Hunter: the everlasting menace

[Flaks]

I'm all for Hunters getting shafted, but having a deadzone of 5+ yards where they spam melee abilities isn't a smart idea. Hunters were just dreadful in that regard pre-5.0.



A ranged that can't be interrupted/silenced and has a pet is pretty uncounterable. Warlocks and Mages have pets (none of which come CLOSE to a Hunter's pet damage), but can be interrupted/silenced; also can't DPS on the move like Hunters can.

And yet locks and mages are both doing far better at the highest ratings.

People can nit pick all they want but they have to ask themselves what they prefer balancing around. I personally think seeking only top end 3s balance for classes is a cop out and makes blatant outliers look fine just cause of team synergy.

So yes, I think hunters are over the top. No, blizzard wouldn't agree because they're fine in 3s. It's saddening but just how it works.

Hunters also weren't "dreadful pre-5.0". The vast majority of people just sucked ass at an extremely high skill floor and skill cap class with the change to focus and maintaining dead zone. Great hunter players saw rank 1 and tournament play. The class was just absent sub 2200 because mediocre/bad players couldn't make the class work.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Damn them if they let the pvpers complaints bring back hunters minimum range.

It's time they started balancing the classes for PVP or PVE separately depending on content, not both.

[DeicideUH]

And yet locks and mages are both doing far better at the highest ratings.

People can nit pick all they want but they have to ask themselves what they prefer balancing around. I personally think seeking only top end 3s balance for classes is a cop out and makes blatant outliers look fine just cause of team synergy.

So yes, I think hunters are over the top. No, blizzard wouldn't agree because they're fine in 3s. It's saddening but just how it works.

And what would you balance around?

If you balance around duels, arenas may become even worse, as some synergies get totally out of control. Not to mention that making a system where every 1v1 combination has a 50% chance of someone winning is pretty much impossible.

Hunters are anti-melee. Every class has some other class that gives them a hard time.

[Deleted]

My problem with hunters is that they don't add much to gameplay. They are very irritating to fight.
Most of the time I come off best but the constant stuns and chasing are just very unenjoyable.

I have a hunter but doing a pvp rotation is pretty dull and unsatisfying frankly. For a long time in random
bg's I just stripped naked and camped places like the Lumber Mill in Arathi Basin and tried to knock
as many people off the edge - often went top with effective kills just doing that.

[Sturmbringe]

Let's see some facts:

Tons of CC; which is even better now considering many other classes and specs lost CC abilities.

Talent Exotic Munitions that offers access to Frozen Ammo is only available as a choice to Marksmans and Survivalists. You will never see Beast Masters with it b/c as BM it is obligatory to pick Adaptation (same tier talent).

In addition, Marksmanship being as it is PvE oriented will pick Focusing Shot or Lone Wolf instead of Exotic Munitions.

So, the only Hunter spec with Exotic Munitions and Frozen Ammo is Survivalists, the PvP spec.

All instant; Non-interruptable;

Hunters are not casters.

40-yards range. No minimal range either.

Hunters are a ranged class. It is an oxymoron to complain about a ranged class being long-ranged.

No minimal range either.

Why should hunters, a ranged class, have a minimal range when Rets, a melee class, have got ranged abilities?

Does damage even when trying to survive or flee.

A Survivalist's and Marksman's pet does around 1300 DPS average, that is to say 10% of a Hunter's DPS. Warlock, Death Knight and Mage pets also damage enemies while the owner is trying to flee. I don't see how this is a problem.

+ Pet.

Are you anti-pet? Hunters are a pet class. I don't see what is wrong with pets.

Great passive survivability which doesn't affect damage potential. Doesn't trade damage for healing like, for instance, shamans do.

In actual fact, IRON HAWK (-10% damage taken) is mutually exclusive with EXHILARATION (30% of max health heal) and SPIRIT BOND (2% of total health healed every 2 seconds).

