We Know
Part I
No time for a real post, but yeah.
You’ve got… twelve hours or so to vent your thoughts here. Freak out, blather, babble, and scream for programmers’ heads on platters. You know, act like paladins.
Then, we’re going to rationally discuss…
Rationally. It’s a word. It means, not flipping out over PTR announcements.
Anyway, we’re going to talk about this in more detail. Soon.
Part II.
Here’s how you know your DPS might be a tad overpowered:
We start the fight, heroic Azjol-Nerub, the holy priest aggros something ugly, gets two-shotted at basically T-0. Elemental Shaman switches to healing mode, BM hunter and Enhancement Shaman are left to kill the boss.
Dude. 242% more total damage than the melee-shaman? Seriously?
Enjoy your panic-mode tonight. Tomorrow, cool heads shall prevail.
Part III.
WoW Insider post, tomorrow at 9:00am EST. Now, for heroic Nexus and our Tier 7 gloves!
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*bubblehearth*
thats what paladins do right?
They day BM hunters lose in DPS to any lesser classes or a MM hunter ( which is worse ) is the day my Resto Shaman is my main.
Yep I concur.. I know I’m freaking out atm a bit, but I’m trying to get it all out now so I can go back and think rationally on what this really means.
?????????????….??? _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_]|??? Is about to hit the Hunters
?????????????
?N?E?R?F???T?A?N?K?
?????????????
Nurf Tank Is about to hit the Hunters
im just sad. this doesnt remotely compare to ret paladin nerfs, as they are NOT a pure dps class anyway. dps is what hunters do. directly or indirectly, thats it.
;_;
I knew from the day that 3.0.2 dropped, when I rounded up 8 lvl 70 ogres and volleyed them down with little to no damage on either of us that a nerf swing would be coming.
As far as the Volley nerf (-30%) damage goes, is it really that big a deal? Gorilla holds aggro, doesn’t get hurt, just give them one more volley. Keep in mind I leveled solely as a BM gorilladin hunter.
Like BRK said, let’s try not to act too much like paladins.
The only uncalled nerf is the Steady Shot one. All others are pretty much “OH NOVOS! I’ll have to minmax around some other way instead of a cookie cutter”. Read: There will be a new cookie cutter.
This isn’t the end of the world… of warcraft.
Seriously, you guys didn’t see this coming? We were doing a good 1k to 1.5k more dps than that second highest class on the list, and to be honest, the nerfs really aren’t that bad. I thought it would be a lot worse.
This is what back up plans are for. I am going to level my shaman ( resto is awesome ) But if you don’t have a alt at 70 there is always a DK.
And so begins the great hunter reroll of 2008
I don’t care about pvp,so it seems like pve players get nerfed just cause they want to balance pvp. If something is really out of hand with our dps I can understand it. But my dps isn’t OP I can tell you that. lol. It;s the people that don’t live to pvp or raid that get caught up in all the mess.
Maybe in 25 NAXX with all the buffs it was truly OP, but in heroics with barely any i’m not ahead of mages by all that much.
Ok, I really don’t understand the nerf. Ghostwalker says “Hunters of all specs, and particularly Beastmaster, are doing too much damage in PvE. We tested this a lot internally in beta and knew hunters were high but we hoped other classes would be able to catch up in a way they have as yet been unable to do.”
The problem here is other people not knowing how to play their classes. Warlocks only pumping out 1,200 DPS – they don’t know what they are doing. I’ve run with spriests that crank out >2,100 DPS, Mages that crank out >2,400 DPS, ret pallies, etc. These players simply know what they are doing.
Mind you, the 1-button macro hunter has made it is easier for a hunter to crank out the dmg. But honestly I don’t think Blizz has given other classes enough time to learn to play their new builds. So, why nerf us down, when Warlock’s den is reporting locks doing 3-5K DPS (i know they are getting nerfed too), or DK cranking out >2,500 DPS.
There are people out there, other classes who know what they are doing, but there are still a lot that don’t. So why punish the hunters for other people’s ineptitude?
Nothing that bad in my opinion. Any QQ’er doesn’t remember the times when a Hunter was only in a raid for Tranquilizing Shot.
[blockquote]Seriously, you guys didn’t see this coming?[/blockquote]
^This
[blockquote][my dps isn’t OP[blockquote]
Then you’re doing something wrong.
Hunter DPS is crazy high right now.
I for one am excited about what’s going to happen with Survival and the “exciting…change” coming to ammo.
I say Meh! One could say Nerfs Happen!
Or Blizz is doing the Old Bump and Nerf.
Or Nerf this!
PS I will NOT be switching to my shammy LOL
PPS Lets not be Retardins and get all weepy…
Yea, this is kind of expected. BRK has it right, there’s nothing wrong with being nerfed a bit when you’re obviously way overpowered.
Now, while I agree there are probably a lot of people who don’t know what they’re doing, that happens. That’s why Blizzard really doesn’t look at the low end of things, or so it seems. They look at the bleeding edge and the majority for how they nerf. Or at least it seems like that to me, as I’ve never noticed any issues in my throughput, be it heals per second or damage per second following any nerf.
There are going to be two pervasive views on this. Well, I suppose a lot of pervasive views, considering the number of rogues that are cheering and given the surprising, downright disappointing, glee that the MM/SV community seems to be taking in the BM nerf. But from the POV of the BM hunter population, there are two views.
One is the BM hunter that’s not level 80 and not rolling in heroic 5-mans or raiding. That group may be surprised and shocked. But for the portion of the BM community who were in Naxx, we knew from day 1 that a nerf of some sort was incoming. We run two hunters, we’re both BM for the moment although I’ve played around with the MM and SV trees some. We’ve simply destroyed the DPS boards. My counterpart who’s better geared than I, in no small part because she’s still in college, is strickly BM and often puts up 500-1000+DPS above the next closest dpser on some traditional boss fights. Many other posters on the forums have seen the same results, and have predicted the same nerf. So none of us is surprised it’s happening.
