Upcoming Hunter Changes - Page 3

XereX · 12/09/08, 2:01 PM

12) Spirit Strike – reduced the period on the dot so it will work better with Longevity.

maybe it is my English but i don't understand that. the Dot ticks faster or what? and what dose this mean for Spirit Beast DPS. well it is going to be better but by how much?

Originally Posted by Har

Now that readiness doesn't allow us to enrage twice in a row, what's the benefit of 50/21? Do all the talent points leading up to readiness provide as much DPS as points in improved tracking or some other DPS talent?

IMO after theses changes, 50/21 wont be any good, Improved Tracking + Survival Instincts would be a better build.

Har · 12/09/08, 2:04 PM

Originally Posted by XereX

maybe it is my English but i don't understand that. the Dot ticks faster or what? and what dose this mean for Spirit Beast DPS. well it is going to be better but by how much?

Currently, spirit strike is losing DPS for the hunter if they take 3/3 longevity. This is due to the fact that the cooldown and the duration of the DoT are both 10 seconds, however only the cooldown is shortened by longevity.

Soulcow · 12/09/08, 2:04 PM

Originally Posted by XereX

maybe it is my English but i don't understand that. the Dot ticks faster or what? and what dose this mean for Spirit Beast DPS. well it is going to be better but by how much?

The probably make the dot tick after 5-7 seconds, regardless of having Longevity or not.

TrevvyTrev · 12/09/08, 2:07 PM

Originally Posted by Ironchefboyardee

While nerfing the BM damage that is out of line when compared to other classes may be a fine plan, it seems like a bad idea to nerf the specs that aren't a problem with that Steady Shot nerf.

Is it possible that more MM and Surv hunters will bail on those specs as their dps gets nerfed from average to below par?

The poor performance of MM and SV specs relative to other dps classes is a largely untested assumption at this point, because with BM is significantly further ahead, comparatively few hunters are raiding with those specs. Just because MM and SV lag behind BM doesn't mean that MM and SV lag behind affliction locks or frostfire mages or fury warriors or whatever else.

The idea that MM and SV do terrible dps becomes something of a self-fulfilling prophecy -- once the word is out that all the "good" hunters go BM for raiding, a larger proportion of the remaining hunters are those who aren't min-maxing for whatever reasons (ranging from skill to plain old indifferences). This is not to say that MM or SV hunters are uninformed or unskilled by default, but rather that the samples will be skewed as more of the hardcore (for lack of a better term) players bail for BM.

In other words, many would-be MM or SV raiders are less concerned that they are 500dps ahead of the ret paladin and more concerned that they are 500 dps behind the BM hunter (numbers just made up, for illustration, btw), and that is what gives them the perception that their dps is bad. We actually don't have sufficient evidence yet to determine that it's bad compared to everyone else.

For example in this WWS parse The top three spots belong to hunters, with #1 and #2 being BM, and #3 being MM. What is noteworthy is that #2 and #3 were very close in damage. The top hunter smoked everyone but we don't know all that's going on there. Another interesting point is that all 3 hunters (MM included) dominated everyone except for the mages. The rogues, moonkin, shadow priest, warlocks, retadin and deathknight weren't even close.

Rosamonde · 12/09/08, 2:14 PM

7) Serpent’s Swiftness – now only grants 2/4/6/8/10% bonus attack speed to pet.

Current tool tip reads: Serpent’s Swiftness -- Increases ranged combat attack speed by 4/8/12/16/20% and your pet's melee attack speed by 4/8/12/16/20%.

I read this as reducing the pet's increase while leaving the hunter's intact. I can see the other reading as being valid from a grammatical standpoint, but the nerf would be too huge to make sense -- I hope! I suppose it would be better to ask for a clarification than to debate the semantics here.

Also, if they are going to nerf cats and scorpids so the exotics perform better in comparison, then something needs to be done about the selection of exotics. If they take away my cat, what am I left with? Ticking off my whole raid by bringing a huge, noisy, annoying corehound or devilsaur, or spend the next few months of my life trying to tame the one and only spirit beast in the game, along with every other hunter on the server...

