Death by Pinpricks
MMO-Champion always has the goods, don’t they? We’d love to get a piece of that action, wouldn’t you?
/bowchickawowow!
What’s up with hunters in the latest PTR? Nothin’ good, baby.
All the increases and reduced in the wrong places. Wanna see some real hate?
Racial
- Gift of the Naaru now also removes 2 harmful magic effects from the friendly target.
- Stoneform no longer gives a 8 second immunity to disease, poison, and bleed effects.
We’re whippin’ out the BRK Veto Pen. This cannot stand.
Comments
69 Responses to “Death by Pinpricks”





Not everyone plays a dwarf hunter, BRK. I for one am kind of excited at the prospect of my Draenei’s racial ability not being laughably useless.
But I do mourn for your stoneform change. Not cool.
Now to go into hibernation again until I hear about the ammo/quiver/BM-pet-talent changes.
Yep i cried so hard when i logged in to the ptr and tried out the test dummy to find my dps down by 1k, Nerfed again, why do we even play.
Rists & knife
I’m a NE and the racial changes don’t affect me… but wow, the Gift of the Naaru change is pretty hax! WTB self dispell
Dwarf nerf makes me a sad…Dwarf.
So the Dorf racials are:
* Treasure Finding when there is no new treasure in the game
* Maces (that somehow Dwarf Hunter’s forget how to be racially skilled in)
and now …
* Stoneform becomes crapola
That kinda leaves Dorf Hunters with no racial benefits right?
So the Dorf racials are:
* Treasure Finding when there is no new treasure in the game
* Maces (that somehow Dwarf Hunter’s forget how to be racially skilled in)
and now …
* Stoneform becomes crapola
That kinda leaves Dorf Hunters with Gun specialisation right? I have a feeling kniow that all the best weapons are gonna be X-bows and Bows in Ulduar just to round things off.
What the…? Who the…? When did…?
Geez. Pummel gets a nerf before most of us have even seen it in action! I had it on my gorilla’s action bar, but hadn’t really gone out to test it (and, uh, I kinda ditched my PTR gorilla this morning in a sad, failed attempt to tame King Krush… d’oh!)
I haven’t been on the forums in the past few days since Pummel was first announced/noticed… was there really that much QQ about it from casters? What caused such a quick nerf on a brand-new ability?
…and was Stoneform ever REALLY considered OP?
…and I haven’t even given much PTR time to my new SV 2nd-spec. Been having too much fun at the tournament.
What the FORK! I thought the conventional wisdom on stoneform was the it was borderline useless to begin with, unless you’re a tank and fighting, say, King Dred in DTK.
And the mace racial? Again, if you’re a hunter you’re hosed, and if you’re a tank, there ARE no tanking maces (yet).
RRGH.
We don’t need Stoneform to continue being the sexiest things around!
This all has ro do with the jealosy felt by the lesser races.
Personally, I blame the Belfs.
Poor weedle Dorfs… That really wasn’t called for.
“All the increases and reduced in the wrong places!”
Just me words
Sorry, I’m a dirty rotten traitor or something. I am all for the Gift of the Naaru buff. No, it’s not because three of my most-beloved characters (including my hunter) are draenei.
You can cast Gift on other people.
I can’t wait to see a draenei warrior on decursing duty. hahaha
Wow, talk about hitting us when we’re down… This is just a joke… Pummel getting tweaked to a 30 second cooldown? WTH?! oh wait, this isn’t thunderstomp, so I’m not too hurt by it, but I’m sure all my PVP brothers and sisters are, and thus, it hurts me as well…
Stoneform’s gonna do exactly what, then, now… Oh boy, gimme a little bit of armor… BTW, don’t worry about nerfing the racials of Humans and Gnomes, kthnx, cause getting to bail on a CC is just fine by me, I’ll just sit here and slowly bleed to death… I’ve kept this ability on my action bar ever since the first time I faced Moroes, and it’s always kept me aware of what exactly a boss was doing to me… Take it away, and I have NO RACIAL!!!! Who cares if I have +5 with maces? Can hunters use maces? I don’t think so! Wake up Blizzard… You’re starting to sound like ppl shouldn’t be playing Dwarfs at all!
I’m gonna go enjoy the last few days I’ve got as a viable raider, then go back to levelling my druid, who’s getting plenty of love from Blizz…
Troll Hunter says “huh?”
