I'm as happy as anyone to use more skills while raiding. Every rotation is sting based be it for LnL, for more SS dmg or in the form of CS. Assuming haste cap for 1,5 SS we have BM and SV doing 15/18 sec rotations and MM doing 10sec ones... Or 10/12 shots for BM/SV and 6 shots for MM.
These are just meant to show that SS will be used a lot even if the optimal rotation uses it only between CD on other shots. The premises are infinite mana and Any shot is better than SS.
BM: SS + AS + Multi/Aimed(most?)
SV: SS + AS/ES + Multi/Aimed(most?)
MM SS + CS + AS + Multi/Aimed
BM/SV using all the AS and Multi/Aimed:
Sting -> AS -> Aimed/Multi -> SS -> SS -> SS -> AS -> Aimed/Multi -> SS -> Aimed/Multi ...
SS is still our bread and butter and if it scales badly then we scale badly.
MM:
Much tighter rotation but let's follow the same logic and avoid SS as much as we can...
CS/Sting -> AS -> Aimed -> SS -> SS -> AS -> SS -> CS -> now it gets messy as u shoot when CD is off... but even s we have 3 Steadies for every 7 shots. A LOT.
Do not be mistaken into thinking this is just a change that'll reduce the volley and make us use more shots. We will lose a lot of personal DPS. Frankly I don't really mind in the lower reaches of the DPS class packs... everybody has had a turn there.
Before folks get too concerned about the sky falling, I'd like to share the insights I got from several hours of modelling using Shandara's excellent spreadsheet while killing time on a plane today. My motivation was specifically to see if the SS nerf was going to be the high-end hit people think it will.
Using the 79a version of shandara's spreadsheet (the latest pre-nerf version) I tried to create the most powerful build I could, using full raid buffs and manually capping hit (by hand adjusting it) so that the gear planner would maximise damage. With the orc racial, inscription & LW as professions, the following 54/11/6 build, a scorpid pet, glyphs of bestial wrath, arcane shot & steady shot,and a SpS/KS/AS/SS rotation I got a total dps of 6652. Taking that exact configuration to the latest spreadsheet gives a dps of 6213, at 6.5% reduction. Time to OOM for the first build 378; time to OOM for the second build 352.
Before everyone describes that as unrealistic, I then build a gear set without the hit manually capped, same build, rotation, glyphs and pet. Pre-nerf dps comes to 6398; post nerf dps of 5961, 6.8% drop. Time to OOM pref-nerf 250; post-nerf 241 so mana consumption isn't ridiculously off scale.
While this is obviously not real-life testing, I certainly think it should give those folks thinking our class is dissolving something to think about. Of course, it could mean that Blizzard will think we need further nerfing, but I'd like to be more positive than that.
Thoughts?
How much without the scorpid? We don't know yet the changes to scorpids and cats...
shandara's spreadsheet says no. AP is still the higher per item budget value
Wont this basicly continue to be the case since we need so much agi for 1% crit @ 80 paired with the mortal shot nerf and also that high amounts of crit isnt as needed these days to "feed" the pets focus?
I have one hope now they are looking at fixing and nerfing things and that is that they either change the way LnL works or perhaps even better change Exp shot so survival could change from its current state of a nightmare of randomness to something that was actually playable. Making the exp shot DoT part stack so firing two exp shots wouldnt actually be detrimental for DPS might be one way to do it.
Patch notes for PTR 3.0.8 for Hunter (copy-pasted from mmo-champoin):
Aspect of the Wild - This aspect is now raid-wide.
Deterrence: Design changed to grant 100% parry and 100% chance to "deflect" spells coming from the front, but prevents the Hunter from attacking. Lasts 5 sec. 60 sec. cooldown.
Kill Shot – Cooldown reduced to 15 seconds, down from 35 sec.
Steady Shot: Now gains 10% of attack power as damage instead of 20%.
Viper Sting: Now drains a percentage of maximum mana.
Totally different thing, but still about an upcoming hunter change : anyone thought this through ?
"Viper Sting: Now drains a percentage of maximum mana."
Combined with
"Chimera Shot" - " Viper Sting - Instantly restores mana to you equal to 60% of the total amount drained by your Viper Sting. "
What Im wondering is what will happen if you shoot it at pve mobs/bosses with LARGE amounts of mana ?
