Monday, April 7, 2008

Hunter issues in the arena (tournament realm)

So Socio, kakez and I just started last night. Think we're 1900, 31-2 2v2 now, and nearly 1800 on 3s. (Hunter/lock/druid)

There wasn't as big of a surge as I thought there'd be. I still feel like the class takes a bit more skill to properly play than either my druid or lock tbh, especially in the arena. Weaving optimal shot rotations, while keeping good positioning on your target, LOSing any incoming CCs, and being able to drop traps in the correct spot when needed is a lot more intense than most people know or believe, I'd bet. It's not a simple stand and mash buttons routine (well, unless you suck @ hunter).

I still think removing aspects' mana cost would be a great help. Switching to cheetah to chase someone down around a pillar and whatnot is already bad enough due to not having viper on for regen, and possibility of getting dazed.

I think hunter DPS in pve as beast is, well, beastly. I've always been able to compete, or surpass, rogue dps in 10/25 mans.

I dunno. I think hunters probably need slightly better escape options. Their reliance on druid is pretty big. I don't know of many comps that are all that competitive without a druid to go with the hunter.

I find it absolutely necessary to run quartz cast bar, as it lets me have a cast bar and another bar that shows my autoshot timer. This lets me manually weave in my steady's (which is a HUGE part of hunter dps in any scenario) while trying to never clip auto shots.

Possibly removing the restriction of autoshooting while doing other shots would help the most, or perhaps lessen the autoshot delay down from 0.5s. to even less time.

Would it dumb down the gameplay? Yeah it would, and would actually probably make the class less enjoyable to play in PVE (at least for me anyways).. However, having such a tight restriction on optimizing dps while also keeping the other variables balanced that I previously mentioned can be a choke point for class potential when it comes to the arena.

But when you have classes that are relatively easy to play that don't require nearly the same amount of micromanagement (Read: warrior), it's not necessarily the case that hunters are bad, but other classes are just more viable since they require less skill/micromanagement to play,

I also tend to factor in a classes ease to play via the GCD-factor. With the shapeshifting changes of going directly from form to form, or from feral form to casting a spell causing autoshift, the GCD-Factor and micromanagement factor of the druid went down substantially. This factor alone makes the druid much more fluid to play than either my warlock or hunter. There are less GCD's required to perform the same action.

This kind of goes back to what I was talking about originally with the hunter a long time ago. The aspects, traps, flares, ranged and melee abilities all sharing the same gcd. Even changing tracking type incurs a GCD. I know I've harpd on this several times. The hunter just feels more..... clunky. I feel like I'm constantly fighting the 1.5s gcd of a caster while needing to keep up with more abilities than some classes combined.

For example, to peel a rogue off of somebody, I need to concussive shot as I'm running towards them, then wingclip, flare so they can't vanish, drop a trap slightly ahead of them, possibly scatter them afterwards, and then reposition myself so I can go back to an optimal dps position/range, and then start carefully weaving optimal shots on the best target at the time. If you add all of that up, that's at least 7.5s worth of GCDS alone, in addition to time spent moving around to peel off one rogue from a friendly caster before you can even be dpsing that much. (In addition, you're not getting any aimed shots up, or keeping any up during this time either.

What would a warrior have to do in a similar situation? Get in LOS and intercept/hamstring, both of which have melee vs caster(hunter) GCDS of 1s.

Aimed shot can still sometimes be a problem, and I find myself relying on rapid fire to get it off in extremely tight situations where the target is running past me or near me. (Since I'm often near the target as I need to drop traps in a local area, and can't do it remotely)

I'm not trying to complain, or whine, or anything like that. Quite the opposite. I LOVE playing a hunter. I'm just trying to relay some of the technical difficulties that they face in an arena-type setting.

The great thing about the hunter, is that they have a ton of abilities. I have far more hotkeys on a hunter than even my warlock. Druid doesn't count because they can reuse the same bar for several forms, thus reusing the same hotkeys. The bad thing about hunter is, you are really required to spend a lot of time doing so many things to be most effective, that other classes can just close their eyes, follow a target around, and spam hemo, ShS, and deadly throw. ;)

36 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glad to see you didn't disappear for good man. Just wanted to make an addendum to your post, I believe the GCD for Warrior is same as everyone else (1.5 sec) ... it's only Rogue and Druid Cat that runs 1.0 sec GCD.

