Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
Mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr
The latest patch 5.3 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBigRedKitty: It's hunter-pinata time, part III
by Daniel Howell 
Dec 10th 2008 at 9:00AM
1) Steady Shot – now only gains 10% of attack power as damage (down from 20%).
Since the primary part of BM-hunter DPS is Steady Shot, it makes sense to downgrade the RAP-bonus to see how its affected. If 20% is too much, it'll be bumped back up. But it's much better to test at 20 and move it up to 15, then start at 10 and move it down a second time to 15, don't you think? Blizzard does too.
2) Volley – reduced the damage by about 30% for all ranks. Note that AE damage from many classes is very high right now and we are looking at all of them. Volley in particular had reached the point where some hunters were using it to the exclusion of most other attacks.
Hunters were never meant to be an AoE class. Right now, we are an AoE class. Heck, we were a pioneer in the Gorilladin Offensive that combined an AoE pet with an constant AoE attack. Volley should be useful, but not mage-powerful, c'mon. 30% sounds heavy, we admit, but you'll still be able to grind away the days with your gorilla. But we won't be making mages wonder if perhaps a reroll as a tank might guarantee them a more secure spot in raids.
3) Readiness – no longer affects the cooldown of Bestial Wrath.
How many spells really benefit from Readiness? Silencing Shot, Wyvern Sting, Kill Shot, Scatter Shot, Counterattack, and Bestial Wrath. (Hope we didn't forget one. Apologies if we did.) All of these, save Bestial Wrath, are primarily PvP-oriented. Is there a reason BM isn't a surprisingly effective arena-spec? Yes, because the primary power of the BM tree comes from getting out of melee range while attempting to stand still and Auto/Steady stuff to death. Readiness + Bestial Wrath = much more effective BM hunter in PvP! Changing this is precisely the opposite of what hunters need; more options for PvP, not fewer! If Blizz wants to remove Bestial Wrath from the effects of Readiness, perhaps they should just admit that the Readiness talent belongs at the 41st point in the Survival tree and chunk it back where it belongs.
4) Deterrence – has been completely overhauled. It now allows you to deflect 100% of incoming melee or spell damage for 5 seconds, but prevents you from attacking while active. You still must be facing the attacker to deflect the damage (this is a limitation we are trying and might end up removing). 60 sec cooldown.
Now we only did arena for one season; we achieved a state of anger much too quickly when we lost, so we abandoned this portion of the game. But it's our initial impression that if a hunter pops Deterrence and becomes basically invulnerable, but also becomes impotent, then the other team is just going to switch targets and focus-fire someone else, like the healer. This could be a fine tactic for one-on-one fights, allowing the hunter to quaff a healing potion or something, but this doesn't seem to address any of our critical class-issues in PvP. Hooray for new toys, boo for not fixing that which needs fixing.
5) Kill Shot – cooldown reduced to 15 sec (from 35 sec).
Sounds great, but what's a huge buff doing in a list of hunter-nerfs? /suspicious
Finally a PvP-oriented fix we've been asking for! Just don't pop Deterrence...
6) Kindred Spirits – now only grants 3/6/9/12/15% pet damage.
This is a reduction from 20% to 15%, and if this is a "major" reduction, we'll live with it. Pet-DPS has been outstanding in WotLK, and if Blizz needs this adjustment to make them happy, even we, BRK, will bless it. But if pet-DPS needs to come down, then pet-Health needs to come up, and pet-Resilience needs to be introduced. When feral druids are running amok with 40k health and our Spirit Beast has 10k, something's amiss. When our pet can be two-shot by a mage because Hobbes has zero resilience and the mage can go crit-berserk on his furry butt, somethings blatantly wrong. Pet-DPS too high? Fix it. Pet-Survivability too low? Fix. It!
7) Serpent's Swiftness – now only grants 2/4/6/8/10% bonus attack speed to pet.
Pet attack speed is the place from where all hunter-goodness begins. Faster pet attacks means more pet crits, which mean more Ferocious Inspiration procs, which means more DPS for the hunter's entire raid. But here's the kicker: if we get fewer FI-procs, our entire raid's DPS goes down! This isn't just a decrease to hunter-DPS, but to total raid-DPS! This isn't nerfing BM hunters, it's nerfing the desire of the raid leader to bring a BM hunter to raids.
