Why do people say hunters are "middle of the pack"?

[Beebeey]

Well if you have Aspect of the Pack on and you're in the middle of the group, then you're basically the middle of the pack.

Best response ever

[ihatepeople]

They brought two hunters who underperformed, congrats - BL brought one who was, aside from warlocks, competitive for the top spot. Which encounter would you like to talk about? Rarely are fights tuned so tightly (Spine/Yogg-0) that you really have to cut any non-top performing class, but then again that only applies to a few guilds each tier. If you're not in one of the top guilds, by the time you reach a fight you typically have more than enough gear to meet the damage check and it simply becomes a mechanical issue, in which case player skill is the determining factor for a raid slot. Do I even play a hunter, good question - here's a fight pretty much everyone in this thread is able to kill as well as a fight that lacks adds to pad on:

http://www.worldoflogs.com/rankings/...rvival_Hunter/

But you're right I'm probably spewing shit randomly because I haven't cleared any of this content...oh wait, that would be you. As an aside, your name is quite fitting of your ability to handle a social environment, as you seem to be unable to handle a simple discussion without resorting to baseless, unrelated insults.

People can assume equal skill and gear all they want, but that's pretty much never the case; especially if, as you say, there are plenty of skilled players in casual guilds - they should easily out-perform the casual players who deserve to be there based on skill.[COLOR="red"].

BL brought a hunter because hunters can cheese a key mechanic of the fight. Cheesing mechanics has been one reason why hunters have been brought for progression for certain fights for quite sometime, it's nothing new. Also, Dyveriate was there to soak up mail agi gear. That fact keeps getting left out by you for some reason. Of course you can bring pretty much any class composition that you want, the topic here is the output of the hunter class in comparison to other classes. And congrats, you picked a single target fight where hunters can be somewhat competitive AND are able to cheese a key mechanics. There are still 12 other bosses in the instance, and we're not discussing individual encounters. We're supposed to be discussing the class as a whole. Hunters being middle of the pack is not just exclusive to this tier, ToT just happens to be the current raid instance.

No one is arguing that you can't kill anything using hunters or that the fights are so tuned that bringing hunters is setting yourself up for failure, not sure why you're trying to pull that out of my statements. The issue is that hunters are not very desirable because of their lack of competitive damage and/or a useful raid CD makes them pretty unfavorable for progression and most fights. Player skill is a factor for a raid slot in general, common fact is common.

Gratz, you linked a hunter only parse. Yet, the class as a whole doesn't scratch the top 200 (probably more) of parses on that fight. What is the purpose of doing that? We're not comparing hunters to themselves, we're comparing them to other classes. The stars aligned for you and you got a great parse, congrats are in order for sure, but that doesn't add anything to this discussion. And no I haven't cleared the content on heroic, just normal for now. I quit raiding at the conclusion of the last tier. So because I haven't cleared the content in its entirety on heroic difficulty that discounts my knowledge on the class in a progression setting? Like I said previously, hunters being middle of the pack and not an efficient class during progression and when compared to other classes is not something that is unique to just Throne of Thunder content. Also, I didn't throw out a baseless and unrelated insult. You basically told everyone in the thread to "stop whining and play betteR", so isn't you that threw out a baseless and unrelated insult? Don't throw stones if you live in a glass house so to speak.

Since when is being a casual player indicative of skill? I'm a casual player now due to the fact that I quit raiding, but short on skill is something that I'm not. That statement is all over the place so I won't even dive into that too much. Gear may not be equal up until a certain point, but skill will only take you so far, especially if people playing classes that perform better have a similar skill level and/or gear that is within a certain range. Again, I feel like you're taking the discussion all over the place for some odd reason.

[3clipse]

For the vast majority of players (people not doing bleeding edge Heroic content) this is a pretty irrelevant concern. The minor variations in damage between classes aren't what holds most guilds back.

[Effinhunter]

The changes in 5.3 are going to bring us closer to other pures who know what they're doing in end game, but hunters were already very powerful at entry-level ToT raiding because of the way BM scales with attack power (which they'll have on even entry-level gear), even without a decent weapon.

