Couple of Quick Questions for Ghost on Hunter

Q u o t e:
ASPECTS
Aspects on the current PTR are on the same global cool-down of everything else.

Is this just left out of the PTRs or is this a change that we should expect in the game?

Initially we removed the GCD. Then the more we thought about it, what we were asking hunters to do was quickly swap aspects as needed (and more likely just macro them). We thought hunters had a lot of buttons to push already especially when melee get on you and intead just made a new aspect so you could get the benefits of both defense and ranged and wouldn't have to swap as much. If you are just swapping to Viper, the cooldown doesn't seem like a big imposition.

Q u o t e:
STEADY SHOT
Steady shot was doing less damage than my auto shots on the PTR . This was with it unglyphed.I know you have stated that some of the hunter nerfs are a bit much but come on, SS doing less than auto shot seems crazy.

Do you want steady shot to just be a castable auto shot?

I don't think I ever said the nerfs are a bit much. Plenty of hunters may have said that. :) Steady Shot got a massive buff in LK when it started using ammo. We thought it was doing too much damage. If hunter damage is low, and I don't really think it is going to be from the tests we've done and some of the raiding groups we've talked to, we'll likely adjust hunters in other ways.

Q u o t e:
NERFS TO BUFFS TO NERFS TO BUFFS....
You also stated in a post that yes some of the nerfs to hunters are going to be rough but don't worry in patch 3.1 which is in 3-6 months will give you a nice new shiny thingy( which I'm sure is some sort of ammo change) which will make it all BETTER!

Why do you do these things? I know it is because you don't want people to become upset about these changes and give them something to look forward to, but why do you do it like this? I don't mind nerfs and changes to the game at all but nerfing a class then telling the class don't worry come the next patch in 3-6 months things will be all better.

Stop with the games it gets annoying to the players. If you want to nerf a class nerf it. If you want to buff a class buff it. I don't want to know that you plan on nerfing a class now but the next patch you plan on buffing it. It's the same as what you did when wotlk came out. Don't worry it will be all better in 2 months when wotlk comes out.

I think I need to clarify this because you're getting something different out of it from what I said.

I said: we think these changes will put all 3 specs close together for PvE dps rather than BM (or on the PTR Survival) being way out in front. I anticipated some players saying "Yeah but we won't scale" because players often say that when they think nerfs are too severe (though I don't mean to imply it isn't a legit concern in general). I said we have a plan for that in the Ulduar patch (we hope) so how Steady Shot stacks up at some future date isn't productive for you guys to worry about because by the time you get there the numbers will be pretty different. It would be like comparing LK's Steady Shot to BC's or to the hunter class before Steady existed.

Now I will say again that you should not interpret our telling you that we have some future plans for your class to mean that we think your class is just a quivering mess and needs to be totally rebuilt. We are always looking a few months ahead toward the next thing we want to work on. Car manufacturers release new models all the time and other companies announce expansions or future initiatives. That doesn't mean their current models are utter failures. It just means they have an eye on the future. WoW isn't the kind of game you ever finish designing.

Whoa. Hunters turn all big and red like the kitty. Time for a tranq shot.

We talked about it, and Aspects on the GCD is not that big an issue for us. We don't think it's a huge balance problem either way. We can understand though why it feels like a nerf to not have the GCD now and to get it back in 3.0.8. So we can keep Aspects off the GCD. No harm done. (They will still have the 1 sec shared cooldown.)

The argument of why you can't just do too much damage until Ulduar is a silly one. Hunters are doing too much damage. Yes, some other specs are also doing too much damage, but we are reigning those in too.

Remember, our tests are not done with the PTR data. Our builds are more recent than that and have numbers, bug-fixes and data you haven't seen. We try and give you a heads up to major changes when we can, but we can't give you an accurate picture of the data with just words.

We understand the concern that Survival's damage is too high relative to other hunters. That may be the case on the PTR but it isn't the case for us. We have some different numbers for Explosive Shot than the PTR has. We understand the concerns about T.N.T.

I would suggest in general to chill. If you yell and scream and use bad words you're just going to get banned and then nobody can see your feedback. If you are too emotional to post, then just don't do it. We get to make the rules around our forums and the rules are that you have to be civilized. You can disagree with us, and many players do, but when you cross the line and say things that you wouldn't say to your parents, friends or co-workers then you are not behaving civilly. It's ridiculous that I have to remind people of that, but such is the Internet. Be grownups.

EDIT: LNL not TNT. :)

Q u o t e:
Pretty much. Why are we even asked to give feedback if, even on the PTR, we're using incorrect information? How can anyone's feedback, positive or negative, be valid if it's formulated on information that is both outdated and inaccurate? Logically, nobody in this forum can comment on anything constructively at all, because we don't have the inside "numbers" and builds. It really makes me wonder what the purpose of this forum and the PTR is, considering that we only have access to tainted data and therefore cannot come to a correct conclusion about anything.

We're not expecting the community to be our QA team. We have people who do that -- they are trained and experienced and they do a great job. What we want from you guys is feedback, and you don't need the most recent data to do that. While we like numbers and they can be useful, I am constantly cautioning the community not to put too much emphasis into their own theorycrafting and spreadsheets until you have the actual data. We realize the WoW community loves to number crunch. That's awesome and I don't want to discourage it. Remember, the way this used to work is you would just one day get a list of patch notes and everyone would be surprised. So even though you may not always have the most recent data, we're still trying to give you a lot more information on which to comment.

On the Aspects issue, we don't like taking things off of the GCD. There is a reason we have a GCD and it has everything to do with being a server-client based game. We tried to fix the problem with Aspects being difficult to manage by reducing the need to switch from a defensive aspect (Monkey) and an offensive aspect (Hawk). Enough people (and not just on this thread) said Viper would still be a problem, so we agreed in this case to take the Aspects off the GCD. This is a good example of feedback working.

T.N.T concerns -- "I don't want to have to constantly spam traps in order ot keep Explosive Shot's damage high."

EDIT: Sorry. LNL concerns. The TNT concerns are about RNG stuns, which really isn't an issue of hunter dps per se.

Q u o t e:
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Q u o t e:
T.N.T concerns -- "I don't want to have to constantly spam traps in order ot keep Explosive Shot's damage high."
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Don't you mean Lock 'n Load then? T.N.T increases the crit chance of Explosive Shot, and give it and immo/explosive traps a chance to stun. Lock 'n Load is the talent that provides the ability to generate free Explosive Shots off traps and sting ticks.

Yes, sorry. I always get TNT and LNL swapped in my mind. Same tier and all.

The TNT concerns were more about RNG stuns.