WotLK Talents & Abilities Discussion - Page 32

Zurai · 07/28/08, 11:30 AM

Originally Posted by drmungkee

-Some pet abilities have prohibitively high focus costs that won't work well with a focus dump auto-casting. We may be required to to shut it off to ensure other special abilities are cast as soon as their cooldown is up.

Doing this loses a lot of DPS. If you get unlucky with crits and aren't BM spec, it could take up to 25 seconds to refill to 100.

Ele · 07/28/08, 11:56 AM

Originally Posted by Gonkish

You're very correct. I look at Hunters clamoring for survivability talents to become innate class timers the same way I looked at Rogues demanding Cloak be a trainable skill, or Arena Mages begging for trained Ice Block: "There must be a valid reason for it, on some level." Sure, you get your fair share of b.net kids complaining about this or that randomly, but I think we can all agree that Blizzard is pretty good at tuning that crap out at this point.

There are many parallels between our begging for a survivability timer and the whole Cloak of Shadows debate, and the only real difference being that we're Hunters. A lot of people seem to have an inordinate amount of hatred for the class as a whole; I'm not exactly sure why, but I won't concern myself with that. Regardless, any suggestion along the lines of throwing Hunters a bone in this regard tends to degenerate into a state even b.net would be ashamed of, and in record time.

You're right, though. It's about time we stood up and started asking for some form of parity with other classes. This class needs basic survivability timer(s), and Blizzard has been at worst ignoring, at best reluctant to recognize, that fact thus far. So if there's going to be change, it has to be through us. I have been submitting suggestions and surveys through the Blizzard beta feedback tool in WoW since I first logged in, and I don't plan to stop until the beta is over.

I just hope they don't think I'm a completely insane nerd. (I'm only half-crazy, dammit.)

Allow me to comment briefly here: the hunter class has a bad reputation because of the insane popularity it has among the masses and the fact that the aforementioned masses are at the very least incompetent players on a basic level, let alone on a theorycrafting one.

Fact remains that the class used to have its moments of glory in pvp, in the time of FD + non trinketable trap, just to mention one and still today does very well in open spaces, such as battlegrounds or world pvp.

Arenas are a controversial topic: some would like them deleted from the game, some love them, hunters do not perform very well in such constrained environments due to LoS issues and lack of 1vs1 defensive abilities (compared to offensive threats at least). Exceptional players with exceptional teammates can obtain high ratings, but the curve is much steeper.

Maybe hunters didn't complain loud enough or not coordinately enough on the official boards, but assisting to rogues obtaining awesome buffs and changes (making them incredibly overpowered in confined PvP situations) and seeing hunters often if not always getting the short end of the stick, probably wasn't enough reason to have things changed.

To fall back a bit on the track: deterrence, counterattack and scattershot are nice abilities, none of them would be on CloS level of power (or shadowstep for that matter), but asking for all 3 being made trainable is a reasonable request (even if it would end up obtaining maybe one).
Then when remaking the talents, put in something that would inspire more sinergies as proposed above.

P.S.: thanks to all beta hunters for the work you're doing.

Pandarus13 · 07/28/08, 2:50 PM

Being a hunter that appreciates the SV tree and the CC boosts I was wondering if there is any gear that will reduce trap cool downs or extend the effects coming in WotLK? Trap Mastery + Resourcefulness + Gear?? = Chain Trapping Happiness

Keeping 2 pieces of Beast Lord in my set is tough enough already, but getting to 80 and then keeping level 70 blues seems harsh.

Panda

On a side note, I would love to see Silencing Shot and Scatter Shot in the Survival tree.....after all they seem like CC abilities that would fit very well there

mako · 07/28/08, 3:04 PM

Originally Posted by Pandarus13

Being a hunter that appreciates the SV tree and the CC boosts I was wondering if there is any gear that will reduce trap cool downs or extend the effects coming in WotLK? Trap Mastery + Resourcefulness + Gear?? = Chain Trapping Happiness

Keeping 2 pieces of Beast Lord in my set is tough enough already, but getting to 80 and then keeping level 70 blues seems harsh.

Panda

On a side note, I would love to see Silencing Shot and Scatter Shot in the Survival tree.....after all they seem like CC abilities that would fit very well there

Isn't Clever Traps + Trap Mastery enough to allow chain trapping? +30% duration (+6 sec) with a -6 sec cooldown leaves you at 26 sec traps with 24 sec cooldowns.

