First up, my first First!
Also, this was just funny.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Hunter PvP The 3.03 patch AotV
That's right everybody, there is a new version of AotV on the horizon. What does this mean? It means Blizzard messed up again.
The live version of AotV for 3.0 is roughly: (weapon speed)*2 = % of total mana back per hit.
The 3.03 version of AotV is: (weapon speed) + 4% mana per 3 seconds = % of total mana back.
Both versions keep the 50% damage penalty.
Terrible nerf. The concept was that the new AotV would be a benefit to PvP hunters. Well Blizzard messed up.
The concept is simple. PvP hunters in arenas can't always fire shots at their targets who are LoS'ing them, causing an issue where they are effectively oom and can't do anything but slowly plunk away at random times trying to gain mana back. So hunters were given mana regeneration ability akin to pre-3.0 AotV. The problem is that Blizzard then nerfed the mana back per hit.
An arena hunter is constantly on the move, hence the need for the passive regeneration. A hunter that is constantly on the move is only firing special shots. These special shots now cost more mana to use then a hunter is regaining from using it. With the 3.01 version of AotV a hunter could spam special shots and still regain mana at a decent rate as long as they had someone to shoot at. 3.03 AotV means that hunters use up more mana shooting their specials then they pull in, effectively causing them to lose mana on every shot and Only regain mana during the 4% per 3 second passive part of the aspect.
It's a horrible change Blizzard, hopefully you will fix it fast.
The live version of AotV for 3.0 is roughly: (weapon speed)*2 = % of total mana back per hit.
The 3.03 version of AotV is: (weapon speed) + 4% mana per 3 seconds = % of total mana back.
Both versions keep the 50% damage penalty.
Terrible nerf. The concept was that the new AotV would be a benefit to PvP hunters. Well Blizzard messed up.
The concept is simple. PvP hunters in arenas can't always fire shots at their targets who are LoS'ing them, causing an issue where they are effectively oom and can't do anything but slowly plunk away at random times trying to gain mana back. So hunters were given mana regeneration ability akin to pre-3.0 AotV. The problem is that Blizzard then nerfed the mana back per hit.
An arena hunter is constantly on the move, hence the need for the passive regeneration. A hunter that is constantly on the move is only firing special shots. These special shots now cost more mana to use then a hunter is regaining from using it. With the 3.01 version of AotV a hunter could spam special shots and still regain mana at a decent rate as long as they had someone to shoot at. 3.03 AotV means that hunters use up more mana shooting their specials then they pull in, effectively causing them to lose mana on every shot and Only regain mana during the 4% per 3 second passive part of the aspect.
It's a horrible change Blizzard, hopefully you will fix it fast.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
More Hunter Goodness
It looks like the new version of AotV on beta is lackluster at best. Providing less mana back then the current live version of mana on hit. Is this a problem? Supposedly they are going to fix it.
Disengage is running into some problems as players test it further. I have yet to have any real issues with getting it off, but maybe I just haven't come across a skilled enough opponent yet. Using disengage isn't so much the problem as still being snared once landing.
----------------------------------------
It is somewhat surprising that hunters haven't been given free use of ranged weapons in melee yet. Because this would have zero effect on PvE. None whatsoever. Yet it would be a decent buff to dealing damage while somebody is snaring us and staying in Melee. This is probably not the best idea for a number of reasons, I'm just underscoring it because it really would have no effect on PvE, which seems to be a major limiter to much of the PvP balancing.
-----------------------------------------
One common question that every serious arena hunter keeps asking themselves is "What do hunters bring to Arena?"
The answers generally aren't all that inspiring. Hunters have a lack of survivability, and a lack of damage output while anybody is attacking them, even if it's just one person. Our survivability, or probably better termed as mitigation in the sense that we are mitigated our opponents from preventing us from acting, goes hand in hand with our damage capabilities due to LoS and minimum range. So what do we bring then? We bring a minor drain, the ability to use all of our utility more or less endlessly though our DPS takes a major hit with AotV, some decent CC, and a ranged, instant, Mortal Strike effect. These are powerful. So powerful that I can almost see the reason Blizzard is making the rest of our class so weak. Glass cannons we are.
Mages are able to spec into deep survivability and deep crowd control and damage all in one spec, Frost. Hunters can spec into control - SV, damage - Marks, survivability - BM. Seems a little strange that the glass cannon class isn't so fragile.
Disengage is running into some problems as players test it further. I have yet to have any real issues with getting it off, but maybe I just haven't come across a skilled enough opponent yet. Using disengage isn't so much the problem as still being snared once landing.
----------------------------------------
It is somewhat surprising that hunters haven't been given free use of ranged weapons in melee yet. Because this would have zero effect on PvE. None whatsoever. Yet it would be a decent buff to dealing damage while somebody is snaring us and staying in Melee. This is probably not the best idea for a number of reasons, I'm just underscoring it because it really would have no effect on PvE, which seems to be a major limiter to much of the PvP balancing.
-----------------------------------------
One common question that every serious arena hunter keeps asking themselves is "What do hunters bring to Arena?"
The answers generally aren't all that inspiring. Hunters have a lack of survivability, and a lack of damage output while anybody is attacking them, even if it's just one person. Our survivability, or probably better termed as mitigation in the sense that we are mitigated our opponents from preventing us from acting, goes hand in hand with our damage capabilities due to LoS and minimum range. So what do we bring then? We bring a minor drain, the ability to use all of our utility more or less endlessly though our DPS takes a major hit with AotV, some decent CC, and a ranged, instant, Mortal Strike effect. These are powerful. So powerful that I can almost see the reason Blizzard is making the rest of our class so weak. Glass cannons we are.
