latest hunter changes

[Duvai]

Readiness is outdated. It was never intended to reset everything we had. When the cooldown of Stampede was dropped from ten minutes to five minutes, Readiness was modified to reset anything with a cooldown lower than the five minute threshold. They were having to balance us around the utility of Readiness, and it wasn't working. As far as the new charge mechanic is concerned, Disengage will work similarly to a Monk's Roll ability, with the exception of a longer cooldown.

The buff to Stampede was made to bring Stampede back to what it was when they reduced it's damage to combat high burst in any cleave involving a hunter in PvP. They should've reduced the damage in PvP situations in the first place, instead of nerfing into the ground, hardly making the damage worth it's five minute cooldown.

[Myrrmi]

I have always kept forgetting about readiness (being BM since start I've just never got used to having it available) so I really like the charges. This solution has 1 more advantage over readiness:
Let's say we have skill A and skill B, and the situation is that I need to cast A 2 times, back to back, followed by B.
With readiness I end up with both skill on CD (A->Readiness->A->B)
With charges I end up with one charge left on skill B (A1->A2->B1)
Now that's something I -LIKE-
(sometimes, when I did remember I had such a skill as Readiness, I felt bad for using it just to refresh one single CD. It felt as if I was wasting it's potential, and I hated that :< )

Stampede buff.
Stampede buff?
STAMPEDE BUFF~!!
/does a happy dance

Wishlist:
- charges on FD, for those awkward moments when I feign in just the wrong place...

[Slickrock]

MMO-Champ posted some other blue replies, some of which I hadn't seen before, so... Including a few that were answers to some of my tweets!

Removing SS as a talent will cripple BM and SV in PvP, forcing hunters into MM if they want to be able to compete in PvP
So BM for example can have a trinket or a silence. Seems fair. You really need both? When does anyone get a chance to counter? (Source)
you do realize that you gave hunter trinket and silence in the first place right? youre arguing with yourself now
Right. That's why we made the change. The original 5.0 talent design was crazy generous to BM PvP. (Source)
will we have some dmg buff on kill command in 5.4 ? and you guys think of baking widow venom in serpent sting ?
Long term, we agree Widow Venom needs some work. Short term not thrilled with the idea of e.g. Serpent Spread + Widow Venom. (Source)

Why is Snake Trap still in the game? It does like 300 dps on level 90. It's completely useless.
We agree it needs a better niche. Reluctant to yank it since it has a unique kit vs. the 200 spells in the game named Frost X. (Source)

The tooltip says "preventing any spell in that school from being cast for 3 sec" so yes.
You can also use Silencing Shot preemptively to stop the cast, while Counter Shot has to land during the cast. (Source)

Talking with several hunters, agreement that Readiness going away is fine if other spells are adjusted as well.
We're thinking 2 charges on Deterrence and Disengage, then other buffs to things like Kill Command. (Source)
Wouldn't that be a big buff with the talented 1min Deter? 1min and 5min Deter vs both are up in 2mins?
Charges just gives them what they have today with Readiness, though IIRC the base CDS are longer. (Source)
This is an example where I am expressing design intent (no Readiness) and not tuning... yet. (Source)

what's the real difference between counter shot and silencing shot?
The silence...? (Source)

Have you seen this post detailing some concerns about hunters? http://t.co/NlAMMnOwjPIt has some nice points.
We are pretty happy with raid utility for all specs. Every class asks for more to guarantee a raid spot. (Source)
What utility do hunters offer in 25m or even well organized 10m that another class or two don't already bring?
That is true of everyone but warlocks, who probably bring too much. (Source)

Stampede was never intended to provide utility. It's a DPS cooldown. (Source)
It's now a 20 second DOT on a 5 minute CD that is worth 1% of our total damage. Least compelling CD in the game?
Do keep in mind that total damage and damage per second both have different benefits. (Source)
Do keep in mind that it is our 87 ability, and it is exactly like Dire Beast. "Insulting" is the word.
So how much damage do you think Stampede needs to do to be fair? (Source)

Will you EVER get rid of arcane shot for spec unique dumps? It's a remnant from days of Hunter mana; Please remove
Having different focus dumps would help with spec distinction. (Source)

The thing I bolded is interesting.. sounds like they are still doing the mechanics tweaks, and hopefully we still have some dps buffs coming, to KC in particular.