Houze · 07/28/08, 3:30 PM

Originally Posted by Trogdor

Your numbers are more generous than mine. I reworked (again) the output, including Kill Shot and with a 2s Steady.

5000AP
50% crit rate
3.00 base attack speed (2.61 attack speed, quiver modified)
100 DPS ranged
60 DPS ammo

Serpent Sting = (5000*0.1) + 1210 = 1710
Auto Shot (Base Weapon Damage]) = (100 + 60 + (5000/14))*3.0 = 1551 hit, 3567 crit
Steady Shot R3 (normalized 2.8)= ((100+60)*2.8) + (5000*0.2) + 280 = 1728 hit, 3974 crit
Kill Shot R1 = ((100+60)*3.0) + (5000*.15) + 325 = 1555 hit, 3576 crit

11 Auto Hit + 11 Auto Crit + 15 Steady Hit + 15 Steady Crit + 5 Kill Hit + 5 Kill Crit
17061 + 39237 + 25920 + 59610 + 7775 + 17880 = 167483
117238 with 30% reduction

11 Auto Hit + 11 Auto Crit + 13 Steady Hit + 13 Steady Crit + 5 Kill Hit + 5 Kill Crit + 4 Serpent
(17061 + 39237 + 22464 + 51662 + 7775 + 17880 + 6840)*1.03 = 167806
119578 with 30% reduction (melee*0.7 before adding serpent, then 3% multiplier after)

So excluding the damage reduction, 3/3 PV with Serpent ends up as a 1.001% damage increase.
Including damage reduction, 3/3 PV with Serpent ends up as a 1.019% damage increase.

It's a little bit more simplified and easier to read.. but still comes to the same sad conclusion that PV+Serpent isn't the best use of talents and GCDs. Meager damage increase versus the mana cost. I'm sure the math is right.. and even if I am slightly off I doubt it's so far to make the talent that much stronger.

I do like the idea of 3/3 PV increasing all damage done to the target from all sources. THAT would make talenting 3 points into PV a no-brainer.[/size]

No way a Serpent sting will do so little like 1700 damage in raid enviroments, I doubt that Serpent sting will go under 2000 damage, you will most likely see 2.2-2.3k damage from a single Serpent Sting.

- Stormstrike, Misery, Earth and Moon, Improved tracking and maybe something more will affect Serpent Sting, so the example with 1710 damage should be 1.20*1.05*1.06*1.05*1710 = 2398, 200 damage less or more, I will asume Enhancement Shamans will be a popular class in raids even in WotLK.
- 50% crit is rather high, I doubt that we will see anything like that before finishing at least the first 2-3 25-man instances.
- 100 DPS ranged and 60 DPS ammo are way to low, better up those with at least 50% in the calculations.

I say that if Serpent+PV has to be usefull, the difference between a Serpent and a SS have to be less then 15*DPS*0.03, the damage gained from PV during the PV-buff. Maybe I should use 13.5 as the uptime for PV as Serpent invokes a GCD, anyway, if Serpent does less then 405-450 damage then SS with 1000 dps, there is no gain for Serpent+PV. As we should be able to pass 3000 dps with a survival hunter we can say that SS must do at least 1200 damage more then Serpent to be taken over Serpent+PV.

I guess, the end result will still be the same, Serpent+PV arn't strong enough to use, well, maybe on entry level raiding, like Naxxramas and similar when you will have much less criticals and the weapon dps will be rather low, I would guess that a Survival hunter will have about 30% unbuffed crit when finished Naxx (like a T4 hunter today).

Maybe a better scaling of Serpent Sting would be enough to keep it viable, like 15-20% or so, guess 15% should keep it in the same range as Arcane shot that also isn't affected by damage reduction from armor. 15% from attack power scales about the same as SS that suffers a ~25% damage reduction from armor (with Sunder, FF, CoR on a 7700 AC raid-boss).

Cranch · 07/28/08, 3:39 PM

Any comment on the feasibility of doing a Chimera Shot/Scorpid sting rotation? Since the Chimera shot consumes the (single allowable) scorpid sting on the boss, and its effect goes away after 3 attacks by the boss, it would seem to be possible to set up a rotation with multiple MM hunters and reduce boss damage by an average of perhaps 20%-30%.

