who cares about detturance im a PvE all the way...i play my hunter cause i kick sum serious butt...now im what getting forced to pay a freekin DK...

wrong

I think that what GC and the devs are doing, is not separating aoe dps from single target properly. Overall with our volley spam we can be miles ahead after an entire night in Naxx, but if you reduce the meters to just boss fights then it becomes much, much closer. Combine that with the fact that many of these parses were with stacked COTW and then 2x BW and RF, then you have almost the entire difference. I know very well that without these things the other classes are right next to me or ahead by a wide margin on most fights. Then after this nerf they are nerfing pets, which I can still live with, but it actually might still be too much. It will reduce our overall damage by about 5-6% on top of the previously mentioned nerfs. HOWEVER, the steady shot nerf on top of that is just blizzard not knowing 1+1. DON'T EVEN TEST IT! It is a braindead move, and I promise, if you make the other changes, our dps will be inline with the other pure dps classes overall. RUN THE NUMBERS!

Ghostcrawler,

Are you able to share the specifics of your internal testing? I'd be interested in knowing how you're getting the relationships you're suggesting. Especially among the other competitive dps classes.

Having cleared Wrath raid content, these are definitely not the results I'm seeing.

---

Hunters (Beast Mastery) are highly competitive. They're about on track with Affliction Warlocks and Balance Druids. Rogues tend to fall below them in typical circumstances, and outpace them in ideal circumstances. Mages are far outpacing them in any circumstance.

Hunters (Marksmanship) are competitive. They fall slightly below BM Hunters, but fair better in fights that are unfriendly toward pets (although this still causes them to be below other DPS).

Hunters (Survival) are uncompetitive. They are not worth bringing, even considering Replenishment. This has nothing to do with comparison against different specs. Our Survival Hunter has repsec'd Marksmanship and we're not going to be utilizing Survival again in the forseeable future. Shadow Priests and Retribution Paladins are superior choices for Replenishment. In 10s, no Replenishment is better than a Survival Hunter due to the dps drag in almost all circumstances.

Mages (Frostfire) are significantly ahead of the DPS curve across the gear spectrum. (Note: I should be careful here -- Other classes do catch up, but Mages stay at the top - I would rate them "highly competitive" gear capped).

Warlocks (Affliction) are highly competitive, although they often have trouble maintaining their rotation in the majority of boss fights which often holds them back.

Warlocks (Destruction) also appear competitive. They are below Affliction in ideal circumstances, but are far more consistent as their rotation is not so easily mangled.

Warlocks (Demonology) are uncompetitive. See comments regarding Survival Hunters and substitute Demo Lock utility.

Druids (Balance) are highly competitive, they start strong and appear to scale less than other classes, but are overall probably second place.

Rogues (Combat Swords) are competitive. The unfavorable conditions for melee classes hold them back most of the time, but they are second to only Frostfire Mages (and competitive with them, potenitally exceeding at times) in perfect circumstance situations. In typical circumstances, they are slightly below the ranged dps (which seems appropriate, assuming there is a fair balance of fights that are favorable to melee in the future).

Priests (Shadow) are slightly under par (around typical Rogue levels). The benefit of Replenishment certainly makes up the difference here.

Druids (Feral), Paladins (Retribution), Warriors (Arms) -- These classes appear to be somewhat competitive, although due to the unfavorable situation for melee right now ours have lagged behind in gear (we've been stacking ranged for first through clears and achievement attempts/progressionish raiding). Early impressions indicate that melee, aside from Rogues (Combat) and possibly (based on hearsay) Warriors (Fury) are likely to be too far behind the curve on average, barring the introduction of a lot of fairly dull fights where melee can go nuts (Patchwerk).

I do not have sufficient relevant data on Warriors (Fury), Rogues (Assassination, Subtlety), Shaman (Enhancement, Elemental), Mage (Non-Frostfire), or DPS Death Knights (Any Spec).

