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Winning Arena Formula, just add Hunter?
November 16th, 2007 by Treisk ·
Greetings, folks. This is the PvPSource debut of Treisk, 70 Troll Hunter @ Illidan. Since most of you don’t know me by name (yet), I decided to throw out an introduction as to who I am before making a post where I come off knowing what I’m talking about. Since most players aren’t savants of the Hunter class, you wouldn’t know if I was right or not without a bit of background information, so let’s get started.
My WoW-Journalistic debut was earlier this year with Minti/Dahis’s Shadow-Gaming. Some of you might know my name from there, or from seeing me around on the WoW Hunter forums, campaigning for Hunter buffs/fixes/whathaveyou. A good portion of the Hunter community has come together this year in support of my series of threads on Hunter issues in Arenas, which, to date, has received over 4000 replies between the Official General, Suggestion, and Hunter forums.
A lot of the Hunter community, in that sense, will vouch for me being a strong voice of the Hunter community, especially after reviewing my resume. Having broken 2300+ in all three brackets as a Hunter isn’t something to scoff at in their Season 2 state. That said; let’s move on to our topic.
Hunters in 2.3 - You’ve read the patch notes. You’ve fought them in BG’s. You’ve probably been really frustrated by them… And you’ve probably taken hundreds of points from them… Hunters’ Arena situation was not exactly golden in the Burning Crusade; from the 2.0.1 nerfs (directed at pretty much every Hunter buff in 2.0), to 2.3 giving us some buffs we never wanted or asked for, and others that were “band-aids” on our major issues. I’ll go down the list of Hunter buffs and put it into perspective a bit:
Overview: Overall, 2.3 wasn’t a bad patch for Hunters. That became evident very quickly when the PVPSource forums started lighting up with posts asking how to deal with Hunters, as well as the Hunter forums being flooded with “nerf nerf.” Our situation in BG’s and world PvP improved 150%, and the buffs now make Hunters prime targets in any Arena situations, often first or second behind Priests. We can now deal better with Warlock/Healer teams in some situations (killing pets became easier with MS, dispelling Fel Armor reduces draintank effectiveness, etc.), and Warlock+DPS (particularly, Warlock + Spriest) in 2v2 with Hunter/Druid or Hunter/Priest became much more simple for the same reasons.
Dispelling things such as Ice Barrier, PW:S, Prayer of Mending, and Blessing of Protection makes burning those targets down much more simple. Removing HOTs from a target forces the healer to jump back into LOS, if only briefly, allowing you a quick opportunity to land a Viper Sting, provided your pet is still in play. In 5v5, the Aimed and Arcane Shot changes were positive, but not as game-breaking as people might suggest.
Another thing I know Blizzard has in the works for Hunters is itemization. Hunter itemization has been poor since BC, after the AGI to AP nerf. Essentially, nerfing Agility to AP gains for Hunters meant we needed more of different stats on our gear, and thusly made us harder to itemize. Being the only physical DPS class with mana (aside from hybrid classes) has also hurt our iLevel distribution.
The Pet Loyalty, Leveling, and Happiness systems/mechanics are broken and outdated. Loyalty and pet levels mean that we have to re-level a part of our character every time we switch pets. Happiness means that if our pet dies and we miraculously get a Revive Pet off, the pet comes back not only at 10% HP, but doing significantly less DPS, but luckily, Hunter pets usually aren’t there for their damage in Arenas anymore.
On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate the 2.3 Hunter changes a 7. A great effort, but they did it mostly in the wrong places. Pets getting destroyed by any Warrior with two spare Global Cooldowns, as well as no buffs to our mobility (outside of The Beast Within), really hurt us. Those are the two primary issues that Arena Hunters face at this point in time. Should those be addressed, a lot will be solved. On top of the list overall is probably the design of Hunter pets.
So let’s break it down. What was good about 2.3? What was bad? What changes?
The Removal of the Dead Zone: A GREAT step in the right direction. Blue often stated that the Dead Zone was a bug from 0.x-1.x-2.x, and finally became a glaring issue with the release of the Burning Crusade. As a result, it was finally time to gut down and fix this so called “bug” that plagued us since release. This change, obviously, improves Hunters a great deal in 1v1 and BG situations, as the extra shot you can get in without dead zone often makes or breaks certain matches. It removed an aspect of Hunter gameplay that was quite frustrating - situations that prevented us from taking any action whatsoever.
Serpent Sting & Trap Scaling: They almost had it on this one. When I heard they were finally making these scale with RAP, I was excited. Then I read how small the new coefficients would be. To put this into perspective, I, with medium-offensive gems/enchants (focused more towards AP than crit), I have 1791 (round off to 1800) RAP (Ranged Attack Power) with Aspect of the Hawk and Trueshot Aura on; that’s 180 damage on Serpent Sting, Immolation Trap, and Explosive Trap, and that’s not per tick — it’s for the whole duration. Even in the most extreme cases (fully raid buffed in PvE gear, potted up, popping all trinkets and getting procs) a Hunter maxes out somewhere around 3600 RAP when the planets align just perfectly. That’s an extremely underwhelming 360 damage on Serpent Sting, a total of 72 more damage per tick. This buff is easily countered by the DoT damage reduction caused by Resilience, and puts us right back where we started.
Aimed Shot = MS (Mortal Strike) Shot: At 60, Aimed Shot was, simply put, a core ability for PvP Hunters. This change was an attempt at returning Aimed Shot to its former glory, but it also makes one regret not taking it, even if only in fear of losing the option. Of the ways they could have implemented MS Shot, or buffed Aimed Shot, they managed to do both poorly in one fell swoop. Aimed Shot is a 2.6 second cast (after Quiver), which really only makes its way into play in 5v5, where we’re almost always with a Warrior or Rogue in the first place, making this very unviable (like Schmity stated in the first podcast, Hunters will not replace Rogue or Warriors with their MS shot). In 2v2 and 3v3, players are much more conscious of a Hunter’s presence and can easily LOS a cast; it’s similar to Warlocks that try to cast Shadowbolt while a player isn’t in Frost Nova, Fear, Poylmorph, or any major snare. Hunters will often be able, now, to get one or two Aimed Shots off per game with the inclusion of Rapid Fire and Berserking. Many make the argument towards Serpent’s Swiftness, but going 41/11/9 is a double edged choice, as you lose Survivalist, Clever Traps, Surefooted, and Improved Wing Clip just for the MS debuff.
Arcane Shot = Dispel: Essentially, what this change did was add more utility to our class. Yes, it’s nice at times, but also acknowledge that Arcane Shot was used as a burst-damage ability. This means that now, oftentimes, a Hunter’s Arcane Shot will be on cooldown when it’s needed for burst.
Pet Pathing/AI changes: Severely crippled us in Arenas, more so than before. All a player has to do now is stand with their back to an object and the pet can no longer hit them. One Priest on the Hunter forums even said, and I quote, “I just stayed against a wall and his dumb pet stared at me like an idiot doing nothing.” While I’m sure this is a bug, it’s a bug on an unnecessary change.
4pc Set Bonus: Quite simply, we went from one worthless bonus to something slightly less worthless. From 1 second off of Concussive Shot CD (which hardly spammed in Arenas) to 1 second off of Multi Shot CD (which Hunters can’t spam in 5’s with Mages, and sadly that’s the lineup where they shine). This change really accentuates the lack of attention to details Blizzard Developer pays to us, especially in the Arenas.