Actually, it might be better than that. If the scorpid is consumed immediately, the next hunter could then shoot scorpid and chimera (with 2 GCD's), and possibly stack chimera.

Trogdor · 07/28/08, 3:46 PM

Originally Posted by Houze

No way a Serpent sting will do so little like 1700 damage in raid enviroments, I doubt that Serpent sting will go under 2000 damage, you will most likely see 2.2-2.3k damage from a single Serpent Sting.

- Stormstrike, Misery, Earth and Moon, Improved tracking and maybe something more will affect Serpent Sting, so the example with 1710 damage should be 1.20*1.05*1.06*1.05*1710 = 2398, 200 damage less or more, I will asume Enhancement Shamans will be a popular class in raids even in WotLK.
- 50% crit is rather high, I doubt that we will see anything like that before finishing at least the first 2-3 25-man instances.
- 100 DPS ranged and 60 DPS ammo are way to low, better up those with at least 50% in the calculations.

I say that if Serpent+PV has to be usefull, the difference between a Serpent and a SS have to be less then 15*DPS*0.03, the damage gained from PV during the PV-buff. Maybe I should use 13.5 as the uptime for PV as Serpent invokes a GCD, anyway, if Serpent does less then 405-450 damage then SS with 1000 dps, there is no gain for Serpent+PV. As we should be able to pass 3000 dps with a survival hunter we can say that SS must do at least 1200 damage more then Serpent to be taken over Serpent+PV.

I guess, the end result will still be the same, Serpent+PV arn't strong enough to use, well, maybe on entry level raiding, like Naxxramas and similar when you will have much less criticals and the weapon dps will be rather low, I would guess that a Survival hunter will have about 30% unbuffed crit when finished Naxx (like a T4 hunter today).

Maybe a better scaling of Serpent Sting would be enough to keep it viable, like 15-20% or so, guess 15% should keep it in the same range as Arcane shot that also isn't affected by damage reduction from armor. 15% from attack power scales about the same as SS that suffers a ~25% damage reduction from armor (with Sunder, FF, CoR on a 7700 AC raid-boss).

The reason I set the numbers as it is, is because it's comparable to what is available now. People can look at them and easily recognize if they're on-target or not. Things like Improved Tracking affects all damage, so there is no real point to add that in when it can be calculated on top. Either way the ratios stay mostly the same. 50% crit is around what I get now in TBC fully raid buffed (+- 2%), and for the sake of numbers it's just easy to leave it at that. Differences in crit will adjust the numbers some but I doubt it will push favor for 3/3 PV more than tenths of a percent. I could take the shaman class into consideration for Serpent Sting, but then I could also apply a value of armor penetration towards the shots too.

I don't think that a situational use of Serpent Sting [in a group or raiding environment] justifies the talents for PV. Serpents gets partial resist on ticks too I think. *shrug* Nature-vulnerable enemy? Sting it. Otherwise.. meh

mako · 07/28/08, 3:47 PM

With two or three MM hunters, I think it's certainly possible to keep scorpid up 100% and chimera's scorpid debuff up for a high amount, but does that seem necessary?

I can say with a high degree of certainty, that there will be a maximum of one fight in WotLK that would have a significant benefit from such a strat (Think Patchwerk and Brutallus), however both fights mentioned also require(d) top DPS, meaning if MM remains a poor dps tree then it will not be viable.

Steelfleece · 07/28/08, 5:40 PM

Originally Posted by drmungkee

In TBC tried to make hunter gameplay revolve around skillfully weaving shots between auto-shots. All of that went out the window with shot rotation macros, leaving the class rolling the mousewheel for long periods of time and popping pots/BW/RF/Trinkets from time to time.

WOTLK seems like a new direction in gameplay for hunters. We'll need to manage our pet's focus bar well in order to maximize our dps. Considering the inconsistent nature of the focus bar due to GFTT, We'll actually need to pay attention to it rather than just sit there and spam macros.

-Some pet abilities have prohibitively high focus costs that won't work well with a focus dump auto-casting. We may be required to to shut it off to ensure other special abilities are cast as soon as their cooldown is up.

