Braindeadly - Current state of Hunters in MoP for PvP

[Deleted]

Just a quick post to address some things that need to be tweaked in beta right now for Hunters and what I think of them so far.


Disclaimer: This is aimed at the PvP aspect of Hunters in MoP, not the PvE side which I haven't been able to test yet.

After testing the class a bit in duels it seems to be designed very well by blizzard even though it's early beta right now; the fact that every spec can have Silencing Shot & Readiness strengthens the class as a whole.

What this does is it basically makes Survival better than Marksmanship by default - who wouldn't pick a purely magic damage specialization that comes with the best of Cataclysm/WotLK Marksmanship tree (Silence shot and Readiness) and the ever important entrapment passive bonus that ONLY Survival gets. Beast Mastery with the Kill Command change to 25 yard range also removes the clunkyness of the ability and Readiness also resets the cooldown of Beastial Wrath now - I predict that Survival will be competing with Beast Mastery in terms of PvP viablity.

As for Marksmanship, what's left of it? There's no selling point; rumour has it blizzard wants to make Marksmanship redundant in MoP as it's been the main spec for the entire lifespan of Hunters in World of Warcraft.

Re-work of our main snare

There was one thing, however, that I do not like at all - which is the removal of Concussive Shot which got baked into Arcane Shot, Cost: 25 Focus 65% weapon damage +3500 as Arcane damage. Now I feel that with the removal of Raptor Strike, Wing Clip & Concussive Shot, blizzard wanted to free up some of our bar space thus baking our snare into Arcane Shot. I have mixed feelings about this as we have to save 25 focus to snare people which only lasts 6 seconds, and right now in Cataclysm I use Concussive Shot a lot on focus targets such as priests to prolong them fearing or to prevent it. I feel, although this may be an attempt for blizzard to free up bar space, it is not a good thing for competitive PvP and feels like a somewhat careless and rash decision on Blizzards part. It also decreases the flexibility of the Hunter class but the positive is that it potentially frees up one global but does cost a nice chunk of focus considering its duration is only 6 seconds long (you also have to use a glyph slot to get this slow - not good!)

I hope Concussive Shot is brought back as it feels like it's the only thing missing to make the class feel fluid and good right now in Mists of Pandaria!

Let me know what you think by leaving a comment below.

Side note: In other news I have released my 4th PvP Movie, you can watch it by going to Warcraftmovies.com - It's called Braindeadly 4.

[Baltasar]

Feral druid kills you,you are dead not big suprise.

[Deleted]

Couldn't agree with you more. I'm a very occasional-PVP'er, but even after just a few hours messing about on the Beta last night, the loss of Concussive Shot is a serious blow to our ability to kite our opponents. Are other classes/specs (ferals, mages and rogues for example) still able to permanently snare their opponents in one way or another? Or has this ability been removed from them as well?

Have you put this on the official forums?


Edit: As for what the previous poster is on about...who knows?!

[Deleted]

Couldn't agree with you more. I'm a very occasional-PVP'er, but even after just a few hours messing about on the Beta last night, the loss of Concussive Shot is a serious blow to our ability to kite our opponents. Are other classes/specs (ferals, mages and rogues for example) still able to permanently snare their opponents in one way or another? Or has this ability been removed from them as well?


Edit: As for what the previous poster is on about...who knows?!

I'm pretty sure ferals still have auto slow, warriors have hamstring which is relatively cheap in terms of resources and so on. Our main abilities cost quite alot of focus (chimera shot, concussive shot, kill command) so I think it'll be pretty hard to keep our snare up on the target... especially if it's a feral, fire mage or anything that can remove snares.

Your post just proves to me that concussive shot needs to be brought back, as this is effecting casual PvPers as well as active ones

[tinyqt]

They arent gonna bring back conc. shot as there is two glyphs currently that reduce movement speed of the target...Glyph of steady shot reduces movement speed by 50% and Glyph of arcane shot as you listed slows the target...I was completely thrown off when I first got into the beta for that reason alone I said where the hell is conc shot...Then I learned it was gone :/ On the other points you made I agree with you but this is just mmo champion you need to post this on the wow forums if you want any blues to see it...

