Classes Q&A Series: Hunter

[riflemancho]

Im really disapointed GC didnt say anything good..damn seriously >

[McAfee]

Sorry but all this Q&A thread looks like writin' in toilet in about 20 min. "maybe some stay more, but still =)"

[Onex]

i like the idea of poison/fire arrows, could be an interesting game mechanic.

[Leaf4Prez]

Hunters already have every ability in the game. Deal with it, and stop whining about too many buttons. Lets make the class more easy to play... and have every ability.

"Moving should feel like a penalty." Excuse me... but.. the only shots most hunters use in PvP are explosive, arcane, sting, aimed/multi, and kill. They can burn someone down in a few seconds just from these instants. Auto-shot/steady are rarely used, and when they are, they're just standing there not getting focused the entire time; or slowing you etc.

[KilgoreTrout]

This is only part of the Q&A it seems. There's more on MMO Champ's Bluetracker RSS feed.

For instance, this Q/A shows up there and not here:

Q: Are there any plans to allow Tranquilizing Shot to play a larger role in the hunter's arsenal?

A:Consider that on the one hand this ability just used to be for Magmadar, and on the other hand I just acknowledged above that hunters have a lot of abilities to manage. Given that, we don’t really want Tranquilizing Shot to be in your rotation like Steady Shot or even Kill Shot. It’s a bit situational, and we’re fine with that. We did make some recent efforts to make Enrages feel more like a major mechanic that you’d want to dispel the way you dispel magic and other effec

[Falcio]

Oh look. Another terrible Q&A in a string of terrible, PVP-centric Q&As. :

???

I thought it was fine. The fact remains that the Q&A isn't going to actually reveal anything mind-blowing. The only thing I'm curious about now is what they'd actually plan to do with the resource of the Hunter.

Honestly, the Hunter's mana bar isn't really bad. It works well. I just can't see how a Hunter would work with an energy bar. And making a brand-new resource for Hunters only seems to just be wasteful and time-consuming. I'd rather they just work out simple fixes with ammo and just work with the mana pools we have now. I'd just really dislike the idea that Hunters would have to learn a brand-new resource mechanic from 80 to 90, let alone trying to make it work from 1 to 80...bleh.

[dfjdejulio]

We can assume he's referring to the base commands with this?

Actually, I think it likely goes farther than that. Look at the work they recently did on the shaman totem bar. Go ahead and create a pre-made shaman if you have to in order to see it. Now imagine the same thing for pets.

There's a row of buttons. The first and last are "different". The first is an expression of your active intent -- for shamans, "I am in the mode of dropping my DPS totems", or "I am in the mode of dropping my healing totems", or "I am in the mode of dropping my PvP totems", or whatever. The last button is an "undo". And the middle are individual "slots".

Each button except the last has a little triangle at the top of it, and when you click on that part, a submenu draws upward with all the different options for things you can slot into that position. Do this on the first button and the different "totem stances" (so to speak) show up; picking one fills in all the other buttons with the totems you have configured for that "stance". Do this on, for example, the air totem button, and all the available air totems show up, and picking one changes the one you have "configured" for your current "stance".

So now imagine that the first button is used to store and switch between "pet configuration sets". So like you can switch between, say, "soloing", "PvE grouped", and "PvP". Then the next slot over contains the default behavior of that pet (agressive, defensive, passive, maybe one or two more). The next slot over contains the default threat-related move (growl, cower, maybe one or two more). Then there are a few slots for specials in the order you want to use them. Maybe this can be prioritized, like, "don't use an ability until you have enough Focus for the leftmost ability on the bar that is not on cooldown". And the last button is a complete "recall" -- "stop attacking, stop using special abilities, stop 'stay'ing, and return to my side".

This is all just a guess, yes, absolutely... but it's a guess based on what they just did for shaman totems.

[Àzazel-TheArgentChampion]

You heard it from GC, survival uses arcane shot.

Think it through logically.... if they buffed Arcane Shot, survival WOULD start using it. See his point now?

A great Q&A imho.

To the people expecting answers like "Yes, we agree that this is a problem, and have a magical solution ready to patch in on xx/xx/09." please: stop kidding yourself. That's not what these posts are about.

Excuse me... but.. the only shots most hunters use in PvP are explosive, arcane, sting, aimed/multi, and kill. They can burn someone down in a few seconds just from these instants.

No.

Auto-shot/steady are rarely used, and when they are, they're just standing there not getting focused the entire time; or slowing you etc.

That would be the idea behind hunters. However, that's why other classes aren't just NPCs. They have lots of interesting abilities, like Charge+hamstring, lolgrip+chains of lol, repentance/HoJ and from a caster point of view: fear, roots+melee, frost nova+melee, etc.

Ranged classes as a whole are only performing their proper dps potential when stationary. Running is MEANT to be a detterent, and I'm guessing you haven't noticed but it is. Can you outdps a disc priest healing themself while running from a melee player? Now think, can you do it standing still (assuming they aren't moving or fearing)?

[Rilgon]

Think it through logically.... if they buffed Arcane Shot, survival WOULD start using it. See his point now?

They would have to make Arcane Shot extremely more powerful than it is currently for Survivalists to want to use it over Explosive.

[Àzazel-TheArgentChampion]

They would have to make Arcane Shot extremely more powerful than it is currently for Survivalists to want to use it over Explosive.

Oh, does it share a CD with Explosive shot? Ugh this is what I get for never speccing survival...

