A Hunter's Story

As many times as I say it, sadly Bliz won’t listen to me. Here is further evidence to the case that Hunters will be having a complete rework of their game mechanics and will soon become ranged rogues:

Lowering the GCD is as close to anything on the never list. We will possibly do it for hunters, but that is because their resource system is going to prevent them from ever spamming multiple buttons at once (in the same way rogues have a lower GCD). Even with rage normalization there are going to be times when a warrior is at 100 rage and can unload with multiple attacks at once. The GCD is there for a reason, partially for game balance and partially to keep the server – client communication from getting gummed up. [Source]

I mean, it would have been fine if we were setup that way from the beginning, but we weren’t. So don’t fundamentally change how we play the game! Oy!

Oh well. SWTOR will be coming out in not too long hopefully. I’m hoping it’ll be good. Seriously, who doesn’t want to run around w/ a lightsaber?

Is it me, or does it seem like Bliz is trying to remove some of the differentiation between ‘things’? By ‘things’ I mean most things. The gear, for example. I mean, my tanking shoulders and my DPS shoulders look… the same… I mean, how many gear combos are there now that the only difference is a slight color change? Maybe it’s because everyone is running around in tier gear, but it seems like there’s about 4 different outfits for characters these days. But then if you look at talents, abilities, and spells, it seems they’re all changing to be the same too. I was looking at the Paladin changes and thinking it seems they’re trying to make all tanks tank alike. And thinking of Druid’s, they’re trying to make healers heal alike. Paladins are going to get an AoE heal that reminds me of Wild Growth. Or a new Tree form that is going to be a different form of heroism almost. I mean, these things are not all exactly the same, there are some differences (like how the new tree form won’t affect all members as heroism does, for example). But it seems as though they’re slowly aligning the classes to each other. I wonder if it’s a conscious attempt, or if it’s that they don’t have time for differentiation. Is it that they’re running out of ideas? Think about it. If they don’t have a lot of time, then they can make one set of plate gear, and then color it differently based on if it’s healing, tanking or dpsing gear. Much faster and easier than creating 3 different pieces. Certainly not as cool though. Also makes me laugh that the gear is all becoming the same look – and yet they want to make it so druids can show off their gear… Almost seems like there’s no point! Lol. But I think it mostly just stems from Bliz trying to put out new content continuously and quickly. They’ve hit the level where they need to bring out new stuff, or people start leaving because they’re bored. And it’s the same as back when Wrath came out too. Starting in the spring, people get bored with the content. They also stop doing progression raiding and such nearly as much since they know that in the Fall the expansion will hit and then their gear will be changed out in just a few levels. Wouldn’t surprise me if sometime soon the raiding guilds start merging again, as fewer players are around. But oh well. Certainly keeping busy ourselves w/ The Insane, leveling some alts, and so on. And that’s what I recommend you do. Take the time to explore WoW. There’s a lot more in there than people even realize. Heck, take 15 minutes one day when sitting in a dungeon queue and explore the various shops. You’d be surprised what you can find. Look in the glass box counter tops. Look at the ceiling in the Dalaran Visitors Center. Explore!

First things to note:

• Changes have been announced – lots of people will discuss on blogs. I am, obviously, not exempt from this guideline, lol.
• They’re preview changes. Not actual changes.
• The changes will probably be changed by the time they go live

So! If you haven’t seen them yet, heeeere it is! So please reference that when I make my notes. And here are the thoughts:

Cobra Shot, Trap Launcher, & Camoflauge – Good! I’ve been saying it for ages, but it’s nice we’ll finally be able to hide and shoot! I mean, obviously if there’s a warrior trying to take down the tree you’re hiding in, he’s got a good shot to hit you. So mele can still hit you. Or if someone lights your tree on fire, you’ll probably burn. But now that we can actually hide from ranged damage, it’ll make us more like we’re actually hunters! Cobra Shot? Bliz is just trying to take away the monotonous steady – shot – steaaady – shot – steaaaaady – shot…. So w/e. And launching traps? Well, we had to evolve somehow, since no one really uses traps much anymore. Heck, right now when I’m bored and want to do an additional 1.5-2k DPS, I’ll run in, drop some explosives, jump back, and then rain down arrows. But I’m in the minority, and I don’t even do it all the time. But if I could toss it from afar? Yep, becomes part of the list of abilities used for rotations.

Next change – Focus instead of Mana. Ok, I really don’t think it’s a smart move, as much as I’m trying to be open minded… I mean, we’ve used mana since the beginning. All of our gear has intellect on it. But I’ll still try to stay somewhat optimistic. Maybe it will be good, even though it completely changes the stats of gear we’re looking at, as well as how we use our skills and abilities and what we do in between fights, and during fights, and………….. Get my point? But maybe it’ll be good? Maybe we won’t become ranged rogues?

Ammunition – The hunter in my says “Yes!” (ignore the lore – it’s cool to not have to worry about stocking up) but the Engineer says “No!”. There goes my source of funding. I’ll be interested to see what they change for engineers to keep it as a useful profession. They’ll have to do something, since that’s pretty much it at the moment. This one though, I’m actually hopeful will work out (unlike the focus/mana thing)

Pet Management – Cool! The point of being a hunter (other than being the best class in the game, and doing some ridiculous amounts of DPS) is the pets. So it’s totally awesome we’ll be able to collect more than just one per spec. Some we train since level 1 and want to keep them because of the emotional bond. Some we had epic hunts to find. Others, well, they do lots of dmg with that spec, so we keep them around. And some are just plain pretty. And yes, there’s one or two we can release back into the wild. But anyway, cool. And it also seems like they’re trying to make the various pets more equal in damage output so that you can pick your pet based more on your relationship with the pet, or the buff it brings to the table, which is also cool.

We are reinforcing hunters as a ranged class. – D’uh, if they’re going to make our game mechanics more like rogues, they have to do something to differentiate us! Ranged Rogues, right? Ok, I’ll stop the sarcasm… For a few… Going to try to remain optimistic…

The rest of the changes are mostly just normal patch changes that Bliz messes with just for fun. I’m happy about pets, ammo, and that they’re trying to make us more like hunters in that we can actually hide and shoot. Now we’ll just need to see how it works out by the time November rolls around…

So what do you think? High hopes for the Cataclysm Hunter changes? We’ll hear about them soon… Other than they’re making us into ranged rogues (taking away mana & giving us something along the lines of focus…)… But anyway, I’m trying to keep an open mind. Maybe the changes will be good? Maybe? /crosses fingers