He Truly Hates Hunters
We are tired of this.
And for once, some asks a good question and not only doesn’t get banned, but gets an answer.
What are our feelings on this?
/pfft
We’re gonna quit ranting until 3.1.
Until we see how badly the ruined Explosive Shot.
Comments
114 Responses to “He Truly Hates Hunters”
Got Something To Say?
Email icon provided by Nexodyne.-
BRK’s Site Meter
BRK License Agreement
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
BRK’s RSS Feeds
We can only hope it is soon, I miss BM……
Hm, I wonder when exactly they hotfix-nerfed ES… *scratch*
Off Topic: BRK, please ditch your spam filter. It’s causing far more pain than it’s worth.
On Topic: It’s nice to see someone post something critical without getting banned. I never post on (and very seldom read) the forums for this reason. Not reading them has more to do with the very low SNR.
Oh, and I’m still a BM hunter; but that’s partly due to my love for my pets, and partly due to the fact that I’m playing an alt. So I can assure you those numbers in your earlier post are definitely skewed. I suspect there are more than a few of us who’ve switched (even if only temporarily) to an alt because of the nerf.
UN FRICKING REAL. Why does blizzard hate hunters? WHY?!
I LOL’d.
I mean, what else can I do.
Im the hunter that slept with Ghostcrawler’s girlfriend – sorry guys!
“Overall, We are trying to make changes in a more timely manner so that players won’t feel like they are stuck with a bug or other issue forever.”
Right… that is why I have to check my pet spell book every time I summon/revive/logon to make sure cower/growl are where I want them to be.
As BRK said in one of his posts, Blizz has lost entire concept differences between hunter schools, and that’s why our class is in such turmoil.
I still await your comments on this for your next podcast, BRK; I’ve been waiting for somebody to say something about this for a very long time.
I knew something was wrong tonight, and now I know why.
Early results from the forums indicate 10-13% nerf to ES, perhaps more.
So if they buff pet damage by 20% (mainly undoing the SS and KS nerfs), who’s going back to BM?..
/raiseshand
And it probably happened in the Tuesday rolling restart. I noticed strange differences between target dummy testing Monday night and Patchwerk on Tuesday.
Can’t say I’m surprised. We all heard Blizz say that SV was doing more damage then they anticipated, MM was “in a good spot” and BM overnerfed. Can’t say that I’m surprised they stealth-nerfed SV.
If they stealth buff BM, THEN I’ll be surprised.
Can anyone provide a link to the original post by chance?
Hope you all had fun switching to SV for 2 months. =)
Hey, at least you get to say you “tried new things”.
COME BACK TO YOUR HOME, BRK!
I’ve never left, and you still have a room.
It’s even got pics of your Spirit Beast still hanging on the walls.
It’s not a bad nerf at all, actually. I honestly didn’t notice it.
I have not been BM since the mid 50’s when leveling. I raided Surv in BC and went MM in Lich King.
But since the Surv buff patch I have LOVED Surv. My ES ’seems’ a little lower now but I thought it was just maybe missing a Bless/Might here or there. Eh, Surv still beats BM and MM for playing fun….to me.
Wanting parity between specs == hating Hunters? News to me.
Rilgon interestingly translates to “thorn in flesh” in russian.
To top it off did you see their post regarding arms warriors? They feel they need a boost to DPS. Arms warriors have needed a nerf since Wrath launched.
Ah, yes, because I don’t toe the BC line and demand that Beast Mastery reign supreme in the raiding environment for yet another expansion pack? Because I demand that Blizzard go back to the 1.x days where PVP was not a balancing factor and a Hunter could be whatever they wanted and still be decently competitive DPS? Because I don’t want to see any Hunters shunned from a heroic or a raid just because of their spec? Because I want our class to be well-tuned, well-refined, and unique in its place as a pure DPS class where all three specs are thematically different, but perform at nearly the same pace, such that it’s a person’s choice on how to spec, not their raid leader’s?
Yes, such a horrible thorn I am.
ES seems the same to me, but a nerf seems reasonable. Easy 10k total on a single Exploshot unbuffed seem unbalanced to me. It’s reasonable if unpleasing, at least, And Rilgon’s right, hating Hunters is not wanting parity between specs. It’s important that people are able to play the class they want, the way they want. No cookie-cutters anymore, remember? Remember “bring the player, not the class”? I try and encourage my guild’s hunters to optimize their favorite playstyle. Being SV crazy myself, I like eeing some variety. I’m the only Sv in my guild, we have two MM hunters who I have worked with personally to improve their spec, and one BM hunter who refuses to accept any advice, such as “you need to weave Arcane now!” Gawd, it gets a little confusing though when you have to cater to every different playstyle, and not just BM 100% of the time.
seeing* Damn Ajax comment editing system fails.
Sometimes I really don’t understand you BRK. I don’t know you or “get” you any more than what I read from your blog.
If you truly think that Ghostcrawler hates Hunters, that they “ruined” Explosive Shot, that constructive comments are ignored and legitimate complaints are generally banned, I don’t know what to tell you. It seems like you’ve been spending too much time in the Internet Echo Chamber and can’t discern what the truth of the situation is when it comes to how the developers interact with the community, and how they view the classes in the game. It’s pretty sad, actually. It’s disheartening when strong members of the blogging side of the WoW community, like yourself, get caught up in the fervor of the official forums and mindlessly spout off the same useless crap with the same bad attitude that I read there. I come to blogs like yours because you have shown the ability to teach. And you teach well. I don’t come here to read whining posts like this one. Truly, this post served no purpose. You didn’t elucidate anything, didn’t even give any anecdotal evidence of the severity of the changes. You just /huffed.
Disappointing.
@ Meon
erm!?……can you send him an email next time and leave this space free for us? ‘cos cos what you are doing doesnt make any difference…have you thought about that?…if BRK did this at wowinsider then I would have stayed on you side but doing it here? in HIS house? IT’s HIS blog HIS hmmm?…Be real!….