--------------------

Comments about Hunters:

We may be scaling too well. However, as with most physical dps, our start point is very low. The rapid scaling brings us in line with caster dps but could prove too potent in higher content. As I'm stressing throughout this post, we are not scaling past other classes, at least not significantly so, and certainly no where near what you're indicating. There could be cause for reducing our scaling (carefully) and increasing our base damage (moderately). This could leave us at the same present DPS while suppressing the curve from Sunwell gear -> Naxx 10 gear.

Our pets may be doing too much of our damage. 30% seems typical for a BM Pet. This could be acceptable, it is the "Pet Spec," but it does seem high. However, this does bring our tps down in line with most other DPS (somewhat lower perhaps, but it doesn't seem enough to be significant presently). The percentage of damage pets are doing currently is problematic given the number of fights that are highly unfavorable to pets (Malygos, Sartharian, Heigan of particular note, among others).

Comments regarding the nerfs:

Steady Shot: Hacking off half of the scaling here is very very major. Conservatively, in the realm of a 500 dps nerf for gear capped Hunters in existing content. That's without considering the other nerfs listed. When evaluating the numbers here, please keep in mind Glyph of Steady Shot, the various AP Procs and buffs (of which there are many), and crit modifiers (Meta, Mortal Shots).

(Continuing in an additional post...

i just think this sucks just when being a hunter puts you in the top they go and nerf us so bad that we are going to be behind again...i really like topping the Meter for a change...stead of Mages and Locks...

(Continued from a previous post...)

Volley: Again, 30% reduction is massive. I don't know who you have playing Hunters at Blizzard, but if they're using Volley to exclusion of most other attacks in a single target combat, then they're hurting their dps, not helping (and if they're getting far and away to the top of the meters by spamming Volley in a single target situation I suspect the abilities of the other people on those meters are lacking). And they're definitely destroying their longevity. If you're concerned about AoE output from all classes, then nerf all AoE output simultaneously. Hitting just Hunters is going to hurt severely, especially for Malygos and Sartharian (with Drakes). For fights like Gluth it's not as big a deal, because you'd (potentially) be bringing the Hunter for the rest of the instance anyway and not worry about less effectiveness on a single fight. Sartharian is the only fight in the zone, and with Drakes in particular it's important to balance the raid very carefully (Note: Stack the raid).

If, on the other hand, you're concerned that Hunters are using Volley exclusively in AoE situations.... /boggle. Explosive trap does poor damage and is not effective to use unless you know where you need it in advance (E.g. Anub'Rehkan's Corpse Scarabs). If you're suggestion we should be using our single target abilities in AoE situations then I direct you to recent Rogue concerns.

Readiness: This is going to have far reaching consequences into PvP Combat for Beast Mastery Hunters. If your intention is to prevent a double BW dps burst in Wrath raiding, then I suggest bumping Readiness up one tier in MM forcing the loss of major DPS abilities in the BM tree while still allowing TBW x2 via Readiness for PvP oriented builds (though still significantly impacting PvP DPS for certain). (EDIT: I should add here that I could understand reasoning for wanting to nerf Readiness/Bestial Wrath for PvP purposes. However, the original post here suggested you wanted to minimize PvP impact. This is going to have a big PvP impact. It might be necessary, I don't really know. I think with or without this change Marksmanship and Survival are likely to dominate PvP presently regardless of this change).

Call of the Wild: This is going to be a nerf to melee DPS classes, which if anything right now could use some extra help. I would lobby for a minor buff to this ability (Maybe a 3m CD, or lower).

--------

Hunter issues that should be addressed:

Pets:

Pets have almost no chance of survival on Sartharian or Heigan, particularly large pets (importantly, Devilsaurs). In fact, practice suggests that Devilsaurs with any growth effect up (Monstrous Bite, Heroism, Bestial Wrath) are not only unable to avoid lava waves but may in fact be getting hit by two lava waves if you attempt to have them avoid it.

Pets have problems getting "stuck" in certain areas. The stairs before Archavon come to mind, most importantly, after each Vortex on Malygos. Gluth's pipe and Thaddius' platforms are also problem points. Again, the real important one here is Malygos.

Pets seem to be causing problem with vehicles.

Damage modifier fight mechanics such as the spark debuff on Malygos are hindering pet classes.

Hunter Issues:

Hunters are at a significant disadvantage on Malygos regarding the spark debuffs. Malygos' hitbox is so large that Hunters can have a difficult time getting far enough away and still getting the damage debuff. This is especially problematic with strategies that require Malygos to be moved throughout Phase 1 (which is the most effective way to properly stack sparks).

Glyph of Aspect of the Viper and T7 4pc - The change to Aspect of the Viper to make half of the mana regen passive (mp5) and half come from attacks, as opposed to all of it coming from attacks, has reduced the potency of these two AotV improvements. While Aspect of the Viper is still useful, without increasing the effectiveness of these two Viper improvements they are not worthwhile.

Haste on T7/T7.5 - I know this has been addressed before, but the haste on our gear is eating up a large amount of the item budget, especially on our tier gear. Consequently, the offset pieces are comparitively much better typically - 10-man level offset items are competitive with 25-man Tier sets. This is amplified by the poor quality of our 4pc bonus addressed above.

Buff Scaling - This may be untrue, but Hunters appear to be more heavily impacted by buffs (or the lack of them) than other classes. This manifests by us being competitive in 25-man DPS, but losing significant ground in most 10-man configurations. All classes lose quite a bit without a full complement of buffs, but it seems that Hunters are losing much more.

(Continued from above...)

General Scaling - As mentioned (far) above, we may be scaling too well. This could be the root cause of our buff scaling problem mentioned directly above. However, as stressed throughout this post, we are not scaling above other classes.

----------

I'm sorry for the length of this post (Well, these posts...). Please keep in mind, I'm not calling for nerfs for anyone else. I'm only trying to stress that Hunters simply are not standing out in real play situations. I can't see how you're finding those results, especially results that call for the incredible nerfs proposed here.

I'm trying not to be alarmist, but these proposed nerfs are *extremely* severe. I don't like getting nerfed, who does? But I can understand the reasoning for it most of the time. There is no way that anything I've seen in game supports these kinds of nerfs, and I'm not convinced there's need for any nerfs presently, much less nerfs at this level.

I'd also like to note that I'm aware some of my posted information for other classes may not be in line with a lot of the popular theorycrafting currently (and consequently, the results a lot of guilds are seeing). There's a lot of bad information circulating right now, especially regarding certain talent builds. Many popular EP formulas, for instance, are just not valuing stats correctly at this point.

---

Q u o t e:
There were many comments about whether or not I read all the responses, but I do.

We also had to delete many and ban many posters who couldn't figure out the proper kind of response for these threads. It is sad that I have to mention it, but since the bannings aren't public I feel the need to warn everyone to consider what you are about to do before you push that Post button. If your reponse gets deleted, nobody is going to read it anyway. If you get banned, you are just going to lose the opportunity to ever comment on changes.

You are welcome to disagree with us, and many people have. But you all are smart enough to know the difference between intelligent discussion and pointless QQ. That also goes for any of the people banned for coming into gloat or flame the hunters.

---

I know it's off topic, but is there any information that you can give us about progress with fixing the Marked for Death bug? And also the Cryptfiends Bite bug.

---

Q u o t e:
There were many comments about whether or not I read all the responses, but I do.

We also had to delete many and ban many posters who couldn't figure out the proper kind of response for these threads. It is sad that I have to mention it, but since the bannings aren't public I feel the need to warn everyone to consider what you are about to do before you push that Post button. If your reponse gets deleted, nobody is going to read it anyway. If you get banned, you are just going to lose the opportunity to ever comment on changes.

