GC when you are talking about BM hunters that "only use steady and pet" are you also saying they don't pop TBW/Rapid Fire? O.o I'm curious.

I have no real right to say anything about this topic since I've not raided, but I can tell you that when I went to the test dummy with the SV spec that wasn't trap dancing nor Sniper Training I was identical to my BM DPS. The SV rotation is a lot harder to manage and I don't have addons to warn me when LnL Procs nor do I react quick enough to spam ES when that happens.

I love the playstyle of BM. Pop TBW, fire arcane, SS, steady until arcane's CD is down and/or refresh SS, pop TBW again. For boss fights I save rapid fire for Viper so I don't have to stay in it as long. It's a simple enough rotation that I can handle. I don't have to wait for a proc then stop everything (hoping I'm not halfway through a Steady) and then use ES three times. It's simple, yes, but I'd love for it to be near the damage that SV makes. I know if I played SV well I could have squeezed out more DPS but I hated the style so I went back to BM.

I understand the mentality, GC. BM being simple and not doing AS MUCH DPS is fine with me, but it should be close.

P.S., I play an afflic lock and find that spec insanely easy. >.>;;

Edit: OMG first! Also added when I use rapid fire.

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Q u o t e:


These are our forums. If you want to post here, you have to play by our rules. They are not negotiable.

Players do not get banned for disagreeing with us or throwing well constructed and sensible arguments at us. I have made many posts attempting to describe the difference for players who have trouble understanding it – they are easy to find.

It is not my job (nor the job of any Blizzard employee) to put up with whatever you want to say because you feel some aspect of the game has made you so frustrated that you are no longer responsible for your actions. You are responsible for what you post here. If you can’t control yourself, then I suggest you don’t post.

I am quite weary of talking about forum moderation. I would rather spend my time in this thread reading and posting about hunter issues. I only bring it up because players don’t always notice the bans unless we take the “head on a pike” approach and do it publicly.

Now back to the actual discussion....

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Well great, fantastic. Now that we have that out of the way. Give us something, anything, what are current plans, if any exist, at this moment for BM and MM?

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Q u o t e:


BM is an easier spec to play.

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Please. They are ALL easy to play, there is nothing hard about any of the dps classes.

I'd actually put SV at the same level as BM, MM not much different.

SV 4-5 buttons, watch your LnL proc, your pet's on auto.
BM 4-5 buttons, watch your pet, manage it's attacks, specials ,time your CD's

To state that you "Reward" a player for playing a more "challenging: class is actually pretty insulting. It really indicates you have a bias that has impacted the game. For shame. Then you start threatening bans for posters stating they think your customer service is lacking atm. Double for shame.


I was pleasantly surprised at how little real change there was RAID buffed. Anything but raid ... BM is hurting, no doubt. I'll probably try all 3 specs again just for fun but suspect I'll settle back into BM. If I can stay top 5 in a raid then I'm contributing to the group. That's really what matters but the game has turned into a meter fest.

Here's an idea ... ban 3rd party meters. Don't make the numbers capturable. Install an in game meter that displays damage of the individual(and pet) when solo, the party when 5 manning, the raid when raiding. The epeeners and those who vest a little too much self into the game can go away and compensate for other things.

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Please. They are ALL easy to play, there is nothing hard about any of the dps classes.

I'd actually put SV at the same level as BM, MM not much different.

SV 4-5 buttons, watch your LnL proc, your pet's on auto.
BM 4-5 buttons, watch your pet, manage it's attacks, specials ,time your CD's

To state that you "Reward" a player for playing a more "challenging: class is actually pretty insulting. It really indicates you have a bias that has impacted the game. For shame. Then you start threatening bans for posters stating they think your customer service is lacking atm. Double for shame.


I was pleasantly surprised at how little real change there was RAID buffed. Anything but raid ... BM is hurting, no doubt. I'll probably try all 3 specs again just for fun but suspect I'll settle back into BM. If I can stay top 5 in a raid then I'm contributing to the group. That's really what matters but the game has turned into a meter fest.

