Why do people say hunters are "middle of the pack"?

[eschatological]

Except Method's WW was also their Brewmaster tank, and tanked their world first 25 man H-Lei Shen. And H-DA. And a bunch of other fights, iirc. Hunters don't even have that option.

[Jigsawe]

Must be why Method took two (except Dark Animus) , and BL took one to every kill. Can't get much more top of the pack than that. They were taken because they were good players, you're lying to yourself if you think they didn't have alts that could have taken their spots if they wanted them to. Even in the top guilds the skill gradient is quite large. Stop whining, play better.

[eschatological]

They took hunters because there's only 4 specs in the game which use agility mail, and 3 of them are hunter specs, and no one raids enhance.

When Method's officer who happens to be a hunter says hunters were given the short end of the stick in the tier with WW (and hey, he was one of the 2 you mentioned), I think it's safe to say that if there had been an equally-skilled player playing a better class to replace them, they would have, except to soak that mail agi gear. Direct quotes from that interview:

Q: What was the class balance like in this tier? Any OP classes or less than useful ones?
Rogerbrown: Overall this tier I think dps warriors, ww monks, hunters and spriests got the short end of the stick.
(NB: They took none of these to Lei Shen except hunters.)

Sparkuggz: Warlocks, Mages and Boomkins were the strong ranged classes with rogues being more or less the only viable melee you wanted to bring. Hunters and DPS monks were pretty much the class you didn't want to bring because they really didn't put anything on the table. The only reason you ever took a DPS warrior was because of skullbaner.

[Danshot]

warlocks are so much more original and sooooooo much stronger than hunters. they are what a pure dps class should be, meanwhile hunters are ranged ret paladins without the utility

[ihatepeople]

Must be why Method took two (except Dark Animus) , and BL took one to every kill. Can't get much more top of the pack than that. They were taken because they were good players, you're lying to yourself if you think they didn't have alts that could have taken their spots if they wanted them to. Even in the top guilds the skill gradient is quite large. Stop whining, play better.

Lol, you should actually put some thought into what you type before you hit the post button man. No disrespect/offense, but you are pretty much totally wrong. Method took two hunters because 1 of them (Rogerbrown if you don't know) is an OFFICER and the other is a longstanding member in the guild. Method said in Cata (when they used shaman healers on Sinestra even though they were in a bad spot) that they have dedicated members that they bring to raids regardless of whether their class is OP/favorable or not. BL took one to every kill because they've pretty much never raided with an enhancement shaman and Dyveriate was just there to soak up agi mail. Truefire said this in a previous MMO thread. Also, Method is not alt crazy and they do not like to use too many alts in their raid, they said this in their recent Manaflask interview (and in the previous interview for T14 as well iirc).

So please, kindly gtfo and troll somewhere else.

They took hunters because there's only 4 specs in the game which use agility mail, and 3 of them are hunter specs, and no one raids enhance.

When Method's officer who happens to be a hunter says hunters were given the short end of the stick in the tier with WW (and hey, he was one of the 2 you mentioned), I think it's safe to say that if there had been an equally-skilled player playing a better class to replace them, they would have, except to soak that mail agi gear. Direct quotes from that interview:

Q: What was the class balance like in this tier? Any OP classes or less than useful ones?
Rogerbrown: Overall this tier I think dps warriors, ww monks, hunters and spriests got the short end of the stick.
(NB: They took none of these to Lei Shen except hunters.)

Sparkuggz: Warlocks, Mages and Boomkins were the strong ranged classes with rogues being more or less the only viable melee you wanted to bring. Hunters and DPS monks were pretty much the class you didn't want to bring because they really didn't put anything on the table. The only reason you ever took a DPS warrior was because of skullbaner.

Also....thisx5....

[Jigsawe]

Using damage as your only metric for a classes viability is both stupid and misguided. If hunters were really that bad, they wouldn't have been in for the real progression fight - Lei Shen. Maybe take a look at BL's video to see how BM stacks up on that fight, pretty much the only progression fight that lasted more than a few days; up until their hunter dies the only classes ahead are Warlocks (obviously), and Warriors/Monks slightly. Method's hunters were playing a shit spec, that's no one's fault but their own. A one minute immunity/70% damage reduction on Lei Shen is pretty game breaking for Static Shock, coupled with the fact that Binding Shot and Intimidation eliminate Diffusion add damage on the non-stacked platform. If you haven't done the fight your input really is just hearsay and the source you're using chose to play the wrong spec, that's about it.

