OK. Here's a few.

- Since the 2xTBW nerf, Beastmaster seems to have become the poor relation of Hunter specs. Is anything being done specifically to improve the this talent tree?

- Are there any plans to improve the pet interface? At the moment, there are too many abilities to fit on the pet bar, and macro/addon manipulation is a bandaid fix at best. Related to this are issues to do with growl/cower autocasting, and occasional glitches when entering and leaving vehicles.

- What is the final intention for ammunition? We were told it was getting removed, but that hasn't happened. What's the plan?

- Arena. Help!

- For Survival, are there any plans to give us the promised Trap Launcher, and/or to remove the CD link between Black Arrow and traps? At the moment although it's supposed to be the trap/utility tree Survival Hunters actually find themselves using traps in PvE less than other Hunters, because of the link with Black Arrow. Is this intentional?

- In PvP, are there any plans to give us extra survivability options against getting closed down in melee?

My favorite spec is BM, I love having a strong pet, the dual movement and fighting and control. However my biggest problem is that the vast majority of my damage is not in my control. The pet does 40-45% of my overall damage with little input from me on how/when that damage is done. Autoshot accounts for another 30% or so. That means that no matter what I do, I can only control at most about 25% of my damage!! Its just incredibly frustrating. A complelely half-assed use of Steady/Arcane shot will get me easily 15 out of that possible 25%. Leaving me with just 10% damage to show how good/bad I am. Basically it feels like I'm not playing the character, the character doesn't need me to do anything. I've played around with SV spec, and really like it, if I could keep my Spirit Beast in SV spec i'd definitely go with that. Explosive shot is incredible, it is a massive amount of damage that I control and use as I want.

I think what would be nice for BM would be if we could move most of the pet damage to be controlled by the hunter. Currently the BM pet does about 45% of our damage, move 30 of that 45% to a specific ability that is triggered by the hunter. Some ability on a 6-8sec cooldown, that when the hunter uses causes our pet to do x damage over 2-3sec. No change to our overall damage, just move a really big chunk of our pets damage to an ability triggered by the hunter. The damage is still carried out by the pet, but just give us control. Obviously such a change would probably mean a rework of some of the pet talents in the BM tree (most could be just converted to apply only to new ability i suppose). But my overall point is, can you give the BM hunter control of more of our damage, instead of just 25% of it ?

As said earlier, is there plans to upgrade the BM tree? Currently, and especially in high end raid setup, BM spec hunters are not really "welcomed" due to their poor output damage compared to SV or MM

Also I do realize that Phys. DPS Mail items are not on the most required item in a raid, but in the end, isn't there a chance that the drop rate increase?

only one question about hunters:
is there any chance on working on current hunter mobility against melee?

Improving pet scaling was mentioned by Ghostcrawler a few days back - making more of the hunter's stats actually benefiting the pet and not leaving it in the dirt was briefly discussed, so, by any chance this change make it in time for the next major patch (3.2)? Pet scaling has always been one of the class' "core issues" over the years.

Are there any plans to improve pet suviability on Mimiron or overall hunter peformance on Vezax?



I love one handed weapons but at the moment they don't seem to be a viable option in most cases. Are there any plans to implant a stronger one handed enchant for hunters?

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Q u o t e:
Are there any plans to improve pet survivability on Mimiron

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I used to think this was a problem but then just got used to recalling mine with better timing in phase 1 and 2.

For my part I'd like to add another shout to a revamp of the BM tree. I loved that spec in TBC and even though I'm now a committed MM and wouldn't change for the world I'd still like to see more love for the die-hard BM's.

- Pets. There are quite afew encounters in Ulduar (mainly their hardmode versions) where pets are a true pain to handle (mimiron hardmode comes in mind) - are there any plans on adjusting the dmg pet takes? It's really a pain not only to watch yourself, but your pet too in there since you already are focusing on staying alive yourself (I know it's hardmode but come on - others got way easier and they dont gimp themselfs cause % of their dmg is dead or not used). Mend pet isnt enough there and lets be honest - other player > pet healing.
Also in PvP pets are simply a joke (healers burn tons of mana to keep them up - if they are fast enough that is) and req. from the player more awarness and handling than non pet classes for very little benefit (since they die so easly). When can we expect them (as you wrote yourself GC not ago) inherit resiliance from their master?