@ Bernie/Toombs
No, he has a point there, usually BRK tries to do some teaching but this really was Hun-Q-ter-Q. But uh, lighten up there man -.- Bit harsh, no?
REMEMBER. It’s his blog and you don’t pay to read it. BRK can rant all he wants.
I don’ think the issue is necessarily the fact that the nerfed Explosive Shot. We all knew it was coming, I believe.
The problem is that they stealth nerfed us without giving anything in return save more vague promises of “revamping” for 3.1. If you’re going to nerf an ability, throw us a bone. It’s been a consistent, constant stream of doublespeak and barely veiled threats from GC for awhile now. Couple that with his apparent inability to take the hunter community seriously and we have quite the case against him.
This is just another in a line of screwups. Did ExShot need the nerf? Definitely. Is the reason it needed a nerf in the first place Blizz’s fault and due almost entirely to the BM nerfs? Absolutely.
So here’s what I want to know.
Pre 3.0.8 BM was doing too much damage because of SS. Fine. It was adjusted. Then they said it was adjusted too much.
Then ES gets buffed because its not doing enough. Then its doing too much..enough so to get changed in a hotfix, instead of waiting for a patch (and testing) cycle.
Blizzard, can you *please* take a look at how you are modeling damage? Something is obviously broken about how you are approaching things. I want to believe that your “balancing” isn’t people throwing darts at the wall, but I’m just not seeing it.
Don’t pan BRK for qq. Instead ask why GC doesn’t apply his stated methodology for ‘balance’ to Warriors and DK’s post haste, and leave us the hell alone.
I don’t think GC and co. hate Hunters, I rather suspect they just don’t really know what they want Hunters to be, what roles they want them to fulfill or what purpose they should serve in the overall game “balance”.
It rather seems that Hunters are the red-headed step-children of WoW right now (no offense intended towards any red-headed step children here) and as such are in a state of flux and limbo while GC and his team all scratch their heads and throw nerfs at us trying to figure out what the heck to do with this troublesome class.
@Bernie/Toombs
@Killerguppy
Look, I understand this is his place to post. I get that, really. But think about WHY he made the blog. To make all of us better hunters, and to give us deeper understanding of the class.
His post accomplished neither.
If his purpose in this space is to educate, elucidate, elevate, and he’s not doing those things with this post, then I see it as my job, as a reader of HIS work, to alert him to the fact that whining posts aren’t what I come here to read. Again, if I wanted to read about how Blizzard doesn’t understand our class, how they “ruin” abilities, I’d go to the official forums.
Yes, he provides (excellent) free content. Over and above the line of duty on charity for truly meaningful causes. Serious feeling and effort go into this blog all the time.
All the more reason to not dilute it with QQ
I didn’t attack him personally. My reply was polite, but firm and strongly worded. If you feel flaming me solves the underlying issue, then have at. But I expect that BRK himself can take criticism as well as praise.
No, Pre-3.0.8 BM was doing too much DPS due to extremely overpowered Scorpids and Cats, especially in specifically-stacked group compositions.
@ Rilgon + Meon
parity is fine. the problem is the methods. Stealth nerfs leaving you wondering what the hell happened is not cool. Would you like your employer to stealth nerf your paycheck?
secondly, only one other class has been hit with nerfage, the warriors just got a major slap on deep wounds. Also applied as a stealth nerf.
So there’s going to be a large contigent of warriors and hunters wondering what the hell happened.
And you can’t give BRK a break for frustration for continued hunter nerfs?.. or should we just all baahh like sheep? or are you so legalistic that you can’t see the difference between sarcasm/frustration and statement of belief? gimme a break.
@ Meon,
Again, one headline stating frustration is spreading QQ?.. gimme a break. What sort of legalistic restraint should he be showing? sigh…
I think BRK (in true BRK style) is merely exaggerating the “GC hates hunters” thingee and that it was all tongue-in-cheek.
That being said, I can see why one would think that GC “hates” hunters—it’s actually the collective wail of beastmasters who were forced to go survival to maintain their DPS dominance… but didn’t want to become marksmen (which seems to be the “stable” spec right now).
RE: the changes. This switch was one we knew was coming. And it’s one that falls into the category of “easy to implement.” Would have been nice to hear about it on Tuesday, but we found out Tues night and reported it Wed. GC PROMPTLY confirmed it. I don’t see any problem here.
We don’t get the fixes WE want, in the order that WE want them. It’s Blizz’s universe and you are just paying guests. You can enjoy the game, but don’t put your feet on the furniture, and don’t think you get to tinker under the hood. (How’s that for mixing metaphors.)
@RIlgon
Honestly Ril, the only thing you seem to comment on these days is that nerfs to any tree =/= MM must be completely balanced because, in effect, they deserve it. You’ve made your statements about MM plenty of times, and most hunters on these boards have been willing to concurr with you. Sorry you didn’t get the respect in TBC that you deserved, but honestly man, it’s water under the bridge. yeah yeah yeah having to justify your raid spot yeah yeah, we’ve heard it plenty of times. You’re becoming a broken record, and it just doesn’t seem like you’re willing to or even give a crap about moving on.
Most hunter posters, here and more improtanttly on the other blogs, want the same equality you do, but they handle changes differently. They ADAPT! You just frigging bitch about it, then chortle when other non-MM aspects get nerfed.
You’re going to lose people. I sure you don’t care about that. But you’re also going to become the champion for a tree that nobody wants to listen to. You and Mir can be buddies at that point, outcasts into your own little corner of the blog-o-sphere.
Sorry if that’s too harsh. I’ve read your board, and have used your comments to help other hunters in my guild. But I’m at the point where I reluctantly click your site. I don’t know, man. I think you need to either rethink where you are headed and what you want to represent, or you need to just step away and take a chill.
zzz going back to the prot war and ret pally again I think.
