Good bye Volley, It was nice knowing you... : (

[Mockingbird]

Indeed, his initial wording wasn't 100% clear so of COURSE the wow-forum doomsingers immedately started kicking of about how it was a massive nerf and OH SO UNFAIR and all the rest. It must be a horrible job having to communicate anything that resembles a change to a group with the reactionary idiot ratio of the official forums.

Like they would actually just remove it and do nothing else. The number of times people seem to be more than willing to say how much Cata's going to suck due to X change while comparing it entirely to live is just mind boggling. Maybe I expect too much of the average wow forum poster. At least here on petopia people seem to be much more willing to read and understand

Idea: Ghostcrawler should just put a post on the general forums stating "We're actually planning to nerf one of the classes by about 10% damage overall, and make it harder to maintain maximum damage. I can't say more at the moment." and see what happens.

[Kalliope]

It must be a horrible job having to communicate anything that resembles a change to a group with the reactionary idiot ratio of the official forums.

This is why I still remain somewhat sympathetic to GC and his ilk, who DO generally care about communicating with us. GC is generally up front with us. The guy is human. Players tend to overreact horribly.

Idea: Ghostcrawler should just put a post on the general forums stating "We're actually planning to nerf one of the classes by about 10% damage overall, and make it harder to maintain maximum damage. I can't say more at the moment." and see what happens.

I'd LOVE to see this.

[Slickrock]

Another blue post on it..

I know I'm going to regret posting in this thread again, but I think it's the right thing to do so I'll take one for the team.

We think Multi-Shot is a more interesting ability and can fill the hunter AE niche (along with Explosive Trap). We'll have to change Multi-Shot from the current version to get it there. I'm very sorry if for some unusual reason Volley was your favorite spell as a hunter. We've been trying to consolidate abilities and free up some bar space and having multiple AEs that competed with each other seems like a good area to hit up. The Volley and Multi-Shot niches were very similar, which resulted in the latter being dead. We wanted to pick one and we though Multi-Shot felt more huntery and less "clunky" (to use a favorite Wow forums term).

Do consider that you won't be AE'ing yourselves through Cataclysm content the way you do currently. When you do need to AE, hunters will have the tools to do so. In situations where you do have to AE, you are probably not also trying to CC. When you're back to the level of trivializing lower level content, nobody is going to say "Don't bring a hunter. Their AE spam isn't spammy enough." We don't consider easily breaking rogues out of stealth a good reason to keep Volley around.

I think that hits most of the reasonable concerns. I care much less about addressing the unreasonable ones.

As always, those of you whose sole contribution is to post very inane or derogatory things will be banned.

Man, have we come a long way from "AE is only for trash."

If they upgrade multi to replace volley, that's fine. But, they need to give each spec a way to boost multi, through talents, or really eliminate AE situations, otherwise MM will be the ONLY raid spec due to barrage and Imp barrage.

Volley was kinda klunky the way he describes. They just better fix multi.

[FuzzyDolly]

Is it just hunters losing their AoE, or are all classes losing them? If it's just hunters then it's not fair. Maybe instead of getting rid of it all together, they should make it have a longer CD or use more focus so we can't spam it. On the other hand, they could incorporate a cone effect into the Mutli attack to it hits everything in a cone coming from the weapon instead of just 3 enemies. Or even up the ante to 6 enemies. Even that would be a nice mid point.

Honestly, my biggest gripe about losing Volley is the ease it leands to farming leather from the Mamoths by Hodir, but then again, I guess I can just have my pet aggro several then multi shot them. We'll have to see what happens.

[Quin]

Don't forget that

• You don't know how the new hunter will behave before Cata is finished and on your hard drive
• almost all cooldowns will be gone and you just have to decide what to do with your focus
• the multishot abilty might be changed to make up for that "loss"
• The new style of play will need CC and go away from the bombing

So keep it cool, people...

I'm not stressed really. I just thought the "reasoning" given by Ghostcrawler was funny.

"It's too magical, but here, fire this bag of snakes at people!"

[Vephriel]

Another blue post on it..

I know I'm going to regret posting in this thread again, but I think it's the right thing to do so I'll take one for the team.

We think Multi-Shot is a more interesting ability and can fill the hunter AE niche (along with Explosive Trap). We'll have to change Multi-Shot from the current version to get it there. I'm very sorry if for some unusual reason Volley was your favorite spell as a hunter. We've been trying to consolidate abilities and free up some bar space and having multiple AEs that competed with each other seems like a good area to hit up. The Volley and Multi-Shot niches were very similar, which resulted in the latter being dead. We wanted to pick one and we though Multi-Shot felt more huntery and less "clunky" (to use a favorite Wow forums term).