As 3clipse said, most guilds have no idea that hunters are messed up in regards to scaling. And since most guilds actually do use hunters for raid buffs in 10 mans (yay, raid utility!), they're probably oblivious about how badly we've been scaling in comparison to other pures and wouldn't care anyway. It's only when you look at the top parses that you see how far behind we've gotten, and the top guilds generally have top-level talent in the pure dps positions, so you'll see the gradient in their parses as well.

That being said, I'm looking forward to 5.3. I mean, we still won't have a useful raid cooldown, and aoe sunder can be had with just one hunter, but our dps will improve.

[ihatepeople]

For the vast majority of players (people not doing bleeding edge Heroic content) this is a pretty irrelevant concern. The minor variations in damage between classes aren't what holds most guilds back.

IMO you don't have to be involved in bleeding edge Heroic content to realize that certain classes make fights a lot easier and help beat encounters quicker. But yea I agree that is isn't a problem for everyone, just mostly for folks/guilds who like to min/max to speed up their progression. Even my guild swaps out classes and brings in an alt or multiple of one class or two to make fights easier, and we're not a bleeding edge guild.

Also, I wouldn't call the variation between some classes' damage minor per say, but that's neither here nor there.

[Jigsawe]

You seem pretty focused on that one piece of gear that drops from Lei Shen that a hunter could use, obviously that justifies a raid spot over everything else. If you're going to claim gear soaking that applies to all of 4-5 slots as tier and rings/trinkets/neck/cloak can all go to other agi users. He was aside from locks competitive for the top spot damage wise.

You asked if I played a hunter, thus I linked the parse. The stars far from aligned for that, trust me, I could link several more top 5-10 for this tier. My point being, that I know a hell of a lot more than the rest of the people posting in this thread. The problem with class balance isn't in the mechanics, it's in the trinkets being, literally, 30-40k dps increases for some specs.

Being casual isn't always an indication of skill, but it's usually reflective of people who don't care enough or don't have the time to put into the game and by and large are worse for one reason or another, of course there are exceptions.

For instance, you called yourself a casual, as you can't make raid times or something. If you entered your raid you're not going to be as comfortable mechanically or from a damage perspective as other players and by definition, would perform worse. Does it mean you're a terrible player? No, but you can't approach fights from the same conceptual standpoint that people who have been clearing the content for months can.

[Meleti]

My point being, that I know a hell of a lot more than the rest of the people posting in this thread.

This is a pretty obnoxious thing to say.

[Jigsawe]

Has anyone else here got Lei Shen to sub-10%? Actually, the only person I can even think of whose name is familiar would be Draco, so if he wants to add his input, I would more than welcome it. On second thought, I'm not even sure why I'm having this discussion, Angry hasn't had good hunters since Eiden and Crocstar during Angry's peak as a guild. My closing point, 5.3 is balancing us with other classes who have broken as fuck trinkets; come next tier when those trinkets are no longer viable hunters should be ahead of the curve since we will be balanced around those trinkets.

[Beebeey]

Has anyone else here got Lei Shen to sub-10%? Actually, the only person I can even think of whose name is familiar would be Draco, so if he wants to add his input, I would more than welcome it. On second thought, I'm not even sure why I'm having this discussion, Angry hasn't had good hunters since Eiden and Crocstar during Angry's peak as a guild. My closing point, 5.3 is balancing us with other classes who have broken as fuck trinkets; come next tier when those trinkets are no longer viable hunters should be ahead of the curve since we will be balanced around those trinkets.

I don't really care if you're great at this game; or whether you got Lei Shen sub 10%. There really is no reason to be so obnoxious. People have a right to express their opinions whether you like it or not, value their input, or find it valid.

That in no way should mean that taking an opportunity to express your thoughts also gives you the right to insult others.

[Meleti]

That in no way should mean that taking an opportunity to express your thoughts also gives you the right to insult others.

The WoW community in a nutshell:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19

[ihatepeople]

You seem pretty focused on that one piece of gear that drops from Lei Shen that a hunter could use, obviously that justifies a raid spot over everything else. If you're going to claim gear soaking that applies to all of 4-5 slots as tier and rings/trinkets/neck/cloak can all go to other agi users. He was aside from locks competitive for the top spot damage wise.