The thread I linked at the beginning outlined a lot of our other issues in Arenas. Some of the ideas are outdated and will be reiterated in a future installment of the thread (as it was not updated for 2.3 yet), most of which were not addressed. We are still the only class in the game that has to level their character even at 70 (for leveling pets, Experience and Loyalty), pay for every single thing they do (buying arrows), maintain a pet (feeding), all while remaining one of the overall weaker classes in small-scale (2v2, 3v3, 5v5, anything smaller than WSG) team play. Simply put, Hunters perform better in situations where there is little to no coordination, and in wide-open areas. Those, essentially, are the reasons you see Hunters doing well in BG’s, but poorly in Arenas.
Hunter Arena activity (even in the lower brackets) has been nearly halved since the announcement of the 2.3 patch notes, due to Hunters either re-rolling or quitting the game. The entire class community is very frustrated with the current state of Hunters. Players simply are not given a chance because of the class and condition of their class, regardless of who they are. My own 5v5 team would rather have my Mage as a new 70 than my Hunter in full Merciless for Season 3 Arena play. That’s very indicative of the state of our class.
2.3 did some great things for Hunters, but it’s my hope that Blizzard is just getting started in truly completing the Hunter class. It’s a known fact that the Hunter class only marginally made it into WoW 1.0 and was never truly completed. I think it’s time for Blizzard to finish what they started.
I do not mean to whine, complain, or come off as purely pessimistic. I have no intentions of being purely negative in this writing. The purpose of this post was to shed some light on the real issues behind our class, how 2.3 alleviated those issues (or didn’t), and allow the WoW community at large to understand our plight. While Hunters may annoy you in Battlegrounds and World PvP, just smile to yourself and think of how much different the fight would be in an Arena Game.
Until next time,
Treisk.
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November 16th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
“While Hunters may annoy you in Battlegrounds and World PvP, just smile to yourself and think of how much different the fight would be in an Arena Game.”
It’s not that different, I’ve met some pretty annoying hunters in arenas as well
November 16th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
True, but I think you’ll agree that the amount of effective Hunters in Arenas vs. effective Hunters in BG’s is a matter of fractions and decimals; there are exponentially less effective Arena Hunters, and when the margin is that large, it is not a flaw in the playerbase.
November 16th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
Im a rogue and i think everyone with even a slight clue knows that hunters are in need of help and work.
A single look at a class representation curve will show that hunters are in need of help.
I hope blizzard helps Hunters arena wise, best lof luck
November 16th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
This would be a great read for the Hunter Forums, but I had hoped for a more meaty article on PvPSource.com
One-third self promotion and two-thirds basic Hunter information; from a player who’s a 6th wheel on their 5v5.
How about some deep Hunter strategy/tactics articles?
Love the site, and hope to see the Hunter content improve.
November 16th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
Point taken, but let me also defend it by saying that with this being my first article for PVPS, and me being pretty much unknown, I figured an introduction was necessary.
Also, the intent of the post was to clear up a lot of the “nerf Hunters lolol” discussion and introduce a bit more understanding of our situation.
I am not a sixth wheel on my 5’s as a player, only as a character. My Mage will be a starter on the 5’s in S3. My Hunter was not because of the state of the class.
No hard feelings, thanks for coming
November 17th, 2007 at 12:26 am
The one thing that bothers me the most about these hunters changes, is that we really got them in all the wrong places.
Now im not saying that these were bad changes, because clearly they were buffs, but why were we buffed against classes we arguably didnt even need that much help against.
The deadzone change was good, the arcane shot change was good.
The sting/trap scaling is just stupid, because to actually use serpent sting, means we cant use viper sting on that same target, and even then its a wasted gcd. Any fire trap is also a waste because by using it for a measly 1500 or so damage, we give up our only crowd control method for 30 seconds.
Aimed shot was also very misguided imo. On any other class it probably would have worked, but on a class that still doesnt have the other components required of a class to fill a pure dps role rather then a drain role, it just doesn’t help. We cant keep a healer locked down very long, we dont have a spammable cc, we cant dps through armor, we cant dps if they are standing too close, and we have no way out of a focus fire, all of which are essential abilities in a heavy burst team.
My last gripe about 2.3, is the fact that we still have immense trouble to get away from warriors and rogues. Even with using multiple 30 second cooldowns, it is not likely you will run out of intercept range before the trap ends with hamstring on you, which is fine, because you can trinket… but an arena is only so big, so what happens 10-15 seconds later when that melee class is on you again and you have no trinket?
I wont post any suggestions, because if you read posts by treisk, or levidian, they are filled with many. I just wanted to possibly clarify further that hunters havent become the FoTM class people are making them out to be, as we had no changes to help us against the class compositions we had the most trouble with.
November 17th, 2007 at 12:31 am
It’s been only 3 days since a huge class buff, and a 6th wheel Hunter is writing for a premier strategy site on Hunter Arena issues. Sorry, but I ain’t buyin what you’re sellin.
Some video and analysis would have been more appropriate. Pretty sure we all know what 10% of 1800 is.
November 17th, 2007 at 12:57 am
It was simply to put it into perspective.
I already explained the sixth-wheel thing, but I’ll go ahead and reiterate: I am in that position on my 5’s not because of my player ability, but because of my class. They’re currently waiting for me to finish leveling my Mage to play with the 5’s. Let me elaborate on that slightly: they would rather have my new-70 Mage than my full-Merc Hunter on our 5’s team.
I am not the sixth wheel because of who I am. I am the sixth wheel because of what class I play.
November 17th, 2007 at 1:20 am
Hunters are VERY strong atm.
i cant believe this qq post, the time you spent writing this post you could of found yourself a pro warlock and priest and work on your mana drain tactics.
by the end of season3, mana drain teams will be dominating nearly every bracket.
You sound like a spoilt rich kid that got a car for his birthday but instead wanted a hellicopter.
November 17th, 2007 at 1:29 am
Many Hunters are starting on quality 2k+ teams. Those are the ones this site should be publishing, not 6th wheelers like yourself.
Btw your Hunter Forum advertisement of this article has gotten a rather negative response, that should tell you something.
And I am not questioning your skill, I am questioning your ability to write a quality HUNTER strategy article when you are a 6th wheel HUNTER, and only 3 days after a huge buff.
Strategies and tactics take play time to develop, play time which you don’t get on your 5v5; and certainly not in just 3 days.
Furthermore, you have not contributed strategy, but yet ANOTHER ‘Fix Hunters’ thread. We have enough of those, and we certainly don’t need any to respond to the ‘nerf hunters lolol’ threads that pop up; mostly of which are posted by bad Mages.
Have fun on your Mage.
November 17th, 2007 at 1:40 am
“The Removal of the Dead Zone: A GREAT step in the right direction. … It removed an aspect of Hunter gameplay that was quite frustrating - situations that prevented us from taking any action whatsoever.”
You mean like when a warrior or rogue is rooted and out of melee range? Or when a caster is silenced? Every class had a “you can’t do anything at all right now” moment they had to deal with, hunters were the only ones who whined about it all the time and now its been removed so they’re the only class that DOESN’T have that limitation now.
I really dislike people who only view the game from their classes point of view. I dislike them even more when they’re given a public voice.
I can’t believe that you were allowed to make this cry-baby post. You even say in your post that you made 2300+ in all three arena brackets with a pre-2.3 hunter. You must have some kind of super-human skill level to overcome how horrid your class was and make 2300+ anyway.
