Jumping back far enough to be in the 130% threat threshold rather than the melee 110% would be pretty neat.

I use (with more futility than not.. but I get the chance to press it once every.. 2 weeks, on a trash mob maybe?) disengage in raid situations that I do for questing/soloing. I already know that I'm going to pull aggro from my pet, which is why there are abilities like scatter, concussive, frost/snake trap, feign death, wyvern sting, and maybe even wingclip. If I pull aggro from my pet, I'm going to be serious about it because I want to kill the mob, not milk it for it's life. Even then, if I pull aggro and the mob gets close and I don't really have the room (due to other mobs around I don't feel like harassing with just yet), I'll just drop an immo trap, AotM and wail on it until it dies; it's usually under 50% before it would reach my melee range anyway.

We already have a slew of options to deal with PvE situations, and with the tenacity tree for pets it should be less of an issue. Adding a knockback effect on disengage is putting lipstick on a pig. And in a solo/grinding situation, I certainly wouldn't want to "leap back" and accidentally aggro more mobs. And in a PvP situation, how are you going to feel if you "leap back" and happen to land in melee range of some other warrior/rogue/druid? All class abilities that involve some voluntary movement are done in active directions. Blink to/fro. Shadowstep to. Charge/intercept to. The only way to control the direction of how you "leap back" is from your orientation.. and then how far is it supposed to be? 5 yards? 8 yards? You're still pretty much in melee range. So then 15 yards? 20 yards? Is this supposed to help in arenas, or a BG where you probably just tossed yourself out of range to attack or get heals? If it's going to be that far of a movement, disengage might as well be renamed to "Lemur Leap".

I'm not trying to shoot down brainstorming, because it's still beta and there is time to have ideas implemented to change how our class works. But thinking up ideas with respect to what Blizzard would consider accepting into the game are going to have better chances of success.

I doubt that Blizzard will change Counterattack to be anything but a root or possibly a stun. Look at how it reflects the other two trees:
Counterattack - 21 pt Survival - Immobilizes for 5 seconds
Scatter Shot - 21 pt Marksmanship - Disorients for 4 seconds
Intimidate - 21 pt Beast Mastery - Stuns for 3 seconds
Each tree, having a 21pt 'stay put' ability, would lose something if they started futsing with the effect of Counterattack, because then they'd have to look at SS and then Int... and oh gawd the pain. I think it's a nice balance, and I'd like for them to keep what is possibly the only balance we have across all three trees.

I'd take being more careful about my positioning in PvE grinding over having to rely on those other methods to deal with pulling aggro off my pet (Scattershot usually just leaves the mob beating me again a few seconds later, and not all of us have those high-damage 2-handers to dish out beatings in melee, nor do we want to engage in melee). Frankly, if you send yourself careening into melee range of someone else in a PvP situation, that's probably going to be such a rare occurance that it's not worth considering. We DO have other options, after all, but there seems to be a lot of saying that our preferred method of melee combat is to "get out of melee combat," so this is a useful option for those of us who think that way. If you would prefer to use your hefty 2-hander against melee combatants, well, go for it, you don't have to use it.

If Death Knights can yank targets within ~25 yards to them, I don't see a problem or why it's so unreasonable for Blizzard to do something like this for Hunters (though our leap should probably be about 10-15 yards).

It's true, but counterattack fails because they can still attack back. Scatter and Intimidate render them useless for those few seconds, but [in the past when I had] counterattack still lets that hamstring or cripple get refreshed along with another melee hit or two. A DK with 3/3 Chillblains won't let you get very far during a 5s root, and talented Death Grip is 25s before they can grab you again (which is different yet still kind of the same as an intercept/charge). Counterattack doesn't prevent me from taking damage. If I happen to use it AND get away, then that rogue/warrior/DK is just some novice.

@Steelfleece: If you're a hunter and you don't have the polearm from Najentus, then you (generalizing) need to find a new guild. Felspine hits harder, yes, but Halberd of Desolation is nothing to scoff at. It's enough to zoom out and get an idea of what's in front of me.. but then I also have to pay attention to what's behind me if I want to "leap back" ? Don't we have enough things to monitor as it is? This whole "leaping back" thing doesn't work because it's dependent on the way you're facing, which is a horrible way to control movement direction.

There's already knockback in the game, and tons of tons of game abilities are dependant on your facing. Blink is too. Sure, leaping back is new, but it's not as huge of a leap (no pun intended) as you make it out to be.

Frankly, I already have the instant reverse-camera look bound to a key I hit quite often for various reasons, and with tracking, our situational awareness should be pretty good. Add in the fact that "behind me" is usually "the direction I came from," I think I often have a pretty good idea of what's going on back there. Not to say it's perfect, but I would use this abiltiy very often.

Sure, back when I raided and my gear was good, I melee'd down a few rogues in my time. But I still think (and I believe many hunters would agree with me), that being able to quickly escape from melee is much preferred to trying to match blows with a melee class. Even if it's only enough to fire 1-2 more quick instant shots, that's still preferred to trying to Raptor Strike/Mongoose Bite them to death. Hell, it could be used in combination with those--hit them with a Raptor Strike, then while it's cooling down, leap back and fire one or two instant shots, and Raptor will be ready again when they close the gap.

Moreover, when it comes to soloing, as someone who plays on a PvP server, I want my health as close to maximum as possible at all times--and I would rather not Monkey+Raptor mobs for that reason. I'd rather dump the aggro back on my pet and move back to range to keep my health up and not have to constantly use bandages. The pet is there to serve as a tank, but even with the improvements to pet aggro generation, it's still not going to be perfect.

I believe that this idea is solid for the reason that (looking over the posts here and elsewhere) the vast majority of hunters seem to agree that the best way for a hunter to melee is to get the hell out of melee. And even if I don't mind swinging around a big polearm now and then, I would tend to agree with this sentiment. And I don't think the mechanical problems will be that big of a concern.

Does nobody else think that Koraa (the class developer quoted) made a huge mistake saying that it "may" come back? If it doesn't come back now there will be a massive shitstorm of whine, probably more than when Kalgan posted the arena representation numbers (for the uninformed, I believe the forums were spammed with 43% 50% 43% - or whatever they were - non-stop for several hours).

That was one of my first objections to Chimera Shot. Its adding yet more key-pushing, GCDs, and ability micromanagement (waiting for the right tick) to an already bloated and key-bound laden class. My macro UI is full up as it is, and I was hoping for more streamlining. More passive buffs, less reactive stuff.

Another example is the steady shot bonus damage on dazed targets. Who the heck can time their concussive shots AND fire off a steady in time during a normal combat situation - For so much micro-management and so little damage benefit, its such a waste of a bonus damage component. Now that steady shot's cast time is increased, im left wondering why that is even there. Sorry that one is a little peeve of mine, that and the lack of interrupt on silencing shots.

That reminds me of a blue post a little while back from GC (On a side note, MMO-Champ's blue tracker is really useful! blue.mmo-champion.com):

WoW Forums -> [Feedback] Pet Talents
Other than their comment on pet abilities, it doesn't look like there's been any work to reduce the "bloat" of the class. It feels like we get stuff handed to us that we don't really need/want, yet it's still enough for other people to complain about. "Huntards get handed everything" is echoed across the game, but a big mountain of useful tools is unusable when they're piled together in a mess.

Chimera just got buffed. It went from 30% of weapon damage to 150% of weapon damage. That's a huge buff for the talent.

I wonder what happened to the sting refresh idea Blizzard mentioned. I suppose this might just be one more shot at making the current version something players want.

edit: too late, already been said

Chimera Shot:
Normalized attack damage * 150%
(more on debuff part later)

Arcane Shot:
(492 damage + 15% AP) * armor piercing bonus(~20%) * arcane dmg bonus(~25% 25m-raid)

Steady Shot:
Normalized attack damage + 280 + 20% * AP.
(exclude Daze effect. Not that it scales anyway)

Considering Normalized attacks are:
weapon damage + 20% * AP.
You could change the formulas to:
CS: (WpnDmg + 20% AP) * 150%
AS: (492 + 15% AP) * 150%
SS: WpnDmg + 280 + 20% AP + 20% AP
or even better:
CS: 150% WpnDmg + 30% AP
AS: 738 + 22,5% AP
SS: WpnDmg + 280 + 40% AP

With a weapon such as the current BoJ xbow, the WpnDmg is 260. This means that you need 1131 AP for Steady to out-perform Arcane Shot, which you can get from a maxed stacked R5 HM already.

