More Upcoming Changes
by Santyn on Jan.29, 2009, under Hunter
Ghostcrawler announced yesterday that Blizzard recognizes their screw-up trying to balance Hunters and that they plan to fix us before 3.1 hits. Now I’m not going to analyze everything he said, Brigwyn already did a great job of that here. One thing that I wanted to tough on was brought up by one of the commenters on Brig’s post.
Dave mentioned that one of the largest problems with the BM tree is its reliance on your pet. Some fights are downright nasty for pets. Think the Keristrasza in The Nexus or Sartharion in Obsidian Sanctum. He brings up a good point that when a BM’s pet dies, he loses 35% to 45% of his overall DPS.
Now Ghostcrawler has said that BM is the “easy” Hunter spec. Well I don’t know about you, but any Spec that can lose almost half its DPS from one whirlwind or AOE does not fall in the easy category. Pet management while maintaining DPS can be tough thing to master. If he really wants BM to be the easy spec he needs to make a few changes to pets, mainly in the area of durability.
One idea would be to let Hunters re-spec their pet in the field. This would allow us to custom tailor our pets for each specific encounter. Stack DPS talents for some fights, survivability talents for others. While this would be nice, I don’t see it as the optimal solution.
I’m thinking more along the line of buffing pets back up. Along with buffing BM pet damage back up some (not like they were, just enough to make them competitive with Marks and Surv), talents could be changed to also give extra health, armor, resistances, ect. Not necessarily flat numbers though. Maybe Kindred Spirits could be changed to also provide a higher conversion rate of the Hunter’s stats to the pet. If done right, this method could also be used to bring pet DPS back up.
Now I know balancing would be extremely important, and it would be easy to put the BM tree back in the OP range, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be done.
Anyway, that is just my $.02, what’s yours?
6 Comments for this entry
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January 29th, 2009 on 8:16 am
While a MM Hunter certainly doesn’t lose HALF their DPS when their pet dies, Ayamiss is a significant portion of my DPS (roughly 600 of my 3400 on Patchwerk 10), so saying that I don’t have to manage her while still maintaining my DPS is insanely disingenuous, and anyone who says that the MM rotation is not scores harder than the BM rotation is out of their god damned mind.
BM is easier. This is a rather obvious fact. What is not obvious (nor true) is that BM Hunters should be punished for or ashamed of that.
January 29th, 2009 on 9:07 am
Having specced into Marks last night, I will say it is more complex than BM, though I don’t know if I would say more difficult. The biggest difference I noticed is that Steady Shot was fired very little. It seemed to me it was more about watching cooldowns than anything. But then again, only using it for one evening while doing some quests, I am sure there are some techniques I am not aware of, and I know my spec could use some help.
But as to DPS, a 17% reduction that a marks or Surv would suffer is a far cry from the 40% reduction that a BM would have to deal with. The point I was trying to make is that since it is the Beast Master tree, don’t you think that pet durability would be part of that also? I’m not saying that the pet has to be as durable as a fully geared Warrior, but being able to withstand the level of damage a Rogue deals with would be about right in my opinion. And I’m not saying that this has to be exclusive to BM Hunters. All specs could use some increase in pet durability.
As to choice in spec, I feel that all 3 trees should be on par with each other, that way the spec you choose is more of personal preference in play style than going with one simply because it beats the others in DPS.
January 29th, 2009 on 9:04 am
Hate to nitpick here, but while GC did say BM WAS the “easier spec – Ghostcrawler”, he was referring to how the damage was being done.
It was EZMode, spam Steady Shot and let the pet do 40-50% of your damage. This is what he wanted to change, the scroll your mousewheel macro mentality.
It was not meant that BM should be the “Beginner’s” spec and we progress by moving to MM or SV. This was clarified later on in the postings.
“Put another way, BM played badly could beat out a lot of other classes practically with SS and the pet alone. – Ghostcrawler”
To this degree I can see their point. If anyone remembers it’s been Rilgon’s main complaints regarding BM for a long time. GC came out admitted it and now they are attempting to make changes accordingly.
But as you both state, BM does need to rely on it’s pet. The loss of the pet will lessen the BM Player’s effectiveness. However, there should and are similar restraints on the other classes. MM with Mana and shot rotation management, SV a lower base of damage and shot rotation.
So to me, the idea of class balance is to focus not only the strengths of the class, but also ensure that their is a weakness to help with maintaining that balance.
January 29th, 2009 on 9:18 am
I think that the pet survivability tools are there, they just aren’t being used. Who as a raider specs into Endurance Training, Thick Hide, and Spirit Bond and then gives their pet extra Stamina, etc. in the pet spec as well?
Now I dunno how long that would help a pet survive during Heigan or Sarth, so I dunno how much it would help, but it would at least help a little.
Also I know a lot of people disagree with me, but I myself think it’s perfectly reasonable to respec for certain encounters, that’s why those things are in the talent trees to begin with. I think it makes things interesting. Heck, when dual specs come out, I’ll probably make a glass cannon spec and my pet-survivability spec.
January 29th, 2009 on 3:02 pm
@Santyn – I agree with you that pet survivability needs to play into the changes that are planned for the BM tree.
But I also think Pike makes a great point on BM Hunters not speccing talents or pet talents into the things that would help buff their pets. I also think this is why GC is constantly preaching that BM hunters REALLY need to start considering the Beast Mastery Talent.
@Pike – speccing per encounter isn’t a bad idea, and I think this is probably the only MAJOR benefit we’ll get with dual specs (crosses fingers)
January 29th, 2009 on 4:19 pm
@Pike – You are right, we do have talents that would help our pets survive. The problem is that taking these talents forces us to pass on other talents, effectively gimping our DPS. A BM Hunter is forced to make a choice between DPS or pet durability. I feel that the talents need to be re-worked to allow for both.
@Brigwyn – I do take the Beast Mastery talent. Even when I don’t use an exotic pet, the extra pet talent points are nice. I think the reason a lot of Hunters skip it though is because it doesn’t feel like you get enough for a 51-point talent. Yeah exotics are nice and all, but most don’t do any more damage than non-exotic pets. Both Marks and Surv have a very powerful shot for a 51-point talent. If Blizz really wants Hunters to consistently spec 51 deep BM they need to reconsider what the talent.