What is the logical reason Blizzard refuses to address Hunter issues?

[Mjolnir2k]

I have been trying to figure this out for some time. It seems obvious to most anyone that plays a Hunter with any frequency that there are a tremendous amount of QoL issues and outright bugs that cripple much of the class as a whole. It also seems painfully obvious to anyone with a reasonable train of thought that Hunters are doing very poorly in the DPS department these days (don't get me started on PvP).

So why is it that Blizzard flat out refuses to address these very real issues. I simply cannot fathom a logical reason that they not only ignore the problems, but that they won't even acknowledge a problem exists ("Hunter DPS is fine, if not a little high" -GC)

Obviously we see other classes getting buff's to their 2nd and 3rd tier spec's (DEAR GOD, MAGES AGAIN!!) to make those classes fully rounded, while the Hunter spec's are routinely left to languish and be band-aided xpac after xpac with no real solutions.

But why? How is this at all a logical way to run a business? Let's assume the WoW population is ~10 million and apx 10% of those are people that play the Hunter class. That's roughly 1 Million people that are playing a poorly developed class. This isn't a significant reason to do something?

I have joked in the past that it's because GC plays a Mage, but to be honest I didn't REALLY believe that the lead developer of a multi BILLION dollar MMO is that shallow.

So what could possibly be the reasoning behind these very blatant omissions to Hunter issues?

There are days where I honestly wish they would just say "we can't figure out how to make Hunters work, so we are offering anyone with a Hunter 'toon a one time class transfer (all achiev's and mounts etc come with you) and then we will be deleting the Hunter as a playable class". At least this would be honest and provide some reasonable course of action.

So why? Why won't Blizzard fix something that is so obviously broken?

I am not looking for QQ, oh woe is me here. I am honestly curious as to their possible rationale for their actions (inactions).

[ihatepeople]

They are fully aware of our issues, but they aren't going to dish out any long term solutions with the next expansion beta arriving in 6-7 months. As much as it sucks to have to be a garbage class for the next half a year, Blizzard is keeping the demand high by pulling the old "we'll fix it with the next expansion" trick. So I'd say you can either let your account freeze until you figure out whether you wanna play in MOP or grab that annual pass and hop on that free beta key deal. I too am pretty disappointed that after 7 years our scaling/damage issues are STILL not fixed and that we have to spend more money (doesn't apply to you if you're not gonna play hunter in MOP obviously) to play a class that still may not be fixed in the future.

TLDR...Blizzard isn't fixing hunters because they want your money for the next expansion, and even in MOP there's no guarantee that they'll finally get it right.

[Skygoneblue]

It seems obvious to most anyone that plays a Hunter with any frequency that there are a tremendous amount of QoL issues and outright bugs that cripple much of the class as a whole.

Untrue. I've played my hunter consistently since Wrath, and I have yet to perceive this. There are certainly unique challenges associated with being a ranged class, but they're not isolated to hunters.

I think people draaaaaastically exaggerate hunter "problems". They're a damn fun class that's capable of pulling pretty impressive DPS with a little effort.

[Dhryke]

Not everyone can be the best of the best all the time. We hunters have had our time to be on top. Share the spotlight a little and ffs have fun playing the class, or reroll like the rest of em.

I agree hunters are not top DPS this tier, but we aren't low enough to worry about. Sure there are some fights where we don't perform as well as others, there are also fights where we do very well.

You win some, you lose some.

Plus I like beating people and then calling them bad for being beat by a hunter. :P

[Cyph3r]

TLDR...Blizzard isn't fixing hunters because they want your money for the next expansion, and even in MOP there's no guarantee that they'll finally get it right.

Yes, that's it, they're specifically allowing things to remain unbalanced and less fun because that will somehow get more people to play the game.

Your logic is broken.

Do we not remember how long it took Deathknights to get to where they are today (and arguably still not perfect)? Do we not remember that for the first time ever, a class, specifically OUR class, had it's resource mechanic and subsequently much of it's gameplay design completely reworked for the current expansion? The short memory cycle of the average wow player is responsible for 87.3% of all forums QQ, true story.

If you really take a step back and look at the history of the game, you'll see that the trend has essentially always been cautious, slow balancing. Blizzard tends to under-balance when making changes, it's their philosophy (they've said this themselves), that they'd rather have to repeatedly buff a class than have to give it a significant nerf in order to achieve balance. This means that when things are low, it can take them a while to get high (or even just get level). Hunters saw an unprecedented change with Cataclysm, and while it worked pretty well for the most part, it wasn't perfect, and this is just Blizz applying the standard process to the fix. Unfortunately, that means it's gonna be slow.