-Considering rabid is on a 10sec cooldown (reduced to 7sec with longevity) 30 second effect at the high cost of 60 focus, you can already see the micromanagement implications. This ability is clearly designed to be cast manually.

-The savage rend ability has great synergy with cobra strikes. I can see myself shutting off my focus dump every time the savage rend cooldown is about to end (40sec with longevity) so that I can ensure cobra strikes will affect it, guaranteeing a crit and 10% boost in pet AP for 30 seconds.

I think this new style of gameplay will be allot more interesting than what we've been accustomed to in the past.

In my experience on beta, I don't think rabid will autocast if the duration hasn't expired. I could be wrong, but I believe that is what I've witnessed so far. There seems to be some intelligence in the autocasting system, at least.

I should also note that savage rend only costs 25 focus, the same as any focus dump, so simply assigning savage rend to a macro (or using the hotkey) and spamming it when you see the cobra strikes proc go off seems to work (it has for me anyway). No need to take autocast off your focus dump.

Silverhorn · 07/28/08, 7:01 PM

To bring your attention to another point,which if discussed,skip this...

I noticed that with each level up we drastically loose on crit chance ? I checked talents,and none that affect crit or agility
are different between my live and copied character. Same for gear,as I have not changed a single piece.

Comparison :
Crit chance on paper doll : 37.41% (level 70)
Crit chance on paper doll : 31.86% (level 73)

Granted, I miss 5 skill points in Bows,but that accounts for a total of 0.2% crit, bringing it to 32.06% , which is still more
than 5% loss... and that only for 3 levels! With that tempo we will be diving on the crit percentage quite fast once at 80.

Any explanation ?

TheWicked22 · 07/28/08, 7:11 PM

Originally Posted by Silverhorn

To bring your attention to another point,which if discussed,skip this...

I noticed that with each level up we drastically loose on crit chance ? I checked talents,and none that affect crit or agility
are different between my live and copied character. Same for gear,as I have not changed a single piece.

Comparison :
Crit chance on paper doll : 37.41% (level 70)
Crit chance on paper doll : 31.86% (level 73)

Granted, I miss 5 skill points in Bows,but that accounts for a total of 0.2% crit, bringing it to 32.06% , which is still more
than 5% loss... and that only for 3 levels! With that tempo we will be diving on the crit percentage quite fast once at 80.

Any explanation ?

When you gain a level, the amount of critical strike rating you need for 1% crit goes up. Therefore, as you level your paper doll crit chance will go down.

Silverhorn · 07/28/08, 7:14 PM

Originally Posted by TheWicked22

When you gain a level, the amount of critical strike rating you need for 1% crit goes up. Therefore, as you level your paper doll crit chance will go down.

Figured as much,but isn't the formula spiring up at a quite high curve ? I am already afraid to think how it will turn up at 80.

Zurai · 07/28/08, 7:15 PM

Originally Posted by TheWicked22

When you gain a level, the amount of critical strike rating you need for 1% crit goes up. Therefore, as you level your paper doll crit chance will go down.

To be more clear, the amount of crit rating/agi you need to achieve 1% critical chance against a level X mob doesn't change. What changes is that the display is X = your level, so it's always increasing.

Originally Posted by Silverhorn

Figured as much,but isn't the formula spiring up at a quite high curve ? I am already afraid to think how it will turn up at 80.

It's no more severe than the curve was in TBC. I remember exactly the same questions being asked then.

Silverhorn · 07/28/08, 7:18 PM

Originally Posted by Zurai

It's no more severe than the curve was in TBC. I remember exactly the same questions being asked then.

Roger that,thanks for the answers.

drole · 07/28/08, 8:39 PM

Forgive me if this has been answered already. Currently on live if you jump and land right before your autoshot is about to fire your character needs to complete its landing animation before it can fire the autoshot. Is this the case with the instant autoshots on beta aswell?

Houze · 07/28/08, 8:45 PM

Originally Posted by Trogdor

The reason I set the numbers as it is, is because it's comparable to what is available now. People can look at them and easily recognize if they're on-target or not. Things like Improved Tracking affects all damage, so there is no real point to add that in when it can be calculated on top. Either way the ratios stay mostly the same. 50% crit is around what I get now in TBC fully raid buffed (+- 2%), and for the sake of numbers it's just easy to leave it at that. Differences in crit will adjust the numbers some but I doubt it will push favor for 3/3 PV more than tenths of a percent. I could take the shaman class into consideration for Serpent Sting, but then I could also apply a value of armor penetration towards the shots too.

