Conscience

As you might know, mages get a similar ability in the addon (dealing frost + fire damage) and they have already done a lot of testing on its mechanics. I expect Froststorm Breath to work the same way, so in case you are interested, you could do a bit of reading on it in their thread.
On a sidenote: That a similar mechanic is already existing makes it also quite unlikely that Froststorm Breath is going to be changed to doing Frost damage only.

On what you wrote about Metagems: It's the same weak Metas for all classes in WotLK, so I don't see a disadvantage here. There is also the possibility they introduce better metas in higher tiers of raiding, like they did with the epic ordinary stones in T6.

ps: My post seems to be a bit late, guy before me already detailed how dual-elemental damage works.

 

takel

In regards to spell damage scaling on pets, I really think Blizzard should just kill off that inconsistent statistic on the pets and just have every single ability scale off the pet's AP. As for the breath attack, it should probably just use the Frostfire type mechanics. Two damage types, picks the best one.

Onto raid scaling. I'd be very careful with placing a definitive 'best scaling' until we've got all the mechanics in place and the initial polish run.

While yes, melee specific buffs such as Battle Shout, UR and SoE's strength component doesn't apply to the hunter itself, pets do have a 25% damage modifier as default with an optional 20%+ on top of that via talents. Not to mention, the buffs the hunter does make use of, the pet will double dip. BoM on the hunter and on the pet, the pet gains another 30% through its master and then multiplies with its happiness and talented bonuses.

The pet due to its construction is a stupidly effective buff sponge and I sorely hope that Blizzard recognises that and modifies the pet scaling so that it benefits more from the master's gearing.

As for the crazy serpent sting...
Is it just me but if you change the damage percentage modifier with a RAP coefficient you get something that looks like it might actually be one? Crossed fingers for a 45% RAP scalar on Serpent Sting.

Kill Command Rank 1 changes. I'm not all that impressed. It's an interesting change in the mechanics but the numbers aren't adding up for it.

 

KergeKacsa

From WOW Insider

If I remember correctly, they say pets will have roughly about 120 resist to all magic at lvl80.
At this correct state this would be 80 resist at lvlv80. :/

 

KraxisSingular

I guess I lumped stuff a little too much together. I didn't mean to imply we were particularly bad off in regards to metas, just that they are currently not as good as the ones we have. And while we can hope better metas (epic ones perhaps) can come later, they didn't this time. So until we know that will happen it is fair to assume they won't as that is the baseline so far. But we can of course hope. But then the better meta would have to be 25 Agi to just be on par with the current meta. I thought Blizzard wanted more emphasis on gems and such, not less. So if it is the gems alone that are weaker, then it seems those who have to gem a lot are the ones the lose out (Rogues not having enough hit this time around on gear has been mentioned, but can gem for it). But if it is gear overall that is going to be weaker, then scaling talents will be comparably weaker. And that hurts a spec like Survival, in fact it hurts a lot.

Regarding scaling with buffs. Yeah, we get about 22% more value out of AP buffs, and we scale well with crit. That is why Ferals should get loads of love from Hunters in general. But the difference is that many of the buffs we gain very small benefits from have been made raidwide, making other classes easier able to obtain them. And the two classes that have mainly been the beneficiaries of the old WF have gotten either direct boosts to DPS (Retri) or added value to their temporary enchants (Rogues). We on the other hand have lost most of the value in regards to haste (passive, WF or otherwise), something that so far appears to be rather prolific on Mail gear as Enhancements Shamans do like to an extent (greater than our's).
Further, with the change to Salvation we are no longer 'one up' on the other classes in regards to threat. They will also benefit from both BoM and Kings like we do now. Of course we might have to FD less, which is a boost overall (can save it better for wipes perhaps, and spend less time staring at the ground), but I doubt it can match a blessing in power.

I'm not trying to say the world will end, because I'm certain that Blizzard is trying to make us viable. But even with the best intentions little things can slip by. And I fear a little that lesser scaling with buffs might hurt us later on in progression since we don't provide a whole lot of synergy ourselves. At the very least it is good to make someone aware that this might become an issue. If they know this already but we are compensated in other ways, fine. It is about knowing that there is a disparity there and that it shouldn't end up affecting us negatively.

 

Mikari

They are actually going to remove the resists completely and instead have it be a percentage reduction.

