1) Hunter dps was just too high through much of Naxx. Ideally hunters should be competing with locks, rogues and mages and for a lot of the LK content they were just head and shoulders above the rest.

I think part of this problem goes back to pet scaling and how well they benefit from buffs. That may have accounted somewhat for the initial success of hunter dps.

Q u o t e:
1) The TNT stuns and the uber mana drains were just too good last season. Sorry. Those aren't coming back.

I don't think any serious pvp hunter was expecting them to come back.

Q u o t e:
4) Hunters are betters in 5s than 2s. It's really challenging to have every class or spec have the same representation in small teams as large, which is one of the reasons we offer multiple sizes. Recently the community seems to be focusing on 2s even more than 3s. We are taking some steps to make sure the larger brackets are as rewarding as the smaller ones. (I'm not saying it's a goal that some classes are only viable for some brackets. But it is nice that if you aren't as good for some brackets, you always have the others to fall back on.)

I think part of the reason lower brackets are popular is simply because its easier to get 2 people together to arena that aren't doing something else than it is for 5.

Azrukal

< Something Wicked >

Malfurion

27. Re: Hunter Balance-Blizzard's opinion. attem 05/09/2009 12:09:41 PM PDT

I'm still don't understand why all the direction seems to pidgeon hole pve hunters at survival. All the changes to MM to make it more viable when wotlk came out revolve around steady shot to keep the spec mana efficient.

Now that SS was nerfed why not revamp some of the talents in that tree and improve mana efficiency so it's on par with survival? Sorry it just seems marks was dethroned in Vanilla wow as the top raiding spec and has been pushed down ever since. Also I'm kind of tired of seeing pretty much all of the hunter community as survival.

Hawkins

< Noble Lords >

Anetheron

28. Re: Hunter Balance-Blizzard's opinion. attem 05/09/2009 12:10:12 PM PDT

Q u o t e:

Steady Shot revert would not help all that much IMO, it would just make MM/BM ignore arcane shot in their rotations.

I want rotations as opposed to % modifers on 1 shot that makes it more important than every other shot.

Possible help on some fights would be allowing us to autoshot on the run

It would, but there are several ways of enticing the use of other shots. Blizzard's handling of Arcane Mages rotating Arc Blast and Arc Barrage/Missiles is a good example. If Steady Shot were to boost the dmg of your next Arcane Shot/ExShot/Aimed Shot (whatever you want) by X% then you wouldn't keep spamming Steady Shot without wasting potential dps. Vice versa, you wouldn't ignore Steady Shot either (which is what's happening right now) because it doesn't have a purpose.

It doesn't have the dps nor utility to be worth anything but a last resort 'filler' shot. Also, what is with the increased damage on targets that are dazed? Has anybody ever actually been able to pull that off? Sounds like a very weak form of an Ice Mage Shatter combo to me. It's a neat idea but impractical when it can't be pulled off in PVE or PVP.

We wouldn't have to use that mechanic above, it was merely an example. But it could bring Steady Shots' importance back without making it the only shot to use.

As for BM, it does need more, but even if it had another shot to call its own or some new mechanic. I still don't see myself going back to BM. Pets are so fragile that I am honestly cutting myself off from my pet as much as humanly possible. They don't survive versus bosses and BM is completely non-viable in arena/pvp with how easy it is to gib a pet. I would only go back to BM if pets didn't fall apart like a house of cards. I have been playing my Hunter since WoW's original release and I have never known pets to be this fragile in both pve or pvp.

Barnabyjonez

< Retribution >

Drak'thul

29. Re: Hunter Balance-Blizzard's opinion. attem 05/09/2009 12:11:19 PM PDT

Q u o t e:
We are getting rid of Exorcism allowing paladins to two-shot pets

Also woot!

Avion

< Faded >

Zuluhed

30. Re: Hunter Balance-Blizzard's opinion. attem 05/09/2009 12:12:52 PM PDT

Q u o t e:
Okay, here is just a slew of our current thoughts on the topic.
2) Currently, hunter dps might be a little low, but we're not 100% convinced yet. Some of the earlier fights in Ulduar are very melee friendly. XT is a rogue and cat's dream. We were pretty harsh to melee in Naxx with a lot of run-out moments and cleaves. Kologarn and other parts of Ulduar turn that on the ranged a little and require them to focus more on situational awareness. We think the later fights in Ulduar are a little more ranged-friendly, and we're waiting to get more parses from those. Plenty of guilds are on or have beaten Yogg by now, but the current data are pretty noisy since people are still learning the encounters.

The problem many of us have is that we may be ranged but we also have melee pets and do not benefit well at all from the haste and spell damage buffs in many fights. We consistently get lumped in with casters as a range class but we are very different from them. The buffs on those ranged fights (like hodir) do not help us nearly as much as other ranged classes. Our pets get completely destroyed on many fights like mirimon and yogg. Most fights that favor range still have hunters doing subpar damage compared to other ranged dps.

Bakla

Exodar

31. Re: Hunter Balance-Blizzard's opinion. attem 05/09/2009 12:12:53 PM PDT

Q u o t e:
Okay, here is just a slew of our current thoughts on the topic.

PvP

1) The TNT stuns and the uber mana drains were just too good last season. Sorry. Those aren't coming back.

Spamming mana burn with Power infusion is so very different now? It's a far faster drain than waiting for viper's CD.

Q u o t e:

2) Last season, burst spell damage was very high. That put a premium on active defenses, which ended up being a good niche for hunters. Last season there was almost no reason to bring a warrior; rogues and hunters brought the MS debuff in a stronger form as well as a host of additional utility. Warriors are back now, which means more competition for that spot.

Warriors have taken over that spot completely in regards to 2v2. There is no reason to bring a hunter over a warrior in 2v2. You'd end up with a far squishier class with far less mobility, less burst, and less utility (for the 2v2 setting).

Are you resigning your game to no longer include hunters in 2v2 a la mages? Even mages have a more secure place in 3v3.

Q u o t e:

3) This season has seen different classes rising to the top. Priests are rogues are good. Arms and Ret are good, depending on who you believe. We are nerfing or have nerfed some of those classes, which should open up the top playing-field a little. We are getting rid of Exorcism allowing paladins to two-shot pets. I'd agree that hunter representation is a little low at the moment, but we're not sure the class needs massive buffs so much as others need some nerfs.

Hunter never needed massive buffs. You gave us massive buffs we didn't need in season 5 (we never asked for mace stun, being able to layer 2 frost traps at once, monkey glyph).

Then you nailed the class with the most nerfs ever given to a class in the history of this game, when hunters didn't even have top representation at the time.

You nerfed stuff that absolutely NO ONE was even complaining about, like being able to RoS teammates. Who the hell complained about that? Or was that just PvE tweaking that screws over PvP due to lazy coding?

Q u o t e:

4) Hunters are betters in 5s than 2s. It's really challenging to have every class or spec have the same representation in small teams as large, which is one of the reasons we offer multiple sizes. Recently the community seems to be focusing on 2s even more than 3s. We are taking some steps to make sure the larger brackets are as rewarding as the smaller ones. (I'm not saying it's a goal that some classes are only viable for some brackets. But it is nice that if you aren't as good for some brackets, you always have the others to fall back on.)

We sure love being better in a dead bracket (5v5). It also sounds like in this post that you are giving up on hunters being viable in 2v2. Sad sad.

[ Post edited by Bakla ]

Eolin

< Maelstrom >

Kul Tiras

32. Re: Hunter Balance-Blizzard's opinion. attem 05/09/2009 12:13:01 PM PDT

Q u o t e:

We'd be unlikely to buff Steady Shot, for the same reasons we nerfed it before. If we need to buff hunters, we'd likely do it in other ways. We'd also be unlikely to buff pet damage.

It feels like to us that you don't want to buff SS because that would be admitting that your earlier nerf was a mistake.

Buffing pet damage would be a bad idea. Pets die too easily in many fights. Unless you make imp revive pet baseline. Or you could revert the nerf to Mortal Shots so it affects auto shot again. There are a hundred things you could do. Make haste affect the hunter GCD so we can take full advantage of Heroism and Rapid Fire and Quick Shots procs instead of only getting half the benefit.

.....and how can you *NOT* be 100% convinced hunter DPS is low in Ulduar with all the data available? That boggles my mind.

Timeron

< Bloodtalon Mercenari… >

Maelstrom

33. Re: Hunter Balance-Blizzard's opinion. attem 05/09/2009 12:13:55 PM PDT

Q u o t e:
Honestly in arena, a hunter needs to be in 3v3 to be viable. The only way to make a hunter viable in 2's is to give them stronger cc's and/or more dmg, and that makes them OP. last season hunter teams ripped appart my partner, this season we have faced 2 hunter teams and they were a joke.

balancing them vs melee (especially juggernaut) is a high wire act to be sure, gl blizz, you need it.

Wrong, they could increase our mobility a good bit and we would be golden. Also hitting us 2 and 3 times on one ability doens't help much. Making Deterrence a frontal cone is fine, making it so we can't dps, and making things hurt us while it's up is just stupid. Making traps visible is fine, lowering the radius is ok, but giving them that plus an arming time was just going overboard. They could balance us if they didn't over nerf us then try to over compensate for a month before over nerfing us again.

PvP against a warlock is like punching yourself in the face with a porcupine.

Thefinancier

< Bank of America >

Burning Legion

34. Re: Hunter Balance-Blizzard's opinion. attem 05/09/2009 12:15:51 PM PDT

Q u o t e:
Okay, here is just a slew of our current thoughts on the topic.

PvE

1) Hunter dps was just too high through much of Naxx. Ideally hunters should be competing with locks, rogues and mages and for a lot of the LK content they were just head and shoulders above the rest.

2) Currently, hunter dps might be a little low, but we're not 100% convinced yet. Some of the earlier fights in Ulduar are very melee friendly. XT is a rogue and cat's dream. We were pretty harsh to melee in Naxx with a lot of run-out moments and cleaves. Kologarn and other parts of Ulduar turn that on the ranged a little and require them to focus more on situational awareness. We think the later fights in Ulduar are a little more ranged-friendly, and we're waiting to get more parses from those. Plenty of guilds are on or have beaten Yogg by now, but the current data are pretty noisy since people are still learning the encounters.

3) We understand Vezax is a special case for hunters. By the same token, our goal is not to have every class do the same relative dps on every boss. Some fights are just better for some than others. Our goal isn't even to have "the shadow priest fight" or "the fury warrior fight." We just want diversity. We really wanted the Ulduar encounters to push players more towards "What can I do to improve my dps on this fight?" and less on "What is my dps?"

4) Survival may still be slightly higher than BM or MM. We don't think it's off by 1000 dps in most cases. It's something we want to keep looking at. We understand some Marks hunters say they'd be fine if it weren't for mana.

PvP

1) The TNT stuns and the uber mana drains were just too good last season. Sorry. Those aren't coming back.

2) Last season, burst spell damage was very high. That put a premium on active defenses, which ended up being a good niche for hunters. Last season there was almost no reason to bring a warrior; rogues and hunters brought the MS debuff in a stronger form as well as a host of additional utility. Warriors are back now, which means more competition for that spot.

3) This season has seen different classes rising to the top. Priests are rogues are good. Arms and Ret are good, depending on who you believe. We are nerfing or have nerfed some of those classes, which should open up the top playing-field a little. We are getting rid of Exorcism allowing paladins to two-shot pets. I'd agree that hunter representation is a little low at the moment, but we're not sure the class needs massive buffs so much as others need some nerfs.

4) Hunters are betters in 5s than 2s. It's really challenging to have every class or spec have the same representation in small teams as large, which is one of the reasons we offer multiple sizes. Recently the community seems to be focusing on 2s even more than 3s. We are taking some steps to make sure the larger brackets are as rewarding as the smaller ones. (I'm not saying it's a goal that some classes are only viable for some brackets. But it is nice that if you aren't as good for some brackets, you always have the others to fall back on.)

Just some questions based on your responses... First, TY for the responses.

1. You say Hunter DPS was too high in Naxx. That is was head and shoulders above the rest. Do you think that as everyone geared up via Naxx, that many classes (mage lock DK) caught up and surpassed Hunters? I know thats what happened in my raids. Kind of leads me to believe that Hunters just didn't scale as well with gear.

2. Stuns and uber mana drains are not coming back... fair enough. Do you feel that after 4 seasons of Hunters being the lowest represented class at 2k rating levels and being back there again for the start of season 6 that it points to TnT and mana draining as the reasons Hunters were able to achiev viable representation in season 5? If not, what do you feel caused season 5 to be the outlier in Hunter arena representation?

3. Do you feel that the 5v5 bracket is a bit more watered down than 2v2 or 3v3 in the sense that more teammates allows for less focus to fall on 1 classes weaknesses? Does being 50% of a team draw more attention to a classes weaknesses than being 20% of a team? Do larger team sizes lead to teams being more willing to take known gimped classes?

[ Post edited by Thefinancier ]

Pajamas

< soft and silky >

Eonar

35. Re: Hunter Balance-Blizzard's opinion. attem 05/09/2009 12:16:08 PM PDT

I'm glad blizzard doesn't want to buff pets, but they need some adjustments. My thought was you could make them unaffected by raid buffs, but have them take a larger portion of the hunter's stats, and more importantly share arp and haste. these stats are notoriously bad for hunters and it is very frustrating.

on steady shot.. before we used it because it was worth using. now I don't like using it, but I have to. It's easily the lowest dps skill any class uses with high frequency.

I'm not sure when exactly hunters were a head and shoulders above every other class. I can't remember a time that happened, even with 50/21 other classes could match or exceed our damage. now in ulduar it's clear hunters are lagging behind everyone else on the top 20 statistics.

[ Post edited by Pajamas ]

Sefire

< Ad Idem >

Dragonmaw

36. Re: Hunter Balance-Blizzard's opinion. attem 05/09/2009 12:17:45 PM PDT

Q u o t e:
3) We understand Vezax is a special case for hunters. By the same token, our goal is not to have every class do the same relative dps on every boss. Some fights are just better for some than others. Our goal isn't even to have "the shadow priest fight" or "the fury warrior fight." We just want diversity. We really wanted the Ulduar encounters to push players more towards "What can I do to improve my dps on this fight?" and less on "What is my dps?"

This is very frustrating for me. Im a pretty competitive player and strive to claim those top spots on the meters. Fights like General Vezax and (to a lesser extent) Hodir that favor casters just aren't as fun because even if I play to my greatest potential the buffs just dont benefit me the same. Instead of the buffs being "Increases spell damage dealt by X" or "Spells cast have a chance to do X" could they be "Damage increased by X" or "Attacks have a chance to do X"? This would most likely require additional tuning for melee that may gain such buffs and to account for the extra damage coming from hunters.

I like to see things like the Rune of Power on Iron Council and the crit damage buff (Storm Charge?)from the shaman npc in the Hodir encounter.

Are there plans to help with pet survival in Ulduar? Boss-centric type AoE with a cast bar or a target symbol on the ground are fine, I can recall my pet and keep it out of danger. When it comes to abilities like Napalm Shell (namely its aoe fire damage) and frontal damage from Mimirons phase 2 it becomes less about control and more about luck. :(

TL:DR-- Id like to go into fights without a handicap due to boss mechanics.

[ Post edited by Sefire ]

Mistwynd

< Fuzzy Wuzzy Bunny >

Silver Hand

38. Re: Hunter Balance-Blizzard's opinion. attem 05/09/2009 12:20:54 PM PDT

[/ul]

Q u o t e:
. Recently the community seems to be focusing on 2s even more than 3s. We are taking some steps to make sure the larger brackets are as rewarding as the smaller ones. (I'm not saying it's a goal that some classes are only viable for some brackets. But it is nice that if you aren't as good for some brackets, you always have the others to fall back on.)

2v2 is really the only bracket worth counting.

Its VERY easy to setup and run 2v2 matches. No need to organize or schedule. Just wait till you have a litlte time and your buddy is online and jump in.
2v2 matches tend to be very fast.
2v2 matches are easier to play because there's less going on in the match to keep track of.
2v2 matches have very fast queues.

In contrast...

3v3 and 5v5 take much more coordination and organization to get going. You can't really just wait for your buddies and run matches as a casual unscheduled group. If you try doing that chances are very likely one or more of your partners will be missing and your group won't run very often. If you don't run often, you don't get practiced and its not a very satisfying experience.
3v3 and 5v5 have much more going on in the match. There's much more to keep track of.
Running 2v2 matches requires coordination comparable to whats required to run a 5-player heroic instance group. In contrast, running 5v5 matches is almost like running a raid... you'll need a pre-scheduled "arena pvp" time for it to be even moderately successful.

Bottom line: There's always going to be vastly more players playing 2v2 than 3v3 or 5v5. Its been that way since Arena was introduced. Even if Blizzard makes the gear curve easier for 3v3 and 5v5, there will STILL probably be 10x as many players playing 2v2, because its just easier to get going in 2v2 than the other brackets. Its more casual friendly.

And because 2v2 is so much more popular and always will be ..... its really the only bracket that should matter when it comes to balance.

Balancing pvp for 3v3 and 5v5 instead of 2v2 is analogous to what Blizzard did with pre-BC Naxxramas.... they spent a ton of development time on content that almost nobody saw. Basically, they were aiming at the wrong target.

[ Post edited by Mistwynd ]

Barnabyjonez

< Retribution >

Drak'thul

39. Re: Hunter Balance-Blizzard's opinion. attem 05/09/2009 12:21:40 PM PDT

Q u o t e:
I'm glad blizzard doesn't want to buff pets, but they need some adjustments. My thought was you could make them unaffected by raid buffs, but have them take a larger portion of the hunter's stats, and more importantly share arp and haste. these stats are notoriously bad for hunters and it is very frustrating.

on steady shot.. before we used it because it was worth using. now I don't like using it, but I have to. It's easily the lowest dps skill any class uses with high frequency.

I'm not sure when exactly hunters were a head and shoulders above every other class. I can't remember a time that happened, even with 50/21 other classes could match or exceed our damage. now in ulduar it's clear hunters are lagging behind everyone else on the top 20 statistics.

Yeah, I made a thread a long time ago on the subject of pet scaling. GC stated he'd like to talk about it some more:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=13723762657&pageNo=1&sid=1#14

Maybe we could talk some more about it now?

Forum > CLASS ROLES > DAMAGE DEALING