Hunter Changes in 5.4

[Ariamodasu]

Sigh this will bite.

Gonna have to rush gear Mits so can attempt OS3D 25man and pull Sendeni out of Vortex farming to get raptors before I lose my silence wonderful. Aria is too damn vulnerable (More so with the Moonkin now losing damage reduction, what) to handle these things as Balance which is why I relied on a Hunter alt to help.

[Gimlion]

This absolutely baffles me. Everyone is upset that BM lost one of their signatures for years to the talent tree. Then they decide to give the absolute strongest choice, and honestly one of our most important spells, TO ONE SPEC. Congrats if you play MM, but seriously, what the hell is happening to our class right now? Do these devs even know wtf they're doing?

[Funk]

Yeah the Moonkin damage reduction is pretty depressing. My main is slowly becoming my Moonkin 'cause of how fun it is to play haha. I assume its because well geared Moonkins are hard to kill in PvP.

On the bright side, Nature's Swiftness is being replaced by what looks like a new heal:

"Ysera's Gift, a new talent healing the Druid for 5% of their maximum health every 5 seconds. If the Druid is at full health, it will heal the most injured friendly target nearby instead. This talent fills the spot vacated by Nature's Swiftness."

(from the patch notes)

On the PTR it is passive and has a 100yrd range.

I liked the nice, insta-heal from using Nature's Swiftness and Healing Touch but with this being passive it might balance out.

Hmmm. I don't know. I should play around with different talents more and see what I like better for solo-ing.

If you were US realm I'd help you with OS25 3D :c

Edit: Sorry this wasn't totally hunter related xD

[Slickrock]

Hate to say it, but based on recent Blue posts, there are more PVP induced changes coming, so be prepared for your PVP utility to be nerfed far below the ground, and likely your soloing capabilities along with it. I suspect that our rotations are gonna get F****D as well. Seems like they won't be happy until all the top rated teams using hunters swap to some other class, so that one can get nerfed in 6.1.

I'm afraid we won't recognize our class when they are done with us. BM might get the beat-down too, so be prepared to brush up on your SV or MM spec.

[Ariamodasu]

Yeah the Moonkin damage reduction is pretty depressing. My main is slowly becoming my Moonkin 'cause of how fun it is to play haha. I assume its because well geared Moonkins are hard to kill in PvP.

On the bright side, Nature's Swiftness is being replaced by what looks like a new heal:

"Ysera's Gift, a new talent healing the Druid for 5% of their maximum health every 5 seconds. If the Druid is at full health, it will heal the most injured friendly target nearby instead. This talent fills the spot vacated by Nature's Swiftness."

(from the patch notes)

On the PTR it is passive and has a 100yrd range.

I liked the nice, insta-heal from using Nature's Swiftness and Healing Touch but with this being passive it might balance out.

Hmmm. I don't know. I should play around with different talents more and see what I like better for solo-ing.

If you were US realm I'd help you with OS25 3D :c

Edit: Sorry this wasn't totally hunter related xD

I've been a Balance Druid since Vanilla so Aria's always been my main Just with plain hating raids out of sheer boredem/dealing with stupid I am pretty vulnerable if something tries to beat my face in. Alas! We're so gear dependent it's silly.

Is typical I power leveled my Alliance Hunter for Brewfest to finally get my Brewfest Kodo so she has way better gear than my Horde Hunter Mitsuko who would get guild help to get us all that gorgeous Twilight drake. She dinged on Nesingwary in Four Winds which shows how out of kilter she is and how much gear I'll have to zerg up to compensate being our highest levels are mostly casters. That is in big part why Stampede nerf will really bite as that burst melee distraction is just what we need!

Plus the Dino-mancers, not a chance in hell I'm touching them on Aria so losing silencing shot will be a bleeding nightmare for me to farm them...

PvP nuking effecting all, this sounds so familiar to many Druid nerfs into the floor over the years...

[Gelannerai]

Has there been any sort of blue response on how this change stonewalls people trying to tame Hutia?