But the fact of the matter is that we still work. You can still raid, you can still PvP, you're just not going to top the charts. If that's all that matters to you, I'm sorry, I really am. But don't be an alarmist and call the class "crippled". I sure as hell don't feel crippled, and I'd wager that the majority of other hunters don't either. Yeah, we have specific problems, but show me a class that doesn't. When you take in the class as a whole, however, it appears to me at least that we're better than we've ever been. And I trust Blizzard to keep doing what they always have, and that's strive to improve things.

You know maybe they wouldn't be so afraid to boost power up more (and subsequently risk having to make nerfs) if people on the forums didn't act like the world was ending every time the smallest thing got nerfed. Think on that for a while.

[Mjolnir2k]

Not everyone can be the best of the best all the time. We hunters have had our time to be on top. Share the spotlight a little and ffs have fun playing the class, or reroll like the rest of em.

I agree hunters are not top DPS this tier, but we aren't low enough to worry about. Sure there are some fights where we don't perform as well as others, there are also fights where we do very well.

You win some, you lose some.

Plus I like beating people and then calling them bad for being beat by a hunter. :P

While I am certainly less than thrilled about our poor DPS in 4.3, I am actually less referring to the downward spiral of our DPS viability than I am about QoL issues and Bugs that have plagued the class for years.

The pet bugs are the worst I have seen in a while. C'mon with the Pet Health bug already. Having my pet insta gibbed, spending the 10 seconds to res him and then having him insta gibbed is not even funny, it's pathetic. This isn't a new bug, yet for some reason it persists patch after patch after patch. Also the whole "Pet control system" is beyond idiotic and poorly designed. Then we can talk about the KC issues that are rampant. For a class that is as reliant on a Pet as we are for DPS, this is just unacceptable.

Traps being buggy, with terrible mechanics are yet another example of long term issues. Arcane shot eating L&L proc's etc, etc.

The point is, that even beyond the DPS issues (which are getting worse as we progress), the Class as a WHOLE suffers from long term bug issues that I cannot fathom a single reason why they have not been addressed, or even discussed. yet other classes get so much attention it's a bit silly.

So, again, the question is why does Blizzard ignore roughly 1 Million players of their game? There is no possible business benefit to this, is there?

I would pay good money to know a reason straight from the lead dev's mouth.

[rabbimojo]

While I am certainly less than thrilled about our poor DPS in 4.3, I am actually less referring to the downward spiral of our DPS viability than I am about QoL issues and Bugs that have plagued the class for years.

The pet bugs are the worst I have seen in a while. C'mon with the Pet Health bug already. Having my pet insta gibbed, spending the 10 seconds to res him and then having him insta gibbed is not even funny, it's pathetic. This isn't a new bug, yet for some reason it persists patch after patch after patch. Also the whole "Pet control system" is beyond idiotic and poorly designed. Then we can talk about the KC issues that are rampant. For a class that is as reliant on a Pet as we are for DPS, this is just unacceptable.

Traps being buggy, with terrible mechanics are yet another example of long term issues. Arcane shot eating L&L proc's etc, etc.

The point is, that even beyond the DPS issues (which are getting worse as we progress), the Class as a WHOLE suffers from long term bug issues that I cannot fathom a single reason why they have not been addressed, or even discussed. yet other classes get so much attention it's a bit silly.

So, again, the question is why does Blizzard ignore roughly 1 Million players of their game? There is no possible business benefit to this, is there?

I would pay good money to know a reason straight from the lead dev's mouth.

Sadly, pet classes are almost uniformly the most buggy in every MMO ever. Pet control is a genuinely difficult problem to solve, though that doesn't excuse them from trying.

As for the pet health issue, it's a result of a bandaid fix applied to a system which was not designed with it in mind to begin with. It's certainly annoying, but it will take actual real effort and time to fix. If you believe it's been prioritized too low, then post persuasively on the real forums.

As for them "ignoring" hunters: I hate to play this card, but have you worked in a large-scale software company? The sheer number of things customers don't know about is stunning, sometimes. The difficulty of solving some problems callously rejects your intuition. They are not ignoring anyone - they just have to work on the *entire* game. We, as individual players (no matter how well-informed), are not aware of much of that game.

That's gaming for ya.

[Steelyorc]

I am reading this list of hunter issues, yet not experiencing any of them.
Cant top meters all the time...if that is all that's important to you...then you have issues...not the game.
I deliver competitive DPS, raid utility, and I love playing my class.

The sky isn't falling

[TheNightAngel]

I am reading this list of hunter issues, yet not experiencing any of them.
Cant top meters all the time...if that is all that's important to you...then you have issues...not the game.
I deliver competitive DPS, raid utility, and I love playing my class.

