What if they removed Aimed shot ? - Page 2

Zzbzq · 08/29/06, 3:09 PM

The problem being that hunters have very little utility and mages very much utility.

Just make hunters do more damage than mages. Fixing hunter utility and looking at aspects is comparitively difficult.

Eej · 08/29/06, 3:11 PM

Yeah, we have very little utility (aside from pulling trash or pulling adds on Gothik encounter), our only "strength" being that we basically do close to our max DPS on every encounter. Of course, that doesn't mean much when other classes can try harder than us and do more DPS (pushing the limits of aggro and using damage consumables), so we're left with uh, Gimmick Shot, Pulling and shooting webs off a wall.

Yes, rerolling a Rogue does seem like a good idea.

As for the Aimed Shot mechanic, aside from removing it from the game, I can't think of much you can do with it. That is, the skill by itself makes perfect sense in game, you take your time to aim a shot, damage done to you interrupts your aim causing you to aim longer, and when you do fire it off, your shot does a lot more damage than it usually does. The suggested change to Aimed Shot from above (250% weapon damage, 2x weapon speed cast time) would indeed raise PvE DPS as well as make faster weapons more viable. However, given the damage that I can do now, I'd be critting Aimed Shot on Cloth without any damage buffs for 3k. As if they would let that fly.

Oh, and mages have more DPS because they're significantly more fragile. You know, a PvP balance issue.

Nurru · 08/29/06, 3:17 PM

Did I really just see someone list Warriors as a Utility class rather than dps? Tell that to all the Fury warriors breaking 850 dps on patch.

Elendril · 08/29/06, 3:18 PM

if aimed shot cast time and cooldown were linked to weapon speed somehow, that would go a long way toward *fixing* the skill.

as for hunter scaling vs mage/rogue/etc - one of the problems is that our damage output is pulled across different damage types. autoshot/multishot/aimed shot all work based on attack power, while arcane shot and stings work on spell damage. a mage gets more +dmg, it affects all of his attacks - similarly to a rogue with attack power. if hunters had, say, "Lacerating Sting" instead of serpent sting that was a DOT that scaled with RAP rather than spell damage, it would go a long way toward halting our slide in damage scalability.

Decker · 08/29/06, 3:23 PM

I say we derail this thread with discussions of pet DPS tying into our overall DPS, and how pets are fun on all encounters! :)

No matter the ideas that we come up with I'm sure Blizzard has already made a decision and our issues are being addressed (another "class review"!), so I'm saving the majority of my energy for a longwinded post on what I think of their changes to hunters :)

*edit* I studder...

Gwaihir · 08/29/06, 3:29 PM

Originally Posted by Wodin

Well, hunter mechanics need fixing somehow. The cycle thing may be interesting from a theorycraft perspective, but a higher-DPS weapon being worse purely due to its speed is wrong. They fixed that for warriors and rogues - it would be nice if they fixed it for hunters as well.

Another instant swing attack(like Multishot) would be problematic due to the unparalleled ability for the hunter to kite. There's also a conflict in that we honestly don't know where in the tiers Blizzard intends hunters to fall(from a damage perspective). I would assume that they have two general bins: DPS only(mage/rogue) and DPS + Utility(Warlock/Hunter/Warrior). Depending on what their actual perception is, the new mechanic would vary a great deal.

They obviously have the capability to add "quasi-instants" though- Multishot has a tiny cast time and is unusable while running; Stop for a second to multishot and eventually you get caught.

Regardless of the specifics, the mechanics really, really need an overhaul. I'm sure we can see that the method of DPS with a hunter is probably by far the most contrived, due to the shot timing thing. I don't even care if they take the class in another direction, or give the trees more options (Perhaps more 1 talent point skills that really make a difference in the play style, as opposed to the total lack of variety we have now) so long as something changes. Given the track record for blizzard and hunters, I would be pretty damn surprised to see any talents that make me want to do something other than 31 marks/30 survival. Either that, or re-roll shaman.

As far as utility.. barring major changes, a hunter's raid utility comes no where close to that of the classes that can also smash our dps, like a mage. Even our "I win no agro" button is less and less relevant as other classes get their own deagros, or we face bosses that provide tanks with more than ample rage to keep agro over us, FD regardless. This could change in the expansion with 25 mans and new encounter dynamics, so obviously I'm still stuck waiting to see. Hell, even some mroe radical changes to pets, maybe moving them in a more warlock-ish (read: usefull) direction would be a great start. Making pets act like totems for AoEs would go a long way as well.

Fenrus · 08/29/06, 3:30 PM

Yup, like a few people have mentioned already, tieing the cast/cooldown to weapon speed would help. They could make it an 'on next attack' ability, but then it probably wouldn't be interuptable like it is now and it wouldn't feel like an "aimed shot", so it's hard to say if the developers would go for that.

