Bellin

There is definitely something in ratings transfer.

GC Response on Lock forums

Since we don't use spell penetration they could add something similar to us as well, or they just might let all the ratings transfer to pets.
Yes, this could indeed make haste more interesting stat, specially if it lowers GCD on pet's specials, and it seems to do just that.

 

Scryed

Regarding Aimed Shot

WotLK Beta (US-English) Forums -> Answers to a few recent questions

 

Griffen

Pet leveling rate increased. GC has posted that pets now will need 1/10th of the hunters XP, from a previous 1/16th. Now, I'm not great at math's but I do think she meant from 1/6th.

MMO-Champion BlueTracker - Please Blue - Feedback on Pet Lvling System

I don't know how much of our xp now comes from quests/rest on average. But even if it is 80% this should make it possible to level at least 2 pets per level while leveling. Hopefully more, considering the increase in stable slots.


@Archaus - here's a link to a comment from GC about the Aimed Shot Change:
MMO-Champion BlueTracker - GC: Hunters get 11 point Mortal Strike?
For arenas I do not think it is op as long as it they reduced the damage to a more acceptable level (equal to multi shot now), but a step in the right direction for us to do well in arenas. Our problem in arenas as I see it now is not LOS per se or anything else, but that auto shot and steady shot that makes up a great deal of our damage in pve is severely hindered in arenas - in other words, that our damage in arenas is too low under less than ideal conditions.

This goes a way to fix that with us being able to have up healing reduction more often. Personally i would like to see aimed shot and multi shot unlinked though, I suppose to see how we work out in arenas as it is now with the current changes is wise.

Numquam catapultas allice, iram omnium concitabis

 

Archaus

Does anyone know the justification for Aimed Shot being made instant cast? I think that's pretty fantastic but a ranged instant cast mortal strike seems a bit overpowered doesn't it? We were begging for a shorter cooldown before and now it seems they've completely reversed directions on it.

EDIT: Perhaps it would be better to ask, does anyone want to SPECULATE on why they suddenly felt they could make it instant cast?

EDIT (Post Infraction): There was in fact a lot of discussion on this topic previously (as was kindly pointed out in my infraction) but what I was looking for is a discussion on WHY this drastic change may be OK now when it wasn't back in early TBC. The previous posts were generally just amazement that they did it and comments that they would inevitably nerf it which are pretty obvious (i.e. generally idiotic) kinds of posts that I would expect on the WoW forums and not very constructive or interesting.

What I'm really wondering is if this is just blatant evidence that class design is out of control or if this change actually makes sense because of other changes being made. It feels to me like they took a signature hunter shot, designed as an opener, useful with misdirect, and over the course of a couple of bizarre mutations have turned it into something completely different that people are now considering adding into shot rotations. While it obviously didn't fulfill its intended debuff role as it was, it turns a hybrid PvE/PvP ability into a mostly PvP one (assuming they nerf the damage which they've already hinted at, or god forbid remove it) and (despite their comments about LoS as it's drawback) feels too good to me because instant cast ranged abilities are extremely powerful.

Like many other recent changes this just doesn't feel very well thought out. I'm in total agreement that it needed a change to be more viable but cannibalizing Aimed Shot completely (they should just change the name) and going to the opposite extreme (our longest cast becomes instant) feels like chaos.

 

Mikari

The justification is that we weren't able to use it properly with a cast time.

 

Bovii

Look, I know that a lot of you want Readiness to reset your BM talents but it isn't going to happen. The change on the PTR and in Beta wasn't accidental and it isn't a bug. Step aside really fast and ask yourself the question: What is the point of having Longevity when you can simply recycle the cool down on a whim? Anyway, both Beastial Wrath and Intimidation are "pet" talents that are initiated by the player behind the Hunter. That doesn't make it a Hunter ability any more than Frenzy or Ferocious Inspiration are Hunter abilities.

I understand the feelings that they'd disallow such things. I want half of the Survival tree to go away and get replaced by something that 1) doesn't make me a support monkey, 2) that actually allows me "survive", and 3) take advantage of the mass amount of crit talents in the tree.