The sky isn't falling

You are obviously not working on Heroic Mode content. Hell, i doubt you've gotten to Spine Normal mode yet if your topping meters as a hunters. It means the rest of your raid is pretty bad.

Please explain to me what kind of raid utility you provide that you can either:
do better than any other class
be the only class who can do it

Neither of use can be answered by any ability.

You should realize if there is THIS much QQ from so many players, tons of them top-end, then there is an issue with hunters, but its only apparent if your at a top-end level due to very bad scaling. You don't notice this yet because your not playing top-end, don't have the best gear, and aren't playing with the best players.

[cganz]

You are obviously not working on Heroic Mode content. Hell, i doubt you've gotten to Spine Normal mode yet if your topping meters as a hunters. It means the rest of your raid is pretty bad.

Please explain to me what kind of raid utility you provide that you can either:
do better than any other class
be the only class who can do it

Neither of use can be answered by any ability.

You should realize if there is THIS much QQ from so many players, tons of them top-end, then there is an issue with hunters, but its only apparent if your at a top-end level due to very bad scaling. You don't notice this yet because your not playing top-end, don't have the best gear, and aren't playing with the best players.

This says it all for the hundredth time. Hunter's don't bring utility so just stop bringing that up. When's the last time we need to do any sort of kiting or specific trap usage besides HC Beth? If we're not being competitive on the dps charts there's no reason to bring a class that also takes the most damage and has the most bugs. We can't multi dot to cheese meters. And it makes me sick to my stomach to see fire mages buffed to the point that they take my hunter and wipe their asses with it, when they already had a viable spec.

[Tastyfish]

Your dps was so poor, they buffed melee.

[Dexiefy]

I have joked in the past that it's because GC plays a Mage, but to be honest I didn't REALLY believe that the lead developer of a multi BILLION dollar MMO is that shallow.

This actually is true
Or wow dev team is not only clueless about hunter class but completly incompetent to do their jobs...

But im going with the fact that GC is a retard and at the same time most biased designer in the hoistory of gaming (to be perfectly honest he sint even a designer to begin with...). Just look at situation pre 4.3 . Arcane mage was much higher dps wise than any hunter specc. Fire and survival were rock bottom. While survival got buffs to match mm (which was weak by itself), fire got buffed into oblivion and tops dmg meter on every single encounter. There is no logic behind that other than lead developer being biased piece of shit

ignoring our bugs or our "awesome" situation in pvp (buffing frost mages is more important than fixing hunters) and looking only at pve dps situation... Blizz did admitt (yet again) that there are scaling issues with hunter class and that they are going to work on that for mop. My question is this. If they agree on scaling issues and see current situation of hunters dps wise (im talking real hunters not people who struggle to down half of raid isntance on normal, where half of the raid doesnt even kjnow basic mechanics of their own classes. DPS results of such palyers are irrelevant) then why in the name of God they arent fixing us now with another bunch of stupid band aid fixes. At this point 10% ap buff wouldnt even be enough to help our situation as we are in worse state than anticipated before patch went live lol

But then again, dps is only part of the issue
no utility and lack of survival (ironic considering we have talent tree called survival) are huge issues aswell...

But hey dont worry we will be fixed for mop! right? oh wait... 2nd run of designing for most classes was mroe important than working on hunters... We are on the very end of devs interest yet again, how awesome. Why i have a feeling that mop wont fix shit...

[Jeremypwnz]

Would increasing the base damage of certain/all abilities by X% be simple enough? Or increase the coefficient that takes RAP/weapondmg? Maybe like other people I heard saying simply increase the AP from AotH.

Personally, I'm not seeing a huge issue with DPS. During the time I spent in DS, I haven't been below top 5 once, excluding times I died from ping-pong, and other misc things. Though I'm not really seeing the numbers I expected to be at, Hunters are doing pretty well. 380 ilvl range at least.

[Bullk]

This actually is true
Or wow dev team is not only clueless about hunter class but completly incompetent to do their jobs...

But im going with the fact that GC is a retard and at the same time most biased designer in the hoistory of gaming (to be perfectly honest he sint even a designer to begin with...). Just look at situation pre 4.3 . Arcane mage was much higher dps wise than any hunter specc. Fire and survival were rock bottom. While survival got buffs to match mm (which was weak by itself), fire got buffed into oblivion and tops dmg meter on every single encounter. There is no logic behind that other than lead developer being biased piece of shit

ignoring our bugs or our "awesome" situation in pvp (buffing frost mages is more important than fixing hunters) and looking only at pve dps situation... Blizz did admitt (yet again) that there are scaling issues with hunter class and that they are going to work on that for mop. My question is this. If they agree on scaling issues and see current situation of hunters dps wise (im talking real hunters not people who struggle to down half of raid isntance on normal, where half of the raid doesnt even kjnow basic mechanics of their own classes. DPS results of such palyers are irrelevant) then why in the name of God they arent fixing us now with another bunch of stupid band aid fixes. At this point 10% ap buff wouldnt even be enough to help our situation as we are in worse state than anticipated before patch went live lol

But then again, dps is only part of the issue
no utility and lack of survival (ironic considering we have talent tree called survival) are huge issues aswell...