As for Chimeara Shot goes, although it scales less, it does buff your stings. In a 10.5s cycle (7 GCDs) you instantly consume Serpent Sting right after it's 3rd tick, for damage worth 2 ticks. In other words, you do the same damage as you always did, but shortened the time it takes for Serpent Sting to do it's damage. Unfortunately, even with Imp Stings Serpent simply does not scale enough compared to Steady to warrant Serpent/Chimera rotations.
The only use would be mana efficiency using it every 15 seconds in combination with Viper Sting. If Chimera does 30 of the total Viper Sting drain, it would actually be a net gain of 318 mana to use Viper/Chimera, counting Efficiency and worst-possible rounding. If you look at the damage, you would see that if the mana burn actually does 50% of mana drain as damage, you get ~600 extra damage, which makes the base damage of the combo similar to ~1290 physical damage. In the same time however, you could have shot 2 Steady Shots doing 1080 base damage. The loss of ~210 damage is easily outweighted by the 80% of AP you get on 2 Steady Shots. It requires 420 AP to completely make Viper/CS combo useless. At level 70, it is impossible to go below this number, even while completely naked, as long as Hunter's Mark is on the target (as it should).

I sincerely doubt Scorpid/Chimera will work in raids, as it's reduction is worth 120% of a hit from a boss, minus tank avoidance. But even with a boss hitting an average of ~6k and a tank with 60% avoidance it means up to 288 less DPS taken by the tank. This is similar to an improved Demo Shout, which I don't see happening soon. It could also be 'abused' on certain fights such as Naj'entus.

Conclusion:
The only real use is in PvP because it is an instant rather then Steady Shot's cast time. Or for mana efficiency on bosses with a mana bar.


PS: I didn't even consider Imp. Steady Shot bonuses, making CS far worse for PvE DPS.

Edit: fixed mana drain vs burn wording

They also said they will be ramping up serpent sting to make it worth it, but what about if you wait to use chimera shot after the 4th tick instead of after the 3rd? Would the damage gain be worth it from those extra ticks to make up for the fact you will have 1ish less chimera shot every minute?

This is the kind of math that should be done before the expansion comes out to help blizzard reach their goal of making Chimera Shot useful.

Chimera really does seem like it'd be best off as just a passive boost to stings. Make it give whatever rebalanced effect for Serpent and Viper whenever those expire or are removed, and have it give the Scorpid effect on cast. Scorpid would need a small cooldown to not make the effect ridiculous, but who cares. It'd certainly be easier for Blizzard to balance around than the current timing mess.

Kill Command has changed: Instant Cast with a 2 Minute Cooldown still 75 mana. "Gives the Command to Kill, increasing the damage done by your pet's special attacks by 60%. Each special attack done by the pet reduces the damage done by 20%." Found by a guy on the beta forums.

WoW Forums -> Undocumented 8770 Hunter Changes:

Wow...does anyone else think that sucks?

edit: actual spell Kill Command - Thottbot: World of Warcraft

So every two minutes you get three special attacks from your pet boosted to 60, 40, and 20% consecutively?

Gee wiz, Blizzard, thanks.

That's extremely underwhelming considering what Koraa said about it.

I was expecting it to end up becoming something less viable for DPS than it currently is, but seriously.

Maybe the new Kill Command is supposed to be passive with no cooldown? I'm probably just being optimistic, but I just can't picture anyone at Blizzard seriously thinking that an extra 1.2 claws every 2 minutes is somehow useful.

It would have to give about 60 bites worth of damage at 60% to get equal to what you lose with the current Kill Command. At least we really don't have to rely on Kill Command to keep FI up though now with Cobra Strikes. C'est la vie.

I too would like to see disengage made more useful. Something like:

Disengage
100 mana
Attempt to disengage from the target, increases movement speed by 70% for 3 seconds and grants immunity to all movement impairing effects for 3 seconds.
30 second cooldown

I applaud all the work that's gone into the hunter changes but I don't see us fairing any better against melee.

The new Kill Command appears to only have been implemented on Rank 1. My Rank 2 is working exactly the same as before. I'm guessing this is a bug, or they didn't implement it correctly.

My guess as to the current intended effect is the old KC plus the new KC, and that cooldown HAS to be a typo.

While I'm here, let me just say the new Worm pet is incredibly awesome.

Did I miss something? I don't recall a worm pet being mentioned before, apart from calls from hunters on wanting Borelgore as an exotic pet. Along the same lines, has Blizzard implemented more tameable chimeras in this build?