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Q u o t e:

3) We are getting rid of Exorcism allowing paladins to two-shot pets. I'd agree that hunter representation is a little low at the moment, but we're not sure the class needs massive buffs so much as others need some nerfs.

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Small question about Exorcism

Is this also going to apply to warlock pets as well even though they are classified as Demons?

Here's a couple questions I'd liked addressed if possible.

PVP

1) What metric do you go by when you say we're a "little low" in arena representation? All the numbers available to players strongly suggest we're in a worse state now than we were in any previous season.

2) Are you willing to reevaluate the massive list of nerfs that came in with 3.1? You've already reverted the disengage nerf. Are you considering reverting more?

3) Do you have a timeline that you go by to say "yeah, we've got enough data now. Time to make some changes"?

4) Any word on the bear trap/freezing trap change that's been in the works since 3.0? Is that still something that you're working on or has that been shelved?

5) Are you still evaluating deterrence in it's current form? Previously, you've stated that the dev team was considering making it 360 degrees. I would really like to see this happen as deterrence has very many drawbacks that seems out of whack with other active defenses.

PvE

1) I strongly disagree with your PvE point 3. Vezax is not a special case. It's happens on a very regular schedule that when a fight has a special damage boosting mechanic, hunters are left out of a good chunk of that damage as very rarely do those buffs affect pets. For example, charges on Thaddeus, spores on Loatheb, sparks on Malygos and so on. In fact, I am hard pressed to come up with a recent fight that actually favors hunters. I suppose this is not so much a question, but my opinion on the state of all fight mechanics I've currently been able to see. Admittedly, I haven't seen Yoggy yet, but I've read about it and I don't see how it could favor hunters to the degree other fights favor other classes.

2) Again, every metric that is available to players puts hunters way behind all three other pures and some hybrids on every fight in Ulduar, not just the beginning fights. Where do you think the disconnect is between the data we have access to and the data you have access to?

3) Pertaining to MM, are you evaluating the effects of JoW and BoW on MM hunters? Personally, I have noticed that with them, I never run out of mana. WIthout them, I can run out of mana in just a few minutes, even with Rapid Fire/Rapid Recouperation, Readiness, and using a mana pot. At that point, I have no other means to regain mana other than Aspect of the Viper and the 50% damage penalty is a huge deterrent to ever switching into that aspect.

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Q u o t e:


Yeah, I made a thread a long time ago on the subject of pet scaling. GC stated he'd like to talk about it some more:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=13723762657&pageNo=1&sid=1#14

Maybe we could talk some more about it now?

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im perfectly fine with pets continuing to do very little dps. But if this is going to remain the case, their survivability needs a HUGE buff. I mean really big. It needs to be a challenge for someone to kill the pet in PvP. It would be nice for them to have to weigh the pros and cons of focusing on the pet and leaving us to shoot a rotation.

It used to be that way but not anymore.

In PvE the amount of effort currently going into pet management is not worth it. If our pets did more DPS, it would be worth spending the time to keep them alive. Again, if their DPS stays as it is, Hunters should not have to focus such a large amount of time and effort into protecting these pieces of china.

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Q u o t e:
1) The TNT stuns and the uber mana drains were just too good last season. Sorry. Those aren't coming back.

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Never wanted the TNT stun ( I hated mace stun spec with a passion), it was a cheap way to get wins. I'm not entirely sure how the Hunter mana drains were too good. I can see how using guerilla tactics to dart in and out to viper sting would be oppressive to Priests (I have a priest) and Mages. But for the most part it was useless against the massive number of Paladins, Shamans and Druid healers in arenas.

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Q u o t e:
2) Last season, burst spell damage was very high. That put a premium on active defenses, which ended up being a good niche for hunters. Last season there was almost no reason to bring a warrior; rogues and hunters brought the MS debuff in a stronger form as well as a host of additional utility. Warriors are back now, which means more competition for that spot.

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I haven't seen the burst spell damage change thus far. Spellcasters are hitting every bit as hard as they were before but my 'ExS' spell damage dropped significantly as resilience has risen (very quickly I might add). The problem you're seeing now is the exact reverse from season 5. There is almost no reason to bring a Hunter; Rogues and Warriors bring the MS debuff in a stronger form.

