#0 - Nov. 16, 2007, 9 p.m.
Intro:
Welcome,
Some time has passed since I asked you people to submit feedback regarding the current state of the Hunters. This time I return with a revised version for 2.3.2.
Keep the feedback constructive and stay polite! And of course enjoy!
A question of priority:
A follow up on the previous Community review, I want to ask you people to rate the concerns. How does this work? Simple, you submit feedback and say what your top three concerns are right now (try to narrow it down and only pick things in this Community review). For example:
1. Shot rotation
2. Pet levelling and Happiness
3. Gear diversity
You are even allowed to make two top 3’s; one for PvE and one for PvP.
Why do this? It could speed up with forwarding “major” concerns.
The summarized feedback:
- Ironbite Shell / Blackflight Arrow, 32.0 DPS: 30 Silver or 24 Silver at Exalted
- Halaani Razorshaft / Halaani Grimshot, 34.0 DPS: 50 Silver or 40 Silver at Exalted
- Hellfire Shot / Warden's Arrow , 37.0 DPS: 50 Silver or 40 Silver at Exalted
- Mysterious Shell / Mysterious Arrow, 46.5 DPS costs 1 Gold or 80 Silver at Exalted
- Timeless Shell / Timeless Arrow, 53.0 DPS costs 2 Gold or 1.60 Gold at Exalted
Assuming a Hunter has the largest Quiver available (the 24-slotter) and burns through his/her Arrows/Bullets, he/she is looking at the total cost of: - 32.0 DPS: 7,20 Gold or 5,76 Gold at Exalted
- 34.0 DPS: 12 Gold or 9,60 Gold at Exalted
- 37.0 DPS: 12 Gold or 9,60 Gold at Exalted
- 46.5 DPS: 24 Gold or 19,2 Gold at Exalted
- 53.0 DPS: 48 Gold or 38,4 Gold at Exalted
The price of the 37.0 (and lower) DPS arrows are OK, but once you get higher it's getting pretty expensive. The difference is big when comparing results of the 37.0 DPS and 53.0 DPS.
Most Hunters agree that lowering the costs might help many Hunters getting the >37.0 DPS Arrows/Bullets which will also result in higher performance.
Quiver/Pouch (priority 2)
The two new Quiver/Pouches in content patch 2.3 do help a lot. However, some Hunters do not think bigger Quiver/Pouches are the solution. Instead, let arrows/bullets function like throwing knives; with durability. The Quiver/Pouches will be turned into an extra character-item-slot. This will make sure:
- Bullets/arrows can be repaired and no extra shops are required for bullets/arrows
- Bigger chance of introducing "enchanted" arrows/bullets (fire/water bullets/arrows, etc)
- One extra bag-slot to store normal items
Agility/Crit (priority 4)
A lot of Hunter PvE items focus on AP and INT. If you are Marksmanship this is fine and with Beast Nastery it is also fine. If you are Survival you are forced to take PvP gear or Rogue leather items because the PvE items lack the Agility/Crit you need to make Expose Weakness stronger (and to keep it up). Adding more Agility/Crit to PvE items and craftable items would solve this problem. In terms of raiding, adding a completely new Tier gear (next besides the current Tier gear) that focussed on these stats would solve the MM/BM versus Survival aspect.
Beast mastery gear (priority 3)
New types of gear have been added to TBC. One of those gears is “enhance pet stats”-gear (for example “Leggings of Beast Mastery”). In Mount Hyjal and Black Temple there are a few items like these; however, pre-raiding they are no-where to be seen. Adding more gear like this will add more diversity to the Beast mastery tree. Currently Beast mastery is used to boost the Hunters’ DPS instead of boosting the pets’ stats (not counting scaling). Besides that, add a completely new tier gear (next beside the current Tier gear) that focuses on enhancing pet stats would help. Finally yet importantly, add weapons that are in par with Feral Druids. Only these items add pets’ stats.
More craftables (priority 2)
Hunters currently only got a handful of pre-raiding craftable gear. Adding more craftable gear would help (for example belts and pants) with gearing up for raiding.
Feedback drawn from: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=1153025884&sid=1
Do note Priority 5 is the highest and Priority 1 being the lowest. Remember to give me your top 3 “concerns”!