So, a 300k health Hunter gets:

-EITHER -10% damage taken and no healing (IRON HAWK).
-OR a 30k heal on a two-minute cooldown (EXHILARATION).
-OR a 6k passive heal every 2 seconds. (SPIRIT BOND)

In addition, Hunters actually do trade damage for healing as follows:

In PvP, Beast Masters have the option to play with either a Spirit Beast that offers a blessing that does 7k instant healing and an additional 20k as a dot over 10 seconds, or play with a pet that offers the Mortal Strike debuff. Given the nature of PvP, every single BM Hunter I know choose Mortal Strike debuff pets such as the Devilsaur over Spirit Beasts.

Other Hunters have to choose between a FEROCITY pet (more damage) and a CUNNING pet (less damage but more survivability through SACRIFICE).

Can kite every melee class bar Feral Druids.

Actually no. I can kite Feral druids and Death Knights reliably. Rets and Warriors are unkitable.

Rets have got a very short cooldown on HoF, and in addition it is buried under other buffs which require a Hunter to use all of his focus bar to dispel through tranq shot. It therefore takes 4+ seconds to dispel a HoF during which the Ret is running towards you at +30% speed, and the Hunter is left with no focus, with which to DPS, as each tranq shot costs 20 focus.

Top class 1vs1 in any situations with only a few counters, working only if enemy player is much more skilled than Hunter he fights.

Actually no, that would be a Paladin. Paladin is the strongest class 1vs1 in the game and has been so since 2008-2009.

-Bubble
-Plate Armour
-Lay On Hands
-Wings
-HoF
-+30% movement speed.
-Inexhaustible resources.
-Spammable self-heals.

To succeed in killing a Paladin, you have got to kill them three times over. It is as if they have 3 times the normal health pool of other classes, or to put it simply, "three lives".

-One "life" through Bubble + spammable heals.
-One "life" through Lay On Hands.
-One "life" through their normal health bar.
Heavily counters stealthers with Flare. Counters Mages.

Passive spammable slow talent, working with Autoshot.

Talent Exotic Munitions that offers access to Frozen Ammo is only available as a choice to Marksmans and Survivalists. You will never see Beast Masters with it b/c as BM it is obligatory to pick Adaptation (same tier talent).

In addition, Marksmanship being as it is PvE oriented will pick Focusing Shot or Lone Wolf instead of Exotic Munitions.

So, the only Hunter spec with Exotic Munitions and Frozen Ammo is Survivalists, the PvP spec.

A lot of abilities to escape, drop out of combat.

-Camouflage (lasts only 6 seconds in combat)
-Disengage (20 seconds CD).

STEALTH!! on top of that! With protection from main stealther - Rogue, cause Hunters CANNOT be sapped while in Camouflage even if Rogue finds them!

Camouflage only offers stealth if a specific Major Glyph is used. It lasts only 6 seconds if cast in combat and during it the Hunter moves 50% slower than normal movement speed. In addition, as I play a rogue, you can use Fan Of Knives to drop Hunter out of stealth, vanish, and then open with Cheap Shot.

Why?? one class has everything and no single weakness??

This class is Paladins IMO. No weakness at all and in God Mode since 2008-2009.

Check Realmpop.Com - Hunters today are top 1 played class BOTH in EU and US with at least 1-1.5% percent margin!

Hunters were always, always a very popular class since Vanilla days. This is not a bad thing, as Hunters are an iconic WoW class.

Working as intended.

No more Wings+BOF+HOF+Bubble+Lay On Hands faceroll?

Beast mastery is the least useful PvP spec at the moment. I recently specced to Survival from BM, as my pet spent a good 60-70% of its time CC'd or distracted in BG's therefore crippling my DPS.

This because, as I wrote at the Hunter sub forum, BULLHEADED (the Pet free CC trinket ability) has got a 3 minute CD, and the four piece BM PvP armour bonus doesn't help at all.