[Deleted]

I'm pretty sure ferals still have auto slow, warriors have hamstring which is relatively cheap in terms of resources and so on. Our main abilities cost quite alot of focus (chimera shot, concussive shot, kill command) so I think it'll be pretty hard to keep our snare up on the target... especially if it's a feral, fire mage or anything that can remove snares.

Your post just proves to me that concussive shot needs to be brought back, as this is effecting casual PvPers as well as active ones

Ferals, like hunters, can use a glyph that causes they're mangle to slow the target. It's not really possible for a feral to focus-slow someone from 40 yards.

[Protonet]

As much as I truely despise hunters when I decide to jump in bgs etc on a melee char, purely because of Concussive Shot itself, removing such an important snare to hunters would most likely destroy their survivability. Thinking about what it must be like without knowing as a fact, first thing that comes to my mind is Elemental Shaman dealing physical damage and healing every 20ish seconds from Disengage. I hope you get it back as it would be unfair compared to my rogue f.x which can apply a slow just by dealing white damage. Honestly I don´t think I would find my own Hunter very enjoyable without Conc Shot because you get used to it so damn fast, and it´s amazing being able to apply the daze whenever you feel like it.

I´ll keep my fingers crossed for you guys

----------
edit: Didn´t know about the Steady Shot glyph :/ However I still hope everything works out fine !

[Deleted]

Ferals, like hunters, can use a glyph that causes they're mangle to slow the target. It's not really possible for a feral to focus-slow someone from 40 yards.

I respect that, however mangle and shred are their main abilities, now if our slow was baked into chimera, explosive shot or kill command that would be ideal and a bar-saver in my eyes and blizzards eyes

[Deleted]

Just a quick post to address some things that need to be tweaked in beta right now for Hunters and what I think of them so far.


Disclaimer: This is aimed at the PvP aspect of Hunters in MoP, not the PvE side which I haven't been able to test yet.

After testing the class a bit in duels it seems to be designed very well by blizzard even though it's early beta right now; the fact that every spec can have Silencing Shot & Readiness strengthens the class as a whole.

What this does is it basically makes Survival better than Marksmanship by default - who wouldn't pick a purely magic damage specialization that comes with the best of Cataclysm/WotLK Marksmanship tree (Silence shot and Readiness) and the ever important entrapment passive bonus that ONLY Survival gets. Beast Mastery with the Kill Command change to 25 yard range also removes the clunkyness of the ability and Readiness also resets the cooldown of Beastial Wrath now - I predict that Survival will be competing with Beast Mastery in terms of PvP viablity.

As for Marksmanship, what's left of it? There's no selling point; rumour has it blizzard wants to make Marksmanship redundant in MoP as it's been the main spec for the entire lifespan of Hunters in World of Warcraft.

Re-work of our main snare

There was one thing, however, that I do not like at all - which is the removal of Concussive Shot which got baked into Arcane Shot, Cost: 25 Focus 65% weapon damage +3500 as Arcane damage. Now I feel that with the removal of Raptor Strike, Wing Clip & Concussive Shot, blizzard wanted to free up some of our bar space thus baking our snare into Arcane Shot. I have mixed feelings about this as we have to save 25 focus to snare people which only lasts 6 seconds, and right now in Cataclysm I use Concussive Shot a lot on focus targets such as priests to prolong them fearing or to prevent it. I feel, although this may be an attempt for blizzard to free up bar space, it is not a good thing for competitive PvP and feels like a somewhat careless and rash decision on Blizzards part. It also decreases the flexibility of the Hunter class but the positive is that it potentially frees up one global but does cost a nice chunk of focus considering its duration is only 6 seconds long (you also have to use a glyph slot to get this slow - not good!)

I hope Concussive Shot is brought back as it feels like it's the only thing missing to make the class feel fluid and good right now in Mists of Pandaria!

