wow-hunter-nerf
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The great hunter nerf of 2008
I quote Ghostcrawler: "Hunters of all specs, and particularly Beastmaster, are doing too much damage in PvE."At this point you can stop reading if you're a Hunter and just assume the worst. But if you want to see how you're getting nerfed to the ground, read on.The rationale behind the changes is that Blizzard has been doing a lot of internal testing, along with the beta of WotLK, and has determined the other classes have not been able to keep up with the Hunter DPS output.The list of nerfs is wide ranging. Volley nerfed by 30%. Steady Shot now gains 10% of Attack Power instead of 20%. Kindred Spirits has been nerfed by 25%. Readiness no longer affects the cooldown of Bestial Wrath.The list of changes is not exhaustive. Ghostcrawler makes a point to say that these are just the ones they feel are ready for testing. He hopes to see them up on the PTR before they go live.The full 14 point list of changes after the break.
Post 2.3 hunter chaos - updated
As many of you may have already heard, the Hunter forums are in an uproar today over several changes and bugs that have come with Patch 2.3. Unfortunately, some of the clamor is shadowing other important Hunter issues. Amanda Rivera pointed out that hunters have lost their ability to double, or even triple, trap, and although many hunters were not using this exploit, a large proportion were. Even though this might be a fair fix, I imagine that for many hunters, the raids they have "on farm" will suddenly be much more confusing. As Robin reported earlier, hunters can no longer use feign death on a boss fight in order to be removed from combat (you can still drop aggro) and go have a drink. Officially, this is a bug fix, and in fact, many hunters had not even realized that they could go take a swig during a boss encounter. Unfortunately, this is not just impacting a Hunter's ability to pump up their mana pool; it's also affecting their ability to feed their pets. It is being reported that pets are losing happiness at a faster rate post-patch, and that while raiding, because a hunter can no longer feign death and feed their pet, the prospect of using their pet while raiding, or achieving maximum benefit from doing so, is looking somewhat grim for many.
Adieu to double trapping
As Robin discussed earlier today, hunters are going through a some growing pains with the release of Patch 2.3. As with many topics that you are interested about, this sparked a discussion amongst the WoW Insider staff about the changes to trapping now that the patch is live. While some hunters lamented the loss of something called "Chain Trapping," our own beloved BRK stepped in to clarify what exactly has changed in Patch 2.3.There are three types of hunter trapping strategies that pertain to this discussion. They are:Chain Trapping: Our hunter friend drops a trap, plinks away at a mob to pull him into the trap and then runs back to drop a second trap for when the first one breaks. This strategy is excellent for keeping one mob controlled.Double Trapping: This same hunter drops his first trap and lures a monster into it. He then drops a second trap before the first breaks and draws a second mob into it, thus controlling two mobs at once.Triple Trapping: Now, if our hunter friend has taken certain Survival talents, he can also drop a third trap along with the first two to control three monsters at the same time.Chain trapping is still a viable hunter strategy even after the patch. Double and Triple trapping, however, have gone the way of parachute pants and the dodo bird. Many of us will miss the hunter's ability to control multiple mobs at once in an instance (I'm leaving kiting out of this because we're talking traps here), but I suppose the real issue was how multiple trapping was being used in PvP. In any case, now that it is gone, is the hunter class more balanced, or have they been dealt a blow that will take them a while to recover from?
Hunters no longer have FD Drink in 2.3: Bug fix or nerf?
There is a new uproar on the forums, this time from Hunters -- petitions, titles in all caps, threads being moderated, etc. What are they all upset about? It seems an important item was left off of the Patch 2.3 notes: Fixed a bug in which Hunters were able to disengage from combat using Feign Death during boss encounters. Nethaera explains that this should only affect Hunters during boss fights and not when fighting trash mobs.The Hunters are upset because they were not just using Feign Death to drop aggro during boss fights, they were also restoring mana by drinking.It has been suggested that this was actually nerfed because not only could you drink during a boss fight, you could also change gear. Nethaera agrees that this functionality was not intended, but still maintains this is a bug fix and not a nerf.
