Hunter Talent Updates

[Albain]

I intend to stick with huntering, but I really wish I had a better reason for changes than 'Sorry you cause problems in PVP, even though you don't PVP'

[Nachtwulf]

Yeah, I mentioned this earlier but deleted it because it technically isn't a talent.

Just... meh. Oh, sure, I imagine it'll put all the specs pretty much in line with each other, but they're complaining that the specs 'all feel the same' in one post and then homogenizing the hell out of them in the patches. Why is 'exotic beasts' even a freakin' top-tier ability, at this point? It's not like having exotics gives you any damn advantage anymore, so you'd notice.

Not only that, hunters in general are kind of at the bottom of the heap; with BM being competitive with non-destro locks and arms warriors but greatly inferior to the top end dps specs. This being 'in live', not before they nerf BM until it's even with the badly underpowered MM and SV specs. MM and SV should be buffed, not the other way around. And this with a class that can literally do nothing except dps.

I suppose it's good my warlock's almost 90...

[Albain]

Honestly if they're nerfing it this much BM should be able to tame exotics from 10. By the lowest of shale spiders/silithids/serpents/etc, we wouldn't be -that- far ahead of other people (if at all for the most part) in bringing a nice new buff along. .-.

[Neilaren]

Just... meh. Oh, sure, I imagine it'll put all the specs pretty much in line with each other, but they're complaining that the specs 'all feel the same' in one post and then homogenizing the hell out of them in the patches.

I was talking with my boyfriend about this today and we came to a conclusion similar. Rogues suffer from this, too. It's something you have to think about when you have multiple talent trees for a pure dps class. They sure did a great job differentiating the warlock specs this expansion, and mages have their gimmicks; now if they would just make the flavors of MM SV and BM wholly different from each other I'd be happy. They need to stop with this constant flip flopping between "burst is your niche" and "NO BURST IS BAD MAKE THE BURST GO AWAY" back to "wait no, burst is your niche and you need it" because IT MAKES MY HEAD HURT.

[Nachtwulf]

I think what it is that:

1) someone, somewhere, figures out how to game the system.

2) They then post all over their fave leetist forums about how they did it.

3) Classes X, Y, and Z scream "AUGH! FOUL! TWO SHOT! NERF HUNTERS!" because now everyone knows how to game the system using said trick.

4) Blizzard nerfs hunters to counter said trick, thus damaging their performance in legitimate play.

5) Hunters scream about being at the bottom of the heap in PVE/PVP for at least half an expac.

6) Blizzard buffs hunters with the new expac.

7) Return to step 1.

[Slickrock]

I suppose it's good my warlock's almost 90...

Mine is 80, and if I can get comfortable with him soloing stuff as well as I do with BM once he's 90 and geared... goodbye hunter. My goal is the have the lock ready and raid geared for patch 5.4 to have an equal choice between my spriest, hunter and the lock, and see which works the best going in. The trend for the hunter isn't looking good.

[Lisaara]

Beast Mastery

Exotic Beasts now reduces the cooldown of your Pet Special Abilities by 1%, down from 30%.

Just posted by MMO Champion.

What is this....I don't even....

[Makoes]

Apparently blue posts have said they're -removing it completely- and the 1% is a typo/datamining error.

so tell me why exotic beasts are a lv69 skill, again? Because it's about 100x as lame as any other spec's 69 skill (Titan's Grip anyone?) -aside- from the purely cosmetic factor of having a shiny pet.

from Rants/raves/thoughts on 5.3

[Nachtwulf]

Yeah, it's like... I have no idea what the hell they're thinking. The hunter changes, never mind being unpleasantly nerfy, just don't make any freakin' sense.

They admit that Silencing Shot feels too 'mandatory' soooooo, they remove Binding Shot and toss it apparently randomly at Marks, take Intim(?!) away from BM... a skill of fairly specialized use in the first place... and put it across from Silencing...which as far as I can tell is only going to make Silencing Shot MORE mandatory since the other two things in that tier are now totally no competition.

They remove the haste boost off Exotic Beasts... which relegates it pretty much to being 'hey my pets are fancier than yours' instead of actually, you know, contributing a real and potent value like every other Class/Spec's signature 69 skill. (In point of fact, while I know that Exotics have always been 'the end of the talent tree' and all, I STILL don't think it's ever actually measured up to most other signature 69 skills even at its full capacity. I think BM players should be able to tame Exotics at 10 as the de facto class ability... because really, a Lv15 chimera is -still- a lv15 pet, since all pets now have the same stats. How OP can it possibly be?)