Anonymous said...

Good observation on the GCD issues... I'm so used to it already, that I didn't thought about it.

I hope you still have an eye on pet scaling. Resilience, hit and maybe crit scaling should be looked at. Something, you should know from two classes you play ;)

In BGs we're godlike (although the new spirit rule had a major impact on drinking time), PvE we're up there with the best, but in the arena … well, that's another story.

Strenghten the arena viability without touching BGs and PvE is the key and very hard to accomplish, GCDs might be a good way for it to go. But will it give us enough to not being dependent on a druid?

Why is the druid the best (and nearly the only viable) partner class for a hunter?

The things that come up to my mind are the following:
They are good at escaping threats by themselves (because it takes us too much time to help out any other healer). Bearstun, cyclone and roots gives us the timegaps we need to regain terrain on our GCD race and repositioning (a major issue). Best partner for the long time drain game (having undrainable forms, being able to gain drinking time). Can abolish crippling poison.

Hell, a lot has to do with our GCDs, how can I have been so blind about it?

So, what do we need to run with another partner?
Snare removal? More abilities per sec (GCD lowering)? Better burst (not needing to play the draingame)? An escape route (being able to survive without a ticking HoT, regaining terrain without the help of cyclone, bearstun and roots)? Better protection for our partner (throwable traps or lower trap CD, a change to scatter)?
Just to mention a thew directions to think of.

Good work Leiah, now keep the devs informed ;)

Anonymous said...

1. Hunters are least represented in arenas (2v2+3v3+5v5). Can't speak much about it other that with Disc priest it was nightmare to try (reached 1.7-1.8 in 14days, stopped) in s3 (2.3).

2. Hunters are least represented in current End Game(T6+) PvE.
Not to spam your blog...EU Suggestion Forum: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=3405082267&sid=1

Anonymous said...

Hunters and locks both suffer from the same "focus fire" syndrome. Hard to fix it in larger brackets without majorely impacting impacting the smaller one.

Sam said...

Thanks, guys. I appreciate the input. I was pretty sure warrior gcd was 1.0s, but then again I haven't played one since before TBC.

I'll look into that, Zek. Thanks.

Draele said...

Good info! It really makes me reminisce on my days as a Hunter. One thing I must say I really miss about the class was Feign trapping. I think being having to drop traps OOC broke the fun to a point(truth be told I haven't played the hunter much since TBC) but even still I do miss it.

And I'm not trying to be flamebait here but they really do need to make Warriors require a little more micro. IMO the effectiveness of a class should stem from your group comp synergies and the level of micro you can commit to. I honestly can't say Warriors deserve their current spot in the arena hierarchy with the minimal amount of micro required to play the class at its peak. In a nutshell? The difference between a good Warrior and a bad Warrior is too small. I know there are people playing Warriors who would be up to snuff if the class was tougher to PvP with, but many others would fall to the wayside as they should.

Anonymous said...

Warrior GCD is 1.5 sec.

However, stance changing has a 1 sec gcd.

Anonymous said...

no, leave warriors as is! i need my easy shoulders.

Anonymous said...

No, no shoulders for you! Die Maso!

Sam said...

Well, if my predictions are correct, I don't see a nerfing of warriors, but a buffing (or dumbing down, however you look at it) of hunters... probably along the lines of being less restrictive on their shot rotation to provide optimal dps.

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry, but I just can't help seeing a lot of what you're saying here as nothing more than class-biased whining. Normally I didn't get that from your 'lock, Druid, and even earlier Hunter posts.

The Hunter class has the potential to be #1 on the SK Top 100 charts, and has already been with Cherekee and Megatf. I don't see anything wrong with certain classes requiring more skill to play at a high level so long as it truly rewards those players talented and dedicated enough to reach that level. The Hunter class does that.

In the argument of further Hunter buffs versus long-awaited Warrior nerfs, I believe that a vast majority of the serious arena community would agree that Warrior nerfs should win out. Perhaps something as simple as a positional requirement for Mortal Strike would suffice to add more skill both to playing as a Warrior and to playing against a Warrior.

All in all though, requesting further Hunter buffs is quite a bit out of line considering how much the class absolutely shits on cloth now. Who cares if you have to know how to play to peel a melee? At least you still have the ability to do it. The tools are there, you just have to work harder to pull it off. Kind of like a Mage against a Warlock; the tools are there for the Mage to best the 'lock. The Mage just has to work harder to do it as opposed to sleep walking through the process like he would against a Warrior.

