The future of Hunter PvE

[Larry01]

The point is we are bad now.

I agree with this but does it really matter anymore? Progression is over for serious raiders buffing now wont mean much at all. Its a sad state of affairs that hunters seem to be constantly lagging behind with no real idea how to fix us.

Do not get me wrong, I would love a buff right now because we are still raiding (6/13) but I doubt we get any attention now.

[Deleted]

Do not get me wrong, I would love a buff right now because we are still raiding (6/13) but I doubt we get any attention now.

In DS we got the buff we needed after the "race" was over.

[Libertarian]

Well I spoke too soon. Looks like rogues get AOE sunder armor now, too.

[Bisso]

I'm so glad I'm not in any hardcore guild/raid group. So even though, it seems that hunters are not doing as much dps as they should, I never really see it. When I raid in normal ToT, I am by far on top or competing up with a mage with a few ilvl higher than me. We are obviously not competing at a 250k dps, so this might be where things go south, but at a 150k dps, hunters aren't doing too bad.

[Deleted]

I'm so glad I'm not in any hardcore guild/raid group. So even though, it seems that hunters are not doing as much dps as they should, I never really see it. When I raid in normal ToT, I am by far on top or competing up with a mage with a few ilvl higher than me. We are obviously not competing at a 250k dps, so this might be where things go south, but at a 150k dps, hunters aren't doing too bad.

If a mage, with higher item level than you non the less, is not blowing you out the waters, you simply out-skill him.

[Larry01]

When I raid in normal ToT, I am by far on top or competing up with a mage with a few ilvl higher than me.

That is the problem in a nutshell as has been pointed out by several people in this thread and others.

If a mage, with higher item level than you non the less, is not blowing you out the waters, you simply out-skill him.

This is 100% correct and what people do not understand that see a hunter doing top dps in a LFR or a normal mode group. I missed our raids this week so yesterday I had to do LFR for my hopeful titan runestones. I am in just normal mode upgraded gear yet I was top by 100k on most fights. In my guild I run 3rd to 5th on every fight.

Things do change drastically for hunters when you play with talented people.

[zenyatta]

It was stated time and time again that this is the early PTR and there will be more changes. 5.4 won't go live tomorrow, or this month. It was a vacation weekend in the US and thus slow with any updates. But tomorrow that is over and we should see a new build coming soon.

"Don't worry, we'll buff hunters if they need it." /Nerf Explosive Trap.

The last time they "buffed hunters to compensate", we got Hawk and Arcane buffs. Whoo. I don't know how you can still have so much faith in Blizzard but I sure wish I could feel the same.

[Noctifer616]

"Don't worry, we'll buff hunters if they need it." /Nerf Explosive Trap.

The last time they "buffed hunters to compensate", we got Hawk and Arcane buffs. Whoo. I don't know how you can still have so much faith in Blizzard but I sure wish I could feel the same.

The last time they compensated us was a Arcane Shot and Cobra/Steady shot buff, not AoTH.

They have been buffing us the entire expansion (from an end game PvE point of view), hence why I don't think they will leave things as they are. Also, you seam to forget that in 5.4 even with the Readiness nerf we are already better due to the buff to Arcane Shot.

[Poppincaps]

I'm so glad I'm not in any hardcore guild/raid group. So even though, it seems that hunters are not doing as much dps as they should, I never really see it. When I raid in normal ToT, I am by far on top or competing up with a mage with a few ilvl higher than me. We are obviously not competing at a 250k dps, so this might be where things go south, but at a 150k dps, hunters aren't doing too bad.

I feel like either hunters are easy or people who play hunters are just better than others.... For instance I'm a 529 hunter and when we did Lei Shen last week we pulled in a 537 lock and I beat him by over 20k and I thought "Are locks really that OP?" It's no just me either, I've heard of many hunters outdpsing every other dps in their 10 mans since the dawn of time. /shrug

[Deleted]

I feel like either hunters are easy or people who play hunters are just better than others.... For instance I'm a 529 hunter and when we did Lei Shen last week we pulled in a 537 lock and I beat him by over 20k and I thought "Are locks really that OP?" It's no just me either, I've heard of many hunters outdpsing every other dps in their 10 mans since the dawn of time. /shrug

Hunters are quite easy since there's not all that many things you can do too increase you dps a substantial amount. (As the "Optimizing Rentaki's trinket as BM" thread have proven, where after quite a lot of pages it's been more or less figured out that recasting a SS during 10 stacks could actually be a loss of damage instead of a arcane shot).
While other classes, such as locks requires a lot more "out of the box" thinking to do the absurd dps they can do (such as using UVLS and keep 100% critting dots during a very long period of time), so I think at low skill cap, hunters are a very strong class, but when you get higher and higher up the difference between classes that can utilize their spells and the encounter in such a way that it increases their dps by miles, that's where the big problem is.

[Bullettime]

Hunters are quite easy since there's not all that many things you can do too increase you dps a substantial amount. (As the "Optimizing Rentaki's trinket as BM" thread have proven, where after quite a lot of pages it's been more or less figured out that recasting a SS during 10 stacks could actually be a loss of damage instead of a arcane shot).
While other classes, such as locks requires a lot more "out of the box" thinking to do the absurd dps they can do (such as using UVLS and keep 100% critting dots during a very long period of time), so I think at low skill cap, hunters are a very strong class, but when you get higher and higher up the difference between classes that can utilize their spells and the encounter in such a way that it increases their dps by miles, that's where the big problem is.

This. Most of the actual skill and timing requirements have been stripped from the class during their crusade to nerf/remove our burst damage and putting more damage into our filler crap, not even our signatures. Cooldown timing means near nothing anymore. You'll see Hunters top in their casual reg mode guilds but if put up against someone of equal skill in the heroic progression environments who know how to eek out that extra, we'll lose every time. Hunters right now are the epitome of mediocre in our best spec and fairly low in the other two overall.

Ideally, everyone should be mediocre. But when all we bring is "ok" damage in the most bug prone spec in the entire game and have no effective raid utility aside from being able to solo soak a Lei Shen Static Shock (that others can do as well) it's no wonder guilds aren't recruiting us. Why bring an extra Hunter when you already have one to soak Agi mail when you can grab another Warlock or Mage for substantially higher damage or can grab an Ele or Shadow who do the same DPS as the Hunter but also give you Tranq, Vamp Embrance, and Symbiosis?

It's not just damage that Hunters are fighting for. We're fighting Blizzard because our class, due to PvP concerns, has basically had everything stripped from it and the entire class feeling like a bland, shallow, homogenized mess.

Luckily my thread on the NA PTR board is going pretty strong with Lore popping in off and on. Hoping to get some juicy information soon.

[Deleted]

The problem with hunter's in PvP was their insane burst, their insane control and their insane utility/survivability.

Triple trinkets, able to solo CC a class for an extended amount of time with silences/scatters/traps/stuns, and then repeat the process again, and still put out extremely good damage.

But on the other hand, they're not in the best of places in PvE.

It's a tough job for Blizzard IMO to balance it well enough so they're toned DOWN in PvP (and by a lot) but get BUFFED in PvE.

Nerfing the CC/Survivability wont have that big an effect in PvE, but in order to nerf the damage in PvP they would have to either nerf it in PvE or think of another way, which is fairly difficult I'm sure