The Pet Design Pass Has Not Happened
I’m getting flooded with questions about pets. What the new pet families are. What the new pet special abilities are. Related to this, a bit tangentially, is BM hunters in general. Interestingly I’m not getting questions about the stuff that I’m most curious about (stat transfer percentages & expertise & crit vulnerability) but that probably has to wait ’til level 85 anyway.
The point here is that we cannot answer any of these questions. Blizzard has not yet done the pet design pass. The only thing we know for certain is that tons of stuff is going to change on our pets, but we don’t know exactly how they’ll change.
Also, lots of BM stuff is broken right now, which when combined with the pets — a vital component of BM dps — makes doing lots of BM testing kinda pointless right now. So yes, I’m deliberately ignoring in-depth BM research right now, but not because I hate BM, but because I’m waiting for all the BM stuff to get in the game.
Once the pet info comes out, you’ll hear about it here. Please hold off on the pet questions until then 
The Beta Level Cap is 83 — No Camouflage Yet
We don’t get Camouflage until level 85. The level cap is currently 83. No one can learn Camouflage. Please stop asking about it
Blizzard Doesn’t Hate Hunters
I have to admit, this sentiment floating around annoys me. There’s this logic that so little is being done with hunters in the latest beta patch so clearly blizzard hates hunters, don’t care about hunters, and we’re just an afterthought.
That is just silly.
Yes we are the most changed class, and we got tons of stuff going on all the time. But seriously, you have no idea how bad some of the other classes had it. As crude as our 31 point talent trees seemed, other classes had it far, far worse (like paladins) and were virtually unplayable. It makes sense that fixing that stuff was the main focus of the most recent patch.
And again… man, we’re only a few weeks into the beta. This is a process. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Sometimes we’ll get big patches, other times other classes will get big patches. It’s frankly moronic to look just a few weeks at the beta and declare that hunters are so unfinished that Blizzard doesn’t care about them. We don’t know how long the beta process will last, other than it’ll probably be at least a couple of months.
We can argue about what sucks once Cataclysm comes out — or even once it reaches the PTR. Then we’ll be more in the tweaking realm rather than the huge changes realm.
Some talent ideas:
BM: Give Imp aspect of the Hawk as a starting thing or One with Nature and give us Imp Hawk back as a talent, i think of all the talents that one was one of the best.
MM: Give us Mortal shots back (make it 3 tiers but give back)
SV: Increased range and imp tracking could be made 3 tier as well
As far as I can see with these new talent builds, Blizz have made the “cookie cutter” build obvious to all of us with very few points left over, so overall they have not achieved what they wanted to, but I’m content to wait.
I agree with Frost, that Blizzard doesn’t hate us. How can they, we’re their customers!
That said, we should understand we hunters are low priority. No, that is no rant, but reality and the way it should be.
What I mean by that is Blizzard first will make the new area’s, quests, bosses, etc working. All the cool stuff that makes Cata. Makes sense, right?
Then they’ll prioritise the other generic stuff like e.g. improving the chat interface. You may thing that that is low priority, but is what milions of users will be using daily. So it is higher priority than us hunters and any other class.
Third will be making all classes including us hunters more or less working at least more or less right so we can play and enyoy the game.
Now, if they then have time left, they’ll start balancing classes including us hunters.
That said, Blizzard decided to change us hunters to focus. The biggest change ever done to any class. And sofar they have done little. We were in the last batch of the initial talent reviews. And when it came out it was clearly visible that was not because they did so much. The initial talent build – before the shrink – was not close to being finished either.
And the shrink was basicly just that. Our talents – any spec – are far from done. And as Frost states, pets are also not done. Glyps not done. Etc. We hunters aren’t close to finished.
I’m sure it will get done though. And note we’re not the only class in that state!
This although we are among the worst. But that is also because our change to focus requires pretty much each talent and spell to be revised. It just takes time.
So Blizzard doesn’t hate us.