My overall point here is that, if Blizzard is truly committed to increasing the e-sport cred of WoW, dumbing down classes that are quite rewarding in the hands of a skilled player is the last thing they need to be doing.

Sam said...

I understand, and I don't personally agree with dumbing down of any classes. I hate it. I think the game is easy enough, and nothing needs to be automated even further. I couldn't believe that they were even considering letting multi-target attacks ignore CC'd targets for 2.4 That was insane.

The very reason I love playing a hunter is because it takes more skill to play. I am not saying it's too hard to play, I'm just saying that it's relatively harder to be good at than the others. Rogue/warrior for example I can't stand playing because of the mind-numbing simplicity.

Call it what you will, but I think we're probably more in agreement than you may think.

That doesn't mean my predictions will change, however. Those are based off of something other than my own personal wants entirely.

Anonymous said...

I've played 6 classes up to level 60+, and I have to say that Hunter is by far my favorite class to play in part because of the skill requirement and how much needs to be anticipated. (I play a druid, lock and hunter in 70 arenas.)

My hunter at this point is still new to arena (I'm kind of a lock reroll due to 2.4) so I'm not sure how to help out hunters in arena only while leaving them "as is" in bgs and raids. However, my major complaints with the class are two-fold. Like locks, hunters have mobility and escape issues. Granted, hunters have frost traps, wing clip, scatter shot and concussive shot, but what makes rogues and warriors OP in my mind is their mobility, not the damage that they do.

The second issue is hunter mana inefficiency. Hunters in my opinion are as mana-inefficient as locks, but do not have a lifetap/rage/energy mechanism like other classes. Couple that with a small mana pool and horrendous regen abilities and you find a class that is severely gimped in outlast fights.

Anonymous said...

I am the anonymous poster right above Leiah's last response.

I've played a Warrior to 60, and did quite a bit of PvP with him when AB was all the rage and there were 1-2 organized groups per server churning out GM's every couple weeks. I've also played and arena'd with a Mage (2k+ 5v5 early S2), a Rogue (just hit 1850 2v2, was a fresh reroll on a new server after start of S3), and a Druid (given to me by a friend who was over 2k in 3v3 and 2v2).

Leiah, I have to say that you're a bit off base in saying that Rogue is as simplistic a class as Warrior. In my direct experience with both classes, while it is true that both have one general attack that is used to do the majority of the damage, Rogue on the whole takes quite a bit more skill and finesse to play than Warrior. There is a lot more to being successful with a Rogue in 2v2 than just spamming Hemo and partnering with a healing class for a relatively free ride to 2k+.

Personally, I play Rog/Mage, and I must tell you that the comp requires a level of play not reachable by the average player of either class. When I was bg'ing with my Warrior, give me a Paladin (remember, this was before Resto Druids were good), and we could hold down a node in AB against greater numbers while I just moved from target to target using Hamstring and MS. So I do agree in full that, of all the classes in WoW, it would be safe to say that Warrior is far and away the easiest to play. Just don't be so quick to lump Rogue in with Warrior based solely on the fact that they do share some characteristics.

I do understand that your predictions are based on solid info. There's no questioning that. But I do remember some time ago, early on in Season 1 when there was a Warlock whine fest about how 'locks were getting their asses handed to them in arena, Kalgan came to the boards and basically told them to L2P because, regardless of the metrics, he knew the potential of the class once the gear fleshed out and in the hands of a talented player. I remember having a conversation with Ming at the time regarding the very same topic, and sure enough, come late Season 1 through Season 2, and early into Season 3 before melee got all of their armor ignoring gear, Warlocks were quite the force to be reckoned with in arena.

Now it sounds to me like Mr. Chilton may be considering further changes based on metrics while ignoring the very lesson he himself taught everyone in the case of Warlocks. Granted, the gear has had time to flesh out. But, again, the potential of the Hunter class has been well demonstrated by players like Cherekee and Megatf. Buffing based entirely on the metrics saying that their aren't a lot of Hunters in the upper echelons of arena despite the class being very, very powerful in the right hands sounds like it has the potential to create a disgustingly overpowered class.