Mages are able to spec into deep survivability and deep crowd control and damage all in one spec, Frost. Hunters can spec into control - SV, damage - Marks, survivability - BM. Seems a little strange that the glass cannon class isn't so fragile.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Aspect of the Dragonhawk
Aspect of the Dragonhawk
"After further discussion, we're not crazy about the "stance dancing" that hunters need to do to switch to Monkey when someone is in on you in melee. As we've said a few times, Disengage and Deterrence should be your go-to abilities at that time. If anything, removing Aspects from the GCD makes it feel like you are supposed to go Monkey every time you're in melee.
Rather than revert the change, we are introducing a new spell!
Instead of getting new ranks of Hawk at level 75 and 80, you now get the new Aspect of the Dragonhawk. This powerful aspect combines all of the effects of Hawk and Monkey. Any talent or glyph that affects either Hawk or Monkey also affects Dragonhawk the same way. The idea is that you retire Hawk and Monkey at level 75 and go to essentially two Aspects: Dragonhawk for combat and Viper for mana regen.
Enjoy."
- Ghostcrawler
-------------------------------------------------
I don't know what kind of further discussion happens at 5am on the West Coast that involves class development, but this is an awesome change. It begs the question why was hunter dodge rate nerfed in the first place, but if these changes go live, especially the +10% dodge bonus to Monkey that is in the link but I didn't copy/paste up there, this is a great buff. We now only switch between AotD and AotV. And I suppose in some PvE raids there might be a few encounters where AotB is viable?! Not important right now really.
Aspects off the GCD is major buffage by itself, and with a new aspect that combines our offensive and defensive abilities Blizzard has taken a small step towards making hunters a complete class. I say that because if you look at any other class they sacrifice their offensive capabilities with regeneration. Mages having to evocate instead of continuing to deal damage, or just any other mana user having to drink. Now just like those classes, both offensive and defensive capabilities are given up while regenerating mana.
"After further discussion, we're not crazy about the "stance dancing" that hunters need to do to switch to Monkey when someone is in on you in melee. As we've said a few times, Disengage and Deterrence should be your go-to abilities at that time. If anything, removing Aspects from the GCD makes it feel like you are supposed to go Monkey every time you're in melee.
Rather than revert the change, we are introducing a new spell!
Instead of getting new ranks of Hawk at level 75 and 80, you now get the new Aspect of the Dragonhawk. This powerful aspect combines all of the effects of Hawk and Monkey. Any talent or glyph that affects either Hawk or Monkey also affects Dragonhawk the same way. The idea is that you retire Hawk and Monkey at level 75 and go to essentially two Aspects: Dragonhawk for combat and Viper for mana regen.
Enjoy."
- Ghostcrawler
-------------------------------------------------
I don't know what kind of further discussion happens at 5am on the West Coast that involves class development, but this is an awesome change. It begs the question why was hunter dodge rate nerfed in the first place, but if these changes go live, especially the +10% dodge bonus to Monkey that is in the link but I didn't copy/paste up there, this is a great buff. We now only switch between AotD and AotV. And I suppose in some PvE raids there might be a few encounters where AotB is viable?! Not important right now really.
Aspects off the GCD is major buffage by itself, and with a new aspect that combines our offensive and defensive abilities Blizzard has taken a small step towards making hunters a complete class. I say that because if you look at any other class they sacrifice their offensive capabilities with regeneration. Mages having to evocate instead of continuing to deal damage, or just any other mana user having to drink. Now just like those classes, both offensive and defensive capabilities are given up while regenerating mana.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
No Skill
I love how there are two common chains of thought for justifying Ret as it currently stands. 1) Ret is different at level 80 and they are not OP at level 80, all spells are balanced for level 80. 2) Ret neeeeeds this insane amount of burst because we have no other way to hurt our targets, nobody understands us or how to counter us and we are balanced until they learn how to fight us.
First to address issue #1:
Ret very well may be different at level 80 once DK's are thrown into the mix and there are other strong classes like mages and rogues able to beat you. Too bad at 80 those are the only four viable classes for... well, anything. Ret abilities that are currently dealing lots of damage are made to scale for gear and/or weapon damage. Just like all the other classes. In other words, Ret right now is scaling TOO well. The problem with the argument is that once level 80 is reached, Ret will CONTINUE to scale too well because of the way they are achieving the current insane burst at 70.
Overall though I would have to say this is the best argument, as the majority of players have Not experienced Ret at level 80, but there sure are a million Paladins claiming that it's not that great. I only say this is the best argument because it is the hardest to disprove, not because it is true.
Issue #2:
Just reading the posts that continue from Ghostcrawlers "NERF RET INTO THE GROUND" is laughable. There are Paladins claiming "we have no way to catch targets except HoJ", the "little time we have in melee with a target because we don't have enough abilities to get there or keep them there is why we need so much burst!". The worst is "once they find out our weaknesses they will see we're fine with all this massive damage".
