Sept. 23, 2008
You are the only one whose fear means something
Something of a follow-up regarding why Camouflage never made it as a “live” ability for hunters.
I like to give you some insight into developer thought process, because honestly that’s what I was always wondering about when I was on the other side of these forum posts trying to understand a design change.
I have no problem with you disagreeing with our decisions or pointing out problems with what we’ve done. Just make sure it stays closer to that and not using my words against me or there will just be fewer of those words. :)
Think of it this way. We have 10 classes now and we need to add new abilities to them every expansion. If we aren’t a little careful, all of the classes are going to end up feeling pretty similar. Poke around on these forums a little and you will see players already worried about it.
When an ability works for one class, it’s really easy from a lazy-designer-perspective to stick that ability on another class. We have done that several times and sometimes the change was warranted and sometimes we’ve regretted it. There is no hard and fast rule here, and I’m sure there are exceptions of all stripes. While we try to be very objective about what kind of damage classes do, deciding what kind of abilities they have is more of a gut thing, and logic isn’t necessarily going to apply the same way.
And more on pet scaling.
Yeah, the pet stat layout has totally not kept up with the times. It needs an overhaul and we hope to work on it as soon as LK ships.
Aside from players just knowing what their pet’s stats are, it will help people improve their pets, as well as help us realize where the problem areas are.
Sept. 18, 2008
[Discussion] Warcraft: Devs and Hunters
Yes, there’s another new Beta build. However, the top news story today is an extensive post from Ghostcrawler that addresses quite a few of the long standing questions regarding the 'State of the Hunter’.
Apologies in advance. I had a nice long post dealing with some of these issues that was eaten by the forums, because, you know, I like to proofread my stuff to make sure I’m not saying anything that would sound stupid, inaccurate or inflammatory. I am very, very sympathetic with the frustration that problem causes everyone. But as a result, many of my answers are much briefer than I had originally intended. :(
What is the vision for the Hunter class?
This is going to be brief to the point of inaccuracy, but the hunter is a caster. You are a ranged dps class whose defining differences are survival and pets. Let me also add that when working on classes, we focus on just making a class cool. We aren’t as concerned with how the implementation of the hunter stacks up to some kind of Platonic ideal of the hunter. Esoteric, I know, but I hope that makes sense. Some classes have moved quite a bit away from their original design. That’s fine.
We don’t care about our pets the way you think we do. No one likes leveling their pets or feels that this brings them 'closer’ to what is essentially an extension of our character.
Demonstrably false. You may not care about your pet, but for many players, that is THE reason to roll the class. Hunters attract a lot of new or more casual players who then stumble into a confusing world of pet-training and loyalty. We needed to clean up that whole system and I am pretty happy with the results. I understand you think your pets are too fragile, and that is something we are keeping a very close eye on. I understand it sucks to have such a big chunk of your dps and tools two-shotted. It also sucks to have a pet on you that takes forever to kill while the hunter himself is focused 100% on damage. Neither extreme is very fun.
Absolutely. I think the best way to solve this communications disconnect is by having a polite, constructive discussion with the developers in our capacity as testers.
I understand why this seems like a good idea. But I personally get a lot more benefit out of reading posts than posting in them. My posts tend to be questions for clarification or the random drop to let you know that we do hear and appreciate your comments. But here is what happens to threads with blue posts: they bloat, they attract unrelated responses, and most importantly, players stop talking to each other and just start talking to us. It is very valuable to see points on which players agree and disagree. Some of the least useful posts are those with lists of issues (unless they are just bugs). The most useful are the ones where players debate an issue back and forth and sometimes come to a conclusion. Blue posts can really chill that out.
This may also sound whiny, but I also don’t have a great deal of free time. My posts often lead to follow-up questions and clarifications, which just sucks me in deeper and deeper. You have some great community managers as your liasons between the community and Blizzard. My job is to make stuff work.
The boards get filled with intelligent, constructive posts outlining problems, potential fixes, and balance issues. Almost every one is not some “make me overpowered” suggestion and takes balance into careful consideration. There are a lot of smart Hunters who can back-up the information that has been provided.
