A fair question to all Hunters/Huntresses

[Vorel]

Greetings to all the community,from a casual player and casual (if non existent) poster.

Reason that i decide to post once again (and open a thread of course) is the fact that as i read here at these forums at Petopia and at others forums as well,i see/feel a frustration about our class (Hunter).

Nowadays all people murmur against all the changes our class granted with.I admit that Focus is a new thing to our class and make us feel a bit vulnerable (mainly at PvP occasions) since we cannot coordinate our shots/attacks as we used to prior the 4.0.1 patch.Still,Focus is more Hunter/Huntress like ability than our previous Mana resource,after all we have to focus to our target/victim rather than calculate if we have the sufficient mana (is a spiritual quality considered to have supernatural origin—a sacred impersonal force existing in the universe-taken form wikipedia) to effectively launch an attack,right?

And here is(/are) coming my question(s) (cause there are more than one,sorry).Why all people focused about the loss of our Volley ability,when instead we get (well we had it and before but now hit more than three targets) a non channeled multi-target instant attack?We can use "miss direct" shot and then cast "multi-shot" as we charge to our preys,right?Why all people crying about loss of mana and ability to shoot while we move,when we just take a hint of what things will look alike at Cataclysm (where Focus will be fully implemented-Aspect of the Fox and Cobra Shot will exist) and when there is no actually active PvP (no arena ladder is active as far am i concern,still free to correct me since i am not even casual PvP)?Why people moan nowadays,when we can be most effectively be part of a raid as we can support/bring the buffs a raid might be missing in exchange of a small loss of damage?And last but not least,why people that claim that they love their class (read Hunters/Huntresses) did not try to adapt the changes/evolution(?) of their beloved class,but instead make QQ threads and try to convince people that are neutral/happy with changes,that our class is ruined?

I am not willing to start a fight over who is right or not here,am just asked a few logical questions.If this thread is not appropriate delete it (or even don't care to post a reply to it),still if i got some replies-positives or not,is like a poll anyways-i will try to copy/paste (or even "point to...") this thread to http://forums.wow-europe.com/board.html?forumId=10016 (you may most of you be familiar with the link since is the official Europe's World of Warcraft Hunters' forums page).

Thanks all that have the patience to read my thread and/or post a reply,Vorel

[TygerDarkstorm]

I personally love our new changes. ^_^

The only spec I have issues with in pvp is BM, and that's more due to problems on my end not playing it right than the changes themselves. I was doing just fine with SV pvp. I do look forward to Aspect of the Fox to make pvp a little bit more forgiving.

[Sarayana]

I don't find everyone is complaining. To me it seems like a small handful, with far more people enjoying it.

Personally I love it. I do find multishot is too expensive - we can't sustain aoe dps like warlocks/mages/moonkin can, for example - but the positive by far outweigh the negative to me! This patch was definitely my favourite so far in WoW. Made my favourite class even better!!

[Mania]

I miss Volley, but that's entirely because I liked raining death from the heavens - usually onto crowds of things half my level (after making sure no one was hunting in the area).

I didn't think I would care one way or the other, but because focus comes and goes so fast I find myself using focus-cost attacks a lot more than I used to use mana-cost attacks. ... At least until I run out of focus the first time in a fight - I tend to forget after that and start auto-shotting things to death again. But at least I use it.

(What? I'm a bad hunter! I know that.)

[ForestTroll]

I don't find everyone is complaining. To me it seems like a small handful, with far more people enjoying it.

Personally I love it. I do find multishot is too expensive - we can't sustain aoe dps like warlocks/mages/moonkin can, for example - but the positive by far outweigh the negative to me! This patch was definitely my favourite so far in WoW. Made my favourite class even better!!

Have you tried beast within and multi shot o.o?

[Sarayana]

I don't find everyone is complaining. To me it seems like a small handful, with far more people enjoying it.

Personally I love it. I do find multishot is too expensive - we can't sustain aoe dps like warlocks/mages/moonkin can, for example - but the positive by far outweigh the negative to me! This patch was definitely my favourite so far in WoW. Made my favourite class even better!!

Have you tried beast within and multi shot o.o?

Yes, I have. If my BW is off cooldown (and we're not right about to pull a boss) I do use that at times. However, even then I get higher dps (and dpf!) if I pop BW and spam arcane until everything is dead or I'm out of focus. This usually puts me at the top of the charts. Two minutes is just too long a cooldown for chain pulls of trash. I'll go from 7k to 3k between two trash pulls while the mage is stable at 6k the whole time.