The issue is not players feeling like they're facing a whole new class. The issue is not "oh wow, Ret paladins are suddenly playing with a different style" because in all honesty, THEY AREN"T. Everything is the exact same, it just works better now because of insane mitigation and insane burst damage. Not to mention much more powerful CC's. Trying to slow down a Ret Paladin? Hand of Freedom - 10 seconds, 25 second CD, almost no chance to dispel because of the new anti dispel talents. Divine Shield - 12 seconds. 3 seconds left on CD before HoF comes back up. Oh look it's back up, HoF again. That's finally all done with? Don't forget the ranged incapacitate, the 7 second stun on a 20 second cooldown, and the RANGED ATTACKS. Since when do Paladins get serious ranged attacks? Instant ones for that matter. 6 second cool down, can crit for 3k holy damage. Umm... oh look, I have almost 12k Health in PvP gear. Paladins can chase after you, Never hitting you in melee, and still kill you because you can't heal yourself.
Another problem? Group PvP. Paladins aren't balanced for group PvP. People might say you're just crying that Paladins are owning you in 1v1, but it's okay since it's not balanced. Well here's news for you, they aren't balanced in group PvP either. Unless you have another Paladin on your team, which kinda makes it lol, or you have a priest whose somehow not targeted first and is spamming Mass Dispel, it's not balanced. Requiring the opposing team to have one of the same class just in order to counter it is not balanced. Paladins deal more burst damage then any other class in the game right now. They do it all while their target is stunned and can't move. It doesn't matter if your team has a healer because the paladin will just target the healer and kill them first. It doesn't matter if you have two healers on your team because your dps can't kill the paladin, he has infinite mana and can heal himself almost as well as a Holy paladin because... oh yeah, he's spec'd into Holy, and of course the whole spell power change thing too.
Now to reverse the same chain of thought onto these scrubby defenders of Ret'arded players. If everyone else is having to play against what "seems like a whole new class" and "once they learn how to counter they'll do fine". Guess what. It means that all Ret Paladins are PLAYING what seems like a new class, and once they figure out more tricks and what they're doing then ... oh look, they will continue to destroy everybody.
Like the title of this post, it's true. Until Blizzard fixes Paladins, there is no such thing as a skilled Paladin. It's impossible to have somebody be skilled when the class is that easy. Want to see a skilled player? Look at the guy who managed to beat a Paladin. That's skill. Want to see a no name scrub? Yeah, that's the guy playing the Paladin. It doesn't matter how good you were before, it doesn't matter how many HK's you got or how high your arena rating is or what kind of gladiator title you have, if you are playing a Paladin on live right now it takes No Skill and therefore you have No Skill. More than any other class it should be Paladins that are calling for nerfs right now, because they are the laughing stock of WoW.
First to address issue #1:
Ret very well may be different at level 80 once DK's are thrown into the mix and there are other strong classes like mages and rogues able to beat you. Too bad at 80 those are the only four viable classes for... well, anything. Ret abilities that are currently dealing lots of damage are made to scale for gear and/or weapon damage. Just like all the other classes. In other words, Ret right now is scaling TOO well. The problem with the argument is that once level 80 is reached, Ret will CONTINUE to scale too well because of the way they are achieving the current insane burst at 70.
Overall though I would have to say this is the best argument, as the majority of players have Not experienced Ret at level 80, but there sure are a million Paladins claiming that it's not that great. I only say this is the best argument because it is the hardest to disprove, not because it is true.
Issue #2:
Just reading the posts that continue from Ghostcrawlers "NERF RET INTO THE GROUND" is laughable. There are Paladins claiming "we have no way to catch targets except HoJ", the "little time we have in melee with a target because we don't have enough abilities to get there or keep them there is why we need so much burst!". The worst is "once they find out our weaknesses they will see we're fine with all this massive damage".
The issue is not players feeling like they're facing a whole new class. The issue is not "oh wow, Ret paladins are suddenly playing with a different style" because in all honesty, THEY AREN"T. Everything is the exact same, it just works better now because of insane mitigation and insane burst damage. Not to mention much more powerful CC's. Trying to slow down a Ret Paladin? Hand of Freedom - 10 seconds, 25 second CD, almost no chance to dispel because of the new anti dispel talents. Divine Shield - 12 seconds. 3 seconds left on CD before HoF comes back up. Oh look it's back up, HoF again. That's finally all done with? Don't forget the ranged incapacitate, the 7 second stun on a 20 second cooldown, and the RANGED ATTACKS. Since when do Paladins get serious ranged attacks? Instant ones for that matter. 6 second cool down, can crit for 3k holy damage. Umm... oh look, I have almost 12k Health in PvP gear. Paladins can chase after you, Never hitting you in melee, and still kill you because you can't heal yourself.
Another problem? Group PvP. Paladins aren't balanced for group PvP. People might say you're just crying that Paladins are owning you in 1v1, but it's okay since it's not balanced. Well here's news for you, they aren't balanced in group PvP either. Unless you have another Paladin on your team, which kinda makes it lol, or you have a priest whose somehow not targeted first and is spamming Mass Dispel, it's not balanced. Requiring the opposing team to have one of the same class just in order to counter it is not balanced. Paladins deal more burst damage then any other class in the game right now. They do it all while their target is stunned and can't move. It doesn't matter if your team has a healer because the paladin will just target the healer and kill them first. It doesn't matter if you have two healers on your team because your dps can't kill the paladin, he has infinite mana and can heal himself almost as well as a Holy paladin because... oh yeah, he's spec'd into Holy, and of course the whole spell power change thing too.
Now to reverse the same chain of thought onto these scrubby defenders of Ret'arded players. If everyone else is having to play against what "seems like a whole new class" and "once they learn how to counter they'll do fine". Guess what. It means that all Ret Paladins are PLAYING what seems like a new class, and once they figure out more tricks and what they're doing then ... oh look, they will continue to destroy everybody.
