Ohhh! Hunter hotfix for Jan 6th

[Kattii 40]

Aspect of the Hawk now increases ranged attack power by 35% (up from 25%)

Aspect of the Iron Hawk now increases ranged attack power by 35% (up from 25%)

 

A nice dps boost!

 

[Bheleu 3]

Its my Birthday today - a nice gift from Blizzard to me (or at least to my 4 hunters!)

 

Bheleu

[Kattii 40]

Happy Birthday!

It's nice to see some hunter love

[Orthios 271]

Sweet, 8% overall damage increase!

 

And Happy (late) Birthday Bheleu :)

[Zagam 1,982]

Hunter buff confuses me.  DK and Ele Shaman buffs make sense, but I didn't think Hunters were in a bad spot.  My 535 Survival Hunter was bursting to 430k last night and sustaining 220k.  Hunter in my main group has had no issues pushing 380-400k on single target fights.  Going to make MM Hunters even more shitty to deal with in arenas, though.

[Kattii 40]

Hunters have been in the middle of the dps pack for overall damage. Some fights are very hunter friendly, but other classes are clearly pulling more numbers than us.

[Zagam 1,982]

I must play with an exceptional Hunter.  Toofshots on Mal'Ganis (Raidbots link won't work because Mal'Ganis has an apostrophe.)

 

This dude is never out of the top 5.

[Fouton 266]

The 3 buffed classes are actually the 3 on the bottom of raidbots, unsurprisingly, I never realized hunters were in the bottom though, kinda surprising for a pure dps class.

[Zagam 1,982]

The 3 buffed classes are actually the 3 on the bottom of raidbots, unsurprisingly, I never realized hunters were in the bottom though, kinda surprising for a pure dps class.

Um, Survival is at the bottom nowhere...what in the world are you looking at?

[Fouton 266]

... Just click on the dpsbots button and look at the list, the top spec of every class orders so that BM is the best hunter spec, and hunters are the 3rd worst class. 

[Fouton 266]

And just as an argument against everything to come, statistics aren't lies, the people who use them incorrectly, or change things to favor what they want are the liars. Numbers are simply numbers until they are used correctly. Spec Score does a pretty accurate job of that, and is a great example. This is also probably why the bottom 3 classes got a hotfix buff.

[Zagam 1,982]

Not sure what you're looking at.  If you look at all the spec scores across all difficulties, Hunters are MORE than fine.

 

25H Average Spec Score: 74.7 - Best Hunter Score: 74.1

25N Average Spec Score: 84.5 - Best Hunter Score: 87.4

10H Average Spec Score: 76.2 - Best Hunter Score: 81.2

10N Average Spec Score: 81.3 - Best Hunter Score: 87.4

 

If you want to rank best scores with regards to only the best of each class, here's how it looks:

 

25H

1) Destruction Warlock - 90.6

2) Arcane Mage - 89.6

3) Combat Rogue - 86.6

4) Fury Warrior - 86.5

5) Shadow Priest - 80.4

6) Retribution Paladin - 78.8

7) Windwalker Monk - 78.3

8) Balance/Feral Druid - 78.0

9) Enhancement Shaman - 75.3 (Elemental is 72.8)

10) Beast Mastery Hunter - 74.1 (Surv is 74.0)

11) Frost DK - 72.0

 

All three buffs make sense here.  This is a Heroic ranking, so you can assume these players are some of the best at their spec.

 

25N

1) Destruction Warlock - 97.5

2) Combat Rogue - 92.2

3) Fury Warrior - 89.5

4) Shadow Priest - 87.5

5) Survival Hunter - 87.4

6) Frost Mage - 86.1

7) Balance Druid - 84.9

8) Windwalker Monk - 84.9

9) Retribution Paladin - 84.8

10) Elemental Shaman - 84.7

11) Frost DK - 80.1 

 

DK and Elemental buffs make sense but not so much the Surv Hunter.  If you buff Hunters here, it can be argued that WW, Ret, and Balance/Feral need buffed.

 

10H

1) Destruction Warlock - 97.2

2) Fire Mage - 84.6

3) Combat Rogue - 83.9

4) Fury Warrior - 83.4

5) Balance Druid - 82.8

6) Survival Hunter - 81.2

7) Shadow Priest - 80.7

8) Elemental Shaman - 78.6

9) Retribution Paladin - 76.7

10) Windwalker Monk - 74.5

11) Frost DK - 73.2

 

DK buffs, again, make sense.  Buffing Elemental and Hunters without buffing Shadow Priests, Ret, and WW?  Hmm...again, this is 10H, which is arguably tighter tuned than 25H.  10H also has less 'padding' involved. 

 

10N scores are largely irrelevant because by this time in the expansion, those doing 10N runs are alts or more casual players who don't perform their rotations optimally.

 

Overall, I think Hunters got an unnecessary buff.  DK buffs were absolutely called for.  Elemental needs a nice push, too.  Survival and Beast Mastery are better off than Ret and WW.  This is only for PvE, however.  I have a strong feeling that most of this tuning is for PvP since we're getting a new PvP season and no new content for PvE.  PvE changes at this point are irrelevant as buffing Hunters, DKs, and Shamans isn't going to help you kill a boss you were previously struggling with.  Warlocks are out of control, but I warned everyone of this 3 months ago.  No one wanted to listen to me, and here we are with Destro running away with everything all the time.  Wouldn't surprise me to see Destruction brought back a notch so that it's not the only seriously competitive spec.

