#23 - Nov. 14, 2008, 10:38 p.m.
Q u o t e:
More hunter threads please.
I would agree that it's not the best use of the forums to launch many threads on similar topics. It just makes information, which already isn't easy to find, even harder to find.
Now I don't mean to disparage the thought that went into many of these hunter PvP threads. There are some really good points being brought up (as an aside one in particular that is getting a lot of talk around the office right now is hunter vulnerability to magic damage).
I am a little disappointed to see hunters say that their issues were not acknowledged however. Granted, most of those discussions took place in the beta forums, but I know that information is still readily available to anyone who is interested. You may not agree that our solutions to some of the problems will work, but I don't think it's fair to say we haven't discussed the issues at all.
I'll just leave it at this:
-- Do we think hunters were underpowered in the previous Arena seasons? Yes.
-- Do we think they will continue to be underpowered? We don't know yet.
-- ZOMG didn't the beta prove that hunters are still underpowered? This requires more explanation. PvP relationships are notoriously difficult to theorycraft. Mostly it just takes a lot of games. While we had some talented players in beta, it's still a very small sample size. Nobody was playing with their "real" character. Few players went through the effort to gear up (meaning enchant, gem and try out options) the way they will on Live. The balance in beta was changing very rapidly, including many bug fixes. We did give hunters some new abilities, some of them potent, and we did change several other aspects of combat that will affect balance. Hunter dps is by most accounts on the top of the charts in PvE, so clearly the problem is more complex than just buffing dps. We also realize that PvP balance can change over time without us doing anything? How can that be? Well, players experiment and adapt. New strategies and counters arise. Now that isn't an excuse for us to never address balance problems, but it is an acknowledgement that balance is dynamic, not static, even without our involvement.
-- Will we take steps to adjust hunters if they continue to be weak in Arenas? Yes. This is absolutely a concern of ours. To some extent my reputation is on the line here because I keep trying to assure players that we will make adjustments, and I know you'll throw it back in my face if we don't deliver. :) The game has only been out for a few days though, so it's just premature to make sweeping changes yet. I realize some knowledgeable hunters are convinced the changes we made were not enough. At the end of the day though, it is us, not the players, who need to make decisions about game design. We will always listen to your feedback when making our decisions though.