Heh... Unless bosses will be immune to mana draining, I think it will be OP from the beginning, then Blizzard will see this and either nerf Viper or Chimera, OR make bosses immune to Viper Sting completely.
bomzix, do you remember pre-TBC? We have been there, we were not needed outside Tranq Shot. Had Rogues had the ability then few Hunters would ever have raided then. The reson is simple enough, we don't bring much to the table. We don't need to be the best DPS, but we need to be up there because we are not versatile. That doesn't mean we need to own those below us. The perfect situation would be for all the DPS to be within 5% of the #1, but that won't happen.
bomzix, do you remember pre-TBC? We have been there, we were not needed outside Tranq Shot. Had Rogues had the ability then few Hunters would ever have raided then. The reson is simple enough, we don't bring much to the table. We don't need to be the best DPS, but we need to be up there because we are not versatile. That doesn't mean we need to own those below us. The perfect situation would be for all the DPS to be within 5% of the #1, but that won't happen.
I played a Pally from 5m Blessings up to late-late TBC... I don't belive serious groups will pass up on a class that brings something, however small, if their DPS is in the accepted ranges ( for example: a 2nd Mage instead of any hunter with an aditional raid buff on a 10man raid ). I don't mind beeing owned on static fights by a certain class and by another on moving fights. What I really really really don't want to happen is to get owned by hybrids ( as a rule and not in every case ) that always bring great buffs and now great DPS. By hybrids I mean everyone except Hunters, Mages, Warlocks and Rogues. As long as These 4 classes are top 5 of the majority of dmg meters I'm happy.
Disclamer: Accepted ranges can mean anything, I know...
Reading all the changes, and the comments here I doubt that these changes will kill hunters now, but I do see a large scaling problem ahead.
I think the pet damage nerf is fine, the steady shot damage nerf is not.
What I think would be the best thing blizzard could do is nerf pet damage even further, but giving them parts of our crit% and resilience to balance things.
Pet dps isn't going to increase much over the course of WotLK, thus hunter dps won't scale as well either.
And all other classes will sooner or later close the gap, and wave while they're passing us on the damage meters.
I also realise that I'm not saying anything new... Now here's to hoping Blizzard will listen.
I don't think blizzard will do much with Viper - Chimera shot just because at the moment you are looking at 4 of 17 total PvE raid bosses with mana pools and 4/18 if you count the Wintergrasp Raid Boss. They are:
Grand Widow Faerlina: 85,160 mana
Gothik the Harvester: 425,800 mana
Noth the Plaguebringer: 127,740 mana
Kel'Thuzad: 2,554,800 mana
Reading all the changes, and the comments here I doubt that these changes will kill hunters now, but I do see a large scaling problem ahead.
I think the pet damage nerf is fine, the steady shot damage nerf is not.
What I think would be the best thing blizzard could do is nerf pet damage even further, but giving them parts of our crit% and resilience to balance things.
Pet dps isn't going to increase much over the course of WotLK, thus hunter dps won't scale as well either.
And all other classes will sooner or later close the gap, and wave while they're passing us on the damage meters.
If all they did was nerf pets, then they wouldn't hit MM hunters with the nerfs very much. MM hunters were consistently behind BM hunters in damage (although not by nearly as much as people like to say), but they were consistently ahead of everyone else also, which is just as much of a problem. A steady shot nerf was required to make sure that they brought all specs down to earth, as that is the only special shot that all 3 specs use consistently. Now this further lowers SV, which actually may not have been doing excessive dps, but GC said they have plans to address SV's dps so that it's up to par.
But if they only nerfed pets then people would just switch from BM to MM (or SV, once they un-nerf it) the same way people switched from SV (which was the highest damage at one point in beta) when explosive shot got nerfed, because the other specs were unaffected. Plus, as you pointed out, pet damage doesn't scale as fast as other abilities so it actually might not keep hunter dps from outpacing everyone else if they focused nerfs on the part of our dps with a flatter scaling curve.
Speaking of scaling, without numbers it's largely conjecture on anyone's part, but steady shot doesn't just scale with AP. It scales with weapon damage and ammo, and both can get upgraded in the future. In particular, ammo is a scalar that pretty much only applies to hunters so it can be useful to keep hunters from falling behind without overpowering enhancement shamans and mail-wearing retadins. If anything Blizzard should be more consistent in factoring in weapon damage and ammo into other special shots, so that they always appear more valuable than auto shots and steady shot even as you upgrade your weapon and ammo.
According to MMO-Champion all the mana drains are limited by a percentage of your own mana pool. So Viper - Chimera will not regen your entire mana pool in one hit on a raid boss.