[Teigan]

I really miss volley (ah, raptor wreaths in WC, I shall miss you!) and EotB. But, I think I like focus. Granted, I'm a noob and really haven't spent much time with my spec, shot priorities, glyphs or a training dummy and haven't been running Recount. I don't have any idea what my DPS is right now, though I suspect it is quite bad. However, that's my fault, not the patches, I believe. But, I am killing mammoths faster than ever and really enjoy spamming arcane shot. There is my uneducated opinion.

[Kalliope]

I like the new multi vs. volley. The majority of those complaints on this forum are in a thread that's been revived from being dead several times. The new AoE options still need some tweaking, but they should serve as an excellent replacement in the long run.

Most of us seem pretty well-satisfied with flexibility in raids (though some are still somewhat skeptical about what our options will really be) and the replacement of mana with focus.

[Vephriel]

I'm a big fan of the new changes, I think Focus is wonderful and I'm so glad we finally got rid of the awkard Mana resource. Never quite clicked with hunters for me.

Overall the biggest hurdle is just adjusting to a different playstyle, but I find myself very comfortable with it. ^^

[Slickrock]

I don't find everyone is complaining. To me it seems like a small handful, with far more people enjoying it.

Personally I love it. I do find multishot is too expensive - we can't sustain aoe dps like warlocks/mages/moonkin can, for example - but the positive by far outweigh the negative to me! This patch was definitely my favourite so far in WoW. Made my favourite class even better!!

Have you tried beast within and multi shot o.o?

It's still not great. at all.

Frostheim mentioned it in one of the recent podcasts.

For MM, with the proper talents, Multi is good even with as few as 2 mobs. For SV it's 4-5. For BM, it's about 10.

That makes it basically worthless for BM. And the worm's AOE, while good for raiding, is likely not worth it for heroics, and is useless for soloing/questing.

All the other changes are workable or are clear improvements. But BM is without a worthwhile AOE. (If they want to remove the Aggro wipe on Burrow, then I'll accept that as workable).

[Wassa]

My thoughts on the hunter changes:

Focus is annoying. I'm still getting used to it. Right now I am main spec survival which I heard is the spec that has the most problems with gaining focus. I only have extra focus to arcane shot during bloodlust. Otherwise I am steady shotting half of the fight to just get enough focus to explosive shot. As of right now steady shot is really the only way to get focus back, as our passive focus regen is quite low even with all the haste we have. Some fights in ICC can disable our steady shot, such as Curse of Torpor from Lady Deathwhisper's fight and Malleable Goo from Prof Putricide, so for 20 secs I can only stand there doing little to no dps as I can't get any focus. =/

Now, focus did not ruin our class at all. It's just something that I personally need more time to get used to and may need to be tweaked a bit more from Blizzard. Aspect of the Fox, Cobra Shot and getting more haste with gear in cata will help as well.

I cannot speak about focus and PvP. I'm mostly a raider and haven't PvPed at all since the patch, but I heard how bad PvP as a hunter can be right now.

I love the new multi-shot especially as survival since it puts a serpent sting on my targets as well. For soloing I MD my pet, multi-shot, trap launch an explosive and wait for mobs to die from dots. The big difference from volley to multi is multi cannot be cast in melee range. This is annoying if you cannot MD at the time and aoeing down low level instances where you just pull whole rooms at a time. On the Anzu fight volley would be so much easier on those birds as they do not want to stay on my pet even with MD.

[Rhyela]

I'm not worried about AoE. Multi-shot is fine and to be honest, I'm willing to bet we're not going to *want* to use AoE so much in Cataclysm. It may feel like a nerf now in ICC (nukefest 2010), but we have to remember that Blizz is now working talents and such for the long run, not now. So I don't worry about it. No, my AoE DPS isn't as good as mages' but honestly, it shouldn't be.

I'm 100% happy with the changes we've gotten. I feel a lot more like a hunter now with focus, the new KC (which I really like), etc. Before I was just a mage with a gun (er, bow). I was SO SICK of every single pull being an AoE-fest. So sick, in fact, that I eventually stopped using Volley unless there were like 10+ mobs. It was just so boring. So yeah, I'm glad they're making things less nukey and more fun. I actually like BM again! I'm most happy about that.

[Vephriel]

I think I'm in the same mindset as you Rhyela for AoE. The loss of a powerful AoE doesn't bother me either because I don't feel as though it should be our specialty or anything. As you said, in Cataclysm they're going to be moving away from that mentality to burn everything down at once. I'd much rather focus on targets one by one to take down regardless though, it feels more 'right'. That's solely my opinion of course, I understand some people might be frustrated by that AoE loss, but for me it just wasn't an issue. I think of it more as another class/group member can excel in that niche and I can go on dishing out major damage to targets one by one.

