Post by Interest
I am going to say right off that yes, this is a QQ thread. For this thread I am going to describe the utility/abilities that a Hunter (not so much the pet, I will explain why below) has that I find to be far inferior to other abilities. I am aware that Hunters do have some good potentially good utility, but it's clear there are flaws that I will point out below.
Crowd Controls (Abilities that cause loss of control):Freezing Trap: This ability is possibly one of the worst crowd controls in the game as of now. It breaks on any form of damage, has a relatively long (30 second) cooldown, and is hard to use if you couple it with
Trap Launcher (2 button presses, then you have to aim on the map and click). The skill cap required for such an ability, especially in a PvP situation or in a pinch (like say that Rogue's Sap breaks halfway through the pull in that Heroic Grim Batol you're doing) is rather high and it's irritating that we need to do 3 actions when most other classes can do one. On top of that, to properly set up a Freezing Trap (mostly in PvP scenarios), Scatter Shot also has to be used. Finally, this trap shares a cooldown with one of our best support traps, Ice Trap. Did I mention the trap has a 1 second arming time?
4.0.6 change: This no longer can affect more than a single target at a time. This doesn't impact PvP much but it sure as heck affects Hunter CC potential in PvE, where it does act as a decent compensation for the clunkiness and other weaknesses of the Freezing Trap.
Scatter Shot: I will say that I do actually like this shot. It's quite a versatile ability to use now that it's baseline. It can be used to interrupt spells and be a short term CC to buy some time. The issue is that it also breaks on damage and is coupled with a long cooldown. It's also one of the only ways to reliably get traps to go off in a PvP situation. Scatter Shot also makes the target run around really wildly, going as far as 8-10 yards from where it was before. This means it could move off the trap.
Wyvern Sting: This ability has a 1 minute cooldown and a 30 second duration and is a Survival only talent. The issue is that it leaves a damage-over-time effect, preventing the use of other CCs should the Hunter or anyone else choose to use them. Also, it doesn't grant the Hunter a damage bonus from
Noxious Stings like Serpent Sting does (has its own effect). The reason this is such an issue is because the two abilities cannot be applied to the same target at the same time.
Intimidation: After most of the changes to it, I don't actually have too many issues with this specific ability. However, it does leave something to be desired for PvE Beast Mastery Hunters who only otherwise have a few other abilities to use. In addition, it stuns for less time than a
Hammer of Justice, yet has the same cooldown and requires the Hunter's pet to be alive (more on this later) and in melee range of the target. What's with these double standards? *shrug* At least we get a stun though, even though it is inferior to
Every other stun. (Probably didn't get em all).
Other Offensive Utility:Wing Clip: Ever had those annoying streaks of being dodged and parried by that melee who's killing you while you Wing Clip and try to get away? There you go. Though Hamstring and other melee-based snares also suffer the same issues, Hunters do not use the Expertise stat, as that would be too much on top of the Spell Pen, Hit Rating, and other stats we would need for PvP (also a pain in PvE to have your Wing Clip dodged or parried).
Counterattack: Ugh...One of THE worst talents in the Hunter tree right now. It has a 5% chance to be usable when attacked (equal to Parry chance) prior to taking Expertise into account, with exception to blowing our Deterrence to get a Parry then use it when Deterrence ends (or is canceled). Almost no Hunter takes this talent because of that. The root effect just isn't worth it.
Entrapment: I actually don't have much of a problem with this. It is tied to two of our 30 second cooldowns though (one of these 30 second cooldowns is tied to our Freezing Trap as well), but we at least can use Snake Trap to assure a root effect on one target.
Concussive Shot/Other Dazing Effects (Like Concussive Barrage): Don't have much of an issue here either, though having to press a button just to snare or specializing into Marksmanship to get a damaging snare isn't exactly my cup of tea (hello
Frostbolt, Arcane Blast +
Nether Vortex,
Blast Wave,
Crippling Poison,
Deadly Brew,
Waylay,
Blade Twisting, etc). Concussive Shot at least has 120% uptime when glyphed. It's not bad, but it's not amazing.