Here's how a typical battle went for my BM pet:

Stunned-----BULLHEADED 3 min CD------Feared--------Stunned-------Rooted-------Frozen In Place------Distracted by enemy Hunter Pets through Growl-----Pet dropped out of combat through Priest Vanish and returned back to me-------Resend Pet--------Stunned----Feared-----Rooted, etc.

Re-speccing to Survival doubled my damage in PvP. I went up from around 4k DPS as BM to 9k DPS average as Survival in PvP.

[Deleted]

Actually no. I can kite Feral druids and Death Knights reliably. Rets and Warriors are unkitable.

The fuck is this?! Are we still talking about wow here?! Warriors and dks are a fucking joke for any hunter who knows what kiting is, and rets aren't that far off. Are you being sarcastic or something?!

[Sturmbringe]

The fuck is this?! Are we still talking about wow here?! Warriors and dks are a fucking joke for any hunter who knows what kiting is, and rets aren't that far off. Are you being sarcastic or something?!

I play a warrior. A PvP warrior should play with talent DOUBLE TIME that grants 2X Charges on a 20 second Cooldown. Hunter's Disengage has got 20 second cooldown too.

This makes a Warrior unkitable.

Charge+Hamstring---------->Disengage----------->Charge+Hamstring----------------->Master's Call--------------->Heroic Leap+Hamstring

Unkitable

[Lastgateguard]

Hunters Can tame a Spirit beast that heals you :P So yeah Hunters are awesome. But to many of them in the game made me put mine away this Exp and main a Guardian Druid.

[DeicideUH]

I play a warrior. A PvP warrior should play with talent DOUBLE TIME that grants 2X Charges on a 20 second Cooldown. Hunter's Disengage has got 20 second cooldown too.

This makes a Warrior unkitable.

Charge+Hamstring---------->Disengage----------->Charge+Hamstring----------------->Master's Call--------------->Heroic Leap+Hamstring

Unkitable

You are forgetting Hunter CC and Frozen Arrows, thought. Then again, warrior also has CC.

Warriors do have suffer a lot fighting skilled hunters. On the other hand, less skilled hunters easily die to an average warrior.

As a Hunter, I find these melee classes the hardest to kite: Feral Druid > Ret Paladin > Rogue > Monk > DK = Warrior

With my Paladin, fighting a hunter is not easy, but I usually win unless the hunter is a lot more skilled than myself. Speed burst from Judgement + Hand of Freedom/Emancipation allow me to catch up to them. I can stun them if they are skilled. My Seal of Justice keeps them perma-slowed (and if they Disengage or Master's Call, you use above methods to keep them close to you).

For Hunters, Druids and Rogues are a problem because once they stealth you just can't kite them anymore, and both have ways to speed up and catch you while you can't do much to stop them. Flare helps, but you can't reliable hit the right spot always. Monks are annoying not because of damage, but because they have a lot of CC and can quickly travel from one point to another, making them very hard to kite. Often a monk takes some time to kill me, but I just can't escape it, and he slowly brings me down.

Against casters, I have a hard time against Shadow Priests, because their dots will kill a hunter while they heal themselves. Warlocks seem like a 50/50. If I manage my CC correctly, I can bring down a lock, but they can also turn the table pretty fast and destroy me. Mages, like I said, nullify hunter's defenses. They are not the hardest to kill, but a skilled mage can leave a hunter defenseless against its teammates.

[Deleted]

I play a warrior. A PvP warrior should play with talent DOUBLE TIME that grants 2X Charges on a 20 second Cooldown. Hunter's Disengage has got 20 second cooldown too.

This makes a Warrior unkitable.

Charge+Hamstring---------->Disengage----------->Charge+Hamstring----------------->Master's Call--------------->Heroic Leap+Hamstring

Unkitable

OR

Charge----disengage(posthaste talent removes hamstring)---charge---exp trap knockback+conc shot---heroic leap---master's call+conc shot---int shout/stun---trinket---warrior is out of tricks---kite---charge---disengage+posthaste and at this moment the warrior is a mob being kited to death

Haven't even used freezing trap nor binding shot.