Itemisation/Items
Arrows/Bullets cost (priority 3)
Currently Hunters pay loads of money on Arrows/Bullets. Although it is fair compared to other classes with their reagents, Hunters do pay more in the end. Most Hunters pay for repair-bills (even with FD it can get high), flasks/elixirs & ammo. Sometimes even Hunters buy pet-food. Looking at the current prices (starting from 32.0 DPS):
Pets
Learning spells/abilities (priority 3)
Currently if you wish to learn spells/abilities (that aren’t available from the pet teachers) you’ve got to dismiss your current pet (most of the times the stable slots are full for Hunters), tame the new pet and keep spamming the ability until you learned it. Some Hunters say that this current way is not that good. Learning spells/abilities from animals could be done through “Beast Lore”. Once casted on the animal it will learn the abilities it possesses. This would make learning abilities easier (and increasing the usage of this ability) and does not force Hunters to dismiss pets.
Growl (priority 2)
Some Hunters say that Growl is not as effective when not being Marksmanship; Growl by design stacks with AP. When being BM or Survival you are lacking this a little. Letting Growl also slightly scale with Agility would help with solving this.
Off-tank (priority 2)
BM Hunters liked the ability to be off-tanks during (non-heroic) 5-man runs. However, once going in Heroic or raid dungeons this role slightly fades away. Introducing BM specific gear would help with this aspect.
Levelling/Loyalty (priority 5)
The biggest pain of picking a pet is the pets’ level. Most people simply get a +Level 65 pet rather then a Level 10 pet. Letting pets gain a percentage of the Experience from Quests would help greatly. Increasing the speed of loyalty gain might also help a little.
Happiness (priority 4)
Losing Happiness is currently too high; when a pet dies he/she/it goes down a rank. Decreasing this to two-three deaths and then lose one Happiness rank would boost the overall damage during a raid and overall annoyance. Another simpler idea would be to allow feeding pets during combat (feedback pet in combat will be dealt with in a future patch).
BM pet survival (priority 3)
While the new Mend Pet does help a lot in terms of DPS, it is not enough healing to make sure the Hunters’ pet keeps on surviving. Of course most BM Hunters can easily revive pets, but it takes them time to do it thus decreasing the DPS. Adding a new ability to heal pets for around 3000/4000 would help a lot. Not to mention it would boost the off-tank role of a pet. It would of course be instant cast with a huge cooldown (5-10 minutes).
PvP survival (priority 2)
While a Hunter with Resilience reduces damage for himself, it does not do the same for pets. Letting Resilience scale for the pet based upon the Resilience of the Hunter might help with for PvP combat.
More scaling (priority 2)
Besides Resilience scaling for pets, let crit rating and hit rating also scale. This will make sure a Survival Hunters also boosts the pet a little more.
Jump (priority 2)
While a pet can jump during being mind controlled by Hunters, pets don’t use the jump when a master does. Making pets jump when the Hunter jumps (when not in combat) makes the “dismiss pet when taking a short cut”-aspect less messy. The pet stays active and does not lose Happiness because of dismissing pets.
Call of the beast (priority 2)
Some Hunters use pets for specific aspects of the game. However, Hunters constantly need to run back and forward to the Stables to keep switching pets. This will allow Hunters to pick a pet even when not near a Stable. It would of course have a cooldown. A Hunter would have three new spells; each spell for each pet (“Call of <name>”).
More pet abilities (priority 2)
A lot of people suggested various pet abilities for various pet families. You can find them here: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=298891649&sid=1
Collars (priority 3)
Being able to customize a pet is what makes being a Hunter fun. With the pet normalizing change, all pets are the same. Only thing that can vary is the looks and abilities they posses. Adding Collars to pets might help increasing the uniqueness. A collar will be a new Hunter item slot for the pet. Some ideas are:
- Increases focus by XX
- Increases crit chance by XX
- Increases hit chance by XX
- Increases ability YY by XX
- Increases Armour by XX
This will also deal with such things as Hunter pets not scaling with crit and hit chance.
Caster pets (priority 4)
Some Hunters are reporting that Caster Pets (Rays for example) are having lower stats comparing to non-casters. Giving Casters Pets some better stats will help with Hunters not making a mistake when picking this pet. For a full article please read: http://petopia.brashendeavors.net/html/articles/stats_casters.shtml
Out of range (priority 3)
Since content patch 2.3 has implemented the pet hiding behind the mob change, Hunters are reporting that this most of the times lead to the pet being out of range for Kill Command or Mend Pet. Extending the range just slightly might solve this problem.