The bigger question is how hard and where the bat will hit us. The de-linking of Readiness-TBW sucks for the 50/21/0 lovers, but considering they didn’t give that to us, then did, tehn took it awayy….. well that’s life with Blizz. The Volley nerf sucks. Finally get a decent AOE ability on par with other pure dps classes, and it’s getting trashed. Part of me wonders why we were even given it. It probabyl needed a modification, but 30% is harsh. Pet DPS was through the roof. That’s the most obvious nerf target. The Pet should never be 40-50% of my DPS.
The nerf to Steady really hurts though, and it’s going to hurt all the trees, although BM the most. the reduction of 20% to 10% of RAP is about a 30% nerf to my SS. Assuming 1 steady and 1 autoshot, that’s approx 15% dps reduction in my portion of the hunter-pet combined dps. Couple that with a hard pet nerf, and 15% reduction could be the best-case scenario. That hurts, and might be too much.
Also, and it’s worth reemphasizing, it’s POTENTIAL changes. Which means that 1) it’s NOT in game, 2) it’s NOT even on the PTR yet, and 3) it’s not even set in stone. But some solid testing for dps now versus dps in the PTR needs to be conducted to evaluate the actual effect this has on our DPS.
Maybe in the end, this will just further even out the MM/BM balance. SV still needs some serious help. But having both MM and BM nearly equivalent is appealing. HOwever, I’m not sure they were that far off.
The doomsday prediction though will be that this is the deathknell of BM. BM, The LOLSPEC level 1-60, for 2 years during which MM was the only spec. BM the epic spec for TBC for 2 years, during which MM was ridiculed as only for PVP. Where does the pendulum stop? Balance would be nice.
Then of course there are the poor PVPers. I’m not one, but they’re still getting no love.
AFTER INITIAL FREAKOUT, DAVLIN FORMS AN OPINION:
Mostly this nerf will return us to the good ole days where you actually had to know your class to do well, as opposed to pick up a gun, out dps a fury warrior, and still have no clue what you’re doing. It’s going to revive shot rotation, the need for a CC hunter (maybe?) over dps, and return hunters to their roll of Sustainable High DPS, instead of their newer roll of Nuclear DPS (is it sustainable? I dunno, everything dies too fast, lol). When the DK’s came out, and everyone was all excited that they were overpowered, whether they were or not, my initial response was “How dare they make a class that can out-do every other class.” Aiming that judgement gun at myself, Hunters can Out DPS every class when played correctly. As sad as I am to see the power go, the nerf, when looked at through the outrage and illogic, is probably quite necessary.
I think I’m going to roll with the punches on this one and come out stronger for it. I’ve got a feeling we’ll still rank pretty darn high on the DPS boards.
–Dav
My biggest disappointment is the fact that we were finally BEASTmaster hunters … our pet’s were powerful rather than incidental. I ‘d be much happier with a straight hunter nerf and leave the pet’s ramped up.
I didn’t wait I wrote an emotional response on my blog. Maybe cooler heads will prevail, I honestly think its not going to be the end of BM hunters or anything like that, its a nerf we all knew was coming, now we can laugh at the mages and boomkins and say they know whats going on and your going to be next hahahaha (although this makes my boomkin sad)
As Himeh said, this nerf was seen coming a mile off. When the top worldwide DPS meters for Patchwork-25 are dominated by Hunters by some considerable margin a nerf to adjust them down to mage in sustained DPS was always going to be on the cards. Indeed for much the same reason a relative buff to Rogue PvE DPS will be quite likely in the next patch (though they have to be more careful about making Rogues even more ridiculous in PvP).
Unfortunately, saying that you’re only beating Rogues/mages/warlocks because they need to learn to play doesn’t really wash. These guys have been playing their class for years, just like some of you guys have been playing Hunters for years, and know how to squeeze as much DPS out of their character as you can out of yours. If that Rogue, properly specced and going all out, can’t reach 80% of your DPS on simple tank and spank fights (from melee!) then something is up which needs to be addressed. With any luck though a decent testing period on the PTR will mean that these changes will be bug-free and well balanced.
Oh, and lets pack it in with the cross-class insults.
P.S. Hunter PvP buffs please!
I love that Zappa album.
We needed the nerf. Nobody should be surprised about any of this, except maybe taking Bestial Wrath off Readiness. that kinda sucks.
My opinion: we’ll live. It’s a game, not a way of life…well, at least for me. Has it been nice smashing up the place in PvE, and soloing darned near everything in sight? Sure. Will I miss that? Maybe. Will it deter me from playing a BM Hunter? Hell no. Life goes on.
And people wonder why I’m “vitriolic” towards BM Hunters. What the hell kind of childish, petty BS is this?
A Hunter is a Hunter is a god damned Hunter. Yeah, BM Hunters are more split between their pets and themselves, and MM Hunters are more self-centric, but at the end of the day, what’s on the character screen?
“Rilgon
Level 80 Hunter”
This level of inter-class spec rivalry is beyond pathetic. I have the utmost of respect for GOOD BM Hunters like BRK, Pike, Brajana, and Mania, but come the fuck on, dude. Saying that being beaten by another Hunter is worse than being beaten by another class? Just because I’m a different spec? What the hell.
While I do enjoy your particular brand of brutal honestly, truth-spouting and understand where you are coming from on this Hunter v Hunter nonsense Rilgon…
You could afford to censor yourself just a tad. This is a (moderately) PG-rated Blog.
Come on man, voice yourself without expletives.
