Welcome,

Last week I asked you guys to submit some feedback regarding your current situation with the Hunter class. Here’s a summary of what you guys said. Feel free to comment and provide feedback if you want (maybe I missed something, maybe you got a better idea, etc).

Feedback drawn from: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=1015942809&sid=1

Itemisation/Items


Arrow/Bullet design
I think the greatest design flaw with Hunters currently is that they rely on too many item factors, mainly the melee slots, range slot and arrow/bullet slot. The melee and range slots are fine; however, the arrow/bullets slots are neglected too much. Currently bullets/arrows are too pricy and most people simply get 32.0 DPS arrows/bullets. The highest DPS bullet/arrow currently is 53 DPS (not counting the legendary one). This means high end raid Hunters got 21 more DPS then non-high-end raiders. The 32.0 DPS arrows/bullets costs 20/30 Silver, a 4-5 hour long dungeon run depletes the 18-slot quiver/pouch easily. You are looking at 18x0.2=3.60 Gold for the 32.0 DPS, with the 53 DPS ones you are looking at 18x2=36 Gold. Hunters are suggesting lowering the cost of arrows/bullets and add the changes noted in the "Quiver/Pouch"-suggestion.

Quiver/Pouch
A bigger quiver/pouch might help raiders a lot. However I don't think bigger quiver/pouches are the solution. Instead let arrows/bullets function like throwing knives, with durability. The quiver/pouches will be turned in to an extra character-item-slot. This will make sure:
- Bullets/arrows can be repaired and no extra shops are required for bullets/arrows
- Bigger chance of introducing “enchanted” arrows/bullets (fire/water bullets/arrows, etc)
- One extra bag-slot to store normal items
- Bigger chance of people using >32.0 DPS arrows/bullets because they don’t have to keep running to a specific shop for the >32.0 DPS arrows/bullets.

Missing arrows
Engineers can make 43.0 DPS bullets. With arrows you have 37.0 DPS arrows from Cenarion Expedition before going to Mount Hyjal. This makes guns more powerful because they have 6.0 more DPS compared to bows. Adding a way to transmute the bullets to arrows like pre-TBC did with the Engineering “Thorium Shells” would help and not nerf Engineering is any way.

Agility/Crit
A lot of Hunter PvE items focus on AP and INT. If you are Marksmanship this is fine and with Beast mastery also fine. If you are Survival you are forced to take PvP gear or Rogue leather items because the PvE items lack the Agility/Crit you need to make Expose Weakness stronger (and to keep it up). Adding more agil/crit to PvE items and craftable items would solve this problem. In terms of raiding, adding a whole new Tier gear (next besides the current Tier gear) that focussed on these stats would solve the MM/BM versus Survival aspect.

Shaman versus Hunter item ratio
Most Hunters agree that during levelling towards level 70, we are seeing more Shaman gear then Hunter items. Adding a few more Hunter items (agil, crit, AP and/or INT) to quests, reputation factions and dungeons would help a lot.

Beast mastery gear
In TBC new types of gear has been introduced. One of those gears is “enhance pet stats”-gear (for example “Leggings of Beast Mastery”). In Mount Hyjal and Black Temple there are a few items like these; however, pre-raiding they are no-where to be seen. Adding more gear like this will add more diversity to the Beast mastery tree. Currently Beast mastery is used to boost the Hunters’ DPS instead of boosting the pets’ stats (not counting scaling). Besides that, add a whole new tier gear (next beside the current Tier gear) that focuses on enhancing pet stats would help.

Lack of two-handers
After Karazhan there are no two-handers geared towards Hunters until the Black Temple. Adding a few more two-handers geared towards Hunters would help with diversity of Hunters getting one-handers.

More craftables
Hunters currently only got a handful of pre-raiding craftable gear. Adding more craftable gear would help (for example belts and pants).