 

Lambach

But bestial wrath costs us mana. It doesnt cost the pet energy. So its our ability, it is using our resources to activate it. Readiness resets kill command, it should be under the same set of abilities.

 

Cranch

Longevity is independent of Readiness: the former gives you 30% more specials, and the latter gives you an extra special every 3 minutes.

Master's Call is reset by Readiness (according to LK beta posts) so that drastically weakens the "these are pet talents" argument. But that argument is irrelevant, anyway.

It's either a bug and will hopefully be fixed by no later than the post-LK balancing patch, or it was intended and may or may not be changed, based on Blizzard's design goals.

It's sufficient to tell Blizzard that (a) BM/Int aren't reset; (b) we'd like them to be reset and why, and move on to other issues.

Make their job easier, and maybe we'll get more lovin' (we definitely got sum lovin' already ...)

 

Bovii

My point, though, is the fact that if Readiness did affect Intimidation and Beastial Wrath, BM would have two talent, independent of each other, that affected cool downs. You'd end up getting the best of both worlds without any sort of limitation.

On a side note, Readiness does affect Master's Call and Kill Command. I'm willing to bet that Blizzard sees those as Hunter initiated abilities that affect the Hunter and distinguish them from Beastial Wrath and Intimidation as pet specific initiated abilities.

But you are absolutely correct, it is better to ask Blizzard for their reasoning and then move on to getting the rest of the issues fixed. And I hope that nobody has taken what I've said as a "I told you so". While I am awesome, handsome, funny, and quite charming, I tell myself that stuff all the time so I don't need anyone to add to it. In all seriousness, in the past three years of this game, we've all seen abilities that just stand out and need to be changed. I knew for months and months that the Scorpid family talent was going to get hammered and it did. People argued against me saying that it was fair, balanced, and necessary but the change came anyway. It was the same thing with Wind Serpent's Lightning Breath as that has been, assumign that you've got the stats, unbalanced against all other pet abilities...it ended up getting sorted out in the expansion. Readiness just SCREAMED that it was going to get limited when you put it against all other version of it and how it could be used.

I just hope that we can get some attention on the rest of our class needs.

 

Zurai

Uhhh, what's your point? Survival's been able to do that with Rapid Fire for a long time now. Rapid Killing is a bigger cooldown reduction than Longevity for fewer points, even.

 

Bovii

As for the two nerfs (Serpent Sting w/ LnL and Serpent Sting w/ AotV):

- I sat on Beta for about 30 minutes on Monday night testing out the interaction between the two. Now then, just so you know, sitting there and popping Serpent Sting every 15s for 30 minutes is really boring. While that has nothing to do with the conversation, I just want you all to know how damned boring that it. Anyway, over that 30 minutes, I was finding that the old 3/3 LnL (15% chance per tick) equated to about 1 LnL proc every 15-20 ticks (3-4 applications). As with any RNG system, I was getting a proc withing 1-2 ticks and sometimes, I was getting a proc after nearly 6 full applications. BUT, for the most part, I was getting a proc every minute, give or take. Given the damage on Explosive Shot, even after the nerf, that was a pretty substantial DPS gain.

- Also that night of testing, I was finding that each tick of Serpent Sting was being counted as a seperate attack. That made going empty to full, with Viper active, extremely quick.

My only concern with Lock and Load is the fact Explosive Shot doesn't hit nearly as hard as a full Affliction specced Shadow Bolt. On top of that, a Warlock can stack both Corruption and Drain Life which essentially doubles their chances of getting a proc. Furthermore, Blizz initially felt that a 15% on application of SS was too ineffective so they boosted it to 30% which then got nerfed back to 15%. Then they nerfed the number of ESs from 3 to 1 and now to 2. With the last nerf dropping the percentage down to be 2/4/6% while also nerfing the damage on Explosive Shot, you have to wonder why it is that they wouldn't increase the number of charges back to 3.