They buff Blink Strike. (Okay, so maybe this one needed to happen to make it more appealing compared to Crows and LR)

They nerf.... bats. Because.... people use bats? I don't know. But bats get nerfed with the nerfbat. (see what I did there)

They give us five zillion stable slots. At this point I'm thinking this is supposed to be a distraction/cookie to keep us from focusing on being nerfed.

And while Noxxic is not perhaps the best source, it lists BM hunters (our best spec atm) as pretty much middle of the pack dps, and Surv AND Marks flat at the bottom. Even allowing for variance.... nerfing BM -out of the middle spot- to make it closer to the evidently rather poor performance of Surv/Marks instead of, you know, boosting the performance of the latter two (which moving Binding into one of them will NOT accomplish)... just... makes me go 'what'.

[Gimlion]

Yeah, it's like... I have no idea what the hell they're thinking. The hunter changes, never mind being unpleasantly nerfy, just don't make any freakin' sense.

They admit that Silencing Shot feels too 'mandatory' soooooo, they remove Binding Shot and toss it apparently randomly at Marks, take Intim(?!) away from BM... a skill of fairly specialized use in the first place... and put it across from Silencing...which as far as I can tell is only going to make Silencing Shot MORE mandatory since the other two things in that tier are now totally no competition.

They remove the haste boost off Exotic Beasts... which relegates it pretty much to being 'hey my pets are fancier than yours' instead of actually, you know, contributing a real and potent value like every other Class/Spec's signature 69 skill. (In point of fact, while I know that Exotics have always been 'the end of the talent tree' and all, I STILL don't think it's ever actually measured up to most other signature 69 skills even at its full capacity. I think BM players should be able to tame Exotics at 10 as the de facto class ability... because really, a Lv15 chimera is -still- a lv15 pet, since all pets now have the same stats. How OP can it possibly be?)

They buff Blink Strike. (Okay, so maybe this one needed to happen to make it more appealing compared to Crows and LR)

They nerf.... bats. Because.... people use bats? I don't know. But bats get nerfed with the nerfbat. (see what I did there)

They give us five zillion stable slots. At this point I'm thinking this is supposed to be a distraction/cookie to keep us from focusing on being nerfed.

And while Noxxic is not perhaps the best source, it lists BM hunters (our best spec atm) as pretty much middle of the pack dps, and Surv AND Marks flat at the bottom. Even allowing for variance.... nerfing BM -out of the middle spot- to make it closer to the evidently rather poor performance of Surv/Marks instead of, you know, boosting the performance of the latter two (which moving Binding into one of them will NOT accomplish)... just... makes me go 'what'.

This exactly. I cannot stand playing Gim in PvP atm, and this won't make it any better. I can't imagine coming back for PvP with this severe a nerf, when I can have much more fun on F2P MOBAs, like LoL.

[Maizou]

I'm not BM, but it seems the only reason to go BM now is for Worm's Burrow attack for whatever reason. It's the only exotic-only special ability with a cast time reduction to compensate.

[Nachtwulf]

According to todays blueposts, they're saying 'hunters are getting buffed slightly' in 5.3...

honestly, I'm not seeing any buffs except POSSIBLY the blinkstrike buff, and that's only if you take that particular talent.

Am I missing something? As far as I can tell, it's nerfbat city.

[Slickrock]

According to todays blueposts, they're saying 'hunters are getting buffed slightly' in 5.3...

honestly, I'm not seeing any buffs except POSSIBLY the blinkstrike buff, and that's only if you take that particular talent.

Am I missing something? As far as I can tell, it's nerfbat city.

AoTH got a buff as well.

The Blinkstrike change is nice, because it frees up a GCD.

I'm still wondering at this point though if SV really will be the stronger spec, due to buffs and much better AOE.

As I mentioned in one of these thread previously, I tested in my gear/talents for BM vs SV, and SV was only about 2% behind, and that was without optimal reforging. So the two are really close. (Testing on femaledwarf.com with PTR changes enabled).

As my guild heads into ToT in another week, I'm thinking strongly about going in as SV over BM, as at least for the first 3 fights SV will be nice for the AOE.

But I am still seriously working on my lock for a candidate to replace my hunter for soloing stuff.

[Zhinru]

According to todays blueposts, they're saying 'hunters are getting buffed slightly' in 5.3...

honestly, I'm not seeing any buffs except POSSIBLY the blinkstrike buff, and that's only if you take that particular talent.

Am I missing something? As far as I can tell, it's nerfbat city.