Ziss: Well, just because some classes can be ‘interrupted’ of DPS, doesn’t really mean Hunter MUST have an unique one as well… If you want to get in that debate, you can argue that every class can be interrupted by stuns and CCs…
As for the mentioning of his rating, that’s just so you’re not hearing from a Hunter who couldn’t break 2k QQing, but some actually valid points perhaps. Giving a patch 7/10 isn’t that bad in my book
November 17th, 2007 at 1:52 am
I was wondering about his skill as well, so I just watched his PvP movie “Nerf Treisk” (another dash of arrogance), and he appears quite average.
Anyway, lets get a Megatf strat article up on PvPSource, so we can have a real Hunter strategy discussion, instead of the tired, old Hunter QQ!
November 17th, 2007 at 3:12 am
Treisk , you are whinning for no reason.hunters buffs are more than decent . For most of the hunters i faced during my arena play , they are so bad players that u want to cry. Most of the hunters really dont know how to move in arena , and thats something that blizzard cant just “Buff” its just , lets say , skills! I believe hunter is a class that requires extreme lvl of micro managment in arena since to exploit his power at full u need to control all targets at the same time and be aware of what is going on. Most hunters that dont do that simply arent good enough and just whine to make their class OP so they can finally win. Only hunter i’ve seen that knows how to do all that from 1500 to 2300 ++ ratings that i stand now is
MOG@twisting nether(eu). Seriously every hunter i’ve faced in the arena is just crap and playing like they are in BG . no wonder why they dont win. Get your selves together hunters. l2p your class . HUNTER IS A SKILL CLASS! thats the biggest problem hunter is a skilled class played by ppl who rolled hunter coz they think its easy and fun to be far away and shoot some arrows legolas style .-enc out
November 17th, 2007 at 3:12 am
If you want to find a top caliber hunter on your own server look no further than the Alliance side Dwarven Hunter Algrinn. After talking to him for long hours about the class I think that he shows how the class truly shines in 5s and will not only continue to show his true performance quality but end up dominating the BG with his slightly different class.
We are in a battlegroup defined by a dozen or slightly more players. The hunter has only been successful in two of the primary groups and one of them is Algrinn. If you want to know what you can do to better yourself, ask him.
Honestly though, hunters were not as strong as other classes but (I am not sure yet since I haven’t played with my team yet since the patch) can abe very viable when played with proper coordination and understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the class. One bit of advice, though. Kill the mage, viper sting the priest.
November 17th, 2007 at 3:21 am
Only time will tell if Hunters really got what they needed or don’t need.
So far, I haven’t ran in to any Hunters around 2300 range since patch.
November 17th, 2007 at 3:26 am
I agree with serrin ^^
Hunters have been buffed a little too much imo. My main is a hunter an i can’t believe how easy mode its seems to be since 2.3
Not only were we doing insane dmg before, but we also have a pet which does quick an fast damage interupting targets healer (if not trapped already). Now we can walk up to you an shoot you in the face haha.
Infact /cry we still suck give us more! im curious to see how much more we can get outta bliz.
November 17th, 2007 at 3:31 am
Many of you posting are nothing more (if that) than the OP. He wrote a good article outlining some of the concerns of the Hunter class. Until you write an article on a site, like PVP Source, just keep your offensive comments to yourself. Now onto wat I originally wanted to say.
The hunter changes were generally positive. We got buffed but at the same time they aren’t really going to help much. Hunters major weakness in Arenas is LOS. We got helped out with the deadzone change but pillar humping will still limit us to only a few shots. With the buffs to other classes, its neraly impossible to kill a full merc healer that is proficient at pillar humping. I play a Resto Shaman aswell as my hunter and it’s really a joke when a hunter tries to kill me. A good partner can help us force them out. But similarily his partner is going to counter our moves and make sure his partner can pillar hump for just long enough to get out of the red.
We do have 1 sorce of DPS or debuff stacker… (w/e you want to call it) our pet. The utility of a pet is great in arenas. The only problem being, that it dies in 3-4 hits by a warrior. Heal the pet and you go oom very quickly due to MS debuff and 0 Resilience. So how do we counter this? Give pets resilience would work really well. How about possibly a change to the hunter 4 piece to reflect on pet survivability? Even better how about changing Dismiss from a 5 second cast to 1.5 or even instant? Either way something needs to be done.
November 17th, 2007 at 3:36 am
There are still some major hunter issues left. By not agreeing with this fact some of you just show of their own arrogance. Or how comes, that every non hunter, who’s good at their arena team is just skillloaded to death, while hunters don’t have skill at all (spare the marginal percentage of top rated hunters). Never thought of the possibility, that the class mechanics could have an influence on this?
Now one of this top hunters (we all have to admit that 2.3k ratings with a hunter in the current situation takes a lot of skill) points out, that the new hunterbuffs took place in areas, where the hunters didn’t needed them (apart from the Deadzone). Some buffs were good, most rather useless but non of them adressed the real issues in play mechanic.
And all you come up with is flaming Treisk because his team prefers him playing his mage instead of his hunter?
Now tell me again what you meant with arrogance.
November 17th, 2007 at 3:39 am
A change to the Improved Stings talent would really help us. Possibly make Viper Sting, immune to dispell/cleanse with the talent. Go with a static 20/40/60/80/100% Resist chance. We would be able to use a different pet than a scorpid. And even without a pet we could still effectively drain. Pally/Warrior teams would be a closer battle for Priest/Hunter, yet wouldn’t be overpowered.
Only other problem is druids. Shapeshift is just too good to avoid mana drain. With a wariror in the hunters face constantly, there ins’t much a hunter can do to force the druid to shift. when he does its to throw a hot or 2 and hes quickly out of line of sight before your can react. Druids can regen mana in shapefshift form, why can’t we effectively drain them?
November 17th, 2007 at 3:42 am
Forgot to mention that with abolish poison removing a poison debuff every 2 seconds there isn’t time for a druid to lose much mana at all. It’s probably a bigger drain for the hunter to Viper Sting a druid than it is for the druid to remove it. Assuming of course that he has kited your pet effectively, baring your pet still being alive.
November 17th, 2007 at 4:24 am
“Hunters main problem is LoS” annon
And you are the only class that has to deal with LoS? Also doesn’t you pet chase the healer around the corner an keep hitting him. Seriously hunters don’t have LoS problems get over it.
enough insta shot & stings along with your pet to keep up the damage, concus to slow the target down. Depends on build you have stun via pet, scatter shot, sleep. Heck you also have traps to keep a person slowed around those los area’s.
I know you aren’t godly dps when it comes to LoS like say a warlock, but come on you aren’t the only class who has to deal with LoS an you definately don’t have it the worst in those terms.
“Possibly make Viper Sting, immune to dispell/cleanse with the talent”
srsly, pick your targets well enough an your stings work great. If you are dumb enough to sting a druid you might aswell roll a mage an try to keep a druid sheeped. Stings work fine as it is an the buff helps out that much more.
November 17th, 2007 at 5:01 am
I can’t believe Hunters complain about having “trouble” of getting out of melee range. Go play a Shaman, and enjoy never being able to get out of melee range. And in case you missed it, the Shaman that want to get out of melee range do not do any damage because they are either trying to get out of melee, or are completely locked down.
November 17th, 2007 at 6:11 am
It’s a tough crowd to blog to Treisk, but great job with your first article! I definitely think you’re heavily biased towards hunters, but you did have several interesting points. Also, I would like to see some hunter arena strategy as I am considering incorporating one into my own team.
