NERF BAT INC!

[Jangalian]

Here's some new beta hunter changes. It's a wee bit painful.

"Beta build 12984 hunter changes

Beast Mastery

* Widow Venom now costs 15 focus (down from 30).
* Aspect of the Hawk ranged attack power has increased to 638 RAP (up from 334).
* Intimidation no longer has a focus cost.
* Kill Command base damaged has dropped and the coefficient dropped by more than half.
* Killing Streak bonus Kill Command damage has dropped to 10%/20%.
* Focus Fire restores 4 focus to your pet, down from 10 focus.
* Sic 'Em now also has a chance to proc from Kill Command.

Marskman

* Improved Steady Shot can now proc even while the Improved Steady Shot buff is already active. You no longer have to wait for the buff to go away entirely before starting your two Steady Shots to get the buff.

Survival

* Camouflage now breaks on AoE and melee attacks.
* Black Arrow cost is reduced to 35 focus.
* Hunting Party no longer provides Replenishment and instead grants 2% agility. (The tooltip has a typo and says 20%. It's not 20%; it's 2%.)

Pets

* Cats have received their raid buff -- Roar of Courage -- and now provide the strength/agility buff.
* Bears have a new "sleep" ability that causes them to sleep and regain happiness, though it looks like they're dead.

Camouflage nerfed

Let's start with the big one, the giant elephant in the room -- it's easy enough to see, after all. Many people thought Camouflage in its previous form was overpowered. Many thought the immunity was fine as long as we couldn't attack. Some thought it was underpowered and a weak and sad thing to get as our level 85 ability (though those were probably strictly PvE players).

Personally, I thought that camo needed to have a couple of counters to it, like Mass Dispel and something else. I think everything should have counters; even the pally bubble does, these days. Further, I thought for the sake of safety, it should have a 3-second cast time just to make sure that it couldn't be used in conjunction with Feign Death to escape active combat. (I should point out I never once managed to do that, despite a lot of trying in PvP on the beta. Either I had DoTs on me, or my pet did, or someone was attacking me even after FD.)

Blizzard has sided with the OP believers and spoken loud and clear with a massive nerf back to the Stone Age. Camouflage is now broken by AoE -- which is particularly rough since unlike Stealth, you can see exactly where the camo hunter is (except in ambush situations). Camo also breaks on melee attacks and from AoE fears, Frost Nova, etc.

The nerf saddens me, since in my mind, it brings Camouflage back to a pretty useless ability. Hunters don't usually have much trouble with any ranged class. We have a handful of tricks to help us burn them down, and ranged attackers aren't much of a problem, unlike melee. Camo is now something that doesn't help us against at all against the melee classes -- the ones that can give us trouble -- and of course if anyone wants to pop us out, they just have to lay an AoE on top of us, which will be no problem nine times out of 10.

The end result is that the most common use of camo is going to be as an ambush. As long as we're standing still, it gives us an actual stealth effect (though if you stand in melee range, you can automatically see us, it seems). So if we're guarding a flag, we can stealth and wait to ambush anyone coming. With some movement utility at range, it's certainly better than Shadowmeld, but not a whole ton better.

Ah well, it still looks badass.

Kill Command nerf

Kill Command was hitting crazy-hard throughout the beta up until now. With the huge nerf taking the attack power coefficient from 53% to 21%, Kill Command is now actually hitting for less damage than Arcane Shot, despite costing twice the focus. This brings the BM signature shot in line with MM and SV, but of course, we assume that these will get remedied at some point.

The interesting question right now is whether the solution will be to increase the damage of the signature shots or reduce the damage of Arcane Shot. Arcane Shot has had more changes than any other hunter ability in the beta, with the damage constantly going up and down. For a while, it was so low that it was doing less damage than Steady and Cobra Shot, and now it's at a comfortable medium, hitting for around 5k damage at level 85.

I certainly hope that the solution is to increase the Chimera Shot, Explosive Shot and Kill Command damage to make them worth using over Arcane Shot. I'm personally a bit leery of reducing the Arcane Shot damage, because it doesn't have a whole lot of flexibility before it becomes worse than our focus-restoring free shots.

Interestingly, even with the KC nerf, BM still appears to be the highest DPS hunter spec in the beta. (They just don't use KC except during Bestial Wrath.) As always, we expect these DPS issues to be balanced out toward the end of the beta/PTR process.

Improved Steady Shot delight

I was delighted and surprised to see the change to Improved Steady Shot. For those of you just joining us at Scattered Shots, the way this buff used to work was a bit tricksy: You could not get the buff if you already had it. In other words, any Steady Shots cast while the buff was up didn't count toward the two you needed to re-activate the buff. So you had to wait for the buff to go away entirely, and then fire two Steady Shots in a row. This made optimizing the uptime very tricky indeed, and we went through a lot of convolutions to maximize the uptime.