Hunters don't have enough 'utility' to justify bringing them into the team as a dpser when other spellcasters have more powerful and spammable CC's/burst damage or melee stuns/mobility conducive to zerging effects in arena. The arena games move too fast now for 'trap dancing' to be as powerful as it once was.

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Q u o t e:
3) This season has seen different classes rising to the top. Priests are rogues are good. Arms and Ret are good, depending on who you believe. We are nerfing or have nerfed some of those classes, which should open up the top playing-field a little. We are getting rid of Exorcism allowing paladins to two-shot pets. I'd agree that hunter representation is a little low at the moment, but we're not sure the class needs massive buffs so much as others need some nerfs.

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Thank you. It's frustrating to me to see the level of succes I am personally achieving in arena right now on my undergeared Priest with a pve Ret paladin compared to what I'm getting on this Hunter. My Priest mana burn feels 100 fold more powerful to me than Viper Sting ever did on my Hunter. Fear bombs + Stun setups guarantee you will lose 20% or more of your mana in less than 5-6 seconds.

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Q u o t e:
4) Hunters are betters in 5s than 2s. It's really challenging to have every class or spec have the same representation in small teams as large, which is one of the reasons we offer multiple sizes. Recently the community seems to be focusing on 2s even more than 3s. We are taking some steps to make sure the larger brackets are as rewarding as the smaller ones. (I'm not saying it's a goal that some classes are only viable for some brackets. But it is nice that if you aren't as good for some brackets, you always have the others to fall back on.)

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I really really hate 5s. It plays out too much like a BG zerg assist train where you feel like whichever side zerg'd the hardest and fastest gets the win. The matches don't even last long enough to allow you to blink your eyes, atleast right now. I'm glad you are trying to make 3s and 5s more rewarding because it takes more coordinating and effort than 2s do and should be rewarded similarly to how you reward 25 man raids over 10 man raids.

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Q u o t e:


im perfectly fine with pets continuing to do very little dps. But if this is going to remain the case, their survivability needs a HUGE buff. I mean really big. It needs to be a challenge for someone to kill the pet in PvP. It would be nice for them to have to weigh the pros and cons of focusing on the pet and leaving us to shoot a rotation.

It used to be that way but not anymore.

In PvE the amount of effort currently going into pet management is not worth it. If our pets did more DPS, it would be worth spending the time to keep them alive. Again, if their DPS stays as it is, Hunters should not have to focus such a large amount of time and effort into protecting these pieces of china.

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Actually that thread was more about the vast difference in performance between buffed and nonbuffed pets. Not necessarily that pets were doing too much damage.

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Q u o t e:



3) We understand Vezax is a special case for hunters. By the same token, our goal is not to have every class do the same relative dps on every boss. Some fights are just better for some than others. Our goal isn't even to have "the shadow priest fight" or "the fury warrior fight." We just want diversity. We really wanted the Ulduar encounters to push players more towards "What can I do to improve my dps on this fight?" and less on "What is my dps?"

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I wish Vezax was a special case, but sadly it's not. In naxx, fights like Thaddius and Leo were unfair against hunters because our pets weren't buffed. Malygos sparks didn't buff our pets, furthermore in Malygos half the time I couldn't even stand in the sparks because of their close proximity to the boss.


We aren't typically in range (nor can we be) when melee get some sort of physical buff, and we don't benefit from caster DPS buffs that are usually located in places we stand (with the casters). Furthermore, said buffs rarely buff the totality of our damage (pets, physical, and spell dmg). Simply put, because our damage is so segmented, we are always the class that receives the least benefit from any given type of buff.

Not to mention the fights where the mechanics make keeping pets alive next to impossible. These fights are just as unfair because our DPS is guaranteed to be 15-20% lower.

So no, I don't believe Vezax is an isolated incident.

Some Ulduar specific issues I've noticed:
- Is there some balance reason why feign death does not work on Razorscale? Being threat capped entirely through phase 2 is frustrating
- Could pets perhaps be made immune to the rockets on Mimiron? Given the way pets constantly shift position on that fight, the way melee tends to block view of the ground, and the very short time you have to pull a pet out of a rocket, it's pretty hard to keep a pet alive on those phases with everything else going on. I know that pets shouldn't be made immune to everything because then pet management wouldn't be necessary, but there's certain reasonable levels of management and then there are things that are just a bit much.