Pets


Learning spells/abilities
Currently if you wish to learn spells/abilities (that aren’t available from the pet teachers) you got to dump your current pet (most of the times the stable slots are full for Hunters), tame the new pet and keep spamming the ability until you learned it. Some Hunters say that this current way isn’t really that good. Learning spells/abilities from animals could be done through Beast Lore. Once casted on the animal it will learn the abilities it possesses (and also increasing the usage of this ability).

Growl
Some Hunters say that Growl isn’t as effective when not being Marksmanship; Growl by design stacks with AP. When being BM or Survival you are lacking this a little. Letting Growl also slightly stack with Agility would help with solving this.

Off-tank
BM Hunters liked the ability to be off-tanks during (non heroic) 5-man runs. However, once going in Heroic or raid dungeons this role slightly fades away. Introducing BM specific gear would help with this aspect.

Levelling/Loyalty
The biggest pain of picking a pet is the pets level. Most people simply get a +Level 65 pet rather then a Level 10 pet. Increasing the Experience gain for pets and also letting pets gain Experience from Quests would help levelling a pet greatly. Increasing the speed of loyalty gain might also help a little.

Happiness
Losing Happiness is currently too high; when a pet dies he/she/it goes down a rank. Decreasing this to two/three deaths per losing Happiness rank would boost the overall damage during a raid. Another simpler idea would be to allow feeding pets during combat.

BM pet survival
While the new Mend Pet does help a lot in terms of DPS, it is not enough healing to make sure the Hunters’ pet keeps on surviving. Of course most BM Hunters can easily revive pets, but it takes them time to do it thus decreasing the DPS. Adding a new ability to heal pets for around 3000/4000 would help a lot. Not to mention it would boost the off-tank role of a pet. It would of course be instant cast with a huge cooldown (5-10 minutes).

PvP survival
While a Hunter with Resilience reduces damage for himself, it does not do the same for pets. Letting Resilience scale for the pet based upon the Hunter might help with PvP.

More scaling
Besides Resilience scaling for pets, let crit rating and hit rating also scale. This will make sure a Survival Hunters also boosts the pet a little more.

Jump
While a pet can jump during being mind controlled by Hunters, pets don’t use the jump when a master does. Making pets jump when the Hunter jumps (when not in combat) makes the “dismiss pet when taking a short cut”-aspect less messy. The pet stays active and does not lose Happiness because of dismissing pets.

Call of the beast
Some Hunters use pets for specific aspects of the game. However, Hunters constantly need to run back and forward to the Stables to keep switching pets. This will allow Hunters to pick a pet even when not near a Stable. It would of course have a cooldown. A Hunter would have three new spells; each spell for each pet (“Call of <name>”).

More pet abilities
A lot of people suggested various pet abilities for various pet families. You can find them here: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=298891649&sid=1

Pet counts as tanks
Currently since 2.2.x pets are seen as Warriors with giving Paladin Blessings. This could result in pets receiving non-DPS buffs. Separating Hunter pets in a group would help to increase their DPS (and not group with Warriors). Or let them simply gain the buffs us Hunters do.

Collars
Being able to customize a pet is what makes being a Hunter fun. With the pet normalizing change, all pets are the same. Only thing that can vary is the looks and abilities they posses. Adding Collars to pets might help increasing the uniqueness. A collar will be a new Hunter item slot for the pet. Some ideas are:
- Increases focus by XX
- Increases crit chance by XX
- Increases hit chance by XX
- Increases ability YY by XX
- Increases Armour by XX
This will also deal with such things as Hunter pets not scaling with crit and hit chance.


PvP Arena


LOS
Dead-zone & Line Of Sight are the number one problem with Hunters in PvP Arena. Most Arenas resolve around "hiding behind an object" especially when facing DOT classes versus Hunters. If our pet isn't dead yet mostly the pet will help a little. The problem however lies that we ourselves can't hit the person that's not in LOS. The LOS problem could be solved with a new spell that brings us in LOS (like Shadow Step for example) but of course in range and not melee range (behind the enemy).