=/
GAH WHY GHOSTCRAWLER WHY I THOUGHT YOU WERE ON OUR SIDE BUT THEN YOU GO AND NERF US NOW WHY PLEASE DONT MAKE US THE NEXT RET-PALLY PLZ PLZ PLZ PLZ A THOUSAND TIMES PLZ I WILL LICK YOUR SHOES CLEAN JUST PLZ DONT NERFS US INTO OBLIVION PLZ I TALK WITH NO QUOTATIONS AND CAPS LOCK ON ALL THE TIME BECAUSE IT SHOWS THAT I AM YELLING AND THAT I AM ANGRY AND THEREFORE PEOPLE WILL TAKE ME SERIOUSLY AND CONSIDER MY OPINIONS RAAAAAWWWRRR
I’d be offended about the paladin comment but Im too busy pointing and laughing.
@Rua: Between the nerfs and all of the babbling, immature BC-BM-babies coming out of the woodwork and slandering MM across the internether, you’ll have to forgive me for being a wee-bit hacked off today.
Where’s that Patron…
thats how the overall damage is usually in my runs
The 15-30% dps loss is going to keep a lot of us out of raids. Mages provide the CC now, with rogues chipping in. DKs can pull fine themselves without targets running astray, and our traps are largely useless since every tank can spam AOE damage now and break them, so why are we there?.. oh yeah, dps, I though that’s what we were supposed to be doing…
/target hunter-toon (tell target go farm forget raiding)
The real problem is that is is going to kill the average hunter the most, while it’s intended to reel in the top-tier raiding dps.
It strikes me as very strange that, instead of just rolling back the DPS-increasing changes they made to existing spells and looking into their new ones, Blizzard chose to slap as many band-aids as they could find on their bleeding patient and hope one of them cuts off the flow…
The changes I have in mind are:
- Steady Shot no longer clips Auto-Shot
- Volley no longer has a cooldown.
Of the two, the Volley change clearly brought with it a greater DPS increase. It seems like it would make a lot of sense to roll these back (or just give Volley back a reasonable cooldown).
The Kindred Spirits damage reduction is reasonable, too. It’s possible that the talent stacked far more productively than they thought it would, and that its numbers need to go down a bit. It’s a new ability… I’ll believe that they just missed it.
But the others? Steady Shot and Serpent’s Swiftness? Come now. These were not a problem in Burning Crusade – why is it that they have suddenly become so offensive in the eyes of our DPS-overlords?
I’ve always thought that those high dps Hunters were just being raidstacked, but after seeing all those comments and Blizzards planned nerf I’m wondering if I’m too blind to see what I’m doing wrong.
In TBC at Sunwell Plateau I got easily the top first dps, and it was quite high. After the WotLK pre-patch, the other dpsers got closer, but I still hold my spot. Now, in WotLK, I’m there with still the same dpsers, except it’s much harder to stay on #1. I’m still in top5 but usually almost always third or fourth. During the Patchwerk encounter, I’m usually on second place with around 4k dps, the first place belongs to a Warrior who does 5k dps.
I’m always keeping up Hunter’s Mark & Serpent Sting 100% of the time, as well as having Glyph of BW, Steady Shot & AotV. I’m hitcapped and make sure my pet is on the boss without dying. I’ve been 50/21 before, then heard that Exotic Pets were much better then Readiness, so I switched to 51/20 and saw a tiny increase in dps. But it was an increasement so I kept at it, but my spot on the meters still didn’t get higher.
Until I’ve found out what I’ve been doing wrong, I’ll be ofcourse sad about this change.
So when exactly are the DK and mages getting a nice nerf beating?Because those two classes are way more OP currently than hunters.
Yeah BM dps is high,but damnit it is supposed to be!
We suck @ss in arena,do pretty dang well in BGs and excel at PvE.
PvE is what we are best at,and now some @sshat that thinks they know hunter mechanics are screwing with our dps?Massive sustained DPS is the only reason we get invited to do instances!
Hell we are one of the least likely class to be recruited to guilds because other classes do what our sad few utilities are supposed to do far more reliably and can do massive dps as well!
Thanks oh so much for screwing us yet again Blizz!
You tards!
time for BRK to roll out the “Hunter? Who Dey?” Image. perhaps replace it with “Hunters? What dey for?”. with an arrow pointing to MAoSRDPS? As a reminder.
I thought this might happen. Does it mean that i’m not going to enjoy the hunter class anymore? Nah. Does it mean i wont get a spot in raids? Pfft. Nah i’ll be there.
Though with readiness no longer affecting bestial wrath I am inclined to ask, “whats the F-ing point of that then?” I cant think of any other talent that i would be that fussed using readiness with? Those two went hand in hand. The fact they are removing it, seems to me like they didn’t think that one through.
MY biggest concern would be, that to make the other trees, especially survival more appealing they’ll nerf BM to the ground, Baby. Survival needs TLC, not just a nerf to BM.
Maybe making Volley not able to crit would work better?
The loss of Readiness/BW not a big deal to many BM Hunters.
Everyone (myself included, I’m not blameless) needs to calm down and take a deep breath.
Besides! I found a solution to this nonsense!
http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo200/Rilgon/nerfsolution.jpg
True, Steady Shot nerf hits all Hunters, where MM and SV don’t deserve it. Esp SV. They were lower before on DPS. Hitting them with the Steady Shot damage reduction doesn’t help them at all.
The pet nerfs were probably appropriate.
The Steady Shot nerf is too much. The Volley nerf is too much.
I’m not beating even Rogues by 30% on AoE damage. 10%? Sure. 30%? Ridiculous.
Ok, I’m finally calm enough to comment on this situation. I’m still pretty upset.
Here’s my main point… Shouldn’t Hunter’s out dps every other class? What is wrong with that concept? With Hunters you have damage coming from TWO sources… the hunter AND his or her pet. Yes we put out high DPS…. thats the point!
*sigh* they finally get volley to the point where it’s useful for a hunter to use…. and now they nerf it by 30%? WTF?!??!?!
I’m seriously considering deleting my hunter and rolling another class, I don’t see the point of continuing it. The hunter as a viable class as Blizzard currently proposes is a totally useless class. And if I may say so the hunter is the single most popular class in the game!