November 17th, 2007 at 6:28 am
lots of misinformation and paradoxical “QQ” about “QQ” going on above. Hunters in arena are far from overpowered now, although i will say the buffs helped, and i will also say that despite my initial skepticism about its use in arenas in 2v/3v brackets i have managed to successfully make use of it (mainly in conjunction with rapid fire) to either burn down a player, or help pressure teams in conjunction with viper sting.
Pets took a fair hit in 2.3 with no scaling buffs to help them survive, and the new weird “behind” mechanics which i wont go into depth which but can completely debilitate all pets especially hunter ones (as warlock pets often have a ranged ability like a felhounds purge), and especially as someone who raids (and doesn’t respec often for pvp, meaning i stay raid BM)i’ve lost battles against compositions i outgeared and out-composed purely on my pet dying (not saying that the pet death was unavoidable, but my reliance on it for bw, intimidation, a drink-break and a high portion of dmg, especially in times where i cant finish the target off ( out of LOS).
All-up not a bad post, i would have liked to have seen some juicy information that was new to me, as an avid hunter forum reader and generally (i like to think) decent hunter most of what you said was pretty binary info angled towards the ignorant degenerates from other classes.
November 17th, 2007 at 6:45 am
Why all this hate? Maybe for your uber 2300+ teams, you do not find this information useful. However as a 1900 team trying to improve, you learn from people who are better then you. He is giving his opinions from experience from high raiting in all brackets. He is stating though the changes were a step in the right direction, he doesnt feel it will turn the tide on massivly improving hunters in arena play.
I thought it was a good and informative article, though I too in the future like to see strats as a hunter. Because usually with a warrior on my side hunters dont give too many problems.
November 17th, 2007 at 9:14 am
Not kissing your behind because you have a high rating and/or I play a hunter myself, but good job on the post. You brought up the main problems that every hunter has to face in arena.
Sure the buffs from 2.3 benefit hunter (no dead zone/arcane dispel) but they surely did not hit the right spot. It’s kind of like giving a band-aid to someone who just got shot in the head and say “here, stop the bleeding”. Besides, the scaling on damage for sting and trap is really a good for nothing buff since we never use those abilities. Plus the scaling is still too low for them to be useful.
Many people complain about hunter 2.3 buff without any real knowledge about how the class works. If you think about it, how can a dispel with 6 seconds cool down and has to be applied at range is over-power? If you still think it’s OP then please look at and compare arcane dispel with priest mas-dispel, shaman spam-able purge(which remove 2 buffs), felhunter eating buff. How can the remove of dead-zone can be unfair since all it can do is helping the hunter get 1 or 2 arrows/bullets off before being los or meleed?
We all know that hunter melee attack power is really low compare to what other classes can do in melee range. In arena, if your healer let you die due to hunter melee attack, that means he’s being afk. I heard mages complain about how hunters can kill them now. Well seriously there’s still a 1 yard dead-zone you can use. Melee range is 0-4 yards, range is 5-41 yard (with range increase talent in the SV hunter tree). With the new GCD(global cool down) system, the poles in arena and a little bit of skill casters can still “dance” to dodge everything hunter can put out (just like how an ice mage freezes you to the ground and spam damage in your hunter-face pre2.3). I tested this with an ice mage and a lock friends dueling around objects we found that were similar to the poles in arena. I know this GCD-pole-1 yard dead-zone dance can not be used against BM hunters, but then again you can easily kill the hunter’s pet since it has no resil , and the health/armor don’t scale with the hunter stats that well anymore (yes this was a nerf on pet long time ago).
Sure some people might argue with me here: “shamans are having the same problem getting out of range just like hunter” or “hunters who can not scatter shot and kite with frost traps are noobs”..etc… However, please ask yourself what can other class do/have to compensate their weaknesses? If you understand the class you play well you will be able to tell. Hunters do NOT have anything to cover their weakness. Sure we can wear mail but honestly it’s not that big of a problem to other classes to dps us down. Sure we have traps/wing clip/scatter shot(MM)/intimidate(BM)/Wyvern Sting(SV) to help us get away. However, put yourself into a hunter position in arena and think. How many times in arena you are not being cc down with sheep/fear spam/cripple poison/hamstring/frost nova and get dps down without any way to shield yourself up (pally bubble/priest or mage dmg shield/earth shield) or to escape (blink/cloak of shadow + vanish + sprint)?
Anyway, please stop the hate toward the post because you either do not know how the hunter class works, or do not have any experience playing hunter against good players, or hate the hunter class, or always judge things base on your/your class’s point of view. You need real experience or else your opinion does not count. I have played pvp with many classes (borrow my friends’ accounts when I’m allowed to) so I have the idea of how it is in arena/world pvp for hunters.
Sorry for the wall of text and my crappy English (since English is my second language and I’m still learning), but this is just what I think toward 2.3 patch and hunters.
Once again great job Treisk I envy both your post and your rating (mine sucks since I only arena with my rl friends, who don’t care about our rating lol). I will make a toon on Illidan and have a chat with you sometimes.
-Feel free to look up my tauren hunter Stewee on Aegwynn and give me some tips if you are so pro in arena.-
Stewee
-Victory is mine!!!….uh wait I can’t win I’m a hunter…-
November 17th, 2007 at 9:23 am
I think the best way to fix hunters in arenas would be to change auto shot. Remove the retarded hidden .5 second cast time so we can fire it on the move and that would help immensly.
Everyone says we have instant shots and stings to make up for it, but the only instant shot we have to do damage is arcane shot. Stings are worthless for damage. Every other shot we have to be standing still for…(well, with the exception of conc and distracting). Yes pets follow people around pillars, until they’re dead.
The other thing that annoys me to no extent is that melee can hit around pillars. If a warrior/rogue is at 3 o’clock and I’m at 5 o’clock they can still manage to smack me in the back of the head, regardless of the huge pillar in their way. Just my thoughts.
November 17th, 2007 at 9:35 am
Seems to me a warlocks pet doesn’t have resil, nor does a mage etc. So /cry over your pet issue, most hunters have a scrop to keep up the poison.
How to get away? my god you listed to many of them traps/wing clip/scatter shot(MM) /intimidate(BM) /Wyvern Sting(SV. Forgot to add BM fury so you are immune to fears, slowing effects. FD to make someone lose target mid cast.
Next thing we’ll be asking for heat seeking rounds that will go around corners.
I’ll agree it was a great write up by treisk although seemingly biased.
November 17th, 2007 at 11:13 am
Hunters are very very strong after this patch, i fought against them in 2v2 (2.1k rating) paired with another dps and always had a tough fight, but i remember this 3v3 (2k rating) team made up by a BM hunter, a MM hunter and a shockadin who totally wrecked my team (lock rogue priest) and several others i know. I really don’t see how hunters can have problems now, they are perfectly viable after the latest buff/fix.
Cheers
November 17th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
This article is full of QQ. Instead of going on a cynical rant, why not do something constructive like talk about the best way put your new buffs to use. Giant crybaby imo.
November 17th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
The question is, how do you buff hunter’s in arena without making them even more god-mode in other aspects of the game?
I mean, hunters rule BGs… they are the premier farming class… they are outstanding duelers… and extremely capable world PvP’ers. It seems like instead of targeting precision changes at arenas (kinda like the rogue blind change) they just through out some sloppy class wide blanket buffs.
