2.3 Possible hutner changes.

[meadow]

thats why hutner fail... too many hunter are perfect stupid .. nothing personnal but think before writing crap like that.

why you think hutner should be able to beat every class ? they are cloth killer class not plate killing. and hutner got good chance agaisnt rogue if they know how to play.

wow you struggle vs only warrior which all Arena team got, see the reason why hutner fail in arena ? go back to your BG easy honor grinding afk killing crap. and go to arena when youll know that hunter are meant for 3vs3

Go back to kindergarten with your childish, insulting argumentation.

Beat every class? No, but have a chance to. Hunter is the only class which can be disabled so easy, that the hunter has no chance to do anymore. Just lock him in Dead Range and your healer has one big Problem less.

Hunter isn't designed for arena at all, no difference between 2v2, 3v3 and 5v5. But it's logical, that u can't realize this with your imba 1700 rating.

Btw: 2 warrior teams are really easy if u have an Ice Mage with u.

@frosty:
I've heard, that Ice Block can be dispelled by ArcShot with 2.3 .

[Iosif]

Will hunters become "Impossible to kill" far from it... You will have to rethink your tactics against hunters, you will have 2 decision's really. Stay at range and DPS race and chance that your DPS is greater then his, Or you can move in to melee range and take a few swipes from his weapon(s).

I think the real reason for this change is that a lot of casters/healers will stand next to hunters in the arenas knowing that a hunter melee dmg is a joke even with Black Temple Weapons. Also Blizzard expect hunters to pay Full price for Crossbow and one 2 hand weapon or 2 one hand weapon since hunters are the ONLY class that has this requirement they may feel obligated to give hunters a real reason to invest in the weapons. Removing the "Dead Zone" will force all the casters in to melee range if they wish to defeat a hunter where the hunter will be forced to use melee weapons that till now they have been able to avoid buying because they are not much better then PvE weapons.

[Deleted]

and this is what gets me mad
that casters (espesially mages) kann kill me without taking a single point of damage...
i don't mind if they kill me, if they play better or/and have better gear thats okay, thats the way the game should be but its not right that they can turn you into a pice of shit this easy.

[frosty]

@frosty:
I've heard, that Ice Block can be dispelled by ArcShot with 2.3

this will only realy be a problem in 1v1 duels, it's not much of a problem in arena since i enter with 6 buffs in 2v2, with ice barrier + frost ward it would be 8, so it's a 1 in 9 chance of dispelling ice block in 2v2

[meadow]

Will hunters become "Impossible to kill" far from it... You will have to rethink your tactics against hunters, you will have 2 decision's really. Stay at range and DPS race and chance that your DPS is greater then his, Or you can move in to melee range and take a few swipes from his weapon(s).

I think the real reason for this change is that a lot of casters/healers will stand next to hunters in the arenas knowing that a hunter melee dmg is a joke even with Black Temple Weapons. Also Blizzard expect hunters to pay Full price for Crossbow and one 2 hand weapon or 2 one hand weapon since hunters are the ONLY class that has this requirement they may feel obligated to give hunters a real reason to invest in the weapons. Removing the "Dead Zone" will force all the casters in to melee range if they wish to defeat a hunter where the hunter will be forced to use melee weapons that till now they have been able to avoid buying because they are not much better then PvE weapons.

Although i appreciate your oppinion, I have to admit, that with S3 there is a cheap Hunter Melee Weapon, which hasn't any required rating and costs only 1k arena points (HERE). But thats not enough. Even with a BT weapon my Melee Dmg is ridicolous. We need to get into Range, otherwise we're victims. No difference between Dead Range (no dmg) or Melee (few dmg), so the DR can be deleted without sorows. Then skillers would be seperated from low skillers a bit more than now (warriors with spamstring and a blue weapon easily killing hunters).

[Deathcabby]

There's such a lack of intelligence in this thread, I just want to thank the few people that haven't lowered themselves to the level of insulting others or making idiotic claims.

