Scattered Shots: Hunter information from BlizzCon 2010
by Brian Wood 
Oct 25th 2010 at 9:00AM
Every year, Blizzard holds the ridiculously massive BlizzCon to celebrate the hunter class in WoW, as well as provide some information about the various support classes that are in the game to enhance the hunter experience. I have returned from BlizzCon 2010 in one piece, loaded down with new hunter information and a renewed joy for the hunter class.
I have to say that meeting all the people was almost more fun than all the panels and information. I got to meet Aron Eisenberg, Felicia Day and cast members from The Guild, Michele Morrow, Chris Metzen, Ghostcrawler, Oxhorn, Cranius, Legs and approximately a thousand of you guys. And everywhere I went I got to talk about hunters, discuss with you guys your opinions of patch 4.0.1 and hunter changes. My sincere thanks to all of the readers who hunted me down during the con -- meeting and chatting with you was probably the highlight of the convention. It was awesomesauce.
But we're not here today to talk about how awesome you guys are. We're here to talk about what we learned at BlizzCon about hunters. So join me after the cut for a look at the class Q&A as well as some tantalizing other tidbits of hunter information gathered during the con.
Hunter class Q&A
We had a handful of hunter questions come up at the class Q&A panel, including the big question about the hunter minimum range. The Q&A got off to a fantastic start, I think we can all agree, with Ghostcrawler's introduction to the panel:
Here are the hunter-related Q&A topics:My name is Greg, I'm one of the lead designers of World of Warcraft. I'm a Libra. I like long walks on the beach, drinking gin, and nerfing paladins.
Question: Aspect of the Cheetah -- OK, hunters, Aspect of the Cheetah and Aspect of the Pack -- it's been in the game for a long time now. This is somewhat of a credit to you guys, you've given all the other character classes wonderful tools where a lot of hunters now no longer feel it's necessary to have a gimp to a skill like this. We all feel it's antediluvian, you know; remove it from the game, please. That way it would add more dynamic to the hunter class. Aspect of the Pack would be used in other situations.
The reason why Aspect of the Cheetah and Aspect of the pack aren't like -- or that they have the daze I guess is what you're referencing -- is that if they didn't have the daze then you could just kite stuff all day long in PvE and it's also used like --
-- you put mobs on leashes, you cannot kite stuff all day long. That is no longer true. And mobs you can kite, it's irrelevant; you could kill it anyway. Who cares?
This comment was followed by loud booing from the crowd.
I don't know, I think I'd be able to kite stuff and kill stuff solo as long as the boss doesn't hit me.
I challenge you this: remove it from the game and see what happens.
After this comment he was roundly booed by the crowd again and his turn was done.
Honestly, I was pretty disappointed by this question. Of course Blizzard is not going to give us a permanent 30 percent speed increase with no substantial downside. Of course that would break things. I was a bit annoyed that one of our precious question slots was wasted on this one. But, happily, future questions were more interesting.
Question: Cool proc enchants -- When the deathfrost enchant first came out, I died a bit inside. We're seeing all these chance to proc on a melee attack or a spell, and I'm just wondering are hunters ever going to get a fun melee enchant, or are we going to be stuck with an upgraded version of an enchant that we've had since like patch 1.5?
Mongoose, right? We're going to get Mongoose I hope, right?So I have some bad news, unfortunately. For a while, you're going to be stuck. But one of the things that we're looking at going forward is sort of evaluating the scopes, because those are pretty boring right now to be frank, and we want to make the scopes cool and interesting. So if you do get one of those proc enchants coming along the line that's going to be where it comes into the game. And it will be just yours, nobody else can use it, and it'll be that cool thing.
No comment.
This is interesting news, and we hunters have certainly spent our share of time gazing wistfully at some of the cooler melee proc enchants, our faces pressed to the window, a dreamy look in our eyes. Alas, all we could do it look. From the response, it sounds like this is not something that's going to be in Cataclysm at launch, but rather something Blizzard plans to look into once it has the crazy balance and bugs sorted out for the Cataclysm launch.
Question: Minimum range in raids -- From a technical standpoint we seem to be the only ranged class in the game that has a minimum range. This seems to come into effect quite a bit in our raids where everybody in the raid -- ICC first couple of bosses -- everybody in the raid stacks up on the boss at max hit at the edge of the hitbox, except the hunter -- you stand about five feet back and die.
If your raid liked you more they'd save you.
