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Q u o t e:


Kaching.

Seriously, if you think something is off with the numbers, slapping "knee-jerk" on it doesn't make it more compelling. If anything, it deflates your argument a little because these hardened forum veterans have seen those terms thrown out so often. :)

On the actual topic, we are pretty happy with the numbers we can generate for hunters with the changes. However, I will certainly bring up with the team that many hunters have posted (some even after testing) that the nerfs were too severe, especially to BM.

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Indeed.

I was actually just about to post a very similar thread until I saw this little gem. Yes, the title is a little harsh but please don't ignore the content of the OP, for he is right on.

I think it had to do with more than just gear though. I think patchwerk is a solid fight to compare overall dps on among classes seeing as there really isn't any hindrance to any class. Warlocks and Mages although having a more complex dps rotation are keeping up with and quite a few times exceeding Hunter dps on this fight. On this very page of threads is a Death Knight linking to over 6000 dps on Patchwerk as DW Frost Spec which up until now seemed to be ignored by the general DK community until recently.

As bad as this might sound...in my experience the other DPS classes were just slow in learning how to play at 80 endgame levels. Now that they have they are keeping up with and exceeding Hunters pre-3.08 nerfs hitting live servers. What makes this worse is that it has long been known that Casters scale far better into higher levels of endgame content, so as we hit better itemized gear (aka T9 content) in Icecrown Warlocks and Mages will be doing incredible dps.

However, the 3.08 nerf is killing our scaling. I would love to know if the developers are modifying Hunter characters to have T9 level endgame stats and comparing their DPS to that of other T9 level DPS classes, or are we being nerfed based on T7 levels and will have to wait for these changes to be reversed in a few months time?

My suggestion to fixing Hunters which the developers seem to be understanding recently. Get us away from the Steady Shot spam not by nerfing Steady Shot but by making our other shots more desirable. Arcane Shot being reduced to the same mana as Steady is a great start but do more. Give us procs to watch for that will allow instants like Arcane Shot (and possibly a new shot?) become far more powerful. It will break up the boring steady rotations and also give us more viability in PvP while kiting etc.

I dunno about your guilds but even with everyone with nice gear our hunters are still topping the charts sometimes by huge margins of 3-5% at the end of a raid thats at times half a million to over a million damage discrepancies

You can't simply state that Hunters are top in overall damage so they need to be nerfed. Volley needs to be nerfed nobody is debating that. I guarantee the majority of that overall damage is due to the fact that we can drop 10k dps AoE'ing trash with volley.

You need to compare class dps based on a level table such as Patchwerk like many have done before me. If your warlocks and mages are not above 4000...they should be above 4500dps then it is not so much Hunters needing to be nerfed it is your other dps needing to learn how to DPS in Wrath Endgame better. Hunter dps rotations are simplisitic, Mage/Warlock rotations are more complex and require a more skilled player to do the same DPS.

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Q u o t e:


Kaching.

Seriously, if you think something is off with the numbers, slapping "knee-jerk" on it doesn't make it more compelling. If anything, it deflates your argument a little because these hardened forum veterans have seen those terms thrown out so often. :)

On the actual topic, we are pretty happy with the numbers we can generate for hunters with the changes. However, I will certainly bring up with the team that many hunters have posted (some even after testing) that the nerfs were too severe, especially to BM.

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GC, I really don't understand how BM damage nerfs can be justified when compared to equally geared DKs.

OHMAGAWD

MY KNEE...

IT JERKED

Fairly certain posts like the above are not needed nor necessary in these discussions. GC has been actively trying to keep threads somewhat intellectual for purposes of actually improving the game design.

Hopefully we can have more input from 3.08 PTR testers about the upcoming Hunter nerfs to scaling.

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Q u o t e:

If you can't understand how a class can reach their peak early on while others are still catching up... well, you should think long and hard on it.

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This nerf reminds me of the BC feral nerf. A spec jumps out of the box with amazing abilities and the nerf bat swings. The problem is that BC Ferals never recovered. They were only useful as off tanks for the majority of the expansion. PvE DPS was poor as was PvP/Arena viability.

I think about what happened to the BC Ferals and i'm sorry but "they will fix you if the nerf turns out to be too big" does not comfort me.

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Q u o t e:

If you can't understand how a class can reach their peak early on while others are still catching up... well, you should think long and hard on it.

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previous expansions show hunters scaling excellently though, the fact that they adjusting the ap coefficient of SS in particular seems to indicate to me that they saw something alarming at higher end.

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Q u o t e:


previous expansions show hunters scaling excellently though, the fact that they adjusting the ap coefficient of SS in particular seems to indicate to me that they saw something alarming at higher end.