I don't think that a situational use of Serpent Sting [in a group or raiding environment] justifies the talents for PV. Serpents gets partial resist on ticks too I think. *shrug* Nature-vulnerable enemy? Sting it. Otherwise.. meh

Well, only thing I'm against in the calculation is that calculation on a fully raid-buffed hunter (50% crit needs some heavy buffs and good gear) while not adding expected buffs for Serpent, Enhancement shamans will have 4 Stormstrike charges on 8 seconds refresh with talents, it will only be down if a elemental shaman spams nature bolts, so I would say it's fair to assume Stormstrike buff, so is Misery. That's 26% more damage for Serpent, you can't compare that damage modifier to some armor penetration, for a 7700 AC boss it would take some ~3700 armor penetration (you get the boss down to 0 AC here) to get the same effect and that's after normally debuffs are up (Sunder,FF,CoR).

It is however pretty clear that PV will not give anything near 3% dps increase (it will not even get as good as 2.7% dps increase, it doesn't buff the pet) as the damage that Serpent Sting does will be surpassed by all other shots pretty soon when gearing up and that makes it a bad investment of talent points.

PV might have some usage on entry level raiding, but after that it will loose it usage, it either needs to be buffed or Serpent Sting needs to be buffed.

Overall are the new talents not adding that much dps-increase, look on the BM-tree, Aspect Mastery gives very little, Cobra Strikes adds some crit's on pet specials but arn't those still static in damage and don't scale with attack power? Longevity or Beast Mastery maybe are the best new dps-talents for BM-hunters, but how good are they when talking dps-increase in percent?

MM-

Ele · 07/28/08, 8:53 PM

Originally Posted by Houze

Well, only thing I'm against in the calculation is that calculation on a fully raid-buffed hunter (50% crit needs some heavy buffs and good gear) while not adding expected buffs for Serpent, Enhancement shamans will have 4 Stormstrike charges on 8 seconds refresh with talents, it will only be down if a elemental shaman spams nature bolts, so I would say it's fair to assume Stormstrike buff, so is Misery. That's 26% more damage for Serpent, you can't compare that damage modifier to some armor penetration, for a 7700 AC boss it would take some ~3700 armor penetration (you get the boss down to 0 AC here) to get the same effect and that's after normally debuffs are up (Sunder,FF,CoR).

It is however pretty clear that PV will not give anything near 3% dps increase (it will not even get as good as 2.7% dps increase, it doesn't buff the pet) as the damage that Serpent Sting does will be surpassed by all other shots pretty soon when gearing up and that makes it a bad investment of talent points.

PV might have some usage on entry level raiding, but after that it will loose it usage, it either needs to be buffed or Serpent Sting needs to be buffed.

Overall are the new talents not adding that much dps-increase, look on the BM-tree, Aspect Mastery gives very little, Cobra Strikes adds some crit's on pet specials but arn't those still static in damage and don't scale with attack power? Longevity or Beast Mastery maybe are the best new dps-talents for BM-hunters, but how good are they when talking dps-increase in percent?

MM-

Unless they are changing how stormstrike and serpent sting work, it's not gonna come out like that. I believe ssting behaves like deadly poisons, so no stormstrike effect for it (although likely for the chimera effect), also stormstrike charges will probably be eaten fast by rogue poisons, as they no longer need to ignore poisoning mainhands for windfury.
Eventually moonkin (using wrath in the rotation) and elemental shamans using lightning bolts will complain so poisons won't steal their charges

Trogdor · 07/28/08, 9:52 PM

Originally Posted by Houze

Well, only thing I'm against in the calculation is that calculation on a fully raid-buffed hunter (50% crit needs some heavy buffs and good gear) while not adding expected buffs for Serpent, Enhancement shamans will have 4 Stormstrike charges on 8 seconds refresh with talents, it will only be down if a elemental shaman spams nature bolts, so I would say it's fair to assume Stormstrike buff, so is Misery. That's 26% more damage for Serpent, you can't compare that damage modifier to some armor penetration, for a 7700 AC boss it would take some ~3700 armor penetration (you get the boss down to 0 AC here) to get the same effect and that's after normally debuffs are up (Sunder,FF,CoR).

