WotLK Talents & Abilities Discussion - Page 101

Shandara · 09/11/08, 2:17 PM

Well, if any beta tester can check how much their armour penetration rating actually gives we could make a better estimate. Figuring out the rating-per-point at level 80 shouldn't be too hard.

My take on the conversion is that they want to reduce the power of the stat in PvP while making it (even) more powerful in PvE (assuming mobs have very high armour values).

Bovii · 09/11/08, 2:20 PM

Originally Posted by Chul

* Most Pet Skills - All ranks had a slight damage increase or decrease.
* Froststorm Breath - All ranks now slow for 5 seconds.
* Glyph of Aimed Shot - Now only reduces the cooldown by .5 seconds instead of 1
* Lock and Load - Now only affects your next shot, not the next 3.
* T.N.T. - Chance to stun only on when trap lands, and now increase the critical strike chance of your Explosive Shot and Explosive Trap by 3/6/9%, down from 5/10/15%
* Kill Shot - Now deals 200% weapon damage plus [RAP * 0.3 + 400.0] instead of weapon damage plus [RAP * 0.15 + 2500.0].
* Hunting Party - Effect now listed as lasting for 15 seconds.
* Master's Call - Can no longer be cast while stunned.
* Aspect Mastery - Aspect of the Monkey - Reduces the damage done to you while active by 5%, down from 10%. Aspect of the Hawk - Increases the attack power bonus by 30%, down from 50%.
* Cobra Strikes - Only next 2 of pets attacks will benefit, down from 3.
* Invigoration - Now gives a 50/100% chance to instantly regenerate 1% mana instead of giving instant regen of 1/2% of mana.
* Improved Steady Shot - Now only reduces mana cost by 20%, down from 40%.
* Aspect of the Viper - Now each ranged attack regenerates a percentage of maximum mana equal to base ranged weapon speed, down from 100% of damage done. Still incurs 50% less damage.
* Deterrence - No longer gives a 60% chance to resist all spell attacks for 10 sec

With Explosive Shot pulsing, something which I VERY MUCH disagree with, the change to TNT makes sense. Plus, the SV crit chance is going to be high enough without tacking on another 15% on top of it. Not a bad change and not game breaking. The only downside that I see is that it now pretty much denies any added benefits of Explosive Trap. The chance to stun only on the initial impact of the trap/shot means that we no longer have a Stun equivalent of Entrapment. This pretty much means that you're only getting TNT to fill points and to boost your Ex Shot instead of anything else due to the randomness and low probability of the tertiary effects kicking in.

I can understand the changes to LnL. The reasoning being based on all of the internet videos of people glorifying the absurdity of this talent. As it stands, LnL will proc on the initial tick of a trap and that is fine. BUT, what is making it obscene is the fact that if you pull multiple mobs over a Frost Trap/Explosive Trap, LnL procs. When they clear the trap and then are kited back over it, LnL will proc again. Snake Trap, to my understanding, was never working properly with it but, if it had, you'd have LnL procing multiple times every time a Snake would put poison on a different target. In my opinion, they should have done the following:

- LnL has a 33/66/100% chance on a trapped target and a 13/26/40% chance on a successful critical attack to cause your next 3 Arcane or Explosive Shots to incur no mana cost, cost no ammo, and cause no cool down. This effect cannot occur more than once every X seconds.

By adding a cool down on the ability, you maintain the integrity of the ability and prevent it from being abused as it currently is. It does nothing but nerf the SV and MM uses of this talent by doing anything differently. NOW, you will notice that I got rid of the serpent sting junk with this talent. I hate Wyvern Sting, I hate Noxious Poisons, and I despise the fact that they're mixing in the Stings with the SV tree. It isn't a horrible thing to mix and match abilities across all three trees but what they've done, to this point, is just lazy. Granted, the change to FINALLY making the 5/10/15% chance on LnL to be based on a per proc basis was needed and should have been implemented from the beginning. But, I think adding a crit function to the talent instead of the current sting nature is more fitting to the nature of the tree and the talent.

As for Deterrence, I can only hope that they're going to redesign it. But for right now, it is a bad bag of mixed tricks that just isn't doing anything for us.

