Hunter Changes in Cat I found

[Saturo]

Quote from this site:

Eyes of the Beast got removed

:'(

[Palladiamorsdeus]

Mmmm, not sure what I think of that removal. I mean you can use eye's of the beast effectively, but it's not really something that you utilize all the time.

[Rikaku]

Please.....please....PLEASE tell me that this is some kind of sick joke.

My sentiments exactly.

Though, we are receiving a big "haste" related change in Cataclysm, I'm going to hope (god I have to be optimistic) that this is just a buggy transitional phase while changing up all the Hunter stuff.


Hey, I gotta dream. I don't want shot clipping nightmares again T^T

[Vephriel]

Quote from this site:

Eyes of the Beast got removed

:'(

I'll be incredibly upset if this is true. :'( Sure I don't use the ability for anything particularly useful, but I constantly use it just for fun. It would be horrible of them to take that away.

[Gimlion]

I use Eye's of the Beast all the time, particularly when I want a pet to jump off a ledge instead of running down the nearest stairs. Place him at very edge, put him at stay/passive, jump down, look at him /cast EotB, jump off, cancel EotB. viola

[Sarayana]

I really hope that's not true. Eyes of the Beast is both useful and fun! Hopefully it's just a "we're restructuring all your class spells and haven't gotten to this one yet" type of scenario.

[Hunterseth]

if this is honestly true...im going to find a way to GM island(again) and just try my best to kill the gm's of my server....again....

[Anansi]

If these changes are in fact intentional and sticking, I think my Hunter is getting shelved. Those are absurd, they run contrary to everything the Hunter class has moved towards during Wrath. With so many shots being no longer instant casts and/or having cast times, our DPS/mobility is completely hamstrung and given the highly movement-oriented nature of raiding now, the Hunter as a DPS class is pummeled.

Now I've read in more than one location from alpha testers that Hunters are pretty broken right now, which is not at all surprising. Whether that assessment of broken is player perspective while Blizz feel the class is working as intended I don't know.

But those changes, my god, awful.

[Vephriel]

I'm really just hoping that that these are not intended or permanent changes. It's still Beta after all....most of these make absolutely no sense at all, I can't see them breaking our class this badly.

/crosses fingers

[Saturo]

Yeah, but they might also make us able to cast while moving, which would make sense. I mean, you can easily fire an arrow while running, just not particularly accurately.

[zedxrgal]

I hope and pray they're not breaking our class to!! I love eyes of the beast. So fun to make laps and jump and stuff.

Why are you doing this stuff to us Blizz?

20 or 30 stable slots but useless dps etc!! So if these are permanent changes then I sincerely hope we'll get some sort of crazy wild feature add like running with to pets at the same time to make up for the other losses.

Not possible I know but one could hope they'd do something right by us.

[Adam-Savage]

They make up for the cast time for having the shots do more damage. Then again if they have to "make up for a change" Then why tinker with it to start with ? If it aint broken then don't fix it.

[Anansi]

20 or 30 stable slots but useless dps etc!! So if these are permanent changes then I sincerely hope we'll get some sort of crazy wild feature add like running with to pets at the same time to make up for the other losses.

One of the reasons we're getting more stable slots is because pets are being changed to provide raid-friendly buffs and debuffs rather than personal DPS boosts. They're also bringing back the need for crowd control. So to me it's looking like Hunters are getting changed to be support DPS with raid buffs and boss debuffs and essential crowd control techniques.

They make up for the cast time for having the shots do more damage. Then again if they have to "make up for a change" Then why tinker with it to start with ? If it aint broken then don't fix it.

Damage is largely irrelevant if we can't move and shoot. With the way ICC was built with such a massive requirement for mobility, if this is a statement of raid design intent for Cataclysm, and Hunters are rendered largely stationary DPS, we're going to hurt.
It seems the class is being moved towards a more caster-type one (ie Mages and Warlocks can't really move-and-cast - and look at their DPS standings in your raids) which is a bit ironic considering we're losing mana as a resource.

I was talking about these changes with my wife last night, she plays a Warlock, and she said "Oh, so Hunters are going to be like Warlocks then!". I died a little inside at that comment, especially considering Warlocks are getting a major boost in Cataclysm with Haste and Crit affecting all DoTs.