As I said, warriors are a joke vs. hunters in 1v1, same as frost dks who have even shittier mobility. And I played a hunter until few days ago, so I think I know what I'm talking about.

Still, you're not the 1st to claim a class that hunters absolutely shit on, happens to beat them (in their own imagination), that idiot Hazzed got into a flame war on his youtube page for claiming frost dks own hunters. Hahahahahaha, frost dks owning hunters...maybe if the hunter is afk or the warrior/dk catches them in a building or somewhere with no place to kite.

[Sturmbringe]

OR

int shout/stun

warrior is out of tricks

No.

Use first INTIMIDATING SHOUT and when they trinket use SHOCKWAVE, another core PvP talent you should have. If you still have difficulty in controlling the Hunter, use AVATAR, yet another Core PvP talent you should have.

You can also use PIERCING HOWL.

The "knockback explosive trap" is a Major Glyph, not an ability, called GLYPH OF EXPLOSIVE TRAP which, in addition, does no damage. It is rare that you find a Hunter using this Major Glyph as there are other glyphs that have priority for PvP.

[Deleted]

No.

Use first INTIMIDATING SHOUT and when they trinket use SHOCKWAVE, another core PvP talent you should have. If you still have difficulty in controlling the Hunter, use AVATAR, yet another Core PvP talent you should have.

You can also use PIERCING HOWL.

The "knockback explosive trap" is a Major Glyph, not an ability, called GLYPH OF EXPLOSIVE TRAP which, in addition, does no damage. It is rare that you find a Hunter using this Major Glyph as there are other glyphs that have priority for PvP.

First hard cc is usually roar of sac-ed, no need to trinket. Also that glyph is mandatory for all hunters who pvp. Spirit Bond, Explosive Trap glyphs are mandatory, any hunter who doesn't take these two might as well just stick to dragon slaying as he has no fucking clue what he's doing in pvp. The only optional glyph is the third slot which can be Camouflage (if you want the stealth), Solace (if you are Surv and want to remove dots so you can Freezing Trap or in arena when you play with a dotter) or Snake Trap (if you want this gimmick).

So sorry, but exp trap glyph is used by all pvp hunters.

[Deleted]

Literally anything with dots is unmanagable for a Hunter.

Frost arrows are a bit OP though.

Problem with Hunters getting nerfs is they always completely destroy the class in the process, if you love numbers then sure, it doesnt matter, but if you actually want to enjoy the class, then you get shafted every patch. Example being Stampede, too strong, but when they nerfed it, it became Dire Beast on a 5min CD. How is that fun?

But you should keep in mind they dont balance the game around low level play, so I suspect the brackets get fairer as you get higher up. Thats just how it is, classes like Hunter or Rogue dominate in lower skill area's.

True. Balance druids and shadow priests are the biggest threats. Also face-tank specced affliction locks but that's a gimmick spec that doesn't really work against much else.

[Sturmbringe]

First hard cc is usually roar of sac-ed, no need to trinket. Also that glyph is mandatory for all hunters who pvp. Spirit Bond, Explosive Trap glyphs are mandatory, any hunter who doesn't take these two might as well just stick to dragon slaying as he has no fucking clue what he's doing in pvp. The only optional glyph is the third slot which can be Camouflage (if you want the stealth), Solace (if you are Surv and want to remove dots so you can Freezing Trap or in arena when you play with a dotter) and Snake Trap (if you want this gimmick).

So sorry, but exp trap glyph is used by all pvp hunters.

You are wrong. Nobody uses Spirit Bond. Spirit Bond is a talent, not a glyph. PvP Hunters take IRONHAWK talent instead.

FYI, mandatory PvP Glyphs are Solace, Liberation, and Disengage/Camouflage. Taking Explosive Trap Glyph over the aforementioned is an error.

- - - Updated - - -

Frost arrows are a bit OP though.

Why? Are Frostbolts OP? If Frostbolts are fine for Frost Spec then why Frozen Ammo is not fine for the Survival Spec?