Chimera Shot Disarm: This is gone. Even though it had a 1 minute cooldown that only disarmed the main hand weapon (making it the most inferior disarm, as it doesn't even disarm ranged weapons), it was at least a disarm we could use. Scorpid Sting (-3% chance to hit) is also gone. Sad days D: (pet disarm has been there).
Viper Sting: Our ability to drain mana is also gone. Sad days. This one, at least, makes a bit of sense though, since now we use Focus and not mana. (Also, mana drain mechanics are pretty strong in general which is why they don't really exist nowadays).
Widow Venom: This honestly makes me a tad annoyed. Why does this one cost focus but the
pet equivalent not? On top of that, we have to waste a global on ours, and all it does is apply a healing reduction effect. It does not damage and is not tied into any abilities, so no, Aimed Shot no longer applies such an effect. However, on the other hand, there's
Mortal Strike,
Furious Attacks,
Permafrost,
Wound Poison,
Improved Mind Blast, and
Legion Strike, which all have some sort of secondary effect. Just...wtf?
Tranquilizing Shot: Though this ability does dispel both Enrages and Magic effects, it comes at the cost of being one of the worst dispels in both types of dispelling classes.
On the Enrage Dispelling side, there is
Soothe, which costs negligible amounts of mana in comparison to the Focus cost we have to use (6% base mana vs 20 Focus) and it removes ALL enrages (handy against those annoying protection warriors). The drawback is the 1.5 second cast time. (Now instant cast again)
Then there's
Shiv, which on average costs about 35 energy. However, ignoring the fact Energy regen is generally superior, Shiv also grants a combo point, applies poison automatically, AND deals some melee damage, something Tranquilizing Shot does none of. Pretty much, the Rogue can keep the rhythm of dpsing, but a Hunter has to pool some Focus and shoot it off at the right time. Shiv does have a melee requirement though (but Tranquilizing has a travel time D:).
On the Magic Dispelling side, we have
Purge and
Dispel Magic, which both remove 2 Magical buffs when used for a mana cost that isn't TOO bad. There's also
Spellsteal, which, while it does have a chance to fail and also costs a bit of mana, gives the Mage the buffs when taken, which can be quite powerful indeed (lol Hodir hard mode).
Shield Slam deals damage and dispels magic. Even
Devour Magic is superior, as it is a pet ability and also heals said pet.
The point is, Tranquilizing Shot is just a middle ground, but it's a really awful one considering it has a pretty high resource cost coupled with the lack of any other effects. I rarely see Hunters using this anymore because only one type of dispel is needed at any one point in time, never really both.
Oh also, the shot has a 35 yard range while most of our other shots are 40. Why?
Followup: Tranquilizing Shot isn't actually that bad. It does have the advantage of being usable vs. more classes and specs at any given time. I guess that's a strength in itself.
Silencing Shot: This shot is also 35 yards in range and is outclassed by the other long range interrupts/silences in that it only lasts for 3 seconds despite the fact the cooldown is 20 seconds.
Spell Lock and
Counterspell both effectively last longer for 6/8 seconds for interrupting and 3/4 seconds for silencing (though a mage does have to specialize Counterspell). Both have a 24 second cooldown. (Wind Shear has a shorter range, so it was not included in this, but it is quite a potent interrupt in its own right) The reason I consider Spell Lock superior is because it is a pet ability and interrupts longer.
This ability is Marksmanship-exclusive, by the way.
Defensive Mechanics
Deterrence: Possibly the worst defensive cooldown of its type. It increases parry chance by 100% and makes every spell/ranged attack get deflected or miss. The problem is unlike other similar defensive cooldowns, this one flat out lets some attacks through, and debuffs still persist. Damage otherwise taken isn't reduced in any way whatsoever. Why do we have to get the worst of both worlds on this defensive cooldown? I'd rather have a 20 minute cooldown
Ice Block or a
Barkskin with the same (2 minute) cooldown that Deterrence now has.
Also, this ability requires you to have a melee weapon, so if you're Disarmed and not dual wielding, you are screwed out of using this ability. In addition, you pacify yourself for the duration of Deterrence. Have that cancelaura macro ready!
Followup: With the recent changes, Deterrence no longer requires a weapon and can be used while Disarmed. This makes the ability a lot stronger thhan before. It is also now much more reliable in general (attacks are properly deflected). It, unfortunately, still does nothing about debuffs on the Hunter, which puts it a little bit on the weak side, making it more of a psuedo-invulnerability.