Let me know what you think by leaving a comment below.

Side note: In other news I have released my 4th PvP Movie, you can watch it by going to Warcraftmovies.com - It's called Braindeadly 4.

Good post.

1. BM still has Intimidation (1 more CC) and 1-minute PVP trinket (Beast Within) that can be reset by Readiness. SV can have SS and BA dispelled relatively easily, and the pet can still damage behind pillars. As I see it, BM is on top, even without entrapment.

2. I'm pretty sure Blizz don't want a free 40yard slow that can be cast so frequently, on main or focus targets. Maybe they wanted to clear up space on our bars, but I guess the focus cost that needs to be paid for a slow is intentional.

The only thing that really bugs me is that both our lvl 87 talent, and the last 2 tiers of talents are useless for PVP.

Tier 75 is horrible, only the crows are good but 60 focus??

Tier 90 has not been tested yet, but all of them are AOE abilities, even the best looking one (Powershot) will break all CC in its way. Imagine the healer is in a trap and you're casting Powershot at the dps, he sees this (3 sec cast time) and goes straight behind the healer. You break CC.

Lvl 87 talent is lackluster and will not be usable in arena.

The best change imo is stealth + vanish that we get through Camouflage. If it turns out that nelf racial allows for full 60sec vanish, it will be glorious

[Arrowset]

Good post.

1. BM still has Intimidation (1 more CC) and 1-minute PVP trinket (Beast Within) that can be reset by Readiness. SV can have SS and BA dispelled relatively easily, and the pet can still damage behind pillars. As I see it, BM is on top, even without entrapment.

For arena, OP warlocks will be a big problem for BM hunters, and locks will be everywhere. Locks get a new spammable instant ability called Curse of Enfeeblement which reduces physical damage dealt by 20% and increases casting speed by 30%. They will put in on BM pets, which makes the glyph of mend pet a mandatory one for bm arena, which is really bad because glyph space is at a premium. If they soul swap UA onto the pet then the mend pet ticks can crit on the hunter. Also, BM's damage is heavily mitigated by regular old armor.

Survival is also indirectly buffed by the 8 second cooldown on defensive magic dispels. I give it a narrow edge over BM in arena.

Great to see Braindeadly posting on this board, btw.

---------- Post added 2012-04-16 at 12:07 PM ----------

Ferals, like hunters, can use a glyph that causes they're mangle to slow the target. It's not really possible for a feral to focus-slow someone from 40 yards.

It will be in MoP if ferals take the improved faerie fire talent. Rets also get a ranged snare from judgement, which makes the nerfing of concussive shot and the complete removal of the "maximum run speed" limitation in the latest beta build that much more puzzling.

[EqualWin]

yay im a big fan of you , great to see you posting here! hopefully you stay , awesome video too!!.


i agree with you too , conc shot it's really awesome , hopefully they put it back!

[Deleted]

And focus is always way harder to come by in MoP. I think we should have concussive and the glyph, I don't think it would be that much OP when I see so many new ways of preventing us to flee. Oh and by the way, the ability to have 100% uptime of concussive on a target was one of the greatest changes they did and now they do this...

[Arrowset]

Re: BM, I see the trinket effect from BW as being a prime candidate for nerfing since readiness now resets BW. I'm honestly not sure the trinket effect is even intended on live as opposed to being something that was just left in by mistake. There's no indication on the tooltip for BW or The Beast Within that it has a trinket effect on the hunter, which it absoutely does. It's not like Blizzard to leave a huge effect like that off the tooltip, which makes me think that they have been paying so little attention to BM pvp that they just carelessly left it in there. If BM starts making some noise in arena I'd expect to see that effect quietly removed. And honestly, it probably should be with readiness now resetting BW- no other class gets 4 trinkets in a 2 minute period.

[Tihr]

As for Marksmanship, what's left of it? There's no selling point; rumour has it blizzard wants to make Marksmanship redundant in MoP as it's been the main spec for the entire lifespan of Hunters in World of Warcraft.

