Blue Response to BM in Class Development Forums (Wild Call Changes)

[Khrux]

I'd like this change in a world where Mantle never existed, where everyone lost wild call procs and the BM rotation was full of gaps and very RNG dependant but alot of us have already drank the coolade and we know what BM with 2 charges of DB/DF is like. We now know what having options like OwtP vs BF is like, we know what choosing crit vs haste was like.

Its too late to put in a change to a problem that only existed before Mantle. I agree that this quality of life and power gain from Mantle is too high, but thats why everyone wants it baseline. This change is 4 months too late, mantle provided a solution that should never have been on an item and these morons developing the game are blind or ignorant to it and decide to come up with some new fancy solution ripped straight from other classes.

I understand they are likely thinking instead of making a powerful item baseline to shore up a problem within a spec, lets fix the problem instead, but that is inadvertently ruining an item, ruining a playstyle and combat pace people now enjoy and reducing the overall max potential power level of BM. To propose a solution to something we already have a solution for.

This is a negative for all users(mantle or not) the hit is just massive for mantle owners.

[Chickensoup23]

I just don't understand the reasoning of how this will be "equal" in the long run.

1) Double the proc rate means we need double the GCDs to spend on doing the same exact thing. Yay.
2) Baseline, it's a 3 sec reduction. Right now, I have high haste & it's a 10.6 second recharge for me...so you basically would need 3 procs to be equivalent to 1 refresh. That's not counting using 3 GCDs as opposed to 1...

This is just a nerf, flat out. A garbage one at that. I finally got my mantle and it's going to be a huge hit. BM gets fucked again and again.

[andreasels]

I just don't understand the reasoning of how this will be "equal" in the long run.

1) Double the proc rate means we need double the GCDs to spend on doing the same exact thing. Yay.
2) Baseline, it's a 3 sec reduction. Right now, I have high haste & it's a 10.6 second recharge for me...so you basically would need 3 procs to be equivalent to 1 refresh. That's not counting using 3 GCDs as opposed to 1...

This is just a nerf, flat out. A garbage one at that. I finally got my mantle and it's going to be a huge hit. BM gets fucked again and again.

1) Wild Call procs off Autoattacks, so has nothing to do with GCD, but with Attack timers.
2) It will scale with haste, so it always reduces the cooldown by 1/4 of the cooldown you got.

Anyway, it is only a "small" nerf, but mostly a smoothing out if you don't have the shoulders:

Atm, you have 12 seconds cooldown on DB (without haste and it doesn't matter how much haste you have, since as state above, it will scale with haste anyway)
Since you can't control, when the reset happens, it will reset anywhere between 0.00001 and 12 seconds of the cooldown. This averages out to 6 seconds taken off the cooldown per proc.

With the new system, you will get 3 seconds taken off the cooldown per proc, but get double the amount of procs.
In reality 3/4 of the time, you will get the full 3 seconds taken off the cooldown per procand in 1/4s of the time, you will get between 0.00001 and 3 seconds taken off the cooldown per proc, which averages out to 3/4*3 + 1/4*1.5 = 2.625 seconds taken off per proc. Since you get double the amount of procs, it will be 5.25 seconds taken off in the same timeframe as you get 6 seconds taken off atm.

Since you can better plan ahead with the new system's 3 seconds taken off than if you get random full resets, it might actually even out completely.

TL;DR: small nerf (which might actually not matter at all with good planning) without shoulders, big nerf with shoulders

[infinitemeridian]

It's a nerf, but that's good. BM is already way too good for how easy/mobile it is. You can't do everything great.

[Sastank]

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/rankings/11#class=Hunter

WAT

Yes thanks someone else pointed out similar things. Forgot about the trait nerf for MM. WAT

[turtledragon]

I'm pretty much expecting a Thunderslash Nerf to go along with it. At least i don't need to farm for the shoulders anymore.