Do consider that you won't be AE'ing yourselves through Cataclysm content the way you do currently. When you do need to AE, hunters will have the tools to do so. In situations where you do have to AE, you are probably not also trying to CC. When you're back to the level of trivializing lower level content, nobody is going to say "Don't bring a hunter. Their AE spam isn't spammy enough." We don't consider easily breaking rogues out of stealth a good reason to keep Volley around.

I think that hits most of the reasonable concerns. I care much less about addressing the unreasonable ones.

As always, those of you whose sole contribution is to post very inane or derogatory things will be banned.

Man, have we come a long way from "AE is only for trash."

I think that's a much more reasonable response. Again, I'm not too concerned. I know everything will come together by the time of Cataclysm's release. I appreciate that blue taking the time to clarify things though.

[Cerah]

Perhaps I sounded too much like one of those trolls on the official forums with my initial post in this topic. I apologize for that.

However, I was rather upset. Just announcing that they were going to take away the only viable AOE attack beastmaster hunters have (excluding traps), just irked me really badly. I started playing about a year and a half ago -- Wrath play style is all I've ever known, and I don't really want to have to relearn how to use my toon after two years.

I don't use traps because they don't really fit my play style. You have to be out of combat to set them, and let's face it, most tanks in groups aren't going to wait around for you to set them unless it's a boss and they specifically ask for them. I use multi-shot, but having to wait 10 seconds between casts makes it just not feasible for it to be a main aoe ability.

If they upgrade multi-shot to act more like volley -- get rid of the cooldown and allow it to hit more targets -- then I won't have a problem with removing one or the other, kind of like how they're getting rid of Mongoose Bite but presumably keeping Raptor Strike for melee range. Or if they make traps easier to use in combat -- maybe with trap launcher allowing you to shoot traps into groups of mobs. Hell, the only trap I really use is the freezing one because of the ranged launcher. I just didn't want them to get rid of our capacity for AOE all together. It's hard enough getting into raids -- we don't need more nerfs.

Anyway, I apologize for my own lack of communication. As an English major, I really should know better.

[Vephriel]

I don't use traps because they don't really fit my play style. You have to be out of combat to set them, and let's face it, most tanks in groups aren't going to wait around for you to set them unless it's a boss and they specifically ask for them.

Traps can be placed in combat! ^^

[Karathyriel]

I never tried...

If I sat a fire trap followed by a frost trap...
...will my foe be frozen while burning?

[Quin]

I never tried...

If I sat a fire trap followed by a frost trap...
...will my foe be frozen while burning?

I don't think so. Doesn't damage break the trap? I really only use that one to tame to be honest.

[Adam-Savage]

I don't use traps because they don't really fit my play style. You have to be out of combat to set them, and let's face it, most tanks in groups aren't going to wait around for you to set them unless it's a boss and they specifically ask for them.

Traps can be placed in combat! ^^

I was gonna say that but I was not sure if she was referring to beta or not. I do use my traps when I can but alot of the time it slows you down because you have to walk up to the mobs and place the traps. Meanwhile you could be standing away from them using volley during this time.

[Adam-Savage]

I never tried...

If I sat a fire trap followed by a frost trap...
...will my foe be frozen while burning?

I don't think so. Doesn't damage break the trap? I really only use that one to tame to be honest.

Yes damage will break the trap and they become unfrozen.

[Kalliope]

I never tried...

If I sat a fire trap followed by a frost trap...
...will my foe be frozen while burning?

If you're using a FREEZE trap, the trap will break due to the fire dot.

If you're using a FROST trap, the target will be slowed and burning. I do the latter quite a bit, stacking explosive/snake/frost traps. I also like laying them out in a line for kiting melee.

[Sukurachi]

As much as one might WANT to be nice to Blizzard employees, there's a very strange coincidence that every time there's some firestorm on the forums about a change to some class or game element, it seems that GhostCrawler is there at the center of it.

I remember clearly his comments on people requesting more character slots.

He equates having 10 toons on an account as having one "legitimate" toon, the rest can be deleted.

And here he is "announcing" a rather major change to the Hunter class, and he leaves out a rather crucial element of the change (possible/probable changes to multi-shot) which would most definitely have softened the blow of said announcement.

it's like he's a giant bungling nutjob, on a mission to get people as riled up as possible.

[Saturo]

I remember clearly his comments on people requesting more character slots.

He equates having 10 toons on an account as having one "legitimate" toon, the rest can be deleted.

Would someone be able to link to that? Please...?

[Foru21dr]

As much as one might WANT to be nice to Blizzard employees, there's a very strange coincidence that every time there's some firestorm on the forums about a change to some class or game element, it seems that GhostCrawler is there at the center of it.

I remember clearly his comments on people requesting more character slots.

He equates having 10 toons on an account as having one "legitimate" toon, the rest can be deleted.

And here he is "announcing" a rather major change to the Hunter class, and he leaves out a rather crucial element of the change (possible/probable changes to multi-shot) which would most definitely have softened the blow of said announcement.

it's like he's a giant bungling nutjob, on a mission to get people as riled up as possible.