The deadzone, imo, should go. PVP is all about checks and balances. Mages can polymorph, druids can shapeshift out. Druids can switch to bearform, hunters can fear them. A person stands or pursues the hunter in the deadzone, where's the balance? Especially considering that the hunter class has basically no way to get out of slowing effects or immobilizing effects (chills, slowing poisons, hamstrings, frost shocks, frost novas, roots, etc). Sure, these things also effect melee classes, but rogues have Cloak of Shadows, sprint that dispells movement imparing effects, druids shapeshift, warriors intercept. For casters: Mages frostnova/blink, Warlocks/S.Priests fear, Boomkin root/cyclone.

Hunters still have no good way to escape a warrior that's got a hamstring on you or a rogue with slowing poison (except the dwarf racial) and none of our slowing effects (concussive, frost trap, wing clip) slow the opposition any more than we've already been slowed. Even still, if you were to get away, again, warriors have intercept, rogues CoS/sprint/vanish, and so on. The hunter class is meant to be a ranged class and because of that, is understandably very weak in melee. So there should be a way for a hunter to get back into range. I'm not talking about anything OP either. If a warrior can intercept you every 30 seconds (talented to 20 sec, soon to be arena geared to 15 sec) and stun you for 3, wouldn't the logical way to balance be to give a hunter a way to escape every so often?

Anyway, there's some food for thought. I don't know much about elemental shaman, but I don't think they have much of an escape process either. Although they tend to use shields, which makes them a little tougher and they might get lucky enough to toss themselves a heal.

[zFury]

let me knudge my way into this topic if you will and say that this will probably solve the problems for hunters not being represented in arena, sry if it has already been said.

[silverlining]

Wow, that is all I can say.

I've played both a hunter (first) and a shadow priest in pvp/arena. Rogues did give me problems yes but warriors? Cmon. You need to learn escape mechanics and how to play your class rather than look for easy ways out. Now instead of having to be skilled to beat a rogue/warrior all you need to do is stand perfectly still and shoot his face off. And if you hunters cry that much about not being able to get away from warriors/rogues, please do try playing a shadow priest. If you say use psychic scream... please dont.. but if you do, realize all the racials/trinkets that can be used not to mention death wish and CoS, also how EASILY it can break just by even "looking" at the feared player. Then it is on a cooldown for 26 sec (talented).

Hunters have: freezing trap, wing clip/imp wing clip, frost trap, conc shot, scatter shot... I mean cmon guys really?

What survivablity tactics do shadow priests have hmm? You can say "yeah well you can still cast with a warrior/rogue on you" And would say "lolkick or lolpummel or lolmacestun" not to mention all the casting interrupts.

Now hunters that can dispel my shield in one shot (not like you couldnt before with a crit) and not being able to kite the kiter to his dead zone, there is basically no way of beating a hunter for me. ESPECIALLY if they are BM (which most are nowadays).

I really do hope they look at this more maybe at LEAST a 3/4 yard min range.. I mean 0??! Hmm I smell a new FotM.

[schworck]

this will only realy be a problem in 1v1 duels, it's not much of a problem in arena since i enter with 6 buffs in 2v2, with ice barrier + frost ward it would be 8, so it's a 1 in 9 chance of dispelling ice block in 2v2

well frosty, i would love to see u vs. any skileld hunter. sure i can kill most hunters, but the simple truth of that matter is: most hunters really suck^^ any hunter who knows what he's doing will trouble u around as it is. taking away the possibility to "deadrange" them WILL make them (them= hunters, who know what they're doing) hard or impossible to beat.

in arena, u will most likely be left buffless as u will be purged. but i don't think any arc shot will dispell the iceblock.

[Pyrostemplar]

...
I really do hope they look at this more maybe at LEAST a 3/4 yard min range.. I mean 0??! Hmm I smell a new FotM.

I think the proposed changes are in shortening the initial range affected by ranged weapons to the 5y (or near) limit, not allowing them to go from 0 to 41y.