If Steady Shot is clipping Auto Shot, we're going to be back to spamming shot macros, and that is not good. It just seems like Blizzard have taken a perfectly functional class and whacked it with a sledgehammer.

....most of these make absolutely no sense at all, I can't see them breaking our class this badly.

How long have you been playing a Hunter.......? :p

[Vephriel]

....most of these make absolutely no sense at all, I can't see them breaking our class this badly.

How long have you been playing a Hunter.......? :p

*laughs* I know, I know. It just seems that some of these changes are over-the-top ridiculous. I'm still holding out that this is all a messy work in progress.

[Ryai]

If Steady Shot is clipping Auto Shot, we're going to be back to spamming shot macros, and that is not good. It just seems like Blizzard have taken a perfectly functional class and whacked it with a sledgehammer.

but I don't want macro for this for a fix. I only really need one macro, I do enough dps as it is without them and I never really like to use macros unless I need to unload EVERYTHING onto a fight asap.



And tbh I don't want to be forced into a CC role, I'm not really good at 'CC', I tend to forget my own sheeped targets on my mage. I never can place a trap in the right place or position for use and even when I do half the time it gets triggered by the wrong mob AND/OR it gets resisted AND/OR, the mob NEVER goes near enough to it. Hell I've had some STAND on the traps and them NOT be resisted they just aren't set off!

Mean if i rolled SV I know I'd be expected to throw down traps left and right, but as BM? I only have 3 traps up on my bars, snake, fire and frost and even then I only use them in ToC for the ghouls D:

[Sarayana]

Oooooh I loooooved being the designated trapper in TBC. I was so good at it! Trap, wait, distracting shot, run, wait, trap, distracting... My buddy and I were chain trapping champs! We'd trade targets and all! I used to think I'd suck at it, but then I had a few really good hunters give me input and it just fell into place. It's not that hard, really, you just gotta work with the group. It takes a lot more coordination than today's randoms.

I could really do without timer macros though... >.>

[Mania]

Deep breath, everyone! We're still deep in alpha, never mind beta. Our talents haven't been touched at all yet and our skills have barely been touched.

Even if these changes stay, we have no idea what context they will be in -- what other changes will be made around them. We may mourn a specific skill like EotB if it doesn't come back in some other form, but there is absolutely no way we can draw any conclusions about our overall fun or effectiveness yet.

Unless you just want to be cynical and angry ...

[Anansi]

*laughs* I know, I know. It just seems that some of these changes are over-the-top ridiculous. I'm still holding out that this is all a messy work in progress.

Ghostcrawler made a comment earlier this year, it was when the Trap Launcher ability was initially supposed to be introduced. He said something to the effect of "We don't want to give Hunters a broken ability". I'm not sure he typed that with a straight face.

As for macros and CC and whatnot, I don't want to go back to the Steady Shot/Auto Shot macro days of TBC. Auto Shot being de-linked and firing all the time was a great DPS boost as well as a great boost in freedom. Going back to that would be a big negative. And CC, well, Hunters are traditionally CC users and that fell by the wayside in Wrath. It has been stated many times that CC will be back in Cataclysm and given that we have a great CC toolbox, it'll be an expected role for us.

I get the feeling the cast times are not a work in progress and are intentional as efforts to manage the Focus system. Blizzard wants each shot we make to be a choice and not part of a sequential button spam routine. Really, the delay is probably there to make Focus more manageable from a mechanics perspective, which suggests to me that the change isn't going smoothly.

Mania, I understand what you're saying, and yes, these changes may not stick. But I can see reasons for them to have been implemented (except the Auto Shot clipping thing, that's nuts and could in fact be a bug). But cast times on Aimed Shot, Arcane Shot and so forth seem very likely to be the effects of managing the Focus mechanics.

[Mania]

Mania, I understand what you're saying, and yes, these changes may not stick. But I can see reasons for them to have been implemented (except the Auto Shot clipping thing, that's nuts and could in fact be a bug). But cast times on Aimed Shot, Arcane Shot and so forth seem very likely to be the effects of managing the Focus mechanics.

My point, though, was that without more context about how these changes fit into the other changes around them -- and there will most certainly be more changes around these! -- we can't draw any conclusions about how they will affect us.

Speculation is fun, but cynical, bitter speculation makes me sad.

[Palladiamorsdeus]

DO NOT MAKE MANIA SAD.