Ketari · 09/11/08, 2:40 PM

Originally Posted by Lactose

While Invigoration might have been performing poorly in some tests, I wouldn't give it too much weight.
Personally, the only reports I've heard from others about Invigoration have been from soloing or similar - not so much bosses or raid scenarios. From my own personal experience and testing I know Invigoration isn't all that awesome in soloing, for a number of reasons:
- Pet is using global cooldowns on e.g. Growl, reducing amount of special attacks and the use of active Invigoration charges.
- Single fights don't last enough for a freshly procced Invigoration to be of much use - if I crit a mob, it will rarely (if ever) survive long enough for 3 special attacks from my pet.
- Pet is often spending some time stunned, or snared while the mob runs off to kill me after critting. The pet often lags behind, unable to attack at all before the mob is dead (this might be related to the extreme latency we're experiencing at times, though).

Balanced against that:

- The combo just took a considerable nerf
- There are plenty of bosses and even some mobs where your pet cannot safely DPS (You forget how fragile it is without 2/5 T5 sometimes...)
- Pet crit dosn't scale

If you have a Ret pally, then when you consider it's an effective 8 talent points...

ZulazeeluIcecrown · 09/11/08, 2:51 PM

Originally Posted by Ketari

Balanced against that:

- The combo just took a considerable nerf
- There are plenty of bosses and even some mobs where your pet cannot safely DPS (You forget how fragile it is without 2/5 T5 sometimes...)
- Pet crit dosn't scale

If you have a Ret pally, then when you consider it's an effective 8 talent points...

You apparently forgot that Ferocity pets have a self-healing ability. The number of fights where pets cannot safely DPS is hopefully going to be zero. Pet crit does scale with Cobra Strikes.

Tyne2 · 09/11/08, 2:55 PM

Originally Posted by Lactose

Regarding Kill Shot, most (every?) shot referring to Weapon Damage refer to the base damage on the weapon itself. In Steady Shot's case, this is normalized to that of a 2.8 speed weapon, but for everything else I can think of it's just the pure listed weapon range.

Silencing Shot, Scatter Shot and Chimera Shot all list “%Weapon Damage”, and I’m pretty sure they all use either an auto-shot or a normalized auto-shot. I’m not MM spec right now, but I remember my Scatter and Silencing were doing more than Weapon DPS * Weapon Speed *0.5.

◊ Lactose · 09/11/08, 3:33 PM

Originally Posted by Ketari

Balanced against that:

- The combo just took a considerable nerf
- There are plenty of bosses and even some mobs where your pet cannot safely DPS (You forget how fragile it is without 2/5 T5 sometimes...)
- Pet crit dosn't scale

If you have a Ret pally, then when you consider it's an effective 8 talent points...

Yes, the talents were nerfed, I'm just saying that saying the nerf isn't justified based on tests done in a manner that do not accurately represent a raid scenario isn't the best way of comparing things.
I'm not forgetting how fragile the pet is without 2/5 Tier 5; I've hardly used it.

Originally Posted by Shandara

Well, if any beta tester can check how much their armour penetration rating actually gives we could make a better estimate. Figuring out the rating-per-point at level 80 shouldn't be too hard.

I'll see what I get done tonight. Might have some results up, including how Piercing Shots stack with armor penetration on gear.

Originally Posted by Tyne2

Silencing Shot, Scatter Shot and Chimera Shot all list “%Weapon Damage”, and I’m pretty sure they all use either an auto-shot or a normalized auto-shot. I’m not MM spec right now, but I remember my Scatter and Silencing were doing more than Weapon DPS * Weapon Speed *0.5.

Hmm, you're right. I'll try to do a couple of tests on this as well. I'm not quite sure how I'll sort the tests out, but I'll post results when I'm done (this also applies to the armor penetration test).

Galred · 09/11/08, 4:54 PM

Have the devs posted anywhere an explanation of why Hunter set gear has so much Haste? And if not... can someone with a Beta key make a polite request to do so in the Beta forums?

I'd really like to hear why we'll want all that Haste, from a developer's standpoint, because I think that the devs and the itemization team have something in mind.

Shandara · 09/11/08, 4:57 PM

Originally Posted by Galred

Have the devs posted anywhere an explanation of why Hunter set gear has so much Haste? And if not... can someone with a Beta key make a polite request to do so in the Beta forums?

I'd really like to hear why we'll want all that Haste, from a developer's standpoint, because I think that the devs and the itemization team have something in mind.