[Nachtwulf]

why rather not worry about the fact that 80% of the arena team above a certain rating are hunter-oriented?
And there are changes coming for Hunters as well as the recent hotfixes that stopped pets summoned by Stampede using abilities and giving Blink Strikes a 20 second cooldown.

Hot damn. WE GET MORE NERFS. OH GOODIE.

I hate pvpers so much right now.

[Nachtwulf]

Has there been any sort of blue response on how this change stonewalls people trying to tame Hutia?

also I made a post on the forums about it here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic ... 596?page=1

so far no joy from the blues though, of course. And a lot of people who don't seem to understand what a 'non-pet-related interrupt' is. Like...the guy who says you can use Feign.

Sure dude. Go back to your 58 DK.

[Aeladrine]

I really do hope they respond to your thread, Nacht. Someone brought up a good point, though. One I didn't think of. If only MM has access to a silence, we are gimped.

[Nachtwulf]

Well, we do have access to 'ghetto silences' among certain pets like bats (I tend to use nether ray tanks for this reason) but it doesn't help matters in a lot of cases because pet AI isn't good enough to keep up with PVP and in some areas (like Hutia) you can't have a pet out at all.

also I'm pretty sure bosses are immune to most pet abilities, so there's that.

[Gimlion]

I'm actually incredibly fond of the Nether Ray silence, especially as a macroed silence, but it does not in any way replace Silence Shot.

[Harvoc]

Those kinds of posts have been going on for a while on the arena forums. Thing is, none of them realize that hunters aren't OP in PvE and none of them understand how to balance a game. In arenas it wasn't just that hunters were very very good, but also that they had great synergy with feral (and as far as I can tell, any melee) add a healer into a competent team and the trio was very OP.

I guess I should mention also, that if you don't do arena, or have friends that do arena, or browse the arena forums/watch youtube videos then you'd probably have no idea that hunters were so absolutely OP. That's part of why I wish when they balanced they'd take into consideration how different PvP and PvE can be for any given class and maybe make PvE/PvP specific changes.

THIS. SO MUCH THIS. I don't know if all of the PvP QQers realize but, hunters got MANY nerfs with 5.3. Their burst damage was nerfed with the Blink Strike change and the PvP power 4-set bonus. Their CC was nerfed with the increase to pet CC cooldowns along with the removal of the 30% cooldown reduction from being BM. Their utility was also nerfed because now, Roar of Sacrifice and Bullheaded have longer cooldowns too. Lastly, they lost Intimidation because Silencing Shot was almost always better. The only buffs they got were to compensate for PvE.

One of the only reasons they're doing better this patch than last patch, IN SPITE OF THEIR MASSIVE NERFS, is because the other ranged specs were nerfed as well. Shadow got hit pretty hard with the Mass Dispel and Void Shift nerfs, mages got their Incanter's Ward nerfed, and Destro locks got their Chaos Bolt nerfed.

The other reason is because most of the melee specs got buffs as well. Ferals got a buff to Savage Roar (and the Force of Nature change opened up more options to them too), WW monks got a buff to Rising Sun Kick and Nimble Brew, Ret pallies got a buff to Sword of Light (15% more damage), Enhancement shammies got a damage reduction buff with the Glyph of Lightning Shield AND got damage buffs too, and Arms warriors got a buff to their survivability with the Defensive Stance and Shield Wall changes. The only melee that received nerfs were Unholy DKs (though they also got a buff to Necrotic Strike's healing absorption effect) and rogues. Nevertheless, PHD and Thug Cleave are still going strong and PriestHDK has rocketed in popularity.

In the end, there's a reason that hunters are so common in arena now, but IT'S NOT BECAUSE OF THE HUNTER. It's because of the entire metagame of 5.3 PvP and the nerfs and buffs other specs received.

[Gelannerai]

Has there been any sort of blue response on how this change stonewalls people trying to tame Hutia?

also I made a post on the forums about it here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic ... 596?page=1

so far no joy from the blues though, of course. And a lot of people who don't seem to understand what a 'non-pet-related interrupt' is. Like...the guy who says you can use Feign.