Here's an idea ... ban 3rd party meters. Don't make the numbers capturable. Install an in game meter that displays damage of the individual(and pet) when solo, the party when 5 manning, the raid when raiding. The epeeners and those who vest a little too much self into the game can go away and compensate for other things.

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BM is hurting? Not MM?

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Q u o t e:
The biggest problem with Hunter right now isn't even so much the spec imbalance - sure, it's an issue, but I think the more pressing issue is that the class simply doesn't work. There are no fewer than 14 bugs, most of which have existed since beta and some of which were introduced with this patch. It'd be great if those would get priority for fixes, and I think that's more important right now than correcting the perceived imbalance.

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This^

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I suppose I just don't see how you can't have different levels of easy even when all things are easy. But besides that yes pressing 3 extra buttons and managing more #*!# is harder.

By your logic playing an affliction warlock is just as simple as pressing 4-5 buttons and so on with every other dps class. You can't look at difficulty on number of buttons you press lmao. Your entire argument along with several others are just completely invalid and flawed. People are just crying because BM was OP as hell and now its #*!#.

The only thing I want is SV / MM to be viable, is you can make BM viable too thats cool but BM shouldn't be a top dps spec.

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No, I am saying that no hunter has a tried and true rotation anymore, nor do they have to stare at dot timers, nor anything. It is literally just a spamming of the buttons you use to dps (arguably, there are optimal times for aimed shot due to imp steady shot, but it makes a very very very very very small difference). Affliction locks have to be glued to their monitor to dps because of the nature of their attacks.


OUR attacks are like Autoattack, Autoattack 2, Autoattack 3, and Autoattack 4, no matter how many you add, its just as easy to hit 4 as it is to hit 1.

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AND YOUR entire argument is flawed because of the last statement you make.
The only thing I want is SV / MM to be viable, is you can make BM viable too thats cool but BM shouldn't be a top dps spec.

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I didn't come here to fight with you because you think MM and surv are cooler to play, I came here to argue against the design philosophy that if something is "too" subjectively ez mode, then it has to be destroyed, pillaged, and manhandled instead of toned down through true variation, rather than addind in Arcane Shot as Autoattack 3.

If you want MM/Surv to be viable I'm ALL for that. All the way. I want to be able to say on any given day, well Spec X is better for fight B and Spec Y is better for fight N and Spec Z... because that means that no one spec will dominate all the other specs completely and utterly. By merely suggesting that you wish BM to not be a top dps spec, you are contradicting saying you wouldnt mind it being viable.

Viable means it can shine when it is meant to shine, and it can compete (but not too roughly) even if fights where it DOESN'T shine.

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Q u o t e:
In order to lend any weight to statements such as "You nerfed our other 2 trees to oblivion," you are going to have to provide numbers comparing the 3 specs and they are going to have to be numbers that a reasonable amount of other players believe are reasonable numbers.

Real numbers are much more compelling than what spreadsheets estimate. Multiple bosses are more compelling that combat dummies.

Currently we are seeing a lot of "Someone smart posted some numbers showing Survival was the best dps spec, so I went that spec." We need to see a lot more players trying out different builds and strategies. Declarations that "I too adopted a cookie cutter spec" aren't as compelling when you are taking about potential and effective dps.

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Real numbers. Like the ones people threw out when they were crying about Patchwerk DPS and we were still on par with mages and DPS warriors.

No matter how we spec our DPS is down 1800-2000. In competitive guilds we are the absolute bottom of the barrel and our utility is a joke. We are not effective DPS anymore. We aren't even effective gearsinks as it stands right now, because enhancement shamans benefit from the stats-- hit, haste-- on offpieces of mail gear exponentially better than hunters.

We have tried different specs and different strategies. We are a pure DPS class that does not do DPS.

You have effectively removed hunters from the game.

I'd like them put back, please.


edit: The spec issue is a GIANT STRAWMAN. It doesn't matter how easy a spec is to play in comparison at this point. It doesn't matter if a survival does "slightly, but not in the hundreds" more DPS. Because we are doing that much less damage in all specs. The issue is not with any spec of ours at all. The issue is the numbers we are putting out right now with our pets and our abilities. Our damage is too low, and our stats do not scale properly enough to compensate. Fix steady shot. That's it. Fix steady shot. It doesn't need to be any more fancy than that.