They're not going ruin MM purely because it's been used extensively. It's not been the primary spec for Hunters in either PvE or PvP. In regards to PvE, Survival has destroyed MM in 4.3, and before MM got heavy buffs in early Cata, Survival was far better. MM wasn't even touched in TBC, since BM was so dominant.

I have faith that if MM feels like the weak link in the chain, they'll fix it before MoP goes live, and even if they don't, it'll be sorted shortly after release (see MM in early Cata).

[Deleted]

They're not going ruin MM purely because it's been used extensively. It's not been the primary spec for Hunters in either PvE or PvP. In regards to PvE, Survival has destroyed MM in 4.3, and before MM got heavy buffs in early Cata, Survival was far better. MM wasn't even touched in TBC, since BM was so dominant.

I have faith that if MM feels like the weak link in the chain, they'll fix it before MoP goes live, and even if they don't, it'll be sorted shortly after release (see MM in early Cata).

yeah you're right, personally though, I'd love to continue playing MM however with the opportunity of having silencing shot and readiness as survival I see it being a no-go until they tweak some things

[Bubbletrance]

yeah you're right, personally though, I'd love to continue playing MM however with the opportunity of having silencing shot and readiness as survival I see it being a no-go until they tweak some things

It's rather funny... there's a lot of MM players that state they like MM since they'll have more healing opportunities than SV (due to Chim Shot). It's interesting to say the least. I think BM will still be the least played flavor.

[Deleted]

yeah you're right, personally though, I'd love to continue playing MM however with the opportunity of having silencing shot and readiness as survival I see it being a no-go until they tweak some things

It just seems that Blizzard doesn't think these changes thoroughly. Why they remove our main snare and make it cost focus when rogues and mages have passive slows? I saw GC mentioning that they most "likely" revert BA to 4.3 model and even with 8 second dispels BA will have 22 sec cooldown. I think that SV damage will be nullified more easily than MM's because its dot based, and not direct.

They should make entrapment baseline and give our Marked For Death and other mandatory things back baseline not some silly glyphs. I wonder what those developers are thinking.

These changes made me so mad, and they're not going forward with the freedom of choice with arcane shot glyph 'cos it will be mandatory. Stupid thinking I must say.

Fuck this, I'm off.

[dmcadidas15]

Completely agree. Without concussive shot, pvp just feels weird. If firing an arcane shot every 6 seconds was already pretty routine I could understand, but its not.

[Arrowset]

Regarding survival, I think it's important to realize how much the 8 second cd on defensive dispels helps it. Some people seem to be thinking that healers will just be dispelling on cooldown every 8 seconds, but good ones won't and, if they do, you can make them pay for it.

Let's say you have black arrow and serpent sting ticking on a target, but your freezing trap is also off cooldown and ready to be used. If the pally healer uses his dispel to cleanse the black arrow and serpent sting then you know you've got 8 seconds in which you can freezing trap a target without having it dispelled. More than that really because the healer isn't going to waste his precious dispel on the last 2-3 seconds of a freezing trap.

I really think healers will learn to save their dispels for major ccs rather than "just damage" like explosive shot and black arrow and that the cd on dispels will prove to be a major buff for survival pvp as a consequence.

[Deleted]

Exhilaration (15% heal) + Chimera glyphed (10% heal) = 25% total health
Repeat => Now you have 50% total health
And if all of the 4 crit, you can go to 100% health
All this not counting Spirit bond...

This alone could make MM on par with the rest, especially for situations without a healer around...

MM Could also have the best opener of all 3 specs from stealth:
1) Trap launcher has no focus cost - you can launch freezing trap at the healer from stealth without wasting scatter.
2) Aimed shot + Chimera shot, aimed will crit and will add the bleed, chimera will apply the slow.
SV can't do this, they'll know about you the moment you apply SS or BA.
There's nothing really impressive for BM to do from stealth either.

In short, I definitely think MM will have its niche. It will not be left behind