This.
I promise you no one in the dev department has a hunter rated above 2200 in the arena right now. Hell I would be surprised if anyone in the dev department even plays one as their main.
False, which means it will just end up tweaking someone off. Why risk that on a supposition?
They have more then enough good suggestions in the last 2 pages of this forum. Virtually none of those suggestions have been taken. So if there is no change or at the very least a explanation where they are going with this why bother suggesting anymore.
This is not design by committee. We do read, discuss and understand suggestions. In the majority of cases, we’re not going to implement them. If it bothers you to not see changes you get attached to implemented, then my advice is to read more and post less. I’ll also add that a big part of being a designer is seeing ideas you are attached to not implemented. A big difference between n00b designers and those who have been around for awhile is how hard each takes seeing their babies killed in this way.
I’m sure that’s their intent, too. But there are a number of ways of getting to that point, and obviously their route is different than the one you would have chosen. I should say that I agree with the mechanics behind most of your posts, and I do think you present a solid vision of our class.
Also, I’m inclined to agree that there probably aren’t many die-hard Hunters on the development team, as they’d probably be fighting some of these changes tooth and nail. That’s immaterial if we can get the lines of communication open.
The lines are open. I’m sure you would like more back and forth, but that’s hard for us to do.
Blizzard has no interest in making hunters a viable PvP class.
False. You can interpret out actions however you want, or you can say we don’t know what we’re doing. But this is a case where I do know the intent while some of you are just guessing. We have 10 classes and 30 specs (and that assumes a talent tab = a spec, which is a gross oversimplification). We could make the game a lot simpler to balance by making classes less unique, but we’re stubborn that way. The downside is we are left with a very, very complicated multivariate equation to solve.
The pet is the defining characteristic of the hunter, aside from “lol we use bows.” Pet’s were stale and boring TBC. Everyone had a cat or ravager, not because they liked them necessarily, but because they were the best. Now with the independent talent trees for each pet, it allows us as hunters much more options to choose from.
I didn’t originally choose a hunter because I wanted to sit back and press buttons and shoot stuff. I chose hunter because I liked the pets. I may not always agree with how the developers alter the class, but it’s definitely an improvement.
Also this.
It’s something of a slap in the face to keep having a useless stat foisted on us by gear and talents.
Just so you know, when my eyes see something like this, they tend to skip over to the next paragraph. Venting and commiserating are part of human nature, and I get that. But if you want me to, you know, read what you’re saying, I would try to say it in a different way.
IV) “Lost” Abilities: Camouflage and the two LOS-avoiding shots. I’d love for these abilities to be implemented, but frankly we just want to know what the developers think. Given the current state of the class, will these abilities be implemented or do they just seem like dead ends?
Camo just felt to us like were giving hunters a rogue ability, which is going to end up feeling cruddy for both rogues and hunters. We kept trying to give it a unique niche or twist but it felt like we were just changing something for change’s sake. I am personally more excited about the new Disengage.
Sept. 11, 2008
Not that the title's important, of course
Ever changing Beta.
- Spell casting and spell channeling pushback has been changed to the following: When casting a spell, the first and second hit will add .5 secs each to the cast time. All hits after the second will have no effect. When channeling a spell, the first and second hit reduces current duration by 25% of total duration each. All hits after the second have no effect.
- All aspects now have a 1 second global cooldown, down from a 1.5 global cooldown.
- Combat Experience (Marksmanship): Now grants 3/6% Agility, up from 1/2%.
- Improved Arcane Shot (Marksmanship): Now increases the damage done by your Arcane Shot by 5/10/15%.
- Improved Feign Death (Survival): This talent has been replaced with Survival Tactics.
- Improved Hunter’s Mark (Marksmanship): Now a 3-point talent, and now increases the amount of attack power granted by your Hunter’s Mark ability by 10/20/30% and reduces the mana cost of your Hunter’s Mark ability by 33/66/100%.