[Fouton 266]

Your 25H scores are exactly what I'm talking about... The class overall is poor in that setting, not to mention it's a pure dps. So if they're at the bottom they don't get in easily. Every other low dps spec is a hybrid that could change specs if must be.

 

I agree that ret and WW needs a buff, as I said in the other raidbots post I had made. Hunters just aren't doing well either, and they're a pure.

[Zagam 1,982]

See, I think a lot of not serious players play Hunters.  I have a Hunter in my group who is superb.  I've also seen two other stellar Hunters, and my Hunter (just got to 544 with the cloak last night) is performing fantastically.  I'll be gearing him up in my alt run, so I'll get a better feel for them.  I just felt they were fine and other classes needed to be looked at first.  MM hurts in arenas like you couldn't imagine, so I imagine that's why it's remaining shit in PvE.

[Fouton 266]

I would assume that since there are more hunters than other classes, the top 100 are exactly that, and is a very accurate example of the class. The casual or poor players aren't included and thus don't rank. Top 100 is always top 100, and hunters are almost entirely gear based.

[Kattii 40]

I agree with Fouton. We were at the bottom for pure dps classes. Hunters are lucky that BM and SV are very close when it comes to comparing damage and aren't forced to play one spec in order to do good damage. Whatever Blizzard's reasons, be it pvp or pve,I will take the buff and be happy.

[Guest WeeWilly]

     SHHHHHH. 

 

But, please do remember - you folks keep talking, the secret gets out and Blizzard will be changing it because all of a sudden, (and though we aren't) EVERYONE believes we are OP and "whoops there it is" - "ALL GONE" as my daughter said when she was 2 after eating her banana (31 years ago).

 

mum's the word....

 

-wee willy

Edited January 9, 2014 by WeeWilly

[Zagam 1,982]

Btw, Hunters are ridiculous now.  The attack power gain was absurd.  I was even playing MM last night and doing better numbers than I previously did with Survival. 

[Guest WeeWilly]

Btw, Hunters are ridiculous now.  The attack power gain was absurd.  I was even playing MM last night and doing better numbers than I previously did with Survival. 

Thats great you are doing better numbers as MM, but what you find "ridiculous now" is probably not to the vast majority of hunter-players.

Face it Z, you are probably in the top 10% of all WOW players, no matter which class you play. Your ilvl gear/main weapon is probably among the best and you are probably a rotation machine - not forgetting rotations, best gemmed, etc. And probably run with a good group of raiding guildies able to progress faster than a cat can drink down a bowl of cream. But, again, not so for most hunters.

I find it interesting being buffed past the initial 25% myself (before past patches changed it to 15%), I like having that extra 10% because it does help me make up for what I don't remember in rotations, my lack of high level gear, etc. And before you say it, no, I will never be as well equipped as you or in the top 50%. That's why I come here - to learn better and apply it to my playing style. Maybe one day I can be almost as good as you.

But when someone who is probably in the top 10% says what you said, I have to say my 2 cents, because Blizz (aka GC) will read this and go "hmmm, lets drop it back down to 5%.  Or others who have no leg to stand on will complain and again, Blizz will over re-act because they will incorrectly believe all hunters are as good as you are.

-weewilly

"Respica te, hominem te memento"

P.S. I could be reading more into your post than what you meant, and for that I apologize, upfront.

Edited January 11, 2014 by WeeWilly

[Huuhan 1]

Went from ~285k dps on Sha of Pride flex to 315k at ilvl 557 I believe

[Zagam 1,982]

I appreciate the compliments about my playing ability, but Blizz won't ever look at me and nerf or buff around my logs/parses/thoughts.  I think they MIGHT look at my Warlock stuff, but ya know, I'm a bit more educated there than here.  I went back Survival for a few reasons (comfort, no 4pc, still a Flex weapon) and performed pretty well...around 230k sustained at 548 ilvl.  The Survival burst with lust is insane...spiking up to 750k is just crazy.  I'm enjoy this class a good bit...going to do another normal clear with my 'alt group' then start doing some heroics.

[Kattii 40]

LOL if  you thought it was fun with low gear, just wait till you get your 4pc. Those lock and load procs get super crazy. I've counted some lasting 11 charges before. 4pc plus Assurance of Consequence make playing hunter really fun this tier

[Orthios 271]

Speaking of burst, just think what BM could do with the 4 piece and AoC lined up with lust, BW, and trink procs.........

[f0nZi3 7]

Speaking of burst, just think what BM could do with the 4 piece and AoC lined up with lust, BW, and trink procs.........

I spiked to 1.6 million on H Shammans as BM and hoovered around 1.2 for ~15 or 20 seconds on pull. So the buff to Hawk was really noticable to me.

[fordfiesta 1]

LOL I see what some people are doing in this thread.  Face it, blizz isn't going to look at this and doesn't care, they're not going to come here and read positive comments and then take the buff away :P 

 

Hunter has always been an awesome dps class, maybe not on a target dummy, but because of NO movement penalties whatsoever, it has always been a top 5 at least if played by anyone with a pulse that moves quickly enough to keep blood flow in both hands at the same time.  Top 1 on Thok.

 

Now it's just awesome to play, I can outdps people who outgear me by 10 ilvl.  Can easily end any fight at well over 300k at 555 ilvl.

 

Whoever wrote that bit about hunters needed gear also, you're just wrong, like about everything, wrong.  I'd be surprised if you even really know how to play a hunter, like at all.  Hunters are great the whole way through, starting from level 1.  Nothing else is as easy and therefore fun to play at low level / ilvl, and that's why hunters are so popular.