Anyway, while I think that hunters need help in the arenas, afaik (correct me if I'm wrong), they don't need any help elsewhere, certainly not in the BGs. Which basically means that their close range abilities need to be buffed due to the (apparently stupid) arena design (not that I have the authority to speak on it, as I've never set foot in one). Question is, that if they are balanced now, buffing one part of their combat abilities will certainly upset current balance.
If they are weak in PVP as of now, then there will be no big deal. But the past - remember the completly disastrous patch 2.0 - has shown Blizzard to have a very poor performance at balancing hunters (surprise surprise.. :)

Now, regarding DZ "exploit" - it is a game feature, not a "bug" or whatever. Apt players will exploit it, others won't. While I don't think that Blizz will remove it - if nothing else to avoid lag induced melee+ranged hits - its reduction can be a good thing if it is too easily exploited. But from the outside, using the DZ seems to be as easy as to use a trap, and lets not forget the pet.

On a side notice - how the hell a player can kill you without taking any damage? he teleported from 41y (or 36) to the DZ? OR where you to distracted to notice him - if so, you got all you deserved :P

Escape mechanisms: those are not meant to be the absolute - players have some escape mechanisms, but their availability is connected to the effect - as an example, mages have blink, and frost armor+frostbit (slowing effects). They probably have the most escape mechanisms - but they are also the class with the greatest penalty if they don't manage to escape - lower armor and lower health. A hunter, on the other hand, has far superior armor and agility, and therefore it cannot expect the same level of escape mechanisms.

[silverlining]

Again I will quote my own post.


Hunters have: freezing trap, wing clip/imp wing clip, frost trap, conc shot, scatter shot... I mean cmon guys really?


Compare that to shadow priests and you guys are HEAVILY equipped to escape using a large number of abilities. If you cannot learn how/when to use them to your advantage, give them to me. Id kill for a wing clip or scatter shot.

[Iosif]

Again I will quote my own post.


Hunters have: freezing trap, wing clip/imp wing clip, frost trap, conc shot, scatter shot... I mean cmon guys really?


Compare that to shadow priests and you guys are HEAVILY equipped to escape using a large number of abilities. If you cannot learn how/when to use them to your advantage, give them to me. Id kill for a wing clip or scatter shot.

The big thing your missing is the fact your not accounting for Warrior's SPAM-STRIG or Rogues Crippling Poison/Shiv is on 100% of the time. Sure you can "Trinket out" once every 2 Min's but its quickly reapplied before we can even get out of melee range. You are assuming a lot of things when you call on abilities like Freezing Trap/Scatter Shot. the biggest is that the hunter is not already snared or that someone in your party may use an AE ability like Frost Nove or that the Warrior/Rogue will not get Dispelled/Tremor Totem/Trinket out himself. All tho we have ability to help us get away they are overcome by better abilities our opponents have to combat those abilities.

Freezing Trap? Broken by your partner/dot or dispelled buy Pally/Priest/Shammy Tremor Totem/Trinket out.

Wing Clip/Imp Wing clip? As you pointed out a lot of hunters seem to be BM, that's a 41/20/0 Spec or a MM Spec witch is a 7/46/6... No Room for Imp Wing clip in any real Builds unless your doing a Hybrid MM/Serv Build based around Agility/Crit in the event you run in to a Team in the 400+ resilience they are going to be completely crippled. And as you know Hamstring is a 15sec duration Wing clip is less then HALF that at 7sec and IMP Wing clip is a 4 Sec immobilization still not enough time to get out side the 8 Yards Dead zone before they become free again and able to maintain the DZ or close the distance with Charge/Sprint/CoS/BLIND/Trinket

Frost Trap? Intercept Charge/CoS/Sprint/Blessing of Freedom or Dispel from Pally/Priest.

Scatter Shot? There again BM wont have it. Mark/Serv/Hybrid will but its a 5sec disorientation witch is commonly broken by others in your party. And if your snared (Crippling/Hamstring) your not going to be able to get more then 8 Yards away before they wake up at witch point they will be to maintain DZ or Close the distance.

Con. Shot? That's a joke right. 8-41 Yards need i point out the above massive list of abilities that Warrior/Rogues have to stay in the Dead zone?

And i didn't even point out Spam-Shock from Shammy or Shifty Druids they can get out of all of those abilities, Ice lancing Frost Mages. Almost every DPS class abuses this massive vulnerability in hunters making by far one of the weakest or most vulnerable arena classes.

[Pyrostemplar]

...
Freezing Trap? Broken by your partner/dot or dispelled buy Pally/Priest/Shammy Tremor Totem/Trinket out.
...