If they nerf the next class I chose as badly as they propose to nerf hunters, I’m quitting the game.
It sucks but that’s life in WoW. I won’t even be considering giving up on my hunter.
Everyone is making analogies to the Pally nerf. Ok so Ret’s got nerfed and then they can spend a couple days getting gear a little gold and respec to heal or tank. And they heal or tank really well.
If we can’t DPS better then others we’re done. There is no real respec option for us, it’s dps or dps or cc but every class and spec has cc options now and most better then traps. Glad I’m piling up badges right now and getting whispered all the time to come dps another heroic as that all might end soon.
Amen Brother Rilgon!
I can’t say that I’m running around like my hair is on fire . . . although I am a red head so any time I run around it looks like that.
I will say to my fellow hunters to remember that the changes are simply the proposed ones and not actually is what is going to make it in to the game.
As for my personal opinion on the changes, I have to say that I agree with a good bit of what Ghostcrawler said, but I especially agree with the part about volley. In dungeons I was using it almost exclusively when there was more than one mob.
I’m not sure about the change to serpent’s swiftness is the particular answer due to reasons of PvP interruption. However I maybe wrong because I have not been able to PvP lately.
As for the rest I need to sleep on it.
It must be all about the gear. The last nerf hunters got .. nerfed us to Holy Priest DPS level. Now, instead of fixing that nerf, they are doing more …? Maybe if they scaled the hunter abilities properly .. instead of leaving pre lv70 hunters as 1shot squishies .. thjs wouldn’t be so bad ..
If you read the comments on the forums concerning this huge mistake, you can see the cool heads there
Grr. Post eaten by spam filter. Short version- As a Survivalist I’m not too worried, especially since they say they’re thinking about actually buffing us for once, but I feel for the BM hunters out there.
well perhaps after the nerf we will be able to control 5 pets and run instances with them as this will be the only way to be able to Raid. I had hell at lvl 70 to find any groups for heroics all because Hunters have an unreliable form of CC. I was lucky to be in a nice guild that gave me an opportunity to Raid and I managed to do some good work and therefore earned my place all the way to BT and SWP but it was HELLLL on EARTH to reach that.
(just needed to get it out of my chest)
Ta
V
Not surprised or shocked one bit. But I will bet that even with the nerfs, combined hunter and pet dps will still top the charts. If they chop pet dps in half and hunter dps in half we will still be doing uber dps.
I managed to do a BRK no-no and took a sub lvl 80 ferocity pet into a heroic earlier. He was lvl 75 when i entered and he still did pretty good. Missed a ton but still did well. If at level 80 my pet still does the same amount of dmg in a heroic i’ll be topping dps charts.
It Can’t Happen Here
(loved that album)
But it’s about to happen.
I may have to take my remaining gold and use it to buy a very long thin strip of land in Nagrand, and have my nerfed BM toon retire to raise dental floss and spaghetti side by side….
I knew it was coming. I stopped leveling my Hunter at 73 because I could feel it in the air. My Pally is 74 and going strong, loving every minute of it, and I have no regrets.
Hunters have had a good run, staying under the radar pretty much since TBW was released. Serpent’s Swiftness is too powerful. 20% DPS increase for 5 points is a bit much. Volley nerf was coming since day 1, why it wasn’t changed in the beta is amazing to me.
The Ret Pally nerfs were more extreme in my opinion, and Ret Pallies are pretty much balanced right now. Maybe a little strong in PvP when HoJ is up, but other than that, Ret Pallies got hit first, and it’s just the Hunters’ turn now.
This is the way I look at it.
Nerfs were coming. I’m not even 73 yet but I knew from my days raiding that they were coming. The class in general and BM in particular needs the nerf. Needs.
I’ve said it before elsewhere but I’ll say it here; this is what a nerf is supposed to look like. Blizz has done an excellent job with this latest round of nerfs. Instead of taking a bludgeon to the class like they have in the past (see ret pallies, mages, warlocks, shammies), they’re using a scalpel. Cutting a wide swath, no doubt, but doing it in such a precision manner.
They want us to use all our abilities. For a BM hunter to push one button to use one ability? Not working as intended. This round of nerfs is intended to push the player to be better, not spam a macro and win.
So calm down. Relax. Think around the nerfs. Make Blizz want to nerf the player and not the class because we find ways to still put out MQoSRDPS no matter what.
I’d like to say “oh its ok” but screw that…. i KNOW im a decent hunter and in our 25 mans i regularly get my ass beat on bossfights by our boomkin and occasionally by a mage…
hunters might do slightly better in AoE atm but is the solution really to destroy our single target dps? what the hell do blizz smoke? We might do well but anyone who says hunters are “kings of boss dps” is freaking crazy (or theit guildies are just shit).
TO THE GROUND BABY!
/also plays a paladin
Everyone chill… the main nerf was steady shot, everything else can be worked around.
With the main nerf being Steady Shot, it only effected our AP bonus to Steady Shot which means +Crit will play a little larger factor in stats.
Hunters were at one time brought ONLY if you were MM, and ONLY for tranq shot. I enjoyed being top of damage meters too, and this is not to say we still wont, but would it really kill you to be 2nd in damage?
since we have never had a viable arena spec and had to work twice as hard to get anywhere in arena pvp i think being no1 in pve dps is a decent trade off. the biggest nerf in this is the removal of haste to the hunter from serpent swiftness. This makes all that haste from gear look very good for BM hunters as well.
This also reduces our effectiveness in arenas. So it looks like season 5 we going to be bottom of the barrel as well again.
Rilgon-I like the way you think good sir. Pass some of that this way.
We need to stop cutting each other’s throats as a class. Beast masters, Marksmen, Survivalists. We all still show as Level x Hunter, not Level x BM hunter or level x MM hunter or… you get the idea. The only people freaking out about this are the ones who only care about seeing their name at the top of a numbers list. Seriously, if being at the top of the damage charts is that important, you may want to take a step outdoors and get some fresh air.
