More like I know what I am talking about Hunters suck in fact this is from the official forum hard to argue with the state of the Hunter class looking at the numbers;

I stopped playing my hunter with the changes. A lot of the people who used to play Hunters, stopped playing, but a lot of hunters who are trying the class out now seem to like it...

 

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Yep, the changes to hunter are mixed bag. I can see why many are unhappy with the changes.

 

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It's about adaptation. Some of the suggestions are on the mark, but you need to feel which ones are and which ones works for you.


If nothing else, use a mark macro to make the pet attack in PvE. If you want the shock of an angry pet attacking your opponent, hold off on the mark in PvP.


That said, there's not going to be a 'right' rotation for you other than the one that you find for yourself . . . suggestions aside.


Good luck.

 

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My first character way back in classic wow was a Nelf hunter. Even back when they were a free HK I played them.

I took a year off and when I came back a couple of months ago have been playing a new mage and pally.

I started a human hunter (since I have honestly wanted one since closed beta) and man, I just can't do it. I really don't like the feel of the new hunter changes.

All that says to me is the bad hunters started playing their paladins because hunters actually take skill now...thanks for proving my point.

 

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Perhaps, but more likely it shows players deserting a broken class in umass!

IF (and I stress the "IF" there) hunters are "broken" it is only by virtue of the complexity of the class compared to others.

It's stupidly simple to DPS as a Mage by comparison to a hunter - spam arcane blast, do missiles on a proc or something. 90% or more of your damage is arcane blast, 10% or less is missiles.

Hunter rotation is a PITA - you've got to fire steady shots in pairs at least in order to keep the haste buff and you've got to do it every 8 seconds. Chimera every 10 seconds or as close to that as you can get. Arcane when Chimera is on CD and you have focus. Alternate between salvos of Chimera and arcane and double taps of steady. The rotation doesn't really repeat on any interval short enough to consider it repeating. It's all reactive.

You have to monitor at all times the following:

Is Improved Steady Shot buff up (only an 8 second duration and only after two consecutive steady shots land)?
Is Chimera off CD?
Is there enough focus for Arcane Shot?
How many Arcanes can I shoot before a) Imp. Steady Shot Buff falls off, b) focus is drained c) Chimera is off CD (gotta make sure you keep Serpent going).
Is instant Aimed Shot procced?
Is my pet dying to some stupid ability that's an AOE but not considered an AOE by some glitch or intentional joke?

If you manage all of those things properly along with your rapid fire and readiness cooldowns as well as kill shot, you'll do competitive DPS on SINGLE target fights only. If it's a boss fight with an add or two, a DK, Paladin, Rogue, Warrior, with as much as 1500 less gear score will out DPS you because of their innate AOE abilities (howling blast, cleave, divine storm, blade flurry).


AOEing as a hunter is MUCH more involved than other classes for basically substandard results.

You've got to toss an explosive trap and hope the tank doesn't move the mobs out of the splash area, launch a multi and a second if you've got the talent for reduced focus cost on a crit multi, and then go to single target DPS. By then, the single button AOE simplicity of a few other classes has all the mobs nearly dead and you're out of focus and looking for something to put 2 steady shots into so you can get the haste buff and regen some more focus for another multi... usually you wind up trying to shoot something with a steady that dies before the steady lands, so you switch targets and repeat the effort for the next 6 or 7 seconds with no focus gain other than baseline and no haste buff.

If you do it all perfectly you'll be well behind other classes with AOE and you'll have carpal tunnel compared to them.

If the dungeon is full of 4 and 5 mob trash pulls you will see DKs, Paladins, and Warriors with as much as 2k less GS doubling your DPS as a hunter since they're able to do their single target rotations which include inherently (or nearly so) multi-target attacks. A well geared paladin tank will also give you a run for your money on overall damage done in such an instance because of their constant AOE damage and the fact that you are constantly trying to single target DPS when everyone else is AOEing because your AOE is not efficient for fewer than like 6 mobs while their single target DPS is twice as efficient on 4 mobs as it is on one.

So, does that make hunters broken? Or does that make other classes broken?

Hunters need volley back for AOE, that's a given, and it needs to be cheap in focus cost. Hunters need some focus changes. The haste buff from Imp. Steady needs to last longer or just be removed and be a part of the spec. Steady needs to return more focus.


Oh yeah, and on fights that don't last long, hunter DPS suffers considerably compared to other classes due to lack of burst, long cooldowns, travel time and interface lag on kill shot.

With all of that said. I am enjoying my hunter now more than I have in a long time. It takes some thought and if you do it right, you get good results. I expect other classes to be tuned to be more demanding and less overpowered going forward. Hunters are now to DPS classes what Warriors have always been to tank classes.

 

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I am not adverse to having to relearn a class due to changes, but the Hunter change to focus has been pretty bad. I played a Shadow Priest through BT in TBC and played my Hunter through ICC in WoTLK so I am very familiar with the tedium of watching timers and such. The Hunter changes were not implemented well and will likely take a year of tweaking before they work ok. As the poster before me stated, it really is a pain in the ass to play atm. That is not skill, it is just tedium.

 

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I really miss the way Marksman Hunters worked.

My orc hunter used to do some pretty serious damage (iirc around 13-17k DPS single target), in PvE I ran MM as my main spec and Surv as OS. MM was my forte and I was the HM biatch this was my 25 man raid group spec, and HUGE volley damage lol. I used the Survival spec for heroic ICC runs, and if we were short of a replenishment buff.

I'm pretty sure our raid leader (and current GM) has switched to BM and isn't happy with it. This guy was pretty beast and I believe he was the first to pet tank Sindragosa 10 man. So much work on H LK 25 I wish I was still subbed for the kill. However I didn't want to continue playing WoW then.

 

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