- New Talent – Survival Tactics (Survival): Reduces the chance your Feign Death ability and all trap spells will be resisted by 2/4%, and reduces the cooldown on your Disengage ability by 2/4sec.
- Rapid Killing (Marksmanship): This will now proc off Chimera Shot, but no longer works with auto-shot.
- Silencing Shot (Marksmanship): This spell will now interrupt the current spell being cast on the target and lock out that school for 3 sec if the target is immune to silence effects
- Trueshot Aura – This aura is now raid-wide, and now increases all ranged and melee attack power by 10%. In addition, this spell now only has one rank. All other ranks have been removed.
Undocumented changes include Invigoration (50/100% chance to regen 1% mana), Cobra Strikes (effects 2 specials instead of 3), Aspect of the Viper (% of maximum mana based on base ranged weapon speed), Aspect Mastery (increases Aspect of the Monkey by 5% instead of 10% and increases Aspect of the Hawk by 30% instead of 30%), Improved Steady Shot (maximum rank now has a 15% chance to increase the damage of the next Chimera/Arcane/Aimed by 30% and reduce the mana cost of same by 5%), Kill Shot (200% weapon damage plus [30% of RAP + 400] damage), Hunting Party (lasts 15 seconds), Lock and Load (effects 1 Arcane Shot instead of 3) and T.N.T (increases the critical strike chance of your Explosive Shot and Explosive Trap by 3/6/9% instead of 5/10/15%).
So what do the blues have to say? In regards to the Aspect of the Viper change:
Our intent was not really to reduce it’s power, but make it equally powerful for the guy in green gear vs the guy in epics. We’ll do some more tuning on it.
And about the overall changes made in this latest build:
The balance team did a sweep of the talents and made modifications they felt necessary to keep the talents and abilities in budget. We’ve since done a second pass of what they came up with (which you see in this build) and made further changes. Our latest changes are not in this build you have now.
Some of the changes will stay, some will be reverted, and some will be re-designed. Lock and Load was just too much burst with 3 charges, and the balance guys changed it to 1. We’re going to up it to 2. Also going to make it have a chance to proc from Sting periodic ticks rather than the initial hit.
It also looks like the pet talent trees are going to see some more work soon-ish, as Ghostcrawler has made some posts requesting specific feedback about the trees. However, we did get a few statements:
We originally implemented the Cunning pets with lower stats because we imagined their CC would be too good. But the cooldowns are reasonably long and the durations short enough that this may not be an issue. We’ll consider improving them to make up for the deficiency.
Sept. 5, 2008
Or do you just know everything?
A few new things for hunters in the latest patch but nothing that made it into the patch notes as far as I can tell. Core Hounds are now tameable (Ferocity tree), and that includes Kurken in Stillpine Hold on Azuremyst Isle. Their special is 'Lava Breath’ which does fire damage and reduces the target’s casting speed by 50% for 10 seconds. There’s also a new rank of Volley and Viper Sting available. And was the Viper change too good to last as is? Probably. This from Koraa:
We’re going to be changing it so that procs/hits restore a % of your base mana each time you hit, rather than base it off your actual DPS/damage. While the return of mana based on your actual damage numbers do make the ability a lot of fun (at least I thought so!), it has bad scaling issues.
Aug. 28, 2008
Changes to Debuffs, Buffs, and Raid Stacking
In some of the biggest Beta news to date, Jimmythenumbers (a Blizzard blue) has posted the following. It’s a lot to digest, for sure.