Disengage: Our main way to get away from stuff. Though it's far better than its old mechanic (crappy melee range threat drop), launching yourself many yards backwards has the potential to send you over hills and cliffs (Blink does not do this) or be stopped by even the slightest slope of sorts. As one of our true gap openers, it has a longer cooldown than Blink does and has no additional effects. It also cannot be used while Rooted. The list goes on.
Followup: There's a lot of annoying mishaps related to Disengage (and some other "traveling" abilities). For instance, a Hunter being crowd controlled mid-Disengage will actually cancel the entire effect. If the effect happens simultaneously as a crowd control effect, it will often use the cooldown. Charge, Intercept, and Blink (to a degree, but not often), also have this issue.
Feign Death Excellent for soloing and PvE now that it can no longer be resisted. The only issue I have with it for that front is that you have to wait a bit for the threat to drop properly. In PvP, however, it leaves something to be desired, as a simple macro can immediately target the Hunter even though he or she is feigning death. Good when used strategically, but could be better.
Followup: The macro to negate this effect is /targetlasttarget. This is also handy for interrupting casts and for a quick, brief second of fresh air...Still, it's not that great. I guess this can be considered a bonus cooldown though.
Master's Call: It has a 1 minute cooldown and removes all snares and roots from the pet and the friendly target (often yourself), then makes you immune to them for 4 seconds. The problem here is twofold. The first issue is that the cooldown is just simply too long and snares and roots can easily be reapplied after the immunity effect is over. The second issue is that the ability is tied to your pet. Not only does your pet have to be in LoS of the target (it triggers the cooldown sometime but does nothing if not), but you lose potential dps from your pet as it has to run back to the target and if your pet is dead, you're out of luck.
Followup: This now has a 45 second cd. I forgot to mention this can be glyphed to last 8 seconds. It is effectively the same thing as Hand of Freedom (assuming they are both specced and glyphed to maximum potential), but with somewhere around twice the cooldown and more requirements as mentioned above. It, like Hand of Freedom, is now dispellable. To be honest, I don't know whether the reduced cooldown, but dispellable quality is a boon or not. It is handy to have it for friends though (yes this can be cast on other players, but again, the pet must be in LoS of that target).
Bestial Wrath/The Beast Within It is now a PvP trinket rather than granting the Hunter immunity to all crowd controlling effects. This is a massive nerf for PvP. Still excellent for PvE though.
Followup: Not sure how this made it on the list to begin with. It was pretty obvious the old version of Bestial Wrath (granting total CC immunity) was too strong. The problem with this new version is the duration seems a little short. I would love to see a duration extension at the expense of the benefits being reduced for BM QoL.
Other Stuff:Misdirection vs Tricks of the Trade: Once upon a time, Hunters had a small niche in the PvE setting. It was the awesomeness of threat redirection. It wasn't absolutely amazing, but used properly, it could turn the tide of certain encounters and make it much easier for the group as a whole. This was BC raiding (lol I know BM was a 1 button rotation, btw), and being able to fill such a niche was glorious, despite our shortcomings in the new arena PvP system. But then Wrath of the Lich King came, and Tricks of the Trade was given to Rogues. Though it cost them a bit of energy, it gave the target a 15% damage bonus which always lasted for 6 seconds (Misdirection back in the day redirected three attacks only, until they changed it in a patch in Wrath) and also redirected the Rogue's threat. Now, Rogues could fill our niche, but on top of that, Rogues were given something more. They were given a tool of absolute destruction that allowed them to turn the tides of any battle, PvE or PvP, because the damage bonus could mean the different between a 1% wipe and a successful kill, or that 2250 rating by killing off that annoying Resto Druid and absolute failure.
Then Misdirection was changed to at least redirect threat for a short duration rather than for three attacks, and Hunters were glad and rejoiced, but it was still...lacking.
