This isn't a shaman thread, lets keep that discussion out of here. If we want to discuss snares and their effect on us as a whole, great. But bitching about Frost Shock is not what this thread is here for.

Not all specs have it, not to mention Beast Mastery is not a PvP spec for many reasons. Plus it is on a 2 minute timer and really does not stop people from sticking in our dead zone. If I were to do nothing but duel 1v1 all day long, I would certainly take Beast Within, because that is the only situation where it is powerful. In arenas, Beast Within is quite lackluster and on too long a cooldown to justify taking it over Scatter shot, silence, or improved stings. BM is a one-trick pony, and once that trick is used it really does not take long to pick that Hunter apart.

If you go to Geekboys what do you see? Beastmastery as the most popular spec (41/20/0). What you dont see is that people 1) respec to MM for arenas and back to BM for raiding, and 2) many dont spend 100g a week to respec to a decent arena spec. 41/20 is a raiding spec, pure and simple, not a PvP spec. All of the top arena hunters who do nothing but arena are 100% MM with extra points in survival.

Actually I have to disagree. Partially anyway. In my 3v3 team I spec as BM 41/20/0 (not pve spec though ofcourse), I find it much better because as MM you'll get easily snared with 2 dpsers on you. My 3v3 is a 2.2k team so it's not like i'm nubing it as BM in 3v3.

This doesn't mean that MM is not good for 3v3, but I know for a fact that BM is viable in 3v3.

The advantage of BM (besides having a very hard to kill pet) is serpent's swiftness, I literally use my pve steady/auto/kc macro and do very high damage, and it is very rarely interrupted because of the fast cast speed. Between Bestial Wrath, Trinket, Pet Stun, Traps and just good old kiting, it's hard to snare me for long. I run with a resto druid and either a rogue or a mage as the second dps class.

For 2v2 BM is viable if you're in a 2x DPS combo (nelf hunter and a rogue mostly).

I run 2v2 with a paladin so I am specced MM for that. Normally 0/41/20 or 0/42/19. Also 2.2k team.

For 5v5 I agree that MM is better, though I think a Survival/MM (Wyvern/Scatter) build has alot of potential (and even more so in 2.3). Resourcefulness + Clever Traps + Entrapment makes for a very nice combo in 5v5 imho, and you'll still have improved stings and scatter shot. You'll lose silencing shot, barrage/imp barrage and some AP, but you'll gain crits and more frequent traps, and you'll be in more control of the fight imo. But I have yet to test this spec in 5v5.

These changes are really...strange. Based on previous experience (i.e. the history of WoW) it would be very difficult to say that the developers actually understand what is wrong with the hunter class. But even if they had an accurate assessment of our glaring weaknesses just in Arena play, I'm not quite sure this is how you address them...

Being forced into a spec isn't something new for any class, so to say that it is an issue with hunters (WHAT DO YOU MEAN I HAVE TO HAVE IMPROVED STINGS??!?!?!?) is sort of besides the point. The main problem with hunters is that they lack the value that another class would bring in an Arena team (I guess we're limiting this discussion to 5v5, right?). This is glaringly obvious in hunter underrepresentation in 5v5 Arena teams. The real question is why?

Although my Arena experience is pitifully low, I would probably point to the following factors based not only on my limited Arena experience, but on my (I would say) rather extensive PvP and dueling experience in WoW in general:

1) Lack of "burst" DPS (Blizzard would call this a "transition to sustained DPS"). With the removal of Aimed Shot from pretty much everyone's toolbars due to its activation of the Auto Shot timer, hunters do not have a "guaranteed pwn" damage skill or combination of skills which they can use to help focus-fire kill targets. They are relegated to spamming shots and hoping for lucky crits.

2) Lack of survivability. Hunters have very little in what I would call the "Get Out of Jail Free" deck of cards. Once an Arena team chooses to focus fire a hunter, he has, for all intents and purposes, nothing he can do about it. Yes, you can spec as BM to become unkiteable for a limited amount of time, but this comes at a huge cost to your utility (no Scatter Shot, no Silencing Shot, no Improved Stings) and is on a comparably very long cooldown timer. Ironically, Survival hunters only have Deterrence (a laughingly bad skill against post-TBC melee classes), and that is if they choose to spend the points in it. The only "real" survivability skills are all passive health increase or damage reduction modifiers, which often come at a huge opportunity cost in relation to the other skills available, particularly if you are going with what is generally accepted as the "best" overall Arena spec - Marksmanship.


