Vexia

Yes. Aspects are once again on the global cooldown.

 

Gaj

Interesting concept. I've said it before, we will never get our bag slot back until Warlocks get theirs. From what I'm hearing ammo and soul shards should be on the same schedule, so if it goes through, it will be at the same time. If the change is what you are suggesting, then locks will also be converted to that system as well.



My guess is that the last 4 are actually trap shots. (for more efficient trap dancing).

Viper Arrow, Frost Arrow, Immolation Arrow, Freezing Arrow.

 

Souldark

I don't understand where this belief that hunters are receiving 'arrow sigils' is coming from. Librams, Idols and Totems (and later, Sigils) were ultimately put in place to provide for the classes that had no use for the ranged weapon slot.

We reap full benefit from any equipped melee weapons, plus static enchants on those weapons, AND our ranged weapon plus scope. Comparably, melee classes benefit only from enchant (static or procs) on their melee weapons, but not from scopes on their equipped ranged weapon. There is no reason to provide us yet another class-only benefit over the other pure DPS classes.

My own speculation is to be suspicious of the reduction in mana cost for Arcane Shot - perhaps they plan to implement some form of proc for the shot, reliant on the ammo type "equipped" and in much the same way as rogue poisons. This would also explain the buff for Explosive Shot, to maintain a choice between the two shots.

 

TrevvyTrev

The source of the speculation is GC's comment a while ago about big ammo changes in the works for hunters, and his more recent statement response addressing hunter scaling issues that there would be significant changes to how hunters do damage in 3.1 such that a new rebalancing would be required. People are suggesting 'arrow sigils' not because hunters need a relic slot, but because that would be the kind of change that would drastically alter how hunters do damage, and it would possibly address many of the complaints hunters have about ammo expenses.

 

ravendawn

I suspect the new arrow icons are actually traps, Snake > Frost > Immo > ???. I don't know what the last one would be but having them become traps would remove trap dancing and could prove to increase the other specs damage as well. As for the bullets, i suspect they are shots that behave like volley or area of effect shots. The first 2 i really have no clue on however i bet the others are *alchemy shot, mana shot, and health shot.

While we are guessing, i think it would be an interesting idea to have a shot that is a customizable effect. Something like an alchemy shot that has the mechanics of rogue poisons in regards to use and selection through the UI. Having an area of effect cloud shot or similar to volley that offered buffs could prove unique and entertaining.

Then again it may just be changed icons for nothing.

 

Mogue

I really don't like the idea of adding aspects back to the GCD. Being MM, I feel starved for GCD's now, let alone adding arcane/aimed to the cycle. It's truly going to be an impact to have to wait on GCD's to swap back and forth from Dragonhawk to Viper, while fighting for GCD's on all the other shots they want us to use.

 

Difool

There were about 8 posts here saying that scorpid poison will no longer stack. While they are certainly redundant/repetative, are they even correct? Blue's post simply said the poison was limited to "one stack". Which is exactly the mechanic that exists today on both Live and PTR.

If, today, you bring two or more scopids into a raid, you will get only one stack of 5 procs.

Is there any precedent to indicate they meant 1 stack of 1 proc, or is everyone reading the worst into this and spamming this thread inappropriately?

 

Sebudai

I think it's safe to assume they meant Scorpid Poison will no longer be stacking up to five from one specific pet. However it is possible that it will now "stack" from multiple pets, meaning each hunter gets to have his one stack of Scorpid Poison up, like they would with say Serpent Sting.

 

tikan

I suspect we will see things like poison shots, freezing shots, fire shots, armour piercing etc. The "grenade" icons could possibly do an effect like what Explosive does currently on live. Would give us options on what kind of ammo to use. Use a specific bullet/arrow depending on a boss's weakness. Explosive for trash where there is no CC. The possibilities are endless. Really looking forward to something new an exciting with the class, let's hope they don't disappoint.

 

Phantasmique

Maybe they meant to say that the Scorpid Poison no longer stacks up to 5 rounds and it will be just instant poison ?

 

Difool

In my experience they are very careful about what they say, and if they say 1 stack, they probably mean 1 stack, and more times than not when people assume they meant something else... they didn't.

 

TrevvyTrev

If you take all the posts in context, the picture becomes a little clearer. Someone asked GC about the poison stacks not applying from different pets:

Then GC responded:

Given that conversation, it seems a better interpretation of GCs recent post with the nerfed numbers is that they are limiting each poison to one stack per scorpid, which opens up the possibility of getting the other bug fixed so that more than one hunter can use them in a raid.

 

jayesh

If this is true.. does this basically make irbigpoisoner (my fav pet) useless? Certainly the number from here suggest a huge nerf

http://elitistjerks.com/1039577-post840.html

Also forgot to ask? How do you guys feel about aspects going back to being on the GCD. Was this an annoyance we needed on top of all the changes?

 

CrookedRiver

Did no one pick up on GC's mention of toning down ES before the patch goes live? Do you think they will bring Survival inline with the other two trees?

 

Har

It's been talked about on other threads. The only clue we have since none of these changes have been put in the PTR is Blizzard's statement that all specs will perform equally well, and that they will be comparable with other classes.

 

Sebudai

Yeah, it definitely needs to be toned down. I think they'll get it right. With a properly balanced Spirit Beast, BM and MM should be within 100 dps of eachother post-patch, so I think they're pretty close to the mark.

 

Xanthamonus

I'm not sure I understand this concept of bringing all trees "inline" with each other. Most pure dps classes have one dominant pve tree or spec and one dominant pvp tree or spec. They always have and hunters were no exception. Just because BM was dominant in pve didn't mean other specs weren't viable elsewhere. You don't see rogues getting raid viability from all three trees...I just don't get it.