The Pummel nerf is justified I reckon. Blizz tossed Thunderstomp into the communal pool to stop all hunters taking a Gorilladin for PvE solo-content. They don’t want all PvP’ing to be done with Go-rogu-illa, the pet sporting the most rapid firing interrupt/stun racial.
The Stoneform nerf is annoying. Yeh I can knock off the 20 poison applications that ShodawRouge the Forsaken parked behind me has built up, but within a fraction of a micron he can get them back up, slow me to a crawl again and prevent me from making that poison-immune dash to the pet so he’s in range for Master’s Call (another PvP irking point)…
/bye lovely Pummel
But admit it, being forced to play a survival hunter WAS pretty fun while it lasted! If Blizzard keeps going, we’ll be oogling MM specs long before anyone has worked their way through the Chimera shot tooltip
Ugg what now Marks???? or shelf the dwarf hunter and work on Dranei ret pally. Stoneform changes WTF? Now they hate Dwarves and Hunters and extra special hate on dwarven Hunters!!!
WTB glyph of race change.
Reroll IMO
Bigredkitty meets the horde?
So if Stoneform doesn’t give the 8 second immunity to disease, poison, and bleed effects…. …. ….WHAT THE BLOODY HELL DOES IT DO!?!
/slowly fades away…
I love my DWARF HUNTER and now it seems…. too sad for words.
/quit
The black arrow / viper shots, I think, are directly aimed at priests who are having some difficult times. After all, priests do have shadow prot they can cast.
According to GC Gift of the Naaru will be changed to an instant heal, and Stoneform cd will be lowered to 2 min.
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/28/15443409296-stoneform-rip.html
Ugh…. I loved Stoneform, man, I don’t think I could live without this PvP tool… Every hunter race has a viable racial:
-Orcs: Blood Fury, boatload of attack power.
-Trolls: Berserking, tons of haste especially on fights like Gluth where your health can be very low very quickly, and Bow Spec (1% ranged crit with a bow equipped), nothing to laugh at.
-Blood Elves: Arcane Torrent, excellent for handling those pesky casters that like to root you and hang out in melee range.
-Tauren: War Stomp and Endurance are purely PvP but still damn nice to have em for.
-Night Elves: Shadowmeld, excellent in PvP and PvE situations, as if you weren’t lucky enough to have FD already.
-Draenei: 1% static hit and GotN, which is being buffed, gratz to you.
And finally, Dwarf: Gun Spec (1% ranged crit with a gun equipped) and Stoneform, which currently almost purely PVP except on a very few select fights (Heigan), and now after the nerf will have naught but 10% armor, which is all but useless.
So we have 1% crit with guns, which is not bad at all, as the dominant ranged weapon right now is indeed the Envoy of Mortality, a gun. But that’s it. We have no active racial skill as of 3.1. I agree BRK, Veto Pen time, letters must be written. There will be 0 survivability versus Rogues and even Druids now that they have infected wounds.
Not that i have tested anything on the PTR but its pretty obvious what blizz have been aiming for. Buff BM and MM to the level of Surv in PVE atm or there abouts. Then offer surv a buff with black arrow while reducing explosive shot to balance this out therefore nerfing the burst damage of hunters in PVP atm making us once again useless in arena. As for the gorrila nerf, clearly just a case of blizz not anticipating the effects of there initial idea, why its the PTR afterall so they dont send out a hunter who can shut down casters.
@Finnioch: Parsing the blue post very carefully, my take is that Stoneform no longer gives *immunity*, but still dispels disease/poison/bleed effects already on the character.
Kind of like a combination Purify (cast multiple times if necessary) + instantly-dismissed Blessing of Protection. Still useful, but not *as* useful as before.
And you still get the armor bonus. At least, nothing was said about that.
My only Dwarf in the game is a Rogue, and this hits hard, since of course DoTs of all kinds screw over our ability to Stealth. For Dwarf Hunters it’s merely an inconvenience, they’re far less likely than melee to be hit by an AoE disease or poison blast anyway. Discuss.
I kinda liked stoneform against DKs too. Removed a lot of the pain. This nerf really sucks.
All the more reason I should’ve been a draenei hunter *sigh*
The new Stoneform has initial remove poison, disease and the other thing it did and 10% armor for the 8 secs
At least we have Gun Specialization /sigh
Geez, why not just take away the +1% crit with guns from dwarves as well? Maybe they could just force us to poke ourselves in the eye every five minutes when playing a dwarven character?