3) Lack of overall utility. Currently, hunters bring the following utility-type skills (meaning they serve a purpose beyond simply dealing damage) regardless of spec: Freeze Trap, Frost Trap, Snake Trap, Hunter's Mark, Flare, Scare Beast, Aspect of the Pack, Aspect of the Wild, Track Humanoids, Track Beasts, Track Hidden, Volley, Concussive Shot, Wing Clip, and Viper Sting. This list might "seem" long, but comparatively speaking, it is miniscule. Especially when you really look at this list and tick off exactly how useful, and in which situations, each skill is. Three of them are anti-stealth measures: Flare, Track Hidden, and Hunter's Mark (and Volley - the only times a hunter uses Volley is to break stealth or to kill snakes from an opposing hunter's Snake Trap). Two of them require a significant opportunity cost (Aspect of the Pack, Aspect of the Wild) and are very rarely used either because they aren't worth the other skills (Aspect of the Hawk, Aspect of the Viper, Aspect of the Cheetah, Aspect of the Monkey) or because you would have to be an idiot to use them (Aspect of the Pack?!?!?!). Track Humanoids and Track Beasts are very, very limited in use. Traps, like Aspects, take a huge opportunity cost hit, especially when you consider that dropping a Freeze Trap to stop one target (who can subsequently be dispelled or accidentally hit out of) costs you the chance to drop a Frost or Snake trap for 30 full seconds. Wing Clip has the rather hilarious component of requiring that you be in melee range of your target - the irony being that the only things you want to Wing Clip are exactly those things which you don't want to spend any time in melee range with. Conversely, Concussive Shot can only be fired at targets beyond your deadzone, which is a rather dubious requirement considering that anything which you want to hit with a Concussive Shot will invariably be chasing you and will, more likely than not, be within your minimum range. Viper Sting is useful, but has been significantly nerfed with a 15 second cooldown, and can easily be dispelled unless the target has other poisons continually being applied. Blah Blah Blah.

Long story short - the only real skills we bring are traps and Viper Sting. Marksmanship hunters bring Scatter Shot, Improved Stings, and Silencing Shot (and, if they're smart, Entrapment). Beast Mastery hunters bring a strong pet and the ability to become unkiteable for 18 seconds every two minutes. Survival Hunters bring...umm...Expose Weakness. And Wyvern Sting. /cough Taking a look at the above it's no wonder why Marksmanship has become the spec du jour for Arena play. It's the only spec which even remotely adequately increases a hunter's utility so that he can compare with other classes.


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These things wouldn't be so bad were it not for the fact that they have a significant synergy with regards to Arena play and how they detrimentally affect hunters. A hunter is more easily killed because he can't get away quickly. There is no skill or combination of skills such as Frost Nova+Blink, Vanish+Shadowstep, Vanish+Sprint, Intervene/Intercept, Psychic Scream, Howl of Terror, Bubble of Hearthstone, Shield Wall, Flimsy Mana Shield, Automatic Root On Anything Attacking You + constant shapeshifting to remove roots/snares, etc. etc. etc. to just GET AWAY or GET THEM OFF and buy even two seconds - hunters require dedicated healing/decursing the entire time. "But Goreshot," you might ask, "what about SHAMAN?!?!? All they have is Earthbind and Frost Shock!" Earthbind is a rough equivalent of Frost Trap, albeit slightly weaker (and I'd argue, just as powerful if used correctly, on a shorter cooldown, and with much lower opportunity cost). Frost Shock? Frost Shock is the bomb diggity. I'm thoroughly convinced that if you gave hunters a shot which was equivalent to Frost Shock, in that it could only be cast within 20+ yards and could be spammed every 6 seconds, it would go a long, long way towards alleviating a good portion of our problems in Arena play. I would gladly trade both Wing Clip and Concussive Shot for Frost Shock. Ask any other good hunter, and they would say the same. And no, hunters would not become invincible gods if we obtained a Frost Shock equivalent. The simple fact of the matter is that <b>we can't do anything in the deadzone</b>. So with Frost Shock, all we would get is some modicum of ability to <b>keep you from doing too much to us while we run the hell away<b>. And that is the essence of how shaman use Frost Shock in Arenas. Except they can still actually do useful things like Purge and drop totems and all that jazz while running away. Which is why it's generally better to bring a shaman instead of a hunter.