Did 25voa (as SV) last night after restart and came a close 2nd to a frostfire mage. Yes I was disappointed with my dps (and couldnt work out why it was low) but we were both a good 5% over anyone else. Since the nerfs and balances you can certainly see the dps is closer grouped than it used to be. I don’t think BM will be a serious contender until it gets unnerfed but you can tell it will, eventually, get back in the pack. What is odd, and I think BRK’s post expresses it well, is the sheer weirdness of such huge balance changes being necessary. A single run in a geared buffed group should have been enough to see any issues, before or after patches.
As for the extra whining/trolling from Meon et al, I guess one can expect that.
@Ahrtu, copy your text before hitting “submit.” Only takes a second
Well with BM still eating Nerf bat and Surv pulling a chair up to the Nerf Buffet, I may have no choice but to go Marksman till all is well in the hunter world…or I guess I could try making an alt /shudder
@ Matt
SV is still prob a bit above MM, or on par, so no reason to make that change, unless you actually prefer the MM playstyle.
But really, play what you like regardless…
Eh. Surely we all knew SV was going to get touched with the nerf bat. It’s a good thing, folks, to have SV brought down a lil with the aim of making the three trees even. It means you can all go back to playing whatever is your favourite playstyle…
Yes, there are some hiccups, but the hiccups are in the right direction imho.
I’m never going back, you hear me!? Nevah! You can’t make us go! Explosive shot is our new precious, we can’t let it go! No mere nerf shall dampen our love!
Not a surprise. Considering that nifty pie chart BRK posted – they see the 33% in all three trees as a win! It validates their belief that all three builds are as popular because they all work, when the truth of the matter is, they all SUCK.
Warlocks suck worse? Yep. So do Priests (who should be the #1 healer in the game – but they aren’t). Why?
Bliz in in So Cal. Some folks think you add to all if everyone is the same.
If you are better – pull your butt down here with us. That’s what has happened with Hunters. You were too good – the QQers on the forums have been kvetching for 2 years straight how huntards are too overpowered (ignoring Pallys on the way).
I refuse to let Bliz’s fumblings bring me down.
I’m going back to BRK’s 51/10/whatever build. I miss my Exotic pet.
I miss Beastial Wrath. SO WHAT if my DPS takes a hit – DK’s and overpowered Pallys kick my butt anyways. And I’ll go stand in the corner with all the other Delta rejects.
@ Noah
Well said, sir. You have hit the nail on the head.
@ BRK
Get rid of the d@mn spam filter, already. There has to be a better one out there.
How about instead of bringing Survival down, they bring MM up and un-nerf BM a bit. Then everyone’s happy.
Personally I don’t have a huge problem with the changes being made to hunters. It’s Blizz’s game, and they have their targets for where they want DPS, so if we’re doing too much then lower us, fine.
What I do have a problem with is that there are classes out there who have been putting out more DPS than us before 3.0.8, and continue to put out more DPS than we do now.
Example:
http://www.wowmeteronline.com/combat/1567997#damageout
Our DK (Who’s also my lovely fiance) is putting out 1200 more dps than me with a similar level of gear. Now, maybe I just suck, but her DPS output is higher than all but 1 hunter on WMO (From before the hotfix), and she’s not even close to having all best in slot yet.
Let’s also not forget the damage output from affliction warlocks and mages. If it was so critical to lower our damage that it needed a hotfix, where are the changes to these classes who were doing more damage than us *before* this hotfix, and continue to do that same amount of damage now?
I was considering trying out Survival and the powerful Explosive Shot tomorrow. Now I’m kinda glad I waited. I’m playing around with MM at the moment and I think I like it. It’s not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I still expect that I’ll be going back to BM the second they buff it, but the mail-wearing mage thing isn’t bad. I just need to get a non-exotic DPS pet leveled. XP
*sigh* i was just getting used to surv now they are mixing things up again. Man, blizzard really knows how to fix hunters (that was a joke btw) oh well, hopefully GC’s promise to BM will be fulfilled and we can all go back to hugging our devilsaurs and spirit beasts.
This I will agree with. The methodology in this maneuver was flawed, and the SV nerfs should’ve waited until 3.0.10 or 3.1 or whenever the hell the BM buffs were coming out.
That said though, while the means were somewhat suspect, the ends are noble. It’s a matter of do the ends justify the means, and IMO, they do. It’s certainly not worth crying over. People who enjoyed a spec for what it was will stay, and Recount-chasers will gravitate to whatever’s “teh best!!!111one”. Nothing will really change, whatever may come.
And to the anon – firstly, if you’re going to lob insults, back them up with some credence or don’t bother.
But glossing over that – my arguments and positions haven’t changed, so if you find something inherently wrong with me and my position now, it was already there. I’m not chortling over anything – anyone that had their eyes open saw this coming, especially with Blizzard’s belief that we Marksmen are where they want the class as a whole to be. Now comes the time to move each class to that delta while maintaining that spec’s identity. This nerf to SV, if it’s not too extreme, will do just that.
The task at hand is to bring BM to MM and SV’s level and do it such that it’ll be maintainable in Tier 8 content and beyond.
Many people no longer have faith that Blizzard can do so. For me, that faith is the only reason I still play, really.
Am I the only one wondering why Rilgon doesn’t stick to posting on his own blog? If we wanted to read what his opinions, we could do so. Given his website traffic, I’m guessing most of us do not.
I’m about to throw up my arms and cry “uncle” from all the nerf bat beatings. First they nerf BM to the ground and just as I take up SV they blast away my new toys. Enough Bliizard, enough!