Dead-zone
We are the only class with a dead-zone making use vulnerable. The only ability that can save us from the dead-zone is Scatter Shot. This again forces Hunters to take 21 points in MM. Making Scatter Shot a standard spell would solve the dead-zone problem a little.

Spells/Abilities


Viper Sting
Viper Sting is a nice ability against Mana users. However, this ability can be dispelled (not counting “Improved Stings”) and it doesn’t drain much Mana (1368 Mana or with talents 1778,4 Mana). Reducing this ability to 10 seconds (currently 15 seconds) will help a lot and makes sure we can’t chain cast it. Adding a mana-return effect on the sting also helps to counter the mana issues in PvP and PvE.

Scorpid Sting
While Scorpid Sting is fine and nice for raiding, the duration of this debuff (20 seconds) is not that good. Increasing the debuff duration to one minute would help a lot.

Mongoose Bite
While no one is arguing this ability is nice during melee’ing and it pops up. However, since dealing with such things as kiting and dead-zone, improving this ability to something that would stun the opponent to be able to survive the dead-zone would help. Two seconds would be enough.

Misdirection
MD is a godsend for groups and raiding; in PvP however it’s useless. A way Misdirection could work for PvP is the way Distract for Rogues works; it forces people on other targets (thus increasing the survivability for Hunters in PvP Arena).

Tranquilizing Shot
Tranquilizing Shot, the reason why Hunters were brought to various raid instances pre-TBC. Currently it isn’t used at all, hardly any mob frenzies. Change this spell to something like “decreases the effect of enrage by XX for 8 seconds”. For PvP it could decrease rage/energy on opponents.

Traps
While the traps themselves are working, there is one minor problem: opponents have to step over it. In PvE this isn’t a great problem, but in PvP it is. A smart opponent in PvP will notice when a Hunter lays a trap and walks around the trap. Increasing the radius a little of the traps might help to counter this.

Steady Shot
While this spell is fine, lowering the casting speed would help more with shot rotation (see “Misc”). Besides that, letting this ability be affected by bullets would help with the overall DPS.


Talents (+builds)


Marksmanship

MM is in general fine but there are a few improvements suggested:

Trueshot Aura
TSA does provide 125 AP for the group. This is compared to other classes’ buffs not strong. Allowing TSA to scale with gear like Expose Weakness and Ferocious Inspiration does would make this group buff stronger and more wanted. Either that or introduce a new rank that does around 200 AP. Another option is to change the way TSA works. It could be change to 5% ranged damage bonus within a group.

Efficiency
While 10% reduce costs of shots and abilities is nice, it’s hardly noticeable for Marksmanship Hunters. Increasing this talent would help to get more DPS.

Combat Experience
CE is hardly worth the points. Changing this to “Increases hit chance by” or “increases haste rating by” would help more.

Aimed Shot
This shot isn't much used besides it being an opening shot. Still the long casting time and the chance to miss makes this shot useless unless you are sure you got the time and want to score above 1K damage. Reducing the casting time and giving Aimed Shot less chance to miss might help this spell with being what it is made for, an openings shot. Along side that, increasing the damage slightly would even more increase its usefulness.

Mortal Shots
This talent is too much used by people who spec BM/MM, Surv/MM and MM itself. Almost every Hunter takes 20 points in Marksmanship. Lowering this talent in the tree will make sure there is more diversity in the talent specs.

Silencing Shots
Handy for PvP, hardly used for PvE; a lot of mobs or bosses use magic but we aren’t capable of silencing them. Allowing more mobs and bosses in raid instances to accept Silencing Shot would boost the usage.


Survival tree

The Survival tree is fine but it lacks a few group/raid talents.

Hawk Eye
The Hunters are by design the masters of the range class. But to be able to stay max range we are forced to spec three points in Survival. Some think the Hunters should be 41 yards by standard thus enforcing their role more. Changing this talent to minus yards would make this talent more useful.

Improved Feign Death
Improved Feign Death is useless and hardly gets used. I rather see extra charges on Misdirection instead of improved Feign Death.