Like the title of this post, it's true. Until Blizzard fixes Paladins, there is no such thing as a skilled Paladin. It's impossible to have somebody be skilled when the class is that easy. Want to see a skilled player? Look at the guy who managed to beat a Paladin. That's skill. Want to see a no name scrub? Yeah, that's the guy playing the Paladin. It doesn't matter how good you were before, it doesn't matter how many HK's you got or how high your arena rating is or what kind of gladiator title you have, if you are playing a Paladin on live right now it takes No Skill and therefore you have No Skill. More than any other class it should be Paladins that are calling for nerfs right now, because they are the laughing stock of WoW.
Ret, New Stats, Upcoming.
Ret Paladins. Currently a major force to be reckoned with. How large a force? Completely OP. It begs the question, why oh why Blizzard? How could you allow a class this imbalanced to go live?
Well, thankfully Ghostcrawler(confirmed it's a man... 90% sure) gave some insight into why this was allowed. As well as a little hope for the future "Are we going to nerf Ret? TO THE GROUND BABY." A sense of humor is always welcome on these oh so touchy subjects. Whether or not the Paladins enjoy this sense of humor is yet to be seen.
My hunter lost over 15% of her dodge rating. I'm down to 9% on live. Supposedly this number dwindles to around 2% by the time I hit 80 once WotLK comes out, but then slowly climbs back up as epic gear is again attained. Kind of a sad state of melee survivability. The reason for this change? Because they gave us the new Disengage instead. Hmm... A good trade off? Probably. But it still hurts a little to see class balancing done as some hunters keep putting it, and recently in a very sarcastic manner, "One step back, One step forward."
My crit also skyrocketed about 8 or 9%. This is because of the new talents of course. The Marksmanship tree has almost nothing to take in the middle and near the bottom, all of it's good talents are scrambled near the top. This makes it hard for 51 point Survival or BM to decide on what to take, but it's great for a MM hunter. What made this crit possible was because one of the old talents, Master Marksman, was changed to provide a further 5% crit increase on top of Lethal Shots. It's surprising they'd put two such crit gains in the same tree, making MM comparable to Survival Crit possibilities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Upcoming hunters changes from Ghostcrawler:
" Two changes coming up:
We aren't happy with how Aspect of the Viper is working in PvP, but it seems fine in PvE. We're going to try changing it so that 50% of its current regen is passive, leaving the remaining 50% active. That should give hunters some more mana in Arenas in particular when dealing with opponents who manage to get out of LOS a lot. Yet, in PvE where hunter dps is very high, the difference in regen shouldn't be very noticable. We are also going to let Viper return mana from melee attacks for those cases where a melee opponent is too close for comfort.
The second change is to some of the numbers on the special attacks of exotic pets to make sure the pets are around a 10% increase from normal pets. This should make exotic pets a reasonable benefit for the talent point (especially when you also count the bonus pet talents) without making every BM hunter feel like they are limited to just those pets."
The AotV change? Incredibly welcome. PvE will not only have nothing to complain about because they are regenn'ing the same amount of mana they were before, and PvP gets a much needed passive portion in case our target is constantly LoS'ing us.
The pet change? Needed so badly. Nobody currently wants to take the 51 point talent. Not for PvE, not for PvP, it's purely cosmetic. 10% added damage to all exotic pets boosts their desire greatly, meaning a full BM spec'd hunters pet will be doing 50% more damage through straight damage talents then any other hunters pet. That's what BM should be about. Now if only BM pets survived a little better...
Well, thankfully Ghostcrawler(confirmed it's a man... 90% sure) gave some insight into why this was allowed. As well as a little hope for the future "Are we going to nerf Ret? TO THE GROUND BABY." A sense of humor is always welcome on these oh so touchy subjects. Whether or not the Paladins enjoy this sense of humor is yet to be seen.
My hunter lost over 15% of her dodge rating. I'm down to 9% on live. Supposedly this number dwindles to around 2% by the time I hit 80 once WotLK comes out, but then slowly climbs back up as epic gear is again attained. Kind of a sad state of melee survivability. The reason for this change? Because they gave us the new Disengage instead. Hmm... A good trade off? Probably. But it still hurts a little to see class balancing done as some hunters keep putting it, and recently in a very sarcastic manner, "One step back, One step forward."
My crit also skyrocketed about 8 or 9%. This is because of the new talents of course. The Marksmanship tree has almost nothing to take in the middle and near the bottom, all of it's good talents are scrambled near the top. This makes it hard for 51 point Survival or BM to decide on what to take, but it's great for a MM hunter. What made this crit possible was because one of the old talents, Master Marksman, was changed to provide a further 5% crit increase on top of Lethal Shots. It's surprising they'd put two such crit gains in the same tree, making MM comparable to Survival Crit possibilities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Upcoming hunters changes from Ghostcrawler:
" Two changes coming up:
We aren't happy with how Aspect of the Viper is working in PvP, but it seems fine in PvE. We're going to try changing it so that 50% of its current regen is passive, leaving the remaining 50% active. That should give hunters some more mana in Arenas in particular when dealing with opponents who manage to get out of LOS a lot. Yet, in PvE where hunter dps is very high, the difference in regen shouldn't be very noticable. We are also going to let Viper return mana from melee attacks for those cases where a melee opponent is too close for comfort.