[ashdawn]

everything seemed bad but it actually looks like us pve hunters are getting buffed!

[Quiv]

The thing I bolded is interesting.. sounds like they are still doing the mechanics tweaks, and hopefully we still have some dps buffs coming, to KC in particular.

I figure this is part of the dps compensation and can't wait to see how the implement it. Higher numbers, lower CD? The charges correlate to CD compensation for defensive abilities, but I wonder about Feign Death.... charges on it could be interesting. I have used a clinch Readiness > Feign Death more than once.

[SpiritBinder]

Small change in disengages wording,

Disengage now has a 20 sec cooldown, down from 25. "disengage from combat" removed from tooltip.

may mean that it might now be usable out or combat?

[Duvai]

The thing I bolded is interesting.. sounds like they are still doing the mechanics tweaks, and hopefully we still have some dps buffs coming, to KC in particular.

I figure this is part of the dps compensation and can't wait to see how the implement it. Higher numbers, lower CD? The charges correlate to CD compensation for defensive abilities, but I wonder about Feign Death.... charges on it could be interesting. I have used a clinch Readiness > Feign Death more than once.

Recent changes suggest that Blizzard would never increase the damage of something without first increasing something to be proportionate, similar to how they increased Arcane Shot's damage by 50%, but they also increased it's Focus cost by 50%. I really, really don't like that change and I'm hoping they fix it.

Buffing each spec's signature shots is going to be a bonus from them removing Readiness, because the only way to benefit from it's effect was to use every cooldown possible at the start of the encounter just to get two uses of Readiness by the end of the encounter. I'd imagine they'd increase the damage of Kill Command by X%, Explosive Shot's RAP scaling and damage by X% and Chimera Shot and Aimed Shot's weapon scaling and damage by X%. That's at least how I'd hope they'd go about doing it.

[Quiv]

As of latest PTR build, this is how Deterrence/Disengage works.

Deterrence
Deterrence has 2 charges, each taking 3 minutes to charge. If you use one, and put it on CD, and use another charge, it does not affect the CD remaining of the previous use. Edit: I discovered that on PTR, Crouching Tiger talent isn't affecting Deterrence at all, so with talent, this will become a 2 minute CD with 2 charges.

Disengage
Disengage has no charges, but a base 20 second CD, which is lowered to 10 seconds with talent. Still requires combat.

[Nevish]

As of latest PTR build, this is how Deterrence/Disengage works.

Deterrence
Deterrence has 2 charges, each taking 3 minutes to charge. If you use one, and put it on CD, and use another charge, it does not affect the CD remaining of the previous use. Edit: I discovered that on PTR, Crouching Tiger talent isn't affecting Deterrence at all, so with talent, this will become a 2 minute CD with 2 charges.

Disengage
Disengage has no charges, but a base 20 second CD, which is lowered to 10 seconds with talent. Still requires combat.

Wait, so explain this to my exhausted brain: Does this mean that if we immediately blow both charges for Deterrence, we'll have a /total/ CD of 6 minutes?

[Makoes]

No, 3min CD per charge, so 3min after the first charge is done, it will be ready again, and 3min after the 2nd charge was used it will be ready again. Each charge has a separate CD. It will only have a 6min (total)CD to have BOTH off at the same time if you wait for the 1st charge to be -almost- off CD before using the 2nd charge.

[Tsuki]

Small change in disengages wording,

Disengage now has a 20 sec cooldown, down from 25. "disengage from combat" removed from tooltip.

may mean that it might now be usable out or combat?

The wording was changed from "You attempt to disengage from combat, leaping backwards. Can only be used while in combat." to "You attempt to leap backwards. Can only be used while in combat."
If anything, it looks like they are just making the description slightly less redundant.

[Nevish]

No, 3min CD per charge, so 3min after the first charge is done, it will be ready again, and 3min after the 2nd charge was used it will be ready again. Each charge has a separate CD. It will only have a 6min (total)CD to have BOTH off at the same time if you wait for the 1st charge to be -almost- off CD before using the 2nd charge.

Aahhh, alright. Thank you!