Huge Hunter changes incoming

[Rocksteadee]

... Deterrence ... (only defensive ability which disarm user)

Don't mean to call you out specifically, as I see a lot of people say this, but mages suffer from this as well.

[Dracodraco]

Don't mean to call you out specifically, as I see a lot of people say this, but mages suffer from this as well.

And Shadow Priests <.<.

[Deleted]

Don't mean to call you out specifically, as I see a lot of people say this, but mages suffer from this as well.

True. But both are 10x superior to Deterrance, in their own way.

Block clears ALL negative effects and makes your totally immune to everything.
And Dispersion reduce all damage by 90% and give you mana back. +Gives your slow immunity.

And most important differance. THEY WORK ON EVERYTHING. Not like deterrance that works on MAYBE 50% of all boss abilitys.

Id trade deterrance for any of those in a heartbeat.

[Deleted]

Don't mean to call you out specifically, as I see a lot of people say this, but mages suffer from this as well.

I know. Poor choice of words. Only class with primary def CD which also stops us from auto-attacking.

Dispersion and Ice Block are mostly last line of defense. Well, at least from my PoV.

[Dracodraco]

I know. Poor choice of words. Only class with primary def CD which also stops us from auto-attacking.

Dispersion and Ice Block are mostly last line of defense. Well, at least from my PoV.

Well, depends. What other defensive CD does mages/priests have? I guess both have a minor absorb shield, but no other dmg reduc's (unless mage talents greater invis).

[Deleted]

Wouldn't call that huge changes really. Dont feel so big, might just be me though. Was hoping for some awesome and fun glyphs, but seems like others got them instead. : x

Hunters aren't entirely bereft of utility.

Ice Trap used to be a lot better, since usually it was just a Hunter kiting something, such as the skeletons on Gluth or something..

Ah, remember those times. Was hunter only on that fight to kite the skeletons. Feels like there isn't that big use of that trap anymore, at least what I felt when others have so much better slows.

I just hope they could make a bit of revamp on the specs (as well for rogues), so they could get a bit more uniqueness, as they did with Warlocks. Now they feel so alike its kind of hurts lol. THAT, would be huge changes. : )

[Saoron]

greater invis is amazing.. soaking static shocks twice is huge.. 1 perma immunity and 1 90% reduc ? Or a cheat death ala cauterize ?
Spriests are hybrids.. so can't really compare.. self heals, shields etc..

[Drakoes]

SP's also have lifegrip and will be able to use more healing spells whilst in shadowform in 5.4. Once again, little things like this just add up and help to demonstrate that utility and usefulness to the raid.

[Xiphias]

Well, depends. What other defensive CD does mages/priests have? I guess both have a minor absorb shield, but no other dmg reduc's (unless mage talents greater invis).

Mages can also heal themselves pretty easily with the Glyph of Evocation, plus have Cauterize and Alter Time that can both potentially be used in sticky situations (although Alter Time won't usually be used in this fashion). Plus, Blink is like 100 times better than Disengage since it can be used to completely negate certain mechanics (such as blinking out of Amber Prisons and so on) on top of being easier to aim due to moving forwards.

It's still true that Mages bring less utility than Warlocks (who have too much, which is constantly pointed out even by blues) they are compensated by always being one of the strongest DPS classes in any patch. I don't know of any patch in recent memory where Mages of any spec parsed less than Hunters of the best Hunter spec...

Shadow Priests do lack in utility, as well, so I think they're on the same level as Hunters in this respect. However, Priests always have the option of taking a different role by taking a healing spec, plus they're a pretty secure hybrid class and can bring really nice clutch healing if necessary whereas Hunters cannot. DPS Shamans have superb raid healing cooldowns through Guidance and Boomkins have a decent Tranquility, but Hunters don't bring anything to help their group survive.

[Saoron]

Shadow Priests do lack in utility, as well, so I think they're on the same level as Hunters in this respect.

What ? o.O.. Life grip, heals, body and soul/feathers, void tendrils, dispersion, VAMPIRIC EMBRACE.. Not in the same level bro.. Not to say that they are in a great position or anything, but even with their moderate damage, they are still brought to raids for their utility.

[Deleted]

Just saw Method's Garry Hellscream 10M N video. Fight has ST, AoE, multi-dot and cleave parts (so every single DPS situation you can imagine - there is). Lock and Mage ended around 250k (lock little bit higher, mage little bit lower), followed by shammy 238k, rogue 220k and hunter 203k.

I highly doubt we'll get 25% buff on all of our tools, simply because of PvP.

Just a personal observation - again, like on Lei Shen, it seems locks and DKs will be almost must have for Garrosh. So much about "they have too much and we'll nerf it"...

[kidsafe]

Garrosh is not a good litmus test of anyone's DPS because you have to divide the jobs among DPS. If the hunter isn't assigned to sit on AoE, but help get weapons/engineers down, his DPS will be lower. Only about 1/3rd of the fight is strictly AoE, and those are the easiest portions. There is also a mind control mechanic in the fight, so anyone may lose DPS there.

During our attempts on Garrosh I was easily top DPS during the first phase (besides our tanks) using a Fervor or TotH survival build.

[Dracodraco]

Garrosh is not a good litmus test of anyone's DPS because you have to divide the jobs among DPS. If the hunter isn't assigned to sit on AoE, but help get weapons/engineers down, his DPS will be lower. Only about 1/3rd of the fight is strictly AoE, and those are the easiest portions. There is also a mind control mechanic in the fight, so anyone may lose DPS there.