This whole thing is another PvP change. I actually can’t explain how utterly sick I am of having stuff that works perfectly well in PvE, altered because of PvP. To completely explain how much I have come to hate PvP and its influence on the game, would require several dark rituals involving ancient gods and probably things with tentacles on their faces. Seriously. HAET!!!1
viper sting would be cool for Boss fights. To bad bosses are immune to that type of thing most of the time
Removing stoneform’s immunity is just painful and makes no sense balance-wise — dwarves will basically have no racial now. Removing the 8 seconds of immunity defeats the whole point of having the racial. And looking over the horde’s racials just adds more salt to the wound. I don’t see blizzard removing the extra bonus arcane torrent provides blood elves based on their class.
Personally, I’ll miss it immensely when fighting off those pesky rogues in pvp – at least it gave me a fighting chance for a few seconds.
C’mon, BRK! Reroll Tauren- cows’re where it’s at!
/chewcud
so… they want us to get rid of our Gorillas? What’s the point of the gorilla now?
I spent 2 weeks getting Uhk’loc, is he just my cool stable pet now?
The pummel change is not exactly unexpected, when first added to gorillas didn’t it have a similar low cooldown to thunderstomp? Compared to the cooldowns on other pet families abilities, an increased cooldown wasn’t all that hard to see coming. The reduced duration is a bummer, but it should still function as an interrupt, which is nifty for anyone with the misfortune not to have intimidation.
Dwarf racial changes suck (and draenei stuff looks neat, lol @ the comment about sticking draenei warriors on decurse duty), but they’ve been needing an overhaul for a while and at least they’re getting looked at now even if currently the changes aren’t going in the direction most of us would hope for.
Laely I have been playing a Tauren DK just because I am so annoyed at the nerfing of BM hunters.
I did have a Dwarf hunter: now I can see me leaving him to drink himself senseless every day in the Borean tavern.
Not that he will be unhappy, I suspect.
And, as an aside, Bowchickawowow is now the name of a guild on Hydraxis (and probably every other server too!)
No one mentioning we get rid of ammo pouches/quivers and get the +15% in another place. 1 bag slot finally free for us. Also, this build should allow us to stack 1000 arrows instead of 200. MM is getting better day bay day while SV is getting BALANCED (not nerfed). BM too is getting some love since 3.0 nerf.
Hunters, just dual spec and have more fun.
I’m not sure about the 15% going away from Quivers/etc…
Call me slightly inane, but if it’s just going to auto-so\hots…erm…I’m confused. I try to squeeze in every arcane, Serp. Sting, multi and of course good old Steady Shot…So what does this mean for the rest of my shots? Just slower or…?
I guess I am slightly retartar and need some ’splainin done to me.
*nod*
The only time I ever used Stoneform was in Kara, where Moroes would cast his lovely Garrot. Anyway, I solved that in the same manner as Kakon….rolled cow instead.
@ Zhire
They obviously did NOT nerf the 15% haste on every shot. They just removed pouches/quivers and transfered the 15% bonus (or lower, for lower level characters) on the hunter itself. Nothing changes in terms of dps, but we get a free bag slot. Damn that’s a HUGE change for us.
As a Draenei I approve of the GotN changes, I currently only use it to top up my health when I finish punding a mob, but as a Shaman it’s not like I have mana issues anyway, but with dispelling it might get used in combat more (still has a couple minute CD though) although bandages heal better when you’re not in combat.
I’m getting used to the fact that hunters are being treated like sjit atm and I’ve reached a point of “I-don’t-care-anymore”. There’s so much to get frustrated about atm, that it could inflict the way I play my hunter. Luckly for me I’m in a guild where imba-ness is not the biggest issue, so I was able to take my beloved BM-spec into heroic Naxx even during crisis.
About the racial change. They could make a simple change to Find Treasure:
“You sometimes find additional gold from Northrend humanoids.” Yep, I know, it’s a total ripoff from Northern Cloth Scavenging, but it’ll really fits a treasure-looking dorf.
stoneform will still remove the debuffs but you will not be immune to them for 8 seconds. no big deal. they did the same thing with WOTF.
also for the person who said that horde racials are better. i think otherwise.
nightelves get extra chance to be missed and a vanish,
dwarves get a bleed poison and disease dispell every 3 minutes now and extra armor for 8 seconds,
humans get extra passive stealth detection and a 2 minute pvp trinket,
gnomes get there extra mana and movement imparing effect dispell,
and dreanei get a awesome hit aura and the buffed gotn heal and magic dispell.
while horde have nice enough but not great racials.
undead get the equvalent to an extra bandage only if a humanoid corpse is around and a fear charm and sleep dispell on self,
tauren get a 2 second stun that takes half a second to cast (more if hit) and some extra health,
orcs get a dps trinket,
trolls get passive health regen barely noticable and a haste trinket that requires near death to get the full effect,
bloodelves get an aoe silence that gives some energy rune power and barely any mana.
they are all good abilities. i don’t think that the horde have better racials, but i do think that allies have more useful racials. but thats just based off my playstyle and others will disagree.
