Huntering in 5.0.4

[Zeta333]

So question i have seeing as how i dont have the beta how fucked are we going to be when this patch drops untill mop hits? Are we going to be bottom of barrel dps wise like we were when cata patch dropped. Will it be worth it to forge out of dps stats to try and hit exp cap or is that somthing we should just wait for? Has anyone theorycrafted with the new abilities dps wise?

[Cyph3r]

We're not going to be fucked at all. Blizzard actually made it a point this time around to try to keep everyone's level 85 dps about the same as it is currently. I mean, it WILL change, there's no way to keep it exactly the same. But it should be close enough that you can keep raiding or whatever until Sept. 25th. It's going to work a bit like this:

You will now need expertise, 7.5% to be specific. You will need to reforge for this, or steal some Shaman gear. This has been accounted for and balanced around.
You will lose your melee weapons (and subsequently it's enchant as well). This has been accounted for, and balanced around.
You are losing your helm enchant. We all are, they're being removed from the game entirely. This has been accounted for, and balanced around.
Your ranged weapon will see a very, very large boost to it's stats and it's base damage. This is to balance against the loss of your melee weapons.
Nearly every one of your attacks has been modified in it's damage calculations. This is to maintain good scaling throughout the level range (1-90).
Every Hunter now has Readiness baseline. This potentially represents a sizable dps boost. This has been accounted for, and balanced around.
Explosive shot's dot (in fact, all dots) work differently. They can no longer be clipped, the damage is distributed. This means you don't have to stagger it anymore.
You're going to have several new abilities via talents and glyphs. These will have a strong effect on everything, including dps. This has been accounted for, and balanced around.

In short, It's going to be fine. When Tuesday rolls around, you'll need to do the following to be set:

1. All talents are reset. Pick your chosen spec, then pick your 5 talents (we won't have access to the 6th yet).
2. Pet talent trees are gone, but pets can be assigned any of the 3 specs. Go through and choose a spec for ALL of your active pets.
3. Read your tooltips, things have changed. Many spells which used to be on the GCD are off, and vice versa.
4. Lay out your bars accordingly with all of your old and new abilities.
5. Check your macros. Some may not work anymore, or you might find need of new ones.
6. Hit the dummies and test out your rotation/Find a friend to dual. We play pretty much the same, but the nuance is different. Vastly so in some cases.
7. Finally, run some content to see how it all works in real world practice. Then, if necessary, restart at step 1.

[Nëgï]

Best answer I can give you is read the Beta Class discussion over at the official forums. We've got a lot of issues that need adressing.

I'd like to take a second and say how stupid expertise on hunters is. It makes no sense to give us expertise instead of 7.5% more hit, other than they want to stick expertise on all agil mail so that hunters and shamans share even more of the same loot. Even then, they could just impliment the expertise -> hit conversion mechanic on our gear like they do for the spirit -> hit conversion on some of the cloth wearing classes. To dodge/parry a bullet or arrow that hasn't even been fired yet, you'd first need to be able to see into the future, and start moving before it's fired to "dodge" it. And even then, it still doesn't make sense, because if you can't hit a moving target as a hunter, that means that you lack the skill and precision to hit them, hence the hit rating. And if you completely disregard that, and go with the blizzard excuse of "It's a fantasy game, therefore people can dodge bullets and arrows!", then it only makes sense to apply that logic to casters as well. I'm certain if you can dodge a bullet, you can dodge a fireball.

People always seem to bring in the argument "But you're not a ranged, your physical!" or something similarly stupid. Take a second to disregard WHAT type of damage we do, and think about HOW we do it. Do we stand with melee in boss fights or pvp? No, we stand with the casters or away from the enemy in pvp. Just because we don't have a minimum range anymore doesn't mean that we should automatically stack with melee now.

Now I don't pvp, however people are saying that expertise is terrible for us in pvp. Apparently getting behind your enemy negates their chance to parry or dodge your attacks, and as hunters, that's near impossible to do. Why? Because the only way to do so effectively at range would be to attack them while they are attacking someone else. Any other time, they just have to keep turning to face you. And we stand ~40 yards away from the enemy, unlike melee who can easily run through the enemy, turn around, and attack their behinds in less than 5 yards. Also, I believe that all our defensive abilities are affected by silence. Traps, aspects, and deterrence. I could be wrong about that last one though. But if we are disarmed, there is no way for us to attack other than with our pet, who, let's face it, doesn't do much damage at all. At best it can buy you a second or two to get away via entrapments.

