GC: Happy New Year! Just to catch you up...

#0 - Jan. 5, 2009, 7:57 p.m.

Hunter concerns have been captured by Chulak. Some folks believe that you will not answer these questions or even read this post.

I say "shenanigans". Please take the time to read the questions and if possible provide some response to these concerns.

Q u o t e:
[EDITED to include some items I didn't originally mention that were brought up in this thread, a couple are PVP as well]

I don't generally do "@GC" threads, but I'm hoping to at least collect a lot of the hunter PVE concerns in one place here. With 3.08 on the PTR for a while now, there are several fairly fundamental questions regarding the changes to hunter PVE that are coming up repeatedly both here and in the Hunter forums. I am attempting to provide a concise list of basic questions in hopes that GC will choose to address them. In any case, I know he'll read the thread like he does all the rest. These are things that have been repeatedly coming up in my conversations with other hunters.

As a class we are very concerned about what the upcoming changes will bring, and I believe a lot of that is created by confusion and a lack of understanding of the Devs' goals and intentions. Some of these items may be things players think are bugs, but are actually WAI. I'm going to ask all the trolls to please be silent here. I would rather the thread not devolve into a QQfest, as that doesn't serve anyone.

-- We are seeing a 20-25% drop in raid buffed BM DPS on the PTR. Is this in line with your design intent for these changes?

-- Explosive shot is performing well, and many are concerned that after what is looking like it will be a mass migration to Survival for raid DPS that it will end up getting nerfed as well. Is Explosive Shot performing per design intent?

-- Focused Aim does not benefit pets. Is this working as intended?

-- The growth of the Devilsaur hitbox as Monstrous Bite stacks is a severe liability in a large number of PVE scenarios. Has there been any discussion regarding removing the growth associated with MB?

-- T7 stat budgeting is extremely heavy on Haste but devoid of Hit. Is this likely to continue with T8?

-- Is the Spirit Beast perfoming in line with design intent?

-- The 50/21 build resulted in stronger hunter representation in Arena than we have ever seen in the past. It had to be nerfed for PVE reasons, but a lot of PVP hunters are feeling like the first thing they've seen to make them viable is being snatched away without anything to replace it. Has the success of 50/21 in Arena caused you to have any new ideas regarding hunter PVP?

-- [added] Pets are currently bugging out on the elevators in Orgrimmar arena, posting mainly to notify you that there is a problem.

-- [added] Currently if multiple scorpid pets are in a raid they share the same stack of Scorpid Poison. Is this working as intended?

-- BM Arena viability is ending and it is looking like PVE viability is ending as well. Please note that when I say "viability is ending" I am referring to the many dedicated raiders who will spec the max DPS spec regarless of how much they enjoy it. How would you address the feeling in the community that BM is being made obsolete?

-- (Less concise, possible long answer if you choose to take the time). We are confused regarding what type of mark you're trying to hit with our DPS. You've stated that you have to react to your numbers first and foremost, which of course makes sense, but we have to react to our numbers as well (some of us in a more mature fashion than others =D). You stated recently that your numbers include scenarios that we don't necessarily see, such as absolute maximum performance at maximum gearing.

As a matter of design philosophy, how do you choose the location of the target? It seems that balancing around the absolute maximums creates balance around a place only a tiny percentage of the population will ever encounter and thus a necessary imbalance at most/all other levels. I'm not a Realm First guild leader, but I'm towards the higher end of the curve as a realm 3rd-4th guild leader. We had Naxx 25 cleared a month after the Xpac was released using a total of about 45 raiders as we raid more casually than the bleeding edge guilds. The recent BM nerfs seem to be trying to balance us around a theoretical point that I'm not even within sight of less the 50/21 spec and CotW stacking.

If that's the balance point then so be it, I'm just hoping to understand the "how and why" a bit better.

Thank you for reading.

Ghostcrawler

#1 - Jan. 5, 2009, 9:48 p.m.

I read the post. I read them all.

I recently addressed some of the pet questions in another thread.

We know there are some problems with the geometry of the Org Arena. We have fixed many of them.

In our most recent testing BM and MM were neck and neck and Survival was probably a little high. We might tone down Explosive Shot before it goes out the door.

We think with these changes, hunter PvE damage will be in line with other dps classes. We're not concerned about scaling at higher gear levels because we are changing hunter damage enough for 3.1 that we will have to rebalance them anyway.

Ghostcrawler

#43 - Jan. 6, 2009, 1:07 a.m.

I mentioned Ulduar because I suspected hunters would say "Our dps may be okay now but it won't scale." That may be true, but we are planning making some other changes to hunters so we will have a chance to reevaluate scaling before Ulduar ships. We're not ready to share these other change with you, in part because if we end up not going through with the changes players will be "sad" (which I use as a euphamism). Many of the changes we're talking about are designed to make hunters more fun to play, so you shouldn't be scared of them.

Blizzard has always had long term plans for every class and we still do. Perhaps we haven't always been as forthcoming about those plans as I have been lately. But you shouldn't intrepret the fact that we have long term plans to mean that we think your class is horribly broken and shipped it in a horribly broken state.