OK, that's a little overboard. We would guess that no hunter would be uninvited to a raid because his pet is going to FI-proc less frequently. But the main point remains sound: this is a raid-DPS nerf, not a hunter-DPS nerf. It doesn't fix the supposed problem.
8) All hunter pet abilities with a cooldown longer than 30 sec have been moved off the global cooldown.
The big one for us is Heart of the Phoenix. No longer will we have to wait for the global cooldown before we can insta-rez our dead pet. Of course, HotP is terrible borked already: it won't insta-cast, one has to use a macro manually; and many times a HotP-rez'd pet will be "grayed-out", unable to perform any actions whatsoever. Frankly, instead of this "buff" to pet abilities, we'd like the Cower/Growl/Prowl bugs fixed so they don't keep changing auto-cast states. Fix the broken stuff before "fixing" stuff that seems to work adequately, that's all we're saying.
9) Growl- threat generation increased by 20% (same for Voidwalker Torment).
Although pet-threat isn't a problem, when we put #7 into effect, pet-threat will be decreased as well. A buff to Growl would prevent the decreased attack speed from making our pets less-able to hold threat while soloing, so at least Blizz is looking ahead and trying to anticipate the effects of their DPS-changes.
10) Call of the Wild – now benefits only the hunter and his or her pet.
Call of the Wild currently affects all party members. Making it only benefit the hunter and his pet is a net-increase to hunters, as compared to the other classes! If we remove the benefit to party members, their DPS is going to decrease. But it'll still buff the hunter, so his DPS will remain the same. This change flies in the face of the concept that hunter DPS is too high and makes no sense whatsoever. If we want to decrease hunter DPS as compared to other classes in raids, this buff's benefits should be made raid-wide, so everybody is buffed up, not down.
11) Rake and Scorpid Poison – slightly nerfed to bring them into line with other pet abilities.
Cats and Scorpids have been doing more DPS than any pet but Devilsaurs, and sometimes even more than them. The concept is that exotic pets are supposed to do a little more DPS -- we've read 10% -- than non-exotic pets. This isn't so much a nerf as it is putting these pets back in their proper place. Hobbes, our beloved Winterspring Frostsaber Pridewatcher, will still sit Shiv'ah, though.
12) Spirit Strike – reduced the period on the dot so it will work better with Longevity.
This is a personal grudge we have with Blizz over the Spirit Beast. We begged them to let us tame one in the beta so we could analyze its performance. No dice, they said. Find one yourself, you'll get no help from us. Well guess what, the pet came out of beta borked. Longevity does cooldown the cooldown of Spirit Strike, but does not cooldown the delayed damage debuff the spell puts on its target. So it sounds like they're going to make the dot have a seven second cooldown, so Longevity will "play nice". If we'd been allowed to play with a Spirit Beast in the beta, perhaps we could've made some noise about this issue. /still hurt
13) Improved Tracking – now benefits damage to all included creature types as long as you are tracking one of them. You don't have to swap around what you are tracking as much.
Alright, we'll accept that this is an entry-level talent and making it a basic "Increases damage by 1/2/3%" talent doesn't bother us too much. We're always tracking something, right? But it sure makes Ranged Weapon Specialization look really dumb, doing almost exactly the same thing as Improved Tracking, as a 26th point talent. Marksmen hunters should have a "ranged weapon specialization" obviously; they're marksman! Swap RWS with
something like Focused Aim, and we'll make the change to Improved Tracking without further comment.
14) Aspect of the Wild – now raid-wide.
/blink
Now when was the last time we needed nature-protection raid-wide... Hydross the Unstable? No, that was just one of the two tanks, right? Perhaps Blizz is telling us something about a future raid, or maybe this was just forgotten in the huge list of spells that were to be raid-wide once WotLK arrived. Who knows. It's a buff, thanks, but... OK, thanks.
So if we look at all this, what concerns us the most is... none of them. Really, if BM hunter DPS is tamped-down by the nerf to Steady Shot, let's accept that with grace, dignity, and poise, and move on. A small decrease to pet attack speed isn't something we'd wish for, but at least we're not going back to all running with Ravagers.