Question: My question is just -- mages, warlocks, priests -- they're all ranged classes but they can stand directly in front of you and repeatedly use what would be a ranged attack. Why have hunters been singled out? Why are we not allowed to do the same thing with our bows or our guns? It makes no sense.
It's part of the overall flavor of the hunter class unfortunately, and it goes hand in hand with using ranged weapons. That said I'm very sympathetic to the reality on fights like Lord Marrowgar, and other bosses that have very large hit boxes -- which works to the advantage of melee because it lets you spread out -- but effectively it's subtracting from the viable range for hunters. That issue in particular is something that we've discussed addressing because it is intended to make life easier for you, not harder, and life would be easier for you on Marrowgar if you were smaller and that's just not how it's ideally going to work.
Question: Is there supposed to be any form of a balance for the fact that it is a negative to the way our class plays is that we must be at that range or our DPS goes to pretty much nothing once you get into melee. Is there going to be something that cancels that out and makes us a slightly more viable ranged class than somebody who doesn't have that negative.
At the same you can shoot while moving and a mage can't channel his spells while moving, so there's trade offs right? Or a rogue or a cat they can't do anything when they have to run around the room, and you can. So there's different classes have different strengths in different situations.
Hunters also have a lot of abilities to get our of melee range, that's why disengage was made as a jump away from your target kind of ability, to get away from the shadow priest standing on top of you. But pretty much any ranged class if a melee's on top of you, you know, you're not doing your highest damage, right.
It's certainly interesting to hear that Blizzard is aware of how those giant hit boxes screw us, even though that isn't what he was asking about. He was specifically pointing out that many boss fight strategies require standing in melee range, wherever that is, and we hunters either have to stay out at range where gameplay is more difficult (Marrowgar) or suck it up, stand in melee and lose our shots (Lich King).
The response about the giant hunter strength to compensate for our giant weakness is ... well it's a tricksy situation. Before Cataclysm, I would have roundly argued with this. Of course rogues and feral druids can DPS while moving and they can do so much better than us. They just lose DPS when target-switching, but that's an advantage of ranged, not specific to hunters. Any other ranged DPS class can do 100 percent of its damage in melee -- the question was framed in a PvE situation, not PvP. Also, there are other ranged classes that can do close to as much DPS as we can while on the move (with the help of their DoTs) and it doesn't feel like our mobility is nearly as good as our minimum range is bad.
But, that's all changing with Aspect of the Fox. With this new aspect in Cataclysm, we will unquestionably be the superior class at firing on the move. We still lose DPS for moving, of course. We lose our auto-shot and the attack power bonus of Aspect of the Hawk, but we can still do our full rotation. Now, it's not going to be easy to do that while moving, and aspect dancing is likely to become one of the skills of the dedicated hunter, but there is no longer any question but that we have a far greater capacity for DPSing on the move.
More from Ghostcrawler on hunters
Over at Warcraft Hunters Union today is an article, Words with the Big GC, that contains a bunch of hunter questions that Ghostcrawler answered when I bumped into him in the halls of the hotel. Here are the highlights:
- Weapon speeds are no longer normalized, and this is
deliberateaccidental. They will be making a change soon to normalize shots. - BM Multi-Shot AoE is likely to be increased, and possibly MM as well.
- Intimidation may not be the BM bonus ability in a year from now, but it will be when Cataclysm launches.
- Counterattack is on the list for review, but it's going to be there when Cataclysm launches as well.
- It is very likely that our pets will be able to become crit-immune in Cataclysm.
- It is entirely possible that we'll see the implementation of pet collars, or a similar jewelry-type item for our pets to wear, sometime in the future. Something that enables further pet customization but will not change pet appearance.
Scattered Shots is dedicated to helping you learn everything it takes to be a hunter. Our Scattered Shots Resource Guide takes aim at everything from improving your heroic DPS, understanding the impact of skill vs. gear, and getting started with Beast Mastery 101 and Marksman 101.Filed under: Hunter, (Hunter) Scattered Shots
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
Darkdust Oct 25th 2010 9:19AM
Here's hoping for more Camouflage style abilities at low to mid levels during Cataclysm.
Tinwhisker Oct 25th 2010 9:33AM
GC didn't specifically/correctly address that last point the way it was hoped but I think you misunderstood GC's answer. He's not saying that melee can't DPS on the move, he meant that melee can't DPS when they have to move out (run around the room). Basically, when the strat calls to be in melee, yes hunters get screwed but when melee have to move [out] they're getting screwed.
