#0 - Oct. 31, 2008, 4 a.m.
After playing several different specs on the PTR over the last 2 days I have serious doubts about hunter viability in any PvP format when 3.0 goes live. On the live servers it's arenas where all of the hunter weaknesses are exposed yet we're absolutely fine in PvP otherwise, but with the current build on the PTR the class is just a joke in any form of PvP.
- Global Cooldowns: Hunters have a 1.5 second GCD like all the other classes with a mana bar, yet we are the only one that I know of without any way whatsoever to reduce it. Haste works for us like it does for melee classes, in that it only affects our white damage. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like every single hunter ability we have is on the GCD and trying to string together any good offensive or defensive combinations is nearly impossible.
- Burst: Due to the linking of Aimed & Multi and Arcane & Explosive Shot, coupled with the 1.5 second hard GCD, we just can't deliver much burst at all. My burst capability on live is probably double what it is on the PTR.
Explosive Shot was went from being a high damage shot that made hunter burst very good early in Beta it was turned into a DoT by the time it made it to the PTR. For me is is doing about 750 damage a tick for 3 ticks and is a joke of the 51 point talent.
- Survivability: Hunter survivability on the PTR is best described as a cruel joke. We have no mitigation vs casters at all and against melee we have much less survivability on the PTR than we do on the live server.
We have something like a natural -12% dodge rating. If I spec into the improved Aspect of the Monkey, which is +6% dodge and activate AotM for a total of +14% dodge from it, I have less dodge on the PTR than I do on live with different aspect on.
Disengage, is very buggy right now and 1/2 the time it doesn't work and about 1/4 of the time it only moves us back 5 yards. Even when it does work it's pretty much ineffective. If I Wingclip the melee class attacking me, I have to wait 1.5 seconds for the GCD so I can Disengage, then while I'm flying backwards through the air and a lot of the time I'm getting hit while I land. I don't know if this is a bug or maybe just that melee range has been increased to the point where Disengage doesn't get you far enough back. I have heard that if there is a downward slope behind you it actually works much better, but that's not something always available.
- Pets: Blizzard did a great job giving pets useful abilities and it feels like for the first time there is real synergy between the hunter and their pets. They're seriously one of the coolest things that hunters have been given since the game came out.
The problem, which is even worse than it is on live, is that they're so easy to kill. I know that Blizzard has said in the past that people killing pets are "essentially CCing themselves", but when they can 2 shot the pet it means that they've CCd themselves for maybe 2-3 seconds. With hunter pets now providing us with useful abilities it gives opponents even more reason to kill the pet quick and with the mana cost of rezzing them and having our DPS set with hunters having a pet active it means that 1/4 of our DPS can essentially be cut by our opponents simply taking 2-3 seconds to kill them.
- Vision for the Hunter class: Ghostcrawler, a Blizzard developer, said that the classes in WoW are broken down into 3 categories; melee, healer and caster. Since hunters are ranged DPS they have us categorized as a caster, yet we do physical DPS.
We have a 1.5 second caster GCD, yet unlike all the other casters we have no way of shortening our GCD, because haste affects us like melee. We are the only "caster" that deals physical DPS, which is mitigated by armor unlike all the other caster DPS classes. We got Aspect of the Beast "buffed" to deal 10% more melee damage, which is something no other caster class would be given. We have no ability at all to mitigate spell damage like all the other caster classes. We were told by another developer that we should like MP5 on our gear, yet unlike any other caster classes we have no MP5 on our gear in WotLK. We also don't have good targetable reliable CC like other casters; although from the changes to Freezing Arrow it looks like this problem might finally be coming to an end.
It seems the developers have given us many of the limitations of both melee and casters, which are designed to keep the classes in check, yet few of the benefits of either casters or melee. With these mixed messages it appears that the Devs themselves don't have a clear idea of where the hunter class fits into the big picture, so it's understandably difficult to make the class work.
Blizzard knows there is a problem, Fiasco From blizzard has stated "we know the hunter class is not arena friendly but there will be new maps at 80 which should help".