You are welcome to disagree with us, and many people have. But you all are smart enough to know the difference between intelligent discussion and pointless QQ. That also goes for any of the people banned for coming into gloat or flame the hunters.

---

See bolded part...

Howza bout clearing some the trolling and gloating off the hunter forum and handing out some bans then...

For example

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=13393389838&sid=1
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=13392159769&sid=1


Thank you

---

Q u o t e:
There were many comments about whether or not I read all the responses, but I do.

We also had to delete many and ban many posters who couldn't figure out the proper kind of response for these threads. It is sad that I have to mention it, but since the bannings aren't public I feel the need to warn everyone to consider what you are about to do before you push that Post button. If your reponse gets deleted, nobody is going to read it anyway. If you get banned, you are just going to lose the opportunity to ever comment on changes.

You are welcome to disagree with us, and many people have. But you all are smart enough to know the difference between intelligent discussion and pointless QQ. That also goes for any of the people banned for coming into gloat or flame the hunters.

---

Ty for the need for reminding us about this. Certainly we will check our sarcasm at the door.

However can we please get an honest answer for once in the small and chequered forums existence from you?

1) Why did you feel the need to nerf steady shot! after an entire beta of testing? You had an entire beta to buff up these changes and test it.... everyone saw the hunter pve DPS then. Where was the single minded focus that is being suddenly displayed in regard to this class? Where are the PVP Fixes? I know the answer will be a WIP... this WIP does not seem to have been applied to PVE damage

2) There are other classes in the same boat of DPS? Are you looking at those?

Looks pointedly at the masters of arcane

---

Q u o t e:
Our job is to make the game fun, and part of that includes trying to keep it balanced. Sometimes balance requires buffs and sometimes it requires nerfs.

---

Nerfs... ok. But complete gimpings?

Here's my problem with the proposed changes:

Hunters are a DPS class. *period*

We have no raid utility. the only reason we get invites to a well planned raid is so that we can go pew pew and kill things quickly.

We do not have any effective form of CC. Sure, we can shoot a trap now that does not engage when it lands, so don't try to stop a target in motion.. oh and it doesn't last as long as the cooldown... ever.

In BC you at least made us useful for the purpose of helping the MT build threat with our MD. Guess what? You have given a better MD to Rogues via Tricks of the Trade, so we don't even offer that now. Why doesn't hunter damage get boosted by 15% and MD last for 6 seconds? Instead, we get three attacks? With all of the damned haste gear you are forcing us to use, this results in under two seconds with two autos and a special.

We don't offer any raid buffs. Don't even mention TSA.. Party only and have to be MM spec. Pffft.

We can debuff the target with some pet abilities, but those debuffs aren't present on the higher DPSing pets.

We don't heal.

We don't make candy or cookies.

We don't offer wipe recovery unless an engineer, and then it is iffy.

We don't help with summons or portals.

So what do we do? Damage. That's it.

Yes, we are sharing the top of the DPS charts in Naxx25 with warriors, rogues, mages, etc. Wow.. DPS classes. Go figure. So you're going to gimp us so we can be mediocre at best? Why?

I just wish that this decision had been made before WotlK came out instead of teasing us. I would have focused on my Druid, Priest or Pally instead. This is not a threat. This is a fact. You stated that the intent is to make it fun to play. Guess what? It is now. I can respect a nerf. I can not respect a gimping.

I guess it's time to throw the past few weeks of focus on the hunter away and relegate him to a farmer.

:(

I'm sorry for the repost, and I'm sorry for the length. I just wanted to flesh this out properly and explain myself where necessary.

Just to be clear, I'm not trying to avoid a nerf in pet damage. If you want to nerf pet damage, fine. I just think there are better ways to do it than what you have planned. By better, I mean the same damage reduction for raiders, but not as much of a reduction for everybody else. My alteration to your idea focuses on three talents. Serpent's Swiftness, Kindred Spirits, and Beast Mastery. To summarize, I suggest you further increase the nerfs to raw +pet damage talents but leave Serpent's Swiftness alone, while at the same time moving some Kindred Spirits effects into Beast Mastery to make 50/21 builds both irrelevant and undesirable. Now for the why and how.

Regarding Serpent's Swiftness, we've had it for a long time, and this talent wasn't what made us so powerful recently. By nerfing it, you would cause a disproportionate damage reduction for casual and leveling hunters. Why? A much higher proportion of both their pet's and their own total damage comes from their pet's auto attack damage. On the other hand, raiding BM hunters will be feeding their pets more focus than they can use because of their high crit rate and tighter shot rotations. What I'm suggesting will take a _bigger_ bite out of that pet special attack damage (which raiders will have much more of), but it won't be as much of a reduction as you suggest to pet auto attack damage. This will be as much of a nerf to raiders, but it won't hurt everybody else as much.

Regarding Kindred Spirits, this talent has taken many forms since its inception, and none of them has felt particularly distinct or made much sense. I feel it's not necessary to have a watered-down clone of Unleashed Fury. The reason I say it's watered-down is because the speed boost is honestly not worth it. It's a marginal improvement over boot enchants, and in PvP, pathing issues alone force you to take Boar's Speed, rendering the pet speed buff useless. I suggest you remove the remove the current effects of this talent entirely. Instead, make each rank grant your pet 1 pet training point and 10% of your resilience, coming to a total of 5 pet training points and 50% of your resilience. Since the BM tree is almost entirely dependent on their pet, I feel this gives them a fighting chance in more intensive PvP forms. If you want a lore explanation, the fact that hunter and pet are kindred spirits allows more intensive training and creates more devotion from the pet (keeps on fighting in the face of damage).

You might ask, "Wouldn't that free up BM raiders to take a ton of points in other trees, thereby boosting their DPS massively?" It would not because you've moved the Kindred Spirits effects _down_ the tree, making Beast Mastery required for BM hunters in PvE and PvP. The filler they could take instead of Kindred Spirits are survivability talents in BM, not DPS talents. The same goes for the extra pet talent point. BM raiders will already have all the DPS pet talents, and the extra talent point will only help for PvP.

Lastly, Beast Mastery. By moving some of the removed Kindred Spirits effects here, it could be made into a must-have. 50/21 would go from the talk of the town to a joke, which I think is what you want. Quite simply, reduce the damage buff of Kindred Spirits even more, but move it here. +10% pet damage. On top of that, add +5% pet stamina and +5% armor. Keep the exotic pet taming but remove the extra talent points (since Kindred Spirits will now provide that). The extra health and armor would have no real PvE effect. The pets of well-geared, properly-spec'd hunters already have no problems MT'ing norm 5 mans or OT'ing single mobs in heroics. In raids, they will still have zero chance of MT'ing a boss unless the hunter and healers vastly outgear it. This will not add any significant capability, just make them a bit tougher in PvP.

All of this, combined with the SS nerf, would still be a significant reduction in hunter DPS in raids. However, it would not hurt casual BM hunters nearly as much. In return, you'd give BM PvP hunters a fighting chance at keeping their pets alive in PvP against burst classes. I think that's only fitting if they invest 50+ of their talent points into them. You could accomplish your nerf goals and have this be a patch that many hunters would still love.

I don't disagree with the need for changes, nor the majority of the specifics proposed. In the case of the Serpent's Swiftness change, however, would you consider scaling down the hunter's attack speed bonus as well, so that the "soft cap" GCD haste scaling issue on steady shot has a little more headroom? A slightly smaller reduction in the per-shot damage of steady shot might be required to keep everything on the level.

---

Q u o t e:


I know it's off topic, but is there any information that you can give us about progress with fixing the Marked for Death bug? And also the Cryptfiends Bite bug.