So, point being, if we agree that further buffing Hunters is a bad idea, please try to make it a point to use your superpowers for good, remind Kalgan of when he told the 'locks to L2P because he knew what the class was capable of in the right hands, and discourage buffs because the metrics are bad. I think it's time for people to start to realize that it may be true that the Hunter class has, for whatever reason, drawn more people to it that are of questionable skill, and that it's time for people to L2P.

Sam said...

This is probably the best reply I've seen in a long time.

First, I realize that rogue takes more finesse to play 'well' than a warrior does. I've played several rogues myself, all the way back from wow alpha, to raiding mc/bwl/aq/, to doing the GM grind pre tbc, as well as in TBC (and it's alpha/beta). That's probably why I can't stomach playing one anymore. I still would argue that the skill cap needed to truly excel on a rogue is lower than that of a hunter, however.

Tom is well versed in intricate detail exactly how much skill is required to play each class. He thinks rogues are one of those classes that requires a lot of finesse to be good at, same with mage (which also requires good twitch skills).

His main fault is sometimes caving in to the QQ (hello previous priest buffs), as he simply does not have time to play each class competitively and expect to work 40-50 hours a week on top of having a life outside of the game as well. Noone would. So yeah, he depends on players that he feels have a very solid understanding of not only their own class, but class balance as a whole to provide him quality and solid feedback. Does he rely solely on this to make decisions? Nope, it's simply a starting point for internal investigations and play-testing.

Now, that being said, I think the only thing in question at this point when it comes to possible hunter changes right now is how much micromanagement is needed to optimize their shot rotation, and that it may be lessened.

The only other real thing that needs to be more closely looked at going into the future, is getting GEAR to be more balanced. This is just as important as class balance itself, as all classes rely heavily on the very gear they use to perform at certain levels.

Armor pen on pvp gear, for example, was put it to counter act the higher armor numbers on S2 gear, which in turn was put in to counteract the armor pen on PvE T6 style gear. It's a very messy cycle.

Draele said...

This extends maybe a little further beyond the immediate discussion, but I'd like to genuinely see Blizzard make attempts to give every spec a larger degree of micro *potential*. As Leiah knows all too well I always like to bring up how much more intricate Affliction is to raid with compared to most every other DPS class. When I talk about Affliction scaling and all that mess (go read my blog if you want that I won't bore you with it here much of my though process behind that comes from such an utter distaste for so many other classes/specs. Sure, Affliction is pretty badass in theme, but if Destruction or Demonology required more micromanagement than currently I might be less inclined to continually bitch about Affliction and simply switch specs to whatever is more effective.

Good players tend to like complex gameplay. When most things are 1 button mash borefests of course you're going to get people latching on to particuar specs because of the uniquely engaging gameplay offered by them. If all specs were uniquely engaging as others we'd have less bickering on the whole.

Anonymous said...

Blizz's goal should be to balance classes on every skill level. The only way this could ever be possible is, to let all classes have the same skill:performance ratio.

Hunters may be balanced at a very high skill level but due to their curve being one of the most steepest, the majority of hunters, me inclueded, feel that they are underpowered in low through average to good skill levels. Only the few extremly skilled think the hunter is balanced.

Warriors on the other hand have a very flat, if not linear (bad people say even horizontal) skill:performace curve. If he's balanced in the top skill levels, he is definately overpowered in the lower skill levels, due to people being able to reach his full performance potential with a smaller amount of skill.

So micro management (and with that skill requirement) of all classes should be on pair, at least, in an ideal world.

Another way to even things out would be to set the point of balance at a lower skill level, let's say good instead of extremly good and adjust the curves for all classes from that point to have an equal steepness. This is nearly impossible to achieve, but worth a thought.

So, what makes the hunter one of the most difficult to-master-classes?

I'd say movement and positioning in combination with the amount of many versatile but not so powerful skills.

Versatility needs a lot of skill to draw the maximum performance out of, while less versatile, but more powerfull skills are easely understood and therefore less skill is required to gain maximum performance out of them.

Movement and positioning is easiest explained, if you compare the hunter to a meleeDD and a caster/healer. The melee has two obvious places to be: on target or in cover. He simply can not choose from more options. With pillars he can sometimes be on target and in cover, but as the target moves, we're back on the initial two possibilities.

The caster/healer has a bigger field of possibilities to stand, with a lot of ways to stand on target and in cover. Thus more options resulting in more skill needed to choose the right position. Limited only through range and line of sight.

