do you prefer mana or focus?

[Noverias]

Where is the IDK for the poll. Its hard to determine without testing both of them out. I went with focus for now. I like the idea. Plus to me... Hunters using mana makes about as much sense as Mages using energy.

[Daginni]

Mana is something magical (sounds fruity to say that). It makes sense on someone that makes fireballs from their hand, it makes no sense on a Hunter that fires arrows or bullets.

[Honkeymagoo]

When Blizz first mentioned the change to focus I thought they were just gonna change the resource and slap focus costs to our current abilities. Now that theyve changed a ton of stuff and given more info I have high hopes.

[ArcticBlade]

Focus is perfect for PvP hunters, imho. Hunters used to have a crappy mana pool, and against any decent player/group could easily go oom when it mattered and not be able to recover from it.

With focus, if you're left alone you can still rain in a constant stream of pew-pew with steady shots and maintain your resources. But as soon as you're under fire you can now run/kite while regaining focus, getting ready to turn around and burst again at the right moment.

[Markluzz]

...because hunters have ever favored mp5 gear.

No, Blizz is doing this as a huge gift to hunters. Ever since we've had mana bars, we've had mana-related issues. I can't speak much for Classic, but I know we all loved DPSing in (old) viper and drinking pots every two minutes in BC

The real problem in WotLK has to do with mana regen mechanics and viper. Since viper cuts our damage in half for its duration, the devs have to either balance us assuming that we will sometimes have to switch to viper (making us op if we don't have to) or balance us assuming that we won't ever need to switch to viper (making us weak if we do have to). To further compound the situation, whether or not we have to use viper is pretty much dependent on whether or not we have a pally judging wisdom for us. And paladins are the ONLY class that brings that mechanic.

The devs have tried a number of different solutions to address our mana problems, and they are solving them for good, by taking away our mana. Viva focus!

Shamans would like to say hi.

[Rivin]

Shamans would like to say hi.

Shaman don't bring Judgement of Wisdom. No other class does.

[halpfultroll]

I never liked energy and if focus turns out a lot like energy, I won't be playing my hunter much.

[Noverias]

I never liked energy and if focus turns out a lot like energy, I won't be playing my hunter much.

Im guessing it will feel like energy and rage imo.

[Battlegrounds]

Was anit-focus at first. Since they removed the focus cost from traps and defensive abilities, focus is looking better.

Do like the idea of having one less stat (intel) to worry about. But, don't like the fact they replaced Viper with Fox, as though to imply we're still to worry about regeneration?

Since I haven't tested this first hand, didn't vote. Just throwing out general, and probably meaningless, comments.

[Thundercougr]

...because hunters have ever favored mp5 gear.

No, Blizz is doing this as a huge gift to hunters. Ever since we've had mana bars, we've had mana-related issues. I can't speak much for Classic, but I know we all loved DPSing in (old) viper and drinking pots every two minutes in BC

The real problem in WotLK has to do with mana regen mechanics and viper. Since viper cuts our damage in half for its duration, the devs have to either balance us assuming that we will sometimes have to switch to viper (making us op if we don't have to) or balance us assuming that we won't ever need to switch to viper (making us weak if we do have to). To further compound the situation, whether or not we have to use viper is pretty much dependent on whether or not we have a pally judging wisdom for us. And paladins are the ONLY class that brings that mechanic.

The devs have tried a number of different solutions to address our mana problems, and they are solving them for good, by taking away our mana. Viva focus!

ACTUALLY...if you played Hunters in Pre-BC, we DID favor MP5 gear. We didn't have Aspect of the Viper back then. MP5 was naturally on our gear though, and we used it because there wasn't really any "offspec" gear. It was all 8-piece Tier gear.

[spongemike]

Mana seems better. The reason being is that when in a 25man raid there is going to be lot's of raid members with mana replishment talents so I really had no mana issue at all.

I never had my mana gone down below 50% in a 25man raid.

[Callsign Grunge]

I disagree with you, when the game first came out hunters used focus, (in the alpha anyways)

Yup. But I agree that despite the problems hunters had with mana, it still worked and it worked well. We had uptimes and downtimes like every class. I feel like there will be moments in Cata where I'll be standing there auto-shotting being all like "um... wtb focus?" which never really happens with mana. Even though Steady gives you back focus, Steady costs focus to cast as well. Will there be downtime, ever? I think so

[georgevonfranken]

Steady costs focus to cast as well.

