I'll just quote myself here.

10-mans are (supposedly) serious business in wotlk. There is definately an issue here.

It depends on your group composition. Who's to say the single shaman won't drop windfury? The only time range would be an issue is if said shaman is enhancement, and even then maybe it will be trivially unimportant, like range in kara was.

There's too many what if's to properly come to a decision.

I really think you're being unjustly negative. Check this thread out for how range is calculated for mobs.

When you say

you're assuming that the Shaman drops his totem slap-bang in the centre of the mob. Unless he has a grudge against hunters, I highly doubt this is going to happen.

Looks like they are going to add an exotic tag to beast lore.

Taken from the Globalstrings.lua of the latest beta patch

Also remember that based on the current shaman builds that are going around for Enhance for WOTLK its highly unlikely that they will have the 30 yard totems due to spending their points in Elemental Devastation now instead of in Restoration.

Ten mans may be serious business but it would ridiculous of blizzard to balance hunters 10-man dps around things that just aren't going to be there a lot of the time. I really don't even know how they can possibly make 10-mans hardcore and everything at all because keeping balance between them and the 25 mans would be an absolute nightmare. Honestly, i just don't really see how they can require min-maxing in 10-mans because of the sheer number of possible group compositions.

If they somehow do manage to require min-maxing in 10 mans then a generic 2 tanks, 2 healers, 6 dps wouldn't work. You would have to actually design the raid optimally based on what type of raid you want to use (melee heavy, caster heavy etc). If this is the case then there will be some compositions for 10 mans when certain classes simply aren't viable.

Bigger stables are coming.

WoW Forums -> Bigger Stables pls!!

In regards to high focus costs of pet skills and ways to manage them

Not going to argue with your position on agility. That's obvious. However, like many other posters, I've noticed that every single quote about mana issues seems to revolve around the letters J-O-W. Hypothetically speaking, and just humor me, let's suppose you don't have JoW available. What then?

I think both of these posts are overly optimistic. The (enhancement) hunter isn't necessarily going to be standing on the same side as the hunter, meaning you'd have to come closer or rotate around. (Void Reaver, Gruul, most Hyjal fights, Supremus to name a few fights where this matters.) And I find it highly unlikely that a second shaman will drop a repeat totem -- the casters want Wrath of Air, among other things. Of course, a non-surv hunter doesn't NEED to be at >30 yards for any particular reason, and could maybe even stand 5 yards away depending on AE's. But that doesn't mean this isn't important, or at least relevant.



Blue's response with the stable thing. "Give us bigger stables plz!?!?" "okay."

Hunting Party. Invigoration. Thrill of the Hunt. Vampiric Touch. Aspect of the Viper. Downrank steady to rank 1.

And not having JoW is gonna be pretty rare - you have to have 0 paladins in the raid. Even with 10 mans, you're likely to have at least one, and anyway 10-man fights probably won't be as long as 25-man fights, so less efficient mana recovery is acceptable.

Hmm some other class threads seem to state that the spell hit cap is only 9% now without the 1% resist rate that is in the current version of WoW. That pretty much means FD will always work if we are hit capped then?

I'll assume you meant enh shaman, not hunter. A 25 man raid will likely have all 3 shaman specs, thus leaving one shaman to either not drop an air totem, or double up on windfury. At any rate, in TBC 25 man movement fights (supremus, void reaver) all ranged face the 'not in range of totem' issue, so it's stupid to try and claim we're at any more of a loss than mages or warlocks are.

The context being talked about was 10 mans, where it is conceivable for only a single shaman to be present. In such a situation, think more along the lines of ZA and Kara, not hyjal and bt. I can't think of a time where you'd need to be so distantly far from a boss that you wouldn't be within totem range. It might have something to do with the way hitboxes work.

Isn't all hit the same now? As far as from gear goes. My understanding is that they also redid how spell hit works, so maybe that's the case.

Hit rating is unified. Hit caps may or may not be. There's still a difference between how spells interact with hit chance and how physical abilities do - physical abilities can't "partially miss", but spells can.

Master's Call is currently bugged to all hell and back.

My post on it on the beta boards:

They are making it so you can use it while stunned, it's just really broken atm - they'll fix it though.

As for what the pet does - it has to have LOS on you right now and when it does it runs really fast over to you and puts the buff on you when it gets to you.

Assumptions I've been seeing that bug me (not from this thread but elsewhere too):

1) all viable raiding hunters will be BM in WOTLK
2) all BM hunters will continue to use auto-steady in their shot rotation
3) all raids will have a paladin in it, even 10-mans
4) all BM hunters that presently raid are always grouped with a class that ensures they never run out of mana, and that this phenomenon will continue at Level 80.
5) even though the dominant roles of the hunter builds changed between pre-BC and BC, there will be no changes to dominant roles of the hunter builds between BC and WOTLK
6) as long as the BM hunter's mana management is okay, the state of mana management in other hunter builds do not matter in WOTLK.
7) Non-BM hunters that use more than one type of special shot in their shot rotation, are not grouped with a class that ensures that they never run out of mana, and have to chain-chug fel mana pots, need to either Learn 2 Play or are irrelevant.

Sorry for being a little testy but the anti-SS and MM bias simply doesn't belong in discussions relating to WOTLK because nothing is fixed, and anything can change. I believe we should advocate for overall improvements to hunter management for all hunters, and not assume that that all hunters will be raiding with one build and using only one special shot in their shot rotation in WOTLK. Neglecting one or two hunter builds in favor of one build currently in vogue based on their experience in BC will come back to bite us hard in WOTLK when things could very well change.