If all they did was nerf pets, then they wouldn't hit MM hunters with the nerfs very much. MM hunters were consistently behind BM hunters in damage (although not by nearly as much as people like to say), but they were consistently ahead of everyone else also, which is just as much of a problem. A steady shot nerf was required to make sure that they brought all specs down to earth, as that is the only special shot that all 3 specs use consistently. Now this further lowers SV, which actually may not have been doing excessive dps, but GC said they have plans to address SV's dps so that it's up to par.
But if they only nerfed pets then people would just switch from BM to MM (or SV, once they un-nerf it) the same way people switched from SV (which was the highest damage at one point in beta) when explosive shot got nerfed, because the other specs were unaffected. Plus, as you pointed out, pet damage doesn't scale as fast as other abilities so it actually might not keep hunter dps from outpacing everyone else if they focused nerfs on the part of our dps with a flatter scaling curve.
Speaking of scaling, without numbers it's largely conjecture on anyone's part, but steady shot doesn't just scale with AP. It scales with weapon damage and ammo, and both can get upgraded in the future. In particular, ammo is a scalar that pretty much only applies to hunters so it can be useful to keep hunters from falling behind without overpowering enhancement shamans and mail-wearing retadins. If anything Blizzard should be more consistent in factoring in weapon damage and ammo into other special shots, so that they always appear more valuable than auto shots and steady shot even as you upgrade your weapon and ammo.
They could have nerfed MM talents like Master Marksman or Marked for Death? Or changed Imp Steady to include Arcane with a higher proc chance? These are just examples, not something I would push forward as I honestly don't know enough, but if they can nerf BM in the tree, why not MM and leave Surv alone? I mean if all they are going to do is buff Explosive Shot to make up for the rather poor returns of being Survival, then it needs to be a rather substantial boost. And what does that do? It makes Survival horribly unpredictable in LnL procs, and it would almost pigeonhole Survival into Point of No Return and melee trap bosses or something silly like that. Explosive Shot it self needs a boost that's for sure, but making Survival a one-trick wonder is not good. They need to work with their other shots too. Imagine a Fire immune boss. Ouch for Survival (post nerf and then ES boost).
Also, from the looks of the top WWS right now (with people we have to assume are just about kitted out fully from the raids now) it really doesn't look like Hunters were that far ahead (discounting HAT Rogues, eventhough that could technically be an intentional machanic). Yeah, overall they look pretty good there, being in the top every time more or less, but no longer are they several bossdamage % ahead, but within reasonable limites.
What that tells me is that initially in raiding Hunters do superb damage, they can't be beaten more or less. As people gear up in raids/heroics that advantage shrinks for some reason. The only reason I know of that can make it act like that is scaling. Hunters apparently don't scale as well as other classes (not all, just some as it is hard to determine precisely right now). Then it seems pretty poor to hit us on our general scaling, Steady Shot.
I believe that if the pets are doing too good damage now, and enough after the nerf, but BM gets outscaled, BM would have been outscaled regardless of pet nerfs. But it is never really fun to watch.
The irony of the changes if all go though like they are listed is that they wanted to tone down pets in general and in relation to the BM Hunter personally. Well it appears that, family specifics aside, that the Hutner and pet are equally nerfed, leading to a similar situation again with pets doing just about 45-50%.
Regarding ammo, GC seemed pretty excited about an ammo change. But then again he is often excited about stuff that turns out to be less than hoped (hyped?). In any case, ammo is indeed a perfect tool to balance us out if we scale badly. They just need to turn ammo and weapon on for Arcane Shot for it to be a good shot. It would be silly if Arcane fell back to the TBC uselessness in stand and shoot fights because Steady got better with gear, while Arcane didn't do as well (at least is scales better than in TBC).
Anyway, right now we are using either vendor ammo or Engy ammo. Nice and good each, but hardly more than that. Compared to even Violet ammo in TBC, we have just not scaled up with ammo DPS at all (unless you dish out a lot of gold for it). Weapons have scaled up about 60% from Kara level DPS, out ammo hasn't scaled at all (or around 40% with Engy ammo). That's got to mean new ammo soon.
Has anyone been able to get on and check how large the scorpid poison and rake nerfs are? I'm assuming that a nerf to the coefficient means we'll actually see a significant drop in dps from those pets. Also it seems they stuck a 5% nerf to unleashed fury in there as well dropping pet dmg even more. If we can manage to convince blizzard to remove the steady shot change I think we can hold on to the top spots on the damage meters (not counting broken HAT rogues). If that steady nerf goes through to live though, I don't know how we'll be able to stay in the top 5.