Now let's take a look at the hunter. He is more of a caster/healer type, than a melee and yet there is a big difference. He has a lot of range limitations, a lot of abilities only being able to use close on target, while being there most of his ranged abilities are not available. And with traps needing to being triggered, while having an arming time a mucher bigger dependance on anticipation comes into play as well.
The constant movement to target (one way), to where target will be in 3s (one way but difficult to estimate) and away from target for unloading dps (360 degrees of possibilities to choose from) combined with his versatility and his constant struggle against the GCD results in much more game breaking desicions to be made by the hunter than any other class and this results in the steep skill:performance curve.

The reduction on the famous deadzone was a form of flatten this curve. Highly skilled players found it just a little bit easier to play, while the majority gained much more out of this change.

Even if I think of myself as a more than average to good player (far from very good and excellent) I'd preferred if Blizz went the way of making all classes as difficult to play as a hunter instead of "dumbing" every class down. Micromanagement for everybody! But the change was definately a step into the right direction, namely making the curves a bit more similar.

"Easy to play and hard to master" should apply to all classes to the same degree.

Things I could have mentioned as well are pet management and shot rotation. But they aren't a big issue in the arena.

Anonymous said...

Armor pen being added to counteract s2 itemization is laughable. Maybe with s3 alone it could "counter" s2 armor itemization, but with the new crap they've added in 2.4, it's become a little stupid.

I haven't bumped my novel of a post from the Warlock forums because I feel that the emphasis was a little off and that it exaggerated too much.

With EA/SA, melee classes would've been beyond "fine" without armor pen, yet more was still added in 2.4. You see posts in Rogue and Warrior forums about the new revenge badge ring and certain armor pen gear from H MGT, but you rarely see Warlocks or Mages talk about their new badge gear.

I mean, look at the rings. You have the Rogue badge ring, which gives a handsome amount of armor pen and other offensive stats, and then you have the caster DPS ring, which gives hit. The +armor/dodge ring looks FAR more attractive at this point than any other badge item that was added in 2.4.

After having played DRW a few nights to hit 1850, I must say that it isn't quite as easy as I first thought it was, though it's obviously freaking easy if I can hit 1850 in a couple of days after failing to even break 1750 after several days with other comps. The Druid nerfs really hurt this comp, especially against RMP teams. That's the irony, though... you'll see Druids and Paladins nerfed FAR sooner than you'll ever see Warriors get nerfed.

Anonymous said...

It's good to know that Hunter shot rotation micro is really all that's being considered for change right now. My concern though is that the change will directly or indirectly increase overall damage output, and speaking from my Mage's perspective, I'm not entirely sure that a damage increase is warranted. Since the removal of the dead zone, even just straight Steady Shot spam mixed with Arcane Shot to (potentially) remove Ice Barrier can be pretty devastating to cloth. A Hunter in Vengeful with the Vengeful weapon can remove a large chunk of a Mage's or Warlock's HP already given a ~5 second window of LoS. But do Hunters really want to be like Warriors, Rogues, or even Frost Mages in that the majority of their damage will come from the repeated use of a single damaging skill?

As for armor pen, Vengeful caster gear, and overall gear balance in general, I fully agree that gear balance is the area most in need of attention after a few more minor class tweaks. It's a well-known fact that Vengeful melee gear is far and away more impactful to the user than Vengeful caster gear, and it is because of armor ignore. Look at Glickz armory. His rings and focus on increasing his armor are a direct symptom of what this stat has done to high end arena. Double/triple melee train teams have taken off almost exclusively due to armor ignore and its effect on cloth classes. In fact, I'll venture that Rog/War/Drd will see nowhere near the success in the 3v3 Tournament as it does on live purely because armor ignore doesn't exist on the Tourney realm. I think it's safe to say that this one single stat alone has so negatively impacted arena play that it does warrant not only exclusion in every season from now on, but removal and reallocation from existing PvP gear. As for PvE gear with the stat, those pieces should be reallocated so as to discourage their use in arena. Yes, armor ignore is THAT overpowered.

Going back to Warriors, I have to admit that the upside to the simplistic gameplay offered by the class is that it gives a very visceral game experience. It FEELS like playing a rampaging, ass kicking, battle frenzied WARRIOR when you hit that zen moment that I'm sure all gamers experience at some point. So, other than the fact that it's not engaging on a technical level, I'm not sure it's necessarily a bad thing that the class is relatively simple.