More generally- the fact that hunter mana is so dependent on judgement of wisdom really frustrates me and I'm not sure if it's by design that hunters are so dependent on it. It's especially bad on 10 man and even on 25 man there are many cases when JoW is not reliably available (especially in add heavy fights) and my mana drops like a rock. I've talked to other mana using dps classes in my raid and none of them see the kind of mana supply swings based on JoW availability that hunters seem to.

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Q u o t e:
Okay, here is just a slew of our current thoughts on the topic.

PvE

1) Hunter dps was just too high through much of Naxx. Ideally hunters should be competing with locks, rogues and mages and for a lot of the LK content they were just head and shoulders above the rest.

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GC to add a rebuttal to this point:

Pets scaling is abyssmal so much so that the reason our DPS was higher in Naxx was entirerly because the DPS our pets were doing 5 months ago is very close to the DPS our pets are doing now.

It wasn't that hunters were OP it was that hunters have a very fast peak but it is low.

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Q u o t e:



GC to add a rebuttal to this point:

Pets scaling is abyssmal so much so that the reason our DPS was higher in Naxx was entirerly because the DPS our pets were doing 5 months ago is very close to the DPS our pets are doing now.

It wasn't that hunters were OP it was that hunters have a very fast peak but it is low.

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Yep I agree. That coupled with the 2 piece set bonus of 5% extra pet damage. Kind of pushed BM over the top at the start and prompted some heavy pet nerfs (which were later reverted thankfully).

I am disappointed in your choice of words.

We do not 2 shot a pet while using exorcism.

Exo was able to push a pet down into HoW range After we had blown our full damage rotation on it, and it hadn't gotten a single heal or defensive buff from its team yet.

That's not 2 shotting. That's 5 shotting.

I mean, take away that functionality of Exo, w/e, just allow it to still eat grounding totems. Though I feel that making it so grounding totems can't be destroyed by Exo, but that we can use HoR on all totems again, would be even better.

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Q u o t e:
I am disappointed in your choice of words.

We do not 2 shot a pet while using exorcism.

Exo was able to push a pet down into HoW range After we had blown our full damage rotation on it, and it hadn't gotten a single heal or defensive buff from its team yet.

That's not 2 shotting. That's 5 shotting.

I mean, take away that functionality of Exo, w/e, just allow it to still eat grounding totems. Though I feel that making it so grounding totems can't be destroyed by Exo, but that we can use HoR on all totems again, would be even better.

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I play with a ret partner. All it takes is a little extra damage from me to drop a pet in 2 GCDs. A healer could assist a ret with some minor dps and accomplish the same thing. Pets have smaller health pools, 0 resilience, and minimal defensive abilities. There's no reason it should be usable on pets sorry.

First of all, thanks for responding. :)

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Q u o t e:

4) Survival may still be slightly higher than BM or MM. We don't think it's off by 1000 dps in most cases. It's something we want to keep looking at. We understand some Marks hunters say they'd be fine if it weren't for mana.

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While you did increase efficiency and lowered Chimera's cost, Marks is still a intensive mana rotation.

39% base mana for one entire rotation of Hunter's Mark, Serpent, Chimera, Aimed, Arcane, Steady is very mana intensive, given that we have the highest base mana out there.

Adding some type of mana regen that isn't linked to a 3 min CD for only 16% mana, would be nice. A Thrill of the Hunt mechanic has been suggested, as well as bumping Efficiency down to 3 points would help severely.

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Q u o t e:
We'd be unlikely to buff Steady Shot, for the same reasons we nerfed it before. If we need to buff hunters, we'd likely do it in other ways. We'd also be unlikely to buff pet damage.

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And how would you buff it? Beast Mastery doesn't have any special shots, Marks uses it in its Piercing Shots bleed, and Survival uses it as well. You don't necessarily have to buff it back to 20%, tuning it to 15% won't make it the "Steady Spam" you might fear. Right now its a button that we push, even if we don't like it, cause we'll lose dps though it grants such horrible scaling and its not a worthwhile shot to begin with anymore.