Slaying
Humanoid and Beast Slaying are nice. However, combining both talents into one would be more efficient and would boost DPS overall.

Wyvern Sting
Wyvern Sting is nice for extra CC but it's hardly used in raids or Parties. Changing this talent to the Mortal-Strike-like-shot (briefly said at Leipzig) would increase our usage in some boss events.

Master Tactician
While the buff is cool if you’re a crit-maniac, most Survival Hunters don’t use because they already have around 20-30% crit (pre-25 raids). Changing this talent to something more like “Mortal Shots” would decrease the need of “Mortal Shots” in MM and boost the need to go deeper in Survival. An example would be to increase agility for 8 seconds on chance.

Readiness
Readiness is hardly used because we hardly got any cooldowns. Our biggest cooldown (non-talented) is five minutes on Rapid Fire followed by Misdirection with two minutes. Hunters rather see this changed to something else. An example would be "in-LOS spell" (Discussed in the “PvP Arena”-section) that will put us to the same line of sight as our opponent (like Shadowstep does (only we’ll get behind the enemy in range limit). That spell will be useful in PvP and sometimes in PvE. Not only does it help with LOS, but also the dead-zone.


Beast mastery


Spirit Bond
While health regeneration is always nice, it’s hardly useful for Hunters. Changing this to regenerate Mana would help. Or change it to “chance to heal pet for xxx” like the Tier gear does.




Tier gear


More diversity
Like discussed in “Agility/Crit” and “Beast mastery gear” in “Items and Itemisation”; Add more tier gear (next besides the current Tier gear) that favour Survival (Agility/Crit) and Beast mastery (Enhance pet stats). So you will have three separate types of gear (like the Druids). One for BM, one for MM and one for Survival.


Misc


Shot rotation
WoW falls under the category of easy to play, hard to master. Hunters’ shot rotation is one of those things. Since TBC introduced Steady Shot, raiding Hunters trying to squeeze every little extra DPS they can through macros. These macros have been made to optimize the shot rotation. The average user doesn’t know how to do this. An easy way to make it easier for the general public is to add a casting bar more Hunter abilities. Along side that, lower the casting time of Steady Shot to allow a better flow of shot rotation. Last but not least don’t let special attacks hamper with auto-shoot.
For a full explanation, read: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=1153025884&sid=1&pageNo=2#28

Mana or?
Currently Mana isn’t the must useful resource Hunters use. We can get OOM very quickly and even with Aspect of the Viper on it isn’t enough regeneration. An option would be to INT scale based on our AP, this way it will increase our Mana regeneration slightly. Another option is to give Hunters a new resource of energy (like Focus for example). A good example would be this topic: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=2215452993&sid=1

Please note that things are not guaranteed to change even though this has been forwarded to Blizzard.

Keep it constructive!

Yours sincerely,
Schwick (Shadowsong)
schwickster@gmail.com
MVP (http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=87109062&sid=1)

Please note, I’m not an Blizzard employee nor related

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Q u o t e:
hm, u left out alot i see.
atleast 6 post mentioned the Collar concept for pets, and its not in this summary.
also, u neglect to mention the real value of ammo for Bm, due to steady not being affected by ammo dps.
all in all, seems u "summarised" what u agree with, not what was said.
also, important details like slaying talents being triggered by tracking makes the point alot clearer.

oh, and alot of posts complain abt the design of tier gear looks. mite wanna include that as well.

i know summarizing is a huge job, but do try to include important details, even if u dont necessarily agree with them.

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Q u o t e:
I like mostly of what you said here but EW refreshes itself (I'm quite sure of it)

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Q u o t e:
Will this post reach Developers?

It is O M F G. Looks like all hunters issues are in this post.

Nice work. I hope it will go on the Table.

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Q u o t e:


btw, forgot to say im grateful for ur efforts;) seemed abit harsh, i just woke up, didnt have my coffeee.... (niteshifter ..)

oh...add aimed shot on the to-do list as well....

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