Incoherence

[Einlanzer]

Man, is it just me or does Blizzard seem to have a very ham-fisted approach to hunters?

I mean, I can get behind focus, if it's done well. That remains to be seen.

All 3 of the new abilities are kind of lame. Camo should be more like stealth but should be a survival talent to reduce redundancy with rogues and prevent all hunters from having it - nevermind how much more conceptually appropriate it is as a survival talent instead of a level 85 baseline ability (I can only camo when I reach god-like levels of power, wha!?). Trap launcher is just retarded, and Cobra Shot is entirely boring and redundant.

And, why in the hell are they gimping us even more in melee? I get the "hunters are a ranged class" dogma (read: fallacy), but it makes no logical sense to have any class be entirely handicapped in melee range and force them to kite even weak opponents. It especially makes no sense when one considers that:
1. Hunters use heavy weapons and mail armor and have a rugged survivalist flair.
2. All 3 talent trees are fundamentally the same and utterly fail at diversifying the feel of the class whatsoever - BM or Survival really should be more melee oriented if for no other reason than to do what the talents are supposed to do - create various play-style niches within each class.

[Rasseim]

By incoherance, I'm assuming that you meant your post.

No Camo isn't the hunter stealth that it was during Wrath Beta, but that doesn't mean anything's wrong with it. Making it a talented stealth seems lazy. I think the way it's been billed is interesting, they seem to be experimenting with varying ranged immunities (this and the rogue smoke cloud).
Trap launcher is trap launcher, it will be somewhat useful, not spectacular, but definitely not retarted as you say.
BM hunters have been asking for thier own "shot" practically this entire expansion, voila they get cobra shot.

No matter how much you whine about it, we will still be a ranged class, there is not a good reason to allow us full access to our abilities when an enemy closes to melee. We all have Wing Clip, Disengage, Conc Shot and Deterrance to help us get range. BM does have the strongest DOT element in the game (their pet), which does allow them to still do solid amount of damage, plus they have a stun. Survival traps are also roots (3 traps on a 24 sec cooldown), they have a sleep (wyvern sting) and a disorient (scatter) ability. And MM has readiness which lets us use our base abilities back to back. If you want a melee class roll a rogue, warrior, or a DK, hunters are fine being a primarily ranged class, they tried the melee hunter thing in vanilla, it didn't work well.

[Deleted]

By incoherance, I'm assuming that you meant your post.

No Camo isn't the hunter stealth that it was during Wrath Beta, but that doesn't mean anything's wrong with it. Making it a talented stealth seems lazy. I think the way it's been billed is interesting, they seem to be experimenting with varying ranged immunities (this and the rogue smoke cloud).
Trap launcher is trap launcher, it will be somewhat useful, not spectacular, but definitely not retarted as you say.
BM hunters have been asking for thier own "shot" practically this entire expansion, voila they get cobra shot.

No matter how much you whine about it, we will still be a ranged class, there is not a good reason to allow us full access to our abilities when an enemy closes to melee. We all have Wing Clip, Disengage, Conc Shot and Deterrance to help us get range. BM does have the strongest DOT element in the game (their pet), which does allow them to still do solid amount of damage, plus they have a stun. Survival traps are also roots (3 traps on a 24 sec cooldown), they have a sleep (wyvern sting) and a disorient (scatter) ability. And MM has readiness which lets us use our base abilities back to back. If you want a melee class roll a rogue, warrior, or a DK, hunters are fine being a primarily ranged class, they tried the melee hunter thing in vanilla, it didn't work well.

This, pretty much. Focus also looks very interesting especially since Mana is out dated and silly.

[Cyph3r]

I read your post 3 times and it seems to me that your primary complain is that you're not a rogue. No seriously, you want stealth, you want to be able to melee, you clearly don't care about traps or you'd be more interested in coming up with interesting things to do with trap launcher... You want to be a rogue with a pet.

Reroll and get a feral druid to follow you around.

[Lilcheeks]

Reroll and get a feral druid to follow you around.

And this statement will leave a smile on my face for the remainder of the work day. thank you good sir.

[Thereign]

The idea of focus is great, but I don't think it will be very good until the 2nd patch/good gear levels.