As it stands in the beta, BM seems to be the spec blizzard wants us to use. Marks has had most of it's unique abilities taken away and given to everyone else. The abilities are Silencing Shot as a talent (which should just be a base ability if they are going to make it a talent, seeing as every other class with a silence has it shared as an ability not as a talent), Trueshot is now passive with all specs, removing any advantage of taking a marks hunter to the raid, and readiness is shared between all specs as an ability now as well. The only reason to take a survival hunter is for their increased CC, at the loss of dps. Current DPS is BM, Marks, Surv. If anything, Blizzard should be removing the Beast Mastery ability, and instead make it a glyph. Why? Because they have made it clear with the removal of marks only TSA that they want to have our buffs shared across the class, regardless of spec. However, BM exotics get special abilities that are beneficial to the raid (Brez, Lust, Etc.), making it so that BM is the spec to bring to the raid, with survival OS for CC. The advantage of going BM if the BM talent was turned into a glyph would still be the decreased cd on pet abilities.

Sorry for going on a rant, but this is just how I feel about stuff as I see it right now. And you can be sure that when 5.04 goes live next week and everyone reads the patch notes and tests out hunters forthemselves, we'll be getting A LOT of negative feedback.

[Proudsnout]

There is so much anger in your post Nëgi!

But let me try to calm you down a bit:

First concerning your issue with getting the expertise cap for pvp, from what I hear hunter shots will not be able to get parried, so if you get your expertise cap, you're fine and will not need to stand behind your enemy to perform optimally.

Secondly I think expertise in PvE is actually a good thing. First you will see more agility gear with expertise (which is a blessing for enh shaman from what I understand) so getting that cap won't be too hard. And more important I believe that because we always had so much more secondary stats than other classes (only needing to cap hit, while other classes have to get a higher hit cap or cap hit and exp) our secondary stats could not affect our output that much as they did for other classes.

I think that when we will have an equal amount of stats to cap, we will get more out of the other secondary stats we get, and I prefer to look at it that way

Last I highly doubt that you will be forced to play BM. I actually think SV will still be top in actual MOP raids or at least on par with BM, the choice will be yours.

Also I fail to see why you are upset about Silencing Shot and Readiness and Trueshot Aura being given to all specs. It just opens more possibilities while not making MM lose any. If anything it makes you have more choice instead of being limited to MM for certain reasons.

[Synbaby]

So will blizz be adding some expertise to the current Cata gear? Or are they just expecting us to reforge/gem to get to exp cap?

[Deleted]

So will blizz be adding some expertise to the current Cata gear? Or are they just expecting us to reforge/gem to get to exp cap?

You are saying expecting like its a big thing to do, I gave away 3% crit for expertise cap, no biggie tbh (only reforging)

[Darien]

I'm certain if you can dodge a bullet, you can dodge a fireball.

If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball!

[Jeremypwnz]

Secondly I think expertise in PvE is actually a good thing. First you will see more agility gear with expertise (which is a blessing for enh shaman from what I understand) so getting that cap won't be too hard. And more important I believe that because we always had so much more secondary stats than other classes (only needing to cap hit, while other classes have to get a higher hit cap or cap hit and exp) our secondary stats could not affect our output that much as they did for other classes.

I forget where I heard it, but someone said that Expertise won't be on gear, and will have to be reforged for. Not sure if it's true or not.

Also, Unholy DK's did't have to reforge for Expertise. They had about the same amount of secondary stats. Maybe some other specs.

If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball!

If you can dodge traffic, you can dodge a ball!

[Deleted]

I don't see the point of expertise in the game anymore, it's a dead stat that they should remove asap.

I mean, the best thing they could do from a designer pov is give everyone a hitcap of 8%.

[Naaw]

Just to clarify the 7.5% exp + hit vs. casters... Casters need to get 16% hit instead of the expertise+hit we need to get. We just need to get 2 different stats wich I personally don't see as a huge thing to do.

Why is it suddenly the end of the world when we need to get the same stats melee have had to cap since always?

So if you still want to argue that we are not melee but ranged, would you like our hitcap at 16% ? NO? Didn't think so either.

On the bright side, now the silly persons using expertise since BC can do it without beign bashed.

[madokbro]

So at this point, which spec look stronger?

[Ballistic]

So at this point, which spec look stronger?

I'm at work right now, but as far as I can tell is BM and SV especially the later with the new change to explosive shot.

[Deleted]

Best answer I can give you is read the Beta Class discussion over at the official forums. We've got a lot of issues that need adressing.