Well, here’s to hoping this isn ‘t the final thing for the system.
As a Spacegoat Hunter, I’m pleases with the GotN changes but my hearts go out to the Dwarves. Don’t worry, Guys. The pain will lessen with time
Gift of the Naaru is going to be changed again. No dispell effects and instant heal (still needing the casting time). So it goes back to the original GotN except it will instantly heal the player. Good good good
EDIT
Ammos are now stacking @1000 on PTR and quivers can be destroyed.
WooT! Just got a new role in the guild. Auction House searcher and raid supply buyer!..
@ those who say dual spec.
Dual spec! Ok, I have 2 specs.. 1 DPS and the other DPS.
**I was a raider… now I am just a farmer**
My druid bud has Tank/Healing specs planned.. Oh’ and the DPS in those specs are not too bad either.
My Pally friend, has a sweet DPS spec and a healing spec. Oh’ and is collecting tanking gear.
This Healer I know, has a healing spec and a DPS spec. (With 1 set of equipment to boot!…)
Oh and a War with DPS/Tank..
blah blah blah.. I just hate QQ’ing.
Sadly, after playing a BM hunter for so long, I have stopped playing as a hunter.
/sigh
Until Blizzard stops nerfing BM, I will be levelling up my mage. If it doesn’t improve with Ulduar…. well, let’s just say EQ 2 is looking better these days.
/bow
Wolf
@ SmackHim
I got your point but blaming Blizz and keeping paying a monthly fee is just useless. Pay and play at that conditions or just quit it (or wait for some news you like). I for myself am waiting for 3.1 patch going live and my account is frozen since 2 months.
Nice thing is… even frozen accounts can play the PTR and see how things are going on. Think about it.
lols, why rebalance racials now AND WHY buff an OP racial and nerf that one!??!?
I’m confuzzed.
Reading comprehension for the win, folks.
It says Stoneform will no longer grant an 8-second immunity to diseases, poisons, and bleeds. Presumably this means you can still activate it to -clear- a disease, poison, or bleed off of yourself – you just won’t be immune to them for 8 seconds afterward.
At least that’s the way I read it. I’m at work, maybe someone who can get on the PTR can confirm.
Regarding the Explosive Shot nerf, it looks like about a 10% damage reduction. Not great, but not “zomg I lost 1000 dps” territory either like the 3.0.8 BM nerf was.
The highest rated missile weapon in the game is a gun, which is the speciality weapon of which race again? oh yeah, Dwarves.
Hate the gorilla nerfs though, can imagine Blizz saying “yeah, gorillas are still useful” /patself.
> Regarding the Explosive Shot nerf, it looks like about a
> 10% damage reduction. Not great, but not “zomg I lost
> 1000 dps” territory either like the 3.0.8 BM nerf was.
I agree on that. Hunters who switched from MM/BM to SV shortly after 3.0 are now feeling “stolen” of the mighty DPS power they had for some time. SV was *CLEARLY* op for some weeks/months as well as BM was *CLEARLY* nerfed some time later (the nsemi-buffed and buffed in these days).
SV was honestly too much powerful, making players think “hunter = SV only”. Wrong, hunter can be BM, MM or SV. If dps is not balanced across these 3 specs, no one will ever play anything apart from SV. Being a pure DPS class, we need 3 viable specs. Not just 1 dps spec, 1 vanity (bm) and 1 mana-drunk (mm).
Right now BM is playing MUCH better as well as MM. More on mm, Blizzard admitted is too much mana consuming and they’re solving this problem. SV was overloaded with damage bonuses and it’s now lowered to match other specs.
Hah! Space cow hunters unite!
The ES nerf is just that stealth nerf and I personally didn’t even notice it :shrug: So don’t get worked up about that.