At the same time the opponent in the deadzone could be being feared/hit/blah blahblah/ by your partner(s).

Just to say that you are mixing 1on1 with team scenarios. If you can't count upon the help of your teammates, neither can your opponent, for a more realistic evaluation. While important, it does complicates the evaluation.

For all I've read so far - and I've been scouting through the (rather painful) official forums - I don't think that the change of the DZ is going to impact a lot on hunter Arena performance - where they need help. The main problem seems to be the arena design themselves - a restrained area so to say - not with the class. On the opposite, that is why hunters seem to do so well in AV and other "open spaces". Difference being that there is arena ratings and official numbers, and no equivalent BG numbers.

Maybe the solution is to diversify the Arena maps and put them on a consecutive maps (similar to GW of old at least), rather than change class design in order to accommodate this issues.

[Deathcabby]

I've played both a hunter (first) and a shadow priest in pvp/arena. Rogues did give me problems yes but warriors? Cmon. You need to learn escape mechanics and how to play your class rather than look for easy ways out.

I'm only descent at PVP admittedly, but I definitely understand escape mechanics and how to play my class. I play a hunter on a 3v3 and 5v5 in the 1700-1800 range, so I'm definatly nothing spectacular. Although I'm working on ways to improve my game. Now, you do seem to lack the understanding of the problems with hunters in arena. I'd expect you would know more, since you've played one. Don't believe me? Here is the representation of hunters in all arenas: http://vhairi.blogspot.com In the 2000 and up range, hunters represent about 2-3% of all classes on all arena teams. It's lower if you just look at 2v2 or 3v3. Compare to other ranged dps classes: Mages (12-14%) or Locks (11-19%). Or other physical DPS classes: Rogues (6-12%) or Warriors (6-19%). Also, take into consideration that the hunters are in the top 3 in the percentage of level 70 characters by class on every battlegroup (source: www.warcraftrealms.com) Since there are more hunters, and much, much less on high rated teams, the obvious conclusion is that hunters have mechanics problems that make them underpowered in arenas.

Now instead of having to be skilled to beat a rogue/warrior all you need to do is stand perfectly still and shoot his face off.

You obviously lack the understanding of what the dead zone is. Removing the dead zone doesn't mean that you can shoot someone in melee range. Hunters do so little melee damage and have no melee instant damage abilities, it really won't make that much of a difference not having the deadzone. But it will help a little bit.

And if you hunters cry that much about not being able to get away from warriors/rogues, please do try playing a shadow priest.

Priests are represented 4-5 times as much as hunters in high rated arena teams. Even the single spec of the priest (Shadow) is more represented in high rated arena teams than all 3 specs of hunters combined (source: www.geekboys.org/arena).

Hunters have: freezing trap, wing clip/imp wing clip, frost trap, conc shot, scatter shot... I mean cmon guys really?

Ice trap isn't as reliable of CC as polymorph or even sap/blind and may do no CC at all if it's avoided. None of those abilities you listed really help a hunter escape a melee player that well. Wing clip is on par with hamstring/slowing poison, but those are given to melee classes to keep targets near them. Scatter shot is similar to blind, but lasts for a shorter duration. Concussive shot's counters: feral charge and intercept pretty much make that shot often useless. Not to mention a rogue can CoS out of it, use sprint to overcome it or remove it, if talented for it. What hunters don't have is a way to keep a melee class off of you long enough to get to range such as fear or blink. Also remember that a hunter being attacked by even just one mediocre melee player will always have hamstring or slowing poison on him. The only other melee class of note, the feral druid, shapeshifts out of slowing effects and runs much faster in cat form and has feral charge, every 15 seconds, in bear.

What survivablity tactics do shadow priests have hmm? You can say "yeah well you can still cast with a warrior/rogue on you" And would say "lolkick or lolpummel or lolmacestun" not to mention all the casting interrupts.

Shadow priests do well in arena. Look anywhere. If you're having problems, it's not due to the restrictions of your class. Even if the shadow tree wasn't very viable for arena, you still have holy/disc that is *very* good in arena. None of the hunter trees are good in arena, especially not BM, like some people think (the best arena hunters are MM, if you didn't know).

