#0 - Jan. 3, 2009, 7:09 a.m.
However, I really feel like Blizzard didn't give things a chance to settle out and see how things developed. Hunters are quickly being outpaced by Rogues and as I see other classes get more geared, they are starting to do very impressive damage as well.
You guys have been in this field for a long time now, I'm really surprised that you went and nerfed the Hunter class as hard as you did before having (what myself and many others feel) sufficient information on how things are shaping up as gear levels rise and the playing field really develops.
Let me preface this by saying that I hate the BM playstyle and spec, so my arguments aren't out of fear or anger here at all. But did you consider that a BM Hunter has the smallest requirements of 'softcap' stats of any DPS class? All we had to do was get 5% (4% for Alliance) hit at 80 and then every single itemization point was being thrown into pure, all out, DPS stats. No other class had this luxury. Casters have somewhat steep spell cap requirements as well as poor fresh 80 regen (coupled with raid bosses dying way slower when we were in blues, mana was very tight). Melee have big expertise and hit requirements.
I think you also need to understand that a lot of us are kind of sitting here scratching our heads and wondering if (and I really mean no offense) you guys really know what you're doing. Explosive Shot was 60% scaling in Beta and deemed to be massively overpowered. You have now decided to put it back to 54% up from the previous 24%. I really can't wrap my brain around you guys over-nerfing the BM spec and over-buffing the Survival spec at the same time.
Even looking at the Volley nerf from an objective point of view; Hunters were dealing massive AoE damage, there was no doubt about that. I was playing Marksmanship with Barrage and the numbers were quite monstrous and yet, for all that... we've got Tri-spec Death Knights in the guild right now who can come close to rivaling my AE DPS and sometimes even pass me. Yet in the coming patch, you've decided to drop our AE damage by a truly whopping 30%, and in the same sweep of changes, you take Howling Blast off cooldown? Where's the logic?
I just completely fail to see the consistency in any of this. I love this game and everything about it, and while I know a lot of uninformed players always scream about nerfs and you get lots of forum QQing; when the intelligent people are sitting here scratching their heads and wondering how decisions are being made, that's when I think you need to worry.