But back to what I was saying. Because hunters can't get away well, we often become focus fire targets, and we often die first without being able to do much of anything. Even if we manage to survive (through a combination of gear, skill, and awesome healing/decursing/support), our damage-dealing capacity is limited. We can't chase stuff while we're attacking. The only direct damage we can do while on the run is Arcane Shot. Auto Shot and Multi Shot require you to stand still for at least 0.5 seconds server time to fire. Steady shot can't even be fired unless: a) we aren't being attacked, and b) we have enough time to actually stand there for 1.5 seconds while it casts. So while we're busy trying to survive (which we're worse at than everyone else), we can't do much of any damage (most especially of the burst variety, where we're already sorely lacking), and we really don't have much utility because everything is on a 20-30 second cooldown timer.

A hunter can spend 1 full minute kiting, and only get two traps, two Scatter Shots, three Silencing Shots, and four Viper Stings off in that span. It may seem like a lot, except when you consider that a Shaman can pump out 10 shocks (Earth/Frost), four Earthbind Totems, 4 Grounding Totems, and as many Purges/Totems/Cure Poison/Cure Disease (if he elects not to use the totem) as he wants in the leftover 26 Global Cooldowns. Did I mention Earth Shield? I could've, but I didn't.

In Arena play, you are basically separated into three classes. Classes that do the hunting, classes that get hunted down, and classes that live long enough not to justify getting hunted down first. Hunters, ironically, don't do enough damage to be in the first group and pale in comparison to other classes in the third group. Really, that leaves them in the second group, along with, uh, warriors in leather. Sorry. I couldn't think of any other class in the game that immediately screams "Kill me first!" in 5vs5 Arena. But maybe I'm wrong?


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But yeah, back to those changes. The one I see bringing the most benefit is the change to Arcane Shot. It makes me think that Blizzard is trying to "sidegrade" the Hunter class into extra utility by giving them something from another class with which they're directly competing. Namely, Shaman with Purge. The funny thing is, I'm betting this ability came about when they figured out what it took the rest of us 10 seconds to realize - that a Mortal Strike-like shot would be an unwieldy combination of over- and under-powered, and that it would be too dependent upon how they timed it (cooldown, cast time, etc.) to be properly balanced. I'm betting that rather than do all this work to get a "fix" that at the end of the day really wouldn't do much of anything (any team that wants Mortal Strike will bring a warrior, Rogues can already do almost the same thing and that doesn't prompt anyone to bring them over a warrior), , they decided to throw us another bone in the utility department.

It seems...nice. If I were a betting man, I'd wager that only the good hunters will really make the best use out of this new skill. It requires the ability to not only get away without dying, but to pay attention well enough to know which target you want to hit with an Arcane Shot while you're running around like a headless chicken. Well, Shaman already do it, so I guess hunters will figure it out soon enough. It's not like the smart ones didn't already watch for who to hit with a Silencing/Scatter Shot while on the run.

The change to Wyvern Sting does almost nothing to help make the skill more palatable. It isn't so much the cast time as the idiotically long cooldown which hurts the ability.

I'm guessing the change to Serpent Sting will help us anywhere from a tiny bit to a tremendous amount in the damage department (particularly the damage done while on the run), but that would depend upon the scaling Blizzard decides implements.

Immolation and Explosive Trap? LoL.


I await the inevitable "You have been crit by Wall of Text" replies.

Actually I read that whole thing, Goreshot, and you're correct in many areas. I think some things really need to be tried before we start dropping "lol" prefixes on them however, and hunter traps are one of them.
Yeah, 10% of RAP doesn't seem like it will help, but maybe somehow... just somehow.. that change, in conjunction with the reduction of cooldown and increased damage survival talents, will actually put explosive and immolation trap on the hotbar as decent melee range tools. Could be?

To reply to a previous reply...
You can have scatter and wyvern obviously, the silence I mentioned is from the mage's CS if specced that way.

Hunter "burst", if only just a steady/arc/auto, is comparable to frostmage (fb/lance) or shadowpriest (mb/swd) burst, considering frostbolt is a 2.5 cast. The mage is probably going to land that on a frozen target however while the priest gains the benefit of dots as well so it isn't quite the same. The thing is, you have long range nuking potential, a pet, mana drain, and good cc abilities which have just been made more varied (instant wyvern sting). Scatter is an amazing peel and frosttrap is just good for everyone.
These issues you've listed are all covered by your teammates, more or less.
Earlier in the thread I mentioned rogue/mage/hunter. How anyone could ever stay in your deadzone with those two classes snaring and rooting is beyond me. You all know the hunter class well I imagine, so take these buffs and see what you can do with them in new combinations.
Further tweaking may be needed, but I think these changes are great and I look forward to playing with and against more hunters.

I would love to see your theorycraft or logs that show auto/steady being equivalent in burst damage to frostbolt/ice-lance or mindblast/shadow word death. Hyperbole is something we generally stay away from around here.

I have a shadowpriest myself.. auto-steady, even when they crit, do not come close (partly because of armor mitigation, say 1k auto crit, 1.5k steady, a single Mind Blast crit can do more already..)

Problem is, Blizzard must maintaing a careful balance here. In the past many attempts have been made at fan-designing a burst dps shot for our class, but there's always PvE to consider.

And as other's have said I would love to trade in Wing Clip for a ranged slowing effect that deals more damage than my auto-shot

The best idea I've heard has been a sort of reverse intercept or blink like ability and would hardly be extremely overpowered given the fact that most classes (except shamans) already have a means of getting close to us (except classes that don't need to do so of course). Sprint, shadowstep, feral charge, intercept (on a 15sec cooldown even..).. the classes we fear most can get close without a problem. And getting away either means burning a long cooldown (trinket/BW) or relying on specific team setups.

Arena PvP should be more about skilled use of abilities and counter-abilities to gain an upper-hand, not be reduced to requiring Blessing of Freedom + slow trap to be functional.

The problem with just upping hunter damage is that it won't fix hunters in smaller arenas, while just enforcing 4 dps in 5s.

And in fact it's even worse than that -- my MB or SWD will *hit* for greater than most hunters auto/steady will *crit* for.

Hunters are hurt due to a few things -- on a map like BEM they are stronger due to the bridge, but by and large the terrain hurts a hunter greatly on any of the arena maps. It's just too easy to LoS them and then they are almost totally useless. Any time we've had a hunter be effective against us in 5v5, it's because we were dumbasses and a) didn't LoS him and b) didn't target him first. Well, any class would be effective in that situation, but the distinct difference is that's the ONLY way a hunter can really be effective.

Yeah I think you're right. The reason hunter damage is low in arenas is because you can just walk out of it.

I think a clever way to handle it would be to make aimed shot instant cast if you haven't fired a shot at your current target for five seconds. They could make aimed shot baseline while they're at it if necessary.

This way as soon as you get line of sight again on your target you smack them nice and hard.

From PvP to pet abilities to shot rotations, I've been thinking this for months. There are so many ideas floating around to help us, even just in this thread, and they come up with adding a dispel... who asked for that?

An instant Aimed Shot is an interesting idea, but I don't see how it could work without being OP in PvE. If we have to go 5 seconds without attacking for it to be active, then it lights up every time we move during a fight. If it takes much longer, it's back to being useless for PvP.

I don't think we'll ever see much of a fix to LoS problems. To a lesser extent it is an issue for every ranged class, and I think Blizzard likes it that way. I know I've ruined the evening of a few mages by making them chase me around a pillar while a HoT ticks up.

Unless they're holding back some major info, hunter PvP in 2.3 is going to be exactly like hunter PvP in 2.2.