Come on you should have been prepared for a nrerf on SV, don’t tell me you was really thinking “hey, SV damage is fine”. We are toppoing meters like before the BM big nerf. It was pretty obvious that they still had to “balance/nerf” things. BRK you really should stay BM and defend what you loved for years, instead of moving to the dark side of “fake” easy dps (SV).
I bet my sack that as son as BM will be re-buffed and on par with SV, you will abandon SV forever and go back to your Loque.
The nerf was probably needed. (Waves goodbye to the only shot that ever felt truly powerful.)
That said, stealth-nerfing a class that’s been beaten to a pulp by the nerf bat already is sort of bad public relations.
Serioulsy, all this talk about balance is garbage!
The real problem we have these days is that in terms of raiding it is tank em all and AoE them down. There is no trapping, there is no need to silence. The one and only thing needed is MQSRDPS!!
Even in BC there was a need for CC. I vividly recall my first visit to Moroes. I’m sure all hunters do. “You want me to chain trap this mob around the room, keep it under control and dps in between?” Sure no worries. Gulp!!
At least you could spec SV for the extra trap time and the raid wide expose weakness!. Or MM to silence those pesky casters. If you chose BM you better damn well do some damage and control your damn pet!!
Sure BM had the edge in pure dps but that was not the be all and end all of raid benefit. But if you can’t trap as well as SV or scatter shot/Silenece as well as MM then you make up for it with higher dps. Otherwise you are a liability.
Then came the Pally Tank. (I loves me pallies BTW) and MtHyjal. Pretty hard to justify a non CC, non AoE class. You limp through the waves then unleash on the boss. Hell, I even rolled a lock that is exalted with Scale of the Sands and only friendly with Violet Hand. AoE damage was what it was about. And still is to a large degree.
So the bottom line now is that hunters as a class are not looked at for utility. They don’t need to trap, silence and with the possible exception of Gluth, they don’t need to kite. You want to raid then you bring the boom, boom. Expose weakness is only for the hunter, FI is easily replaced by a pally. Trueshot Aura got a buff and is nice but not at the expense of too much dps.
So we end up where we are now. Bugger all raid utility or buffs and a bunch of people bitching about which spec is best. It is very simple. The best spec is one of two.
1. The spec you prefer.
or
2. The spec that brings the most to your raid party.
If your answer is 1 and you can do what you want in game then I say more power to you. If your answer is 2 and you can achieve what you want in game then I say more power to you.
If your answer does not fit either then I say to you “Wake the hell up!”. The game has mechanics. Every game does. These change and you need to change with them! Suck it up, get on with it and spec the way that is required. God knows, you may even enjoy a new challenge.
I was BM and loved it, I’m now SV because it enables me to do what I want in game. If they change the playing field again and require something special I will spec to that regardless of DPS. But at present a hunters main roll is DPS. Until they change the need they will not stop people from speccing to fill the need.
*need more wine
Cheers
Kol
Just an idea:
Perhaps all the recent nerfage is related to the new content coming in 3.1. One major complaint about WotlK has been the lack of technique required to down content. I have yet to see a fight come even close to the intricacy and difficulty of even Moroes (assuming an entry level raid and not T6 of course) I would not mind if we were doing less damage if we regained our “Jack of All Trades” title.
Having a frost-type boss that must be kited, or a boss with a few hard hitting, aggro dropping adds, that must be CC’d would be totally worth the dps loss in my opinion. I’m not sure when exactly we became mail-wearing mages, but it seems that this is not what Blizz wants. It works for Heroics and Naxx, but it may be time for a change.
Just my two cents on what would make me a happy hunter.
@Dalaila
What do you mean by “fake” easy dps?
@Adamantite
Rilgon has his own blog because he wants to share his thoughts/ideas. Why would he not want to also share those thoughts and ideas on BRKs blog? He is reaching more people and getting those thoughts out there. It’s like asking why candidates put out campaign ads. Sure we could all go to their website and read about what their goals are, but isn’t it so much more effective to be proactive about it? Your statement is ignorant and rude.
@Rilgon
If any of the above is untrue, please correct me.
@Myself
GO TO BED! IT”S 3 IN THE #@(^ING MORNING!
Holy crap Kolan! You beat me to it.
/pout
/sleep
There’s some great discussion from both sides of the debate here. I’m really hoping this doesn’t escalate into childish name calling.
As to the ES nerf… yes, of course it needed to happen. While technically a stealth nerf, GC had already warned us that it was coming. We all just assumed that it would wait until 3.1. I think alot of the hunter angst that has arisen lately is not just from the nerfs, but the other nonsense that has come into the game recently. 3.0.8 introduced some severe nerfs yes, but it was also one of the buggiest patches in recent years. Follow this up with another nerf, and the majority of the hunter player-base is sure to feel cornered. I’m not really concerned myself. I’ve been playing for 3 and a half years, and I’ve seen these things come and go, for my class and others. You can fume and rage about it all you like, it’s not going to change anything (a redundant argument I know, but that doesn’t make it any less true). We’ll suck it up for another month or 2 until 3.1 is deployed when we’ll be buffed back into DPS contention and some of the other DPS classes will be nerfed… and then their blogs will contain posts such as this one.
As to the comments about players switching spec because it’s “flavour of the month”… well, I’m currently a Surv hunter that is, and will always remain, a BM hunter at heart. I’m also a member of a guild that has recently merged. While the new guild is more casual than progressive, it boasts some extremely talented DPSers, and we’re quite competitive. And this is not because we are trying to justify our raid spots or show-boat, we compete because it’s fun. Finishing Top 5, Top 3 or first place on the DPS meters is very satisfying, and Surv, unfortunately, is currently the only way we can hope to get this result. I think some of us BM enthusiasts are going about this the wrong way… the BM nerf is your chance to look at other specs while you wait for the eventual buff. See how the other side lives for a change.
And finally, lay off BRK guys. Sure, he’s gotten a little more militant in recent weeks, but as always, he says what he means and means what he says. Isn’t that why we come here?