The following list of hunter changes has been posted to the MMO-C site:
Skills Marksmanship
- Volley damage has been reduced by 30%. (From 505 to 353 damage for Rank 6)
- Viper Sting now Stings the target, draining 16% of mana over 8 sec (up to a maximum of 32% of the caster's maximum mana).
- Steady Shot now only gains 10% of attack power as damage (down from 20%).
- Kill Shot cooldown lowered from 35 to 15 seconds.
Survival
- Aspect of the Wild now affects raid members.
Pet
- Prowl (Rank 2) level requirement lowered from 40 to 30.
Talents Beast Mastery
- Unleashed Fury now increases the damage done by your pets by 3/6/9/12/15%. (Down from 4/8/12/16/20%)
- Serpent's Swiftness now increases pet's melee attack speed by 2/4/6/8/10%. (Down from 4/8/12/16/20%)
- Kindred Spirits now increases pet's damage by 3/6/9/12/15%. (Down from 4/8/12/16/20%)
Survival
- Improved Tracking changed to While tracking Beasts, Demons, Dragonkin, Elementals, Giants, Humanoids and Undead, all ranged damage done to those types is increased by 1/2/3/4/5%.
- Trap Mastery now only increases periodic damage done by Immolation and Explosive Trap. (Old - All damage)
- Readiness doesn't affect Bestial Wrath anymore.
- Marked for Death now also affects Arcane Shot.
Pet
- Call of the Wild now benefits only the hunter and his or her pet.
How much without the scorpid? We don't know yet the changes to scorpids and cats...
Swapping to a cat pet on the hit capped pre-nerf build drops dps from 6398 to 6131 - a 4% drop. Swapping to a cat on the post-nerf hit capped build (the gear is the same for both builds) drops dps from 5961 to 5546 - a 7% drop.
The increase reduction is mostly accounted for buy a difference in crit & AP between the two builds, although I can't find why they differ at the moment. I'll look further later. I know shandara included the new crit reduction that has befoundthrough empiric testing (see the lethal shots thread) but that doesn't explain the AP loss given identical gear, bufsfs & talents.
Looking at the straight hunter dps (and again there's a difference in the crit & ap of the two builds)
Pre-nerf - 3389
Post-nerf - 2962
giving a 12% loss
They could have nerfed MM talents like Master Marksman or Marked for Death? Or changed Imp Steady to include Arcane with a higher proc chance? These are just examples, not something I would push forward as I honestly don't know enough, but if they can nerf BM in the tree, why not MM and leave Surv alone? I mean if all they are going to do is buff Explosive Shot to make up for the rather poor returns of being Survival, then it needs to be a rather substantial boost. And what does that do? It makes Survival horribly unpredictable in LnL procs, and it would almost pigeonhole Survival into Point of No Return and melee trap bosses or something silly like that. Explosive Shot it self needs a boost that's for sure, but making Survival a one-trick wonder is not good. They need to work with their other shots too. Imagine a Fire immune boss. Ouch for Survival (post nerf and then ES boost).
Also, from the looks of the top WWS right now (with people we have to assume are just about kitted out fully from the raids now) it really doesn't look like Hunters were that far ahead (discounting HAT Rogues, eventhough that could technically be an intentional machanic). Yeah, overall they look pretty good there, being in the top every time more or less, but no longer are they several bossdamage % ahead, but within reasonable limites.
There are two issues with nerfing the talents you described, and in nerfing talents in general: 1) you have to make sure that people don't just skip them to avoid the nerfs and 2) you have to make sure the nerfs will do what you want. Going in reverse order, I'm not entirely sure how you could nerf Master Marksman or Marked for Death and still keep them as talents. But moving to the first point, neither of those is absolutely required to get to Chimera Shot, so if they get nerfed too hard then people will pick other talents and get some of the dps/efficiency back that comes from nerfing those. Remember that right now they may be in most builds because they are better than the alternatives, but they aren't the only talents that people can get to add dps, so if they nerfed them to where they are no longer better than the talents people are skipping, then people will just get the other talents.
Plus from a psychological perspective, nerfing the talents mentioned would just spawn discussions on how they aren't worth the points compared to this that or the other, and how worthless they were etc. By contrast, while people are moaning about the change to steady, no one is going to stop using it.
