Even though hunter representation is actually pretty mediocre among the 2k-2.4k ratings spread, people have been raging about hunter's performance at the topmost level (sk's top 100).

I have seen the hunter QQ bandwagon spiraling out of control in these last 2 weeks of Dev's abscence from posting. It seems many players have forgotten that underperforming specs are going to be receiving buffs coming up shortly, which could have drastic changes to game balance on its own.


However, I was talking with megatf the other day about what nerfs must are most apparent, if nerfs must be made. They include:


1.) Removing TnT stun of course (and impact and blackout and all other stupid RNG potentially-game-winning CC like MI polyspam)

2.) Removing the ability for LnL to double proc (once from a serpent sting tick and once immediately following that from a trap activation). The vast majority of the playerbase doesn't even know this can happen, but back to back LnL procs are happening everywhere and it is influencing people on a subconscious level that hunter burst is OP. I'm not saying hunter burst isn't too high without a double proc, but bugged double LnL procs CERTAINLY aren't helping things

There are people getting hit with 6+ explosive shots in 10 seconds from a double LnL, not recognizing that this is a bug, and saying to themselves "OMFG hunter damage is OBSCENE WTF!"

Now, the fix for this has to be delicate. Raiders need a way to be assured LnL procs, and arena hunters would appreciate a way to create LnL burst for themselves through their own workings, and not some RNG tick of a serpent sting. I'm not sure what your work-around is going to be for this, but I assume you at least recognize the problem.

To further tweak things if needed, you could increase the internal CD on lock n load, although I'm not sure what affect that would have on PvE.

3.) Wyvern could be made into a longer CD. You could easily modify or remove the glyph to put it back to 1 minute.

4.) Re-work or re-design trap mastery to remove the ability for hunters to double-frost-trap. This can be especially crippling in 3v3 and 5v5 environments where hunters can have literally almost half the map covered in ice proc'ing entrapment.

5.) A suggestion to help deal with hunter's ability to chain CC (without having to move scatter back to deep marks) is to do something similar to what you did with arcane and create a shard "lockout cooldown" period between wyvern and scatter, where you cannot use both within [xxxxx] seconds of each other.



I have a few other fixes in mind, but I'll stop at these main 5. We should see how the buffs to underperforming specs pans out in 3.1 before getting too drastic.

Also, any idea when you are going to put 3.1 up on the test realm?

Nice post, it has good points with clarity and informed thinking. However do you remember all the post telling GC the BM nerf was going to be too much.... see what I am getting at?

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Nice post, it has good points with clarity and informed thinking. However do you remember all the post telling GC the BM nerf was going to be too much.... see what I am getting at?

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Possibly although they were fairly quick (for blizzard anyway) to fix things when they recognized that they over-nerfed.

I am fairly confident any over-nerfing would be addressed on the test realm or shortly after 3.1 release if it occurred.

That's why I am reluctant to get any deeper with fixes. Some more drastic ideas have been presented (putting scatter back down mid-tier marks tree, putting a cast time back on aim shot...........ugh).

I think that might be a bit much in light of what buffs are coming to non-hunter specs in 3.1 though. Once we take a look at 3.1, we can more easily decide if further nerfing is necessary.

WHY THE HECK AM I GETTING LOGGED OUT AFTER EVERY POST? REALLY ANNOYING.

If the ability to double up on frost traps is removed we should have our traps reworked so that the fire traps (snake,immo,explosive) are on separate cds from the frost traps (freezing,frost)

Might as well let them have viper sting and tranq shot so we can stop being balanced around abilities that are trash and dependant on RNG. Replace them with something that isn't quite as impotent.

Also I think the glyph is the best place to tackle the wyvern sting situation. A glyph that reduces the CD is unnecessary the Wyvern sting glyph should do something like modify the poison when wyvern breaks whether that be drastically increasing the dots damage or changing the poison all together into a snare or mind numb or doing something like giving wyvern a UA type dispel protection(not necessarily damage or silence)

hunters are fine, l2p.

am i doing it right?!?!

nice concise list of necessary changes. i'd say addressing the LnL issue and RNG entrapment effect (what could this be changed into, realistically?) would be two important steps towards bringing survival back in line.

Priests desperately need a poison dispel (maybe one on a cooldown) in order to not be so hard-countered by hunters.

Although, priests ARE getting a lot of buffs mentioned in their 3.1 preview. I'm worried giving them the poison cleanse might intrude too much on shaman/druid healer representation (they'll never touch paladins w/ the new exorcism though lol).

And levi, I don't think that buff to trap mechanics (allowing us to stagger frost and, say, snake trap at the same time) is necessary to compensate for trap mastery nerf. We went a long time with only being able to lay 1 frost, we'd be ok with that again.

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Possibly although they were fairly quick (for blizzard anyway) to fix things when they recognized that they over-nerfed.
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My biggest concern with that would have to be........how in the hell did they omg all of a sudden recognize BM was overnerfed when throughout the entire ptr, hunters were telling them over and over it's too much.

Every time i logged on to these forums I saw a new post about hunters being neutered, yet the nerfs went through anyway.

Then what do you know, a couple weeks later it was...well maybe the community was right.

All in all, I can agree with your OP because it's obvious you know what you're talking about and you make sound suggestions.

However, I wouldn't put too much faith in Blizz's ability to read, comprehend, and implement them, no matter how logical they might be.