Now let's move on to getting some freaking help in arenas, shall we? And the Survivalist tree is still honked up. Heart of the Phoenix, one of the best reasons for getting the Beast Mastery talent, isn't working properly. There aren't enough level 80 pets to tame. Why can't we tame Mammoths!
And fix Cower, for Elune's sake! COWER, people!
Filed under: Hunter, (Hunter) Big Red Kitty
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 5)
elly Dec 10th 2008 11:20AM
this is exactly my concern as well, which is why i think i'll work harder on leveling my warrior. or perhaps start a healer. but my heart is with my hunter, always.
Rugus Dec 10th 2008 11:33AM
@ elly
> but my heart is with my hunter, always.
I've got a warrior too (70), actually used as daily-cooker in Dalaran so I can gather more Northern Spices every day. But I must be honest: even if I LOVE the new warrior class, I just have no time nor interest in doing yet again the same quests. Maybe in the future... but right now I "must" stick to my hunter, when I have time to play.
fauxgt4 Dec 10th 2008 2:34PM
Every class has different utility. If you didn't like what hunters were made for, why did you roll/ level a hunter?
I play a mage and a priest. Yes, I wish my mage could heal people. And I wish my priest could tank. But I chose the class knowing thats not what they did.
Every mage by level 19 or so, after the first DM run realizes that they're jobs in life are to sheep and make food. Priest learn, after the 28th "Can you healz fur us plz?" in the 20 mins since he logged on realizes his role.
Hunters are dps. They have some CC, but that has never been their strength. I don't remember every reading anything on the "create a toon" page that implied the hunter class was major CC class. It seems the problem to me is that every class wants to be good at everything and blizzard is listening.
Now: Here's some loving, honest from the heart hunter loving.
) I love how hunters can keep adds off a healer. In 5 mans especially, a "busy main tank + adds = oh crap" is not fun when I'm healing. Hunters with a) pet growl and b) traps are a life saver. I know that kinda stuff can't get measured on a damage meter, but here's a huge thanks from your squishy heal.
2)And ice trap? that thing is godly. It isn't "Humanoid sheeping" or "demon banishing" or "undead shackling" its "whatever the heck is the thing on our healer is going to get frozen" kinda CC. I love it. You guys are lucky. I love having that when I'm healing raids. I love that in arena play (yes, my 2v2 partner is a hunter--- and I love him). Correct me if I'm wrong--- but does any other class have such a versatile single target cc? Rogues have some "out of combat" stuff. A lot of classes have particular target type cc. But anytime/anywhere ice trap kicks. And now you can shoot it!
3) Aspect of the pack. Yes, if we never wiped this wouldn't be near as useful, but thank heavens we have you around when we do wipe. Which happens a lot.
So there is plenty that is going to get you invited to dungeons/raids still. And honestly, when was the last time a "LF 2 DPS No Hunters plz" was seen? Very rarely, especially in wrath, is a particular class sought. Now, all people care about it roles.
Sinthar Dec 11th 2008 10:50AM
TBH as a mage i know the lack of cc in wrath. However the traps are still an important part of some Nax boss fight (to make easier really). And ice trap to kite the zombies round - made it so much easier. An freezing trap by the healers so they dont get too beaten before the hunter kites em off them. There is NO application for sheep i have found yet, so dont dispair mate -cos you STILL have the kiting utility to bring to a raid.
Rugus Dec 11th 2008 11:30AM
@ fauxgt4
> Every class has different utility. If you didn't
> like what hunters were made for, why did
> you roll/ level a hunter?
Uhmmm maybe you did not understand what this thread is about: I *LOVE* the hunter class. But I *HATE* what cunter became in Wrath of the Litch King. We have no more "use" like we had before, so it's becoming harder and harder to find a spot in raids or smaller groups. Other classes can do better than us, after the latest patches. And with the upcoming HUGE nerf to hunters, our dps will be even lower.
A mage is just better than us: great crowd control for 60 sec (we have traps for 20... lol), massive firepower (much better than us, after the nerf), food tables, ... I mean, what do we will be offering now... a "barely acceptable" DPS?
Vol Dec 10th 2008 9:28AM
I agree with BRK about the diplomacy part. Not so much because I don't like the way GC does things, but because it would hopefully cut down on some of the whining.