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Q u o t e:
Okay, here is just a slew of our current thoughts on the topic.

PvE

1) Hunter dps was just too high through much of Naxx. Ideally hunters should be competing with locks, rogues and mages and for a lot of the LK content they were just head and shoulders above the rest.

2) Currently, hunter dps might be a little low, but we're not 100% convinced yet. Some of the earlier fights in Ulduar are very melee friendly. XT is a rogue and cat's dream. We were pretty harsh to melee in Naxx with a lot of run-out moments and cleaves. Kologarn and other parts of Ulduar turn that on the ranged a little and require them to focus more on situational awareness. We think the later fights in Ulduar are a little more ranged-friendly, and we're waiting to get more parses from those. Plenty of guilds are on or have beaten Yogg by now, but the current data are pretty noisy since people are still learning the encounters.

3) We understand Vezax is a special case for hunters. By the same token, our goal is not to have every class do the same relative dps on every boss. Some fights are just better for some than others. Our goal isn't even to have "the shadow priest fight" or "the fury warrior fight." We just want diversity. We really wanted the Ulduar encounters to push players more towards "What can I do to improve my dps on this fight?" and less on "What is my dps?"

4) Survival may still be slightly higher than BM or MM. We don't think it's off by 1000 dps in most cases. It's something we want to keep looking at. We understand some Marks hunters say they'd be fine if it weren't for mana.

PvP

1) The TNT stuns and the uber mana drains were just too good last season. Sorry. Those aren't coming back.

2) Last season, burst spell damage was very high. That put a premium on active defenses, which ended up being a good niche for hunters. Last season there was almost no reason to bring a warrior; rogues and hunters brought the MS debuff in a stronger form as well as a host of additional utility. Warriors are back now, which means more competition for that spot.

3) This season has seen different classes rising to the top. Priests are rogues are good. Arms and Ret are good, depending on who you believe. We are nerfing or have nerfed some of those classes, which should open up the top playing-field a little. We are getting rid of Exorcism allowing paladins to two-shot pets. I'd agree that hunter representation is a little low at the moment, but we're not sure the class needs massive buffs so much as others need some nerfs.

4) Hunters are betters in 5s than 2s. It's really challenging to have every class or spec have the same representation in small teams as large, which is one of the reasons we offer multiple sizes. Recently the community seems to be focusing on 2s even more than 3s. We are taking some steps to make sure the larger brackets are as rewarding as the smaller ones. (I'm not saying it's a goal that some classes are only viable for some brackets. But it is nice that if you aren't as good for some brackets, you always have the others to fall back on.)

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Hunter pvp problems do not involve the TNT stun or the LNL bug. Last season, healers couldn't be effectively drained, viper sting was useless after the scaling nerfs.

They revolve in the Mobility of the hunter class. It is a hunter's mechanism for defense, offense, and utility.

The last patch both gave melee some additional options for mobility as well as deleted half of the class' mobility and space control. This doesn't just hit survival, mobility blankets the entire class.

Rescinding the mobility and spatial control nerfs would balance the playing field.

Thank you for your time.

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Q u o t e:
1) Hunter dps was just too high through much of Naxx. Ideally hunters should be competing with locks, rogues and mages and for a lot of the LK content they were just head and shoulders above the rest.

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I agree, partially. During Naxx, Hunter DPS was a bit high, but that was only in the beginning. Once people were fully decked out in gear, we saw Warlocks and Mages and to some extent, DK's on top instead of Hunters; Rogues were still at the bottom, nowhere near the other 3 'pure' DPS classes. I believe the main factor is Hunters scale poorly compared to other classes as better equipment is obtained.

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Q u o t e:
2) Currently, hunter dps might be a little low, but we're not 100% convinced yet. Some of the earlier fights in Ulduar are very melee friendly. XT is a rogue and cat's dream. We were pretty harsh to melee in Naxx with a lot of run-out moments and cleaves. Kologarn and other parts of Ulduar turn that on the ranged a little and require them to focus more on situational awareness. We think the later fights in Ulduar are a little more ranged-friendly, and we're waiting to get more parses from those. Plenty of guilds are on or have beaten Yogg by now, but the current data are pretty noisy since people are still learning the encounters.

