Class Balance Q&A: Hunter

[Vephriel]

Here's the full transcript for hunter-related questions from WoW Insider:

Phoenix asked:
Hello Blizzard! Will the hunters be able to parry with bows in MoP? :O
Ghostcrawler answered:
No. Hunters will lose parry as part of the trade-off for losing minimum range.

Guest asked:
Will hunters be able to equip melee weapons instead of a ranged weapon in MoP, even if just for show ?
Xelnath answered:
Yes.

Sweep asked:
Hello, for the hunter Talent; Transmorph Trap. Can more of a description be given on it? Is it the same as a hex effect, or can you also fear the target after while they're turned into a beast?
Celestalon answered:
Transmorph Trap is a nature trap (and so can be placed at the same time as Freezing Trap), and allows you to cast Scare Beast on the transmorphed target. It will have a similar duration to Freezing Trap.

Nicholas Gates asked:
As a hunter I love collecting the odd pets that only a BM can but I dont get to use them much while raiding because to max my DPS I raid MM. I spend the time and effort to get these pets but noone sees them very often. Will we in the future see hunters be able to use these pets in any spec?
Celestalon answered:
We're actually excited to see how spec balance for Hunters turns out in 4.3. We're pretty confident that their raw damage is competitive between all 3 specs now, and so hope to see more exotic pets in raids, as well as survival hunters, and specs chosen based on the situational utility that they offer. We definitely want to reserve exotic pets as a BM-only perk though.

Smarty asked:
Considering the remove of melee weapons for hunters in Cataclysm, will the currently existing utility spells that require a melee weapon be replaced. (especially Raptorstrike Glyph)
Wradyx answered:
Removing melee weapons from Hunters and removing their minimum range on their attacks will have many different balance implications. We will carefulyl evaluate all their defensive abilities to make sure they don't become too survivable, or conversely too easy to kill. Mechanics on glyphs will be kept in some form if we feel they are valuable to the design, but some glyph mechanics may go away as no longer necessary.

Timothy asked:
im saying this for most hunters but y hasnt the snake trap damage been increased i have used it at max lvl a few times but the trap when the snakes attackk each one only does like 25 damage each is there a way you can fix this trap so that it does more damage
Koraa answered:
Snake Trap is intended to be utility, not damage. The damage on it is just there for flavor, really.

Alexander Howell asked:
Aspect of the cheetah/pack have seemed a little outdated with the daze on hit mechanic and can't really use them effectively in raids or pvp. Are there any plans to change these aspects to more a cooldown spell like stampeding roar or a self run speed for aspect of the cheetah?
Koraa answered:
Yes, we plan on it not dazing you but turn off the speed bonus for a short while when you get hit in those aspects (or at least Cheetah).

Chris Kramer asked:
Have you considered having a pet stampede spell where our 5 pet stable rushes our enemy for a 5min cd? Too epic for GC?
Xelnath answered:
Yes.
Zarhym:
Haha. It appears it was considered then.
Xelnath:
There's no such thing as too epic. Just ask Thrall

The melee weapon answer is certainly nice to know for collectors/RPers, as Mia mentioned earlier in a thread. It seems Blizzard is very intent on keeping Exotics as BM only. And finally, removal of the daze effect from Cheetah! I'm more than willing to pay a momentary loss of the speed if we no longer become dazed.

[TygerDarkstorm]

Not gonna lie, I like that they're keeping exotics for BM only. It's really about the only fancy thing BM's even capable of doing since we don't really have a signature shot or anything and our damage is "subpar*" compared to MM.

*Worth noting here that I say this because MM is proven as the top end damage for right now. However, that's not to say that BM and good BM players are bad and that it's a horrible spec. I dearly love BM; it's my favorite spec.

[Melentari]

I am actually really, really happy about the melee weapon thing. I just got the set of Breeching Comets that I wanted way back in BC, and I wasn't looking forward to getting rid of them. It was going to break my heart.

[Worba]

Hopefully they'll elaborate as to whether hunters rolling on "posing weapons" will be able to roll /need or otherwise compete with meleers.

Just feels silly. If we can equip melee weapons, great, but just for the sake of looks? Hell we can do that in the dressing room preview window now - with any gear.

EDIT: and yes, stop trying to pry exotics away from BM spec already - I was heartened to see Blizzard put the kibosh on that silly idea. Like it's not enough the other specs get to start off with aimed or explosive shot whilst BM has to wait till lvl 69 for anything unique!

[Lisaara]

Not gonna lie, I like that they're keeping exotics for BM only. It's really about the only fancy thing BM's even capable of doing since we don't really have a signature shot or anything and our damage is "subpar*" compared to MM.

*Worth noting here that I say this because MM is proven as the top end damage for right now. However, that's not to say that BM and good BM players are bad and that it's a horrible spec. I dearly love BM; it's my favorite spec.

^ This. :3 Leave BM alone. Let us have something unique...which in this case is exotics.

Also I love the end of it. Nothing is too epic. Just ask Thrall!