The second change is to some of the numbers on the special attacks of exotic pets to make sure the pets are around a 10% increase from normal pets. This should make exotic pets a reasonable benefit for the talent point (especially when you also count the bonus pet talents) without making every BM hunter feel like they are limited to just those pets."
The AotV change? Incredibly welcome. PvE will not only have nothing to complain about because they are regenn'ing the same amount of mana they were before, and PvP gets a much needed passive portion in case our target is constantly LoS'ing us.
The pet change? Needed so badly. Nobody currently wants to take the 51 point talent. Not for PvE, not for PvP, it's purely cosmetic. 10% added damage to all exotic pets boosts their desire greatly, meaning a full BM spec'd hunters pet will be doing 50% more damage through straight damage talents then any other hunters pet. That's what BM should be about. Now if only BM pets survived a little better...
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
3.0 Patch Live
Today the 3.0 Patch is hitting live servers.
While you can read the official patch notes, they are generally full of mistakes and it's best if you were just reading along the whole time. The patch is called Echo's of Doom or something else rather unimportant.
This is the patch where Ret paladins deal massive damage, hunters have even less survivability against... well everyone, though mainly in a group PvP situation rather than 1v1. Once a fight turns into a 2v2 or a 3v3 the hunter is too easily locked down and exposed, unable to deal damage because they can't escape, unable to save themselves from taking damage because they don't have ice block. Hunters and Warlocks are surprisingly in the same boat in 3.0, neither class having strong survivability abilities.
In all fairness to Warlocks, they should make Soul Link a 20% as long as their gear isn't good, and do a reverse scale somehow so that it becomes 15% later. Because that's the problem with it, it scales too good, and 15% soul link will once again be worthwhile once Season 6 comes around, and if not then than at least when Season 7 hits, but that's a long time to wait.
---------------------------------------------
Unfortunately Freezing Arrow has been reverted to crap in the Beta. At Blizzcon it was called a "PvE ability, to help speed up 5 man content for hunters". This is laughable, incredibly laughable, so stupid... such a worthless comment... it really makes you want to ask a Dev what they've been smoking. Or where Blizzard buys their stuff anyway, cause damn, powerful, it is Cali I suppose.
The problem with all of this is that that's not the way hunter traps work. It's not a problem hunters were having in 5 mans. And I don't see how a long travel time and a long arming time is going to help at all with the concept of speeding up 5 mans. Not to mention, and here's where another person made a great comment, our level 80 talent helps us reach level 80... you know, we won't actually even Get the talent until all the 5 mans minus heroics are done. How does that help? And there is no way this will be used in a 5 man heroic, it is just way to risky. Traps are way to risky. One with a slow travel time that sets off our cool down for traps but springs instantly is STUPID. There's a reason hunters lay a trap and wait 30 seconds before starting the pull. IT IS NOT BECAUSE OF WHATEVER REASON WE GOT FREEZING ARROW FOR.
Enough on that, hopefully 3.0 will be fun. The PTR's were just too laggy to really get a feel for anything.
While you can read the official patch notes, they are generally full of mistakes and it's best if you were just reading along the whole time. The patch is called Echo's of Doom or something else rather unimportant.
This is the patch where Ret paladins deal massive damage, hunters have even less survivability against... well everyone, though mainly in a group PvP situation rather than 1v1. Once a fight turns into a 2v2 or a 3v3 the hunter is too easily locked down and exposed, unable to deal damage because they can't escape, unable to save themselves from taking damage because they don't have ice block. Hunters and Warlocks are surprisingly in the same boat in 3.0, neither class having strong survivability abilities.
In all fairness to Warlocks, they should make Soul Link a 20% as long as their gear isn't good, and do a reverse scale somehow so that it becomes 15% later. Because that's the problem with it, it scales too good, and 15% soul link will once again be worthwhile once Season 6 comes around, and if not then than at least when Season 7 hits, but that's a long time to wait.
---------------------------------------------
Unfortunately Freezing Arrow has been reverted to crap in the Beta. At Blizzcon it was called a "PvE ability, to help speed up 5 man content for hunters". This is laughable, incredibly laughable, so stupid... such a worthless comment... it really makes you want to ask a Dev what they've been smoking. Or where Blizzard buys their stuff anyway, cause damn, powerful, it is Cali I suppose.
The problem with all of this is that that's not the way hunter traps work. It's not a problem hunters were having in 5 mans. And I don't see how a long travel time and a long arming time is going to help at all with the concept of speeding up 5 mans. Not to mention, and here's where another person made a great comment, our level 80 talent helps us reach level 80... you know, we won't actually even Get the talent until all the 5 mans minus heroics are done. How does that help? And there is no way this will be used in a 5 man heroic, it is just way to risky. Traps are way to risky. One with a slow travel time that sets off our cool down for traps but springs instantly is STUPID. There's a reason hunters lay a trap and wait 30 seconds before starting the pull. IT IS NOT BECAUSE OF WHATEVER REASON WE GOT FREEZING ARROW FOR.
Enough on that, hopefully 3.0 will be fun. The PTR's were just too laggy to really get a feel for anything.
The New Auto Shot Timer
Edit: This appears to have been fixed on live now. Not completely, but for the most part. While there are two still casts going it looks like Blizzard managed to fix the switching target issue, as well as Most of the animation freezing issues. I say most because I have still come across a few occasions when the new auto shot acts horribly because of the reasons I listed below.
