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Q u o t e:
There's been very little official comment on the Hunter class for quite some time. While I know the Hunter threads are being read, and I know that we're not supposed to fish for blue responses, I'd still like to list out some questions because frankly, without any communication there's no way for players to even know what the Devs are thinking.

What players are thinking is quite obvious: Survival was overnerfed, BM was overnerfed in the prior set of patches, Hunters are not competitive in PvE or PvP, Survival is clunky, MM is incredibly mana inefficient, BM is cut off at the legs seemingly irrepairably without its own special shot, the (justifiable) limiting of pet potency, and the severely underwhelming damage of Steady Shot. Hunters have very poor scaling. Pets are becoming more and more problematic as boss encounters get more complex. And much more.

So I want to know what Blizzard is *thinking* - Not necessarily what they're doing, although that would be nice. Not necessarily why they're doing things, or what their numbers are (although again the data would be great). I just want to know what Blizzard thinks of Hunters across the range of issues.


So, Ghostcrawler, or blue text by any other name:

Do you think Hunters are currently at the appropriate relative power (as compared to other classes in their current state) in raw damage output on Ulduar boss encounters (across the board)?

Do you think that Hunters are currently performing adequately in Arenas?

Do you think that the three talent trees, in relation to each other (as currently live) are appropriately balanced for raid damage dealing? For competitive Arena play?

Which is seen as the biggest issue with each tree, either from a design or functionality perspective?

How does Blizzard feel pets are doing in Ulduar?

Is the awkward spot in class synergy that Hunters occupy considered appropriate? Is the fact that our potential is directly increased by more buffs and debuffs than most, if not all, other classes seen as an issue in need of resolution or just a quirk of the class?

With Ulduar, several fights have added certain effects to increase or decrease damage potential in some way. Specifically, Hodir and General Vezax. It feels like Hunters end up getting all of the penalties and few of the benefits when it comes to their status as a physical/caster hybrid. Pets also present scaling problems on fights in which buffs are relevant (and this goes back to Naxx - Thaddius, Loatheb for instance). It certainly seems like Hunters get forgotten about when tuning this fight - Encounters are designed with the cluster of melee swinging swords and the various casters blasting from far away. Is this the case? Are Hunters uniquely considered in these fights? Are the seemingly harsher negatives given to Hunters intended? Or simply deemed acceptable to get the fight to work as desired? Or is it your opinion that Hunters aren't suffering from negatives and are benefiting from the encounter buffs as much as or more than other classes?

(That one was kind of a compound question, sorry about that.)

In relation to the other classes, how much does Blizzard feel needs to change with the Hunter class in the short term to bring it in line with their target for all classes?

Little (Among the 3 classes that need the fewest changes, or no changes)
Moderate (Among the 4 classes needing an average number of short term changes)
Significant (Among the 3 classes that need the most changes, or the most meaningful changes in the short term)


I think that covers a pretty good range of things without getting too specific. If you feel inclined to give us an idea of what's in the pipe, that'd be great, if not, I've tried to keep the questions worded in a fairly open manner to allow you room to answer them truthfully without needing to say more than you want to.

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No trolls or QQ. No matter what class you are or who you are i will report you on 5 separate accounts.

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Q u o t e:
No trolls or QQ. No matter what class you are or who you are i will report you on 5 separate accounts.

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I will second this. I would like to hear Blizzard's thoughts/views. Keep this one clean please.

And to replicate an early post in the other thread:

Revert the nerf to Steady Shot and it'll fix pretty much everything.

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Q u o t e:
And to replicate an early post in the other thread:

Revert the nerf to Steady Shot and it'll fix pretty much everything.

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I doubt it would fix everything but it is a start. There are still issues with each tree that are not dependent on the damage of steady shot. MM and mana, BM with a lack of a unique skill, clunky rotations, etc. Steady shot is a great skill to tweak if damage in PVP is to high or damage in PVE is to low but it does affect all specs. That was the whole reason behind the explosive shot buff when they nuked BM. To many changes have been implemented that affects all trees because one can be OP.

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Q u o t e:


the reason why steady shot was nerfed was because it became more mana efficent and gcd efficient to ignore shots like arcane shot and multishot and just spam steady shot.

if they were to revert the change you have the danger of that happening again. of hunters not wanting to ever use arcane shot or multishot/aimed shot. what is to say that this won't happen?

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Back then the hunters doing the best damage were still using arcane shot and aimed shot in their rotations mostly because in 25 man with all the buffs (especially judging wisdom) we never went OOM. In 10 mans or without the right buffs we can go OOM multiple times a fight still... Anyway if they revert the changes I doubt we would see as many people just spamming steady shot as before except on fights such as general where mana is a real issue.

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Q u o t e:


the reason why steady shot was nerfed was because it became more mana efficent and gcd efficient to ignore shots like arcane shot and multishot and just spam steady shot.

if they were to revert the change you have the danger of that happening again. of hunters not wanting to ever use arcane shot or multishot/aimed shot. what is to say that this won't happen?

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And not having to use arcane and multi/aimed so much would fix MM mana problems. Or putting a 40k mana pool on every boss mob. Either way.

A few changes I'd like to see in the BM tree. (since its my favorite tree).

Cobra Strikes: Make Aimed Shot proc this too since steady shot isn't used much in PVP.