[Deleted]

You are wrong. Nobody uses Spirit Bond. Spirit Bond is a talent, not a glyph. PvP Hunters take IRONHAWK talent instead.

FYI, mandatory PvP Glyphs are Solace, Liberation, and Disengage/Camouflage. Taking Explosive Trap Glyph over the aforementioned is an error.

Seriously, where the fuck did you take this info from?! Spirit Bond is both a talent which is the go-to talent for pvp btw and also a glyph named, my bad, Glyph of Animal Bond that buffs all heals received including the one from Spirit Bond.

Iron Hawk is taken only when doing 2v2 or 3v3 with a healer in your team. If you don't have a healer with you, like in double dps 2s or in wpvp and duels which is what this current discussion started from, taking this instead of the passive self-hot is dumb as fuck.

Liberation is a personal choice, a choice with which I don't agree, but ok I guess it could be better in some...arena comps.

The convo started from a warrior vs. hunter 1v1 situation, btw.

And fyi, Dillypoo has exp trap glyph in both his specs, as well as spirit bond talent in his MM spec. http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...lypoo/advanced

[Indless]

Yes, let the butthurt flow through you

[DeicideUH]

Literally anything with dots is unmanagable for a Hunter.

Frost arrows are a bit OP though.

Problem with Hunters getting nerfs is they always completely destroy the class in the process, if you love numbers then sure, it doesnt matter, but if you actually want to enjoy the class, then you get shafted every patch. Example being Stampede, too strong, but when they nerfed it, it became Dire Beast on a 5min CD. How is that fun?

But you should keep in mind they dont balance the game around low level play, so I suspect the brackets get fairer as you get higher up. Thats just how it is, classes like Hunter or Rogue dominate in lower skill area's.

Pretty much agree.

Why? Are Frostbolts OP? If Frostbolts are fine for Frost Spec then why Frozen Ammo is not fine for the Survival Spec?

I do think Frost Ammo are a bit OP. The problem is that it has immense synergy with Hunter's strengths while needing no manage from the Hunter. It's brainlessly easy to maintain, and reallr hard to fend off. Compare concussive shot, which wastes a GCD every 6s, and if dispelled can't be applied again so soon.

Frostbolts don't really compare, because they are casted. And the mage's defenses are different from a Hunter's, the synergy is just not the same.

IMO, they should change Frost Ammo into a Grievous Ammo, which would apply Mortal Wounds instead of slow, and increase damage from all Special Munitions, so they become more of a choice system, even in PvP. Hunter's don't need Frost Ammo to be good, but it turns them into something slightly OP, but that is, again, just my opinion.

[Halyon]

The deadzone made fuck all difference.

And as far is I remember, the deadzone existed when we could also have melee weapons. So let me axe you a question...

[Deleted]

IMO, they should change Frost Ammo into a Grievous Ammo, which would apply Mortal Wounds instead of slow, and increase damage from all Special Munitions, so they become more of a choice system, even in PvP. Hunter's don't need Frost Ammo to be good, but it turns them into something slightly OP, but that is, again, just my opinion.

That would make the talent even more mandatory for pvp than Exotic Munitions, how exactly is that promoting choice?!

[DeicideUH]

That would make the talent even more mandatory for pvp than Exotic Munitions, how exactly is that promoting choice?!

Uh... I don't understand your point. Frost Ammo (as would-be Grievous Ammo) is part of Exotic Munitions, so how would it become more mandatory than itself? The choice I am talking about is "choice between munitions", as you could choose to use other munitions instead of Grievous if you feel you want more burst and don't care so much about reducing the enemies' healing (in a 2v2 without healers, or against a triple DPS team in 3v3).

The damage increase is also aimed at making Munitions more comparable damage-wise in PvE, as it lags behind the other two.

As for choice in talents, I don't even use munitions. I play Lone WOlf, because I'm crazy and masochist and find it so fun despite losing most of my defenses.