WoW fans can be pretty unbearable when it's their class getting hit, and it makes it a real pain in the ass if I'm looking through the forums trying to find some info on something.
Rosa Dec 10th 2008 9:34AM
You know what depresses me about all of this?
It's the fact that GC is the only dev willing to talk to the people, and at first, they were so happy to have a face who would come out and speak to them like human beings that everything he said was good news, even when it wasn't.
But then people displayed compelling evidence, yet again, that they suck, and began to hold GC personally responsible for every single bit of bad news that came from Blizzard and he took the initiative to come share. I thought that the appeal of GC was that he wasn't a PR guy, he was just a dev talking to the players like they were real people. Do you all honestly think that these changes were suggested and implemented completely by him, to ruin your day?
Way to shoot the messenger.
When GC goes the way of the other devs and stops talking to people, we'll know why.
FoxOfWar Dec 10th 2008 11:45AM
So. True.
Now if only they took the time to bring some non-PvP-viability to Survival tree. It's, as said, pretty darn borked atm.
Acquiesce Dec 10th 2008 9:34AM
BRK, another awesome post. You never fail to crack me up. I think the Hunter nerfs are, if things stay the way they are, overkill. I think it's fair to say nerfs are necessary, but outside of damage, there isn't much Hunters bring to the table when it comes to raiding.
I rarely see Hunters in 5 mans these days. Seems like groups try to avoid them, and that's with them being 'overpowered'. What happens when the DPS gets turned down?
Matt Dec 11th 2008 11:50AM
I would imagine the Aspect of the Wild change is just to make it more in line with Pally resist auras.
Lyraat Dec 10th 2008 9:36AM
I actually appreciate Ghostcrawler's bluntness. We'd read through his fluff and grab the important business anyway. Softening the initial blow doesn't make the lasting pain any less hurtful.
FYI: Readiness refreshes Rapid Fire and Misdirection. MD, Pop trinket 1 + RF, Readiness, MD, Pop trinket 2 + RF. Whee!
For me, it's the reasoning behind the nerf, that we're simply doing too much damage in PvE. Yet, as has been mentioned here and many other places, we're so completely, utterly, inherently broken in PvP. Nerfed in PvE, broken in PvP, what's left? An army of hunter gatherer alts?
Mr. Crow Dec 10th 2008 9:38AM
The one big blow to the credibility of this article is BRK's constant comparisons to how political bodies that have populations roughly the size of WoW's would handle the delivery of information. First, political bodies have elected officials who are picked by those populations. Blizzard is not a political body; they are game designers. When Ghostcrawler says "I'm a game designer, not a politician" it's because it's true.
For a game, having a game designer tell me about the changing state of the game without window dressing or equivocation is much more valuable than having a politician try to deliver the same information.
Asking for Blizzard to put a politician as the mouthpiece of development news is like asking Tina Fey to be President. Sure she'd be engaging and amusing, but I would have no confidence in her words, because what she says has no substance.
Crying foul about the absence of diplomacy when a developer decides to be frank with the community is a waste of time. Doing so while also holding the people who MAKE A GAME to the same standards as people WHO CAN DECLARE WAR is simply pretentious and asinine.
Mehrik Dec 11th 2008 11:03AM
I think the point the BRK was trying to make is that Blizzard could save themselves the headache by being more diplomatic. I don't think he was complaining that it is too hard for us, the players, to digest. By exercising a bit more diplomacy, Blizzard could steer players away from all the wailing and crying, and they would be better off for it.
Mr. Crow Dec 11th 2008 11:31AM
If there is a nerf in any way evident, people will complain. Whether it's diplomatically delivered or not, people will be upset when something is changed about their class.
As for Blizzard saving themselves the headache, I don't think Ghostcrawler loses any sleep at night when the forums are lit afire by his posts. He is a game designer, designing a game. Worthwhile feedback from the game players is valuable, but "oh noes my class iz nerfed" is not worthwhile feedback.
Narissa Dec 10th 2008 9:39AM
As a Hunter and now primarily Marksman, these changes really didn't effect me. In fact I predicted the Beast Master changes like three days after 3.02 hit live.
Either or, Since they won't fix PVP, or Arenas, give us lack luster "fixes" to address them why shouldn't we have a strength somewhere.