It is unlikely they haven't noticed the commotion on all hunter forums (beta or not). That they have chosen not to reply to any of the threads (QQ/emo and well-founded alike) is something we will have to accept for now really.

It is a bit surprising though, considering they have 'huge spreadsheets' that tell them things.

Bovii · 09/11/08, 5:05 PM

It isn't actually that surprising. When it comes to this kind of development work, they often time divide teams into seperate groups. so, it wouldn't surprise me that the gear team is unaware of the total impact that their choices are having on the overall class mechanics and how they interact. I can tell you that there isn't as much inter-company coordination and communication as you would think. I just spent the past 4 hours, today, trying to figure out why it is that my team wasn't notified of a change when we are directly impacted AND we handle the financial end of those changes. To the common person on the outside looking in, you scratch your head and wonder hwy it is so inefficient anstupid. But, you get inside and then you realize how messed up it really is.

Levidian · 09/11/08, 5:22 PM

Originally Posted by Jawbone

I'm really concerned about the Armor Penetration changes. As with all percentile based reductions, the more someone has the better the reduction is against them. Take some quick napkin maths:

A previous poster said that 1700~ actuall is now 30%~, so I'll be using those numbers.

15000 armor - 30.00% = 10500
15000 armor - 1700 = 13300
new system better

10000 armor - 30.00% = 7000
10000 armor - 1700 = 8300
new system better

5000 armor - 30.00% = 3500
5000 armor - 1700 = 3300
old system better

If the stat factors current armor over maximum armor, then reductions to the targets armor from our pets, our warriors, our druids, etc., will actually decrease the effectiveness of a stat we're finding all over our gear. This also means that casters, who frequently find themselves sub-5k armor, will be more resilient (before resilience) against all physical attacks, while we have no additional protection against them.

Layman's terms: Casters will always have armor against physical targets, but physical (and all classes for that matter) have no solid stat to reduce damage from spells. I do not count resists because of how horrible the mechanic is. Armor ALWAYS prevents direct physical damage, resists SOMETIMES prevent spell damage.

Please tell me I'm reading all this wrong. I dearly want to be wrong.

The change is to keep people from being able to shove clothies to zero armor, and helps address some of the problems with ARpen's amazing scaling as you stack the stat.

Ketari · 09/11/08, 5:28 PM

Originally Posted by Galred

Have the devs posted anywhere an explanation of why Hunter set gear has so much Haste? And if not... can someone with a Beta key make a polite request to do so in the Beta forums?

I'd really like to hear why we'll want all that Haste, from a developer's standpoint, because I think that the devs and the itemization team have something in mind.

Why? Mana regen.

Levidian · 09/11/08, 5:38 PM

Originally Posted by Ketari

Why? Mana regen.

God I hope that isn't the reason. I would like to think it's because they're overvaluing the benefit we gain from haste if anything.

Shandara · 09/11/08, 5:43 PM

Originally Posted by Levidian

God I hope that isn't the reason. I would like to think it's because they're overvaluing the benefit we gain from haste if anything.

Well the haste on the available gear was there long before the Viper changes and a great many changes seemed to be set against making haste increase procs (i.e. JoW internal CD, Replenishment being a flat per second gain).

Helvetica · 09/11/08, 5:43 PM

Originally Posted by Ketari

Why? Mana regen.

I understand how haste could effect mana regen, but i'm not sure i understand why they would decide to tie mana regen to haste rating when they could simply adjust the regen from viper. I'm not convinced mana regen is the simple answer your making it out to be.

vraket · 09/11/08, 6:52 PM

From Aspect of the Viper: Numbers & Videos (LONG) Koraa posted this (emphasis mine):

Thanks. Our intent was not really to reduce it's power, but make it equally powerful for the guy in green gear vs the guy in epics. We'll do some more tuning on it.

It seems the heavy-handed nerf to AotV wasn't completely intended, but was instead an (arguably somewhat failed) attempt at making it useful regardless of gear-level. So there's still hope for it.

One thing this brings to mind though is that in effect it'll still be a slight nerf since the guy completely decked in epics will have a rather larger mana-pool than someone in greens, and will subsequently need more time to fill up. I don't think we'll get the previous version (or an equivalent) back, but I'll happily settle for something in between these two, which will still be a lot better (atleast for PvE) than the current live version.