Sure dude. Go back to your 58 DK.

Wow. I really wish people would figure out how basic Hunter mechanics work before opening their ignorant mouths to whine about it.

[Albain]

I can see I'm not the only one getting even more upset than usual with the endless parade of PVE nerfs because of PVP. Crippling stampede and then buffing EVERYBODY does not help BM. Removing Silencing Shot AND Intimidate from us and then letting us get Intimidate MAYBE if we skip other things on the tier, does not help us either. I know there are other specs out there but I've been BM since Big Red Kitty showed me what it meant to be a hunter.. and I'm not changing that.

The nerf to our 30% reduction of pet skills, does actually severely hurt. My beetle, once a fantastic pet tank, is now all but useless. Even /cower/ is on a painfully long CD now. Maybe not in the high and mighty holy grail of WOW, PVP, but in PVE it really does.

All of this has only taught me to HATE PVP in this game with an unrelenting passion. I apologize to those who enjoy it, I really do. I'm just sick to death of it. Enough so where my hunter is no longer my main. After seven, eight years of maining a hunter, I now run a rogue.

A damn rogue. Because he can effortlessly kill the mobs my HUNTER struggles with and gets gibbed by. I know and understand that Blizzard isn't going to change what they're doing just because I'm not running a hunter as my primary anymore, they only listen to the loss of subs.. but I still like the game, and Blizz is only interested in opinions that come with the loss of money, so my opinion doesn't matter.

...Sorry for the rant. I see a lot of good things coming in 5.4. I'm just really... really sad that they're not coming for my once favorite character.

[Ana]

Reading on the hunter forums .. seams like ALOT of ppl are happy for these nerfs.. and just say that ss always was a mm talent..

I´ve always played bm hunter cept for a brief period in icc... i KNOW we will survive.. but the changes makes me grrr

All of this has only taught me to HATE PVP in this game with an unrelenting passion

could not agree more... i feel the game drifting to much around PvP and i always liked that the two parts were seperate.. i hope loads of these changes wont see live..

[Gimlion]

Reading on the hunter forums .. seams like ALOT of ppl are happy for these nerfs.. and just say that ss always was a mm talent..

I´ve always played bm hunter cept for a brief period in icc... i KNOW we will survive.. but the changes makes me grrr

This is because of the still largely present bias towards BM. We're either hated because we aren't good enough (LK), because people don't know any better (cata) or because we're finally viable and GOOD (Now). The entire community as a whole is shit, and don't know what's actually good for the game; the fact that blizz listens to them is even more dumbfounding.

[Poearia]

I'm just hoping that the 3rd spec Blizz teased us about, is in fact, a strict PvP spec...I kinda feel like this is the case and they're testing it - Especially when they said some things aren't going to make it into the next patch b/c they didn't pan out...

[Rawr]

Does anyone from blizzard read "non-official" class forms like this one (Noah excluded) to see what people who mostly play that class think about all the changes? I mean most people on the WoW forums are a bunch of whiny little twips who don't know the 1st thing about their own class let alone another, yet all I hear is "hunters are op" and all I see is nerf, nerf, nerf. I'm loosing faith in the game as a whole anyways, the writing went to shit, no more sense of community, and they have twisted around my favorite class so much that I'm not sure what I'm looking at anymore. All and all I think I'm going to stick with GW2, PoE, DP, and Minecraft. WoW is going to hell in a handbasket.

[HunterFTW]

well if they take SS out and it DOES affect my gameplay i will just play DP till they give it back.i do not want to be forced to play a spec i don't want to nor do i want others to tell me to play MM.

[Danielfboone]

I'm BM and I actually went back to Intimidation in my talent choices. I find it more useful in a wider range of situations and I just missed having it too much. I'm fine with Silencing being a MM ability like it used to be. Let others take care of interrupts in raids. I have enough to concentrate on and can't solo tough things even with Silencing. I like the stun better.

( I tried solo taming Hutia and that was a complete disaster .I even tried with a tank and a healer helping and we still all died)