- Black Arrow. You (The Devs) mentioned you dont like RNG (thus - and cheers for that - removed such stuff as TNT stun effect etc.) too much, however we still have in our survival tree "Black Arrow" which makes the whole Lock and Load proc clunky and impossible to estimate your own DPS. Once in a 6min fight you get 1 or NONE procs and on some other 3min fight you can end up having LnL proc every time you apply BA. I and most likely other hunters are disapointed and HATE this mechanic. Not only the proc is LOW, but it simply doesnt let us expect what kind of steady DMG we can do (we dont really have any special CDs). Are there any plans on changing this? And do you still think BA sharing CD with traps is still a good thing? I find myself very disapointed with how this ability works.

- Deterrece. Every single hunter is disapointed with this ability. The idea itself is really good, but its implementation is very poor. Delay and lag sometimes make it totally useless ability. You said you want it to be a short time life savour (as I recall) to loose the pressure from us, but it doesnt really work. Will we finally get a 360 degree work for it or some other change to its mechanic? You gave Muti rogues chance to use Mutilate anywhere (it used to be from back only) cause it was very hard to be always behind the target. Guess what we have the same with deterrece (just facing from front those rogues and other melee - against casters it works quite well).
Another note on deterrece - other abilities (like Cloak of Shadows) absorb already incomming spells, why our Deterrence doesnt? I see a huge fireball just being let of (I have 45ms) and Deterrence wont help me. Its more now precaution ability than defensive.

- Mobility against melee. You have nerfed all our snares (they slow for less than MELEE ONES!) that allow us to get away from the melee and gave more ways to catch us for melee. In season five increased mobility (which we had thanks to pallies - thx for nerfing that combo) that we had mainly for freedom pushed us to play with only specific comps while other classes have more syngergy and varitity. Will we see any serious changes to our mobility and synergy with other classes and most important: balanced out snares - how can we get away from others when our snares are lesser than theirs?! Or will there be any DR for snare spam from the melee in the future (gratz on removing the DK gloves bonus - its a good start and going right way)? I dont want to be uncatchable, but melee classes have simply too many ways to get on us and once they do, they are devastating.

- Viper Sting. Yes, reacuring subcjet. I know you dont want mana drain games to return however now all (healing) classes have a way to remove it so we dont get any mana back from the proc nor we cant even drain and we have 15 second CD on this (it was implemented in the past so we couldnt chain drain people when it really was a deadly ability - but its not the case anymore). Are there any plans to again rework this spell? Priest mana burn is a short cast and is way more efficient than ours - sure you can LoS it, but if you dont you loose alot of mana anyway. If I on my druid dont LoS the priest im OOM completely (and most times they just stand there and mana burn the hell - thats their gameplay - something you dont want to give hunters to do). You also removed our abilities to mask it so it becomes quite useless and with our lower surivivality compared to other classes we are harder for our healers mana efficiency.

- Kill Shot. This is bit of more like: can it be increased to 21% actually? Since now whenever target is 20% its still 20% +x hp, so gotta wait for 19% to actually show up on enemy healthbar to be able to launch it. Also afair on one of PTR notes (think it got removed and never implemented?) was something like KS being able to used in melee? Any chances for that to come back?

- Hunter's are punch dolls in melee at the moment with weak defences (they are simply so easy to counter) are there any plans to improve our main weakness where we are close to useless (wow my melee attacks rock - I dont want to stay in melee, but atm im simply hugged like hell). With so easly killed pet master's call isnt big help and even with it up, right after it ends I already end up with melee hugging me.