The problem with Warriors is the scaling curve with gear improvements is too steep. Not only is the gear itself relatively too powerful (a problem which I'm sure CAN'T be fixed until WotLK), but the benefits seen by the Warrior class from gear upgrades are much more dramatic than that seen by other classes. Especially casters and healers, but even Rogues to a lesser extent. However, I'm sure Warrior scaling inherent to the class itself is by design, so the answer does indeed lie in the gear.

If I'm not mistaken, isn't it Furor that leads quest and gear design? It's definitely time Kalgan reined him on final boss 2H'ers. :)

Sam said...

I don't think the goal is to force hunters to use repetitive keystrokes to achieve the same or similar results as a warrior, but rather make the shot rotation more forgiving in a more mobile setting where constant repositioning is crucial. That's my assumption, anyways.

Anonymous said...

Ah, I see what you're saying.

I wonder if there's a way to implement Auto Shot to function while moving but at a significant chance to miss (25%?), similar to the mechanic in shooters of looking down the sights (stopping to fire) and shooting from the hip (firing while moving).

Sam said...

Not sure exactly, but I have a feeling that the clipping of auto shots/steady shots, autoshot reset timers, and those sorts of things are being re-evaluated first.

But yeah, as you mentioned earlier, a DPS upgrade is probably not ideal. I almost feel sorry for mages on any RMP team we face (We play hunter/lock/druid). They get torn apart so ridiculously fast if they go for anyone but me first, and even then, I'm still able to put a lot of pressure on the mage and his elementals the entire game, while putting viper on his healer.

Then again, we get torn in half by druid/warrior/rogue. :/ I think we're going to have our lock swap out with a mage to counter those teams.

Anonymous said...

I've got a couple of things I'd like to try on the lock first still before completely switching classes to counter them. That will more than likely be the most efficient way to do it though, in which case I'll have ze mage ready to go.

Anonymous said...

So would you say that the current dynamic feels like how it would be if Slam was the Warrior's main attack? If Steady Shot and Auto Shot resolve simultaneously, the Auto Shot is lost, right? Could you clarify what you mean by "autoshot reset timers"?

And yeah, you should pity those poor Mages. To be honest, as my Mage, I never feared Warlocks at any point in the game as much as I fear Hunters now. With the removal of the dead zone, there's just no way as a Mage to mitigate the barrage of damage put out by the Hunter and his pet. 2.4 Icy Veins helps, but I feel like it's better used to get an uninterrupted Polymorph cast off so I can run the other way than anything else. And I'm not surprised that Hunt/Lock/Drd poops all over RMP. That's what I'm going to be playing on my Druid once I get a bit more comfortable with the class.

Against RWD, you're getting torn in half by armor pen and train the 'lock, yeah? I'm not sure that switching the 'lock for a Mage is the right play as RWD can shift into super-defensive mode and LoS most of your damage as you don't have a class that like Rogue that can really lock a target down and allow your ranged to unload, barring Entrapment procs of course. What about Rog/Hunt/Drd? Use the amazing Warrior control synergy of the Hunt/Drd combo, put your Rogue on their Rogue, and you as the Hunter assist DPS on their Rogue when the Warrior is effectively controlled.

Anonymous said...

In my experience with DRH, the Hunter is still very vulnerable to the melee train and your Druid will eventually run oom healing him or get owned by a quick switch. Then again, I'm pretty sure my Druid and Hunter partners aren't very good, and I'm not exactly the best Rogue in the world (especially since I was running Mut at the time).

I believed at first that DRW was a good counter for RMP, but a competitive RMP team (which basically means it has a good Mage) can outpressure a DRW team with some early, heavy damage on the Warrior. The best counters to RMP include either a Warlock or a Hunter, IMO.

Sam said...

Well I can't clarify, because I'm not the one implementing any changes. I'm just saying that I know that those areas are being reviewed. And yea, imagine playing a warrior where half of your DPS came from slam instead of instant MS/auto swings which are on independent timers. I think that's the mechanic that's getting looked at. What they do with it, however, is not up to me. I play, I test, I express concerns and difficulties that a class has (or things that I think are OP), and it gets looked at and, possibly, changed. That's how it works.

