Having a read this morning, it seems that there's going to be quite a few changes to the classes.
There's a nice long list of tweaks for pretty much every class in the game.
One that does worry me though is this: (The Hunter Nerf)
All Hunter pet abilities with a cooldown of 30 seconds or more are no longer
on the global cooldown.
Aspect of the
Wild - This aspect is now raid-wide.
Call
of the Wild: The benefit from this pet talent now applies to only
the Hunter and their own pet.
Deterrence: Design
changed to grant 100% parry and 100% chance to
"deflect" spells coming
from the front, but prevents the Hunter from attacking.
Lasts 5 sec. 60 sec. cooldown.
Improved
Tracking (Survival): This talent has been slightly re-designed. Now
reads: While tracking Beasts, Demons, Dragonkin, Elementals, Giants, Humanoids
and Undead, all ranged damage done to those types is increased by 1/2/3/4/5%.
Kill
Shot – Cooldown reduced to 15 seconds, down from 35 sec.
Kindred
Spirits: This talent now grants only 3/6/9/12/15% pet damage.
The coefficient of Rake (Cat) and Scorpid
Venom (Scorpid) has been lowered.
Readiness: No longer
resets the cooldown on Bestial Wrath.
Steady Shot: Now
gains 10% of attack power as damage instead of 20%.
Serpent's
Swiftness: This talent now grants only 2/4/6/8/10% bonus attack
speed to pet. The hunter attack speed bonus is unchanged.
Unleashed Fury:
This talent now grants only 3/6/9/12/15% pet damage.
Viper
Sting: Now drains a percentage of maximum mana.
Volley: The
damage has been reduced on all ranks by approximately 30% (including attack
power scaling).
Overall that's a pretty big Nerf, and it concerns me. Not for the reason you might expect, yes I love doing major DPS, and I'll certainly miss 30% off my Volley ability.
When I'm in a dungeon with a good Pally tank, Volley has been known to put out up to 10k DPS on its own.
But most other Hunters I've teamed with can't seem to pull off the same level of damage that I can. And most often they've been at least a couple of steps further down the rankings. I'm not particularly well geared, but I use macros, and tweaks, and haste ratings and all sorts of little tips and tricks to ensure that my DPS is as high as it can possibly be. So why should Blizz care if a couple of Hunters like me can pull off impressive DPS, when the average Hunter is usually no better or worse than anyone else?
My build and play-style has it's disadvantages too. I'm almost always top of the rankings in PvE, but I suck totally at PvP. Anyone who's ever duelled me will back me up on that. Its not just that I'm not a PvP'er, my build is designed around doing the maximum amount of DPS from a distance, while my pet, or a helpful tank takes all the punishment.
The few times that I get aggro, and can't get rid of it, I drop like a fat-girl on bungee. Feign Death and Shadowmeld are my only reasons for survival in cases like this. And anything with enough intelligence to ignore my pet and come straight for me is going to own my arse in seconds.
Why is this any different to other DPS classes?
I've seen others who play their non-Hunter class with alot of skill, and despite being undergeared can still keep up with the crowd.
Losing a % point here and there isn't going to cause me much of a problem, I'm probably still going to out DPS many others, and I'll more than likely be level 80 by the time the patch hits, so it's not going to slow down my levelling speed. But I don't really see the need for such a big nerf.
Is the average Hunter really doing that much damage, or is it just a well-played few?
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