Yeah, I'm slowly getting convinced they actually don't know what they're doing if they're calling hunter changes a buff.

[Slickrock]

According to todays blueposts, they're saying 'hunters are getting buffed slightly' in 5.3...

honestly, I'm not seeing any buffs except POSSIBLY the blinkstrike buff, and that's only if you take that particular talent.

Am I missing something? As far as I can tell, it's nerfbat city.

Yeah, I'm slowly getting convinced they actually don't know what they're doing if they're calling hunter changes a buff.

Remember they were talking about dps, not command&control for pvp, etc.

The AoTH change is a clear buff, and Blink Strikes could be.

So both are true, the did buff dps, and they are appear to not have any sort of plan except to repsond to PVP QQ by whack-a-bat.

[Danielfboone]

According to todays blueposts, they're saying 'hunters are getting buffed slightly' in 5.3...

honestly, I'm not seeing any buffs except POSSIBLY the blinkstrike buff, and that's only if you take that particular talent.

Am I missing something? As far as I can tell, it's nerfbat city.

Yeah, I'm slowly getting convinced they actually don't know what they're doing if they're calling hunter changes a buff.

The buff to Hawk aspect is huge, so yes Hunters are getting more than slightly buffed. They're gaining more than 5% dps in PvE even with all the other changes. The Blink Strike change makes it another 1% total dps better than Lynx Rush as well.

In my gear and with full raid buffs , femaledwarf shows 95692 dps on Live.
With the Ptr changes in effect and still with LR I get 102329 dps. Almost a 7% increase
With Blink Strike instead of Lynx Rush it shows as 104194. Another increase of 1.8%

This is in the BM spec using a Spirit Beast specced ferocity. The increase comes out to 8.7%. I'd call that a significant buff. The only nerfs are to CC in PvP and since I don't do that, I don't care

[Zhinru]

Remember they were talking about dps, not command&control for pvp, etc.

The AoTH change is a clear buff, and Blink Strikes could be.

So both are true, the did buff dps, and they are appear to not have any sort of plan except to repsond to PVP QQ by whack-a-bat.

What I've seen said just "hunters are getting buffed". You can't say a class is getting buffed when you give significant nerfs at the same time to another aspect of it. PvP? I used a lot of CC while questing and soloing and with AoE now insta-killing pets and the CC nerfs, hunter soloing gets really pointless.

[Slickrock]

Remember they were talking about dps, not command&control for pvp, etc.

The AoTH change is a clear buff, and Blink Strikes could be.

So both are true, the did buff dps, and they are appear to not have any sort of plan except to repsond to PVP QQ by whack-a-bat.

What I've seen said just "hunters are getting buffed". You can't say a class is getting buffed when you give significant nerfs at the same time to another aspect of it. PvP? I used a lot of CC while questing and soloing and with AoE now insta-killing pets and the CC nerfs, hunter soloing gets really pointless.

No argument there. CC (and general utility) is certainly getting nerfed, particuarlly for BM.

But we do need to make clear what is getter nerfed. DPS is not, it's getting buffed.

So if you are a raider, you might not care so much, if you PVP and/or solo content, they you have a right to be very miffed.

My concern is soloing content, especially panderia rares.

[Slickrock]

According to todays blueposts, they're saying 'hunters are getting buffed slightly' in 5.3...

honestly, I'm not seeing any buffs except POSSIBLY the blinkstrike buff, and that's only if you take that particular talent.

Am I missing something? As far as I can tell, it's nerfbat city.

Yeah, I'm slowly getting convinced they actually don't know what they're doing if they're calling hunter changes a buff.

The buff to Hawk aspect is huge, so yes Hunters are getting more than slightly buffed. They're gaining more than 5% dps in PvE even with all the other changes. The Blink Strike change makes it another 1% total dps better than Lynx Rush as well.

In my gear and with full raid buffs , femaledwarf shows 95692 dps on Live.
With the Ptr changes in effect and still with LR I get 102329 dps. Almost a 7% increase
With Blink Strike instead of Lynx Rush it shows as 104194. Another increase of 1.8%

This is in the BM spec using a Spirit Beast specced ferocity. The increase comes out to 8.7%. I'd call that a significant buff. The only nerfs are to CC in PvP and since I don't do that, I don't care

That matches up with what I'm seeing. The nice thing about both the buffs is they are passive buffs, which means better uptime and a free GCD, making the rotation a bit easier.

[Maizou]

I... I'm not even sure they know what they're doing anymore.

Exotic Beasts once again lists a cooldown reduction of Pet Special Abilities by 30%, up from 0%.