Catalept · 09/11/08, 7:07 PM

Originally Posted by Aym

That depends on your spec. For example, as a PvE survival hunter, there is quite a difference between my steady shot and my explosive shot. Its not nearly as big for MM hunters, obviously, as they just use arcane shot.

Yes, but even if Explosive Shot did 100% more (single-target) damage than Steady, one cooldown-free ES every 30 seconds would only mean a 5% increase in damage from specials. Even if specials accounted for 40% of our DPS, that'd still mean a 3-point talent would give a 2% increase in damage.

I think it's obvious that the primary intent of the talent is to give traps a little more kick, with the 'proc on sting' effect just an attempt to make it useful on boss fights. Hopefully the tuning gods will come up with an elegant solution... I like the concept... it'd be a shame for it to end up another footnote talent.

Galred · 09/11/08, 7:14 PM

Originally Posted by Ketari

Why? Mana regen.

Quite possibly this is the answer, but I'd still like to hear it from the devs. If instead it's just poor communicaiton between the class devs and the itemization team, I'd like to know that too.

Ketari · 09/11/08, 7:27 PM

Originally Posted by Helvetica

I understand how haste could effect mana regen, but i'm not sure i understand why they would decide to tie mana regen to haste rating when they could simply adjust the regen from viper. I'm not convinced mana regen is the simple answer your making it out to be.

I'm not making it out to be anything.
It's inherent in the design of the ability as it stands.
It may not be what they intended, but...

"equally powerful for the guy in green gear vs the guy in epic"

i.e. nerf inbound.

Sorry, Koraa, but the wording of that is a dead giveaway you think it still scales to well.

Pintofbrew · 09/11/08, 7:29 PM

Originally Posted by Ketari

Evocation versus AotV

I took a post by another poster who was pleased with AotV, agreed with it and added some of my own perspective, and you're turning my post into a "mage's ability versus hunter's ability" argument.

I am not interested in arguing this point, nor is it relevant to the thread. I never said you do have alternative economy mechanics (at least not ones which aren't pathetic, like Efficiency) and my intention was neither to bitch that "your" ability was better than "ours" nor that you should be happy with it because I'd like it if I were you.

I'm not qualified to comment on whether or not AotV in it's current incarnation is any good in a raiding environment, but I sure can see it's more flexible than it used to be, a lot more useful and non-punishing. The only time it was better than what it is now is it's previous form, which was clearly totally deranged. Whether or not it's better than Evo is irrelevant and pointless, so please don't respond to my post as though I opened up a mage-v-hunter argument, because that was never my intention.

Xardion · 09/11/08, 9:31 PM

Originally Posted by Shandara

Well, if any beta tester can check how much their armour penetration rating actually gives we could make a better estimate. Figuring out the rating-per-point at level 80 shouldn't be too hard.

My take on the conversion is that they want to reduce the power of the stat in PvP while making it (even) more powerful in PvE (assuming mobs have very high armour values).

Numbers from beta:

1288 live armor penetration = 185armor penetration rating
6.92 live armor penetration = 1 armor penetration rating

20armor penetration rating = 1.3% armor reduction at level 80
So that is 1% armor reduction ~ 15.38rating (or 106.43 live armor penetration)

Ketari · 09/11/08, 9:41 PM

Originally Posted by Pintofbrew

Whether or not it's better than Evo is irrelevant and pointless, so please don't respond to my post as though I opened up a mage-v-hunter argument, because that was never my intention.

Sorry, I think it's entirely relevant that Hunter mana flow is broken compared to other caster classes. (And sure if you don't want to compare with mages, I'm quite willing to compare with any other mana using class.)

"but I sure can see it's more flexible than it used to be, a lot more useful and non-punishing"

No offence, but I think you need to reexamine your thought process. It can reduce the amount of time you're required to be in it, but the opportunity cost of using it is dramatically greater, favours a certain spec and weapon speed and severely discourages using non-steady shots in both eagle and viper aspect.

There's a vast difference between the ability to generate big mp5 values and the ability to generate fun game play for a class. This isn't about damage - if Hunter damage needs to be nerfed so wecan use rotations, then please nerf our damage. It'll be far more fun doing those rotations than a class spamming steady and switching aspect to watch our mana bar change in size back and forth during a fight.