- Traps. Explosive trap seems useless at the moment (low blow up dmg, low aoe dmg) and same goes for snake trap (snakes basicly instantly die and hardly ever apply poisons you wish they would - another RNG I hate). Also Id love to see old Frost Trap comming back (I want it to tigger whenever someone walks over it as it did!), traps not being so easy to detect too would be nice. They arent reliable either - once someone dodges it (cause he saw you placed it or so) he will dodge it till your CD is off.

- Ulduar encounter issue. I'm happy with the buffs you guys are giving hunters, however while they slightly balance stuff out on some encounters (and let us catch up - can forget bout topping meters on Hodir, but whatever ;-)) they will lead to future nerfs if we see any encounters that allow simple stand and nuke which is a concern (new insance out and again hunters need reworking!).

- Improved Tracking. I like the talent itself however in Ulduar we are getting handicapped on alot of encounters (mechanical mobs and bosses) any chance to change it to simply be a normal +%dmg talent or allow us to track mechanicals?

- Sniper Training. I know you want to keep this out of arenas and pvp in general, but at the moment there is plenty of fights were we have to move and cant really (Im talking hardmodes mainly) benefit from this talent - its another handicap we face which in steady stand and nuke fights with future 'buffs' might get 'interesting'. Any plans on reworking this talent abit?

- Counter Attack. It's a very nice ability however only works after parry and lets be honest... how many hunters you see have it for PvP? It's simply not worth talent to take (and req. you to waste 3points in deflection - we use weapon chains anyway cause theyre better to have on the OH than wasting talent points that only give you 3% extra parry). Any plans on making this talent somewhat valuable - bigger CD (like 1min?) but used on demand?

- Pet taming. We know you (devs) want to prevent us from switching pets like gloves, however still level rates for pets are annoying (big plus its 5levels behind) and stop from picking new pets. Can we see in near future buff to their leveling again (make it 1-2 levels behind max please - and nerf their XP needed to lvl up - also adding quest XP to affect em would be nice too - like you do daily and pet still gets something out of it too - however you dont loose the money :-P).

I'd like to see somekind of physical HM debuff, it's really annoying, seeing it been dispelled that often in arenas.
Perhaps the same issue exists for MM in arenas when SerpS is dispelled that easy.
In PVE I'm confident that the changes that were announced for 3.1.3 would change a lot for MM DPS, so nothing to complain about for me.

- Mana regeneration: Any plans on breaking our dependence on Judgment of Wisdom? On bosses without mana it comes to switching to viper after a few minutes thus losing precious DPS which could be crucial on hardmodes. This limitation proves to be a liability in our DPS.

- Pet survivability: Several effects that are effectively AoE do not classify as AoE, e.g. Sartharion lava wave. These effects avoid pet Avoidance and proceed to oneshot it. Are these effects intentional on our pets? Shouldn't they be mitigated by pet Avoidance?

- Pet healing: Outgoing raid damage is in the order of 10^4 at this point. Our Mend Pet ticks for a little over 1k. This is very counter-intuitive since spending a GCD on mend pet makes us expect to make it worth the while, rather than just using that GCD on something more useful. Please clarify.

- RNG. LnL proc rate got effectively nerfed in 3.1 without additional means to keep proc-triggering effects on the boss. Please clarify the intended proc rate for LnL and how Immolation Trap works in this. Please clarify if Trap Launcher is coming any time soon™.

- Scaling. GC's pet scaling post didn't reveal any useful information. Please clarify intentions on a pet scaling system and how it's going to work (it'll help theorycrafters immensely). On that note, it has been suggested that theoretically ArP can be of greater value than Agility for hunters at currently unattainable levels. How is this going to work with ArP cap and is there any plans to downscale it a bit? It is counter-intuitive that a sidestat introduced in TBC gets a higher weight than a main stat from classic.

That's all I can come up with at the moment.

Edit:

- Ammo removal. Please please pretty please handle it before 3.2. I'll make cheese for you.