Seems like a lose-lose situation. Hunter’s arent entirely happy, their arena status only slightly goes up, and everyone else is even more sick to death of their OP’ness in every other aspect of the game.
November 17th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
“Seems to me a warlocks pet doesn’t have resil, nor does a mage etc. So /cry over your pet issue, most hunters have a scrop to keep up the poison.”
Cold Snap, Fel Domination. Not all Warlocks have FelDom, true, but a good majority of them do. On top of that, Warlock pets are more durable (Devour Magic = self-heal, Tainted Blood for anti-melee to a limited extent). As well, Mages can choose when to bring their pets out. Their pet is also ranged, meaning it doesn’t openly put itself at risk when doing its job.
“The question is, how do you buff hunter’s in arena without making them even more god-mode in other aspects of the game?”
There have been a lot of discussions over how best to do this. There is no single clear-cut solution, but there are plenty of little things that could be fixed to accommodate. I went over a lot of them in the thread I linked, but others have also made excellent suggestions (Levidian being one) that would be steps in the right direction.
November 17th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
Hunter LoS isn’t an issue at all with 2.3 if your not down syndrome. change your playstyle.
Hunter pets do NOT get 2 shotted by a warrior. If your team doesn’t have down syndrome , and knows how to click there heal buttons, and you can control your pet properly, yes eventually it will go down, but your pet will last a LONG time. give it resil? you must be retarded.
all in all, your team has downs.
Why don’t you find a makeup to compliment your class, instead of trying to fit into a makeup meant for others. Hunter, imho, is simply a hard class to master, yes it isnt the strongest class out there, not all of us can be warlocks, but what your complaining about are problems almost EVERY class has, which leads me to believe your not playing properly. And yes, all i see in this thread is QQ
anyone who reads this site im assuming would know at least the basics to class comps and strategy. this post really doesnt tell us anything we dont already know.
Drain Team. Jump on the bandwagon early, 2.3 is going to be the Drain Season. warlock/priest/hunter/paladin/warrior , make it work
November 17th, 2007 at 11:44 pm
This is pretty legitimate except for the arcane shot thing. That’s like me saying, well my gouge/whirlwind/earthshock/mangle now dispels, but I usually want to save it for a burst. Oh noez.
OH NOEZ. No, that’s not a legitimate reason to cry. That just means you have more OPTIONS. It is up to YOU to figure out when to save that arcane shot to burst, not go OH NOEZ, MY DISPEL SHOT IS ON CD CAUSE I GOT TO SPAM IT TO DISPEL WHICH GAVE ME THE CHANCE TO WIN IN THE FIRST PLACE!
Otherwise, very legitimate! =) Glad to be enlightened on some of the finer facts (hunters 1.0 deal, pet ai deal, etc etc) and support you in your stance!
November 18th, 2007 at 12:16 am
Well, i wired my Ranking/Class compare tool up a bit.
At this point it displays the percentage of classes.
Just like vhairi’s graphs, but with ranks.
I scanned the US servers fridays and finished the displaying thingy today.
recent results ( 11-18-2007 ) viewable at my page.
just click my name in this comment.
I was a bit surprised, that there was no noticeable change in the curve.
There are just less hunters in the lower ranks.
Last but not least:
Hi Treisk! Lost your e-mail adress, except it start with vela!? I’m quite unsure.
PS: excuse my english.
November 18th, 2007 at 12:36 am
Anyone saying that hunters are now overpowered on a whole are really, really stupid.
I am in no way denying that the buffs we recieved were good, what i am saying is that we really weren’t buffed in the areas we need it.
Yes i am saying hunters need more buffs.
We need blizzard to actually look at the core hunter problems, rather then slapping on band-aid fixes that possibly make us overpowered in certain areas to compensate for our lack of everything in others.
Why is it that a physical damage class relies on mana, when the only way to actually boost that mana is to stack a stat that offers no increase to our physical dps?
Why is it that the class that relies most on mobility, has arguably the worst mobility?? Warriors and rogues have been getting more and more each patch to get close, and hunters have actually been getting nerfed in this area ( entrapment on DR’s is one example).
Why is it that our only ways to keep an enemy in place that is LoSing us, so we can attempt to do damage to them, require melee range, when the damage we do requires ranged?
Why is it that, our cc, that is non castable, has an arming time, requires a second 30 sec cooldown to even use offensively, suffers heart beat resist checks, requires a person to run through it, and dispellable, has a 30 second cooldown?
What major benefits does freezing trap offer that require it to have a 30 second cooldown, when abilities like fear, cyclone, and polymorph, which are all superior, have none?
Yes we got buffs against classes that use magic shields, but many would say that was not the only place we needed it ( though i still think we needed it, having less then a 1% arena representation probably means there are very little teams we were very successful against, and even then it was a band-aid fixed that could have been solved by actually addressing the core issues of the class, thereby having a wider spread effect among all aspects of hunter balance.
November 18th, 2007 at 2:06 am
“there are very little teams we were very successful against”
Actually the majority of classes are fine balance wise. Hunters run into two problems in my experience, that is that we have no way of reducing an incoming burst and surviving. Being at 12k+ health and resilience capped helps, but we are still one of the easiest targets in arenas if you want to hit something down quickly (our pets are the only thing thats easier, btw).
Our other issue is with 2 classes in particular, warriors and paladins. Due to their heavy armor they mitigate a large proportion of our damage, and their talents in general force us into a position where we take huge amounts of damage, and do very little (this is a broad generalisation but if you’ve played a hunter in most brackets, you’ll know this is fairly accurate). the fact that the area between 1700-2k is flooded with combinations of warriors, paladins or both results in a fairly small percentage of hunters making it into the higher brackets where you see a slight change in the enemy team lineups.
November 18th, 2007 at 3:04 am
Blah Blah Blah QQ Hunters w/e
My purpose for this reply is too let it be known that will not be promoting his mage in the 2300 team. You as a player are the 6th wheel. You have 31.8% in the games played and that is all you will be getting. The loss they took for you being on the team for the amount of time that you were is enough proof that you bring the team down, and now bringing down the team players with you.
You should also begin thinking about taking full advantage of the off Illidan transfers.
November 18th, 2007 at 5:02 am
I love the chops at me “playing wrong”… I’m the top rated hunter on my server (Horde/Alliance) in one of the top battlegroups… If im doing it wrong what the hell is everyone else doing?
The hunter class needs work to make us a real viable class for arena play. We have many problems, the biggest being our pet survivability and LOS issues. If your able to keep your pet alive against the majority of pally/warrior or druid/warrior teams than your playing horrible teams. The amount of burst damage from both a holy pally and an MS warrior… or a Resto druid and a MS warrior is rediculous when it comes to keeping a pet alive. Like I said before I play a resto shaman aswell, and I know first hand how easy it is to kill hunter/warlock pets. We do so and face little problems from then on out.
Give our pets, and warlock pets resilience. Both these classes work off the utility of their pets and have had them since level 10. Make them more than just an early target in arenas.
In all honesty, I’d rather see the deadzone go back into affect and give our pets more viability. Furthoremore keep the deadzone there and give us more than a 6 second shot that we can use against a target that is pillar humping.