Make pets scale again. Scorpids need to scale at least slightly, instead of not at all. Cats are the only remotely mediocre pet right now.

Oh, and making chimera shot/wild quiver something other than nature damage would fix that tree substantially.

Thanks for the infos GC, however I dislike the whole part about BM being the easy spec to play and rewarding players for playing a harder spec. To me, BM is a fun spec because of my pet. It brings a different feel to the class where other classes/specs lack.

I know you don't want to buff BM and make everyone jump on the BM bandwagon again, however if you do buff BM again, make it a harder spec to play. I would enjoy a challenge, plus I could get away from all this BM easy sauce talk.

One issue I don't like about BM is that the hunter pet is just sent in and thats it. You can call him back incase of AoE or some other death defining move the boss is throwing down. However if you could maybe give some pet commands or some such that would require us to hit another button or watch 2 more cooldowns that the pet could do. Kill Command and Master's Call are two great examples. Though they don't offer much in dps or calculated risks, I think thats the right idea. Though I'm looking more on the dps side of things.

Another idea would be using your pet as a snare. Such as your pet grabbing a mob and it holding it down, it doesn't do damage, nor does it take damage..however it might be a good CC of sorts. /shrug

Anyone who says that Bm is easier obviously has never played Bm or WoW for that fact.
Now if Blizz doesnt like that alot of the damage attributed to the Bm Hunter is from the pet. Then rework the whole class, dont just nerf it.
They basically reduced 20% of the pets damage which in turn nerfed our dps by 20% and thats not counting the SS nerf. So why not just take that 20% pet reduction and put it into the Bm hunter. As an added bonus they tried to make FI more viable by increasing arcane dmg, but why stop there. Its obvious Bm hunters need a boost, so why not just say when FI is up that we just get 9% increased dmg period.
I think that would help. Also why not have longevity affect our special shots. If we fired off more arcanes and multi shots or even aimed that would increase our overall dps. It would also further remove us from the myth of the SS spam macro one button spec, which everyone seems to think is all we do. This way you make the actual hunter more powerful and not the pet.

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Duuuude your so ignorant man, BM was the easy mode 1 button spec compared to the other two trees. He's not comparing us to mages, rogues, warriors or anyone. Simply comparing BM with MM and SV. MM is the most complex tree and is designed completely for doing damage and thats it. MM should be the top dps spec. SV should be an excellent pvp spec but lack a bit in PVE, BM should be the solo / leveling spec that is somewhat viable in all applications. Imo

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That mode of thinking went out the door along with Hybrid DPS having to be inferior to pure DPS. Accept it duuuuude all specs are supposed to be equal.

MM has one more shot to weave then does SV and BM. Yep one. Get over yourself.

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No, I am saying that no hunter has a tried and true rotation anymore, nor do they have to stare at dot timers, nor anything. It is literally just a spamming of the buttons you use to dps (arguably, there are optimal times for aimed shot due to imp steady shot, but it makes a very very very very very small difference). Affliction locks have to be glued to their monitor to dps because of the nature of their attacks.


OUR attacks are like Autoattack, Autoattack 2, Autoattack 3, and Autoattack 4, no matter how many you add, its just as easy to hit 4 as it is to hit 1.



I didn't come here to fight with you because you think MM and surv are cooler to play, I came here to argue against the design philosophy that if something is "too" subjectively ez mode, then it has to be destroyed, pillaged, and manhandled instead of toned down through true variation, rather than addind in Arcane Shot as Autoattack 3.

If you want MM/Surv to be viable I'm ALL for that. All the way. I want to be able to say on any given day, well Spec X is better for fight B and Spec Y is better for fight N and Spec Z... because that means that no one spec will dominate all the other specs completely and utterly. By merely suggesting that you wish BM to not be a top dps spec, you are contradicting saying you wouldnt mind it being viable.