I think anybody can say anything about a change to a character, and it will rile up people... Not just GC. I feel sorry for him sometimes that he has to take the brunt of people's ire because a change is being put in place. But it doesn't matter who has to say it.... Any change will be blasted as it is human nature to not like it.

[Palladiamorsdeus]

Another blue post on it..

I know I'm going to regret posting in this thread again, but I think it's the right thing to do so I'll take one for the team.

We think Multi-Shot is a more interesting ability and can fill the hunter AE niche (along with Explosive Trap). We'll have to change Multi-Shot from the current version to get it there. I'm very sorry if for some unusual reason Volley was your favorite spell as a hunter. We've been trying to consolidate abilities and free up some bar space and having multiple AEs that competed with each other seems like a good area to hit up. The Volley and Multi-Shot niches were very similar, which resulted in the latter being dead. We wanted to pick one and we though Multi-Shot felt more huntery and less "clunky" (to use a favorite Wow forums term).

Do consider that you won't be AE'ing yourselves through Cataclysm content the way you do currently. When you do need to AE, hunters will have the tools to do so. In situations where you do have to AE, you are probably not also trying to CC. When you're back to the level of trivializing lower level content, nobody is going to say "Don't bring a hunter. Their AE spam isn't spammy enough." We don't consider easily breaking rogues out of stealth a good reason to keep Volley around.

I think that hits most of the reasonable concerns. I care much less about addressing the unreasonable ones.

As always, those of you whose sole contribution is to post very inane or derogatory things will be banned.

Man, have we come a long way from "AE is only for trash."

I think that's a much more reasonable response. Again, I'm not too concerned. I know everything will come together by the time of Cataclysm's release. I appreciate that blue taking the time to clarify things though.

Agreed, that was a much more well thought out response on his part. Had he responded that way in the first place then I wouldn't have gotten so irritated over it. I may disagree with him, I do think Volley was a cooler and more interesting ability, but everything else comes out alright.

That being said, I DON'T sympathize with the man anymore. I used to, but I've seen him be an outright jerk to the community a few to many times now. Not just with the trolls, but with real concerns or issues. There is a time and a place to have a sense of humor, or be snarky, and that just doesn't seem to be a lesson he's learned yet.

[Silvarain]

However, I was rather upset. Just announcing that they were going to take away the only viable AOE attack beastmaster hunters have (excluding traps), just irked me really badly. I started playing about a year and a half ago -- Wrath play style is all I've ever known, and I don't really want to have to relearn how to use my toon after two years.

i feel for you Cerah, for im in the same boat (and what a soft compfy boat hehe). i dont look forward to relearning my hunters but it may be fun depending on the change outcome. i think ill wait till after cata to get back on my priest.... glad shes not even lv 20 yet. i just hope that there wont be much hunter hating going on after cata or my raiding career my just end or at least it being more of a free-for-all with all the changes: *class*tard

like it was sayed, there will always be outrage/outcries but most wont happen if carefully choosen words are use before hand. GC doesnt have time to look over these forums, right? kinda a shame

[SpiritBinder]

1) Volley is best for groups of more then 3.
2) Volley can be used at melee range.
3) Volley can hit things that would otherwise be out of LoS.
4) Volley can shoot behind you.

1) Multi is best for 2 or 3 mobs.
2) Multi is only good at range.
3) Multi can only be used when you have LoS.
4) Multi you need to be facing the target.

Don’t know about you, but they are not even in the same ball park when it comes to abilities. Even if they make multi act a little more like volley we will have a new volley and have lost multi. No matter what happens, we lost a small amount of versatility.

This was posted on another forum, allot of things that I also did not think about, the melee range/los/behind you things are all things that I use volley for atm and had not taken into account.

One of the other reasons bliz wanted to remove it was because they wanted to free up our bars? It's one button... What about trap launcher? We currently have Imo, Exp, Free, Frost and snake trap. With their trap launcher idea, there will now be 5 more buttons!?! Launch Imo, Launch Exp, Launch Free, Launch Frost and Launch snake trap.

Can you imagine if they took away blizzard and said to Mages, we think that its odd that fire and arcane mages can cast the spell blizzard, so Fire blast, Cone of cold and arcane explosion will now be your retrospective aoe abilities. You'll will have more free buttons that way !


I am becoming a little more disturbed by the reasoning behind it all. /sigh

[Adam-Savage]

Got this from Hunters union.

Sounds likely to me that they’re in a schedule. So removed Volley and didn’t have time to change Multi-Shot properly. That actually backs up the idea that they’re changing the entire mechanics of the shot instead of just buffing up damage or number of targets hit. Plus they’d get feedback from the current state of Multi-Shot, something they didn’t get before simply because no one used the damn thing with Volley on their action bars.

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