Post 2.3 hunter chaos - updated
by Amanda Miller 
Nov 15th 2007 at 4:10PM
As many of you may have already heard, the Hunter forums are in an uproar today over several changes and bugs that have come with Patch 2.3. Unfortunately, some of the clamor is shadowing other important Hunter issues. Amanda Rivera pointed out that hunters have lost their ability to double, or even triple, trap, and although many hunters were not using this exploit, a large proportion were. Even though this might be a fair fix, I imagine that for many hunters, the raids they have "on farm" will suddenly be much more confusing.
As Robin reported earlier, hunters can no longer use feign death on a boss fight in order to be removed from combat (you can still drop aggro) and go have a drink. Officially, this is a bug fix, and in fact, many hunters had not even realized that they could go take a swig during a boss encounter. Unfortunately, this is not just impacting a Hunter's ability to pump up their mana pool; it's also affecting their ability to feed their pets.
It is being reported that pets are losing happiness at a faster rate post-patch, and that while raiding, because a hunter can no longer feign death and feed their pet, the prospect of using their pet while raiding, or achieving maximum benefit from doing so, is looking somewhat grim for many.
The new pathing changes for pets are also causing serious problems. While a pet on flat terrain will execute attempting to get behind its target without a hitch, any object or elevation that the pet encounters while on its patch has been causing bizarre behavior. The pets are either not attacking when told to do so, or are pacing, often aggroing mobs from the sidelines. In addition, the pathing is causing a reduction in overall DPS, as while the pet is repositioning itself, often very slowly, it is not attacking. While Nethaera has forwarded the information to the devs, it is currently causing a debate about whether hunters want their pets to be attempting this maneuver at all.
In addition to these bugs, the pre-patch question of whether or not hunters will begin to out-level their pets has been answered. Pets do not receive a percentage of gained experience from quests, and because the formula for pet leveling was not altered, hunters are indeed out-leveling their companions. This makes it much more difficult and time-consuming to level a new pet, and considering that pets, and their changeability, are one of the main draws for the entire class, this will hopefully be a very temporary problem.
Fortunately, before the patch, Drysc reported that should a pet leveling issue arise, they have a plan. Let's hope that they can implement it as soon as possible, as all of those leveling hunters taking advantage of the new and improved experience gains are not happy campers.
Considering that many hunters have been very upset with their pets since the advent of the Burning Crusade, it's no wonder that these bugs, in addition to the removal of feign death/drink and double (or triple) trapping, are causing so much commotion.
Update: In response to some of my comments I will say this: Officially, Blizzard is claiming that the ability to double and triple trap was a bug. Using a bug for your own gains is technically an exploit, even if you were not aware that it was indeed a bug. My wording is less a result of me being biased or ignorant, and more my unwillingness to be a conspiracy theorist and claim that Blizzard is lying just so that they could make the change. The fact that this ability was around for so long, and that they are just now noticing it and making changes, does not alter the fact that it remains officially a bug, as fishy as it may seem.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
MIrina Nov 15th 2007 4:21PM
I will say that I noticed some of this stuff last night while in SSC. I felt like I was constantly feeding my pet during the raid...we would be rebuffing after a wipe, pet would be fed and happy, and we'd start the fight...within 15 seconds into the fight (less than 3 mins since pet was last fed), my pet would be showing yellow happiness.
Did also notice a weird pathing issue in SSC. While on the islands, if I was standing in one spot and sent my pet, he wouldn't attack the mob until it had moved a bit further across the island. That was also a PITA.
I will say that I did notice a decrease in pet deaths with the "moving to the back" setup that is now in place. Pet never died to cleaves in the ZA bear fight when we did that--which was really nice since I'm BM and my pet needs to stay alive to help me out.
Sylythn Nov 15th 2007 4:23PM
Well keeping your pet happy is a simple fix...include a pet snack in with all your pre-boss buffing. Whether he needs it or not, give him something to munch on while you get ready. I'm sure after they get time to adjust to the changes, the QQ will die off.
Thunderhide Nov 15th 2007 4:24PM
I noticed that too. I was having to feed my pet like CRAZY last night.
MaNiAk Nov 15th 2007 4:24PM
Yep. Blizz screwed us on this one. I am very happy with the results of 2.3 as far as PvP goes. I don't feel as invulnerable, But neither do I feel Unstoppable. Which is a good thing. But the lack of being able to chain trap is gonna kill me in PvE, I've been chain trapping ever since we've had the ability to lay traps in combat. This needs to be fixed and put back to normal.
I also mentioned in another blog. If you use Volley in an enclosed area such as Stocks or Stormwind Keep, It leaves a loud static/rumble going on and on and on. alot people were complaining of the deafning sound.