WoW Forums -> New Exotics

 

Zurai

No, that's not anywhere close to what Ghostcrawler said.

 

WarTotem

No, the percentage reduction is for Warlock pets only, and is 80% reduction from AoE effects, as seen here
Hunters get a pet talent (= costs PTP) which goes up to 75% reduction from AoE. I am assuming this 80/120 resistance is for solo-play purposes.

BTw, the relative resistance against a lvl 83 spell is %resist = resist / (83*5) * 0.75
For 80 resistance this gives 14,46% avg. reduction and for 120 it's 21,69%
Since it is multiplicative with Avoidance and most of the magical damage your pet receive is/should be AoE, you get 78,61% reduction with 80 res & 3/3 Avoidance and 80,42% with 120 resistance.
I would think that the second case is more compared to Warlock pets.

 

P51mus

If you actually read the blue post a bit closer, he's talking about instead of having resistance be an average reduction, it'll be a flat reduction. Meaning high resistance won't cause resistance of CC skills anymore, only reduce damage of skills of that element. That, or just smooth the curve a bit more so resistances don't happen as often, and damage reduction is more consistent.

This is probably good news for warlocks and priests more than anything else.

 

Terp

That's ridiculous. There's absolutely no way for a hunter to keep any class from drinking (or worse, eating) outside of sicking a pet on them and hoping it doesn't get entangled/slept/feared. The amount of pet control it'd take to keep a person in combat while dodging those spells is just stupid. It flat out needs to be reliably resistant to them.

In any case, this change means two things. Either this is an absurdly hamfisted way of making Cunning look attractive despite it not being, or the main issue might actually get addressed and hunters given a way to keep people in combat.

Or the third, it's just another in a line of broad changes that look good on paper without acknowledging basics of the class. Like the usefulness of haste, or the new spell pushback mechanic that ignores our lack of a proper interrupt. It's rather cute that every other dps class will have a reliable way of stopping a hunter casting revive pet... except a hunter.

 

Remf

Going out on a limb here, but one solution to all the hunter "pet problems" is... allow the hunters a way to be non-gimped without their pet active. It could be as straight forward as making "aspect of the beast" desummon the pet (if alive) and apply a (non dispellable) aura that gave the hunter the generic level xx pet's stats; i.e. str sta agi int or hp, melee ap, avoidance, mitigation, mana.

You might need to add some runspeed, stun resistance, or something along those lines to make up for the lost pet utility perhaps? Like desummon cunning pet, get runspeed, ferocious for snare resist, tenacious for stun resist. Or something like that. Give BM hunters a skill that buffs it up more, make the pet come back dead if the hunters HP drops too low and he changes aspects, other slight tweaks as needed. Poof, hunter melee escape and durability issues fade and pet survivability/LOS/resists becomes a non-issue. Tweak stats added as needed to balance for pvp/pve.

I'd really prefer a simple uber buff like the above that addressed/avoided the issues solidly, rather than more gimics added to pets that sort of, but don't really, fix the real problems. It's not unprecidented, it'd be a lot like droods in bear form actually...

 

WarTotem

Wouldn't that just be a "Bestial Sacrifice" that resembled VERY much to what Warlocks and their demons have currently? I also don't see how basicly sacrificing your caster pushback-bot would help you in arena. Sure, you'ld take less damage, but that caster will also be putting out more without a pet on him, no?
Feel free to elaborate on your point of view if you really think this would be of benefit to us.

 

Catalept

... yeah, but we're not druids. We're a pet class. Fixing our issues with getting range by making us better at melee is Bad, and for the same reasons, fixing pet survivability by allowing us to get by perfectly well without a pet is equally Bad. I don't want hunter issues to be solved by making us not hunters. I seem to recall Blizzard explicitly stating that they want warlocks to keep their pets out, too.

Edit: MMO-Champion BlueTracker - Why Warlocks outdamage Mages.

 

Remf

The point isn't to make hunters want to do without pets, the point is to address the situations where pets are a significant liability instead of a benefit. By requiring that the hunter plus pet be properly balanced in all cases, it also necessarily requires that the hunter minus pet is gimped, by whatever contribution the pet adds. And there's just too many ways for the hunter to end up (effectively) without a pet. Given the mechanics they chose for hunters (single pet choice at a time, resummon time, loss of happyness, partial hp on recall, etc.), requiring the pet to be alive and contributing 100% of the time just isn't reasonable.