I'd like to take a second and say how stupid expertise on hunters is. It makes no sense to give us expertise instead of 7.5% more hit, other than they want to stick expertise on all agil mail so that hunters and shamans share even more of the same loot. Even then, they could just impliment the expertise -> hit conversion mechanic on our gear like they do for the spirit -> hit conversion on some of the cloth wearing classes. To dodge/parry a bullet or arrow that hasn't even been fired yet, you'd first need to be able to see into the future, and start moving before it's fired to "dodge" it. And even then, it still doesn't make sense, because if you can't hit a moving target as a hunter, that means that you lack the skill and precision to hit them, hence the hit rating. And if you completely disregard that, and go with the blizzard excuse of "It's a fantasy game, therefore people can dodge bullets and arrows!", then it only makes sense to apply that logic to casters as well. I'm certain if you can dodge a bullet, you can dodge a fireball.

so you dont like the fact that someone can avoid arrows and bullets (fantasy game) aka Matrix but you like the fact that you have a weapon with infinate bullets/arrows aka jack norris

People always seem to bring in the argument "But you're not a ranged, your physical!" or something similarly stupid. Take a second to disregard WHAT type of damage we do, and think about HOW we do it. Do we stand with melee in boss fights or pvp? No, we stand with the casters or away from the enemy in pvp. Just because we don't have a minimum range anymore doesn't mean that we should automatically stack with melee now.

1)1st time i hear it from you hunter is a range class
2) you dont have to be on melee range to be behind the boss
3) you dont have to stack with anyone with 7% expertise on pvp nobody will dodge anything and 7% its failry easy to get it without losing any other stats

Now I don't pvp, however people are saying that expertise is terrible for us in pvp. Apparently getting behind your enemy negates their chance to parry or dodge your attacks, and as hunters, that's near impossible to do. Why? Because the only way to do so effectively at range would be to attack them while they are attacking someone else. Any other time, they just have to keep turning to face you. And we stand ~40 yards away from the enemy, unlike melee who can easily run through the enemy, turn around, and attack their behinds in less than 5 yards. Also, I believe that all our defensive abilities are affected by silence. Traps, aspects, and deterrence. I could be wrong about that last one though. But if we are disarmed, there is no way for us to attack other than with our pet, who, let's face it, doesn't do much damage at all. At best it can buy you a second or two to get away via entrapments.

1)on the forums the only thing athat is see for hunters in that they are nightmare for every class
2)as i said you dont have to get behind the enemy on mop the with 7% you are expertise cap for 95 lvl bosses so a player will never dodge your atacks and believe me you with the pvp gear in mop epertise will easy to find
3)rogue and warrior worlks the same with disarm

Sorry for going on a rant, but this is just how I feel about stuff as I see it right now. And you can be sure that when 5.04 goes live next week and everyone reads the patch notes and tests out hunters forthemselves, we'll be getting A LOT of negative feedback.

how you feel and how you should feel is 2 diferent things

[Moonsorow]

I hate to say it but currently right now, all Hunter specs are basically at the bottom. I'm usually in the top 5 in a 25 man raid. Doesn't matter if I'm MM or Surv, yet after this patch dropped and tested out my full rotation (and for MM and Surv it is the same rotation) my DPS dropped. Our damage currently isn't there compared to Mages, Rogues, or Warriors.

[Shadowlance]

Just to clarify the 7.5% exp + hit vs. casters... Casters need to get 16% hit instead of the expertise+hit we need to get. We just need to get 2 different stats wich I personally don't see as a huge thing to do.

Why is it suddenly the end of the world when we need to get the same stats melee have had to cap since always?

So if you still want to argue that we are not melee but ranged, would you like our hitcap at 16% ? NO? Didn't think so either.

On the bright side, now the silly persons using expertise since BC can do it without beign bashed.

Actually, we do want 16% hit rating. Expertise completely fucks us over in PvP when we have to fight rogues/ferals/enhshams/whatever.

[BloodchargedWoW]

Actually, we do want 16% hit rating. Expertise completely fucks us over in PvP when we have to fight rogues/ferals/enhshams/whatever.

Why exactly do we want 16%, do explain. Also, expertise fucks over any physical dmg class against rogues/ferals. As a Warrior before the patch having your throwdown dodged sucked as well as disarm.

[bowjob88]

so we now need 8% hit and 8% expertise? and what about PVP? still 5% hit but what about expertise?

[Shadowlance]

Why exactly do we want 16%, do explain. Also, expertise fucks over any physical dmg class against rogues/ferals. As a Warrior before the patch having your throwdown dodged sucked as well as disarm.

It's fine for a warrior because he can get behind his target rather easily wouldnt you agree? that task is a little bit harder when the target is 30 yards from you, trying to get to you.

[Deleted]

So many short to medium CD's, I never liked that style of play so I guess that I will have to reroll or something. Hunter as always been my favorite class though.

[Deleted]

so we now need 8% hit and 8% expertise? and what about PVP? still 5% hit but what about expertise?

I think for PVE you need 7,5% hit/exp and for PVP 3% hit/exp