“we wont be able to get every issue fixed overnight, but its a start” …
And yeah !!!!!!!!!! Lets start with the hunters -.-
it’s not that a bad nerf, we stil manage to reach high dps charts, it’s really not more than a 10% nerf, barely noticeable in pve raid conditions. in weaker pvp outfit it’s indeed more noticeable while competing to classes still able to burst the hell out of us.
well, i agree with you that, other classes should need hotfixes more than survhunt, but well… hunters tend to pull all the blue attention recently, that’s often the case, one class after the other…
i think what we are lacking now, is more of the utilty side of the spec, as gc said, dps compares to usefulness of the spec in raid, and i still dont see why retpal could compete with us on the dps charts while still resplenishing much more efficiently, as for the shad priests.
they should fix trap mastery and introduce new survival glyphs to complete the spec balance, maybe 1s explo shot shorter cd, or one extra tick, something real specific, more than useless steadynerfed shot glyph
@Meon: Yes, it’s a shame that BRK has been corrupted. Just three weeks ago (”Being Right About Everything”, 1-14) he was taking cheap shots at those “Internet echo chamber” folks at elitistjerks and reverently quoting a Ghostcrawler story about a “Happy ending”.
I wonder what happened.
We haz a roll in raid? Since when? 0o
My only goal is to irritate as much melee as possible with me Really Big Red Dino or Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzz-Flapping-Bee-Queen. ^^
@Delaila
I think Blizzard pushed the raiding hunters into a tree that they don’t “really” prefer. I think I can say I know what I’m doing when playing my hunter, but I really have a hard time nowadays in raids.
The only reason I haven’t respecced yet, is because I’m the only BM-hunter and peeps love the Ferocious Inspiration I bring in. But as soon as Petwipefights come into the picture (eg. Sarth), It’s headsmashing time, cause than my uselessness is shown.
So I really can’t and will not blame peeps who did respec and I think BRK is one of those peeps.
@ Everyone whining that BRK is QQing and that this post is useless.
It actually did help me, because it illuminated me to the fact that this change even happened. I dont troll the forumns all day nor do I intend to start.
Second. BRK is sarcastic as all hell. Have you read his Airman Howell posts? His humour is just like that. Really stop whining about how he phrased the post. Take it with a grain if salt if you wil.
Amusing. Predictable.
Retarded either way.
Anyone else feel that:
1) Blizzard and GC specifically have NO FREAKING IDEA about the hunter mechanics?
2) This constant pendulum swinging of buff/nerf gets them nowhere because the really good hunters adapt around the nerfs and basically tell them “UP YOURS”?
3) The “hunter expert” at blizzard needs to have his spine removed through his face?
(BTW it’s a 2% nerf to coefficient which is barely noticeable under the amounts of raidbuffs I get)
Well, I installed PowerAura last night, set it up for Hunter’s Mark, Serpent Sting, Explosive Shot and Lock and Load, was promptly asked to join a VoA 10-man, and led the meters for the first time since the 3.08 nerf, to include beating one of the rogues who has been leading in raids. It was the first time I was able to consistently see and react to the LnL procs.
Without pots, since I didn’t have time to relog onto my alchemy alt and make some.
I’m looking forward to the long-promised, long-desired implementation of dual specs.
But in the meantime, I’ll just keep blowing stuff up with ES.
@Kolan
Couldn’t agree more, well said. I remember the nervous excitement I used to feel just before starting a boss fight…
‘ok, I need to trap and hold square, md skull to focus() when he goes to phase II while pet holds diamond in place. Then, when X is down…’
That was fun, that was hard, that was HUNTER! But most important – that’s what ‘bring the player, not the spec’ meant to me. The fights just don’t require that anymore. Now it’s, as has been stated, pew pew, run-out when he does xyz, pew pew, run-out etc. Is it this way every time? Well, it wasn’t in BC, but LK, most, yes, I’d have to say most times it is.
Perhaps Blizzard is trying to replace the ‘Skill’ nervousness that is no longer there with a new and different kind of nervousness to make up for the raid boss play style changes – Maybe it’s the ‘brain freeze – what button do I push’ nervousness that we get now by having to change our action bars and macros each week?
Personally, I’d much rather be relied on for a specific skill set and a DPS number than just DPS. But what else do we bring to the raid anymore (and before I get pawned, notice I didn’t say ‘can we bring’, I said ‘do we bring’)? Sure, they can nerf us, change our numbers every patch if they want to, but what I really care about is more hunter-skill-specific behaviours in boss fights.
I want to work for my loot! Anyone can /roll, but when you get a piece of gear off of a boss fight that you know you ‘rocked!’ – when your raid couldn’t have done it without YOU specifically (i.e.:: they couldn’t simply have replaced you with any other DPS’r) – that’s what it’s all about.
Just my opinion.
@Jerk;
Yes, I mentioned a few posts up that I think GC and company have no idea what to do with the Hunter.
They don’t seem to want us doing too-high DPS (thus stepping on Mage and Rogue toes), but they give us no other real niche. CC is largely useless in Wrath instances, kiting is more often than not done by tanks, ranged DPS is delivered by Mages, so what are Hunters for? Certainly not AoEing as we had Volley seriously nerfed.
Back in TBC I think we were doing well (except Marks needed some love), we had ranged DPS, we had crowd control, we had raid/group utility. Now, most of that is gone save for one talent tree, and even that one is suspect outside of DPS (which just got a small nerf). Arena PVP was another matter altogether, and it was a mess but I don’t know if it’s any better now not having done Arena since pre-Wrath.
I’m quite certain that the Hunter team at Blizz has at some point said, with some varying degree of seriousness, ‘can’t we just delete the d@mned class?’.