You asked if I played a hunter, thus I linked the parse. The stars far from aligned for that, trust me, I could link several more top 5-10 for this tier. My point being, that I know a hell of a lot more than the rest of the people posting in this thread. The problem with class balance isn't in the mechanics, it's in the trinkets being, literally, 30-40k dps increases for some specs.

Being casual isn't always an indication of skill, but it's usually reflective of people who don't care enough or don't have the time to put into the game and by and large are worse for one reason or another, of course there are exceptions.

For instance, you called yourself a casual, as you can't make raid times or something. If you entered your raid you're not going to be as comfortable mechanically or from a damage perspective as other players and by definition, would perform worse. Does it mean you're a terrible player? No, but you can't approach fights from the same conceptual standpoint that people who have been clearing the content for months can.

I mentioned gear soaking throughout the whole instance, and then you fixated on Lei Shen like kid looking at candy. Aside from not letting BIS legs to waste on one of the only classes that can use them, hunters are good at cheesing a key mechanic. Didn't we go through this already? Hunters happen to be pretty decent on a single target fight in this current content (one of maybe 2 throughout the instance?), yea I'll give you that. It still doesn't take away from the whole picture. When I mean gear-soaking I'm talking about (pretty sure I explained this too) agi mail and ranged weapons. I thought it was self-explanatory.

I did ask if you played a hunter, you could have in turn linked your armory or something of that nature. Instead you got on the e-peen train and linked a parse that really didn't add anything to the topic/discussion. Parses are great and all, but they are kinda whatever when your badass parse doesn't even scrape the surface against other classes. That was my point. But it's whatever, different viewpoints. Yea the trinkets are an issue in the current content, but again we're talking about things on a grand scale. This thing that plagues our class has been an issue for more than just this current tier.

I quit raiding and joined the rank of casual because work ramped up and It would have affected my raiding, as in I'd be really late all the time, so I quit raiding. I didn't become isntantly terrible at the game the minute I stopped being a raider. Yea I lack a bit of the insight that other people/hunters would have from doing the heroic content, but it's not like this content is so very different from previous tier and this problem with our class just popped up.

Has anyone else here got Lei Shen to sub-10%? Actually, the only person I can even think of whose name is familiar would be Draco, so if he wants to add his input, I would more than welcome it. On second thought, I'm not even sure why I'm having this discussion, Angry hasn't had good hunters since Eiden and Crocstar during Angry's peak as a guild. My closing point, 5.3 is balancing us with other classes who have broken as fuck trinkets; come next tier when those trinkets are no longer viable hunters should be ahead of the curve since we will be balanced around those trinkets.

You're stuck on Lei Shen (literally and figuratively), so I won't say too much on the topic anymore. I don't think we're getting anywhere. Good hunter means what? constant high parses? Maybe, or it could mean that you get to do whatever you want instead of follow the mechanics, we'll never know. I'm not sure why you continued having this discussion either *shrug*.

As for 5.3 and beyond, we'll see.

[Effinhunter]

Has anyone else here got Lei Shen to sub-10%? Actually, the only person I can even think of whose name is familiar would be Draco, so if he wants to add his input, I would more than welcome it. On second thought, I'm not even sure why I'm having this discussion, Angry hasn't had good hunters since Eiden and Crocstar during Angry's peak as a guild. My closing point, 5.3 is balancing us with other classes who have broken as fuck trinkets; come next tier when those trinkets are no longer viable hunters should be ahead of the curve since we will be balanced around those trinkets.

I'm glad you're in a guild that is pushing content and is not full of mouth-breathers, and that your guild respects what you bring to the raid in terms of raid awareness, correct usage of your defensive abilities, and good dps.

However, I've looked through all of your parses for the past three weeks, and what's really surprising about your reaction to this thread is that you are not willing to admit that we are not scaling with gear as well as other pure dpsers are. Your parses back up your skill because you have top 20 parses in SV hunters. But you are also tied for the most geared person on your server and the 2nd best geared hunter in the West (first in the US), nearly 2 ilvls above the next person in your guild and 3 ilvls above the nearest warlock in your guild. Most of the other people in your guild are at 3-6 ilvls lower than you, which should be a significant dps gain in your favor.