I also don't know why buffing explosive shot all of a sudden makes SV have to melee trap bosses or overly reliant on LnL procs, because for one thing that's not what people were doing back when the tree was OP. There's a happy medium somewhere between explosive shot not doing enough and it doing too much. And it's not reasonable to think that if Blizz decides to go that way, then they will somehow forget to factor in how reliable (or unreliable) the proc-based talents in SV are when they decide on a final number. It's also worth noting that they haven't decided on whether to buff SV dps through explosive shot, some other method, or a combination. It's not final.
Moreover, I wasn't saying (or at least I didn't intend to say) that the only possible way to reduce BM and MM damage was to nerf steady shot. It simply seems to be the best way to do it among all the alternatives, given that each has benefits and detriments. Steady shot transformed from a filler shot to being the most important shot any hunter had, and incidentally, it is the most boring. As GC said, by nerfing steady they have the opportunity to make hunters care about other shots. Just nerfing pets and some high level MM talents doesn't actually solve the problem of everyone building around our "filler" shot, and it still wouldn't make BM hunters care about specials. How many times have we seen phrases like, "it's not worth the GCD and lost steady shot"? How many discussions center around whether other shots should be used only if glyphed? Glyphing an ability to improve it is one thing, but having to glyph it before anyone considers using it regularly is dumb.
A lot of this discussion seems focused on how to bring dps in line without changing steady shot, without first asking why we should treat steady shot as a sacred cow in the first place. So far the only possible answer has been "scaling", but that is meaningless without comparing it to something that allegedly scales better. I have no clue whether the nerfed steady shot will scale worse than frostfire bolt or rupture or rip or lightning bolt or anything else, or whether poorer scaling on steady shot equates to terrible scaling overall, and no one as presented any math to answer the question. All I know is that it will do less damage than it does now, which is basically the point of the change.
This dovetails into my final point about the WWS reports. I'll start by saying that it's starting to get out of hand how we talk about how things are in this thread without any data to support it or even a theoretical model. I'm as guilty of that as anyone else in some places, so I'll knock it off. We can't just keep saying, "MM hunter damage wasn't out of line" or "other classes are catching up" without pointing to something. So with that in mind, I present the first parse I saw today on WWS with a hunter in it. I don't make any representations about the quality of it. I don't know these people. I wasn't at the raid.
The BM hunter is on top. No surprise. The elemental shaman is right behind, almost tied. That means there's no problem, right? Not necessarily. On closer inspection we see the shaman had a pretty complex rotation. By contrast, the hunter basically spammed steady shot. Serpent sting wasn't used at all (which would have increased dps, especially with the right glyph combo). The hunter wasn't using an OP pet (seems like he used a wolf). He barely used specials (82 arcane shots compared to ~2000 autos and steadies combined, with multis and aimed thrown in here and there).
In addition, the hunter topped the damage meter despite being 6th (out of 10) in dps uptime. His pet was only 32% of his damage, which incidentally was the same percentage he got from steady shot. His wolf didn't benefit from mangle (imp. leader of the pack procs prove there was a feral there) the way a cat would have. Suffice it to say there were numerous ways the hunter could have improved performance for this particular raid, and yet he still topped the meters. Nerfing pet damage doesn't hit this guy too hard -- he's not doing the "40-50% pet damage" that gets bandied about. The cat and scorpid nerfs don't affect him. Not to disparage this guy's skill, because I have no idea how good he is at playing, but there's nothing in this parse that indicates he "deserves" to be on the top of the meter, given the simplicity of his rotation and fairly low dps uptime, unless he outgears everyone else (which I don't know either).
This is but one isolated example that doesn't prove anything by itself. It just gives us a reason to consider that maybe we are understating how good hunters have it compared to other classes at the moment.
I'm not really interested in what my DPS is going to be like now after the patch, more so when Ulduar is released and the gear levels go up. Let's face it, Naxx is not very hard that I need to be doing 4500 DPS. We need to look at the upcoming raid dungeons and see if we are going to scale as well as the other classes. Remember back in the MC days how we dominated DPS then we hit BWL and AQ40 and started dropping a lot? I don't want the same thing to happen again.
I don't agree with GC that nerfing steadyshot will make us "care" more about other shots. The reason we don't use them is because they are not good. It takes 3 extra points in the MM tree to make arcane shot good, and takes 6 points to make aimed shot good and then it is still debatable if they are worth using over Steady. That still doesn't account for the extra mana drain per rotation and the extra time spent in viper because of it. I also find it kind of messed up that they can take the time to knock our DPS down but they can't fix any of the bugs we have been complaining about since beta. If they fixed the steady shot glyph bug then the steadyshot nerf would not sting so much.