---------- Post added 2013-05-01 at 03:52 PM ----------
Also, important to note, the people in this thread for some reason think they play with the same caliber of player that top guilds do, which is again, wrong. If you can't outplay people in your US 200th+ guilds, the class isn't the problem.

[Hoofey]

Using damage as your only metric for a classes viability is both stupid and misguided. If hunters were really that bad, they wouldn't have been in for the real progression fight - Lei Shen. Maybe take a look at BL's video to see how BM stacks up on that fight, pretty much the only progression fight that lasted more than a few days; up until their hunter dies the only classes ahead are Warlocks (obviously), and Warriors/Monks slightly. Method's hunters were playing a shit spec, that's no one's fault but their own. A one minute immunity/70% damage reduction on Lei Shen is pretty game breaking for Static Shock, coupled with the fact that Binding Shot and Intimidation eliminate Diffusion add damage on the non-stacked platform. If you haven't done the fight your input really is just hearsay and the source you're using chose to play the wrong spec, that's about it.

---------- Post added 2013-05-01 at 03:52 PM ----------
Also, important to note, the people in this thread for some reason think they play with the same caliber of player that top guilds do, which is again, wrong. If you can't outplay people in your US 200th+ guilds, the class isn't the problem.

So, basically what you're saying is that Method's hunters chose a shit spec because BL's hunter beat em with 2-5k dps a week later?
Aaaand that hunters aren't bad because BL's hunter placed 8-9th on the meters (when he died), which is.. middle of the pack?

Fair enough, hunters are ok.
I seriously doubt the diffusion add was their main problem after all those tries though, Intimidation is nice and all but yeah.. pretty sure they had worked it out somehow, so not really mandatory on that fight.

Deterrence is good, but we're not the only ones who can cheese static shock like that.


Now, lets turn it around.


Imagine that fight...

without warlocks.

:|

[ihatepeople]

Using damage as your only metric for a classes viability is both stupid and misguided. If hunters were really that bad, they wouldn't have been in for the real progression fight - Lei Shen. Maybe take a look at BL's video to see how BM stacks up on that fight, pretty much the only progression fight that lasted more than a few days; up until their hunter dies the only classes ahead are Warlocks (obviously), and Warriors/Monks slightly. Method's hunters were playing a shit spec, that's no one's fault but their own. A one minute immunity/70% damage reduction on Lei Shen is pretty game breaking for Static Shock, coupled with the fact that Binding Shot and Intimidation eliminate Diffusion add damage on the non-stacked platform. If you haven't done the fight your input really is just hearsay and the source you're using chose to play the wrong spec, that's about it.

---------- Post added 2013-05-01 at 03:52 PM ----------
Also, important to note, the people in this thread for some reason think they play with the same caliber of player that top guilds do, which is again, wrong. If you can't outplay people in your US 200th+ guilds, the class isn't the problem.

Ok, once more, since you seem to have a hard time understanding (or maybe you're just dodging the fact that you were proven wrong by two people, i dunno): Method brought 2 hunters because one of them is an OFFICER and the other is a longtime (aka valued) member of the guild. Yes any class that can soak/immunity static shock is great on that fight, but we're talking about the CLASS as a whole. Again, nice dodging, you should be a politician. There's only about 23 guilds (no counting asia) that have done the encounter, so there's A LOT of people's input that would be hear...oh wait....we've got the videos of the fight AND we're not talking about this specific encounter.

Damage potential is not the only metric, but it is a big deal for a PURE DPS CLASS. If hunters can't bring big dog damage and they don't have any raid usefulness what's the point of bringing them? Also, Survival isn't a shit spec, it's just as good as (arguably better) than BM on every fight. Do you even play the hunter class?

No one is in this thread saying that they play at the same level as the Top 10 guilds, but playing your class fully and being skilled is not something that is only seen at the top of the ladder. Plenty of skilled people play in lower ranked/casual guilds. Notice where people are saying "equal skill and gear"? Yea, that's a pretty key statement. Nice of you to actually read the thread and join us.

Smh....

[Jigsawe]

So, basically what you're saying is that Method's hunters chose a shit spec because BL's hunter beat em with 2-5k dps a week later?
Aaaand that hunters aren't bad because BL's hunter placed 8-9th on the meters (when he died), which is.. middle of the pack?

Fair enough, hunters are ok.
I seriously doubt the diffusion add was their main problem after all those tries though, Intimidation is nice and all but yeah.. pretty sure they had worked it out somehow, so not really mandatory on that fight.

Deterrence is good, but we're not the only ones who can cheese static shock like that.


Now, lets turn it around.


Imagine that fight...

without warlocks.