---

^ This

I admire your attention to fix a broken class, which is why I'm sure you and your peers are working hard to fix the known bugs with both these items.

Marked for Death is currently breaking the "Glyph of Steady Shot" and causing it not to award the 10%.

The item Cryptfiend's Bite is not properly awarding the AP from the item to the hunter.

---

Q u o t e:


Nerfs... ok. But complete gimpings?

Here's my problem with the proposed changes:

Hunters are a DPS class. *period*

We have no raid utility. the only reason we get invites to a well planned raid is so that we can go pew pew and kill things quickly.

We do not have any effective form of CC. Sure, we can shoot a trap now that does not engage when it lands, so don't try to stop a target in motion.. oh and it doesn't last as long as the cooldown... ever.

In BC you at least made us useful for the purpose of helping the MT build threat with our MD. Guess what? You have given a better MD to Rogues via Tricks of the Trade, so we don't even offer that now. Why doesn't hunter damage get boosted by 15% and MD last for 6 seconds? Instead, we get three attacks? With all of the damned haste gear you are forcing us to use, this results in under two seconds with two autos and a special.

We don't offer any raid buffs. Don't even mention TSA.. Party only and have to be MM spec. Pffft.

We can debuff the target with some pet abilities, but those debuffs aren't present on the higher DPSing pets.

We don't heal.

We don't make candy or cookies.

We don't offer wipe recovery unless an engineer, and then it is iffy.

We don't help with summons or portals.

So what do we do? Damage. That's it.

Yes, we are sharing the top of the DPS charts in Naxx25 with warriors, rogues, mages, etc. Wow.. DPS classes. Go figure. So you're going to gimp us so we can be mediocre at best? Why?

I just wish that this decision had been made before WotlK came out instead of teasing us. I would have focused on my Druid, Priest or Pally instead. This is not a threat. This is a fact. You stated that the intent is to make it fun to play. Guess what? It is now. I can respect a nerf. I can not respect a gimping.

I guess it's time to throw the past few weeks of focus on the hunter away and relegate him to a farmer.

:(

---

this is exactly my thought......

Might have to break out the tank and try to lvl him to have some functionality in raid now.....crap hate the tank

The new deterrence change is lame, if it is made to help you escape, why would you be facing the enemy? and it doesn't stop other ranged attacks? only spells?

Volley dmg is too high, agree, but 30% seems too harsh.

please dont kill steady shot =(

Aspect of the wild is now Raid Wide! hurray, as if someone would use it instead of Dragonhawk...

make disengage remove all impairing effects for like, 3 sec, and maybe we can get the new deterrence to be awesome (with some changes as above)

While I may agree that action is needed, I think you've taken a wrong direction on it. Scaling changes never work, as they just nerf the class more as they acquire better gear. Mages in BC were a great example of that.

I'll save you the math, as it all can be found on EJ forums.

10% reduction to steady shot - makes the shot inefficient and therefore useless in rotations.

30% reduction to volley - rendering the ae spell useless once again.

Boiled down, you are taking a pure dps class and making scaling changes as such, that we can never catch up. The better our gear gets, the less we will be competetive with the other dps classes. Given the fact that we add little to no utility to a raid, there if no reason to have us there, as we will quickly be outclassed at the one thing we do, DPS.

After reviewing all your changes, the most viable raid spec will once again be BM with a macro we can tap over and over. I enjoyed MM for a while cause I actually had to play...

I agree with Dezz, i got so excited with the new hunter skills when WOTLK came, and suddenly i feel like i want to lvl an alt instead of staying with my first created character, you guys should be working on fix hunters arena issues rather than nerfing us when we are not overpowered, there is no way you can nerf us PvEwise without nerfing PvP. Even if our PvE Dps in too high, it doesn't mean we can grind faster... DKs, warlocks, ProtPallys, RetPallys, they can all grind faster than a Hunter.