I posted this earlier on the WoW Hunter forums, but a repost here is good, it's an important change coming up to basic hunter mechanics.
As you know, auto shot is unlinked. If you haven't gotten the chance to test it out on the PTR's you might be in for a surprise and so the following is an explanation of what is happening.
Hunters now have two cast bars, auto shot is always casting, while any special ability we do with a cast time such as multi or steady or volley will have it's own casting time as well. This is what allows the auto shot to keep firing whenever it's supposed to.
Scenario: You are firing a steady shot but you want to stop. So you hit escape. Nothing happens.
Nothing happened because you turned off your auto shot cast bar and not your steady shot cast bar.
Okay so you hit escape again. This time your steady shot cast is canceled. Then your auto shot goes off.
This is because your steady shot automatically started your auto shot to firing again. So you have to hit escape a third time. You're finally no longer shooting.
So for any macro that you make where you want to /stopcasting, such as for a FD macro, you should now add /stopcasting twice, so it looks like the following:
#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/stopcasting
/cast feign death
Two /stopcasting's are required to turn off both casts.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other issues:
Just because you drop your target, your auto shot cast will continue, and it will queue itself. So if you lose your target your character will bug in the shooting animation, waiting for something to shoot at. If you target an enemy, you will start shooting again, if you target a friendly you will receive and error message and your auto shot will turn itself off.
Just because you have FD'd successfully does not mean that you will have turned your auto shot off. When you stand back up, you will start shooting all over again.
There is an option in the interface which will "not keep shooting after switching targets". This appears to be broken and does not work right now.
I posted this earlier on the WoW Hunter forums, but a repost here is good, it's an important change coming up to basic hunter mechanics.
As you know, auto shot is unlinked. If you haven't gotten the chance to test it out on the PTR's you might be in for a surprise and so the following is an explanation of what is happening.
Hunters now have two cast bars, auto shot is always casting, while any special ability we do with a cast time such as multi or steady or volley will have it's own casting time as well. This is what allows the auto shot to keep firing whenever it's supposed to.
Scenario: You are firing a steady shot but you want to stop. So you hit escape. Nothing happens.
Nothing happened because you turned off your auto shot cast bar and not your steady shot cast bar.
Okay so you hit escape again. This time your steady shot cast is canceled. Then your auto shot goes off.
This is because your steady shot automatically started your auto shot to firing again. So you have to hit escape a third time. You're finally no longer shooting.
So for any macro that you make where you want to /stopcasting, such as for a FD macro, you should now add /stopcasting twice, so it looks like the following:
#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/stopcasting
/cast feign death
Two /stopcasting's are required to turn off both casts.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other issues:
Just because you drop your target, your auto shot cast will continue, and it will queue itself. So if you lose your target your character will bug in the shooting animation, waiting for something to shoot at. If you target an enemy, you will start shooting again, if you target a friendly you will receive and error message and your auto shot will turn itself off.
Just because you have FD'd successfully does not mean that you will have turned your auto shot off. When you stand back up, you will start shooting all over again.
There is an option in the interface which will "not keep shooting after switching targets". This appears to be broken and does not work right now.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
The Current State
Hunter's don't appear to be receiving any love from reading the Blizzcon coverage, though then none of the classes are really having anything new unveiled for them. I'd actually even forgot about any game Blizzard was working on besides WoW.
The new D3 class is out, Wizard. Looks so much like a Sorcerer... well, let's just say you have the Barbarian from D2, and now there's a Barbarian in D3. You had the Necromancer in D2, and now there's the Witchdoctor. I wonder what's going to be next? Definitely something along the lines of a Holy or Spiritual class. Whether or not said class will be decked out in plate who knows.
Starcraft 2 is also being worked on, but the Blizzcon coverage didn't really say anything about it and I really don't care about RTS's. Activision Blizzard is still working on their "next-gen" mmo, supposedly in a whole new universe that we've never seen before. Sounds interesting to me, maybe they'll release some tidbits.
Back to the hunter class. In PvE we are currently destroying any and all other classes. By a good margin too. The damage pass has not gone through yet. As explained by the devs, it was either Koraa or GC I can't remember at the moment, the only class /spec currently slated for a definite damage reduction is unholy DK's.
Though with hunter DPS topping chars the way it is right now, it's hard to imagine a class that puts out such pitiful numbers in premade level 80 PvP gear in arenas also putting out such huge numbers in the raid environment. I mean, either we scale really really well with raid buffs or that's just how huge the difference is between us standing still and us moving when attacking something.
On that note though, it was recently rumored on the beta forums that with the new placement of readiness in the Marksmanship tree as the 21 pointer, TBW and Intimidation were both resettable. In other words, back to back TBW for a total of 36 seconds. That plus the addition of Freezing Arrow in it's new, sleeker form, could spell out some nice options for BM in arenas.
So just like all the other classes, there's confusion as to how we are going to do in the future. Blizzard seems to switch stances constantly. Sometimes pushing through changes that make no sense, it's as if none of the class developers have ever played a hunter before. And even though the label "huntard" has been given to... well, basically every hunter, even those players with only one for farming, it's still irksome. Blizzard's stance that we'll be a viable arena class in the future doesn't appear all that convincing all the time either.
I posted the following on the main forums earlier but here it is again in a concise manner: It's nice that there's a lot more developer/customer communication than there was with the TBC beta, it's very annoying to sometimes have great communication and other times there just being a huge wall. Blizzard only came halfway with their developer/beta customer communication, which ultimately left a bad taste in everyones mouth. Also, from the class panel, it's fairly obvious that the hunter concerns going into WotLK were not the major concerns of the developers.