Actually to be honest, it's not really a massive deal to me, as Misdirection has a myriad of uses in PvE. It's just a little saddening that another class got something that's easily miles better (there was also a set effect balanced around it in which Tricks actually gave the Rogue energy). Threat redirection shouldn't be Hunter exclusive though, so I'll give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt here. Just wanted to point out how Misdirection is a bit inferior. (Btw, Rogue Throw does redirect threat through Tricks).
Revive Pet/Pet Survivability/Pet Utility: Revive Pet is a 10 second cast that can't be talented, and as if that weren't enough, also costs 35 Focus. In comparison, Warlocks can
instantly summon their pets multiple times, and have a 6 second summon time even after all that. Unholy Death Knights can also
summon their pets instantly, abeit on a 2 minute cooldown. Water Elementals
summoned by Frost Mages are also instantaneous.
In addition, the
Warlocks and
Mages can keep dpsing to keep their pets alive and Death Knight pets can make themselves quite
durable with no penalty like
Hunter pets (at some times. I know that's a Dark Transformation ability). We have to use
Mend Pet to keep our pet alive (Death Knights can use
Death Coil on theirs. Breaking news: This heals a shockingly large amount of over 10k consistently, and it effectively only costs 20 Runic Power with the glyph for it).
For pet talents we have to sacrifice damage to take the
pet survivability talents (some of which are exceptionally talent tree exclusive. I will mention Cunning pets do have an edge here and can take quite a few survivability talents without much sacrifice)...
Our pets can provide one buff or debuff, and only have a single Basic Attack, but some other pets, like Felguard or Felhunter or Death Knight Ghoul, can provide multiple forms of support (Felstorm + Axe Throw, Devour Magic + Fel Intelligence, Gnaw +
interrupts). Water Elemental allows
mages to do significantly more damage through the use of abilities.
And so on.
Followup: There are a few things worth noting here. Unholy Ghouls do suffer a penalty from using Huddle (it makes them unable to do anything), so outside of Dark Transformation they don't have much defensive utility. Mend Pet is a dispellable effect. God forbid someone actually dispel it, but it's worth noting. In addition, where Hunters lack in having multiple tools for their pet, they do have access to a vast quantity. The problem with this is Hunters often use a certain type of pets (Tenacity or, more likely, Cunning), which does limit their selection a bit. In addition, Hunters only really choose to use a certain type of utility (Monkey Blind, for instance) due to it being superior to that of other pets, which leads back to the fact Hunter pets do have a bit "less" utility overall.
I also forgot to mention pets can specialize into a couple utility tools. Some of them aren't all that great, but a couple are at least decent if you're willing to spare the points. Of course, this is based solely on pet type.
One last thing: I observed that in Arena settings players have to actually summon their pets. Unfortunately, this means Death Knights and Mages will end up with having their pet (re)summon on cooldown for the early parts of a match, leaving the pets vulnerable to dying and not being resurrected, which puts the masters into somewhat similar situations as a Hunter whose pet dies at any point in time of the match (less utility, less survivability possibly, etc).
Self-Healing/Dealing With Damage (specifically DoTs): I believe this is the last category before I close.
Ignoring Beast Mastery's
excellent form of healing (thumbs up big time on this), Hunter's
self healing is rather limited. Chimera Shot requires you to be fighting and eats up 50 Focus each time, all in exchange for approximately 0.5% (0.55% with Spirit Bond) maximum health per seconds. Spirit Bond is tied to your pet, and though any Hunter can now get it, is it really worth it for 0.22% maximum health per second?
Let's check the clocking rate that other self-healing works out at (no bandages or pots or anything else. Just class abilities).
Death Knight: Blood is irrelevant, because it self heals a lot more, but through the use of a
couple abilities, the Death Knight heals 14%/10 + 25%/180 = 1.53888...% maximum health per second (I assumed Raise Dead had a 3 minute cooldown). Death Knights also have a baseline defensive cooldown that negates some damage taken.
Druid: They are a hybrid and can pretty much self-heal at any time. But Feral through
Leader of the Pack alone heals 0.666....% maximum health per second (assuming crits occur every 6 seconds). Again though, Druids have actual healing spells. Barkskin is awesome as well.