Steady Shot A steady shot that causes weapon damage plus [ 10% of RAP + 280 ]. ( Aspect of the Hawk : Generates 1 Focus. )
5-35 yd range, 1.5 sec cast
Has no focus cost according to tooltip

[Thundercougr]

Yup. But I agree that despite the problems hunters had with mana, it still worked and it worked well. We had uptimes and downtimes like every class. I feel like there will be moments in Cata where I'll be standing there auto-shotting being all like "um... wtb focus?" which never really happens with mana. Even though Steady gives you back focus, Steady costs focus to cast as well. Will there be downtime, ever? I think so

Do you realize how stupid your argument sounds? I'm not meaning to insult you, but you said "Even though Steady gives you back focus, Steady costs focus to cast as well". What the hell is the point in it COSTING focus if it GIVES you focus? They could just eradicate the cost/payment of focus and make it either a cost or a payment. Regardless, Steady does NOT cost Focus. It only gives you 9 Focus per use.

There will be no downtime. The point in moving us to Focus is to remove downtime we had as we were dependent on Mana, not to mention mana-restoration buffs (Judge Wis and Wis/Mana spring, to be exact). The only reason Focus was removed in the WoW Beta is because they could not get it balanced correctly in the time-frame to send the game live. Do you even play a Hunter? Mana does not and did not "work well". It worked alright, but we were dependent on buffs from other classes in order to keep up our DPS. We were the only "pure" Physical DPS class that relied on Mana. Ret/Enhance relied on Mana as well, but they have MUCH better mana-restoration mechanics. I don't see a damage-reducing effect on Shamanistic Rage/Judge of Wisdom/Divine Plea..

All in all, Hunters with Focus should and almost do work the same as we do on Live with Mana. We use some skills then spam Steady Shot. The negatively with Focus currently is because some people don't realize that Focus is somewhat bugged currently, and it's only restoring approximately 3.1 Focus per second instead of the 6 it was slated to.

[Thereign]

Honestly, if blizzard would give us hunteristic rage, this wouldn't be a problem. No class homogenization though, that is against the rules.

[Warkol]

I anticipate the changes won't be entirely dramatic. The fact that Aimed Shot will become an opener again is cool. I miss the days of the three-second cast time.
At this point I'm going to say mana though, far simpler to just dump a supply(Mana Pool) rather than controlling/managing it(Focus).

[Cyph3r]

"Depending on your weapon, autoshot costs can be higher than "focus dump" abilities, which clearly won't work. We're working on a DPCT priority list that makes more sense."


Reading that led me to believe it does, unless I'm mis-interpreting it.

Maybe it was supposed to say autoshot DAMAGE instead of COST, it wouldn't be the first time there's been typos in his posts. Not sure, but that would make more sense to me.

[Harisen]

At first I was scared of this change, being used to mana ever since vanilla. But so far focus looks promising.

I haven't played wow for about a year, so I can't really tell with 3.3 changes, but back then I was really frustrated by those mana issues. Hopefully it will get better with this focus system.

[Thundercougr]

Maybe it was supposed to say autoshot DAMAGE instead of COST, it wouldn't be the first time there's been typos in his posts. Not sure, but that would make more sense to me.

That actually makes sense, but in a way doesn't. Dunno about the new Kill Command, but Chimera Shot scales with your weapon damage and will always do more than weapon damage. Unless it was changed, Explosive Shot doesn't, so I suppose if it scaled bad enough then it could potentially do less than autoshot damage.

[OldHordeGlory]

I like focus better.

It's parallel to, and consistent with, the damage output of one's pets. It also puts them in line with the general concept of 'limited resource' that most non-magic damage dealers have to work around (ie, warrior rage or the limited mana pool of the enhancement shaman). It also means hunters will get to ignore Intellect (which would boost a mana pool and grant spell power) in favor of a more simplistic list of DPS stats akin to that of rogues and enhance shaman. By that same token, it coincides with the pruning of hunter talent trees by eliminating the need for Intellect -> Attack Power or Intellect -> Agility conversion talents to make taking it worthwhile.

The one beef I have with focus is that it's essentially burnt orange energy. From what I've seen, it functions exactly like energy...except we can't CALL it energy because they're not rogue-y. Seems like you could have just given them energy ultimately. Ah well, that's just nitpicking.