I think part of the problem is that WoW is getting very big and cumbersome, with different balances required for PVE and PVP, each of those having essentially 2 sub-categories of group/raid and arena/bg respectively.
Hunters are, perhaps somewhat ironically, utterly lost in the wilderness right now.
Oh, come on BRK. I love your blog largely because I think you’re usually a pretty level headed guy, but hunters are clearly outdpsing other classes by a big margin, especially as surv spec. I know it sucks getting nerfed, but hunters have been so ahead of the pack throughout WotLK that the class could take a massive nerf and still top damage meters.
I know it sucks that BM got hit so hard and with respect to balance between hunter specs, I can understand your position. However hunters as a whole still are easily one of the top DPSers on almost every fight and fall second to only DKs in terms of their AoE ability, even after several nerfs to volley.
@ Kolan: This is Naxx, not Ulduar. The intro raids have been made easier for a reason. If Ulduar is still an AoE tank-n-spank, then I can understand your criticism, but it’s not. It may be hard to see this as intro stuff since it’s currently the end game, but the harder stuff is to come later. AoEing through trash is damned boring, but if it gives more people a chance at trying raiding, I don’t mind as long as there’s a true challenge later on.
Just because you’re taken down a notch, doesn’t mean you’re at the bottom of the flag pole. Don’t forget the big picture.
I dont get how this spec is justified at all, have they checked the dps ppl actually do on a single target like Patchwreck? Shadowpriest, Mages, locks with equal gear is outdpsing hunters by far.
Then its some even between some other classes we are quite equal to. This nerf wasnt deserved at all.
I have no problem with parity between specs my problem is the lack of parity between classes. As the post above me states other classes with same gear / skill are far out dpsing hunters (the fact is folks if you topping meters it means the other dps in you group need to step up).
Spriests, boomkins, fury warrior, locks, mages, dks and retpallies can all dps / aoe dps better than hunters. And yet we are still getting slapped with the nerf bat left right and centre.
GC says they will sort other classes and tone down their dps, but there is no time table for this and yet the hunter nerfs just keep on coming.
I dont hate GC. But im sicking of the question dodging and fuzzy responces of the devs. I have faith in Blizzard but its pretty much almost all used up.
After the buffs and the nerfs and the switching specs what I would really like to know is if dps across specs was roughly equal in a PvE situation what spec would most hunters play?
I would really like BRK to do a poll on this. This question is relevant because of what GC said about wanting to balance all 3 specs. So I would like to know if you take out DPS output out of the equation would there still be one dominant spec? Are there as many hunters who prefer Surv over MM and BM? Inquiring minds want to know.
In all honesty I’m not surprised by this.
It’s just a shame that we seem to be getting thrown about a lot, people are gonna get sick of it.
I did not even notice that ES did any different DPS last night, however I noticed my cat did considerably more. That is 25Hnaxx vs OS+2. Cat did 430ish on tuesday night in nax and did 680 last night in OS +2. The nerf to ES wasn’t big enough for me to even notice until I read this. However that may be because my overall DPS was the same but pet was higher. /shrug. Next on the nerf table is kill shot I am sure. I had numerous kill shots last night over 16k. You know that kind of numbers will never stay.
With the ebb and flow of the Hunter nerfs…buffs…nerfs…buffs…nerfs… it is tempting to go back to my other toon, unfortunately it is a dps warrior that seems to be in the same tide pool with the hunters. Feast or Famine.
Maybe they are going to add a 14 point talent to the BM Pets?
Called : Sick Balls.
A bite from your pet that causes (AP * .5 +500) instant damage to your opponent. Stunning your for for 5 seconds. This Talent has a 30 Second Cool Down.
Wootness
I got this news after spending 1300+ on those old rusty gauntlets!
SV is quite fun but i rather be BM, i miss my Spirit Beast
I quess we “have” to go for the highest DPS setup, its the only thing we bring to a party anyhow….
Well I did 2500+ overall in heroic SV last night before I knew this nerf happened. I’ll know for sure just how bad i is after tonight’s raid.
Other classes are OP, wait for a patch.
Hunters are OP, Hotfix it right away!
If the person who asked that question in that thread never asked it, do you really think Ghostcrawler would have told us about the nerf?
Hey check this post :
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=7913211767&sid=1
There is a link of the scoreboard from the topest DPS for all bosses / all classes. Hunter wasn’t topping the metters…
Would the Hunter who kicked Ghostcrawler’s puppy please apologize so our class can get straightened out? Thanks a bunch!
On the brightside – with the drop in the numbers of BM, and given that they may ‘nerf the nerf’ in the future, now is probably a good time to go look for the Spirit Beast… although people still hunting him for the achievement.
Spirit Beast – Can’t be tamed now.
Sorry, switch to MM and tame BellyGrub
I think a lot of people are misunderstanding exactly what BRK is complaining about. He’s not complaining about the Explosive Shot nerf, per se; we all had been told that it was coming.
I think he was complaining about how GC and Blizzard handled the nerf as well as how they’re handling the changes to our class. It shows little in the way of respect to the players of the class when they push a nerf through without telling anyone, and only mentioning it when someone ’stmbles upon it’. In the same post where they said that they did indeed do it, they make a big point of saying how much they strive to get things done in a quick and timely fashion, then go on to give us only a vague ’soon’ when asked about the Buffs that they mentioned at the same time that the Explosive Shot nerf was announced.
It’s not the nerfs that are so frustrating at this point, but it’s how Blizzard is handling the class and hunter community.
“Overall, we are trying to make changes in a more timely manner so players won’t feel like they are stuck with a bug or other issue forever.”
So they are governing the game by listening to people QQing about other classes and want to react more quickly to that? (And who TF is still whining about hunters?)
Way to go Blizz. You have become Verant.
And, yet, the “Cower” bug is still at large, after months and months…
Ok people… Take a deep breath.
