Posts with tag DeadZone

I'd like to take a break from the hunter leveling goodness we've had the last few weeks in Scattered Shots to take a look at where hunters stand as a class in Arena PvP, and where we might be going in the future. Blizzard developer Kalgan's measurement of how the different classes are faring in the Arena got me thinking quite a bit about the state of hunters -- currently functioning at the lowest place with 50% or less representation in the three Arena types at high rating brackets, followed by mages and shamans, in the 2vs2 Arena especially.

What in the world is causing such a huge discrepancy between hunters and other classes when it comes to high-rating arena representation? When I play in Arenas and Battlegrounds, I don't feel like my class is somehow deficient or underpowered. My team's Arena rating is average -- we're not the best, but not the worst either. When I get beaten, I usually feel like the other team actually played better (or outgeared us, at least), so it's rather hard to see what's so messed up about hunters.

The most obvious issue I can think might be the issue is that of Line of Sight. Hunters obviously have a rough time shooting at things behind sort of obstacle. In battlegrounds there are more wide open spaces, so it seems less of an issue there, but in Arenas it can get fairly annoying. Classes like warlocks and shadowpriests can just put a damage-over-time spell on you, and then hide behind a pillar, while druids can move freely around obstacles to give them plenty of time to heal themselves between your attacks. Warriors and other melee classes can hide for a bit, then get in so close that you can't use your best ranged abilities on them for a few seconds until you can somehow get away.

Mania's Arcania is at it again! She's leveling a new character, and -- surprise -- it's a hunter! Hunter characters are like those nifty potato chips: you can't just have one.

Anyway, she's made an interesting discovery this time about: The removal of the hunter deadzone has made the first 10 levels before a hunter can get his or her pet a much more tolerable, if not... dare I say it?... enjoyable experience! You no longer have to spend so much time meleeing, and you actually get to use a lot of your new abilities (such as Arcane Shot at level 6) more than once.

Previously those first 10 levels were so bad that I dreaded starting a new hunter character, and summoned up lots of patience just to get through them to the juicy fun part once the pet enters the scene. But now starting a new hunter should be a lot nicer.

It appears that the latest information from the PTR for Patch 2.3 regarding hunters' ranged attacks is incorrect, as are the cries of multitudes who feel that hunters shooting close up would be unfairly overpowered. Drysc says:

There's a tooltip error, it should be "5-35 yards". We want melee and ranged to be kept separate, so that when in melee attack range you should not be able to use a ranged attack. There's some amount of 'give' there, especially in fast paced PvP which can produce some temporary gray area but that's fully known with this change.

Feeding the issue of the tooltip error is a bug currently where you can indeed range attack someone while being meleed, but that's in the process of being resolved as well.

When I first saw the new "1-41" range for hunters (that's with the extended-range talent "Hawk Eye") over on World of Raids, I knew that something was wrong. To let hunters use melee and ranged attacks at the same time means that they would often do better up close to their enemies rather than far away, and would go against a lot of the fundamental concepts around which the class is based. As it is, the mechanic of switching between melee and ranged attacks is one of the exciting things about being a hunter, and, now that the deadzone is dying at last, there won't be that block of frustration getting in the way between the two.

If you've never played a Hunter, you may be unfamiliar with the concept of a "dead zone." The term is used to describe a certain distance between the Hunter and their target in which the target is too close for the Hunter to fire ranged weapons and yet too far away for the Hunter to use melee attacks. It's an interesting feature of the Hunter class that is shared by none of the other ranged-attack classes: all of the casters, for example, can throw painful spells at you even when you're right in their face.

Many Hunters argue that the dead zone is entirely unnecessary -- and weakens the class by giving it a range in which it's completely helpless. Some Hunters argue that their dead zone should simpy be removed while others suggest the addition of some mid-ranged attacks or allowing regular ranged attacks to work in the dead zone with reduced damage, to at least allow them something. (Though the melee classes are likely to disagree: the melee zone in which they do their best damage is much smaller than the Hunter's ranged zone in which they do their best damage.)

But what do you, Hunters and non-Hunters, think about the issue? Is the dead zone required to keep Hunters balanced? Or is it nothing but a weakening nuisance?