I know your gonna say… “ooo every class has to deal with pillar humping”. Warrior/Rogues can virtually attack through it. I’ve been hit on entire opposites of pillars and I play with under 80ms latency. Warlock/Priests have dots ticking making up for atleast some damage. They also have instant burst abilites just like arcane shot which are affected by short cooldowns. Mages have a very large amount of instant casts they can use from AOE to Fireblast and the spammable Ice Lance. That leaves only 1 more dps based class in arenas. Shamans. They are just as gimped when it comes to dealing damage against pillar humping.
If your going to start an agruement with me saying I don’t know how to deal with LOS… Your wrong. Your playing against players who can’t LOS well. To be honest while playing my shaman I have never lost to a hunter in 2v2 arenas. They are redicuously easy to shut down. You attack me and I can keep myself alive all day. Hell start me with 30%hp and 0 mana and a hunter will not be able to kill me. Furthermore attack my partner and your leaving me the ability to freely heal them. Your only way to stop me from ranged is really silencing shot/scatter shot which can easily be countered by my partner humping the deadzone.
This class has problems. We have absolutely no way to beat decent warrior/pally teams at the 2k rating level (this is probably around 2200 rating on the lower battlegroups). I’ll even give you a little hint about why you see hunters at higher ratings then those. They didn’t play through that rating… Who would have thought. Play with shadowpriest/rogue to break the warrior/pally teams. Then play as hunter/priest to break the frost mage/rogue teams in the higher rating. Unfortunately noone can beat warrior/druid to even have a chance at top 10.
Go ahead say I have no clue what I’m talking about. Try moving to a higher rated battlegroup and you will see the level of skill that some of these teams have.
November 18th, 2007 at 11:46 am
Mostly all the people that are screaming huntards QQ more and L2P have no clue what the heck is going on with all the shiny good for nothing “buff” hunters have gotten. Hunters still need fix. By “fix” I mean giving us something to get away from melee/snare. Of course it should not be as powerful as the trinket that breaks everything, but at least help us to get on our feet once we get rooted/hamstring/cripple poisoned down to the ground (like a jump back just like a back-ward mage blink.)
As I listed on my other comment we do have traps/wing clip/scatter shot(MM) /intimidate(BM) /Wyvern Sting(SV)/BM beastial wrath+beast within so you are immune to fears, slowing effects. However, use your brain and think about it. All of those abilities have long cool down, located on different talent trees, only help us to get away from whoever is killing us for few seconds, get 1-2 shots off and then back into getting-pwned position (bare in ming that everyone who steps into arena will have the pvp trinket, so always minus 1 cc ability on your list since people always trinket outta it). Sure BM is good with their pet and beast within to run around freely and dps for 18 seconds, but after that they are useless for 2 mins. 2 mins is a large amount to of time to get killed in arena. Oh, and you can kill the pet really easy, without pet in arena BM hunter is pretty much useless.
Well anyway I don’t want to waste my time argue with people who don’t have a clue/never play hunter pvp in arena at 70/get owned by hunters since they can’t play their classes. You can go ahead and spam your usual message “QQ more huntards L2P”. We-the people that have experiences about hunter arena will still keep our suggestions coming until Blizzard dev team stops being retarded, play a hunter for real in arena, figure out a clue and fix the hunter class to how it supposed to be. (Stop giving us useless shiny “buffs” that always get people to QQ at us with hatred. We only need fixes, not buffs)
November 18th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
What I like about this site is it is less about complaining about classes and more strategy to make the best of what you are given. If I wanted to hear (for lack of a better word) whining, i’d go to the wow forums.
November 18th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
So, Gusto, remind me exactly which wheel you are?
November 18th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
Bottom line is this one particular team doesn’t want a Hunter. Said 6th wheel Hunter gets upset, and regurgitates the same old Hunter weaknesses which are WELL DOCUMENTED.
The Hunter Arena community deserves more than the incessant whining of a self-promoting has-been, who is giving up on his Hunter in favor of a Mage for ONE TEAM. Good riddance.
There are a lot of Hunters STARTING on high ranked teams. Publish them. Publish Megatf. Or Levidian, who is approaching 2300 in 2v2, WITH A ROGUE. Or the Marks/Surv Hunter who broke 2200 with a RESTO SHAMMY. These are Hunter experts, who are utilizing our STRENGTHS, new and old.
Believe me, there are many Hunters who are raising the bar in terms on skill, strategy, and class combinations. Publish THEM. Treisk is known to be a bandwagon Cookie-cutter strategists. He will never be the one to develop new and powerful tactics, but rather the one to complain about WELL KNOWN weaknesses while copycatting what good strategy is already known to the community.
My own 3v3 team has jumped 250 points in 2 days since 2.3. The 2.3 buffs are IDEAL for new and interesting 3v3 combos. We run Hunter/Rogue/Pally which has seen a huge improvement in competitiveness with the addition of my dispel, no deadzone, and MS shot.
The Hunter community is moving forward with our newfound strenths and versatility. New combos are emerging due to improved utility, and Hunters are leading teams to the top. Treisk is stuck in the past.
November 18th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
“I am in no way denying that the buffs we recieved were good, what i am saying is that we really weren’t buffed in the areas we need it.”
The arcane shot and deadzone removal were great buffs. Scaling traps and stings with RAP is a good idea as well (though implemented poorly). Giving Aimed shot a healing debuff is great for hunter teams when there’s no warrior or rogue. The problem is that, while each of these buffs help hunters in certain situations and brackets (primarily 2’s and 3’s), none of them truly address the problems that ail the class.
Blizzard really needs to look at pet survivability, and kiting issues hunters face.
With regards to the pet, the AI is definatly bugged right now. Though it is a good idea for the pet to get behind the target to avoid damage and parrys/blocks, it shouldn’t take it extra time to get in position. Also, hp levels at 70 as well as the lack of resil, make pets really squishy, even with 10k armor.
As for the kiting issues… when a warrior gets on a hunter, the 10% difference in running speed between a hamstringed hunter and wingclipped warrior means almost nothing when, by the time the hunter is able to get reasonable distance, the warrior’s intercept will be off cooldown. The deadzone removal does alleviate this problem somewhat, as the hunter will be able to do -some- damage before getting mace stunned in the face. As for pillar los’ing hunters, the main problem was that there were three yards where the hunter couldn’t do anything. Considering the majority of pillar kiting is played between 5 and 8 yards, the deadzone removal should pretty much negate this issue. While kiting and los issues do separate the pro’s from the cows, they could certainly be tweaked a little bit.
The arcane shot buff is incredible though, and will be a great skill in separating the good from mediocre players. True priests have mass dispel and shamans have purge, but both of these really tax the player using them. Mass dispel’s mana cost can be more detrimental than beneficial if he’s not careful, and purge spamming isn’t exactly cheap either, as not only does it cost a GCD, but a fair amount of mana as well. Arcane shot, however is a multitasker. It deals heafty damage, and takes away magical buffs on a target. Since it has two functions, good players will know when to use it for buff removal, and when to save it for damage. This just adds complexity to this class.
Aimed shot also gives much more utility to hunters. In 2’s with a priest, this will only strengthen them against other healer teams. Hunters can’t put out like rogues and warriors dps wise, so giving them a non-dispellable healing debuff helps a lot. Sure it takes a while to cast, sure, they have to worry about los, but you know what? It hurts. Compared to 70 damage for each wound poison application (which, mind you, is dispellable by 3 of the 4 healers) the cast time seems like fair compensation. If anything, they should make the debuff longer so hunters don’t have to cast it so frequently.