Sure we got stealth nerfed and it was only when people began posting the inconsistencies with last week that Blizzard finally owed up to the fact. That is horrible form from them, added to the threat GC comes with later (no information… hah! We already got that).
However, the nerf itself is small. The scaling goes from 16% AP to 14%. This naturally is more than 2% overall. But the fact is that Explosive Shot is still by far the most efficient shot, and Survival is still by far the most powerful DPS spec… of Hunters.
The change to ES is by itself not bad at all. It was to be expected.
The only thing I am somewhat mad about is the fact that currently Surv is the only really competitive Hunter spec. And even it gets beaten by entire classes. So while I can understand the nerf by itself, I can’t understand the reasoning as to why it couldn’t wait until Blizzard fixed the classes/spec that were doing too much damage. All this does is that it pushes Hunters down the raidtree unneccesarily. Sure we get more parity within our own class, but that shouldn’t come at the cost of raids.
The reasoning I hear is that “well it was perhaps easier to fix”, if that is the case (and I think it is), then why did they have to do it now? Surv was doing too much damage compared to the Blizzard view of where DPS should be (at MM levels). But arbitrarily putting some classes there while waiting until a major patch to fix others is a really backwards way of doing it. Blizzard could easily have attached this nerf onto the other nerfs that incoming for a more fair and even layout afterwards.
And if it really was this important, why on earth did they nerf, which they say they hate, and not bugfix (like they did with Warriors) Frost Trap? Frost Trap onto the LnL CD would hurt more in DPS but would go off much more positively with the community at large.
As it is now we have the nerf, and the lingering expectation that Forst Trap will be ‘fixed’ too. Combined that’s a pretty hefty loss.
I say bugfixes ahead of nerfs, unless the differences are truly horrible (like the 7k+ DPS DKs and Mages).
Funny how it takes Blizzard weeks, if not months, to realise and admit that Beast Mastery is weak, whereas it took how long to nerf Explosive Shot for becoming fractionally powerful…
I like how they focus on this, whereas issues such as Rogues being able to lock players out of action for over a minute haven’t even been noticed after months.
I was very annoyed and tired of Blizz way to try and fix/update/nerf/buff things regarding hunter. Switched to a DK as main and out of that infernal loop that the hunter has to go through, since then my chance to have a heart attack strongly decreases. Ain’t there a correlation? hmmm…
Today, I laugh each time I see things like this, seems to happen every month or so but guess what … I don’t care anymore!
Vish has an interesting point. This action almost displays Blizz’s priorities concerning hunters :
41 SV talent we promised after beta? – bah who cares right?
BM over nerfred? – bah who cares right?
OH MY LORD ES IS OP WE NEED A NERFFIX ASAP FOR HUNTERS GUYS!!!
Yeah … my theory about the hunter class being managed by a team of interns seems to be more and more true everyday.
@ The Jerk
1) yes
2) yes
3) without anethesia..
4) It’s noticable in 10-man content. Perhaps in 25s it doesn’t show up as much. (or maybe I had bad LnL rng)
Good news is, I only had a 200 dps reduction on the test dummies which my raid DPS is around 25% increase based off of target dummies, which means instead of hitting around 3k dps I will prob hit around 2600… WHICH is still higher than anyone in my raid and I’m still in flipping BLUES for my raid gear… Either we actually are a lil Overpowered *gasp and shuns from all* or the itemization just sucks horribly for the Naxx epics compared to heroic blues…
BTW I do have a bunch of epics equipped right now from testing but if you wanta go check me out Theranos – > Trollbane…
@Theranos
Maybe you all just are not in the best raids. (how long before you guys called it?) Stating that you top 25 man content and in Blues? I have been in 25 mans where I have to work hard to be in the top 3. And have seen “Blue Hunters” struggle to get in the top 15. And then you say we are OP. C’mon stop pretending to be a hunter. We all know you are not.
@Theranos
I take back all the bad things I said.. about your DPS of 528.2 (unbuffed)
Maybe it is possible for you to score..2500 to 3000 in 25 man content.
But if you are #1 in your raid doing that? then how long before you guys call it?
I have been in raids seeing guys top 5k. And Hunters will peak early… as other classed get geared. They will beat you out… in the long run.
IT IS all about SYNERGY
to BRK
i love your work and u are AWSOME !!!!
hehe Big FAN !!!!!!!!!!!!!
[...] Many such as BRK, and at last count about 22 pages of posts decrying how unjust and wrong this was. BRK even goes as far as stating how GC must “Truly Hate Hunters“. [...]
EJ:
I didn’t notice it at all on Tuesday in a VoA-10, OS-10, VoA-25 night.
Might have something to do with the fact that I splurged on an underpriced Nessy 4000 on Saturday, though.
If it was such a small nerf, why bother?
And if it doesn’t make such a difference, how do you know that Blizzard will stop at the one? They can apply hotfixes any time they like, how do you know that they won’t nerf it a little bit every now and then until it “feels” right to them?
You don’t. And neither do I. Blizzard have all, but with great power comes great responsibility. Even a change as small as this without even consulting hunters first is not being responsible.
And sure, they created hunters, but we ARE the hunters. Just because my mother made me, doesn’t mean she can control my life. (apologies if that was a poor metaphor).
Not sure what the Rilgon Arcsinh hate is about. His stance hasn’t really changed at any point I can tell. He likes his MM spec and wants to be able to dps on the same level as any hunter spec which I totally agree with that all hunter specs should bring about the same dps PvE wise.
GC doesn’t hate hunters. The problem is that he the main blue posting about changes and since he posts both nerfs and buff (more nerfs than anything) he gets a bad rap for hating each class. Blizz has tried being a bit more open about stuff and that is what GC does but people are expecting a Customer Service type message coming out and GC isn’t that. He’s part of the devs for the product and is going to talk brash. And to be honest there have been stealth nerfs in the past and things that got changed but aren’t in patch notes. So I’m not sure why people are confused why it happened. I’m more surprised about the admittance about it.