I don't understand how this even makes sense. An enhance shaman is going to earth shock, so that eats up a charge. Most SV hunters use a windserpent with lightning breath firing off as fast as GCD allows. Sometimes we also have an elemental shaman and/or a boomkin. So in an 8-second time period, we're supposed to consider a 20% damage boost on one, two ticks max, of serpent sting? I do think that an additional 68 damage per tick, or a grand total of 952 damage per minute (2 ticks of serpent at 20% more damage per tick per 8-seconds of stormstrike for an entire minute) is completely comparable to the damage modifier from armor penetration, since the armor penetration is going to effect every auto, steady, and kill shot.

With max buffs and GoA, I do hit 50% crit rate in a raid so it is completely feasible. Armor penetration in your gear gets better as the target has more armor debuffs applied too, easily increasing damage output by 3-6% depending.

The numbers in the calculations reflect damage by weapons available now. Any weapons available at level 80 are going to deal more auto, steady, and kill shot damage. This should have been easy to determine. The net increase of RAP from level 70 to level 80 is still not going to be enough to make Serpent Sting more useful than it is now. This is unless they make changes to it; Potent Venom isn't fixing it.

Zurai · 07/28/08, 10:26 PM

Some more info on exotic pets and their roles, as well as pet talents in general:

Originally Posted by Ghostcrawler

The exotic pets will be different from normal pets. Ideally they might even be a little bit better, but we're very hesitant to make them too good lest we see every hunter stampede over to the BM tree. Pets are supposed to be something important to all kinds of hunters, and the BM tree already offers some amazing pet buffs and synergy. We just don't want to overdo it with this talent.

At the very least, the exotic pets will have a new family ability that will ideally be really useful in some situations. I'm making this one up, but imagine that since normal crabs have Pin, an exotic pet might have a Pin-like ability that did fire damage. Or imagine that you could tame a drake (you can't, because they aren't beasts) and that instead of lightning or fire breath, it had frost breath that could freeze an enemy, death knight style. Would this be useful? Probably. Does it make the 51-point talent mandatory? Ideally not. Though those 5 talent points aren't bad....

As far as what happens if you have an exotic pet and respec, most likely the pet's talents will just reset. Yeah you get a free pet respec out of the deal, but it's not as if it's free since the hunter has to respec. Any exotic pets in the stable won't be lost, but you wouldn't be able to get them out of the stable either. If you have an exotic pet at the moment you respec, then it will probably be dismissed (but not abandoned) and you won't be able to summon it again, forcing you to go swap it into the stable. (Or abandon it if you're THAT kind of hunter.)

Originally Posted by Ghostcrawler

Great thread. Because the pet talents are such a new feature, all of this feedback is really useful.

A couple of things to keep in mind:

The bottom talents in particular need to have some pretty stringent pre-reqs so that hunters can't just cherry pick all of the active abilities. We can and will iterate on what those pre-req talents are though.

Active pet abilities in general represent some interesting design challenges. On the one hand, if the hunter just programs the pet and puts it on autopilot, then having unique abilities just sort of blends into a generic +dps for the pet. On the other hand, it would be sad if hunters never took the active abilities because the pet has trouble using the expensive ones and the hunter feels like he already has too many of his own abilities to hit.

This is something on which we'll try to hit a reasonable balance. Warlocks seem to have a pretty decent mix of demon abilities that can be used by the demon AI and some that the warlock specifically needs to use.

Trifle · 07/28/08, 10:30 PM

Last I checked stormstrike doesn't affect dots at all, it only boosts damage of the next few nature direct damage spells. Has this changed recently ?

takel · 07/28/08, 10:53 PM

Originally Posted by Ele

Unless they are changing how stormstrike and serpent sting work, it's not gonna come out like that. I believe ssting behaves like deadly poisons, so no stormstrike effect for it (although likely for the chimera effect), also stormstrike charges will probably be eaten fast by rogue poisons, as they no longer need to ignore poisoning mainhands for windfury.
Eventually moonkin (using wrath in the rotation) and elemental shamans using lightning bolts will co