Banking autoshots or autoshot damage during the aimed shot cast period is another possible solution, but it would make our damage too bursty and everything Blizzard has done with the hunter class indicates that the want to keep our burst damage reigned in. We in general have a lower crit rate and higher attack power than other classes for example, and of course the old MS nerf.

Honestly I can't imagine what they'll do but I hope they do something.

Kalman · 08/29/06, 3:37 PM

Why not just allow autoshot to fire through aimed? That plus normalization pretty much eliminates the speed issue without massively changing hunter raid DPS and without massively changing PvP burst.

saramin · 08/29/06, 3:41 PM

Originally Posted by Kalman

Why not just allow autoshot to fire through aimed? That plus normalization pretty much eliminates the speed issue without massively changing hunter raid DPS and without massively changing PvP burst.

Because it changes PvP burst. Half the use of aimed shot comes from timing it as a shock opener against trapped/polyed/wyvern stinged' targets, which goes out the window if you blip them with an autoattack during the windup animation. Unless you had to manually enable or disable autoattack during aimed shot, which is just inelegant.

Fenrus · 08/29/06, 3:42 PM

Originally Posted by Kalman

Why not just allow autoshot to fire through aimed? That plus normalization pretty much eliminates the speed issue without massively changing hunter raid DPS and without massively changing PvP burst.

Other than the fact that it would be kinda wierd to keep shooting while "aiming for a shot", I wouldn't have a problem with it. It might still be considered too bursty though, people already complain about the aimed/auto/multi pwnage in PvP.

Kalman · 08/29/06, 3:44 PM

Originally Posted by saramin

Originally Posted by Kalman

Why not just allow autoshot to fire through aimed? That plus normalization pretty much eliminates the speed issue without massively changing hunter raid DPS and without massively changing PvP burst.

Because it changes PvP burst. Half the use of aimed shot comes from timing it as a shock opener against trapped/polyed/wyvern stinged' targets, which goes out the window if you blip them with an autoattack during the windup animation. Unless you had to manually enable or disable autoattack during aimed shot, which is just inelegant.

True. I was thinking opening against a non-CCed target, where the initial blip doesn't hurt you. I guess it would be simple enough to make aimed not enable auto, though - i.e. if auto is on, it fires through aimed, but if you open with aimed, you won't start queueing auto until you manually tell it to queue.

It does seem the simplest solution, overall.

Hypothraxer · 08/29/06, 3:47 PM

They won't have to remove aimed shot to make faster bows more viable. They would just have to itemize bows that, with all speed increases, would turn out a rate of fire of 1.6 or lower. That way you would outdamage an aimed shot / multi-shot combo with an arcane shot / multi-shot combo. However fixing a class solely with items is a rather poor decision in my opinion. Also the thought about the ammo usage is rather unpleasant with such a weapon.

As for utility. It would be a start to make certain abilites usable in raid encounters. Why scorpid sting doesn't work on any major raid mobs remains a mistery to me (granted - the reduction is probably laughable). Concussive shot (and the improved concussive shot) doesn't work either, even on mobs that are stunnable.

I guess in the end they'll have to introduce a new shot that kinda acts as a better version of arcane shot so that you could do more damage with a 50 dps, 2.6 speed weapon bow than with a 45 dps, 3.4 speed bow where you're using aimed/multi all the time.

saramin · 08/29/06, 3:52 PM

It does seem the simplest solution, overall.

Meh. The simplest solution would be to just have the aimed shot windup put your autoattack cycle into stasis, resuming it when the windup is done. You can do some clever normalizing for aimed shot to have it still be affected by attack power and make up the huge dps loss by actually fleshing out the rest of the goddamn class.

You gain burst at the expense of net dps, and the entire class stops being raid-viable and raid-balanced around one ability. I think the last time I saw a real hunter spec without 11 in Marks was late 2004.

Zagzil · 08/29/06, 3:59 PM

Originally Posted by Nurru

Did I really just see someone list Warriors as a Utility class rather than dps? Tell that to all the Fury warriors breaking 850 dps on patch.

Pretty sure he's referencing the fact that warriors are a utility class and not a DPS only class, such as rogues. Just because the amount of DPS they can do is broken doesn't mean their utility is gone.

Fenrus · 08/29/06, 4:04 PM

Originally Posted by saramin

It does seem the simplest solution, overall.

Meh. The simplest solution would be to just have the aimed shot windup put your autoattack cycle into stasis, resuming it when the windup is done. You can do some clever normalizing for aimed shot to have it still be affected by attack power and make up the huge dps loss by actually fleshing out the rest of the goddamn class.

You gain burst at the expense of net dps, and the entire class stops being raid-viable and raid-balanced around one ability. I think the last time I saw a real hunter spec without 11 in Marks was late 2004.

Still wouldn't solve the problem of aimed shot cooldown period, you'd still end up with weapon speeds that simply "fit better" in the cooldown period.