Improved Pet Revive: Make talented Improved Pet Revive Baseline. (this would help all hunters). Make the new improved pet revive increase the health your pet is returned with so it isn't 1 shot right after res.

Some sort of new utility shot for the BM. The tree could use some more interactivity.

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Q u o t e:


And not having to use arcane and multi/aimed so much would fix MM mana problems. Or putting a 40k mana pool on every boss mob. Either way.

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This is true, plus they started stacking a lot of talents into the MM tree that specifically focuses on buffing steady shot. Since the nerf, those talents have lost their potency and are now mostly 'dodged' at all costs just like steady shot is dead last in priority for a shot after all the other shots have been exhausted.

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.

cry for help says help :(

Honestly I think these threads do more harm than good sometimes.

People post QQ about 75% of the time.

What I honestly believe would benefit hunters the most is better pet scaling, and reverting the 30% crit dmg bonus on autoshot.


That would help a lot in PVE to make us competitive.

PVP I have no clue.

Cumulative class dps rankings for Ulduar heroic, all regions, http://www.wowmeteronline.com/rank/classrank/dps/7/0/3/310. Enough said.

I've raided and pvp'ed as all three specs and there is no way in hell I want to see hunter dps mechanics return back to the days of TBC BM raiding. Reverting the nerfs to SS should increase all hunter dps but the effect will be greater for BM (with the simpler rotation) than for either MM or SV.

A fairly standard SV rotation consists of: KS > ES > BA > AiS/MS > SerpSt > SS. Order for the first four may vary however SS is always the lowest priority shot. I would like to see the maths regarding where SS would fall into a new shot priority if the SS nerfs were reverted. The interesting question is whether or not reverting the SS nerf would raise SS from the basement of SV and MM rotations.

Hunters also need the ability to Track Mechanicals.

I don't think buffing steady shot is the answer. I dropped my hunter when WOTLK came out because of steady shot spam on bosses. Not only did it require 0 skill, but it was boring slapping the same button over and over again also making sure to spam KC when it was off CD, then using rapid fire and BW and trinkets and then spamming some more.

While I agree hunters probably have alot of PVP issues to deal with right now along with PVE issues, that definately not the answer. I would be all for some buffs to marks to make it a more viable pvp and pve spec. Honestly I'm tired of seeing 90% of the hunter population as survival. It's boring, and so is explosive shot.

im not sure how buffing steady shot would help survival out at all. In my current rotation of KS>ES>BA>Ss>AS>SS i rarely use steady shot at all. Sometimes it works as a filler when ES, AS are on cooldown and BA and Ss can't be refreshed or don't need to be. But most of the time ES is so close to being off cooldown its better just to wait a second for it.

Buffing steady shot is a start, for sure. But I feel like there are tons of problems that need to be addressed.


1. Pet survivability. Blizz went thru the trouble of making pets more unique and customizable and they rarely last a minute of a boss fight unless we keep them at our sides meaning NO dps. Increased Pet survivability would help PvE and PvP. I remember when choosing to kill your pet in arena was a difficult choice that potentially had consequences.
Hunter pets should have more survivability than lock or unholy DK pets. Especially if we are going to be so reliant on them (call of the wild, master's call, other various pet family snares)

2. Traps. I honestly think the whole system has to be re-done. I know it won't be but seriously traps have just beocme a joke.
A few ideas - remove the trap laying animation, make them actually invisible, lower the range on disarm, remove the arming time.
Also freezing arrow remains an unfunny joke. It either needs to be removed alltogether and replaced with something unique and useful or reworked to make it useful. I would suggest removing she shared trap CD as well as the arming time. OR remove it alltogether and give hunters something actually useful such as a "net shot" that would act like a druids roots or a mages frost nova. An ability to lockdown an opponent, make range and still deal a small amount of damage.

3. Minimum Range removal. Its seriously time to remove this. It gimps us on certain boss fights. It actually used to be fine in PvP back when running through an opponent and wing clipping was a viable strategy but with the insane burts melee classes have as well as our very very low survivability, that just isn;t an option anymore. We are much more like Mages only we don't currently hit anywhere near as hard as they do.
Removing the minimum range would not result in hunters WANTING to be in melee range. It would simply allow us to fire a shot or two while we try to make osme distance. Every other caster gets to, Its about time Hunters were included.
Unless ofcourse you plan to have mail armor do something or increase our base survivability in other ways.

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Q u o t e:
And to replicate an early post in the other thread:

Revert the nerf to Steady Shot and it'll fix pretty much everything.

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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

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Q u o t e:


And Blizzard bows down and caters to forum QQ about 99.9% of the time.

The also massively overdo either nerfs or buffs (whichever they are giving at the time) making a class into a God or a Gimp.

So if the hunter community QQ's enough (and gets support from other class communities which they have been getting) not only will blizzard fix us, but they'll most likely overpower us for another season, before catering back to the new nerf QQ and nerfing us into uselessness.

And round and round we go!

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i have yet to see hunters be overpowered in either game facet since I have been playing at the start of BC.

some may disagree but hunters have never been one of the "god classes" like resto druids in seasons 3/4 warlocks early in BC when they got the nickname "raid boss", Paladins after the patch just before WOTLK launched (and still are gods), DK's since release, Feral druids now etc etc....