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This is completely inaccurate. First of all we have only had one expansion before Wrath, and the severe 2.0 nerfs were identical to what happened with 3.0. Hunters were nerfed just as BC hit because we were deemed too overpowered especially in BG's. It took nearly 6 months to be overhauled again by the developers to do solid DPS again. Sadly, even still you cannot compare any past situations to the current situation. Pre Wrath classes were exclusive in there own ways and forced stacking of buffs and debuffs that left Hunters out of the picture for awhile.

As far as the scaling of SS, never has Blizzard stated that T8/T9 levels are what forced them to change this. Instead it has been stated that BM was by far outperforming the other specs but Hunters in general were too high in T7 content. So they looked at what they could change and seeing as Steady Shot would affect BM most and MM/Surv a decent amount as well it became the perfect target. Instead of adjusting scaling they should've adjusted the base dmg coefficient.

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Q u o t e:



Seriously, if you think something is off with the numbers, slapping "knee-jerk" on it doesn't make it more compelling. If anything, it deflates your argument a little because these hardened forum veterans have seen those terms thrown out so often. :)
.

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translation: we recognize the revisions to "ZOMG 2K MANGLEZ ON PLATE !!eleventyone" and are implementing the following nerfs.


Druid: Savage Fury - Mangle (Bear) damage was being increased by a higher percentage than intended. This has been fixed, and in result Mangle (Bear) should see roughly a 16% damage reduction.














you just have to be creatice in how you scream for feral nerfs.


















after all, there;'s a whole ONE feral in the top 100 2vs2's and we can't have that, taht spot deserves to go to a rogue

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Q u o t e:

Druids were great endgame tanks, and resto druids dominated arenas in the later seasons. Asking for great dps as feral would have been asking for a bit much imo.

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Yet, Every single tanking class now has great DPS available to them.

The fact is the Feral Nerf was overdone and never reverted. The only reason Ferals could tank at all was because the introduction of "over armor budget" leather which inflated their armor.

Ferals actually have great burst damage for Arena. If you want to refer to Ferals not having great sustained damage I can return the statement, no class doesnt great DPS with it's tanking talent tree. Would you be okay if Prot Warrs or Prot Pallies were doing that kind of DPS?

Don't try to fix ferals in arena with "WE WANT MORE DEEPS". The reason you aren't successful is because a rogue can do everything you do while having far more control with CC and lockdowns. You should be asking for the same thing.

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Q u o t e:


Actually HaT is working as intended other than the people abusing the bug with multiple HaTs in one party.

And yes, Hunters are still either at or near the top... but my point is that the delta between the Hunter and the next guy has shrunk SO much over the last weeks. I can't help but think that in a few more weeks, the gap would shrink even further and we'd possibly be surpassed. As I said; Haste, ArP, Crit... this stuff keeps getting more and more abundant and yet none of it transfers to the pets which were dealing 45% of our damage.

You have to admit that something as huge as a (by all credible estimates) 20% DPS nerf when the meters have been getting as close as they are lately is pretty insane. Especially since this nerf was put into motion based on data from when people were just barely stepping foot into Naxx 10. Now there's times where I'll barely edge out the next guy by a figure smaller than 0.5% and I'm probably the most well geared player in the raid.

That's my issue with it. If we need nerfs, that's fine. But it's a new expansion and you need to let things play out and settle down for the first few months before you make such huge sweeping changes and nerfs.

This might not be a great example, but bare with me; Frozen Orbs were over 1000g a pop when people were just hitting 80, can you imagine if Blizzard decided to make 5 drop per instance based on a 1 week window of data suggesting the price was too high? That is basically what's happening right now.

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Beast masters were NOT the DPS spec in Vanilla WoW, why do you think that they will continue to be the DPS spec in Wrath? Get use to the fact that you might need to spec diffrently to benifit from the stats of the gear you pick up rather then goin NOOBTACULAR WRATH spec like every other bad hunter who thinks they need to handed DPS EZ mode in a bag. Just find a new spec like Survival or MARKS that were actually made for DPS whare Beast Masters were made to SOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL to lvl 60 but somthing happend whare blizzard made some kinda change you all like and then suddenly BM was the king O DPS and now, well its days are not over but definatly will not scale as well as your other spec's wich were being ignored up untill now.

The Rogue.

Personally I'd love to get on the ptr and test my hunter to give you some numbers, but that is apparently impossible right now because any character I transfer over is locked.

That said. I can tell you now without giving any numbers that until you change the way pets scale with their master's stats and are not so reliant on raid buffs for damage, the nerf will hurt BM too much. Especially outside of raiding.