Don't get me wrong, if the WOTLK builds stay the way they are now, I will have no choice but to spec BM (or Survival). I just think that mana management WOTLK needs to be carefully observed, as testing progresses, on a core level, across all hunter builds, and not be influenced by notions based on BC experience.

1. No. It's still generally accepted that SV's expose weakness is good enough to earn a spot (likely, one of two hunter spots)
2. Until we have a shot that does more damage without costing considerably more mana, it's not completely unfair to assume this.
3. Again, very reasonable. A single paladin of any spec is not hard to come by. 10 mans could easily be done with one of each class.
4. There is no reason to not expect JoW to be present in your averge 10/25 man.
5. Barring a complete reworking of MM (or SV), the changes thus far are leaning heavily towards BM having higher raw damage output.
6. Cunning pet is still 20% mana back on demand. MM has efficiency (where current tc'd bm builds will not). SV can have efficiency and toth, as well as hunting party. SV looks to be able to self sustain itself, and being that MM appears to be a lesser dps spec anyway, there's less pain running viper since your damage is already not min/maxed due to spec.
7. See 6. SV hunters are fine, MM will likely be irrelevant in pve.

Complaints about MM being inferior are understandable, but lumping SV into the equation seems silly. Blizzard could always throw everything upside down with major changes later, there's no indication they are "done" with hunters changes for WotLK.

Additionally, in a 10 man the likelihood of being tossed in a shadow priest group (even just temporarily) is rather high, so until things are finalized whining about mana is not a good idea.

This mana argument seems silly to me. Some people seem to want hunters of all specs to be completely mana self-sufficient. Many of these same people want to maximize dps thus denouncing Aspect of the Viper (the best mana regen class ability), this alone seems weird to me. Almost all mana based dps classes have to give something up in order to maintain their own mana. If they choose not to make this sacrifice they become reliant on other classes. Frankly a game where all classes are self-sufficient and do not have to make choices (sacrifices) sounds incredibly boring to me.

Friends, don't listen to the scrub (Orinaccio).

I think that right now, we'll just have to wait and see how mana-return [from other classes] affects our rotation longevity, without having to downrank and [hopefully] not AoV. I know for a fact that while my guild's raids get tailored as best as can be, we can't always expect the "perfect" group because people have IRL things. You just have to make do with whatever is available.

A paladin in the raid to maintain JoW is only as good as that player's ability to keep it up (like a holy pally for instance). There will be imperfect situations with auras or totems or where we will have to scramble to maintain output. Just like now. Realistically thinking, I seriously doubt that Blizzard intends JoW to be the single recoup-all of hunter mana, just like how it's not the single recoup-all of hunter mana right now. It takes a combination of classes or buffs to achieve that state, but depending on available players it may not always be available. So worst-case scenario type of thinking is going to be the best bet to balance the value of particular talents or skills with other possible options.

I wish I was able to guarantee every type of class I would desire in a raid, but prudence dictates otherwise.

Continuing on.. has there been implementation of two-talent-specs at a time? I swore I remembered it being mentioned by Blizz. If it does get implemented, a hunter can have two specs at the same time; one favoring limited mana regeneration and the other favoring max-DPS based on unlimited mana.

Edit: Aren't they changing aspects to cost zero mana? It's possible that AoV, with enough int, can be a mini-evocate from 0% to 40% mana if used properly in conjunction with buffs to speed up the time it takes to get it done. What's the damage difference of 30s of no hawk to recoup mana for shots, versus 30s of hawk with sputtering mana for shots?

Stated by Blizzard in here: WoW Forums -> NEW way to RE-Spec

But the essential problem with Viper is that, at best it allows us to do less DPS for a little longer. We don't have large mana pools to allow a 'mana deficit' rotation to be kept up for long. Other mana-users have two sets of abilities they can use to manage mana. Low-regen abilities such as the "Regen mana while casting" talents or mana gem, and high regen abilities such as Evocate or Shadowfiend, which have an implicit cost and/or long cooldown.

Our problem is that our 'low regen' ability costs us DPS (e.g. Viper makes us ditch Hawk, and TotH lives in a utility tree), and we have no 'high regen' ability at all. Regardless of whether or not that actually matters (particularly in 25-man raids), it strikes me as simply Bad Design that as a mana-using class, we have no way to quickly recover a large amount of mana (especially once we're Potion Sick). Even in a 25-man, if JoW can't be kept up we're stuck spamming autoshot (e.g. the pallies are dead, the boss has 5% to go_ when we're low on mana.

IMO, hunters need a long-cooldown ability (e.g. 10 minutes) that returns damage done as mana for 10-15 seconds, allowing us to rapidly recover large amounts of mana in situations where we're out of options.

@Catalept
Not saying I disagree with you, just playing devils advocate, but the general consensus I see is that we don't get any good mana regen abilities because when we sit, autoshot and allow our pet to DPS (ie we're oom) we do far more damage then other mana using classes therefor we deserve less ..."anti-oom?" abilities than the other mana using classes.

*Like I said, just playing devils advocate from what I hear from other classes when hunters complain about mana.

Well, it's not exactly an apples-to-apples situation, sure. When casters go OOM, they can do maybe 10% DPS (lolwand), whereas when we go OOM, we can still do about 60%. But my point is that casters have more options to avoid going OOM, and it takes longer for them to do so. I'm not disputing that maybe 95% of the time, we'll be in a situation where synergy or circumstances mean that mana isn't an issue, and people who are saying "ZOMG no JoW means gimp DPS... WLK will doom us all!" are (probably) false prophets. I certainly anticipate having to drink between pulls, but that nothing other casters don't already have to deal with. However, we are uniquely vulnerable to mana-limited conditions, and IMO we need a burst-mana ability to compensate.