During our attempts on Garrosh I was easily top DPS during the first phase (besides our tanks) using a Fervor or TotH survival build.

Let's be fair. The weapons had 6M HP - dots from your ranged would kill a weapon off before the next one even spawned. Bursting it down is not really necessary, nor usefull, as you don't need all that space.
It's also clear that if you were top DPS during the first phase, you had no warlocks, ele shamans or mages present in your raid testing. They simply demolish the AOE - or you had classes that could do AOE assigned to run off and kill Engineers instead of doing it yourself (hunters were actually remarkably usefull for killing the engineers, mobility+no ramp up = win).
With that mentioned, as you said yourself, the majority of the fight is singletarget. Only the first phase is really an "AOE"-phase. It is also by far the easiest part of the fight. Being surv for the fight instead of BM, for higher AOE dmg instead of singletarget, is not really helpfull.

[Deleted]

As far as I can tell, weapons were dealt by DoTs, adds by AoEing, "pick-up" adds in teleported area by cleaving them down. I didn't noticed that hunter was very unlucky with MC. Anyway, I doubt MC is why he was 50M(?) below mage / lock.

Anyway, on the brighter side, if I'm not mistaken, the latest RPPM change (haste ignore) might tip the favor little bit to our side compared to rogues.

[kidsafe]

Let's be fair. The weapons had 6M HP - dots from your ranged would kill a weapon off before the next one even spawned. Bursting it down is not really necessary, nor usefull, as you don't need all that space.
It's also clear that if you were top DPS during the first phase, you had no warlocks, ele shamans or mages present in your raid testing. They simply demolish the AOE - or you had classes that could do AOE assigned to run off and kill Engineers instead of doing it yourself (hunters were actually remarkably usefull for killing the engineers, mobility+no ramp up = win).
With that mentioned, as you said yourself, the majority of the fight is singletarget. Only the first phase is really an "AOE"-phase. It is also by far the easiest part of the fight. Being surv for the fight instead of BM, for higher AOE dmg instead of singletarget, is not really helpfull.

I was in fact doing Engineers since 7s disengage trivializes it. And I also disagree that BM is better than SV in such a case when during that portion of the fight you can sit on LnL and kill them in roughly 3 seconds. The fact of the matter is that AoE isn't even important in that phase...the warlock in our group was assigned to the other engineer because of his own ability to port for them. All you really have to do is interrupt chain heals and the tanks can practically kill the adds by themselves.

Also towards the end, weapons were becoming an issue for us since our comp is melee heavy. Maybe your guild is just better! Like I said, not a good litmus test.

[asdfsaf]

someone tweet one of the useless game developers hat hunters have 40% focus fire uptime and 80% rapid fire uptime and thus lose a lot more from the rppm haste nerf than others ty

[Dracodraco]

I was in fact doing Engineers since 7s disengage trivializes it. And I also disagree that BM is better than SV in such a case when during that portion of the fight you can sit on LnL and kill them in roughly 3 seconds. The fact of the matter is that AoE isn't even important in that phase...the warlock in our group was assigned to the other engineer because of his own ability to port for them. All you really have to do is interrupt chain heals and the tanks can practically kill the adds by themselves.

Also towards the end, weapons were becoming an issue for us since our comp is melee heavy. Maybe your guild is just better! Like I said, not a good litmus test.

I didn't say BM was better than surv in the first phase for engineers and AOE'ing. Quite obviously, Surv is stronger for that (especially due to pet-pathing to burst the engineers) - not that it really matters, with 600K hp on them.
I said BM was stronger after you beat P1, and start on P2+3, as that is pure singletarget (barring the quick AOE during add spawns in P2/3).

[kidsafe]

All I know is I did way more than 210K while also doing Engys

[Dracodraco]

All I know is I did way more than 210K while also doing Engys

How far did you get in?
Pottm's DPS when he got sucked in the first time was 361K.
Second, 240K.
Third, 200K.
And they stop dps with him at about 205K.

It obviously fell and rose over the encounter due to AOE. The question is how far in you got? Did you manage to survive two suck-ins?

[kidsafe]

It obviously fell and rose over the encounter due to AOE. The question is how far in you got? Did you manage to survive two suck-ins?

Obviously my DPS fell after the first phase and didn't rise much with the shas coming out either...I didn't really pad on them, though we were potentially going to try a kite/AoE strat later.

Also I finally bothered to load up Method's video...they do have ranged DPS doing direct damage to weapons later on. They actually have way more ranged paying attention to it than my group did at the same point.

I'm surprised they didn't do P1 like us. Since the weapon/desecrations didn't really do that much damage and P1 is not very hectic, we just had the tanks sit on top of weapons and AoE'd them down with the rest of the adds.

I just don't see why everyone's crying about the status of hunters right now. When our warlock wasn't jumping the gun and pulling Orgrimmar Faithful all over the place on H-Nazgrim, I was by far the highest burst AoE DPS on that too (as BM this time.) We didn't have an Elemental Shaman, but I was bursting to almost 4M DPS as long as the adds got properly grouped for Beast Cleave. That initial AoE burst kept me on top overall throughout the encounter. The only thing I hated about that fight is how quickly a rooted assassin can kill a pet...whenever I got the mark, I actually stood there and tanked the assassin when it was rooted just so my pet could DPS it without dying. Heh.

Likewise on H-Dark Shaman, BM was highly competitive with any other single/low target spec. SV wasn't far behind and had some utility like being able to root the oozes.