Jorges Oct 25th 2010 11:14AM
This is exactly what I was thinking. What GC meant is that melee can't do anything else while moving from mob A to mob B, or while moving from one side of the room to the other. Hunters at the very least can autoshot while moving from place to place.
When a fight involves a lot of boss/near boss movement, melee gets screwed. This is most noticeable with classes that have complicated rotation (Cats) and have to apply dots to do damage (again, Cats). Hunters can easily DPS almost everything that is not hitting them or near of them, wich is 90% of the time. Yes, I play a Cat and I understand that this is part of the mechanic of my spec. Sometimes I win, sometimes I don't. In those single target and stationary fights, like Saurfang or Festergut, there's no class that can out-dps me. I'm putting 17-18k in my non-heroic gear on those figths and I've read about other Cats doing more than 20K on heroic gear, but those are fights that benefit the playstyle of my spec (about only 3 figths in ICC). I know it's not going to be like that on all figths, nor I want it to be. The rest of the figths, Hunters and other ranged classes are the ones topping the meters. Besides, I paly a hybrid and wich is not supposed to out-dps Hunters.
The minimun range limitation is something that has always existed in almost every RPG out there, specially those based or with some hints of the D&D rules. There even exist talents that eliminate the limitation, like "Melee Training" or "Point Blank Shot"; even LOTRO has this talent on their hunters. It's something inherent to the lore of the class. The same way that it is part of the lore that magic casters can stand at any range, since they're not using anything physical to do damage, like an arrow for example. Or that healing magic never miss... those are actually lore mechanics that define how the class play in the game. Of course, Blizzard can pretty much decide that their hunters can fly and shot lasers from their eyes if they want, but for game balance they can't make you good at range and melee. But magic casters can, you say? Not really, they're too squishy to really wanting to be at melee range and if they don't die they get interrupted a lot while trying to stay away from from melee damage. Hunters don't run, they figth back and their pets bite you hard. There are fights where you're going to be at a disadvantage (like 10% of the fights), but we all are at some point.
So yeah, sometimes you win, sometimes you don't. As awesome as you hunters want to be at everything, you simply can't. Embrace it, accept it, and play around it.
Frostheim Oct 25th 2010 1:32PM
Right -- but that's not a hunter advantage (not having downtime moving from target to target), that's a *ranged* advantage.
vocenoctum Oct 25th 2010 1:57PM
I think you're missing the seperation.
"Hunters are different than ranged because they can shoot while moving"
"Hunters are different than melee because they can remain stationary while target switching".
There's two points of comparison. Sure melee can continue to melee while sticking to their target, and all ranged have the advantage of being stationary during "everyone out of the close boss attack cleave lightning!", but Hunters are different.
Jorges Oct 25th 2010 2:04PM
Err.. I have yet to see a caster class/spec autoattack anything while moving. Wands can't be used while moving, channeled and timed spells can't be cast while moving either. Only instant spells can be used, and we all have some kind of instant spell. I think GC pointed out this too in his reply.
So yeah, autoshots while moving (plus instant spells) are hunter advantage. Wich I'm not against, btw.
Frostheim Oct 25th 2010 2:16PM
Hunters cannot auto-shot while moving. We have to stop moving to auto-shot.
Jorges Oct 25th 2010 2:14PM
Oh my mistake, I didn't read the part of "(not having downtime moving from target to target)", wich is completely true and makes my previous reply invalid. But then again, is a part of being melee that I have to live with it, I don't feel at a disadvantage because of that since I can pretty much do my rotation while moving with my target. Something a ranged class can't do.
Amiyuy Oct 28th 2010 12:44PM
@Frostheim- But in Cataclysm will we be able to Auto Shot while moving by switching to Aspect of the Fox.
Frostheim Oct 25th 2010 6:26PM
@Amiyuy -- That was the very first incarnation of Aspect of the Fox, and was changed several months back. Fox no longer has anything to do with auto-shot -- it just lets you cast steady/cobra shot on the move.
Leighlu Oct 25th 2010 9:39AM
I liked GC a lot more when he was a chick.
The hunter class, as it is now, isn't what I enjoyed playing for almost 5 years.