Now hunters that can dispel my shield in one shot (not like you couldnt before with a crit) and not being able to kite the kiter to his dead zone, there is basically no way of beating a hunter for me. ESPECIALLY if they are BM (which most are nowadays).

If you're fighting a hunter, why are you running to his dead zone? A dot-based spec is toughest for a hunter when using line of sight. Every arena has tough LoS issues for hunters. The deadzone change will definatly make it easier on the ramps of the Nagrand arena though.

I really do hope they look at this more maybe at LEAST a 3/4 yard min range.. I mean 0??! Hmm I smell a new FotM.

You definatly don't understand what the deadzone is =) Removing the dead zone means a hunter will be able to melee from 0-5 yrds and shoot from 5-36 yrds (41 if talented). Currently, a hunter can do neither melee or ranged attacks between 5-8 yrds, hence the *dead* zone.

[Iosif]

Wing clip is on par with hamstring/slowing poison, but those are given to melee classes to keep targets near them.

I have to disagree, Hamstring/slowing poison have longer duration making them quite a bit better then Wing clip since if you are slowed because of the duration effect difference its is close to impossible to get past the 8yard range, even if you immobilized your opponent for 4-5 secs (Entrapment/Imp Wing clip) hell its hard to do if you nail them with a Freeze trap (10secs). The DZ was a buff long time coming they just needed to see the numbers before they implemented it.

To be honest, I would have liked to seen them Remove the Arcane/Multi-shot nerfs instead of removing the DZ.

[zFury]

ur forgetting though that poisens can be dispelled as well as stoneformed and also hamsting will get the nerfstick in pvp making it 10 secs and suffering diminishing returns...

[Deathcabby]

ur forgetting though that poisens can be dispelled as well as stoneformed and also hamsting will get the nerfstick in pvp making it 10 secs and suffering diminishing returns...

I didn't forget either of those, especially since my hunter is, in fact, a dwarf =) But, you look at the percentage of races for hunters and dwarves are one of the lowest. There's really very little stoneforming going on out there. And also, only a couple classes can dispell that poison anyway. In a 2v2 with a hunter, you're unlikely to have one. Wing Clip is already only 10 seconds and having a warrior beat on you for 10 seconds usually doesn't mean you're going to last too long =) That goes for most any ranged class. Not to mention, if you get away, they've got an intercept every 20 seconds to catch them up again. It still comes back to hunters not having a good escape mechanism.

To be honest, I would have liked to seen them Remove the Arcane/Multi-shot nerfs instead of removing the DZ.

I guess you can consider them nerfs, but what happened was that they had overdone it for a couple months on those buffs. Back then, my arcane shots were critting for over 2k and that was at level 60. At level 70, you're talking about over 3k damage potential instantly, on the run every 5 seconds (talented) and it ignores armor. Plus, a hunter in arena is usually running over 30% crit unbuffed. You'd bascially have an instant aimed shot that ignores armor every 5-6 seconds. After that buff, I had definitely felt there was an imbalance there and knew there'd be a nerf coming down the tubes. Just like before they recently nerfed scorpids. You just knew that a nerf was coming, cause they're not going to continue to let a hunter pet do 600-700 dps on raid bosses =)

[Ernonzo]

I'm not going to lie...this seems very OP, but why am I complaining: I'm a hunter ;D

[Deathcabby]

I think what it'll mainly do is prioritize the killing of the hunter higher up the food chain and just make people more aware of their position to the hunter. If a hunter is being attacked, aimed shot is unusable. It'd take at least 10 seconds to get the shot off if it's not interrupted. Arcane shot can't be used in melee range, so players will want to be close to the hunter. Since hunters do very little damage in melee range and still have no ways to get out of slowing effects or quickly leave melee range (besides the beast within, which is a 41 point talent that most pvp spec'd hunters don't have), it's not going to be too difficult of a task to stay close to a hunter.

Now hunters are getting a nerf as well as these buffs: "Silence effects now have diminishing returns when used on PvP targets." This is a nerf to a rogue with the improved kick as well. It's an even trade-off for a caster that silences, since they'll be getting silenced less as well. I guess it'd be considered a buff for a caster that doesn't silence as well.