My point is that there is a major difference between BW/TBW with a cool down wipe and Rapid Fire with a cool down wipe. EVERYONE has access to Rapid Killing, regardless of spec choice. Not everyone has access Beastial Wrath. Are you really going to try and use that as an arguement, not considering the massive DPS boost and implication in PvP, that multiple Beastial Wraths woudl have on the game?

As it is, unless they make a change, I'd wager to guess that most BM Hunters are going to go 50/21/0 anyway as there isn't an exotic pet, outside of the Devilsaur, that brings anything to a raid that can't already be done by another class OR who's DPS can't be reached by either a Raptor or Cat.

 

Terp

Do we really need to have this argument? Wyvern sting wasn't affected by Readiness for months. It's a bug.

 

Chozo

1. Longevity affects pet cooldowns, while Readiness does not. There are enough pet abilities on cooldowns that benefit a lot from that 30% reduction.

2. Redpet for 18 seconds, Readiness during that time period, redpet again. 59 seconds later, redpet a third time.

So for about a two minute period, you're roughly un-CCable nearly half the time and in PVE pumping out +50% pet damage and +10% hunter damage and getting a 20% cost reduction on spells. Pretty compelling reason to take Longevity with Readiness IMO.

3. 3 points in Longevity is a lot more compelling than the other options, especially if you're planning on speccing into Kindred Spirits.

Just my take. And as far as "OMG OVEREDPOWED": well, hunters are boned in PvP anyway, we might as well get something to counteract the bajillion ways rogues have to get in/stay in melee.

EDIT FU:

Or the fact that every hunter gets those abilities regardless of spec, and that you couldn't get Intimidation/Beastial Wrath with Readiness until the latest change.

 

Kaejin

This might purely be a matter of semantics, but Longevity specifically differentiates Bestial Wrath and Intimidation from pet specials, and both abilities have tooltips writted as if the hunter is the one affecting the pet, not as if the pet is doing these things all on his own. All pet specials say things like "you pet does x," as opposed to "you command your pet to x," or "you send your pet into x."

 

Catalept

Well, it square roots the chance of not getting a proc... but yeah, that's a pretty fundamental difference when assessing the numbers. Having said that, they did say that they're open to the possibility of tweaking the numbers... and personally, I wish they would get back to tweaking the numbers, instead of playing "Freak the hunters out" with the talent layouts.

 

Ketari

And yet BM and SV Hunters can once again cherry-pick from the very powerful low end of the MM tree. I seem to remember an explicit Blizz statement that they didn't want SV to be about PvP and Traps. Well, it's gone back to being about PvP and Traps. Huh? I admit to being a little confused as to what Blizz are doing with SV about now.

Cranch - But. MM and BM acually come out very nearly equal on time in viper but MM it dosn't have a high damage pet going while you're regenerating mana. So BM actually comes out in my testing ahead.

Chozo - Seems to me that a pet going red is going to be focused :/

 

Chozo

Let a man(orc...humanoid...whatever) have his dreams of pwnage. Improved healing talents (Spirit Bond, Blood of the Rhino) could also help, although that depends on where things settle on the pet scaling end of things.

Also, if they fix Readiness so it affects Intimidation/BW, maybe it'll give them the kick in the pants they need to realize that Beast Mastery (the talent) sucks eggs.

 

Bovii

You're misunderstanding my point. IF the lack of Readiness affecting BW/Int is a bug, look at what you're getting:

Redpet for 18 seconds, Readiness during that time period, redpet again. 84 (edit) seconds later, redpet a third time.

Think about the damage that is going to happen during this time. Now then, think long and hard about that and ask yourself if you REALLY think that is balanced and acceptable. If you're objective, you're going to immediately realize that it isn't.

Look, I don't want nor did I intend this to turn into an arguement. If this is a bug and it turns out that I was wrong, I'll eat crow and apologize to the entirety of the EJ Hunter community. As it stands, I wouldn't doubt it if they pulled traps, Master's Call, Kill Comman, Deterrence, etc off of it too making it so that it JUST affects Rapid Fire and shots/stings.

 

Serpent's Choice

EDIT: Let this be a lesson, no more napkin math while debugging old VBscript code. It causes stupid mistakes like pulling rank 1 ES data instead of rank 4 ES data, leading to ... unfortunate conclusions.