Don't get me wrong...I'm super excited about SV finally being raid competitive and I agree some changes were needed but I don't see this same tree equalization going on with other pure dps classes.

 

Levidian

Ah yea that could very well be true. Being able to "shoot" all of our traps would take care of some situations that are definitely not intended "trap dancing" for example.

 

legomyegolas

What's not to understand? Blizz has stated time and time again that they don't like having a pvp, pve, and leveling tree. They want classes to be more like DKs which has several viable DPS/tank specs.

 

mako

Blizzard has stated that they want to bring all specs to a level of raid viability and Hunters are no exception. This 'philosophy' is the reason why Survival, the current trash tree, is being improved in damage while BM hunters are being lowered overall; this allows survival hunters raid spots outside of a raid being desperate for replenishment, while still intending to leave BM in a position where it can raid.

Other classes (Death Knights, Druids, Priests, as examples) can raid as any spec (read: focus in any of their 3 trees, not allot talent points arbitrarily) and be perfectly viable. There's no reason for Blizzard to not attempt similar balance with the other classes. (A glance at the 3.08 patch notes shows that Mages and Shaman are also having their trees rebalanced like hunters)

(And fyi, rogues can raid viably with primary focus in any of their trees, but that's not a discussion for this thread)

<Bad> Dragonmaw US
www.damnwesuck.com

 

tieren

I don't know if we'll see this happen even though trap dancing is unintended. If they allow us as a class to shoot all of our traps it reduces the legitimacy of our already questionable freezing arrow as our level 80 trained ability. Does that make sense?

The easy fix to that would be for ranged trapping to be our trainable level 80 skill, which would fix the problem and incorporate everything being inferred from a set of icons. Which is all it is, some icons, I'm holding off getting my hopes up.

 

Bovii

What you're probably going to see is that these end up being ammo icons, fitting into the ammo slot, but acting like Thori'dal. GC made a post about a month or so ago concerning ammo consumption issues with Hunters and said that they wanted to do something neat to aleviate the problem. What we'll probably end up seeing is a situation where the quiver/ammo pouch are pulled out of the game and the above icons end up being "endless" sources of ammo providing the level haste associated with the pouches/quivers now. They'd end up being level based DPS or flat damage adding tokens and then go back and rebalance our current ranged weapons, much like they did our gear in TBC, to compensate for the loss of added DPS through ammo.

It is possible, though I would think it highly improbable, that they'd go in a direction like they have with sigils, idols, etc and add a specific bonus to a shot or sting. This would allow Blizz a bit more flexability in set piece bonuses and allow Hunters a bit more customization. Plus, it would fit to what GC alluded to in possibly having to rebalance Hunters again with the release of Ulduor. Let's face it, we don't have a ton of options when it comes to our rotations. And because of that, we're eventually going to run out of options for set bonuses unless they go back and start reusing old bonuses. They've already done Steady Shot damage, Steady shot crit, Multi-Shot damage, various pet bonuses including stam, damage, health, armor, healing, etc. How much do we have left that works across all three specs?

PS> Levi, update the toon that you actually play in your profile bud. You hopped on the Orc train before the expansion so your cow days are over.

 

Ravenfire

I really do not get why hunters continue to ask for durability on quiver/ammo pouches after seeing what blizzard did with shaman's "ranged" slot totems. For those that don't play shamans Blizzard made all relics that go in the ranged slot count as all 4 totem types. Ex: [Skycall Totem]. I would much rather they make ammo unlimited with a tag reading "Counts as a quiver/ammo pouch" then have to PAY for durability loss on my arrows. I am NOT keen on loseing 10% of my ammo every time I die while learning a new encounter.

Blizzard could do a number of things with ammo that would cause a need to rebalance us yet again when the changes go live. They could change it to durability(ok not really a reason to rebalance); make it totemisc like above; make it so you have to equip a "quiver" that only grants the 15% haste and you then have to buy a permanent arrow that you use like an enchant on the quiver; Heck they could totally rebalance us around NOT getting the 15% static haste and changing ammo and how our shots calculate dps from ammo to make up the difference. If I was a dev and something like the last was true then i sure would have the same we-aren't-concerned-about-hunter-scaling-in-3.1-cause-we-are-going-to-(have to)-rebalance-them-again attitude as GC.

As for the new icons: I have reservations about the first two icons as they very well could be new gernade types for Engineers to craft as the shapes appear more "gernade" like then bullet like.

 

KraxisSingular

That's pretty much my own conclusion on the matter. If they bothered about balancing now they would likely have done small tweaks to the talent tree nerfs and the Steady Shot nerf. But nothing has been done and nothing has been said about that, beyond the "just you wait for Ulduar" line. That pretty much says "ok ok ok, we are likely going to overdo it, but there isn't much we are going to do about it because we have to spend a lot of resources on you come Ulduar anyway, so this is what you get for now." And it is logical from a cost/benefit analysis too. Why spend resources on balancing the nerfs now when soon (hopefully) they will have to work a lot on us, if they don't already.

I think we should sit down and hope the changes will finally streamline us and at the same time balance us. I'm not certain at least one spec won't be unbalanced in 3.0.8, one way or the other.

Well, one thing I'm 'happy' about is the apparent fix to Scorpids. Long overdue. And I hope Spirit Beasts will finally be good enough to warrent going to a raid, which seems possible now with it critting, synergizing with Longevity and getting the 10% Ferocity fix.

 

Gaj

It actually looks like a bandolier so they could be grenades (or maybe even Moranth Munitions, sharpers, crackers, cussers, for the Erickson fans here.)