When the beta first came online, many people (myself included) reported this as a bug. But as the months rolled by, we came to assume that Blizzard intended this functionality to ensure that the buff would not have 100 percent uptime. Having it changed to work in the simpler and more intuitive way definitely makes the MM rotation much, much easier.

So even in the big hunter nerfs build, it's not all bad news. And our bear pets can play dead! Adorable!" -sourced via Wow.com

[Anansi]

Here's some new beta hunter changes. It's a wee bit painful.

Not that painful really, most I think were expected...

Beast Mastery

* Widow Venom now costs 15 focus (down from 30).
* Aspect of the Hawk ranged attack power has increased to 638 RAP (up from 334).
* Intimidation no longer has a focus cost.
* Kill Command base damaged has dropped and the coefficient dropped by more than half.
* Killing Streak bonus Kill Command damage has dropped to 10%/20%.
* Focus Fire restores 4 focus to your pet, down from 10 focus.
* Sic 'Em now also has a chance to proc from Kill Command.

A KC nerf isn't surprising as it was hitting like a runaway truck. Focus Fire is perhaps a bit too much of a nerf, it's not really all that worth taking now. But the Hawk boost is great for all Hunters.

Marskman

* Improved Steady Shot can now proc even while the Improved Steady Shot buff is already active. You no longer have to wait for the buff to go away entirely before starting your two Steady Shots to get the buff.

This is a huge quality of life improvement for the spec. Absolutely huge. This will go a long way to making the shot priority run more smoothly for sure and should give the spec a bit of a needed DPS boost (Marks is currently pretty poor DPS-wise on the PTR).

Survival

* Camouflage now breaks on AoE and melee attacks.
* Black Arrow cost is reduced to 35 focus.
* Hunting Party no longer provides Replenishment and instead grants 2% agility. (The tooltip has a typo and says 20%. It's not 20%; it's 2%.)

Will discuss Camo in response to your comments below... Nice change on Black Arrow and that's sad that Replenishment is gone; even if the Hunter can't take advantage of the mana regen it was nice to have it in the toolbox for group support. Now that HP is just a flat 2% Agility that rather contravenes the design goal for talents so I'd expect this to be placeholder for now and we'll see an new Hunting Party shortly.

Pets

* Cats have received their raid buff -- Roar of Courage -- and now provide the strength/agility buff.
* Bears have a new "sleep" ability that causes them to sleep and regain happiness, though it looks like they're dead.

Nice Cat ability, basically they're a Strength of Earth totem that eats faces, bites toes and plays with it's food. That's odd on Bears, I can't see that being particularly useful in any situation.

Many people thought Camouflage in its previous form was overpowered. Many thought the immunity was fine as long as we couldn't attack. Some thought it was underpowered and a weak and sad thing to get as our level 85 ability (though those were probably strictly PvE players).

Blizzard has sided with the OP believers and spoken loud and clear with a massive nerf back to the Stone Age. Camouflage is now broken by AoE -- which is particularly rough since unlike Stealth, you can see exactly where the camo hunter is (except in ambush situations). Camo also breaks on melee attacks and from AoE fears, Frost Nova, etc.

No surprise at all here, Camo was set up for a nerf from the get-go but I'm sad Blizzard caved to the whining. It will still have it's uses in PvP provided the nameplate is still hidden when moving around but it's not as across the board useful as it was.

Kill Command was hitting crazy-hard throughout the beta up until now. With the huge nerf taking the attack power coefficient from 53% to 21%, Kill Command is now actually hitting for less damage than Arcane Shot, despite costing twice the focus. This brings the BM signature shot in line with MM and SV, but of course, we assume that these will get remedied at some point.

So it seems that KC has been relegated to PvP. If if's doing the same damage as Arcane and costing twice as much there's no point in using it in your PvE priority.

I certainly hope that the solution is to increase the Chimera Shot, Explosive Shot and Kill Command damage to make them worth using over Arcane Shot. I'm personally a bit leery of reducing the Arcane Shot damage, because it doesn't have a whole lot of flexibility before it becomes worse than our focus-restoring free shots.

I agree. Chimera has been nerfed pretty hard and PTR dps for MM is disappointingly low right now (I do more dps with BM than MM).

Interestingly, even with the KC nerf, BM still appears to be the highest DPS hunter spec in the beta. (They just don't use KC except during Bestial Wrath.) As always, we expect these DPS issues to be balanced out toward the end of the beta/PTR process.