So the idea is not to make running without a pet *desirable*; it is to make NOT having one active, for whatever reason, not such a massive handicap, while also not making hunter + pet overpowered/imbalanced. Situational use, like pvp vs. melee or pve when low on healing or with difficult mechanics (terrain, etc.). You'd specifically NOT want it to increase ranged dps, for example.

Plus, it'd be a (relatively) easy change and it's simple enough that it'd be straightforward to balance. I'll take that over a gimmicky new pet ability that doesn't quite work when the pet's dead/missing/stuck in a pole any day.

 

Trogdor

The whole point of being a hunter is having a pet, and skill & talent spec determine how much of a benefit or liability your pet is. As a SV hunter, I can shrug it off it my pet dies. I jumped in for council last week (Wow Web Stats), and since I didn't have unlimited mana I restrained myself to steady and multi (because of the damage bonus in conjunction with my armor penetration). My pet lived for 6 minutes and dealt 60k damage. The fight lasted for 8 minutes and I did a total of 811k damage. Sure another 3 minutes and my pet could have done another ~30k.. but had I an spriest or ret pally I could have unloaded my max damage potential (KC + arcanes as well) and done even more. It's only 30k (or if totaled to 90k if living the entire time), less than 10% of my total output (probably just at 10% if alive the entire time). So what?

I understand the feeling of being gimped when the pet is a significant source of damage, which is why I am not a BM hunter. I'm a horrible pet owner. With that being said, a good BM player is going to outdamage me in almost every single fight. That's the benefit. BM pets do closer to 30% of a hunter's total output (Wow Web Stats). I didn't hear anyone complaining about any of Nocomah's disadvantages about having a pet in there. Felmyst sucks for pets, but good heals and good players that recognize the importance of hunter pets ensure that pets live. It's all about playing smart.

In terms of PVP, pets get killed because they're constant, lethal, provide caster pushback (on top of regular shots), and are annoying over a period of time, AND split the attention of other players. "Kill the pet". The pet is getting attacked and killed; it could have been you. You're only gimped if the pet is made to be so much more valuable, which is a choice of spec. In PVP, I choose to implement the pet as a distraction and harassment, not as a significant source of damage. It's because of the way I spec and my playstyle. The pet got CC'd; it could have been you. Why does it get discussed that bats are sometimes favorites of hunters, or hunter pets share the same first letters in their name as their masters? It's because big flapping bats in your face get distracting (unless you're smart and zoom out some) or you target the pet when you do a /tar and the first few letters. Of course pets are going to die. They're incorporated into our being, and if they weren't there we'd be the target of everything all the time.

It's only a liability if you perceive it that way, or unable to use it as a tool. Liability is the current design of arenas and how it affects hunters, not pets. If anything, pets are getting better in WotLK, and the CD on their abilities are going to separate smart hunters from otherwise.

 

WarTotem

Well the happiness and health/deaths problem seems to be adressed in the expansion. But are you suggesting more something like changing the BM 11 point into something that sounds like "when your pet dies or you <insert certain event>, your pet will sacrifice itself for you, granting you <insert buff depending on pet class>"? Because personally I wouldn't be happy to see such a thing for following reasons:
1) It's a lame excuse for Blizzard to design fights in such a way that you can use this talent to compensate. Any other spec will be gimped and thus increases pidgeon-hole'ing hunters into it.
2) If you don't mean it as a talent, don't you agree that we already have more then enough buttons to put on our bars? Personally I would dislike any change that is a bandaid solution to our DPS in certain situations and requires an extra hotbar button on top of it.
3) Any talent or ability increasing melee DPS exponentially increases the amount of people trying to roll a melee-huntard. There are enough ranged huntards soiling what is left of our class reputation, do we really need more changes that promote unintelligent people to roll our class even more? Isn't AotBeast enough? Even if the intent is not to buff melee viability above that of ranged, as soon as it even comes close, melee-huntardism is getting revived. Melee is our weakness, we should have abilities to avoid this, not something that's a bandaid solution that basicly states "It's fine, l2play".

I understand you try to find a solution for our weaknesses, but if simply buffing this weakness was the solution, Mages would be wearing plate and spamming instant Pyroblasts, as that would solve two of their biggest problems.

Edit: Basicly, I am with Trogdor on this, but he says it far better

 

Grogzor

The way I see it, the benefit for other classes versus hunters in melee is so great, that they shouldn't have an easy time of staying in melee. A hunter at ranged can still be countered by other ranged classes. But a hunter in melee has a hard time countering anything thrown at him. Melee should work for the reward of gimping a hunter by getting them in melee, a hunter shouldn't have to work super hard getting to where he is supposed to be.

Also, for the case of pet survivability. They say they don't want to overpower pets yet they seem to be taking away one of the greatest uses for pets in PvP, spell pushback. Let me tell you, a pet could be as hard to kill as any class and not be overpowered because the sole reason, its not a human. It cannot think on its own. It just attacks what we tell it to attack. How can something with weak and long cooldown CC's, comparably very low dps, and no intelligence ever be considered overpowered? If that was the case, the old school ret pallies played by a cat would have been overpowered. As long as everything else remains the same (including the seeming increase to the chance to them being CCed due to resist changes), you could make a pet invulnerable permanently and not have them be overpowered.

I saw a hunter on the WoW forums suggest that pets scale with 30% of our resilience. People keep saying that pets should scale with our resilience, I believe that is true...its just I support them having 100% of ours.

But when it comes time for me to remove your wings, and you, you must try to fly...

Click Here to see what makes me tic(k).

What Are You Going to Roll for Warhammer Online?

 

Terp

By logic alone, if a dead pet doesn't gimp the hunter then nobody would bother killing it. It's not a simple matter of "Well at least they weren't attacking you" because in many cases that would be better. Hunters have resilience, higher mitigation, can kite, can vaguely prevent behind-only attacks, have at least some form of defense with scatter/traps, and usually have more than fucking 6000 health.

And the importance of your pet doesn't depend on your spec. A drain team is going to live or die based on whether or not it stops drinking. Due to hunters generally living permanently snared, using a pet wisely is absolutely crucial for this. The fact that BM hunters are gimped *even more* by pet death does not lower a pet's importance for other specs.

And to compound this it's near impossible to cast an untalented Revive pet, or Dismiss Pet at all.

 

Trogdor

Right, so then if the pet is being ignored and if you're successfully maintaining an opponent's focus on you and delaying your death while working towards their death, the pet it's doing it's part. Unless I'm getting heals, I'm not going to take out two players and live.. not unless the situation was in my favor and one or both of them is brain damaged. In a team game, it's about coordination and attrition.

If I see a warrior, I have a pretty decent idea he's going to come after me. It's not easy (at least for me, in confined spaces) for me to lose a warrior once he's determined, but I'm not going to go down without returning as much pain as I can. It's up to your healer to recognize that threat.. and by the same token it's up to you to recognize the healer's largest threats and do what you can to neutralize or hinder them.

The hunter class has some weaknesses, yes, but the majority of all the QQ comes from poor play, not the class. There are those exceptional hunters who demonstrate that the class is not as weak as most perceive it to be
(by proper timing, anticipation, team coordination, etc). I have killed my fair share of opponents of every class, 1 on 1, to know that while some classes have an edge on me, I have an edge on some of them. There isn't a class that can kill me all the time 100%, and those that get close don't do it by a huge margin either. Sometimes the difference is in the gear, sometimes it's in the percentages.



If you (generally speaking) are a BM hunter and feel so gimped when your pet dies, then respec or reroll. No one forces you (generally speaking) to spec BM for PvP. You have control over how you spec, as well as how much you (generally speaking) complain about everything that is lacking and wrong with the hunter class.

The last time I was given that small window of unnotice, I ran a string of: aimed, steady, multi, auto, arcane, concussive. Around 12k damage (against warlock) in whatever time it took to cast all that. Sure, it was disappointing that I couldn't kill him outright, but whatever. It happened a few seconds later anyway. I still had trap, scatter, and wyvern sting in my pocket. The thing is.. I marked their healer and sent my pet after it, so they ended up focusing on the wrong target. Sometimes the creativity works, sometimes it doesn't. But you can't win all the time. It so happens that hunters take a little more skill and talent than some other classes.



So for PVP-inclined people we have (WotLK-inclusive, in no particular order, and only naming what comes to mind first):
Aspect Mastery
Master's Call
Bestial Wrath
Piercing Shots
Chimera Shot
Focused Aim
Concussive Barrage
All the trap/harassment goodness in the SV tree

If you (generically speaking) can't find a PvP value in any of those things, or spend more time looking at other classes, then maybe you (generically speaking) should go play that other class, being that you (generically speaking) are so well versed in the abilities and talents.


We're going to get what we're going to get. Sure, more or better never hurts, but there has to be a realistic scope in everything. Overall, the small details of redesign in WotLK, both PvE and PvP is putting classes and their specs on a relatively even playing field; tanks, healers, DPS. Some will have some slight advantages over others and vice versa. The way that I see it, the cumulation of these small details is going to make a big difference on the quality of output, and that is largely through how competent the player is. Sort of like how it is now. I would never claim to be the best or the smartest, but I focus more on what I have rather than what I lack; it makes a bigger difference in my success.

In terms of PvP, I am pretty good at making people remember why they hate the hunter class as an opponent. I'll still die, but I force them to fight for it.

 

Remf

Or, instead of adding a bunch of special/limited use gimmicks and geegaws, they could change one aspect (of the beast, what has been worthless since it was added in beta) to do something useful, and largely address a number of nagging issues all at once. Making it a choice between a buff that gives survivability while meleed/focus target but cuts utility of having a pet, with all the nifty stuff + extra dps they can do, seems pretty reasonable. I don't think hunters want a cheezy cloak of shadows analog to be "balanced" in arenas. And blizz obviously doesn't think locks are purely a pet class, did you see the demon form they are getting? How is that so different that what I proposed?

 

Trogdor

I think that aspects should be taken off the GCD, and that AotB (in new form) should be combined with AotM.. though bumping up the 10% melee damage to something more (at least to 15%?) would be far more appealing. This way, it's a defensive+offensive measure, yet it won't be a 100% guarantee of success.

I think that pets should be pocket-stabled, where we can call any one of them out that we wish, without having to go somewhere. The creativity behind the variety of pet abilities with an inclination towards PvP is sort of.. useless if we can't drum up a best option when we want it.

Sonic Blast
Tendon Rip
Snatch
Scorpid Poison
Warp

I don't think it would be so hard for Blizzard to do something like that, much like how warlocks get to pick and choose. The difference is that our pets are better than warlock pets, and they mostly eat theirs for benefit. Their pets provide some utility.. sort of. Succubus and felhunter are used and seen most. Lol @ imps, voidwalkers, or lolguards.

I think that if we harass Blizz for the small things, they'll concede us more that could end up as a greater benefit in the long run than just getting one "big thing". Ohh, lets see if we can toss in better scaling for pet specials from the hunter's RAP power, especially for any of the ones that aren't focus dumps in WotLK.

Though I wouldn't mind taking that Camoflage skill, OP or not.

Warlock demon form? That's just something new to kill.

 

Terp

I genuinely don't know why I was quoted in that post. I was meaning to highlight the fact that pets are an integral part of hunter pvp, regardless of spec; down to the point that, given certain class combos, victory is more or less based on whether or not you are able to keep your pet alive. Generally speaking the matches in which a pet being focused instead of you would be beneficial are the ones in which the pet will be strictly ignored. People are not stupid, if focusing on a pet is a bad idea (CCing themselves, or whatever) they generally won't do it. If it is, they will.

There is simply something wrong with the system if against exhaustion teams not only is killing the pet a significant boon for healers being able to drink, but also the easiest way to exhaust the hunter team's mana.

This was all a tangent to the direct nerfing of pet's CC though. The ability to keep people from drinking really is one of the most unique abilities hunters have. Unless some changes are made to Cunning (or overall, but Cunning seems by far more likely), that ability seems quite diminished. Well, halved to be more exact.

 

TrevvyTrev

As far as I'm concerned, people's fear of "melee-huntardism" is uncalled for. Idiots can use any tool to further idiocy. Terrible hunters wipe groups with poor pet management. Is that a reason we shouldn't improve pets? Like it or not, melee is a part of the class. If people want to say, "if you want to melee, you should roll a rogue, warrior, etc.," then they need an appropriate response to a similar question, which is, "well, if YOU wanted to play a ranged class that *never* melees, why didn't YOU pick a warlock, mage or dps priest?"

A melee-oriented class or spec should have the advantage over me in melee range, all other things being equal. But they should still have to pay attention, and the advantage shouldn't be so great that they should feel as though it's smart for them to engage me even if otherwise overmatched. I've had warriors charge me when they were at 10% health and I was full. I've had rogues *destealth* at 20% to attack me when again, I was at full health. It's not these events that worry me (they were easy victories for me) but rather what they represent -- we live in a world where melees think that being in melee range against a hunter is such an automatic win that they will pick fights that they have no business picking.