Overall, I think the OP really underestimates what effect these abilities will have in hunter arenas. True, some of the pertinent problems are still due to be ‘looked at’, but these buffs will help the class none-the-less. Once the more skilled players start to get creative with these changes, we should see a rise in high rated hunters.
On a side note… once 70, pet experience needed to level should go down >.>
November 19th, 2007 at 12:18 am
“Treisk is known to be a bandwagon Cookie-cutter strategists.”
Really? So Warlock/Hunter has always been a cookie-cutter 2v2 team? Having broken 2400 in 2’s with that combo kinda works against your “cookie cutter” statement.
Also, as I’ve said multiple times on this page alone, this post was not for the Hunter community. This post was from a Hunter, to the rest of the community. Being that I introduced myself, one might also allow it to click in his head that this won’t be my last post on this site.
November 19th, 2007 at 4:15 am
I see a 1644 2v2 rating in your Armory. Nice.
Season 1 and early Season 2 ratings matter not one iota. You seem to think they do, considering you were linking your season 1 ratings up until a week ago, huk.
And most Arena players know they sometimes encounter favorable match ups for an entire night which allow them to jump way up in rating; then come crashing down after some more varied match ups. Where is your Hunter/Lock now. 1644?
I look forward to your next article, and hopefully some video as well.
I’ll give you a tip: Play a substantial number of games, as a STARTER, with the new patch before passing judgement on the new changes. Your analysis of 2.3 is premature to say the least.
-Find a team that will start your start your Hunter.
-That will play more than 10 games week.
-And that will utilize your offensive dispel and MS shot to their fullest potential.
Then will your evaluation of 2.3 carry some weight. Right now, it carries none.
November 19th, 2007 at 5:45 am
You complain about the hunter not being able to do this or that or ms shot sucks or whatever but you make no mention as to how hunters can change the game by simply using ice and freezing traps. Who cares if your immolation trap isnt scaling or you already have a warrior with MS, you have CC and that is one of the most important aspects in arena not to mention wing clip which is a hamstring.
Im sick of hunters bitching and complaining. Stop complaining about LOS, every caster has LOS issues.
Stop complaining about itemization. Every hybrid and healer has itemization issues.
November 19th, 2007 at 7:53 am
definitely alot of hate going on.
“you have CC and that is one of the most important aspects in arena”
this statement is misinformative and alludes to hunter crowd control being more useful/reliable than it in fact is. Freezing trap as a form of CC is incredibly weak, not only is it on a cooldown 3 times its duration, but its not targettable and often relies on enemies blundering into it, which sort of goes against the whole prospect of crowd ‘control’.
As for frost trap, it is a fairly prevalent and strong slowing ability, but all it does is negate an enemies slow on you (unless you have entrapment, which is a different story and spec-related). Basically you throw down your slow trap and the 2 classes its their to help fight against (rogues and warriors) hamstring/crip you. your then both moving incredibly slowly and your stuck with 2 incredibly high dps classes whom will probably have mace affect, and intercept/clos ect. to help lock you down. The net result is you are moving slowly trying to evade some of the deadly melee swings, while doing next to nothing.
i fail to see how either of the above mentioned traps are “great CC” if they were our roles would be greatly different. Currently with the 2.3 changes we are basically there for the same task as any warrior, to help pressure the enemy team, the drawback is were also brittle and cant withstand the burst.
November 19th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
“I see a 1644 2v2 rating in your Armory. Nice.”
I play on that 2’s with my RL best friend. I’m currently not on the roster, as he wanted to try a Moonkin and I don’t need the points. Also notice that we’re using the 2’s to gear our alts. Furthermore, notice that he’s Destruction.
November 19th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
Nevermore - What is your issue mate did Triesk do your misus or something because you obviously have a problem with him. If you think this article is substandard then write your own article complete with all your leet hints and tips and get it posted here to make us all bow down before you.
Treisk - just be the bigger man and ignore the guy there is no need to defend yourself just roll with the punches.
And remember guys this game might take over your life but it’s meant to be fun, just take a back step sometimes
November 20th, 2007 at 5:55 am
Lolz.. After all the abuse, i dunno if you guys can see, but triesk can still reply back in a professional manner.
Since most of you claim that what triesk say is wrong and deserve to be metaphorically stomped on the face, personally id rather be triesk and be wrong about his in game class, than be all you guys, who knows your classes better, yet fail at some simple real life manners…
November 20th, 2007 at 9:43 am
@35
Very Pretty graphs, unless you have the class colors memorized, you need a key.
Great write up. Many classes need adjustments to help balance them in arena. But you can’t expect a game to be completely even. Go roll a warlock if you want to dominate in arena, for grinding and BG ownage stick to a hunter. Every class has its ups and downs. Live with it.
November 20th, 2007 at 9:55 am
Triesk. Please share a few of your strategies with the lock/hunter 2 vs 2 team. I am very intrigued to hear about how you managed to achieve such a high rating. Props! Very impressed with that. I would love to hear some face-ups as well, for example how you beat a paladin/warrior team, druid/warrior, or even a frost mage/rogue team. Also, I believe that your article has received the most comments/responses/critiques out of any yet. This is a good thing, means you are hitting a topic that a lot of people are interested in, whether they are hating on you, or they are respecting you. This is what pvpsource needs, topics that stir a lot of attention and keep people interested. Great job!
November 20th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
“Essentially, what this change did was add more utility to our class. Yes, it’s nice at times, but also acknowledge that Arcane Shot was used as a burst-damage ability. This means that now, oftentimes, a Hunter’s Arcane Shot will be on cooldown when it’s needed for burst.”
So you’re saying that it’s not a good buff simply because poor hunter players will be using it too often to dispel and not have it available when they need it to burst.
Sounds like a player issue, not a buff issue.
Have you played a magic class since 2.3? Have you gone into AV and faced off against a phalanx of hunters, all Arcane Shotting you so you lose every buff at once? Shaman and priests at least have to give up doing something else in order to dispel buffs. Hunters can burst AND dispel. That’s not cool.
Though you’re right about a lot of things in your post. The buffs weren’t the right ones, and weren’t what hunters needed to be more viable in the arena. It just made an already powerful BG class insanely OP, and a weak arena class no stronger than it really was before.
November 21st, 2007 at 3:22 am
“It just made an already powerful BG class insanely OP, and a weak arena class no stronger than it really was before.”
Which, essentially, was the point of the entire post. ;p
November 21st, 2007 at 6:31 am
i disagree, our 2v/3v potential is quite a bit higher due to our ability to effectively burst down a target receiving heals, and arcane shot makes little to no difference in most larger scale arenas due to the plethora of buffs put on players (for instance, if my strat was to burst the shadow priest, and he has literally 8-10 buffs, its going to take me almost a minute of pure dispelling on that one target before its buffs are gone, which isn’t accounting for reapplied buffs like renew / pw:s).
However in the smaller scale arenas it has certainly proved a boon to me. Facing THE toughest hunter adversary of pally/war in 2s, and being able to dispell his first blessing of freedom (or sacrifice if you had CC going) is a really great addition, and helps round our class out against enemies that were previously based on how long you can hold out before the enemy makes a mistake.
November 21st, 2007 at 6:33 am
oh, and to add… who really cares about battlegrounds? they were never balanced, never required skill, and have always been a ridiculous grind. Currently the only reason real PvPers BG is for the daily, or to get their 75K at the start of a season and buy all the upgraded armor.