As Ghostcrawler has been posting recently, we’ve decided to make a change in the way we allow buffs and debuffs to stack exclusively in a raid. For the most part, what this change means is that many buffs and debuffs which were previously allowed to stack together no longer can, and that many buffs and debuffs which only a single talent specialization could bring can now be brought by multiple different specializations. The philosophy behind this change shows up in many of the changes we have made in Wrath of The Lich King, such as when we made almost all buffs raid-wide. We want players to be able to form raids and parties based on who they want to play with, rather than who has the correct talents and abilities to min-max their raid performance. Raid composition will still matter to some extent, but without this change, it would have overwhelmed every other aspect of raid planning (as we added new capabilities to each of 30 different talent trees). You no longer need to rigidly control the melee/spellcaster balance of your raid, or make sure every group has all the critical buffing classes, etc. This change has many class balance implications. Before we are done, we will thoroughly test the performance of every class. Do not assume that the classes’ current performance relative to others in the beta is final. Some classes (and specializations) will need to be reduced in power and some increased. Many will complain the change has more impact on class X than class Y. We will address all those concerns via our internal testing and community feedback.
Ok, given that preamble, here is a comprehensive list of the changes which were made. If testers find additional changes not documented, or additional changes that need to be made (“Hey, buff XYZ got left out of the plan!”), please post and we will investigate.
There are thirty or so different categories buffs and debuffs fit into, and I will list each category and which spells/talents are in that category.
Armor Debuff (Major): Acid Spit (exotic Hunter pet), Expose Armor, Sunder Armor
Armor Debuff (Minor): Faerie Fire, Sting (Hunter pet), Curse of Recklessness
Physical Vulnerability Debuff: Blood Frenzy, (2nd Talent Spec TBA)
Melee Haste Buff: Improved Icy Talons, Windfury Totem
Melee Critical Strike Chance Buff: Leader of the Pack, Rampage
Attack Power Buff (Flat Add): Battle Shout, Blessing of Might
Attack Power Buff (Multiplier): Abomination’s Might, Trueshot Aura, Unleashed Rage
Ranged Attack Power Buff: Hunter’s Mark (only Hunters benefit, so no need to exclude against other class abilities)
Bleed Damage Increase Debuff: Mangle, Trauma
Spell Haste Buff: Wrath of Air Totem
Spell Critical Strike Chance Buff: Moonkin Aura, Elemental Oath
Spell Critical Strike Chance Debuff: Improved Scorch, Winter’s Chill
Increased Spell Damage Taken Debuff: Ebon Plaguebringer, Earth and Moon, Curse of the Elements
Increased Spell Power Buff: Focus Magic, Improved Divine Spirit, Flametongue Totem, Totem of Wrath, Demonic Pact
Increased Spell Hit Chance Taken Debuff: Improved Faerie Fire, Misery
Percentage Haste Increase (All Types): Improved Moonkin Aura, Swift Retribution
Percentage Damage Increase: Ferocious Inspiration, Sanctified Retribution
Critical Strike Chance Taken Debuff (All types): Heart of the Crusader, Totem of Wrath
Melee Attack Speed Slow Debuff: Icy Touch, Infected Wounds, Judgements of the Just, Thunderclap
Melee Hit Chance Reduction Debuff: Insect Swarm, Scorpid Sting
Healing Debuff: Wound Poison, Aimed Shot, Mortal Strike, Furious Attacks
Attack Power Debuff: Demoralizing Roar, Curse of Weakness, Demoralizing Shout
Stat Multiplier Buff: Blessing of Kings
Stat Add Buff: Mark of the Wild
Agility and Strength Buff: Strength of Earth Totem, Horn of Winter
Stamina Buff: Power Word: Fortitude
Health Buff: Commanding Shout, Blood Pact
Intellect Buff: Arcane Intellect, Fel Intelligence
Spirit Buff: Divine Spirit, Fel Intelligence
Damage Reduction Percentage Buff: Grace, Blessing of Sanctuary
Percentage Increase Healing Received Buff: Tree of Life, Improved Devotion Aura
Armor Increase Percentage Buff: Inspiration, Ancestral Healing
Cast Speed Slow: Curse of Tongues, Slow, Mind-numbing Poison.
In each category, you can only benefit from the most powerful spell granting that effect. For example, Fel Intelligence grants Spirit and Intellect, both weaker than Arcane Intellect and Divine Spirit. If a player has Fel Intelligence and receives a stronger Arcane Intellect buff, he will gain the intellect value from Arcane Intellect and the Spirit value from Fel Intelligence.