:|

No, Method's hunters chose a shit spec because of the way Chi Burst and 4 Demo locks work with the adds that spawn. You can see their single target-ish damage going into phase 3, 25k lower than Dyv as BM. Phase 1 and Phase 3 are fairly strict single target dps checks, which is why BM is so much better. The overkill they contribute to the adds as SV is irrelevant. Of course there are other ways to deal with the Diffusion Add, but since you typically only let classes with short immunities not stack for the second transition, the classes available on those platforms to prevent the lightning chaining is limited (it's melee based) and occurs right before Overcharge which is why Binding Shot is so good.

We're not the only class that can cheese the mechanic, but we ARE the only class that can cheese every other static shock.

I'm not arguing against warlocks being beyond broken, they completely are. Instead of whining about hunters, however, the critique should be on bringing warlocks down (though it's in large part due to the Crit trinket) to everyone else's level.

By the way, 8-9th isn't really middle of the pack when 4 of those slots are one class. The tank was also one of those ahead of Dyv, which is standard on that fight with Vengeance + Chi Burst on adds. So in reality, there were 4 locks (who pretty much everyone can agree on are out of check) and 3 other dps who were all within an appropriate range going into execute.

[Conando]

I mean, if we really want to get specific about BL's Lei Shen kill, their hunter had the most gear there, their other hunter actually did switch to a different class, and Lei Shen is a fairly favorable fight for hunters.

But I really think thats taking a narrow view of things. It's one fight. Looking at things honestly and as a whole, it's hard not to say that the lack of a raidwide CD and limited cleave with the consolation prize of average ST damage and good mobility puts us at a tangible disadvantage. It's not huge, but it's also not worth writing off completely.

[Jigsawe]

Ok, once more, since you seem to have a hard time understanding (or maybe you're just dodging the fact that you were proven wrong by two people, i dunno): Method brought 2 hunters because one of them is an OFFICER and the other is a longtime (aka valued) member of the guild. Yes any class that can soak/immunity static shock is great on that fight, but we're talking about the CLASS as a whole. Again, nice dodging, you should be a politician. There's only about 23 guilds (no counting asia) that have done the encounter, so there's A LOT of people's input that would be hear...oh wait....we've got the videos of the fight AND we're not talking about this specific encounter.

Damage potential is not the only metric, but it is a big deal for a PURE DPS CLASS. If hunters can't bring big dog damage and they don't have any raid usefulness what's the point of bringing them? Also, Survival isn't a shit spec, it's just as good as (arguably better) than BM on every fight. Do you even play the hunter class?

No one is in this thread saying that they play at the same level as the Top 10 guilds, but playing your class fully and being skilled is not something that is only seen at the top of the ladder. Plenty of skilled people play in lower ranked/casual guilds. Notice where people are saying "equal skill and gear"? Yea, that's a pretty key statement. Nice of you to actually read the thread and join us.

Smh....

They brought two hunters who underperformed, congrats - BL brought one who was, aside from warlocks, competitive for the top spot. Which encounter would you like to talk about? Rarely are fights tuned so tightly (Spine/Yogg-0) that you really have to cut any non-top performing class, but then again that only applies to a few guilds each tier. If you're not in one of the top guilds, by the time you reach a fight you typically have more than enough gear to meet the damage check and it simply becomes a mechanical issue, in which case player skill is the determining factor for a raid slot. Do I even play a hunter, good question - here's a fight pretty much everyone in this thread is able to kill as well as a fight that lacks adds to pad on:

http://www.worldoflogs.com/rankings/...rvival_Hunter/

But you're right I'm probably spewing shit randomly because I haven't cleared any of this content...oh wait, that would be you. As an aside, your name is quite fitting of your ability to handle a social environment, as you seem to be unable to handle a simple discussion without resorting to baseless, unrelated insults.

People can assume equal skill and gear all they want, but that's pretty much never the case; especially if, as you say, there are plenty of skilled players in casual guilds - they should easily out-perform the casual players who deserve to be there based on skill.

---------- Post added 2013-05-01 at 05:14 PM ----------

I mean, if we really want to get specific about BL's Lei Shen kill, their hunter had the most gear there, their other hunter actually did switch to a different class, and Lei Shen is a fairly favorable fight for hunters.

But I really think thats taking a narrow view of things. It's one fight. Looking at things honestly and as a whole, it's hard not to say that the lack of a raidwide CD and limited cleave with the consolation prize of average ST damage and good mobility puts us at a tangible disadvantage. It's not huge, but it's also not worth writing off completely.