We will either need more exotics to choose from, or an improvement in the "raid friendliness" of the current choices.

Har · 12/09/08, 2:18 PM

Originally Posted by Rosamonde

I read this as reducing the pet's increase while leaving the hunter's intact. I can see the other reading as being valid from a grammatical standpoint, but the nerf would be too huge to make sense -- I hope! I suppose it would be better to ask for a clarification than to debate the semantics here.

Actually, I believe that this is their answer to the general disdain BM hunters have been heaping on haste rating. Currently, our steady shot is haste capped because of this talent, and after the changes, it won't be.

Elendril · 12/09/08, 2:21 PM

It seems pretty clear that the Serpent Swiftness and Kindred Spirits changes impact only that portion of the talent. They're not taking away 20% hunter haste from Serpent Swiftness in addition to 10% pet haste.

Gjorn · 12/09/08, 2:22 PM

GC made some additional comments later in that QQ fest of a thread.

I did say these are not all the hunter changes we're working on. Some we haven't quite worked out yet and others (one exciting one in particular concerning ammo) won't be ready until Ulduar or so.

We think MM was too high and BM was way too high. Survival is probably a little low. We are looking at buffing Survival, possibly through Explosive Shot, but we haven't finalized that yet.

The Deterrence change is defintely something we'll need to see in action on the PTR.

I don't want to do a disservice to all the good PvP feedback by attempting to boil it down too much. However, in general a lot of hunters were concerned about being able to do damage as much as they were concerned about being able to survive damage. We don't expect the Deterrence change to solve the former problem obviously. We're still working on that one, but we wanted to go ahead and announce what changes we have now so that you guys can be chewing on them.

Nerfing classes is never fun. It means that our initial tests and estimates didn't play out in the real world, which is a failing on our part, not anything the players did wrong. While buffing is a lot more fun, we think we'd get to crazy land too quickly by trying to make current BM dps the new benchmark. That would mean touching virtually every other class and spec as well as many encounters. While it might produce more positive PR in the short-term, it's a ton more work in the long-term that we would rather spend on new content or other problem areas.

Also, the sky is not falling. We're posting here so we can get feedback. Threats of rerolling or that sort of melodrama aren't really giving us any information we need. I can understand while you might want to vent a little bit, but posts with nothing but QQ aren't helpful.

Link

Mattaos · 12/09/08, 2:39 PM

Originally Posted by Shandara

The problem with the Steady Shot nerf is that Arcane Shot and Multi-Shot may look more useful but our mana expenditure will go up quite a bit by using them. We will probably spend more time in Viper if we add them to our rotation (not to mention our rotation becomes quite a bit more complicated), which leads to a damage loss. Whether it is a net loss remains to be seen.

After reading the changes the thought of incorporating Arcane Shot into the rotation for BM immediately came to mind. Mana consumption was the initial concern as you mentioned, but I think this might be a respectable consideration to explore deeper (awaiting PTR). Some possibilities could be switching out say the Glyph of AotHawk or Bestial Wrath for Glyph of Acrane Shot. The Steady nerf obviously strengthens the necessity for using the Steady Shot glyph, which means Serpent Sting is always going to remain on the target anyway.

10% of Base mana every 6 seconds with 20% of that cost being refunded. Sound potentially viable.

1 full rotation = 8xSteady Shot, 2xArcane Shot and Serpent Sting refresh. Repeat

8xSS = 2016 mana used
2xAS = 1010 mana used (810 using AS glyph)
1xSrS = 656 mana used

3682 mana/rotation (3482 mana/roation glyphed)

Old rotation = 10XSteady Shots and Serpent refresh. Repeat.