Despite you outilvling the rest of your guild, you are middle of the pack in dps in nearly all of your fights (using your own guild's logs). From this week:

(5th in your guild--Jin'rok, ST, yet 50k from top) http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=1282&e=1524
(3rd in your guild--Horridon, AoE fight, over 50k off the top) http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=3393&e=4030
(7th in your guild--Council, AoE fight, over 100k off the top, ~80k off the 2nd) http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=5036&e=5502
(5th in your guild--Tortos, AoE fight, over 100k off the top 2) http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=6830&e=7258
(8th in your guild--Megaera, ST fight, over 30k from the top 3) http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=9284&e=9745
(8th in your guild--Durumu, ST with add phase fight, over 70k off the top 3) http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...=16933&e=17480
(7th in your guild--Primordius, ST with AoE, ~90k from top, ~40k from top 4) http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...ne/?s=70&e=502
I'm skipping Dark Animus, because it's more about control than dps. However, you did rank 4th on it, for whatever that's worth.
(9th in your guild--Iron Qon, ST with AoE last phase, ~20k from top dpser (tanks are OP here on last phase with vengeance) http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=4321&e=4860
(10th in your guild--Twin Consorts, ST with two-target phase, ~50k from top dpser) http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=5384&e=5920

This position in the middle of most of your guild's parses is NOT a reflection of bad skill. I think your skill level, with the high ilvl you have, should result in nowhere near this kind of gap (as do most of the people in this thread). I believe that you are one of the more skilled hunters in the world, and yet, you are middle of the pack in your dpsers on most of the fights in ToT Heroics, despite an immense amount of talent and dedication to your position and despite the fact that you out-ilvl your entire guild's dpser base from between 2 and 6 ilvls. This isn't just a problem with one class with a broken trinket. Heck, that doesn't even make sense. The trinket's not broken. The class is just scaling exceptionally well with what that trinket procs. This thread has mostly reflected people ranting about wanting to be at that warlock's level--to be able to compete, especially since we don't bring any of the cool stuff that warlocks bring (namely healthstones, summoning stones, portals, etc.) I am certainly uninterested in nerfing warlocks. I would love to see our class receive some kind of raid utility and/or something about us that scales well with a trinket like the locks do. For instance, faster ticks of serpent sting, explosive trap or even barrage with haste (it doesn't have to be anything game breaking, but just a small benefit that gets noticed over the lifetime of the fight).

Ultimately, you are right that guilds are likely to bring at least one hunter to the raid--someone they can trust to use deterrence wisely, dps in the middle of the pack, soak agi gear, and generally, someone who gels well with the rest of the crew. Hell, last night, our MT's internet went down for hours and we sat in front of H Horridon gambling with /roll and laughing our butts off at the guild leader for tapping into the guild bank to pay for his losses. Guilds keep people around for various reasons; they certainly didn't keep me around for my dps during a gambling tournament. We like each other's company and even a 50k dps difference between one person and the next is unlikely to be the main culprit in our lack of progression, even at early heroic levels. I personally enjoy playing this class and appreciate that my guild doesn't force me to reroll another class that I'm sure I could get higher parses in (e.g., warlock).

However, I'm not blind to the situation. And I don't have to be at 10% on H Lei Shen to understand that hunters are not scaling as well with gear, that the Simcraft rankings are mostly playing out as we expected them to at the end of T15 heroics according to World of Logs parses and hunters in top guilds showing us damage meters from their runs, that top-end guilds are not putting 3-4 hunters instead of warlocks, mages or rogues to increase dps, and that the 5.3 patch is going to be a welcome boost (if not necessarily a fix) that will make us more competitive with warlocks, rogues, and mages with the same gear and skill.

We needed the ranged ap boost and the blink strike changes should be interesting for 5.3. Our current state isn't the end-of-the-world or anything, and as someone else said, guilds are likely to bring one of us regardless because bringing enhancement shaman to soak the gear is not as embraced as allowing hunters to do it. But even if our 1-2 positions in the raid has always been secure, it certainly will be nicer to be closer to other pures played by people who know what they are doing.

[eschatological]

Guys, let's not turn this thread into an e-peen waving contest and/or an attempt to shame other posters. Post constructively.

(I broke out the green font, I'm serious.)