Freezing Arrow - meant to assist hunters in 5 man and 10 man content? The fact that the developers actually believed this was a worthwhile PvE buff is one of the reasons some of those in the hunter community don't believe any of the Dev's have ever played a hunter. If you don't have to chain trap it, it's normally not worth trapping in the first place. If you do have to chain trap it, freezing arrow does NOTHING to help.
Here's a list of the problems that hunter traps have in 5 and 10 man content: 1) Heartbeat resists. 2) Flat-out resists. 3) Some baddie dot'ing up the target in some way making it impossible for a hunter to CC with a Freezing trap. 4) The CC not lasting as long as the cool down.
Freezing Arrow helps with NONE of those complaints. Freezing arrow actually makes #4 worse because it removes the ability to pre-trap, waiting for the cooldown to complete before pulling so a second trap is immediately ready.
Freezing Arrow was meant to help with caster mobs in the enemy party, or any of them really, as it doesn't cause aggro when it lands, allowing the hunter to throw a trap out there and then everyone can do their thing. Okay well the hunter throwing that trap out there and Then letting people do their thing causes a less amount of time to kill the other mobs before the trap needs to be reapplied. Laying a Freezing Trap on the ground and LoS'ing the target into the trap is just as effective, if not more so, then using Freezing arrow in a PvE situation.
The new D3 class is out, Wizard. Looks so much like a Sorcerer... well, let's just say you have the Barbarian from D2, and now there's a Barbarian in D3. You had the Necromancer in D2, and now there's the Witchdoctor. I wonder what's going to be next? Definitely something along the lines of a Holy or Spiritual class. Whether or not said class will be decked out in plate who knows.
Starcraft 2 is also being worked on, but the Blizzcon coverage didn't really say anything about it and I really don't care about RTS's. Activision Blizzard is still working on their "next-gen" mmo, supposedly in a whole new universe that we've never seen before. Sounds interesting to me, maybe they'll release some tidbits.
Back to the hunter class. In PvE we are currently destroying any and all other classes. By a good margin too. The damage pass has not gone through yet. As explained by the devs, it was either Koraa or GC I can't remember at the moment, the only class /spec currently slated for a definite damage reduction is unholy DK's.
Though with hunter DPS topping chars the way it is right now, it's hard to imagine a class that puts out such pitiful numbers in premade level 80 PvP gear in arenas also putting out such huge numbers in the raid environment. I mean, either we scale really really well with raid buffs or that's just how huge the difference is between us standing still and us moving when attacking something.
On that note though, it was recently rumored on the beta forums that with the new placement of readiness in the Marksmanship tree as the 21 pointer, TBW and Intimidation were both resettable. In other words, back to back TBW for a total of 36 seconds. That plus the addition of Freezing Arrow in it's new, sleeker form, could spell out some nice options for BM in arenas.
So just like all the other classes, there's confusion as to how we are going to do in the future. Blizzard seems to switch stances constantly. Sometimes pushing through changes that make no sense, it's as if none of the class developers have ever played a hunter before. And even though the label "huntard" has been given to... well, basically every hunter, even those players with only one for farming, it's still irksome. Blizzard's stance that we'll be a viable arena class in the future doesn't appear all that convincing all the time either.
I posted the following on the main forums earlier but here it is again in a concise manner: It's nice that there's a lot more developer/customer communication than there was with the TBC beta, it's very annoying to sometimes have great communication and other times there just being a huge wall. Blizzard only came halfway with their developer/beta customer communication, which ultimately left a bad taste in everyones mouth. Also, from the class panel, it's fairly obvious that the hunter concerns going into WotLK were not the major concerns of the developers.
Freezing Arrow - meant to assist hunters in 5 man and 10 man content? The fact that the developers actually believed this was a worthwhile PvE buff is one of the reasons some of those in the hunter community don't believe any of the Dev's have ever played a hunter. If you don't have to chain trap it, it's normally not worth trapping in the first place. If you do have to chain trap it, freezing arrow does NOTHING to help.
Here's a list of the problems that hunter traps have in 5 and 10 man content: 1) Heartbeat resists. 2) Flat-out resists. 3) Some baddie dot'ing up the target in some way making it impossible for a hunter to CC with a Freezing trap. 4) The CC not lasting as long as the cool down.
Freezing Arrow helps with NONE of those complaints. Freezing arrow actually makes #4 worse because it removes the ability to pre-trap, waiting for the cooldown to complete before pulling so a second trap is immediately ready.
Freezing Arrow was meant to help with caster mobs in the enemy party, or any of them really, as it doesn't cause aggro when it lands, allowing the hunter to throw a trap out there and then everyone can do their thing. Okay well the hunter throwing that trap out there and Then letting people do their thing causes a less amount of time to kill the other mobs before the trap needs to be reapplied. Laying a Freezing Trap on the ground and LoS'ing the target into the trap is just as effective, if not more so, then using Freezing arrow in a PvE situation.
Friday, September 26, 2008
The New Aimed Shot
Instant cast Aimed Shot. Amazing. Sadly, while the new aimed shot was not going to have any negative effects to it's new instant cast status, Blues have rescinded that change and decided to lower the damage output.