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Priests desperately need a poison dispel (maybe one on a cooldown) in order to not be so hard-countered by hunters.

Although, priests ARE getting a lot of buffs mentioned in their 3.1 preview. I'm worried giving them the poison cleanse might intrude too much on shaman/druid healer representation (they'll never touch paladins w/ the new exorcism though lol).

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heh, don't derail your own thread. inviting sympathy for priests is sure to bring throngs of us

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And levi, I don't think that buff to trap mechanics (allowing us to stagger frost and, say, snake trap at the same time) is necessary to compensate for trap mastery nerf. We went a long time with only being able to lay 1 frost, we'd be ok with that again.

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if anything, there should be a reason to choose any other trap than frost or freezing in a PVP environment. as it stands, snakes are blown up instantly and their effectiveness is really lackluster compared to permanent snare around a pillar.

i don't quite understand LnL/sniper training from a development perspective. so maybe making trap mastery an ability to "throw" a non-ice trap (for PVE's sake) and removing the double-trap potential (for PVP's sake) would be a good balanced change

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My biggest concern with that would have to be........how in the hell did they omg all of a sudden recognize BM was overnerfed when throughout the entire ptr, hunters were telling them over and over it's too much.

Every time i logged on to these forums I saw a new post about hunters being neutered, yet the nerfs went through anyway.

Then what do you know, a couple weeks later it was...well maybe the community was right.

All in all, I can agree with your OP because it's obvious you know what you're talking about and you make sound suggestions.

However, I wouldn't put too much faith in Blizz's ability to read, comprehend, and implement them, no matter how logical they might be.

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They also have to be wary of bias and have always taken player-generated data with a big grain of salt since they have the sophistication and tools at their headquarters (or at least believe that they do), to create much more accurate data....

There's always the fact that the company would not have gotten to where they are had they not been able to learn from their mistakes yknow? =)

Other than the TNT stun (on principle alone), what is it about our representation in the arena that is high enough to warrant *any* nerfs??

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Other than the TNT stun (on principle alone), what is it about our representation in the arena that is high enough to warrant *any* nerfs??

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The nerfherd is on a warpath, the change is inevitable. How hard we get ran over is something we can attempt to change.

If I had to make my own list it would look something like this (many points agree with plops as I've discussed the same changes in the past)

Nerfs
1. TNT stun removed - Replaced with a daze
2. Wyvern sting glyph changed to something other than CD reduction
3. Remove the ability to double frost trap (just have the first aura fade when the next frost trap is triggered(NOT when the next trap is dropped "triggered")
4. Viper sting "CHANGED" to be less effective against priests but more effective vs poison cleanse classes. X drained instantly on application + minor drain on dot portion. Right now its massively effective against priests and next to useless against others.
5. Modify LNL to only allow 1 additional explosive shot that does 150% bonus damage (so a total reduction in LNL explosive shot by 50%) 1 bonus at 150% damage instead of 2 bonus at 100% damage.
6. Fix the coding like Plops mentioned so that you can't get 2 real close together LNL procs. Set it hard at around 22 seconds and up the proc chance from serpent sting to something pretty high.

Buffs
1. Unlink fire based and frost based traps into 2 separate cd categories.
2. Increase hunter pet stamina levels, felhunters shouldn't have more hit points than our tenacity pets
3. Make deterrence 360degree effective and allow hunter melee attacks (auto,raptor,wing,mongoose)
4. Reduce the base resurrection time for hunter pets to 4.0 seconds and reduce mana cost.
5. Improved revive pet takes an additional .5/1.0 seconds off resurrection timer.

This all shades aware from the main topic.


MAKE ANOTHER PVP VIDEO PLOPS.

Put the L&L proc on scattershot. Take it off traps. Leave in the 30 sec internal cooldown with serpent sting.

Voila. No more back to back L&L procs. Can set up your L&L procs whenever you want. No more worrying about having someone step on your trap to actually benefit from the proc. No more trap dancing.

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6. Fix the coding like Plops mentioned so that you can't get 2 real close together LNL procs. Set it hard at around 22 seconds and up the proc chance from serpent sting to something pretty high.

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The only problem I have with this is that I hate all forms of RNG in arenas with a passion, and that includes having burst built around RNG.

I'd rather them remove the ability for LnL to proc from serpent sting ticks at all, and give raiders a way to more effectively use traps in PvE (esp against bosses) to be ensured LnL procs for competitive DPS.


I agree with all the other changes although I might say that the buff to nerf ratio is too severe considering how powerful the class already is =)

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Put the L&L proc on scattershot. Take it off traps. Leave in the 30 sec internal cooldown with serpent sting.

Voila. No more back to back L&L procs. Can set up your L&L procs whenever you want. No more worrying about having someone step on your trap to actually benefit from the proc. No more trap dancing.

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A good idea, but it just seems weird that a raider would want to move within scattershot range of a boss (esp considering most raid builds use sniper training talent, correct?) to get LnL procs.

I'd think a more fluid solution would be to allow hunters to toss immolation trap. Very very few hunters would find an effective arena use for this (since it'd be eating their precious trap CD, immolation can be dispelled, and it might not have even hit the correct target), but raiders certainly would to get LnL procs.

Then remove the RNG lnl proc from serpent sting.

Coming soon to a 41 point talent near you.



Trap Tossin(Survival)-Nuff said.