Runstadrey Nov 15th 2007 4:28PM
My 'lock running buddy and I were beset with problems due to the pet pathing bug. It was frustrating because I remember reading on the forums and a reference in WoWInsider to the problem when the patch was on the PTR. I don't have a link to that posting, maybe a WoWInsider staffer could dig it up.
Also, he was ridiculing all the times I had to stop and feed my pet. A normal night of questing would cost about 1G for pet food. Last night I spent over 4G to restock my bags.
I didn't try the double trapping as I wasn't in an instanced situation to use it, but I will sorely miss it in instances.
I didn't even know about the feign death drink ability, so I won't be missing that.
Juhlz Nov 15th 2007 4:29PM
While my hunter is my alt the biggest hit to my leveling him how (he just hit 42 this morning) is that arcane shot now does less than an Autoshot does. The tooltip for my level 5 arcane shot says 131 and it is hitting in the low 90s with critting in the 180s while before batch I was hitting mid 130s to low 140s and crittign above 300. They need to fix that too
Steve_S Nov 15th 2007 4:35PM
I don’t see the big deal on trapping (have a 65 hunter) you shouldn’t be able to control more than one mob at a time with traps anyway.
FD and drinking is a bug to me, no other class can drink while fighting a boss why should hunters?
The out leveling a pet is an issue and the pathing is problematic, both need to be looked at. The happiness lowering speed was fine before so they need to look at that as well.
Begonia Nov 15th 2007 4:40PM
I was helping a friend quest in Western Plaguelands last night and encountered something weird: when a mob triggered my snake trap, the vipers would also attack players of the opposing faction if they were in range of the AoE. Neither I nor the ones being attacked were flagged for PvP, before or after the vipers.
Todd Nov 15th 2007 4:44PM
Wow, sounds like the Hunter class is getting a repeatedly stabbed by a hot poker...
Goldwolf Nov 15th 2007 4:46PM
I had some trouble in WSG today. Usually while standing on the upper level of the base I can command my pet to attack someone on the lower level, and it will find its own way down.
Now, I give the command for an attack, and my pet enters combat but does not move.
Zakk Nov 15th 2007 4:46PM
Ah, so that was why my pet as being a dumbass last night... I kept jokingly saying that the patch made my cat dumb, but I really thought it was just a coincidence. I guess the jokes were true.
I didn't notice my pet losing happiness any quicker than normal. Maybe I'm just not observant enough.
This might explain the problems I was having with my Freezing Trap last night. I kept laying them under mobs, and the traps would just disappear. Not sure how it would relate to only being able to trap one at a time, since nothing else was trapped, but that looks like it might be the only possible explanation.
The FD and drink thing doesn't affect me. I'm too cheap to drink/eat/use consumables anyway lol. I'll definitely have to learn to stop being so cheap when I start raiding...
Spenda Nov 15th 2007 4:49PM
The pet pathing is really bad. Last night during Kara, while fighting on the steps up to Moroes with all of the AoE pulls my pet just disappeared. The fight was over, and I was desperately looking around for my pet, and couldn't find him anywhere but he was at 100% health.
So, I just hit passive to make him run back to me. Just then he started taking damage, and was still no where in sight. All of a sudden he pops up behind us obviously coming from the animal boss wing with a bunch of spiders following him. WTF?
My guess is he decided the best path to get to the mobs at the top of the stairs would be to run through the animal wing, and up the stairs near the hall Maiden is in to get at them from behind.
With all of the AoE, and mobs and another hunter with a pet that looks exactly like mine, I never even noticed he wasn't in the fight until it was over.
zenpunk Nov 15th 2007 5:10PM
I hate it when people write in a biased way like that. Double tapping is/was not an exploit. It's a side effect of how our traps work(ed) as opposed to others' CCs. Think about it.. we don't cast our traps on a target, like all other forms of cc.. we have to get them to walk into it. And if a target resists our trap we just can't recast instantly, we have a long cooldown. In effect, once we lay the trap, it's not 'connected' to us any more, other than it goes away if we lay another. Like the tooltip say, we can't have 2 traps 'active' on the ground. Once a trap is sprung, tho, we should be able to lay another 'active' trap without breaking the first, once our cooldown is up. That's why it has a long cooldown, so we can't just trap everything and everything as much as we want. If the first trap breaks when something steps in a second trap, what the heck is the cooldown for?