Of course, the hunters in any guild should have the most gear as they have the least competition, another aspect that helps balance the class. Simply looking at Lei Shen is admittedly a narrow view, but it's a fight that has a little bit of everything - Single target requirements, AoE phases, complex mechanics, immunity requirements, etc. It's largely considered the progression fight of the tier, which is why I focus on it.

Regardless of the reason, a hunter was brought to the top 3 kills on every fight, if they're able to validate a raid spot in that demanding of a progression scenario then there's no reason a hunter should lose his spot in any other guild.

Honestly, most parses at this point involve some sort of padding (note: this doesn't mean it's all padding) where multi-dotters/cleavers are favored, which tends to skew raidbots in favor of the classes that can do so.

A raid-wide cool down certainly wouldn't hurt, I'm not sure what you mean by ST damage. Our cleave damage isn't the best but certainly isn't the worst, the only notable exceptions are again warlocks (w/ Crit trinket), DKs (because festerblight + Feather trinket), and as always, strong dot classes on fights like Council.

A few problems with this tier is that there are some trinkets that completely break classes (see any caster that can game the Crit trinket or DKs) and our best single target spec isn't viable on several fights due to pet pathing or just sheer AoE potential. This isn't a reason for hunters to lose a raid spot over dps, which is ultimately what this argument boils down to.

[Deleted]

http://www.worldoflogs.com/rankings/...rvival_Hunter/

This just proves it, you ranked #2 and still you got beaten by 4 other people.

[Jigsawe]

That doesn't prove anything. This fight, mechanic-wise heavily favors rogues as their CDs line up with 40% damage buff. Warlocks are OP, as discussed, and Xyronic has top 5-10 parses for just about every fight making him one of the best their is in terms of dps. Yet, the other warlocks are well below, largely where player skill comes in (and trinkets). Even at US 5th our guild has such a large skill gradient that it can't be ignored when deciding who to bring to raid. The take home point I'm trying to get at, is that hunters are more than viable and able to overwhelmingly earn their raid spot with good play. If people want to go through a fight by fight basis on hunter viability I'm all for that.

[Youarefired]

Well if you have Aspect of the Pack on and you're in the middle of the group, then you're basically the middle of the pack.

[Danshot]

This just proves it, you ranked #2 and still you got beaten by 4 other people.

Durzo ranked as the 13th best assassination rogue at 302995 dps bro

the top rogue did 320k, nearly 80k more than the #2 ranking sv hunter.

[Jigsawe]

Well if you have Aspect of the Pack on and you're in the middle of the group, then you're basically the middle of the pack.

/thread
/concede

---------- Post added 2013-05-01 at 06:12 PM ----------

Durzo ranked as the 13th best assassination rogue at 302995 dps bro

the top rogue did 320k, nearly 80k more than the #2 ranking sv hunter.

As you can see from just looking at overall rankings, rogues dominate that fight due to how they're CDs line-up. No class (albeit warlocks are close) are ever going to dominate every fight - most classes have niche fights where they perform well, unfortunately some classes more than others currently (in my opinion this is largely due to trinkets and not so much class balance). In regards to this particular parse, there were quite a few mistakes made on my end that could have narrowed the gap, but that's besides the point.

[Aleksej89]

These days class balance tends to be very close, with only certain specs being in the "too high or too low" category.

On my hunter (who is just a lvl90 alt) i always found Survival to be a reliable and good damage dealing spec while MM is unfortunately weak since release.

BM, as always, is way too clunky (pet cant reach targets, pet aint affected by boss specific raid buffs/debuffs, pet cant reach flying enemies, pet stuck behind walls) etc etc.... playing BM in PVE is like asking to be fuked every time some specific mechanic occurs.

[mistahwilshire]

Hunters can bring almost literally their choice of any group utility. Almost any buff, heroism/bloodluse... even battle rez now.

If you actually look at what we can bring, there's nothing there that won't already be present almost passively by another class in a 25man...and it's even almost the same case in 10 man.

Hunters NEED a UNIQUE raid cooldown. Ret Paladin DPS sucks balls the past two tiers and they are adored in Heroic raiding because they have AMAZING buttons to help out the raid (and cheese mechanics).

[Hayro1]

and it's even almost the same case in 10 man.

Pretty much, unless your 10m comp is dumb of course, haha.

[Deleted]

Hunters are the middle of the pack yes, simply because everyone stacks locks, mages and rogues, which are all superior.

Just look at the logs from top guilds, their hunters are struggling to get in the top 5 on damage, locks dominate too much.

(And don't base yourself on wol, it's easy to boost and gimp the logs, unless you wish to personally check what they did damage to).