Actually I kind of hope BM stays high, I like it's shot priority system a lot more than MM right now (though the change to ISS may change that). Still, I think BM players could use some time in the sun and have a moment of smugness towards all the MM players to snubbed them in Wrath :p

[Saturo]

I won't even try to post here. It would just turn into a storm of swears, "BM HATER!" and "fuckig elitist!". Suffice to say, I am NOT satisfied with what they are doing to MM. By all means, buff BM up, but leaving MM at the bottom is just pure shit. I had to live trough TBC, which, for my hunter, was the worst expansion so far. It was either "go bm tard!" or "stupid onebuttonpusher!" (even tough I wasn't BM -.-). I don't want another expansion of being called shit for not liking having two buttons to spam.

But yes. Won't comment more on this. If you want yto flame me, don't do it in this thread.

[Bellatryx]

I don't think this is the last of it. There are a lot of bugs in the hunter class and balancing needing to be done.. my DPS on BM had gone up from what I had seen on live with my cruddy blues and greens. I think we're looking at the words and not experiencing the effect.. and if something needs to be polished then hopefully it will be.

I haven't messed with MM or Surv yet but I'm sure they're still messing with the numbers.

[Sharilar]

Yes, there's something people are neglecting to see when they look at the KC numbers.

It's damage done by the pet, so it's also affected by pet damage modifiers.

That 25% damage increase for happiness? Affects it.
The +20% pet damage boost from Mastery? Affects it.
The additional pet damage boost from Mastery rating? Affects it.

Arcane shot? WYSIWYG.

So it's actually more damage than it looks just looking at the tooltip. For MM and Surv there's no point now, but for BM...

[Palladiamorsdeus]

Sorry Sharilar, but that's not helping KC all that much, if at all. Arcane shot is still hitting for more then it, plain and simple. I hate to admit it, but KC was over-nerfed. Were I Blizzard, which I am not, then I'd add a talent deep in BM to buff KC up to hitting harder then at LEAST Arcane shot.

Edit: I also want to add that BM only has DPS as it's options. All three tree's are damage. That's all there is to it. Which means that one of them has to be on top, even if that is by 1%. So long as they get it close, what does it matter? As always, I say play what you want to play, and don't worry about that particular aspect of min/maxing. If you don't want to play BM, don't. But that doesn't mean it's horrible, and that doesn't mean that it doesn't or shouldn't be on the top, even if just for a while.

[Bellatryx]

Sorry Sharilar, but that's not helping KC all that much, if at all. Arcane shot is still hitting for more then it, plain and simple. I hate to admit it, but KC was over-nerfed. Were I Blizzard, which I am not, then I'd add a talent deep in BM to buff KC up to hitting harder then at LEAST Arcane shot.

Edit: I also want to add that BM only has DPS as it's options. All three tree's are damage. That's all there is to it. Which means that one of them has to be on top, even if that is by 1%. So long as they get it close, what does it matter? As always, I say play what you want to play, and don't worry about that particular aspect of min/maxing. If you don't want to play BM, don't. But that doesn't mean it's horrible, and that doesn't mean that it doesn't or shouldn't be on the top, even if just for a while.

I haven't even been using KC on the PTR honestly.. I mean if they're keeping it at its normal state I think the focus required should be taken down a notch. 40 focus for a sub par skill is kind of overkill. If it costs so much it has to actually do some substantial damage. I still don't think we should freak out over it or freak out because MM maybe dropped a percentage. I think all builds will remain viable and that people need to re-evaluate the skills and rotations they use before they start jumping on one build or another for being higher damage or lower damage. I also think like expressed above, if you don't like BM.. no one is holding a gun to your head to play it.. ya'know'what'i'mean?

(off-topic but i think its kind of funny.. my Scottish Fold mix kitty is watching the words pop up as i type and it looks like shes reading a book. lol)

[Palladiamorsdeus]

KC shouldn't do as much damage as the special shots, Chimera or Explosive. It SHOULD hit for good damage, beating out Arcane. This was way to much of a nerf, but I am pretty sure they'll buff it back up before Cata launches.

[Tahlian]

Why not? Kill Command is the "special shot" of the beast master, according to Blizzard's design and intent. If nothing else, all three should be dealing comparable damage within their specs when the final pass is done. Nothing more, nothing less. In other words, KC when wielded by a BM hunter should be doing the same damage as the other two trees' specials.

[Silvarain]

I don't want another expansion of being called shit

i wont stand for any of that here, and if need be ill pop over to your server and kick some ass!