Catalept · 09/11/08, 9:57 PM

The new Viper mechanic is, IMO, a good start. The only real issues at the moment are that it procs off non-auto shots (and even, apparently, dot ticks), which turns the 'weapon speed = percent recovery' from a clever idea into something that's just plain borken. I'd expect Blizzard to tweak it to give a larger recovery but only applied to autos. The best way to compensate for BM's high shot throughput would, I think, simply be to remove Invigoration and let Viper's improved regen for BM hunters (via Serpent's Swiftness driving faster Viper procs) be that spec's equivalent to TotH or Rapid Recuperation (assuming they ever fix the latter).

Disargeria · 09/11/08, 10:15 PM

Originally Posted by Catalept

The new Viper mechanic is, IMO, a good start. The only real issues at the moment are that it procs off non-auto shots (and even, apparently, dot ticks), which turns the 'weapon speed = percent recovery' from a clever idea into something that's just plain borken. I'd expect Blizzard to tweak it to give a larger recovery but only applied to autos. The best way to compensate for BM's high shot throughput would, I think, simply be to remove Invigoration and let Viper's improved regen for BM hunters (via Serpent's Swiftness driving faster Viper procs) be that spec's equivalent to TotH or Rapid Recuperation (assuming they ever fix the latter).

Don't forget about PvP. If it only procced off of autoshots, hunters would have a very hard time keeping up in arenas, where we are still sorely lacking.

◊ Lactose · 09/12/08, 12:08 AM

I've been looking at Haste in relation to Aspect of the Viper. Let's take a look at 3 Hunters, A being baseline, B and C being Hunters focusing on slightly different gear paths. Underlined part is upgrade compared to Hunter A.

Hunter A: BM Hunter, 3.0 speed weapon, 10,000 mana buffed, 0% haste from gear, 20% haste from Windfury or similar.
Hunter B: BM Hunter, 3.0 speed weapon, 10,000 mana buffed, 10% haste from gear, 20% haste from Windfury or similar.
Hunter C: BM Hunter, 3.0 speed weapon, 10,450 mana buffed, 0% haste from gear, 20% haste from Windfury or similar.

Assuming Steady Shot mana cost to be 147 mana per second.

Summary of mana gain for our 3 intrepid Hunters:

                  HUNTER A       HUNTER B       HUNTER C
AutoShotSpeed   = 1.812          1.647          1.812
AutoShotFreq    = 0.552          0.6072         0.552

SteadyShotFreq  = 0.667          0.667          0.667 //global cooldown unaffected by hastes

ShotFreq        = 1.2187         1.2739         1.2187
Mana%PerSec     = 3.656          3.821          3.656
ManaPerSec      = 365.6          382.16          382.052
NetManaGain     = 218.6          235.16         235.052

10% Haste Rating is equal to 328 Haste Rating.
450 mana is equal to 30 Intellect (or 28 with Kings).

So, in terms of pure Viper regen, we could either have +328 Haste Rating, or +28 Intellect, the net gain in this example would be the same.

Hopefully this helps show why Haste is a fairly bad stat for us in Wrath of the Lich King. It's effect on mana regen isn't at all great compared to Intellect, and it's DPS impact is fairly low as well, affecting roughly ~30% of our damage or so.
If Haste were to affect a bigger portion of our damage, it would be much more appealing, but with current values Intellect seems much better for both DPS, longevity and mana regen.

Kaejin · 09/12/08, 12:19 AM

The great thing about the last version of AotV was that it stopped us from becoming more or less useless in PvP when we go OOM and meant mana drains weren't quite as dangerous as they are now. I think before I fully accept any new iteration of AotV it'll need to adequately address PvP in addition to PvE.

As noted above, that may very well be the reason it works on specials and dots. Unfortunately that skews things towards slower weapons for bigger regen numbers. If they found an elegant solution to the scaling in regards to weapon speed, without changing anything else with the skill, we would be in good shape and they could easily tune the mana regen up to be closer to the last iteration without worrying about casual vs. raid gear.

Maybe they could change it so auto doesn't trigger it, and remove the weapon speed's effect on it. Change the coefficient to something larger in relation to max mana. That way ONLY specials and dots and whatnot will trigger the proc, weapon speed (and the bias caused by it) is taken out of the equation, it's still useful in PvP, and it scales with mana pool rather than gear. The damage reuction would stay in of course. The coefficient would need to provide a large enough mana regen to counteract the mana spent on specials to trigger it, letting the damage reduction balance out the fact that we'd essential be getting mana back for spending mana on shots.

Just a crazy idea.