November 21st, 2007 at 10:50 pm
HEY Treisk just wanted 2 tell thx for the info.i hope people don’t misunderstand you.your not qqing…lol…your just trying 2 help those that want it..YOUR BOY TREXGRIMSTUD
November 21st, 2007 at 11:44 pm
I was just wondering if nevermore plays a hunter and if nevermore is its name.cause i cant find any that look like there good at pvping.
November 27th, 2007 at 6:52 am
The problem is that Blizzard’s buffs continue to aim primarily at a scale that is larger than any of the arena brackets, while having a modest impact on Blizzard’s primary balancing bracket, the 5v5.
From what I’ve seen as a warrior the past week, hunters are becoming stronger than most classes in BGs, while only doing marginally better in the arena brackets.
The problem with hunters is that what they need is some kind of overpowered ability that is like a reverse intercept away from a target.
The problem with this kind of ability, is that it would easily make hunters far more mobile than melee classes.
There is no way in the world to balance a reverse intercept ability which would be a hunter blink, since you have to balance it against all melee classes.
Warriors have intercept (everyone will have 15 sec intercept in 7 hours, so gg at that), and are situationally the most mobile class over the long term due to the fact that the second most mobile class, rogues, have to burn cds to get their mobility in spurts. After that, no other melee class would really be able to stay on a Hunter with some kind of reverse intercept ability combined with their ability to kite.
The next problem is that any kind of fix to melee mobility would effectively make melee totally useless against druids, mages, and other classes that can kite melee perhaps more effectively than hunters, especially with what mages have in store in 2.3.2.
Treisk’s analysis was mostly spot on, and the biggest problem with hunters is that they’re stuck in a weird situation of being in the middle of the range of kiting ability.
I’m just going to toss out here that the only classes I’ve played at 70 are a warrior and druid, never played a hunter before.
I think hunters as a class are where ret paladins are right now. Blizzard is still mapping out where to take them, and doing it marginally is going to be for the best.
The hunters who were asking for Aimed Shot to be lowered to 1.5 seconds were asking for a ridiculously overpowered buff. We have no idea what a 1.5 second MS-Aimed Shot can do, and I doubt Blizzard would irresponsibly put that kind of unbalanced buff in.
November 27th, 2007 at 9:03 am
“After that, no other melee class would really be able to stay on a Hunter with some kind of reverse intercept ability combined with their ability to kite.”
I’d like to see a melee survivability boost through an increase in mobility, with something like intervene over say a reverse blink.
Maybe allow us to have a decoy ability that switches places a friendly target (pet or party member). I think that would offer some interesting utility with being able to switch places with your priest who’s getting trained on, or switch places with your pet while they are beating on you or something. You’re effectively giving melee something else to destroy instead of you (or giving them you to beat on instead of someone else), so it seems like a valid trade off.
Here’s to hoping 2.4 gives us something to look forward to for arenas outside of bandaid fixes.
November 28th, 2007 at 10:38 am
First off I want you all to know I have a 70 hunter I quit playing due to the fact that now it simpley takes no skill to play the class in PvP. I know this will offend a lot of people by saying thins but its true. I dont know if anyone remembers before BC when hunters could only lay traps out of combat, you would have to feign then lay the trap, that actualy took skill to do. And now beast hunters can get out of snares or stuns with the last beast talent. So with the lack of skill it already takes for a hunter to kite someone around or put them in a trap blizzard now thinks its wise to give hunters even more. Now they have a mortal stike shot, which does have a longer cast time but is still very effective. And they can dispell magic off of others, who else needs this now I think almost every class has it. I know that to hunters all this stuff seems awesome even the taking away of the dead zone. Every class has to have its dead zone, casters get silenced, rogues and warriors get rooted. Its a bit unfare to give one class no dead zone when all the other classes have dead zones. Most people on this site talk about how bad hunters are in arena and I’m not a person who does arena. I’m just a normal PvPer who does bgs and world pvp and in my opinion blizzard needs to stop focusing on how to make hunters better in arena and think of how they can make them better in the game as a whole to give it more balance. They need to have many things taken away I’m pretty tired of getting killed by unskilled players who just play hunters because they are so over powered. And I’m not saying that every hunter is unskilled I’m saying the majority of them are. I know hunter was a popular class before, but now I see even more hunters running around because to most people it “the best class in the game”. They get everything I bet in the next patch blizzard with give them some sort of heal for themselves thinking it would be a good idea.
December 5th, 2007 at 6:50 am
I usually play a mage, but I have to say that playing a hunter well in arena takes more skill than the mage.
Multishotting cloth from a distance in a BG takes about as much skill as frostbolt spam. So clothies think the hunter class is ez-mode because they only notice the multi-arcane spam in BG’s.
The difficulty of the class is to avoid getting owned by warriors and rogues. That is the real, and only gripe about the class:
*** it is too easy to shut hunters down in arena ***
It really does take an insane amount of skill/luck to kite warriors and rogues while damaging/draining/cc:ing something else.
Consider how few hunters are on the top arena teams, and how many you see in the BG’s.
Why is that?
People say that the hunter class is OP and that yea hunters rule, but they would never want one on *their* arena team.
There is actually a word for that: hypocrisy
December 11th, 2007 at 10:21 am
WTB new writer for hunter articles. This one is smart and a good hunter advocate, but it doesn’t seem to be working out for the community.
December 18th, 2007 at 9:40 am
Nice first article bro, ignore the heat man, I would rather try and fail than be one of those spineless cowards who never try at all cuz they are too busy trying to tear others down in a miserable attempt to make themselves look better. My prob right now is that 9-10 Hunters are BM which to me should tell developers that the talent line is OP, I wish they would stop adding stuff just hoping that the “shiny new stuff” will make Hunters happy and work towards balancing each class and talent line. People only consider melee dps classes as Rogues and Warriors cuz Enhancement Shammies and Ret Pallys are a joke. I would like to see more on strat tho cuz I mainly read this article for that. Keep on truckin man. -Fulgor 70 Hunter SH
“Bitterness is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die.”
December 19th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
9/10 hunters spec BM (myself included) because it’s a very high dps spec for raiding, as well as CC/snare immunity in PVP. If there were other ways for a hunter to break CC/snare I would more likely consider switching back to MM (my pre-BC spec), but seeing as it’s the only way to survive a rogue/warrior melee attack, I’d rather have that button to press to escape the continuous snare/stun/etc… As for improvements to the class, here are some ideas:
-Change spirit bond back, pet attacks return health back to the hunter, it’s useless in its current state. Either that, or double its efficacy (either heals every 5 seconds, or 4% of health at rank 2)
-Make scattershot a trainable skill. We’ve been wanting this for a while now.
-Make silencing shot a trainable skill, rather than a 41 pt talent. Make a talent to reduce its cooldown by up to 5 seconds (20->15sec).
-Silencing shot can be replaced with a new 41 pt talent, perhaps something similar to seed of corruption, ie. Explosive shot, instant cast, 2 minute cooldown, fires an exploding shot into the enemy which does x dmg over 8 seconds, then explodes for y dmg (reverse moonfire?).
-Make improved arcane shot so each rank reduces cooldown by 0.5 sec instead of 0.2 sec. 1 sec off an 8 sec cooldown is not enough for anyone to want to spec this useless talent. Reducing cooldown from 8 seconds to 5.5 seconds would make it more deadly and help hunters deal with plate wearers.
January 12th, 2008 at 11:08 am
Thank you for this nice guide. Hoping to hear more from you on pvpsource.com
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