Viable means it can shine when it is meant to shine, and it can compete (but not too roughly) even if fights where it DOESN'T shine.

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What im saying about BM is that is is a non intuative spec, an NPC accounts for at least half of the damage you do, it shouldn't be a regularly top dps spec. It should be viable, as in if someone has the right skill, gear make up, spec and know how he should be able to do as good if not better than other SV / MM hunters. The same goes with SV and MM accept SV and MM should be by base better dps.

A good example of this is like the arms warrior in BC, it was an excellent pvp spec and one used by most all serious pvp warriors. However, it was generally not quite so powerful in pve it was much harder to do competitive dps int he sense that it required a hell of a lot more skill and know how with swing timers, timing slams and things of that nature. However it was proven with the right skill and gear comp / spec it could be nasty. Their was a video I recall (ill try to get a link in a minute) of an arms warrior in BT destroying the dps meters, he knew what he was doing and showed it in his video. He explained how to dps as arms in his video and truly was an intelligent gamer who knew his #%@!. Thus by he was able to do some pretty crazy damage.

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What im saying about BM is that is is a non intuative spec, an NPC accounts for at least half of the damage you do, it shouldn't be a regularly top dps spec. It should be viable, as in if someone has the right skill, gear make up, spec and know how he should be able to do as good if not better than other SV / MM hunters. The same goes with SV and MM accept SV and MM should be by base better dps.

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Your entire paragraph was agreeable completely down to the last statement.

No spec should really be better by base dps, but I can accept that the moves in MM and Surv should do more damage per se because the spamming of buttons is slightly more complex. This is why both trees HAVE a shot at the end (Chimera and Explosive) which are both REALLY good (now). That is already occuring.

What I, and many others, are explaining to you, is that right now, the skill level of the BM hunter does not matter because Surv is completely eclipsing it. You want numbers?

http://www.wowmeteronline.com/rank/clazz/dps/hnt/6/0

Numbers.

Not one BM hunter up there (unless i missed it) because by now all the prepatch fights have been overwritten by rediculous surv dps fights.

Make sure you look at the dates too GC (wouldnt want you looking at prepatch data), and check out how they spec.

THOSE
ARE
OUR
REAL
NONTHEORYCRAFTED
NUMBERS

Tell us how yours are different.

You stated that BM is an easier spec to play but where does your evidence for this come from? Hearsay? It's an easy spec to do well with, but like everything about a hunter to eke every last ounce of DPS from a spec requires some skill.

Send Pet and Steady Shot seems to have become a mantra for those who dislike the spec, dislike having pets, or dislike the class for some reason. This does not make it accurate, this does not make it true. If I wish to insult any class I can simply their abilities in much the same way but it doesn't make me right.

It is actually rather disturbing to me that you would be saying that especially when on any fight where pet survival is threatened BM goes from one of the easier to one of the more difficult, simply because when half your dps is tied to a very very fragile NPC then you have to be situationally aware for both them and yourself. Especially when the choice to simply leave it dead does not exist.

Case in point Sartharion+multiple drakes, Firewall will kill your pet, twilight torment will kill your pet, Shadow fissures will kill your pet, and just for fun sometimes your pet will kill itself in situations that you thought it was perfectly safe, because of it's nonsensical pathing or oversized hitbox.

I fully understand the decision to try to make the BM hunters rotation more interesting by decreasing the power of steady shot, but I hope you realize that hunters were spamming steady shot not because it was too good, but because the other options were so amazingly bad. When I say that BM DPS should be fixed I don't mean that I want to go back to spamming Steady Shot, I want a situation that using my attack abilities will increase instead of lower dps.

The answer to this would be to fix the other abilities so that all can be implemented into the hunter rotation(damage abilities anyway), having provided part of the solution by altering steady shot (maybe a bit too much) and arcane shot, perhaps you could take a look at the damage per mana of Multi Shot, Serpent Sting (and Aimed Shot) as well.