Killing off double trapping kills off the whole reason to go into the SV tree. Hunters gave up a LOT if they wanted to max the SV tree... Bestial Wrath, Intimidation, Scattershot, TSA, Silencing Shot.. ALL unreachable if you max the SV tree. I gave up a lot of DPS and PvP ability to spec traps for heroics. There is no point now.. I guess Blizz wants all hunters to be BM or MM. I think I'm goin' BM for the cheap I-Win button... kinda lame to go to that after feeling proud of my skill at keeping 2 mobs cc'd for an extended period of time. Now I just press a button and Win in PvP. Prolly won't do PvE much any more... too boring now... stand there and shoot, lay trap, stand there and shoot, lay trap, repeat. I'll miss doing the double-trap dance.. was the only fun and challenging part of PvE for me.
And what is readiness for now, anyway? It doesn't reset traps or wyvern? What's it for, to reset voLOLey?
Blizzard just called this a 'bug' to justify their action, but that's bs. The truth is, Blizz doesn't want 1 person to be able to CC 2 people all by himself in the arenas.. that's all this is about. Which is fine by me.. I agree, they shouldn't be able to do that. (notice, they didn't fix warlocks' ability to do that). Not that i, nor you, have EVER seen a hunter trap 2 people in arenas, but, theoretically, it's possible, so Blizz had to nerf it... which of course screws over the whole reason to go SV. To fix a non-problem they ruined a whole build of hunter. No wonder they stealthed it in, not being in the patch notes, or even on the PTR before they surprised us with it live.
So, yeah.. it's a really bad change that only SV hunters will care about, but, there won't be any of those left, so I guess the problem will go away.
David Whyld Nov 15th 2007 4:52PM
I ran my hunter today through heroic Hellfire Ramparts and can't say I noticed any real problems. My pet ran to attack as normal, I never noticed him trying to creep behind enemies and he only ever needed feeding to bring back his happiness a couple of times.
Overall, I'm quite pleased with the changes. I never knew about feigning death and drinking during a fight so that's something I don't miss, and I feel a lot better now I can shoot enemies so much closer to me. I used to spend ages trying to move out of melee range so I could use my gun, but now I just step back a few paces and I'm fine.
Spenda Nov 15th 2007 4:53PM
Oh and by the way, when Blizzard fixes a glitch like drinking in boss fights it isn't a nerf. Just like it won't be a buff when they fix the pet pathing issues.
Or can we expect other classes to QQ when pet behavior works as intended, and all of a sudden hunters have their proper DPS again?
Wolfkin Nov 15th 2007 4:59PM
@Spenda -
It took em 3 years to fix that "glitch"... Do you think they have a bad testing department? I'm interested in your theories.
rick gregory Nov 15th 2007 5:01PM
@4... you CAN chain trap one mob. You just can't trap more than one mob at one time.
Grimia Nov 15th 2007 5:02PM
I was thinking, on the FD boss fight thing, they probably did it to not let hunters have a bres, at least then. Something I wanted to try on the PTR, but didn't get a chance to, was seeing if now that Jumper Cables aren't a trinket, if we could indeed get out of combat long enough to try 'em out.
john Nov 15th 2007 5:07PM
@4 OK, I'm glad I wasnt the only one having the problem with volley. I submitted a ticket and I was told no one else had submitted this problem. I was told to remove several folders from my WOW directory, it must be one of my mods.
It was leaving a loud sound exactly where volley was cast. If you move in and out of where the aoe was, you could hear the sound come and go. Sorta like when a train passes by you.
Salty Nov 15th 2007 5:10PM
The pathing bug is very annoying. I put in a ticket on Tuesday night, and got an e-mail later in the day telling me to delete my addons and configuration. The fact that dozens of others Hunters are reporting this is a consolation to me, and I'm very glad I didn't nuke my configuration.
In Karazhan, on the stairs leading up to the Shade, when we would be fighting on a ramp, he started running back to the beginning of the instance. If I used Kill Command it would charge right at the mob and hit it, but then start pathing back through the instance. My pet wiped our SSC raid last night because of a pathing issue on the first bridge in SSC. I don't know which exact scenario causes this, but it has to do with the pet positioning change. It was discouraging as we were all set for a wipeless night. I didn't get much flak for it, but my pet wasn't the only one who took the detour, another hunter's hawk was right beside him. Later on when fighting Hydross, the pet had no problem getting to him when he was on his platform, but when we pulled him off the platform, all three of the Hunters' pets took a dash towards the beginning of the instance, I have a screenshot of all 3 of them running out of the fight.
It's very annoying, my pet can randomly wipe the raid if I'm not watching it like a hawk, or at the very least it will run far away and despawn and that's 28% of my DPS missing from the fight. I hope enough hunters report the issue that they revert the change pending further investigation or at least stop recommending us to erase all of our addons and settings.