Since the stupid edit function won’t work…
Shake, GC has already clarified the change to serpent’s swiftness will only affect the pet. The hunter will still get the full 20% haste from the talent.
I kinda saw this coming. Not so much on the single target part, but mostly to Volley. The buff to volley not only made hunters a viable AoE class, it made them the best AoE class, hands down.
Gorilladins will be a thing of the past. F#*%*ng Blizzard, You take away my gorilladin and I’ll….OOOOOOOOHHHHH /Thunderstomp blizzard into the F#$)%& Ground Baby!!!!!!!
Nuclear dps? Idiot.
I get 2 shotted by just about everything. I do 1200 dmg before I am outright nuked by every other class. A mage blast waves me for 3200 dmg, then pom pyros me for an 11k crit, and IM the one who is OP?
This is utter BS. We should be getting buffed to the same point other classes are not nerfed.
Consider this BM raiding Hunter (everything up to and including BT) retired,
I’m the casual player you’ve heard about. I have a level 77 dwarf BM hunter and I just compared him to BigRedKitty in the armor … and my guy just don’t compare.
I dream of doing 2k dps, no less 3k. Right now I don’t top 1k. And I macro my shot rotations and everything.
I haven’t been playing that long (since maybe late spring, early summer 08?) and this is my first toon. He hit 70 about a day before the WotLK expansion and most of my pre-expansion time was spent questing. I haven’t done any raids and the best gear I have is the set from the scourge invasion right before Northrend went life, plus some blues and (gasp) greens from the Nexus and Northrend quests.
It will take me *forever* to get the kind of gear you hardcore guys have. And now I find out I’m overpowered, who knew? All I know is that since the expansion I finally haven’t been getting my butt kicked by every hardcore hordie and duelist that comes across me. … and I still lose plenty.
/sigh
People need to sit down and realize that just because something is nerfed doesn’t make it bad.
Seriously, the grand total is going to be, at worst, what, 50% less dps? Just take a look at the chart up there – even if BRK were under a half damage debuff for the entire fight, he’d still be far and away the best DPS in the group.
Hunters are pretty insane right now – anyone who’s played with one (or even read this blog) should know that.
As for the argument of “hunters should be the best DPS because there’s two of us!” – great, so why do rogues exist again? Why do fire and arcane mages exist? Why do retadins, fury warriors, cat druids, moonkins – if the hunter has the highest DPS in the game, plus the huge amount of utility they bring to the table via chain trapping and misdirect, what’s the point of having anything else?
Leave this unchanged long enough and I could see 10-man groups of tank, healer, healer, hunter x7, party buffer (greater salv, various totem buffs, whatever). You’ve got 3k+ dps from each hunter for a grand total of something in the range of 21k-25k raid dps. Trash dies in seconds due to volley spam (and guess what, everyone’s got a gorilla to help pull everything into a nice little ball), bosses die in seconds due to sheer amounts of damage (unless they’re specifically designed to become immune to damage at a certain part of the fight), and no other dps classes are cared about ever.
This is fun?
Another argument I saw was “hunters are bad in arenas, so it’s fine for them to be completely overpowered in PvE”. Well, it wasn’t quite like that, but that’s the summary.
The short answer is no. Having 3k+ dps at this point in the game is not justified, ever. You don’t balance something by making it completely awesome in one huge aspect and terrible in another, completely ignorable aspect; a downside is only a downside if people care about it. The simple solution to sucking in arenas is to not serious play arenas on a hunter – level an alt for arenas if you have to, but hunters weren’t designed for arenas, and so you’re better off spending your time elsewhere.
A third argument I saw was “the latest patch nerfed us to Holy priest level DPS”.
…Seriously, how can you say that after having read this entry? 3.42 times the next highest class’ DPS, and you claim holy priests can do more damage? Holy sh!t, I’m gonna reroll a holy priest so I can get out more DPS than any other class in the game *and* heal at the same time!
Finally – an argument was “let’s get five pets so we can raid, because no one else will take us”.
This is, quite frankly, untrue. A good hunter will bring Misdirect and chain trapping to the table and the raid will take him for those alone. Perhaps you don’t realize that a properly done misdirect increases the raid’s max DPS by quite a chunk? Further to that, you’ve *still* got huge amounts of single-target DPS, and this nerf isn’t going to change all that.
/textwall
Yeah, this nerf is definitely troublesome; all nerfs are. You’ll either get over it or not; the choice is yours. I’m looking to the silver linings in this situation, such as the Kill Shot cooldown decrease. Also, there is the hidden benefit of that for every BM hunter that /WTFheadexplodes over this and rerolls, there will be one less person competing with me for Spirit Beast. /feralgrin
so..ummm..yeah.
I’m at work..and I can’t get to the site BRK linked. (Stupid filters)
Can someone give me a run-down of what’s going on?
*clueless*
Ignore my last post..I found it on the forums here.
*clueless no more*
ok..so what I’m seeing here is that we are now just going to be a raid buff. We can’t tank..we can’t heal..BM cc leaves something to be desired when compared to others. We are KNOWN for bringing the pain..it’s what we do…err did.
But on the bright side..we can give everyone a buff that will help them live about 2 seconds longer and increase everyone elses dps with ferocious inspiration!And I dunno about what you guys have been seeing but DKs and Mages are OMGWTFNUKE on everything lately. But lets nerf the hunters anyway!
/sucks
Oh well..times change..I’ll change with them. May as well get used to it because Blizz doesn’t care WHAT we think and are gonna do what they want to anyway.
I am really amazed so many of you are taking this lying down. When our DPS has been nerfed below that of mages, rogues and warlocks, do you think they’re going to bring it back up again to “balance” us with those classes? You seem to forget we bring little utility to an instance save our DPS, as our cc sucks, is unwieldy and fails too often to be considered reliable. Are we going to be given better cc tools to “balance” us with mages? Are our problems running our of mana in fights going to be resolved? Don’t count on it.