In general, just ignore the text that was here before. ES outperforms AS with appropriately ranked spells. However, I felt a little unease about the splash damage comment, and so loaded beta to parse. I'm just not seeing it. Not in my combat log, nor SCT, nor Recount. Are we very certain that the splash damage is applying to the primary target? Because no matter what I try against a single target, I'm only detecting 3 damage instances per ES application.

 

Bovii

A couple of problems with your napkin math there, which might make it a bit easier/worse to rework: Explosive Shot applies the primary damage AND each burst to the main target and ES does get the benefit from Mortal Shots. Also, don't forget that both AS and ES benefit from Survival Instincts.

 

Chozo

When I said 59 seconds later, I meant from the end of the second BW. I also think the glyphed Longevity cooldown on BW is a minute 17 seconds, but I'm probably completely off on that and it's the number that comes to my head for whatever reason.

From a PVP perspective, they may not have a choice. When one of the main hunter complaints is ease of being locked down along with a new class that seems designed solely to make hunters miserable (Death Knights) and the new and exciting ways warriors and rogues are able to keep us in melee they may just balance around triple redpet rather than nerf Readiness to be almost useless. If so I would imagine that the damage modifiers on (T)BW are going to get changed/nerfed.

Fair enough. Would/will be fun to theorycraft about Readiness/BW rotations though.

 

Bovii

I had a tear come to my eye when I imagined the swarms of QQs from the clothies. Wow, what a dream that is.

 

Catalept

Also, comparing Rank 1 ES with Rank 11 AS is hardly fair

 

TrevvyTrev

You didn't read my point. Right now there are the following viable builds:

BM/MM
MM/SV
SV/MM
MM/BM

There are also builds that have a slight tri-spec to them but nothing worth really going into. If you add desirable talents to the lower end of a tree, you end up boosting that tree as a "support" tree, because you give a lot of reward for just barely speccing into it. There is only one spec that uses SV as a support tree, and that is MM/SV. My point was that cramming a ton of dps talents into that part of the tree actually benefits MM hunters more than anyone else as a result. Therefore it makes more sense to increase SV dps at the top of the tree, so that it's actually the SV/xx spec that gets the most out of those changes. If you want SV dps to compete with the other specs, then you have to put the prime dps talents out of the reach of the other specs, or else they will just take them too and you won't gain ground.

Note that this problem isn't so bad with MM, because every viable spec for any purpose (pve or pvp) has to use MM anyway. The design seems to assume it.

As for SV suddenly becoming nothing more that traps and pvp, that's hardly true, and even if it were true then it was already true before this build. Trap Mastery just changed positions in the tree, which doesn't make the tree "all about traps." There are only two "pure" trap talents in the whole tree (entrapment and trap mastery) and two "mostly" trap talent (resourcefulness and point of no return). Each of these has been in the tree for a while (most pre-beta). The remaining talents that involve traps are worth using even if they didn't involve traps whatsoever. The "signature" talents in the tree (explosive shot, hunting party) are equally useful in pve and pvp, with hunting party actually leaning toward being more useful in pve.

Switching readiness and scatter shot isn't enough in my mind to turn SV into mostly PvP. The new surefooted is now a "pure" pvp talent because they removed the +hit, but that was less about trying to make SV into a PvP tree and more about replacing what Focused Aim lost when they had to remove Aimed Shot from being affected by it (instant aimed shot = no need for pushback reduction on it, and 3 points for nothing more than pushback reduction on one shot seems like a terrible deal).

Anyway, GC/Koraa said they wanted the specs to do similar damage (with possibly a slight discount if one has more utility) so most of the "hand wringing," as someone else put it, seems unwarranted.

 

• Nisu

The problem is, the current change hurts both MM (because they have no reason to go for SV as an offtree beyond 7 points, and instead have to dump yet more points into the bloated MM tree) and SV (because SV is now less able to get good talents because they now have to spend 6 points to get 3% hit and past the 10 point level in SV, as opposed to formerly spending 3 points for the same privilege).