[Eapoe]

So, just so I'm clear on this: Blizzard wanted to nerf the shoulders to bring them in line with power thruput as the other legendaries. To nerf the shoulders, instead of changing them, they change our Wild Call ability to a CD reduction, directly nerfing Wild Call (2-3 procs instead of 1 even with double chance to proc is still a nerf as far as I can tell), which then indirectly nerfs Dire Frenzy (unless you get good RNG to get enough procs to reset it), which then POSSIBLY changes our stat weights to desire crit over possibly mastery or haste (we need those procs after all), which then also indirectly nerfs our Thunderslash artifact trait?
Is this the gist of it? In an attempt to nerf legendary shoulders and benefit players without them as well as players with them they just nerfed the class as a whole?

[Tehterokkar]

Yes thanks someone else pointed out similar things. Forgot about the trait nerf for MM. WAT

It's not really about the trait nerf of MM. On the first week of 7.2 no BM had Thunderslash, that alone contributed to the DPS by 7-11% depending on the fight.

[Khrux]

Is this the gist of it? In an attempt to nerf legendary shoulders they just nerfed the class as a whole?

While not as straight forward as you described, the summary is accurate. To nerf the shoulders, they nerfed the spec. The impact of the nerf will just be felt more by people with Shoulders/high end raiders who parse orange ranks and now how to game the procs, leverage frenzy uptimes, know the cut offs for CD reduction on BW being worth or not etc. Basically the nerfs should only be noticeably at the top end of the specs performance.

When Thunderslash nerfs come in the next week or so, we'll really have something to cry about.

[Eapoe]

While not as straight forward as you described, the summary is accurate. To nerf the shoulders, they nerfed the spec. The impact of the nerf will just be felt more by people with Shoulders/high end raiders who parse orange ranks and now how to game the procs, leverage frenzy uptimes, know the cut offs for CD reduction on BW being worth or not etc. Basically the nerfs should only be noticeably at the top end of the specs performance.

When Thunderslash nerfs come in the next week or so, we'll really have something to cry about.

Yeah, not really crying about it, but it does suck. Still can't understand why they just didn't nerf the shoulders instead of the spec. Whether or not they made the extra charge baseline, they could have just given the proc chance to the shoulders, make the nerf to the shoulders and not the spec itself.

[Nythiz]

Seems to me this change would turn the shoulders into an orange stat stick. OwtP gives wild call 100% proc chance with every autoshot crit, which might mean crit>mastery, especially once we drop t19 for the ToS set. Not sure if this would overtake bestial fury. I have shoulders, and I really hope they change their minds about this and just make shoulders effect baseline to make all bm hunters happy. Make the spec fun again. It's not like we're destroying meters with the shoulders. This looks like a nerf to our top end.

To be honest a charge system for Dire Beast / Frenzy is still a good thing to have.
The complete cooldown reset of Wild Call makes/made it really desirable and good, but it's still really nice to not have to worry about using Dire Beast on cooldown as much. Having 2 charges on DB allows you to prioritize other spells (eg KC) without losing potential charges over the course of a fight.
And even with the new 3 second reduction it'll happen often that you'll be wasting Wild Call potential, just not always and not as much as before.

Not agreeing with the nerf btw, just saying that a charge system is still a good thing to have. It'll still make the spec more enjoyable and have a (albeit much much worse) dps benefit. So not complete statsticks, but definitely a huge reduction in dps gain.

I'm not playing BM all that much, but in theory, this change is a good thing... whether the numbers add up or not is another thing of course, but it reduces RNG, makes legendary less mandatory etc.

I like it tbh.

The one thing it does do is improve Wild Call for BM hunters without shoulders yes.
But reducing RNG is not always better. BM is already pretty straight forward and easy. Instead of removing the RNG they could have played in on it; it's what the shoulders did. Give BM a baseline 2 charge system and the RNG system gives the spec a bit more flavor.
It's reminds me of the nerf to windfury. Sure the RNG becomes less and the damage is smoothed out anyway; but it killed part of what made it fun.

We'll see though.

Also they said that haste will effect the 3 sec reduction they are adding so 3 sec might be baseline then take into account our haste which will probably pull ahead of mastery with t20 anyway.

