Math check.. (from my own guild forum post)


Steady Shot MATH:

Assumptions - Naxx 10/20 man gearing level
Spec used for this math - 11/53/7
Main Weapon - Enjoy Of Mortality
Ammo - Frostbite
Buffs - Utopian Level 80 raid buffs


Now: (WeaponMin + WeaponMax)/2 + (Ammo * Shot Speed) + (RAP * .2 +252)
Nerf: (WeaponMin + WeaponMax)/2 + (Ammo * Shot Speed) + (RAP * .1 + 252)

Lets just say you carry the Envoy of Mortality (best wpn but very closely attainable), Frostbite Shells and approximately 3500 RAP.

Now: (314+584)/2 + (46.5 * 2) + (3500 * .2 + 252)
449 + 93 + 952 = 1495 dmg per steady

Nerf: (314+584)/2 + (46.5 * 2) + (3500 * .1 + 252)
449 + 93 + 602 = 1145 dmg per steady

NOW.. .lets add level 80 raid buffs and your TSA

(Using Antikojian's gear 1 week ago) With optimum buffs I calculate your potential RAP at 5571

Now: (314+584)/2 + (46.5 * 2) + (5571 * .2 + 252)
449 + 93 + 1366.2 = 1908.2 dmg per steady

Nerf: (314+584)/2 + (46.5 * 2) + (5571 * .1 + 252)
449 + 93 + 809.1 = 1351 dmg per steady

Difference per steady - 557.2 dmg
Percentage Decrease - 29.2 %

NOW.. using your last whole WWS logs, lets take into account that steady accounted for 26% of your total damage. Thus, the decrease to steady will impact your total damage by 7.59 percent. Thus.. the nerf to your DPS and total damage is just under 10 percent from steady alone.

This math look correct? I like to correctly math out my QQ before I let my cold tears hit the ground. Huge nerfs incoming. Although the nerf is far far larger for BM inclusive of the serpent's swiftness nerf to pets, the 50/21 directed nerf, and the kindred spirits, don't be fooled if you're MM, because the percentage of your hunter to pet damage is heavily weighted in favor of the hunter, the percentage of damage that steady accounts for is actually about 5 percent higher than BM. Thus... you actually get nerfed harder on the steady nerf.

The changes to Volley and Readiness are reasonable and needed, but I'm going to jump on the good intentions, bad solution bandwagon for most of the intended BM damage nerfs. Most of the comments here have been concentrated on minmaxing DPS. I'm more concerned about the rest of the game, especially PvP. Personally, for the sake of solo, small group and PvP gameplay, scalability and MM/SV, I'm hoping some of these suggestions take hold instead of or in addition to the current list of changes:

1) Pets can only be buffed by the player controlling them. Doing this would reduce attack speed greater than the Serpent's Swiftness change by eliminating Windfury and prevent pets from benefiting from two sets of buffs (trickle down from hunter's buffs + pet's buffs), bringing them back to where they should be for MM, fixing MM's "slightly high" DPS problem without heavily nerfing shots, and does not penalize Hunter pets in the ungrouped/small group/PvP formats. In a way, this is actually a larger nerf to PvE DPS than the proposed changes.

2) Increase the AP coefficient on Arcane Shot and/or allow it to count base weapon/ammo damage. When dispelling magic was removed from arcane shot (the previous fix for the shot being underpowered), this shot did not receive any sort of replacement effect to compensate. As a result, most hunters don't use it because it's back to being underpowered for what it is compared to other shots. Even 10% AP Steady Shot does better damage than the current Arcane Shot in raids because a) it gains the equivalent of thousands of AP from white damage and ammo, b) gains even more when you consider Arcane Shot is subject to resists AND c) bosses will have their armor debuffed, allowing Steady to hit almost as hard on a boss as a mob with no armor. Seeing as it's on a 6 second cooldown and costs more mana than Steady Shot, it should probably be doing at least as much damage as Steady if not more at maximum scaling, especially if the Steady nerf remains as it is now.

3a) Increase the AP coefficient on Explosive Shot, allow it to count base weapon/ammo damage and/or allow it to do extra damage to Stunned/Rooted/Snared/Dazed targets. It was fine before the last nerf it received in beta due to people abusing LnL while in situations where trapping is not a DPS loss (grinding, PvP). However, LnL isn't that great in PvE because of how long it takes to proc via stings or having to RUN UP TO mobs to trap. And it makes sense for a shot that does damage via explosions to do more damage to a target unable to move. This would also give the shot greater synergy with a large number of Survival talents and abilities (LnL, TNT, Entrapment, (Imp) Wing Clip, Scatter Shot, etc).

-AND/OR-

3b) Implement Trap Mastery as a talent that allows you to range or directly target all traps. Barring a damage increase in Explosive Shot damage, the added damage from being able to deploy Immolation/Explosive Trap without losing DPS time along with extra LnL procs should be enough to bring SV back in line with most DPS classes.

4) Reduce Steady Shot to 15% of AP + unmodified weapon damage and ammo, remove base and dazed bonus damage. The Steady Shot nerf is mainly aimed at BM specs, as this is the bread-and-butter of all BM hunters. However, reducing the scaling to 10% of AP hits the already-low SV hunter pretty hard and MM a little too hard, as MM still has some mana issues and spends quite a bit of time under Viper. 15% of AP would bring Steady in line with Arcane Shot's current scaling while removing all of the bonus damage outside of weapon base damage would bring BM damage down without hurting MM and SV as badly. Dazed damage is largely irrelevant anyway, as most targets that you'd use it against cannot be dazed.

I'm reserving judgment on the rest of the changes until I can get some hands-on time in on the PTR, but I don't like the sound of the deterrence change. In specific, I don't like that it's been turned into a half-BoP-sitting-duck-anti-Dismantle. Any class in melee range is going to overrun you while backpedaling, and spinning in circles to match what your opponent is doing is very lag-dependent. We'll see though.

Isn't that the T6 bonus already?

If you look at the current situation, yes, BM does a good chunk of damage. But MM and SV are still lacking behind that. If blizzard wants to nerf the BM total damage output, I think they should look into more constructive changes on the pet damage (gained from BM talents) rather then nerfing steady shot. It will hit the already lower damage builds like MM and SV. Even if this nerf goes life, it looks like we need to start changing some glyphs and start thinking about different rotations again.

On a different side; would raid groups now be more interested in bringing other hunter specs rather then having 3 BM hunters in a 25 man group?

From what I recall, the increased armor on lvl 83 bosses is intentional. And increased armor makes us crit less.

source: World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums ->

I gave some more thoughts on hunter viability in 25 man raid groups. Basically as it is now, BM is top, MM is a close second and SV is all time low. IF the Steady Shot nerf goes live, it will mean SV raiding is gonna be even less attractive. I've been a SV hunter trough the whole TBC, and personal DPS was always somewhat an issue, but an accepted one as Expose Weakness brought a lot of good for raid groups. However, with that being gone, and the already low DPS on SV hunters, with the possibility of it getting even lower, I foresee less SV hunters in raid groups unless they start to buff the SV tree in some bits. Maybe up the proc rate on LnL with Serpent Sting or increase the damage of Explosive Shot. Blizzard might not do it tho, as they seem to value the mana bar a lot these days and they see mana regeneration as an expensive thing.