Holgar Oct 25th 2010 9:55AM
If you have been playing for five years you know that the game evolves. I would say the difference between the 1.0 hunter and the 3.3 hunter is far greater than the difference between the 3.3 and 4.0.1 hunter. So the game has just evolved a little more rapidly. You have also played through two expansions and know that there is always a peroid of tweaks and adjustments for a few months after release.
If you have played for five years you shoulden't be at all surprised that hunters got a major overhaul.
Jonisjalopy Oct 25th 2010 10:14AM
We can send you back to when you only had 2 talent trees. Would that be better?
Elmouth Oct 25th 2010 11:17AM
Yes it would.
My hunter is shevled since 4.0 and will remain so until they fix our pet's squishiness.
Snuzzle Oct 25th 2010 12:36PM
I, too, have been playing a hunter for almost six years. In classic, a hunter was my main. At TBC I switched to a druid but still I feel love for the hunter. And I've got to say, this time around, it just feels right. Playing with focus feels like it's always should have felt. Mana never felt quite right. The old feign death and drink trick back in MC should have been a huge red light to the fact that something was wrong with the class.
My only complaint about focus is that I wish it refilled a tiny bit faster.... or that auto-shot had a small focus regen to it, 2 or 3 focus per shot. It's probably just because I'm so used to the regen rate of energy that focus feels a bit clunkier... because it is. You're meant to refill it with Steady Shot. But I can't help it, sometimes I just automatically sit there waiting for a couple ticks thinking "if I wait a sec I'll have enough energy for this Kill Command... or not, crap."
My only other complaint with the hunter class is specific to BM, that KC is a bit clunky to use now. I get so annoyed with the constant "Out of range, Out of range" errors that pop up. I wish they'd make it work like Intimidation where it queues up until your pet is in range. Other than that, this is exactly how the hunter should have been since day one, imho.
Starstrukk Oct 25th 2010 9:41AM
Overall, the responses kind of pissed me off. Especially the fact that intimidation may not be the BM bonus ability anymore. If they change that it'll seriously decrease the viability of BM as PvP spec.
Debesun Oct 25th 2010 10:45AM
"Especially the fact that intimidation may not be the BM bonus ability anymore.
"If they change that it'll seriously decrease the viability of BM as PvP spec."
He stated that if it were to happen, it would be replaced. To say that if they were to lose it would "seriously decrease the viability of BM as PvP spec." doesn't exactly hold much weight when you have no idea what it will be replaced with.
As an extreme (and obviously not going to happen) example, if they removed Intimidation and replaced it with an ability to instantly kill a target every 5 seconds, would that decrease the viability of BM in PvP?
There was also nothing said about whether Intimidation will or will not be be removed entirely or moved as a pet spec ability, etc. No point going for the total doom and gloom conclusion when it could mean anything.
Snuzzle Oct 25th 2010 12:49PM
Big Red Pet as the signature ability? Oh god please!
Frostheim Oct 25th 2010 1:32PM
If Intimidation was removed as the bonus ability that DOESN'T mean that BM wouldn't have intimidation -- likely Intimidation would just go back to being a talent and something else (more appropriately useful and cool) would become the free bonus ability for speccing BM.
Ice Oct 25th 2010 9:52AM
"I was a bit annoyed that one of our precious question slots was wasted on this one."
Woah woah, that is rather rude there. I think one of the few times I've seen rather rude commantery on both live Q&A and blog-part in wowinsider (no, warlock/mage hate does not count). I just feel bit of "Dont mess with blizz we are fanboys to bone if you say anything negative or critic them, we will downrate you and call your questions waste of time and you being rude!" going on here.
I admit, I'm not the best hunter there is so I can feel this guys frustration specially when they cannot kite too effectively against most melee classes that are the counter to hunters. They can "close the gap" pretty effectively and just oblirate hunters specially in WoTlk days. Maybe it will change in cataclysm, that I do not know.
Most of the melee classes have talents for 15% speed bonus. They can also close the gap: They can stun, if they cant stun they can sprint and spin around you like spaztic, some leap behind you, some even stun AND close the gap at same time.
Make aspect of daze into 15% speed and remove daze? Is that being rude then, waste of time? It would save hunters talent points since IMO I always felt they should be running bit faster as baseline, I would've suggested that if I had to ask question about aspect of dazes to devs. I agree with the guy, daze aspects are old and should do some rework. Maybe not 30% with no daze, even tho some hunters might need it specially for pvp to actually "kite" stuff they are suppos to. And I take the question as PvP question not pve, pve kiting is fine imo.