Disregard that then.

[xstaindx]

Explosive Shot & Arcane Shot Share a Cooldown (6 Secs)

Multi-Shot and Aimed Shot Share a Cooldown (10 Secs)

[Warrax]

I didn't realize only learned scholars browsed this forum.

It's a rule in a lot of forums, "no firsts". If you think about it, "firsts" are stupid and add nothing to the discussion.

Warriors like Haste ? since when..

While not the best dps stat, Fury Warriors like Haste, you'll notice a great difference when you have the 20% haste buff or Heroism.

[Falcio]

This.
I would love to have Arrows or Bullets function like throwing weapons do currently.
This way they can make them more interesting like indeed adding fire/poison damage or other cool tricks and buffs.

Maybe bullets or arrows that work like Sigils/Librams/Totems. They could make it like:

Poisonous Arrow Equip: Your Serpent Sting will last for 3 more seconds if refreshed by a Chimera Shot.
Blasting Bullets "A Goblin's Best Friend" Equip: Your Explosive Shot has a 5% extra chance to crit.
The Bullet That Turns Blood Into Candy "Pets can't tell it's not the blood of your enemy" Equip: Your pet will gnaw at the enemy's bullet/arrow wound, giving the pet an extra 10% armor penetration. Only works if the pet is an exotic breed.

The problem with that is that they'd have to make bullets and arrows that work for three different specs differently. Not to mention the few specs that don't end up taking the end talent. [no exotic pets, maybe there's a build without Explosive Shot/Chimera Shot somewhere out there, etc...]

Maybe they don't even need to keep the exclusivity of the bullets. Just flat increases in our normal abilities. [Steady, Aimed, Arcane...]

[Crooks]

The problem with this Q&A is the answers, not the questions (unlike other classes). In fact I think the questions asked were excellent and to the point.

It seemed to go like this:
Question: Excellent, precise question and an important concern...
Answer: Yes we know it's a problem, wait until Blizzcon.

Question: Excellent, precise question and an important concern...
Answer: Yes we know it's a problem, but we don't have a solution yet.

Question: Excellent, precise question and an important concern...
Answer: Yes we know it's a problem, I have nothing else to add.

Up until last week I played in one of the best PvE guilds on my server as their only hunter, that was until I quit. Virtually every guild was recruiting hunters but there weren't any playing anymore. It's like Blizzard realises they're not fun to play, but can't really offer a fix until their "long term goals" come into fruition.

I thought about re-rolling but just couldn't be bothered to level a character to 80, then persuade a good guild to let me raid with them. So I cancelled my account instead. May sound like 'QQ', but no real other choice if you're not finding it fun to play anymore.

[Unequaledus]

I really hope hunters get brought in line with other classes, though I do think they need to have the option to res pets in pvp outside of BM. When MM and Surv lose their pet they drop a huge part of their survival RoS/Pin/Intervene and a passive way to keep healers in combat. The pets as they are seem to be very weak and almost unable to be healed, even with resilience bleeding over I can see pets still being able to be gib'd in a 3-4s CC on a healer which in turn if it does live, it takes more damage then the hunter so the healing is even harder to come back from.

I'm really looking forward to blizzcon to see what they are really going to be doing besides dodging questions.

[ElComico2]

because it sounds to me like although they might consider fixing a few things, they'll just keep them the way they are, or even nerf Hunters more.

[Venatori]

I don't see what's so hard about making all arrows grey quality (still the same vendor sell price though) and then introduce new arrows which you equip which don't stack and aren't consumed (libram / relic style). Database-wise they just have to edit the item itself and assuming they're using good relational database practices, everything will "just work" and they won't have to go into people's banks. It's the same thing they did with the old quest items like the Urn from Kara and the Mallet from ZF(?). I don't think saronite arrows are THAT expensive where too many of us would QQ about having to vendor all of them (personally I have a nice supply stocked up but for this change would be HAPPY to vendor them all), but I guess Blizz could mail all hunters with a certain amount of saronite arrows (or bullets) the new version of the unconsumed arrow. Again, database-wise this shouldn't be a huge deal (they mass mailed the Mountain Dew Battle Bots to people who signed up so why not arrows to specific hunters?). Blizz Devs are just lazy.

I really like the idea of different types of arrows like fire / poison / frost, etc. Or even make them add to different stats like crit arrows, pure damage arrows, haste arrows, etc. Maybe one that auto-applies a sting, but you loose out on the other advantages of arrows liek the aformentioned crit, haste, or whatever. Basically you'd be buying an extra GCD and a bit of mana every so often for some stats, which hunters can decide for themselves.

[Solidusbr]

What about the stables? Why don't make them a "little bigger"?

[Falcio]

What about the stables? Why don't make them a "little bigger"?

I think that they gave us more slots in Wrath and that, if they start adding more pet species like they've said, they'll add a few more slots next expansion, as well.

And if it's really an island expansion, I wonder what will be around for us to tame.

[conscript]

Banned.

I lol'd in the middle of the office at this.

On topic, I hope that the different types of arrows that were mentioned actually go into practice. Making arrows similar to rogue poisons with different uses and situations would be an interesting concept.

I wasn't a big fan of the Arcane Shot comments. The shot could be pretty easily balanced into a MM rotation by making it share a cd with Chimera just like ti does with explosive. Do they think they need to add a 4x damage multiplier to its current version to get it up to snuff for BM? They would have to crazily boost it for SV to even consider using it above ES.