We don't have a problem with WRD focusing the lock down. We can stack up hots on the warrior and burn him down while keeping the druid CC'd. This is one of those times where aimed shot really comes into play. It's a burn or be burned fight.

If they go for me, however, we don't have the DPS output or MS effect to down the warrior.

Sam said...

Er, we can stack up dots on the warrior, rather. :P

Anonymous said...

Yea, at first they were just assisting me down and winning like that. So we switched up our strat some (and my gear/spec, for that matter. Resolute Cape + Violet Signet of the Grand Protector FTW) and took them 2-3 games in a row just fine. Then they switched up their strat again and more or less zerg the hunter instead. That's when we run into even more issues. As SL/SL I simply cannot put out enough offensive pressure to possibly kill anything. Beyond that, they rotate their CC chains on me to lock out my CC as much as possible. Then whenever they get a quick break, switch and CC our druid and bam down goes the hunter. So I'm thinking about playing with a felguard variation, or just maybe a Destruction hybrid, even and seeing if that helps against this particular comp.

Anonymous said...

So, don't you guys think that Socio having to look for armor items that are not even made for casters in addition to all the caster pvp items he can get just to be viable in arena today as opposed to for example rogues who comfortably mix pve/pvp gear and still be viable a problem with the game currently?

Anonymous said...

It's quite obvious that Warlocks and other casters are in a jam atm with EA/SA and armor penetration that only improved with patch 2.4. I know that the devs are often behind and misguied in their changes, but it would take a complete and total retard not to know where things at headed atm.

The real question is whether or not they will address this before they make us pay another 50 or so bucks for it in WoLK.

Anonymous said...

@Rayvik: I can live with hunters not getting buffed but it's pretty evident that rogues need nerfs. If Rogues are "balanced" then hunters definitely need buffs.

Anonymous said...

Right now the problem is with the strength of melees relative to other DPS classes, as much as anything. Warriors/Rogues are dominating the upper ranks relative to other DPS classes, while other DPS classes are just barely hanging on(or not).

Mages/Locks are feeling this too right now, not just Hunters. Right now it takes far, far more work to escape melees than it does for those same melees to get into melee range and keep them snared/stunned/etc.

It's a good time to be a melee class in WoW right now, and a challenging time to play a ranged class.

Sam said...

^ Yep.

Anonymous said...

Having looked through a few sites
lately on Hunter representation,
I would think hunters really do
need to get looked at first.

They are a large part of the games
population, with poor numbers overall

Another issue I see with Hunters
are their lack of an oh $hit button
under FF.
Rogue = CloS, Cheat Death, Evasion
Lock = Fear, SL/SL, drain tanking.
Mage = Iceblock, Blink, FN
Pally = Shield
Priest, PS, Shield, Scream.
I'm sure you're getting my point.
While under FF, these classes have
an option to do something to mitigate
incoming damage and give the rest
of the group time add more survivability for them.

This doesn't seem to be as big an
issue in 2/ and 3's because Hunters
are actually fairly good at single
target management.

Anyway, just some extra food for thought

Anonymous said...

You do realize none of the things you've listed for a warlock have anything anywhere close to being comparable with those other classes, right?

Death Coil. That's it. Fear is not a valid option compared to the multitude of instants you've listed of other classes. A 1.5 second cast doesn't cut it. I'll give you Drain Tanking, but that is the only other thing even close to comparable, and that's channeled so interrupting/stunning/whatever is quite easy. Deep Affliction has instant howl, deep Demo has FG intercept if he's in the correct range, deep Destruction kinda has Shadowfury, though it still needs to be casted.

On the flip side, with a hunter you have Feign Death, Scatter Shot, Freezing Traps, Deterrence which are all instant. (Barring traps activation timer, of course, so you can discount that if you'd like.)

I'm not here to say hunters have better survivability or anything, but if you're going to compare abilities/talents that help alleviate pressure, at least list those as well. All of the things you've listed are activated instantly for all of those classes with the exception of the warlock. So I think the way I state it shows that more clearly/fairly.

Anonymous said...

The sad part is that although most of the people playing high end arena admit that melee is dominating right now; I don't think Blizzard is going to do anything about it before the expansion.

On a brighter note I have been trying Warhammer Online for sometime now and it actually has awesome pvp for all of you pvp junkies out there :).

/Vague