One thing that needs to be considered about pets is that they are pretty much right near the plateau right now. Icecrown gear on the Hunter isnt going to raise Pet DPS by much. A 1000 AP boost is only going to give the pet an additional 220 AP. Pets are high right now due to the class buff's they recieve. Take the Paladin's Blessing of Might. Thats 550 AP for the pet plus and additional 121 AP from the Hunter's BoM buff. If we go back to the Icecrown increase, its not even providing half of what 1 class buff is giving. While its still unknown what's going to drop from Icecrown, I dont see blizzard having another spell rank drop (like the old AQ drops) for classes. Hit wont matter as the pet will most likely be hit capped anyway and the other shared stats from the hunter wont increase dps so pets still continue to scale at a 22% rate. BM dps would shift back to 60/40 or 65/35 with that gear.
The benefit from class buff's on hunter pets is providing a substantial increase to pet dps which will scale downward pretty rapidly as the future gear is released. If BM pet dps is dropped from its general 50/50 ratio to 65/35 range now then come icecrown gear where the scale is worse it could be as bad a 75/25 or even as low 80/20 as BM which devaules the use of a pet itself. I can see the current problem of 50/50 now but doesn't the high ratio kinda define the BM spec. The hunter sacrifices his own dps towards the pet which in turn needs to be looked after and handled with care due to pet dying strips the hunter of half his dps. Not saying that a tuning is needed but worsening the scale rate now will only be magified later.
If they can get it where BM hunters can maintain a 60/40 or 65/35 rate even as gear progresses would help. Perhaps a retuning of the % the pet gets for scaling would be in order with a few other adjustments to % total damage. Actually it would make a perfect replacement for Kindred Spirits (since its already almost a duplicate copy of Unleashed Fury). Instead of 3/6/9/12/15% damage bonus that instead grant the pet an additional % of our attack power which would help it scale better in T8 and beyond.
I don't agree with GC that nerfing steadyshot will make us "care" more about other shots. The reason we don't use them is because they are not good.
Arcane shot isn't "good" because its DPM or DPS doesn't match steady shot. By nerfing steady, both its DPS and DPM get nerfed, making it possible to make it worthwhile. It's possible for a shot that has lower DPM to be worth using if its DPS is sufficient and you aren't pressed for mana.
Not to disparage this guy's skill, because I have no idea how good he is at playing, but there's nothing in this parse that indicates he "deserves" to be on the top of the meter, given the simplicity of his rotation and fairly low dps uptime, unless he outgears everyone else (which I don't know either).
This is but one isolated example that doesn't prove anything by itself. It just gives us a reason to consider that maybe we are understating how good hunters have it compared to other classes at the moment.
This is a major point that I think a lot of people are missing in these changes. I see BM hunters complaining that the nerfs represent X% decrease in DPS for them, and they weren't even #1 by that much! Well, okay, but there's nothing that gives BM hunters some inalienable right to be top DPS. I recognized that hunter damage in generally was probably a bit high when I was near the top of DPS meters with substandard gear for my raid group, pretty much all of whom are excellent players. I believe the "within 5%" quote from GC has a lot of people thinking that they personally should always be within 5% of the top DPS, if not at the top, rather than assuming the caveats of equal gear/equal skill that GC emphasizes and everyone else seems to ignore. Bad BM hunters should not be #1, and lots of people complaining that their damage is being nerfed more than their edge don't deserve to be there anyway.
Arcane shot isn't "good" because its DPM or DPS doesn't match steady shot. By nerfing steady, both its DPS and DPM get nerfed, making it possible to make it worthwhile. It's possible for a shot that has lower DPM to be worth using if its DPS is sufficient and you aren't pressed for mana.
That is true, but I feel that Arcane shot/Aimed shot will still be behind steady unless we invest talent points to buff them which in turn means we are losing something else.
This thread seemed to be the best place to note this:
o The following crafted weapons have had their stats adjusted to properly reflect their intended power:
+ Corroded Saronite Edge, Corroded Saronite Woundbringer, Cudgel of Saronite Justice, Furious Saronite Beaststick, Saronite Spellblade, Saronite Shiv, Savage Cobalt Slicer, Notched Cobalt War Axe, Sturdy Cobalt Quickblade, Cobalt Tenderizer
I use 2 Savage Cobalt Slicers (level 74 gear!) as they are not improved on until Cryptfiend's Bite 2H or raid gear 1H's. Be prepared to junk your slicers.
12/11/08, 7:37 AM
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