- New Hunter's Mark + Marked for Death: Talent still applies on the hunter who marked. Please make it work for all targets with the Mark debuff, regardless of whose the debuff is.

1) This question is for my curiosity. Why did Blizzard originally decide that mana would be the optimal method of power for hunters?

2) From what i’ve seen, Marksman and Survival are now dominating Hunter dps in PvE. What are your plans to bring Beast Mastery back into the fold?

3) Have you any plans to make Beast Mastery more interesting and involved for the player rather than the pet?

4) Currently, wolves and devilsaurs are the two dominating pets, depending on spec. This is because their family abilities are the most beneficial for their role. In addition, a number of family abilities seem to be very useless, resulting in pets that will practically “never” be chosen for a raid or PvP environment. Do you intend to try to bring balance between pet families like you try to do with classes and specs?

5) Is there any chance of bringing back the fun that was crowd control to future raid environments?

6) Blizzard is knowingly developing a new ammo system. Can we get any more details on this?

7) Blizzard once mentioned about revamping hunter melee. However, I have heard nothing about this for a long time. I don’t want it to be “Vintage Hunter Treatment” like the pet changes, where we hear something, then 2 years later it happens. Can any information be provided about melee changes?

8) In season 5, for once, hunters were good at PvP, to the point where they were well-represented in arenas. Not for long, they were nerfed and now again they are very low represented. What are you thinking about changing to make us more beneficial again?

9) Please say you have plans to help hunters against LoS-abusers in arenas...?

10) When I was specced Survival I always stayed over 85% mana. However, now as Marksman, I am using AotV for almost every single Boss encounter. Are there any more changes beyond 3.1.3 to make MM mana usage as balanced as SV and other casters?

11) Can we get new pet food that is more balanced with player food? And possibly without draining the Northern Spices we like to save for our own food?

12) When can we expect pet abilities to stop turning autocast on and off by themselves?

13) When a target is the exact distance away for our maximum range (typically 35yds) our abilities light to show they are in range. However, when clicking, we get an "out of range" message. Although rare, this has happened enough times to me to mention here. Any plans to fix this?

14) When can we expect pets to spawn at full health when they should be?

15) Is it possible to get a bigger pet bar for the new abilities?

16) Can we get threads like this on a much regular basis?

Just one question. Are we goin to get any reply?

Hi,

Please give T8 and 8.5 better stats since as it is now some pieces are a small upgrade over T7.5 but appart from head its hardly worth exchanging :(. I know some buffs are comming but we are dropping fast and will even drop faster in dps compared to other classes when they get Ulduar gear.

Greetings

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Q u o t e:
We are looking for community class questions and topics for a class Question & Answer series. Over the next few weeks, we will be posting in each of the class forums and discussing the latest high priority questions and topics the community has. We will then be compiling these questions and topics into a larger Question & Answer post to address as many of questions as possible. While we will be creating one post in each of the class forums to solicit questions and topics of interest, we will also be keeping a close eye on additional posts and discussions.

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- Wat is the real deal about the future ammo changes? Wat can we expect from those changes? We know it's going to be removed and changed but some more details about this would be apreciated.

- Is blizzard going to change the way we(hunters) scale in the future? You buffed our weapons because hunters were underperforming and not scaling as wel as the other classes when more loot upgrades are acquired and content gets released. Are you continue to buff this through our weapons or there are future diffrent changes we can expect?

- Regarding pet PvE survivalbility, does blizzard believe it is currently in place or does it stil require more changes? Micro management is pretty nice however the problem arises as content gets more difficult that our loyal pet suddenly becomes more of a burden to keep allive and im affraid it wil only get worse with our pet survivalbility in the future raiding content that blizzard wil release. (pretty sure you'll get a simular question in the warlock section)

1. Pet abilities randomly toggling autocast on/off
This very annoying problem has been around for a long time now. Are blizzard working on a solution to this or is it something that we're gonna have to learn to live with? :)

2. PvP snares
Wing Clip and Frost Trap could in all fairness still use a higher % snare effect to enable us to at least slowly get away whilst hamstringing warriors, crippling rogues and chaining DKs are happily chopping away at us. When we are attacked by meleers at the moment we are 100% dependant on cooldowns to be able to flee, to be able to dps them at all. I feel this is a fundamentally flawed circumstance and to me hunter pvp would be more dynamic and fair if we at least could gain 1 or 2 yards of distance to meleers reliably without the need for cooldowns before the charge/shadowstep/chain/dg us again.