In most cases, fully-talented players will have exactly equal power on the strength of these buffs and debuffs. Fel Intelligence is an example of where one ability is weaker than others. The buffs in the “Increased Spell Power Buff” category are also not all the same potency, as they scale in grow in radically different ways. In virtually every other case, however, the buffs are equal. This means, for example, that fully-talented Battle Shout and Blessing of Might now grant the exact same amount of Attack Power.
In addition to this change, we also needed to address the “mana battery” roles in a raid. The mana regeneration effect they grant is no longer limited to their own party, and it no longer depends on the amount of damage they deal. Each time they trigger the mana regeneration effect, 10 people in their raid group will receive a buff which causes them to regenerate 0.5% of their maximum mana each second. This buff, Replenishment, will be given preferentially to raid members with the lowest mana, but will re-evaluate which raid members receive it each time it is fired. Replenishment is provided by Shadow Priests, Survival Hunters, and Retribution Paladins.
Finally, we have modified Heroism and Bloodlust to affect the entire raid. However, all affected raid members will be unable to cast or benefit from Bloodlust/Heroism for 5 minutes.
I will also list the changes to abilities which exhibit new behavior regardless of the exclusive categories. The changes usually mean the old behavior was removed and replaced by the new behavior. Numbers listed are for maximally-talented versions. Here is that changelist:
Improved Scorch: Increases spell critical strike chance against the target.
Winter’s Chill: Also increases spell critical strike chance against the target.
Elemental Oath: Grants 5% spell crital strike to raid members.
Improved Moonkin Aura: Grants 3% haste of all types.
Earth and Moon: Increases spell damage taken from all schools by 13% on the target.
Misery: Causes spells cast at the target to have +3% spell hit.
Shadow Weaving: Buffs only self.
Improved Shadow Bolt: Buffs only self.
Expose Weakness: Buffs only self.
Shadow Embrace: Buffs only self.
Blood Pact: Grants health instead of Stamina.
Fel Intelligence: Has replacement ranks that grant flat values of Intellect and Spirit.
Frost Aura: Excludes properly against all other resistance buffs.
Grace: Reduces damage taken by target by 3%.
Rampage: Increases melee and ranged critical strike chance by 5% for the raid.
Improved Faerie Fire: No longer benefits melee and ranged hit chance, only spell hit.
Hunter’s Mark: No longer increases attack power bonus from attacks against the target.
Improved Hunter’s Mark: No longer grants melee attack power.
Sting (Hunter pet): Now acts as a minor armor debuff.
Waylay: Attack speed reduction changed to 20%.
Icy Touch: Only slows melee attack speed (not ranged or spell).
Tree of Life: No longer grants healing based on spirit, grants 3% increased healing received to raid.
Demonic Pact: Now buffs raid instead of debuffing monsters.
Focus Magic: Now buffs raid instead of debuffing monsters.
Totem of Wrath: Now grants a flat amount of spell damage, and all enemies in its radius have an increased chance of being struck by criticals.
Heroism: Cannot be recast while caster has Exhausted debuff, and those with Exhausted debuff cannot be affected by it.
Bloodlust: Cannot be recast while caster has Sated debuff, and those with Sated debuff cannot be affected by it.
Vampiric Touch: Grants Replenishment mana regeneration buff to up to 10 raid members on dealing damage.
Hunting Party: Grants Replenishment mana regeneration buff to up to 10 raid members on specified shots.
Judgements of the Wise: Grants Replenishment mana regeneration buff to up to 10 raid members on Judging.
The obvious big changes are to Trueshot Aura (no, I have no more information regarding it becoming a multiplier, if I was to hazard a guess I’d say 10%), Hunting Party, Hunter’s Mark and Improved Hunter’s Mark, Scorpid Sting, Ferocious Inspiration, Acid Spit (pet), Sting (pet), Aimed Shot, Expose Weakness. Hopefully we’ll be provided with more in depth Hunter specific details soon.
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