[jax]

(5th in your guild--Jin'rok, ST, yet 50k from top) http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=1282&e=1524
(3rd in your guild--Horridon, AoE fight, over 50k off the top) http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=3393&e=4030
(7th in your guild--Council, AoE fight, over 100k off the top, ~80k off the 2nd) http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=5036&e=5502
(5th in your guild--Tortos, AoE fight, over 100k off the top 2) http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=6830&e=7258
(8th in your guild--Megaera, ST fight, over 30k from the top 3) http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=9284&e=9745
(8th in your guild--Durumu, ST with add phase fight, over 70k off the top 3) http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...=16933&e=17480
(7th in your guild--Primordius, ST with AoE, ~90k from top, ~40k from top 4) http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...ne/?s=70&e=502
I'm skipping Dark Animus, because it's more about control than dps. However, you did rank 4th on it, for whatever that's worth.
(9th in your guild--Iron Qon, ST with AoE last phase, ~20k from top dpser (tanks are OP here on last phase with vengeance) http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=4321&e=4860
(10th in your guild--Twin Consorts, ST with two-target phase, ~50k from top dpser) http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=5384&e=5920

That said it all, despite the fact that your the best geared highest skilled and get to cheese mechanics you still cant even come close to topping your raids dps... and we arent talking about 5k differences here... we are talking 20k to 100k...

You find that reasonable? I sure dont.

[Truefire]

We brought a hunter to progression for two reasons: to soak up mail agi gear and because he is a very good player. Also, because he was able to soak up all mail agi gear, his ilvl was at least 3-5 higher than most people during progression. A hunter with better gear than most of the raid is worth a raid spot, but if we had the option, we would bring only warlocks and rogues with 525 ilvl over hunters with 532 ilvl (my warlock's ilvl vs dyv's hunter during progression).

[jax]

But you are also tied for the most geared person on your server and the 2nd best geared hunter in the West (first in the US),

Did a few minutes of research because this struck me as VERY odd... your one of the highest geared people in the world and the top in the US, yet your running mid pack in guild. So I went to look where your top parses stack up against the other high geared world players... what I found is staggering and honestly the fact that you would even pretend that hunters dont need help is mind blowing.

Jin: 242k, 4th SV hunter in world, NOT in the top 500 parses.
Hor: 277k, 76th SV hunter in world, NOT in the top 500 parses.
Counsil: 176k, 85th SV hunter in world, NOT in the top 500 parses.

I stopped there knowing that it would just continue, your pulling top SV numbers yet you are no where to be seen when you are compared to overall dps classes.

Now you may try and defend your position by saying its all locks or rogues... but there are a ton of mages, dks, warriors, monks even ret pallys. What the numbers show me is that while hunters can be hugely skilled and rank for the spec... they still cant compete and THAT is what the discussion is about, not how well you do in your guild with ancedotal evidence of "supposed" equal skilled players.
We know the ilevels are not equal... what say you on skill level?

[Exac]

Then you have a different problem...

Actually no, it means you don't know how to play your class.

[Kantoro]

Stop trying to beat everyone else and focus on your own abilities. Is your raid downing bosses? Yes, they don't worry about it. Being top dps should never, ever be your goal. Showing up, doing your job and being as asset should be your job. Topping the dps charts is what started all this garbage back when dps meters were 1st implemented. Its a tool, not a focus.

[Meleti]

We brought a hunter to progression for two reasons: to soak up mail agi gear and because he is a very good player. Also, because he was able to soak up all mail agi gear, his ilvl was at least 3-5 higher than most people during progression. A hunter with better gear than most of the raid is worth a raid spot, but if we had the option, we would bring only warlocks and rogues with 525 ilvl over hunters with 532 ilvl (my warlock's ilvl vs dyv's hunter during progression).

That sounds about right.

We can argue whether it's trinkets or mechanics that are skewing class balance a bit, but it is what it is.

[scriix]

We brought a hunter to progression for two reasons: to soak up mail agi gear and because he is a very good player. Also, because he was able to soak up all mail agi gear, his ilvl was at least 3-5 higher than most people during progression. A hunter with better gear than most of the raid is worth a raid spot, but if we had the option, we would bring only warlocks and rogues with 525 ilvl over hunters with 532 ilvl (my warlock's ilvl vs dyv's hunter during progression).

this right here pretty much defines the problem hunters have