3. Ability bloat and over-full action bars
What are blizzards thoughts on this? Hunters are really starting to get too many abilities, and some of the less useful ones could possibly be removed or merged with other abilities to make hunters a lot more user-friendly. Casual players who aren't using bar mods or macros are likely having severe problems fitting all of the abilities onto the default action bars by now. A few examples:

Raptor Strike is almost always macroed into and thus "hidden behind" Mongoose Bite and/or Wing Clip, which could indicate that the ability is reduntant. Having only one straightforward damage-causing melee attack is likely enough for a class such as ours. Possibly consider removing the ability.
Same goes for Kill Command. It is also near-always macroed into other abilities and thus not used "actively" by the player. This could indicate that the ability is both redundant and also simply not fun enough. The ability could use some change (again, I know), or be removed.
Aspect of the Beast is useful too rarely. Possible solution: merge the "you become untrackable" effect into AotC (hey, cheetahs are actually quite stealthy come to think of it!), and possibly even into AotP, thus enabling it to affect others too. Could be fun in BGs.
Scorpid Sting is too weak to justify its existence. Possible solution could be to merge the "-3% to hit" effect into Serpent Sting.
Black Arrow. Did we really need another DoT? There are reasons why we didn't roll warlocks, you know. :) Possibly consider removing this ability and change the talent point into a buff to Serpent Sting.
Snake Trap could use some more love to make it a more attractive ability. Making the snakes completely immune to aoe damage without a glyph for it would actually make you consider sometimes using it instead or Frost or Freezing Trap.

4. Mend Pet could use some reworking to make it equally viable in pvp, raiding and soloing environments: make it heal a % of the pets total hp (40% perhaps) instead of a fixed value. At the moment a Mend Pet does almost nothing in a raid environment where if there is any incoming damage it is usually huge, meaning we can almost never save our pets ourselves and always have to rely on other generous healers or a lucky Chain Heal soak.

5. Pet diversity
I recognize that you have put a lot of work into making pets different, but it's a bit unfortunate that pet families vary so much in power. If all pets were equally powerful and all had the same streamlined talents and abilities to choose from there would be a much wider variety of pets being used, rather than what is the case right now with every mailbox being surrounded exclusively by wolves and raptors. In my opinion it would be more fun to play if all pets were equally viable in all areas, making the choice of pet more of a personal and aesthetic one.

In conjunction to this I would also like to add that the pet spellbook would get a bit less cluttery if you removed the passive pet talents (such as +Armor etc). They're not active, so you can't click them nor drag them to your action bars. Why are they in the spellbook at all? The passive talents of the player character is (fortunately) not in the spellbook, so this is also a bit inconsistent.

PS. an idea for a future deep BM talent: 2 pets out at once. Old, I know, but it's gotta be time for that soon!

Why is our 4 part t8.5 bonus so weak compared to other classes - i mean come on 600 ap !! on a shot no-one uses unless they have to?

When will you replace deterrence with something useful in pvp?

You say our dps is too low - why give us such clunky fixes as ap to hunters mark?

Why did you give us black arrow- adding to an already cluttered sv rotation, the SV tree is so bloated with talents its hard to understand what vision you have for the SV hunter.

Where are our promised ammo changes ? Apart from hunters who gets to pay for each damage point done?

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Q u o t e:
Just one question. Are we goin to get any reply?

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i was just thinking the same thing or whether this is just a 'look were taking notice (sort of) thread'

prove me wrong van :D