But hey dont worry we will be fixed for mop! right? oh wait... 2nd run of designing for most classes was mroe important than working on hunters... We are on the very end of devs interest yet again, how awesome. Why i have a feeling that mop wont fix shit...

I don't even play a hunter, nor do i play a mage but i'm sick of elitist rants such as yours. you talk about a community of 10% of WoW players but then you bleep all over several of your hunters because they're not top tier raiders. So in actuality youre speaking for 1/10 of 1% of the population of the game. Reroll or stop playing it sucks that the class is broken but i promise you Activision/Blizzard didn't get rich ignoring their customers. They hear you loud and clear ... o wait no they dont because this isnt their website...

[Drsilverback]

Right now all I want is three things fixed:
1. the pet bugs and I want the old pet attack system back. It is the perfect defense against rogues and druids.
2. Why wait until the next expansion to fix aspect of cheetah remove the daze penalty. I can live with the daze penalty on aspect of the pack.
3. Give us some way to remove dots from ourselves. It is annoy to stop all attacks and still die because of the dots.

Will this op hunters I think not.

[Aspid07]

4.2 hunters owned, 4.3 our hunter is on par with all dps that dont have a staff, at least in pve, not to say you are doing it wrong, but i have expeeienced the exact opposite

[Stormcall]

You should realize if there is THIS much QQ from so many players,

Hate to break it to you mate, but there's this much QQ from so many players about every EVERY class. If you bother to pay attention and not just pretend YOUR class is the only one people are griping about, you'll even see MAGES complaining about their class. No, I'm not kidding.

[Nekosom]

To answer the OP's question, I go to a previous response,

You are obviously not working on Heroic Mode content. Hell, i doubt you've gotten to Spine Normal mode yet if your topping meters as a hunters. It means the rest of your raid is pretty bad.

Blizzard doesn't care about equity with top-tier players. Since this game was released (and every MMO that has come before and after) there are haves and have-nots when it comes to the top percentile of players. The Hunter class works for the vast majority of players, so that's good enough for Blizzard. It would be good enough for any company. The pet bugs are what they are. I, like most hunters, work around it, and it is nothing more than a mild inconvenience. How it works in a particular heroic encounter in a progression period that will only last a matter of weeks is so low on Blizzard's radar it barely registers. You're all big boys, you'll work around it and by the time the encounter is on farm, you won't even be thinking about it. Hell, Blizzard is counting on it.

Hunters are fun to level, they're fun to play in 5-mans, and they are a good class for newer players. As far as Blizzard is concerned, that's good enough. That's the cold, hard facts of the matter. Don't like it? Too bad. You're drops in an ocean, a meaningless anomaly and if the problems can't be fixed with a band-aid, Blizzard probably won't fix it. Purely statistics.

[Miley]

I don't even play a hunter, nor do i play a mage but i'm sick of elitist rants such as yours. you talk about a community of 10% of WoW players but then you bleep all over several of your hunters because they're not top tier raiders. So in actuality youre speaking for 1/10 of 1% of the population of the game.

This logic is just stupid. While his post may sound elitist it doesn't make it untrue. While you say it's a problem for only 1%, the truth is it is the same problem to the entire hunter population whether they realize it or not. By your reasoning, if there was a class that the greatest players could do 100k dps but 99% of the players could only do 40k it's no problem right? I mean for a vast majority of players their class is balanced just fine at 40k. Wrong.
If a group of average players of every class can be balanced, there is no reason that the same balance cannot be expected to be seen in a group of very skilled players of every class.

[Meewec]

Right now all I want is three things fixed:
1. the pet bugs and I want the old pet attack system back. It is the perfect defense against rogues and druids.
2. Why wait until the next expansion to fix aspect of cheetah remove the daze penalty. I can live with the daze penalty on aspect of the pack.
3. Give us some way to remove dots from ourselves. It is annoy to stop all attacks and still die because of the dots.

Will this op hunters I think not.

only one of these things are broken the other two are you just being a greedy, whiny bitch.

Flaming. I dont like flaming, and neither does Santa. Don't be rude this close to christmas, what about the presents!
Also, infracted. ~ Asrialol