What it boils down to is that the gap between Survival (competitive DPS) and Beast Mastery (severely limited DPS) is far too large, even if as you say the supposedly "harder" spec puts out more dps.
The answer isn't to go back to spamming steady shot, but it isn't to leave Beast Mastery DPS in the slump it's in now.

However I would hope that when you assign these arbitrary standards of difficulty that you look at all the aspects of the class those where pets are safe and BM is simpler, and especially those where pets become a liability instead of a bonus and it becomes one of the most aggravating specs to play.


If you do read this could you sort out a few issues for us?
Bestial Wrath added to GCD in Wrath beta
Rapid Fire added to GCD in Wrath beta
Pet skills turning on/off automatically
Discrepancy in HP between Warlock/DK pets and Hunter pets
Minimum range error in Kill Shot
Explosive Shot doing zero damage when used below a certain level of mana
Deterrence and it's many issues (there's a thread on this one)
Pet survivability in PvP
Mana efficiency issues for MM and BM specs

It's cool to communicate with the community, but when you say things like "I think we buffed survival too much," that's basically saying that survival is going to be a ridiculously OP spec. And to be honest, it kind of seems like it does a little too much damage. I arena'ed and bg'ed last for about four or five hours as pvp-survival, and (despite how weird the new rating system works, won't go into that) I had an amazing time. I felt like I was able to do a lot of damage while having four or give different tools available to me. There were a few times when I asked my partner, "How did that guy just die," and he'd respond with, "I think explosive shot crit." It was kind of funny, but at the same time, a little over the top. (GC, if you read this, please consider changing deterrence to 100% dodge instead of 100% parry. Being dismantled while having it up and getting owned by a rogue makes me emo. Thanks!)

The other issue I have is that feedback and blue response seem to be disproportionally pointed at bans and QQ posts. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of good posts that great blue responses saying, "Hey, that's a good idea. We'll look into that," but the number of those seem to be quite limited in comparison to QQ posts.

The other nice thing about survival is that it shifts a large percentage of our damage away from our pets and back to the hunter. This is a fantastic change since pets are a huge liability, and any time our pet dies, it loses a ton of damage due to buffs and time spent rezzing.

As for numbers, it'll probably be another two weeks before I'm able to test things head-to-head since the three hunters in my guild will most likely be survival this week because of a "max-dps" run on Naxx. We plan to test all three specs against each other in one run, but that's going to have to wait.

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In order to lend any weight to statements such as "You nerfed our other 2 trees to oblivion," you are going to have to provide numbers comparing the 3 specs and they are going to have to be numbers that a reasonable amount of other players believe are reasonable numbers.

Real numbers are much more compelling than what spreadsheets estimate. Multiple bosses are more compelling that combat dummies.

Currently we are seeing a lot of "Someone smart posted some numbers showing Survival was the best dps spec, so I went that spec." We need to see a lot more players trying out different builds and strategies. Declarations that "I too adopted a cookie cutter spec" aren't as compelling when you are taking about potential and effective dps.

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You have said several time that Threads like this one are not helpful, and that we should create more data based, constructive posts.

However, based on your continued reply to this thread you are making threads like this happen more often, not that this is a bad thing, once the community knows we have your attention about a subject we care about, we will reply, no matter what the topic or what the OP said.

On these forums the power of a blue response can validate a thread that never made sense to begin with. Or it can ignite a great discussion that may have impact on the game.

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Miscomm. Assassination is doing too much damage relative to other rogues. Rogues as a whole are still too low in PvE and we have plans to bring them up.

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I hope this means you do intend to buff Assassination for PvE. Mutilate rogues are not breaking top ten in 25 mans with equally skilled other DPS. The only spec that can compete at this time is HaT, which I'm sure you know comes packaged with many, many flaws.

I'm kind of shocked at the hunter outcry as raiding rogues have never really had the luxury of choosing a preference among trees. With the exception of short-lived HARP, and a brief period pre-TBC, raiding rogues have had but one spec from which to choose if we wished to remain competitive. I have really hoped that in this expansion we would get to choose from at least two of our trees. After raiding as combat for the last four years, I would love to try something a little bit different.