[Arcsecant]

I'm just worried about being focus starved in PVP. A lot of the times you can't afford to stand and steady shot like you can in PVE.

[Betel]

I wouldn't worry about being focus starved. You can only cast so many instant spells because of cd's. Just think of the focus regen as another cd for them.

[Huntard the Awesome]

I can also get behind focus, But Cobra shot really? Cmon blizz

[Thereign]

Yes, cobra shot is lame, but who cares, it is just for BM.

[Einlanzer]

By incoherance, I'm assuming that you meant your post.

No Camo isn't the hunter stealth that it was during Wrath Beta, but that doesn't mean anything's wrong with it. Making it a talented stealth seems lazy. I think the way it's been billed is interesting, they seem to be experimenting with varying ranged immunities (this and the rogue smoke cloud).
Trap launcher is trap launcher, it will be somewhat useful, not spectacular, but definitely not retarted as you say.
BM hunters have been asking for thier own "shot" practically this entire expansion, voila they get cobra shot.

No matter how much you whine about it, we will still be a ranged class, there is not a good reason to allow us full access to our abilities when an enemy closes to melee. We all have Wing Clip, Disengage, Conc Shot and Deterrance to help us get range. BM does have the strongest DOT element in the game (their pet), which does allow them to still do solid amount of damage, plus they have a stun. Survival traps are also roots (3 traps on a 24 sec cooldown), they have a sleep (wyvern sting) and a disorient (scatter) ability. And MM has readiness which lets us use our base abilities back to back. If you want a melee class roll a rogue, warrior, or a DK, hunters are fine being a primarily ranged class, they tried the melee hunter thing in vanilla, it didn't work well.

Having reread my original post, it is conclusively entirely coherent. Therefore, I ignored the rest.

I read your post 3 times and it seems to me that your primary complain is that you're not a rogue. No seriously, you want stealth, you want to be able to melee, you clearly don't care about traps or you'd be more interested in coming up with interesting things to do with trap launcher... You want to be a rogue with a pet.

Reroll and get a feral druid to follow you around.

Nice try, but no.....what I want is a hunter class whose mechanics adequately reflect the class concept and whose talent trees actually diversify the feel of the class to a significant degree (rogues have this problem as well). It doesn't matter what single-minded argument anyone comes up with, a wilderness stalker that wields 2 swords or a giant axe that is completely unable to use them worth a damn makes no sense whatsoever. WOW is the ONLY game in the history of the universe to attempt to balance the hunter/ranger archetype as ranged only, mostly because it would be goofy to attempt to only fight with a bow- it's a situational and utilitarian weapon (not even Legolas does it).

Moreover, hunters being unnecessarily crippled in melee is the most significant reason why we've had so many arena issues over the years. Small scale PVP + unreasonable melee range handicap = horrific disadvantage.

Lastly, either BM or SV could easily accommodate the Rexxar type, but they don't- for no good reason.

It all comes back to the devs enforcing arbitrary restrictions. I guess in the end I'll always be dissatisfied because I dislike feeling pigeonholed and just prefer my MMOs to have free-form gameplay. When a game is supposed to be somewhat simuationist a restrictive class/level system really doesn't cut it.

But, I'm not sure why I'm bothering. So many of the forum readers utterly refuse to think outside the box or see reason in these debates.

[Gestopft]

I can also get behind focus, But Cobra shot really? Cmon blizz

The idea may seem lame...it really is just a steady shot that does nature damage, but it really does need to be there. BM needs its own shot so that they can balance the specs better and make set bonuses etc. more equally meaningful between specs. BM needed its own shot, and it is getting it. I do have a couple questions about what will happen with BM however.

a) BM will have haste as a passive mastery bonus and have a talented 1.5 sec cobra shot. Anybody see a problem here? Or will haste affect our GCD now?
b) BM's signature shot, Cobra Shot will be a focus regen shot. The other tree's shots are going to have focus costs. What happens if BM's signature shot is more beneficial to cast than a shot that costs focus? Will BM hardly ever use focus? Perhaps BM will get a lot of incentive to take aimed shot and use arcane shot, keeping BM's aimed/arcane strong enough to be better than cobra could make them OP for marks. That will be a tough balancing act for the devs. Although it will likely keep the specs from feeling the same.