Why not? Kill Command is the "special shot" of the beast master, according to Blizzard's design and intent. If nothing else, all three should be dealing comparable damage within their specs when the final pass is done. Nothing more, nothing less. In other words, KC when wielded by a BM hunter should be doing the same damage as the other two trees' specials.

agreed

[Lisaara]

You guys realize a lot of this is kinda old news, right?

ALL classes are getting the nerf bat.

[Nimizar]

@Anansi: I'm puzzled by your comment about Focus Fire. The focus return to the pet is a sideline for this talent - the main element is the haste transfer from the pet to the hunter. At a 50 focus return, a lot of that focus would have been wasted anyway. Having it be 20 focus with BM balanced accordingly is far more reasonable.

@Palla: Like Tahlian, I'm curious as to why you think KC should do less damage than Explosive or Chimera. Once the BM mastery bonus is factored in, it should be similarly critical to our DPS rotation as those other shots are to the rotations of their respective specs. The fact that these special shots aren't currently worth it from a damage-per-focus perspective isn't a BM-specific problem, but it's also just a numbers tuning issue and hence not a great concern (most likely all 3 will be buffed, with Arcane nerfed slightly, and Cobra and Steady potentially also nerfed if necessary to make sure Arcane remains a better use of a GCD).

As far as relative PvE DPS goes, Blizz have so many tuning numbers to play with now that spec balance should be significantly better than it was in Wrath.

[Kalliope]

Agreed, BM KC should be on par with chimera/explosive. Just give BM hunters a talent to buff it and we're done. Seriously, you'd think balance would be easier than THAT.

I'm less excited about marks for PvE at this point, but mostly because a priority shot system that works more like survival is NOT my cup of tea.

[SpiritBinder]

Someone else wrote this on another forum, I read it... was a little like... "What ever!" .. but then realised it was true..... /grumble grumble

I would just like to hijack this to point out:

In Beta, there's no such thing as a nerf.

I love you all, goodnight.

[Lisaara]

Someone else wrote this on another forum, I read it... was a little like... "What ever!" .. but then realised it was true..... /grumble grumble

I would just like to hijack this to point out:

In Beta, there's no such thing as a nerf.

I love you all, goodnight.

QFT

[Bellatryx]

Someone else wrote this on another forum, I read it... was a little like... "What ever!" .. but then realised it was true..... /grumble grumble

I would just like to hijack this to point out:

In Beta, there's no such thing as a nerf.

I love you all, goodnight.

That wasn't exactly a hijack but yep. So true.

[Gelannerai]

Well, as it stands, Camouflage is a terrible sham of a level 85 ability. If it goes live like this (which I don't think it will, but if it does it wouldn't surprise me given Blizz's track record with such things) then I may very well not even front the gold to train it.

[Rulah]

Wait, KC got nerfed again? -_-

[Adam-Savage]

I won't even try to post here. It would just turn into a storm of swears, "BM HATER!" and "fuckig elitist!". Suffice to say, I am NOT satisfied with what they are doing to MM. By all means, buff BM up, but leaving MM at the bottom is just pure shit. I had to live trough TBC, which, for my hunter, was the worst expansion so far. It was either "go bm tard!" or "stupid onebuttonpusher!" (even tough I wasn't BM -.-). I don't want another expansion of being called shit for not liking having two buttons to spam.

But yes. Won't comment more on this. If you want yto flame me, don't do it in this thread.

I'm not liking Mark's at all right now. It's a messed up shot rotation that I'm still trying to get the hang off. There is just no way to use all the shots when there off cooldown because you run out of focus. Maybe if I can figure out a shot order I would test it out more but for now I'm sticking with BM.

[Saturo]

I won't even try to post here. It would just turn into a storm of swears, "BM HATER!" and "fuckig elitist!". Suffice to say, I am NOT satisfied with what they are doing to MM. By all means, buff BM up, but leaving MM at the bottom is just pure shit. I had to live trough TBC, which, for my hunter, was the worst expansion so far. It was either "go bm tard!" or "stupid onebuttonpusher!" (even tough I wasn't BM -.-). I don't want another expansion of being called shit for not liking having two buttons to spam.

But yes. Won't comment more on this. If you want yto flame me, don't do it in this thread.

I'm not liking Mark's at all right now. It's a messed up shot rotation that I'm still trying to get the hang off. There is just no way to use all the shots when there off cooldown because you run out of focus. Maybe if I can figure out a shot order I would test it out more but for now I'm sticking with BM.

Yup. Not only do they make my spec do significantly less damage, they also change it to be almost exactly like another spec, which I also heavily dislike. I don't think I'll even bother with my hunters in Cata. Warlocking and DKs it is for me. D: