Just had a quiet thought.
What would happen if Aimed shot was removed in Bc and and hunter dps leveled out either through a new instant ability, or buffs to multi/aimed.

Wouldnt that fix the hunter mechanics ?
Or would the change be too radical ?

I'm supporting Blizzard in whatever direction they want to move it. I think doing something like this (not knowing the alternative) would certainly limit our burst DPS. Without using timers or anything crazy I've always been of the opinion that hunters have a ridiculously high burst DPS in say...PVP. Aimed/Multi/Auto all in quick succession, and when they crit your target is screwed.

As a priest I'm all for it but as a hunter alt I'm appalled you'd suggest such a thing!

I think moving aimed shot to a special shot rather than something spammed would be great. Make it a 1 minute cooldown, 200% weapon damage + 250 with an improved aimed shot talent that gives it a 30-40% increased chance to crit. Give it a hefty mana cost.

Fix arcane shot to scale with AP and weapon damage (make it similar to multi except do arcane instead of physical damage) rather than spell damage, and we'd use aimed as a pvp opener or once a minute on a mob only, and use arcane/multi for dps, and weapon scaling would be right with the world again.

Aimed shot is fun. They may change the mechanics on it but don't expect it to be removed.

Aimed Shot
Rank 7
Requires Level 68
35 yd range370 Mana
3.000 sec cast
An aimed shot that increases ranged damage by 870.

?

like beef said, aimed shot is a cool, fun skill, that certainly needs mechanical overhaul but will not likely be removed.

it would be nice not to have to worry about weapon speed first and foremost, though.

Log out and back in.

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.

Aimed Shot
35 yd range
370 mana
2x wpn speed cast
an aimed shot that increases ranged damage done by 250% and increases crit chance by 5%


Would be a lot more interesting in terms of making all sorts of cycles and all sorts of weapon speeds viable, in my opinion.

Fixing the cast time is the first problem if you think about it - as soon as you fix cast time, you have a weapon speed that will fit that cast time best. If they set the cast time to 2x the weapon speed even Hurricane would be work quite well with aimed shot.

I wonder if this has anything to do with our delayed talent trees. I've always been of the opinion we need more party utility. I've seen something along the lines of having a group Aspect of the Monkey which I've been discussing with our MT as a possible buff, which he liked. I was hoping all aspects would be changed to party buffs, so a "hunter party" with a shaman might be able to get Monkey/Hawk/Wild. I could see them putting us in line with shaman. Shaman are healing/partybuffs. Hunters could be the same...(DPS/buff).

The problem being that hunters have very little utility.

Which is easily fixed. Hunter aspects are what needs revisions. Reviewing our DPS is more of a "cleanup" then anything else...whereas fixing our party likelyhood would certainly help alleviate a lot of the issues that unguilded hunters in the LFG channel.

You need to fix the CD too

Wait wait wait, how the HELL are mages "DPS only?" What about Polymorph, frost kiting, Arcane Intellect, Remove Lesser Curse, etc...