Mage: This heal is
specifically on-demand and though it is less than hunters at 0.166...% maximum health per second, it is done all at once and can be done at the time of the Mage's choice (as opposed to Chimera Shotting or having a pet just to heal). Mages can also shield their health with Mana Shield. Thus, they have other ways to prevent health loss (something Hunters don't really have). Arcane's self-healing is doubled in comparison due to a 2 minute Evocate cooldown, making it clock higher than Spirit Bond.
Paladins and Priests: They have healing spells. I'm not going to bother.
Rogues: Through
Recuperate, Rogues heal 0.666% maximum health per second (at the loss of some dps, but then again, so is the use of Death Strike outside the Blood Death Knight's spec). This doubles if a Rogue specs Improved Recuperate (1.333...% maximum health per second). Cloak of Shadows removes all magical debuffs, effectively allowing them to scrub off most (not all) DoTs.
Shaman: They have healing spells. Woo. See a pattern?
Warlock: Fel Armor passively heals 0.4% maximum health per second.
Drain Life (usable only in combat, of course) grants 2% maximum health per second (more when Soulburned and/or specced Affliction, but we won't count that). Corruption, paired with
Siphon Life, has a 50% chance to grant 2% health on each tick. At 0 haste, that's 2% per 6 seconds, or 0.3333..% maximum health per second. Warlocks also get 0.333% health per second through
Soul Leech (counting Chaos Bolt ONLY). Warlocks clearly have a lot of self healing, but they also have ways to
mitigate damage somewhat. Whoa.
Warriors: Through
Field Dressing and
Blood Craze alone (assuming 50% uptime, the Warrior getting hit once every second to allow for this mathematically to occur), the Warrior heals 0.3816% maximum health every second. This isn't the only self-heal Warriors have though.
Enraged Regeneration yields an additional 0.212% maximum health per second (counting Field Dressing) and the list just goes on. Warriors have a few other ways to heal themselves based on spec.
Folowup: Some classes/specs received changes to their self healing mechanics lately. For instance, all direct heals can critically heal for +100% more (Chimera Shot included), but some self healing in general (Fel Armor, for instance, now heals based on damage done, which results in less self healing, although Warlocks can still trump Hunters in raw self healing if Drain Life is used).
Another thing worth noting is there's potential discrepancy in self healing mechanics due to a class' ability to avoid suffering damage. Hunters do have this, and while Deterrence, Disengage, and other such utility do help serve this purpose, Hunters do end up suffering a sizable amount of damage nonetheless.
It is pretty clear Hunters do not have amazing utility to any degree in comparison to other classes. In addition, many classes have nearly the same amount of tools as we do. So where does that put us on the fronts of PvP and PvE? What is worth noting is that Hunters do have a high quantity of utility, but there is also an old saying stating "quality over quantity."
I would like to know. If possible, please answer below. Until then, I've begun to work on at least
correcting some of our issues, (< disclaimer. Link is a work in progress so take it with a grain of salt) as we should have weaknesses like every other class, but these gaping holes that are our faulty utility just simply feels like too much, on top of
other problems we have.
What do you guys think? (Also give me some feedback on my talent tree and spell changes).
DISCLAIMER: There may be some slight exaggeration or untruths in the post. If you see any, please kindly point them out and I will see if I to correcting them, but the point still stands that there are some issues, some that have been in the game since the beginning, it would seem.
Post-post stuff:Apparently here's the Arena representation so far. It might be too early to say, and there's definitely a grain of salt to be taken considering the data was gathered by a certain slightly untrustworthy individual on the Damage Dealing Forums, but the margin for error couldn't even fix this:
Paladin: 14.73%
Mage: 14.52%
Druids: 12.38%
Shaman: 12.12%
Warriors: 10.34%
Warlock: 10.13%
Rogue: 8.46%
Death Knight: 7.94%
Priest: 7.73%
Hunter: 1.61%Edit: 4.3 representations even with buffs and powerful equipment such as Tier 13 and Vial of Shadows at our disposal (3v3, Rating >= 2600):
Priest: 14%
Paladin - 14%
Rogue - 14%
12% (964) +19.70%
10% (805) -0.20%
9% (752) +40.50%
8% (670) -13.20%
8% (634) -25.80%
6% (472) -30.50%
5% (409) -8.70%
The hell...seriously. And Blizzard acknowledged Priests are behind in PvP, but not Hunters?