The hunter class has been nerfed too much already and as a pure DPS class we should be outperforming everybody else. And as others have mentioned we don’t do all that much better on heroic instances than the other classes unless those classes are really slacking off. Maybe in raids with all the buffs, but most of us aren’t out there raiding.
Further nerfs to the hunter class are outrageous considering how piss poor we are in PVP. A nerf to steady shot, pets and volley will effect PVP as well as PVE.
Nut up and stop bending over for Blizzard and its anti-hunter BS.
Less QQ, More PewPew, bitches.
Most of that stuff is a buff, anyway.
The paladin community is willing to license ‘To the GROUND!’ to hunters after the second round of hot fixes directly aimed at nerfing you.
On a personal level, I haven’t had a chance to run with hunters (my guild is lacking in those, with only one survival hunter that I’ve had a chance to play with), but the ‘Oh no, the sky is falling!’ comments amuse me greatly. The damage meters BRK posts on the front page show that he’s putting out a HUGE amount of DPS for heroics, without even the full set of raiding buffs. Dropping that down to a level around the other DPS was going to happen, but Blizz isn’t going to nerf hunters all the way to the ground, you aren’t going to lose your raiding spots, and life will continue.
Hmmmmm
Hunters will be scum again.
Bings me back to the old days /sniff.
I know something felt wrong.
It’s been niggeling my brain since 3.0 hit.
Shame I’ll have to stable Loque’ Nahak when I respec.
“Scorpid”, such a wonderful evocative name. Or shall I name it “Cat” ?
At this point the only correct response to this nonsense is an organized boycott of Blizzard and Warcraft.
The majority of hunters out there will never see “Patchwerk.” Most of us are not in raiding guilds or in guilds that have players capable of exploring the higher end content. Why should I give a **** if the 5 percent or so of hunters who do see this stuff are out-DPSing the other classes? What evidence is there that these classes are trying as hard as hunters? In heroic instances I have been out-DPSed by boomkins, mages, ret pallies, warriors and especially mages. It is all a function of how much effort they put into it. I give it my all in every fight and still get out-DPSed by them, and though I am often on top it is rarely by a huge margin and I feel this reflects the give it my all attitude many of us have and not the inherent power of the class.
Most hunters I know have never been to Kara. Not once. It used to take an entire weekend on my server to get an invite to a Kara PUG, and I have never been in a group that successfully cleared it. I have only been in a handful or heroic instance pre WotLK. I never collected more than 16 Badges of Justice in over 8 months as a lvl 70 hunter. It was simply too hard to get a slot in a PUG and I don’t have the patience to wait for hours every night. Instead I PVPed all the time and really liked that, but currently we absolutely suck in PVP and will be even worse after these nerfs.
But since WotLK came out, I have started to do heroics, and in the last 5 days alone have accumulated over 64 Emblems of Heroism and I have been having a good time doing it. I was never really into PVE and always preferred PVP, but with the current state of hunter PVP suckage was beginning to hope that maybe I finally found something more fun to do with my hunter than serve as target dummy for arcane mages in BGs. I find I have very little trouble getting whispered to join a PUG, and very often people will invite me to something other than what I have listed in LFG. There’s a reason for that, and the perception that we do a crapload of damage–real or imagined–is what it is. I guaran-damn-tee you that once these nerfs go into effect and there is no longer any reason to bring a hunter in a PUG, it will be just like it was in TBC.
It is sad that so many hunters agree with these nerfs that will render our class near useless. Fine if you’re in a raiding guild which will take you along out of sympathy, but the rest of us are screwed. If you can’t out DPS a mage and you sure as hell can’t out cc him, why the hell should they take you and your troublesome pet over a mage?
Meanwhile, the ever-arrogant, clueless and pubic relations-challenged Ghostcrawler Antoinette tells us that threatening to reroll. “QQing,” and other “melodramatics”– as he so casually calls our justified rage at this BS–will not result in changes. He’s right. The only thing that will work at this point is a boycott of the game.
The hunter class is plagued with many severe bugs right now and not a single word from GC or any of the developers as to when they are going to fix them. But a bunch of mages cry over our DPS being too high and out comes the nerf bat. Maybe it;’s time we send the message that we are tired of paying for a substandard game where we keep getting the short end of the stick.
That is the only “rational” response I can think of right now. To take this on the chin and continue to tolerate a bug-ridden, soon-to-be-obsolete class is not rational, it’s acquiescence.
Would you tolerate bringing your car into the dealer for an emergency recall and finding out they switched your 8 cylinder engine for a 4-cylinder, as the performance difference between your car and their other models was making their other customers feel inadequate? But wait you say, I bought a sports car. It is supposed to outperform all the minivans and sub compacts you sell. No, stop crying, stop complaining and stop threatening to buy from our competitors, as it won’t have an effect on us. Would you tolerate this kind of arrogant, dismissive crap from a car dealer? Of course not. So why are you so willing to put up with it from Blizzard?
[...] about this as well, the ones I can think of off the top of my head are Pike at Aspect of the Hare, Big Red Kitty , and at least one article on Wow Insider. In addition I assume that we will be hearing a lot more [...]
@ Wall of text
You’re a fucking moron. Runescape is that way –>
@ Morobir… I’m with you, I can only dream of putting out this much damage. I just don’t have the time to do what it takes to get the gear. I just hit 68, and half my gear is green, the other half blue.
Part of the problem is what Disgruntard mentioned, it takes too long to wait for a PUG to run with each night. With the recent ‘improvements’, there is a perception that hunters are more needed right now (on my server anyway). I’ve been playing way back since the original beta, and just the past week, for the first time ever, I got telled out of the blue asking if I could bring the DPS for an instance run I wasn’t LFG’d for. Hex yeah I can! That was pretty exciting for me. I see me son (Alliance Pally… I must of done some bad parenting somewhere… at least he was never RET) get instance runs at the drop of a hat. Where, until recently, I’m lucky to get one every several days.