10xSS = 2520 mana used
1xSrS = 656 mana used

3176 mana/rotation ... 506 more mana using Arcane Shot (306 more mana glyphed)

EDIT: Additional thought

Ryas · 12/09/08, 2:41 PM

I understand the pet nerfs, I saw those coming a while ago. Its the Steady Shot nerf that really bugs me, Hopefully with some PTR testing, they'll see that the nerf to Steady is way too much.

Tapout · 12/09/08, 2:46 PM

I think they just mentioned the pet part of Serpent's Swiftness because they didn't change the the hunter's portion. If they nerfed, or worse completely removed, the haste for the hunter, there's no way in hell it'd be an 8th tier talent.

Masterdragon · 12/09/08, 2:51 PM

Originally Posted by Ryas

I understand the pet nerfs, I saw those coming a while ago. Its the Steady Shot nerf that really bugs me, Hopefully with some PTR testing, they'll see that the nerf to Steady is way too much.

Thats the same issue that has me worried. Rest of the nerfs I can potentially see as passible but the Steady Shot nerf has me mind boggled. I mean, we all pretty much seen that the 50/21 spec was going to end up getting nerfed (even though they fixed readiness from the beta to work with Beastial Wrath). Volley I could see too being nerfed and now makes it to where you ask yourself "Why should I Volley now and just break my weapon while I'm at it." Serpent Swiftness and Kindred Spriits are 2 good places to Nerf BM hunters to bring them down in line without affected the other 2 specs.

However the steady nerf is pretty major to all 3 specs. As AP continues to rise, the talent will get weaker and weaker. Blizz is also forgeting that based on the current gear, yes Hunters (and moreso pets) are High but Pets are already reaching a plateau since the big AP buffs are coming from Buffs and not directly from just the 22% of Hunter AP. If we go from 4k-6k AP, the pet is only going to gain an additional 440 AP which is still less then the 550 from BoM.

Ryas · 12/09/08, 2:58 PM

Originally Posted by Masterdragon

However the steady nerf is pretty major to all 3 specs. As AP continues to rise, the talent will get weaker and weaker. Blizz is also forgeting that based on the current gear, yes Hunters (and moreso pets) are High but Pets are already reaching a plateau since the big AP buffs are coming from Buffs and not directly from just the 22% of Hunter AP. If we go from 4k-6k AP, the pet is only going to gain an additional 440 AP which is still less then the 550 from BoM.

This is something I was saying from way back in the beta, when people were complaining about BM hunter damage back then. We are going to do more damage out of the gate, yes. But as classes get more gear they will see a larger increase of DPS from their gear than we will. Pets are basically capped on DPS already. Yes, I agree a scorpid is doing way too much damage right now, and like I've stated where they nerf pets in the BM tree is understandable and I have no problem with it. However, the steady shot nerf hurts us directly, making AP scale 1/2 as well for hunters.

Now, when we get a piece of gear, while the crit will scale the same, AP is essentially cut in half for effectiveness. Are we going to have to stack crit gems and such now if the steady shot nerf goes live?

Elendril · 12/09/08, 3:02 PM

Originally Posted by Ryas

Now, when we get a piece of gear, while the crit will scale the same, AP is essentially cut in half for effectiveness.

This isn't true. The AP contribution to a particular attack is cut in half - the value of AP for your other attacks and for your pet remains the same. I am also concerned about the scaling issue this brings up (as I mentioned in my own post), but to say that AP is now half as valuable to us is a drastic exaggeration.

Ryas · 12/09/08, 3:05 PM

Exaggeration, yes. But it still lowers the overall effectiveness of AP for a hunter, or at least a BM hunter.

One thing is, I'm curious if they still have plans to make exotic pets still do around 10% damage than a normal pet. I mean, I'm sure they still have the plan to do it, but now might be that time with all these other changes. I'd also like to see the actual change on Rake/Scorpid Poison.

Also, assuming all these changes do go live, I'm thinking of a build like this: 50/14/7

Although, with Readiness not effecting Bestial Wrath anymore, would the full 3 points in longevity outweigh Survival Instincts or more points in Mortal Shots? Making 52/15/5 or 52/12/7 better.