I was expecting something like this to happen, but was really hoping it wouldn't. Hunters need more instant cast damaging abilities because of our inability to keep a target locked down in one place, as well as our inability to easily escape from most targets. We've gained a number of abilities to help us escape, but our ability to deal the appropriate arena style damage had been lacking. With an instant cast aimed shot, we gain another shot that can be used on the go that provides real pressure.
Often times people compare us to mages in that both classes are effected by line of sigh issues. This just isn't the case. Mages have a number of skills to help keep them moving and their target in one place. Frost Nova, Sheep, Pet's Frost Nova, snares built into their damaging attacks, and also many, many, instant attacks. Hunters lacked any form of spammable instant attack that was considered worthwhile. Mages major issue wasn't their ability to combat LoS but their survivability, which they gained some major ground on with trainable Ice Block and now their armors being non dispellable.
Often times people compare hunters to Elemental Shamans. This is a better comparison then to mages, but the problems are that Ele shamans can still deal damage even when they're locked down by melee in one spot. Not to mention they have the ability to provide high damage burst almost instantly to any class regardless of armor.
Aimed Shot has a decently long cool down and its mana cost is already going to make spamming it prohibitive. Since it will never be a non mitigated attack I don't think it needs its damage output nerfed, and if Blizzard does go through with changing it, then by a very small percentage. The danger with the solution Blizzard has come up with is that they could potentially lower our burst DPS. While it was very hard to set up a Aimed Multi Steady Arcane combo, when it was pulled off that was a large amount of damage. With Aimed Shot providing a very good portion of it. Mortal Strike debuff on an enemy is a good thing, lower burst damage is not.
On another note: Trap Mastery and 41 Points Survival
I am disappointed in the movement of Trap Mastery all the way down the Survival Tree to a 41 point talent. It was an amazing 11 point talent that I was planning on taking no matter what my build as long as I was at least 15 points in the Survival Tree. The ability to extend the duration on Freezing Traps by 30%, allowing me to lay multiple trap coverings for excellent pillar humping techniques, was imo a very nice perk and worth a talent point. I'd probably even sink two talent points into it for that looking at the current alternatives. Thankfully Blizzard isn't going to link Explosive Shot and Trap Mastery, and hopefully it will regain it's 11 point status as soon as possible.
And updated again:
Ugh, the new new Aimed Shot... talk about a major let down. It goes from the damage of multi shot to the damage of possibly only higher then arcane shot? Arcane shot damage is nothing! I hope that we get to keep the major damage on this shot, as we need some abilities that do large portions of damage instead of just constantly chipping away at a target.
I was expecting something like this to happen, but was really hoping it wouldn't. Hunters need more instant cast damaging abilities because of our inability to keep a target locked down in one place, as well as our inability to easily escape from most targets. We've gained a number of abilities to help us escape, but our ability to deal the appropriate arena style damage had been lacking. With an instant cast aimed shot, we gain another shot that can be used on the go that provides real pressure.
Often times people compare us to mages in that both classes are effected by line of sigh issues. This just isn't the case. Mages have a number of skills to help keep them moving and their target in one place. Frost Nova, Sheep, Pet's Frost Nova, snares built into their damaging attacks, and also many, many, instant attacks. Hunters lacked any form of spammable instant attack that was considered worthwhile. Mages major issue wasn't their ability to combat LoS but their survivability, which they gained some major ground on with trainable Ice Block and now their armors being non dispellable.
Often times people compare hunters to Elemental Shamans. This is a better comparison then to mages, but the problems are that Ele shamans can still deal damage even when they're locked down by melee in one spot. Not to mention they have the ability to provide high damage burst almost instantly to any class regardless of armor.
Aimed Shot has a decently long cool down and its mana cost is already going to make spamming it prohibitive. Since it will never be a non mitigated attack I don't think it needs its damage output nerfed, and if Blizzard does go through with changing it, then by a very small percentage. The danger with the solution Blizzard has come up with is that they could potentially lower our burst DPS. While it was very hard to set up a Aimed Multi Steady Arcane combo, when it was pulled off that was a large amount of damage. With Aimed Shot providing a very good portion of it. Mortal Strike debuff on an enemy is a good thing, lower burst damage is not.
On another note: Trap Mastery and 41 Points Survival
I am disappointed in the movement of Trap Mastery all the way down the Survival Tree to a 41 point talent. It was an amazing 11 point talent that I was planning on taking no matter what my build as long as I was at least 15 points in the Survival Tree. The ability to extend the duration on Freezing Traps by 30%, allowing me to lay multiple trap coverings for excellent pillar humping techniques, was imo a very nice perk and worth a talent point. I'd probably even sink two talent points into it for that looking at the current alternatives. Thankfully Blizzard isn't going to link Explosive Shot and Trap Mastery, and hopefully it will regain it's 11 point status as soon as possible.
And updated again:
Ugh, the new new Aimed Shot... talk about a major let down. It goes from the damage of multi shot to the damage of possibly only higher then arcane shot? Arcane shot damage is nothing! I hope that we get to keep the major damage on this shot, as we need some abilities that do large portions of damage instead of just constantly chipping away at a target.
Introduction
I am Averice from the server Warsong in WoW. A hunter.
This blog is just meant to review and offer opinions on the happenings that go on with Blizzard and the hunter class. Only new information will really be posted about, as anything before this date would be too tiresome to actually slog through poorly indexed news reports to discuss.
This blog is just meant to review and offer opinions on the happenings that go on with Blizzard and the hunter class. Only new information will really be posted about, as anything before this date would be too tiresome to actually slog through poorly indexed news reports to discuss.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