Completely asinine. Dwarf racials are all but completely worthless. There better be some buffs elsewhere to make up for this. What’s the point of stoneform now?
Who the hell is running the ship over at blizzard? This is just unacceptable.
They did nerf Explosive shot twice
1st: stealth nerf
2nd: 3.1 patch notes saying it got nerfed (they are seperate confirmed by GC)
So Imp Mend Pet is near useless for a RussianCow? That is real “WTF?!” stuff.
@Dalaila
Thank you for the explanation, I was a tad confused.
There’s no possible way they could have left Pummel as it was. That way, a 3v3 team of BM hunters could have kept the other team’s healer silenced over 100% of the time. They copied the warrior ability in one patch, and then adjusted it in the next.
As it is, they kinda screwed over Nether Rays, but who has one of those?
The only question left is Bear vs. Crocolisk…
@ Zhire ^2
After a fast test on a new hunter level 1 I can confirm that +15% haste bonus is available to lower classes too (starting from level 1 itself). That is a pretty ***good buff*** for leveling hunters. We can say that it’s more a class bonus now than a specific talent/ability.
Looks like you read it wrong BRK. It basically says, if you do ONE autoshot, you have a 15% speed bonus to ALL OF YOUR HUNTER SHOTS! That is a HUGE BUFF
Explosive shot’s coefficient was buffed on the PTR for some reason, the change reduced it to what we see on live. So it was not nerfed again.
Oh… Who do I write about this!?! That TEENY stoneform benefit WAS THE ONLY THING I HAD! FTW!?! Oh, this makes me way more angry than anything they’ve done so far. Other changes may just change how I punch buttons BUT THAT was part of my racial choice. You know how much flack I’ve gotten for rolling a female Dwarf?!
I’ve never posted on the official forums before but I’m going there now and there will be BLOOD!
*BLARGHHH!* *sharpens axe*
Am I the only one that sees the formula for explosive shot coming out as a negative number? I’m not a math major, but I can do simple arithmatic. How is it supposed to read?
Ok… I thought I was done, but I’m not.
Were there seriously any rogues or DKs out there claiming that we Dwarf hunters were OP because of STONE*FRICKING*Form? Reading through the list of other racials I’m even more ticked off. WHAT THE HEEL!?!
I’ve put up with everything up to now but I AM a DWARF HUNTER. That is what I play and it’s all I really play and they have just peed on my head!
“Looks like you read it wrong BRK. It basically says, if you do ONE autoshot, you have a 15% speed bonus to ALL OF YOUR HUNTER SHOTS! That is a HUGE BUFF”
Umm.. huh? No, it’s not a huge buff. It’s parity. Quivers no longer provide the haste buff so for all intents and purposes it’s been folded in with our base ability of being able to shoot.
If they are dwarfing our racials they better be giving us something else better in return. No pun intended. Like increased defense percentage over a longer period would be a nice buff.
As a leatherworker/hunter… can I please have my drums of war back?! Please?! Also, can a get a new recipe to replace those now useless quiver recipes I’ve learned.
Totally off the wall but just a thought, how about a LW saddle that we can make that allows as to tame a wild (untamable) beast and use it as a mount! That would rock, I’d tame a new drood once a day during Wintergrasp (don’t worry, I’d ‘free’ the sucker at the end of the day). I think it would be funny to ride one of those giraffe thingys from Sholazar around in Dalaran as well. =D
Dalaila: “SV was honestly too much powerful, making players think “hunter = SV only”. Wrong, hunter can be BM, MM or SV. If dps is not balanced across these 3 specs, no one will ever play anything apart from SV.”
Umm, okay, except that even with SV “overpowered”, in a serious raiding environment we’re seeing rogues and warlocks pulling 7k parses on pw, and similarly geared locks, mages, ret pallies and shadowpriests outdpsing best-in-slot survival hunters on most fights.
They didnt destroy these other classes dps the way they have ours. Locks are STILL able to pull 5k as deep destro on raid dummies on the PTR. I saw a cat feral druid consistently hitting 4k. Survival was the only viable dps spec we had and instead of buffing something up to its level they gutted all the pvp usefulness out of the tree AND THEN nerfed the dps down to previous BM level, buffed BM and then (inevitably) nerfed BM.
So if you think destroying the only viable dps spec we had, without buffing one of the other specs up to it’s previous level is a good thing…well I guess your guild doesnt look for maximum dps ranged spots for its raid otherwise you’d be concerned about whether you’ll get to see Ulduar.