[Kalliope]

And finally, removal of the daze effect from Cheetah! I'm more than willing to pay a momentary loss of the speed if we no longer become dazed.

Omg, yes, this!

[SpiritBinder]

One other thing that I found of interest was this ~

General:

*
The current 5.0 model is that there are 8 raid buffs: health, attack power, spell power, melee haste, spell haste, crit, mastery and stats.

Which I interpret as a list of buffs that ours pets will now possibly be providing in 5.0?

If there are only these 8 buffs, does that mean there will be no more extra bleed damage? or 8% spell damage? or 4% extra physical damage? And if so, what will the pets that currently offer those buffs now be offering? Food for thought

Omg, yes, this!

Omg, yes this, 2x!

[TygerDarkstorm]

Well, both the increased bleed and 4% extra physical damage are debuffs and not buffs. I rather hope they aren't going away, especially the 4% increase to physical damage.

[Kalliope]

Well, both the increased bleed and 4% extra physical damage are debuffs and not buffs. I rather hope they aren't going away, especially the 4% increase to physical damage.

Blizz said in a blue post somewhere recently that the increased bleed debuff is on the chopping block. I don't recall offhand if the physical one was also on the block.

[TygerDarkstorm]

Well, I was never fond of the bleed one anyway since almost every other bleed class that relies on their bleeds brings their own increaser (and thus buffing a MM hunter as well). So I'm really not worried about that one going away but I knew others liked it.

The 4% increased physical though is actually really useful so I'll be sad if it goes away.

I was more pointing out that buffs are not the same as debuffs.

[Kalliope]

Oops, crud, I totally misread your initial post. >_< Oh well, at least this is an informative side direction.

I'm actually slightly grateful for the potential loss of the bleed debuff, since it means that rhinos will automatically have to gain a different buff/debuff, which fixes their bad combination.

I'm hoping that the increased physical damage debuff stays too, if only because it was usually the only buff I had to bring!

[SpiritBinder]

I was more pointing out that buffs are not the same as debuffs.

Sorry, I did not mean to offend, but yeah your right, they are not "buffs"..... but then some pets do buff and will likely change. eg roar of courage, etc.

I did read about the bleed debuff being removed too but point is moot.

[TygerDarkstorm]

No worries! It has been an informative discussion.

Also, it wasn't offending. I just like pointing out stuff like that so it doesn't confuse other people.

[Kalliope]

As MaximumOverdrive pointed out in a semi-duplicate thread, MMO put up another post that has additional information: http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/254 ... ts-Fan-Art

Said post included the following question that the devs wanted to address, but it slipped through the cracks:

Q: Hunters have a lot of damage coming from high values of static nonscaling Attack Power and high base damage, but severely lack longterm scaling, causing them to fall behind by the end of the expansion despite starting very powerful in the first tier. Especially Survival. Are there any ideas or plans to address overall Hunter scaling?

The developers meant to answer this specific question -- they've said so -- but somehow it slipped through the cracks. The answer is that we have tried for some time to keep physical attacks feeling distinct by designing some to be mostly weapon based, and others as mostly (or entirely) attack power based. This applies to most melee characters, as well as hunters. But we have continually been stymied by scaling issues and player confusion, so our plan in 5.0 is to make nearly all of these attacks scale by both weapon damage and attack power (or ranged attack power) to about the same degree.

Our internal 4.3 testing for hunters shows Marksman, Survival, and Beast Mastery very close. This doesn’t always play out in encounters, because players often develop different strategies when encounters go live (than they did during PTR testing). In 4.2 encounters, the three hunter specs were not as far apart in DPS as many players believe, but because the hunters who would get the most DPS out of any spec tend to play Marksmanship, there is a sampling bias towards Marksmanship. We sometimes see DPS averages drop for spec A when we buff spec B (and don't touch spec A), simply because many very-talented players migrate towards spec B.

(source)

[Monica Gems]

I like the part where the hunter's base damage vs scaling was asked and answered. Oh wait.
ETA; As for the blizzard quote above me, that didn't eally address anything. Hunters seem to be the only class that gets worse as the gear gets better; I mean, great, our 3 specs are closer together. But BM doing MM's 30-35k while warriors and mages and shaman and whatever are bearing down on 40 isn't fixing the problem.

Add me to the group of people who are pleased to still be able to equip melee weapons, though. Good stuff.

[MaximumOverdrive]

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/205873/stampede

Here's another comment about the stampede spell. I would so love this.

[TygerDarkstorm]

I'm *thrilled* that they're even considering a stampede spell for hunters.

[MaximumOverdrive]

The blue made another comment about it in the same post about 30 min ago.

[Litlemouse]

This seems nice and all, but I still don't understand the Snake Trap answer o.O

[Kalliope]

This seems nice and all, but I still don't understand the Snake Trap answer o.O

Snake traps aren't intended to be a "damage" trap. Those snakes have a bunch of different debuffs (think various rogue poisons) that they all apply at the same time, possibly on multiple targets....or one really unlucky single target. But their bites don't hit very hard. They aren't meant to be these massive, powerful mini-pets - just snake-shaped poison dispensers.