The damage nerfs hurt us more than just the decrease in DPS. That being said, we are OP in PVE right now, and still at a disadvantage in PVP. I hate the proposed changes to Steady Shot, maybe they should turn down the cast time again to help even it out. As for Volley, I think the first thing they should do is just put a cool down on it (maybe 1 minute?), keep the damage and the crits for now. I don’t know, I’ve got no control over what they do so I’m not putting too much thought into it. That would take away from my WoW time!
The good news is at least these haven’t been implemented in game yet. Just PTR. Let’s hope they nerf the nerfs before they go live!
@ elitist jerk
You’ll notice we haven’t been deleting or moderating your comments. We believe in the free expression of opinion, especially when it disagrees with ours. However, a less caustic expression would be appreciated.
@BRK
Well I’m sorry if asinine comments such as the one I replied to need to be called out on their bullshit.
Let’s go back to more important stuff like teaching your readers where their MD button is.
[...] all of BRK’s post, especially the image showing just how a Hunter might be doing too much damage. Yeah it sucks to [...]
cant be bothered to type it all out again after it failed first time so heres a potted version
@disgruntard
Is that really true? Really really? You dont know any kara cleared hunters even though ZA PuGs were common after 3.0?
Your experiences say more ebout your server and your own game than the hunter class. I run a warrior main (level 47 hunter alt) and have always had hunters in my raids up to and including SSC/TK which is as far as my guild got. This wont change. Regardless if their dps drops i enjoy playing with my guild hunters, they are nice guys, know their class and require less healing than melee dps.
If you want to raid join a raid guild if you want to QQ carry on. But either way dont make unimformed comments about the entire class based on your own, admittedly limited experience, of raiding.
Cant edit what I already posted but I feel the need to add that if your an asshat regardless of class you arent gonna get places in groups.
Plenty of people on my server (anachronos EU) will only run with people they have run with before or that they or their friends know. Its not some great anti hunter conspiracy.
Hunter CC is fine. No other class gets multiple ways to deal with a mob like hnters do. No other class gets “Fire and Forget” CC either. Hunters are fine.
And if Blizz realizes the nerfs were too much, we’ll get buffed later on. Besides, we’re going to get fun ammo and heavens knows what else. I’m excited.
Notice the Enh. Shaman’s %Heal. At 38%, that means that he’s using his Maelstrom Weapon procs to heal the tank, which would explain his reduced damage. He should be using those to throw Lightning, and that much healing is going to be depleting his mana something fierce over long fights. He might even be using Earthliving instead of a proper weapon buff.
Oh, you’re still broken on boss fights, but it’s not as severe as you’d think.
Great post on Wowinsider BRK, makes me wonder if you work for our competition (I work in a PR firm’s finance department)
I think the Volley “nerf” might help me keep agro on my gorillidin, I’ve noticed that if I chain volley (yes thunderstomp is on autocast and he had plenty of focus…) I kept pulling agro on the mobs the gorilla was not targeting.
well I had a glorious wall of text that disappeared when I hit [submit]
the (slightly) shorter version
being a guild officer, in the short term I am not worried about getting benched, can see where the unaffiliated hunter would have strong concerns about their options now.
looking at newer WWS, the gap seems pretty slim between mages/hunters/warriors now once you remove the outliers where CotW stacking was in play
hunter utility really has taken a dive… tank threat is through the roof, making MD less important. a SINGLE ret paladin can provide all the buffs of the 3 hunter specs, and SV losing EW as a raid wide buff only hurts them more. I am totally in agreement with a strong volley nerf (would have prefered an increased mana cost or short CD over the 30% dmg reduction, but whatever) and am not opposed to the readiness:BW nerf… although it seems to move against Blizzards interest in having more variability in talenting
pet damage and the CotW stacking seems to be the primary culprit in some early numbers. I think a trial with the reduced numbers from SerpentsSwiftness and KindredSpirits would be a good start, totally behind the CotW change, and I would even change it so pets dont benefit from WF (maybe bloodlust too) to level the field more between 25man, 10man and heroic
in return I would love to see EW returned as a raid buff in some form and am interested in the ammo change that has been hinted at. this sweeping change seems to be short sighted, even looking forward to when all classes are in full T7, and gets worse in later progression. it also does nothing to really help the Arena hunters.
If you are a mage, be very afraid… you are next to come to bat
And to the crowing ret paladins… despite being nerfed ‘to the ground’ by some accounts… I would expect Ret and DK dmg to be lowered again
I don’t understand why you were so negative toward Ghostcrawler in your wow insider post. I have always appreciated his forthrightness since he started posting on the forums. Would you rather be stuck with blue posts that don’t tell you anything?
Ive been doing great dps in my raids and heroics but i can safely say that we arent destroying the other dpsers. Ive got locks, deathknights, and Spriests in my guild that are neck and neck with me on boss fights ( typically around 3k+ dps on 10 man patchwerk). All I see that is really pushing are numbers up is volley on trash. Everything else imo shouldnt be touched =/
Wt and Ltshortarms
likei said… volley on trash maybe needs to be nerfed but alot of single target fights both my boomkin are un-touchable…. nerf the hunter… go figure.
oh and one other thing… why has no-one suggested that rather than brk’s screenshot showing he’s “op” it shows that the other dps players in that run were SHIT?
My rogue is in leveling green junk and he pulls over 1k dps…. im nto sure that it furthers the hunter cause when one of the most prominent hunters says “im awesome/op” instead of “wtf were the rest of my group doing?”……. hell i have a prot paladin who pulls 2200dps and we only just started naxx….