Other classes go through it, but to be a good hunter player, you have to be able to adapt to random crazy changes. Prime example, how many level 80 skill changes did we go through during beta again.
Ttya Dec 10th 2008 9:43AM
I'm surprsied BRK didn't mention the phsyco baby on the wowinsider posts.
That annoyed me, if i'm honest
Grinton Dec 10th 2008 10:47AM
I completely agree with wanting to be able t tame mammoths. They should add more variety to the Rhinos. The bigest reason I got excited by the new exotics was that rhinos meant i might have a chance of taming a clefthoof, and come on how cool would getting a clefthoof be?
Tennerock Dec 10th 2008 10:05AM
Sorry, I think BRK is absolutely right.
Being diplomatic doesn't have to involve going all politically correct, trying to minimize an enraged response. It shouldn't take any longer to post something *helpful*, it just takes someone willing to step back for all of a few seconds and think about what they're saying.
Please don't get me wrong. GC has, in my opinion, been a more visible and helpful presence on the forums that most and I absolutely appreciate him for it. When dropping bombs this big, however, I don't think it too much to ask that the communication be thoughtful, that it explain the process a bit more.
One of my pet peeves is how many times a Blizzard Rep posts about how all the QQ'ing doesn't help, making long, repetitious posts criticizing how the community is reacting to .
1. There are infinitely more trolls and rampaging haters than thoughtful posters on the forums. This is an established FACT. We know it. Blizzard knows it. They are a known quantity and should be ignored.
2. This leads to another point. When thoughtful posts are recognized and identified by the community at large, but go unanswered while we see yet another admonishment about how isn't helping, it just fuels the negativity.
Ignore the trolls. They're trolls. They outnumber serious people eleventy-bazillion to one. They always will. Ignore them. Use that saved time to devote a few extra seconds to come up with posts like BRK's example. It's really not that hard to do.
--
Regarding the nerfs themselves? I understand the idea of going for huge changes for testing purposes, then scaling back based on what you find. It's jarring, however, to see a development team be so timid about addressing Hunter PvP issues (ie. problems identified for years and still unaddressed) and yet take such an aggressive stance based on a few weeks action, based on a relatively small population of max. level characters engaging in content that Blizzard has acknowledged was not as challenging.
Hunters are doing too much damage overall. Understood and accepted. Changes must be made. Absolutely.
I hope Blizzard is able to get good data from the PTR after these changes. I think they're definitely overkill, but they can be scaled back before they go live. I do hope they understand that these changes can be perceived as 'knee-jerk', that such a perception is absolutely justified based on how they presented the nerfs, based on their lack of attention to other areas (for years) and that they've not convinced many (any?) that these will do anything to fix PvP. I could hope they learn to communicate better...and at the same time I do recognize that GC is at least a more prolific and accessible poster than most that have come before. There's room for improvement and there are better ways to communicate. I think BRK is absolutely right to point that out.
To sum up.
1. Diplomacy isn't THAT hard.
2. Ignore the trolls.
3. FIX PVP. Pwease?
4. Ignore the frackin' trolls.
5. Me want spirit beast.
6. There is no point 6.
--
I wanted to make a long post even longer (groans from the 2 or 3 people still reading) by pointing out one pending nerf. I understand the need to knock Volley down a bit. I do. But it's a definite shame because this was something that genuinely added Fun(tm) to the game. I got my gorilladin as soon as Volley was changed, and I love him. So much. It was something new, something effective and seeing it crit gave me such a warm feeling...
Could something be done with a cooldown instead? Like I said, I understand the need to change it...but perhaps there are other ways to address something that was a real morale booster.
I'm done now.
/ducks and covers
Soifra Dec 10th 2008 10:57AM
I'm not 100% sure about this, but... mightn't the Volley nerf, combined with the Growl buff (despite Serpent's Swiftness's reduced effect on our pets) actually make our Gorilladins more able to hold aggro while we volley? So, less of the enemy beating on us, and about equal damage from Volley overall since we won't have pushback to deal with?
I'm too new to Gorillas to be positive that would be the case, but it seems plausible to me.
elly Dec 10th 2008 11:32AM
great response!
i agree with a CD on volley. it seems that would be a great compromise on the added damage it does. without completely erasing the fun (tm). :)