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Currently, the only fight that Hunters can easily rise to the top is Assembly of Iron. Of the four 'pure' DPS classes, generally speaking, I am fully convinced Hunter is at the bottom. Single target wise, a patchwerk type fight, from personal experiences, Hunters are doing fine. However, with other variables, including mobile fight, random RNG, and elements, AOE damage required, Hunters tend to fall behind. WMO has a lot of data by many players around the world; the same classes always dominate on particular fights. I am sure that is really good data.

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Q u o t e:
3) We understand Vezax is a special case for hunters. By the same token, our goal is not to have every class do the same relative dps on every boss. Some fights are just better for some than others. Our goal isn't even to have "the shadow priest fight" or "the fury warrior fight." We just want diversity. We really wanted the Ulduar encounters to push players more towards "What can I do to improve my dps on this fight?" and less on "What is my dps?"

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As long as fights do not turn into replacing a class due to the mechanics of the fight, it is fine.

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Q u o t e:
PvP
1) The TNT stuns and the uber mana drains were just too good last season. Sorry. Those aren't coming back.

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I totally agree, but the mana drain can increase 300% to higher amount, to address some PvE and PvP concerns.

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Q u o t e:
2) Last season, burst spell damage was very high. That put a premium on active defenses, which ended up being a good niche for hunters. Last season there was almost no reason to bring a warrior; rogues and hunters brought the MS debuff in a stronger form as well as a host of additional utility. Warriors are back now, which means more competition for that spot.

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The problem is other classes received buffs, indirectly, can be a possibility of nerfing other classes and vice-versa. Our mobility and CC's took a serious hit this season, which is an indirect buff to other classes, and it became more problematic when players know how to abuse it. The margin of error in order for Hunters to succeed is a lot lower than other classes when played in Arenas right now.

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Q u o t e:

3) This season has seen different classes rising to the top. Priests are rogues are good. Arms and Ret are good, depending on who you believe. We are nerfing or have nerfed some of those classes, which should open up the top playing-field a little. We are getting rid of Exorcism allowing paladins to two-shot pets. I'd agree that hunter representation is a little low at the moment, but we're not sure the class needs massive buffs so much as others need some nerfs.

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What made you convinced that hunters needed such massive nerfs in the first place? Not talking about the burst or RNG issues, but you nerfed a lot of things that weren't burst or RNG related. I'm not sure how you can look at a class that is at 1% representation right now and conclude that the problem is only with other classes needing nerfs, unless you are talking about a massive number of nerfs to other classes.

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Q u o t e:

4) Hunters are betters in 5s than 2s. It's really challenging to have every class or spec have the same representation in small teams as large, which is one of the reasons we offer multiple sizes. Recently the community seems to be focusing on 2s even more than 3s. We are taking some steps to make sure the larger brackets are as rewarding as the smaller ones. (I'm not saying it's a goal that some classes are only viable for some brackets. But it is nice that if you aren't as good for some brackets, you always have the others to fall back on.)

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Larger brackets have always been "more rewarding" than smaller brackets, at least until people opted to stop doing 5s completely. Even so 5s has always been far less popular than 2s and 3s.

Don't you think this has more to do with the nature of 5s (dying inside a single CC more often than not, due to focus fire/crowded space) than the rewards structure? "Casual" players who won't get beyond 1600-1700 rating would already get the best rewards from doing 5s, but don't seem to be flocking to that bracket.

Not directly a response to your post but a general PvP thought that applies to hunters:

It seems as if there is a "PvP establishment" that has gotten used to a certain status quo. RMP in 3s, 2345 or varants in 5s, melee + healer in 2s.

Any time that this status quo seems seriously threatened, the establishment calls for nerfs. Somehow it is natural and right if RMP is dominant in 3s, but not if DK/Hunter/Paladin or DK/Warlock/Paladin, or Holy Play, or Cleave teams are. Do you ever think you might listen too closely to players who have a vested interest in maintaining the niche that they have carved out?

I believe this mentality led to a drastic over nerf of hunters and warlocks, because hunter and warlock teams were viable to the point of threatening the established dominance of RMP. I can think of no other explanation for the drastic nerfs to classes that were average to below average, which in turn have reduced them to 3rd tier status.