This rly isn’t fair. I have not been OP in heroics in fact it is the damn DK’s who are OP. I know a DK in just blues and greens and was doing almost 3K IN HEROICS!!! While I did a measly 1,400 and yet I am better geared. Ret Pallies are doing way more than hunters .. so why are we being nerfed? I think the main reason we do 5K+ (as they claim) is bc of volley but it isnt like we can sustain the 5k w/o volley so why must they nerf steady shot and other talents? Volley has actually become useful I never used volley until the 3.0 patch came out. So we got a sweet taste of what it was like to have a good aoe spell .. but bliz has to take it away. BTW Mages are doing way more dps also than hunters they also have a very awsome aoe spell .. is theirs being nerfed?
3000dps is far from OP …………. if your in our 25 man naxx group with only 2 clears under our belts and doing 3k dps, your about 12 on the list.
@elitest Jerk ….
wow dude …. just because someone hasn’t the experience of 25 mans and is relating the game to what they know isn’t a reason to be like that …. this isn’t Jr High …. you can pass on information without belittling folks. just post information not teenage angst.
@ 2ndworst
3k dps in a 25man would be really low since you have a lot more buffs going around and debuffs on the target. 3k dps in a 10man isn’t to bad, it gets the job done, and 3k dps in heroics isn’t too hard to manage (boss fights of course).
I’m very interested in the ammo change, kill shots new cooldown will be a lil OP in pvp, and volley needs a nerf. Not much more to say though till the patch comes and I get to test everything out.
Wt and Ltshortarms
Lurked here for a time – first post. BM lvl 66 hunter (my only alt is a lvl54 rogue).
Why does volley need a nerf? It is the only AoE weapon in the game that I am aware of that (1) requires ammunition, and (2) if overused breaks the bow/crossbow/gun used to fire it.
@Rebecca
I agree, In all the heroics I do I seem to be the only one that uses mana, Mage and Ret pali I run with never go go below 90%
Now there is no way you have that much MP5, So I just try harder. Not worried though, I’m the raid leader and the GM’s Best friend. I could do crap DPS as long as I get us through the fights.
When you submit some valid (i.e. PVE) concerns, we’ll start caring.
Until then, 404, damn not found
These changes make no sense to me and seems like an over-reaction, what percentage of the hunter population are completely out DPSing the other classes? I doubt it is across the board by any large percentage, I know I’m not in the instances I’m running. Is it a problem with the overpoweredness of the class or a problem with overpowered gear overenhancing the class? A well geared hunter with the same spec as me will easily out DPS me I have no doubt, but these proposed nerfs will affect me far more then those Hunters lucky enough to have good gear.
I also disagree with the continual need to balance classes, it is a fruitless exercise that just results in the developers chasing their tails the whole time. Dark Age of Camelot had about 36 classes and Mythic continuously tried to tweak the classes but it did more harm then good, especially when classes were being artifically boosted with buffbots all the time. I thought Blizzard were smarter than this, guess I was wrong.
They’re trying to pander to all the crybaby PVP children (like the last person I quoted) so they won’t leave in droves.
Let them leave, I say. Get the game back to 1.0 – remove honor, remove BGs, remove Arenas, and let’s make WoW the PVE-focused game it used to be and should be.
Pfft..go away junior. Come back when you are a real hunter.
DPS Ranges of all DPS specs:
BM Hunters: 6462 – 3030 (The latter didn’t even have a pet)
MM Hunters: 5345 – 4096
Mages: 6290 – 3435
C. Rogues: 4778 – 2995
Mut Rogues: 4592 – 3318
Warlocks: 5736 – 3046
MS Warriors: 4820 – 3760
Fury Warriors: 5279 – 3748
Moonkins: 5142 – 3331
Feral Druids: 5212 – 3677
S. Priests: 4575 – 3260
Enh Shaman: 4833 – 3893
Ele Shaman: 3740 – 2504
Ret. Paladins: 4546 – 3185
Death Knights: 4397 – 3179
Yep, BM hunters don’t need nerfed, do we? Mages need one too, but come on people. These nerfs altogether will likely not even take us to third, and we definitely won’t be fourth after this.
And people are overreacting to the Steady Shot nerf. The formula right now is weapon damage+ammo+(RAP*.2+252). After the nerf, it’ll be weapon damage+ammo+(RAP*.1+252). It’s not going to be doing half damage or anything, like some people have suggested. At
We aren’t going to lose our raid spots. We aren’t going to become lolBM like in classic WoW. This just means that we won’t be able to top meters while playing one handed, while talking on the phone and browsing the internet on a laptop.
I wish that was hyperbole.
@Azlen
Rilgon is a real hunter, and a well respected one at that. Maybe you should think or at least find out who a person is before you make comments just to try and make yourself out to be a big tough guy.
I love being a BM hunter but I also love the MM tree (who doesn’t love seeing massive crits pop on the screen!)
I have my spirit beast but am currently trying out some MM builds to see what I enjoy playing the most. At the end of the day it’s a game and should be about enjoyment.
I for one will be playing the spec I enjoy regardless of whether it’s the ultimate dps build.
No, it’s going to be doing about 70% of normal damage.
@BRK:
Well, now I know why people complain about your spam-filter. Short version – the numbers on the report don’t add up – calculating DPS from total damage and %ge time DPSing they seem to overstate DPS by c6% for both you and the Enh Sham.
Again, the Enh Sham spent a lot of time healing. Your healing would affect your DPS not at all – what about his?
I ask because your numbers are being quoted on the WoW thread as if they are representative; but if the lack of a primary healer is disproportionately affecting the other DPSer in the group, they just aren’t.
@Lukefarer: Very few of the WWS reports being used as ammunition in the argument are demonstrative or representative.
@Rilgon:
You’re kidding…O^O
But why use numbers so obviously skew?
What I still don’t understand about Blizzard is why they always over nerf or over buff with every patch. It’s never a small change, see what happens, then another small change. That’s how you tune code (or guitars, or cars), not these wild swings where it goes too far, then you pull back, but go too far again, back and forth. That’s not how you tune anything.