The only worry I have is time. It seems that there is so much work to be done, that it is not just possible but likely some aspects will never get addressed before launched. I said before, I like that. It allows us to find this possible hidden gem of uberdps …
Yeah, haters, shut down your Cata receptors and turn them back on at october or november. >:(
See thats the problem with society today no patience no body wants to wait and everybody wanted it yesterday !!!.Of course it is going to take time its the complete restructure of the hunter class as well as other classes, new instances , more quests , new leveling basically its like rebuilding the game from scratch oh and dont forget they are up dating the old starting areas and even changing some of the existing landscape which all takes time. People should think themselves lucky that you even get a beta alot of games dont have one they waiting until the are ready and then release the sequel on the open market so you dont even get to see whats happening. Personally I think everyone needs to just settle down and chill out its only a beta and clearly there is still alot of work for them to do.
“Blizzard decided to change us hunters to focus. The biggest change ever done to any class.”
People are all talking about focus being such a huge dynamic shift, but I must be missing out on something fundamental here. When spell costs changed from x amount of mana to % of mana, didn’t that effectively do exactly the same thing? 100 focus = 100 % of a mana pool.
Amen, Fradin. Very much sounds like a ” I want it NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW. Candyyyyyyyyyyyyy!” sort of tantrum…. the correct response to which is to walk away and take away their toys (or turn off their cata receptors until October).
As much as I like reading about the new things we’ll be getting, and a certain part of me wants to peek at the new toys before Christmas morning, I am trying to see as much of Vanilla Land as possible before it gets blown to smithereens. What will become of Mankrik’s wife? And the remote gnomish vendor in Azshara (or is it a goblin? forgive my memory)? Still finding nooks and crannies I hadn’t been to before… I suppose some people get their kicks out of complaining rather than looking to the positive.
Any word on the prechasing glitch? I’m leveling another hunter in preparation for the old world renovation and the glitch is really on my nerves.
@Seso — You are technically correct, but the issue at hand is that this resource pool will be used up (and then regenerated!) MUCH more quickly. Most of our shots consume 50 focus, or 50% of our “resource pool”. Learning how to manage that is going to be huge, not to mention the job that Blizz is going to have to do to make sure it is playable and balanced.
Random question Frost, but have they fixed the face you can’t loot mobs that your pet kills? That has always annoyed me so much!
Sorry, fact*
The reason for a beta at all, is for Blizzard to get feedback NOW, and not when Cataclysm is released. They WANT complaints, critiques, praise (or at least they should). If we wait until Cataclysm comes out, they may not be ABLE to fix things (see Beast Master hunters through most of Lich King).
That said. “Blizzard hates hunters” doesn’t give them anything useful to work with to make hunters better.
“[H]ave they fixed the fact you can’t loot mobs that your pet kills?”
Working as intended. This is, in my opinion, a device to reduce bots. While an argument could be made that bots are so much more sophisticated that this restriction is now useless, I don’t see them changing it, if only to stop proliferation of simple bots.
Case in point. During the last Arathi Basin Call to Arms, I had the extreme misfortune to encounter a mage, who promptly hit frost nova, took 2 steps back………………….AND BLASTED ME TO DEATH WITH FROSTBOLTS! I however, could do nothing. Not melee, not shoot, just die.
Not saying Blizzard hates Hunters, but damn it sure feels that way sometimes.
I 100% agree with seso about not seeing “the biggest change to any class”.
I see this change from mana to focus as something that will be a minor change to our rotations, and balancing a few new abilities… but nothing that is like, “ZOMGWTFISGOINGON?!!”
Take a look at the Paladin changes (have both hunter and paladin at max level… both with King Slayer). They are turning Paladins into rogues/DKs (combo points, runes and now holy power). Paladins are having KEY abilities removed, consolidated, and re-tweaked to make the class “more interesting”.
Hunters are getting a new rotation with a few neat tricks mixed in… paladins are becoming an entirely new class. QQ less about how Blizzard hates you… reroll a DK and die in a void zone!