[Slickrock]

At least for me as BM, of all the changes, the focus one is the one that I don't even notice now...

[TygerDarkstorm]

Personally, since SV's as focus heavy as it is, I find that I don't have time to AS. I don't even have it on my bars (which could be more of a pre-4.0 habit but eh). I just stick with the pre-4.0 rotation and I seem to be doing just fine as SV.

I also don't have a problem using a worm as a pet, both as a tank and for AoE, for BM. Combined with multishot (and MD if I'm soloing), burrow makes for some pretty awesome AoE damage. I've heard it gets better when combined with BW (haven't done it yet myself). Bringing a worm to a 5 man for trash pulls isn't that big of a deal either now that we can swap pets on the fly and out of combat (which isn't hard to do).

And Rhy and Veph, you guys have it right. We won't be AoEing in Cata the way we're AoEing now. I've had to tell so many classes since 4.0 that have done nothing but complain about their AoE damage nerf that they won't need it anyway.

[Vephriel]

*nods* To me I just feel like it's no problem letting another class do the AoE instead. I don't sit there in dungeons and mourn the fact that I can't lend a hand in that regard anymore, I just think of it being another member's forté.

[Slickrock]

I also don't have a problem using a worm as a pet, both as a tank and for AoE,

How are you tanking with it with the aggro dump?

[Rhyela]

*nods* To me I just feel like it's no problem letting another class do the AoE instead. I don't sit there in dungeons and mourn the fact that I can't lend a hand in that regard anymore, I just think of it being another member's forté.

And on that same note, that "other class" would be my brother's mage who is now in love with his fire spec again. He says it feels like he's a real mage again. I'm with you, I don't mind letting other classes have better AoE than me. We hunters shine in other ways. I don't want every class to feel the same, anyway. I still feel happy with the changes to all classes I play thus far. OMG, I especially love resto druid healing now. Pre-4.0, it was mostly just Nourish spam. Now we have big, lovely HoT's, the way I like. We suffer a little on direct healing, but that's how it should be IMO. Druids have always (well, for a long time anyway) been known as the HoT/raid heal class. So with the new Efflorescence and changes to regrowth and all that, I think it feels so much better now. And I especially like that ToL is CD ability now that buffs other things. It makes things more interesting!

<3 4.0 so far!

[Ikult]

Personally, I'm SO happy that Volley is gone.
Using one button every 4-5secs and racing to the top of the DPS charts is BORING. AS. YOUKNOWWHAT.

The game is trending more toward Vanilla / early BC now (YAY).
I never, ever, used Volley until mid-BC. Volley was a waste of mana when I could be trapping / Distracting shotting / kiting / etc. As I saw it, a hunter's unique job was NOT to aoe dps- it was to watch the flow of battle, kite important bosses or unimportant trash, make sure the tank kept threat, and to save the healer if they were getting attacked (normally by sacrificing your pet, and sometimes yourself).

I was so sick of Misdirecting the tank, Volley'ing trash. MD, Volley. MD, Volley. There was no trapping, no kiting, no shot rotation except on lengthy bosses, no pet management. It was getting very discouraging.

I am MUCH happier now. So, so happy. I will never return to the top of dps charts, especially as BM, but you know what I'll be doing? Saving that awesome dps mage from that add, so he can aoe the trash; or save the healer so we don't wipe on the boss.

Yup, that's me, I'm FINALLY returning to my true love for this class- the Guardian of the Party!

[Vephriel]

Personally, I'm SO happy that Volley is gone.
Using one button every 4-5secs and racing to the top of the DPS charts is BORING. AS. YOUKNOWWHAT.

The game is trending more toward Vanilla / early BC now (YAY).
I never, ever, used Volley until mid-BC. Volley was a waste of mana when I could be trapping / Distracting shotting / kiting / etc. As I saw it, a hunter's unique job was NOT to aoe dps- it was to watch the flow of battle, kite important bosses or unimportant trash, make sure the tank kept threat, and to save the healer if they were getting attacked (normally by sacrificing your pet, and sometimes yourself).

I was so sick of Misdirecting the tank, Volley'ing trash. MD, Volley. MD, Volley. There was no trapping, no kiting, no shot rotation except on lengthy bosses, no pet management. It was getting very discouraging.

I am MUCH happier now. So, so happy. I will never return to the top of dps charts, especially as BM, but you know what I'll be doing? Saving that awesome dps mage from that add, so he can aoe the trash; or save the healer so we don't wipe on the boss.

Yup, that's me, I'm FINALLY returning to my true love for this class- the Guardian of the Party!

/highfive