Well, that world is stupid. Sure, we could "fix" it by giving more tools to hunters to get to range (and honestly, we could use at least one decent one regardless), but then we run into other problems. I'm sure we've all heard the (exaggerated?) tales of frustrated melees being kited across entire zones by hunters several levels below them. We've read pages of QQing about the OPness of untouchable kite-machines.

One thing that Blizzard could do is apply some of the creative solutions that they've used with other classes. For example, they realized that dispellers can trivialize warlock damage, so they introduced a couple of "penalties" for over-dispelling. They've done the same with rogue poisons. Tons of casters have effects that can trigger from ranged attacks, critical attacks, or both. They didn't make warriors less susceptible to being rooted, but they can get a health bonus when it happens. Sometimes melee and ranged attacks can trigger a speed boost on a mage. Silencing a mage can result in granting immunity to those effects for a period of time. Feral druids take less damage while stunned. The list goes on and on.

Ideas like these are good because they don't make it a BAD thing to use certain abilities against these classes, but they allow players to have some "teeth" against things that feel cheesy to them. So for hunters, why not a melee boost of some kind (doesn't have to be AP) that triggers when we're snared? Or some kind of mitigation that triggers when we're snared? These could be linked to aspects -- Aspect of the Monkey could give a dodge bonus, and reduce all damage by x% if the hunter has a movement-impairing effect. Aspect of the Beast could give the AP bonus that is on beta, with a further bonus if the hunter is movement-impaired. If people gibbing pets is a concern, there could be a talent that triggers something when the pet is the victim of a critical strike. Maybe something similar to the warlock talent Demonic Empathy, but in reverse -- when either the pet or is *hit* by a critical strike, the other one gets a buff -- maybe it will "enrage" the other one causing it to break certain CC that is on it, or maybe it will do something else entirely. These are just brainstorms, of course, but these kinds of things could help us address some frustrating aspects of PvP without going back to the days where people felt they couldn't touch us.

Moreover, because the bonuses kick in when we have certain negative effects on us or our pets, it addresses the concern that people will just take advantage of them to abandon all things hunter except melee. No one is going to snare themselves so they can melee a boss, or break CC from a pet by running at someone and letting them land a crit, for example.

 

WarTotem

I like that idea Trev. My major concern was about how people would try to use an active ability. A reactive talent would indeed be the best choice.

 

Gromdal

With respect to the whole resistance issue and having to choose as to whether you spec your pet a certain way or not if you aren't BM, would it not have made much more sense to completely do away with the pet trainer, and just allow you to retalent your pet yourself without paying 10s every time? That way if you have a resistance fight then you at least have the viability to say "ok, I'll take the tradeoff of no Roar of Recovery/x talent for more pet survivability JUST for this boss" because lets face it, most of the time pet resistances just aren't needed and there is currently no incentive to take the 3 talents in it over the alternatives.

In this way it's surely no different to the regular player strapping on a resistance set for a boss even with player percentages applying to the pet. And from a lore standpoint, it's stupid that as a hunter I can't teach an old dog new tricks so to speak without taking it for a memory wipe!

 

TrevvyTrev

On another note, I'm not keen on the changes to Tranq Shot. Removing one Enrage, Frenzy and Magic effect is fine, but the CD has got to go (and the mana adjusted to be on par with other offensive dispels, if needed). Enrages and Frenzies aren't common, so most of the time it is just removing one magic effect, and there's not much reason for hunters to be the only ones whose non-damaging dispel is on a CD, unless it removed a LOT of them at once. I think the rationale for removing it from arcane shot is misguided (yes, casters hate damage+dispel. A lot. But melee/hunters hate damage+snare. A LOT. The issue can't really turn on how much people hate being debuffed by something that would be "used for damage anyway" can it?) but if they are going to go that way they need to make the dispel competitive.

Once again, the designers seem more focused on making things better than how they were instead of putting them where they need to be.

I'm also not happy about the prospect of having 2-minute cooldowns be easily dispelled (did they learn *nothing* from Shamanistic Rage???) but we don't have actual confirmation of that happening so it wouldn't do any good to rage about it right now.