So to summarize GC doesn’t hate hunters. He hates all classes equally.
I think this would have been a stealth nerf if there wasn’t a very long post on the american hunter forums. The way he posted to me at least felt like he didn’t really have any plans to tell us.
I also heard that Marksman is struggling in raids against many other classes. I’m not sure about this so don’t quote me on it, but I heard MM was about 700dps behind arcane mages, who blizzard apparently are also ok with. I’m sure this isn’t totally correct, but it’s what I read so don’t hate me for posting.
“…chances are good they will see some nerfs to their damage soon too…”
Can you say Death Knights?!
@Sonvar
The problem myself, fearstalker and other people have with Rilgon is his constant gloating when anything other than MM gets the nerfbat. When our ability to do damage (regardless of spec) is hindered, the last thing most of us want to hear is “HA! HA! I AM USING A DIFFERENT SPEC (THUS GIMPING MYSELF COMPARED TO OTHERS BUT I DONT CARE LOL) AND IM UNAFFECTED BY IT NYA NYA”.
@Alsomething
I guess you’re in the EU because they get the hotfix tonight.
@Other guy
“If it was such a small nerf, why bother?”
Because a coefficient nerf turns up to a huge nerf in total damage. I estimate a ~13% damage nerf and you can’t say it’s small under any circumstance.
BTW I don’t ever remember a hotfix for the kill shot range bug, the cower bug or the CotW autocast bug (which annoys me ad infinitum).
But I do remember the following hotfixes:
1) Lightning Breath spell damage coefficient (which had the most idiotic wording I’ve ever seen from a blizzard employee).
2) Rolling scorpid poison ticks.
3) This.
If one set of numbers (coefficients) is kept server-wide thus enabling hotfixes while another (a boolean to toggle autocast) is kept client-side, I want to know who the hell designed this piss poor system so I can rip his intestines with my bare hands.
Also, I’m anticipating the following patch note in 3.1:
# Fixed a bug where hunters could do damage.
Survival is still more powerful than Marksman, even after the stealth-nerf… so don’t worry.
But if what BRK says is true, we’ll all get a complete makeover. Then we’ll all have to deal with that then.
Also, I’m anticipating the following patch note in 3.1:
# Fixed a bug where hunters could do damage.
LMAO. Priceless!!
@Elf name I can’t type
Bottom line is: I don’t care which spec does most DPS because I’ll spec it the instant its confirmed and I have my calculations done.
What I care about is my ability to do DPS because that’s what I’m there for.
I strongly suspect I won’t be able to own the damage meters on patchwerk kills again and it’ll be first time since we started raiding this easymode content.
To be honest, I’m looking forward to the first wave of 3.1 hunter patch notes, probably tomorrow (im in europe here /wave)
I expect to see:
6th tier of pet talents
41pt SV placeholder revamped
Serpent Swiftness and Kindred Spirits rebuffed
Some more buffs to BM (Please make Catlike Reflexes for once a talent that a dps class would even think about)
I doubt we will see any pet changes in the first wave, and there will undoubtedly be any nerfs yet, just to keep players sweet.
EJ:
Nope. Garona-US. If this hotfix did roll out in the US on Tuesday morning during maintenance, it was more than erased by simply upgrading my gun.
Did you test it on the dummies? You won’t notice the damage difference with unbuffed AP. When you hit >6k AP the difference will be noticeable.
I get the point of the survival nerf and it would do something to ES, but why would they post it AFTER they nerfed it? they should have just let us known when it was going to happen so we could prepare for it.
Blizzard LOVES Hunters
“Consumable ammunition has been removed from the game. Arrows and bullets no longer stack, but are not consumed. Ranged attack speed bonus gained from quivers and ammo bags will be preserved in a different capacity. ”
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/1/14910003268-upcoming-class-change-highlights-part-3.html
@Vish
I’d rather use the current mechanic and top damage meters rather than have this and be outDPS’d by human_retpala_DBZDKDKDKKD9001.
It will be comfortable, BUT sacrificing portions of my sole raid role for this is unacceptable.
WAAAYY!!! too much anger here it seems.
I’m not sure that what we see is hatred towards hunters or doing what they said they planned to do.
GC has stated:
BM will require Beast Mastery to compete for DPS
MM is about where they want it with some minor tweaks
SV needs help, right now “might” be doing too much damage.
I think if anything we see an overreaction on SV but maybe I’m just missing something.
Except that GC is a retard and blizzard themselves have next to zero understanding of the abomination that is the hunter class.
http://wowwebstats.com/ook4hw3ghro2o?s=426833-450540
This is a patchwerk kill. Hunter WITH 6.1k DPS is place 12 on DPS. While the two arcane mage buddies are at 7.6k DPS each.
How is this fair and balanced?
To Grumble: The forums are not a good way to “measure” anything. from what I’ve seen over the years, it’s nothing BUT QQ’ing. It always goes like this – “my class needs buffs and all other classes need nerfs”. “You were too good – the QQers on the forums have been kvetching for 2 years straight how huntards are too overpowered (ignoring Pallys on the way).” It never changes.
To Kolan: “The best spec is one of two.
1. The spec you prefer.
or
2. The spec that brings the most to your raid party.”
Item 1 is easy for most of us. Item 2 is constantly changing, depending on who is reading what pie chart or has some [reconceived notions on what we “should” be doing.
Personally, with the buff/nerf/buff/stealth nerf nonsense, I will just stay with the spec I already had. I’m just not going to waste my time, effort, or “virtual gold” respeccing/regearing/regemming all the time.
[...] Many such as BRK, and at last count about 22 pages of posts decrying how unjust and wrong this was. BRK even goes as far as stating how GC must “Truly Hate Hunters“. [...]