Do keep in mind that scaling with haste makes the cooldown reduction SMALLER, not BIGGER. (So the more haste you have, the smaller the cooldown reduction ends up being)
This is not in particular aimed at the quote, but more in general.

If the cooldown reduction became bigger with haste you'd get double/triple haste dipping, where haste both reduces the cooldown of the spell, increases the proc chance (as in more auto shots) and increases the cooldown reduction. That doesn't seem like a mechanic blizzard would implement.

If they say Wild Call will scale with haste, I'm going to assume that the amount of cooldown reduction is going to be 3.0 seconds / 1 + Haste%.
That way it's always the same 1/4th of your DB cooldown.

[Inerras]

Here's another thing to consider. If you have shoulders and this change happens, I wonder if the cdr would carry over to the 2nd charge. Like if you have 0 haste and you have 1 sec left on the cd and you get a proc, would that mean 2 sec off the 2nd charge? Because if not then shoulders truly become a stat stick.

[BarelyLegalBear]

It's a nerf, but that's good. BM is already way too good for how easy/mobile it is. You can't do everything great.

You're joking right? All hunter specs should be among the top because we're a pure dps class. Same applies for all other pure dps classes.

[Deleted]

The nerf to BM is sad and they should have 2 charges by default, and now my guild is pushing me to reroll to it, because of it flat better than mm. But i have put over 180 milions ap into MM rerolling now would kill me. And being last sure sucks on almost any fight.

[Sim]

So with this change the Legendary totem pole goes back to Belt being no 1 Legendary time with Bracers with Convergence no 2?

[Deleted]

BM is the best hunter spec right now and this buffs people like me who have 9 BM legendaries and no shoulders..

If you cant perform w/o shoulders thats an issue your side

[Sim]

BM is the best hunter spec right now and this buffs people like me who have 9 BM legendaries and no shoulders..

If you cant perform w/o shoulders thats an issue your side

It was never about performing w/o shoulders. But WITH shoulders you were able to crack the higher % tier of DPS. Like many have said before that this is more of a huge nerf to the top end of BM Hunters than anything else. Look at warcraftlogs and count the number of top 100 parses and see the with vs without stats.

[Deleted]

RIP BM
I will swap loot spec to MM asap

[Tycondriel]

RIP BM
I will swap loot spec to MM asap

Well that seems like overkill. Especially considering BM is outperforming MM even without the shoulders...

[dattroll]

With Dire Frenzy / legendary shoulders, even with 2 stacks you get countless DF CD wasted, since its only optimal to use the skill to refresh the pet buff, thats the whole point of this talent. I have the shoulders, i'm pulling 800k on Krosus mythic with it and i cannot count how long i've sit on 2 stacks of DF waiting for the pet buff to reach 1s so i can refresh it. DF is all about pet buff management, not how many times you can use it in a fight.

Now, if you have a 5s CD reduction, you most often will be able to use DF on cooldown without the worry of losing the stacks on pet, since the buff lasts 8s on pet, one single 5s reduction proc during that period would make it viable to just spend the DF charge at will.

OWTP might be mandatory, but the legendary shoulders wont, since you will now be able to most likely just spend that DF without caring about the pet buff... 100% chance to reduce 5s on DF? Sign me up, i'll delete my legendary shoulder in a live stream if this happen.

omg thank you! finally a reasonable voice. i swear to god half of the hunter community is retarded, no wonder people call us huntards. with the new talent "thunderlash" you are supposed to pair it up with dire frenzy on a single target fight. the changes will help maintaining 3 stacks of dire frenzy alot easier! this is not a nerf, but a buff in my eyes. you cant nerf something that is supposed baseline (eg. legendary shoulders 2 dire procs), unless they delete dire beast completely no way in hell shoulders are gonna be weak. right now blizz is giving us clear identities bm as the single target spec, mm as the multi target spec, sv as the if you want to be melee spec. i dont know why half of the community is freaking out about.