Blizzard decided to break my build. Along with a lot of things. Take a gander over at this. I just can’t fathom some of these changes. In case you can’t view it:
1) Steady Shot – now only gains 10% of attack power as damage (down from 20%).
2) Volley – reduced the damage by about 30% for all ranks. Note that AE damage from many classes is very high right now and we are looking at all of them. Volley in particular had reached the point where some hunters were using it to the exclusion of most other attacks.
3) Readiness – no longer affects the cooldown of Bestial Wrath.
4) Deterrence – has been completely overhauled. It now allows you to deflect 100% of incoming melee or spell damage for 5 seconds, but prevents you from attacking while active. You still must be facing the attacker to deflect the damage (this is a limitation we are trying and might end up removing). 60 sec cooldown.
5) Kill Shot – cooldown reduced to 15 sec (from 35 sec).
6) Kindred Spirits – now only grants 3/6/9/12/15% pet damage.
7) Serpent’s Swiftness – now only grants 2/4/6/8/10% bonus attack speed to pet.
8) All hunter pet abilities with a cooldown longer than 30 sec have been moved off the global cooldown.
9) Growl— threat generation increased by 20% (same for Voidwalker Torment).
10) Call of the Wild – now benefits only the hunter and his or her pet.
11) Rake and Scorpid Poison – slightly nerfed to bring them into line with other pet abilities.
12) Spirit Strike – reduced the period on the dot so it will work better with Longevity.
Improved Tracking – now benefits damage to all included creature types as long as you are tracking one of them. You don’t have to swap around what you are tracking as much.
13) Aspect of the Wild – now raid-wide.
Ouch. Very much ouch. Steady Shot got wrecked. Look at these numbers, for example. Currently my Steady Shot looks like this:
534+(3785*0.2+252)+46.5 = 1589.5
With the new change, it looks like this:
534+(3785*0.1+252)+46.5 = 1211
Which in turn results in a 24.9% reduction in Steady Shot damage for me. So when Steady Shot equates to 51% of my personal DPS (using our last Patchwerk as a number model) and then that gets nerfed by 25%, it hurts. It ends up being a total damage nerf of roughly 13-15%. That would have brought down my DPS on Patchwerk last week down quite a bit.
Of course this isn’t factoring in the Kindred Spirit nerf nor the Serpent’s Swiftness nerf, which in evitably bring down our DPS even more. So if nothing else changed from last week other than these changes, I would have been out of the top 10 DPS most likely. But those exact numbers will require a bit more modeling to get accurate. The best number modeling I can come up with messing around in Excel shows about a 700 DPS decrease without accurate damage reduction from my pet’s numbers due to Kindred Spirits, the Rake change, and of course, fewer Bestial Wraths.
All I can say is hopefully some of this is changed before it goes live.
To. The. Ground.
I think there might even be a new hybrid build coming out of the wood work too:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=cZ0eVcMAzMxoxZe00iooIhx
Looks like ret pally’s weren’t the only ones to get nerfed hardcore :(
LOL Shmii beat me to it
Makes me sad to think that my 2 highest level toons have been nerfed so much (or will be in the Hunter’s case)…
acedanger’s last blog post..Ding!
Looks like a lot of the 51/20 builds are going to have to go back to the Improved Tracking / Survival Instincts BM build.
Though I’ve heard some speculation that the numbers might not be so harsh after they do some ptr testing. At this moment some (particularly the Steady Shot nerf which will affect all hunters) seems a bit harsh. We’ll have to wait and see I guess…and make the most of our opness now.
Looks like I’ll get to finally try out that MM spec I’ve been thinking about. Way to finally kill BM Blizz.
Well, I had been trying out a BM build in raid the last week (after raiding as MM through the dying throes of BC and my guild’s first few forays into Naxx), and was really starting to enjoy the build and the yummy numbers that came along with it.
These changes, though, sure would seem to absolutely torch BM as a raid spec. I can’t link to the WoW website here @ work, but I’m wondering if any other classes that I’m seeing doing great DPS (like SPriests, ‘locks, even DKs) are getting whacked as well?
I sure hope so, because it’s hard enough to get my guild to take two hunters into raid as is, with all the new competition from newly viable DPS builds (Moonkin, Ret Pallys, DKs, etc.) We get in now with few problems because we’re guaranteed to provide top-5 DPS on each fight…but with these changes, that could get harder and harder to do (and almost impossible for any BM hunter, to be sure!)
:(
The removal from the GCD on pet abilities longer than 30sec doesn’t seem to solve any of the problems mainly with Intervene/Roar of Sacrifice, which was the reason pets were having the problem in the first place.
As far as PVE concerns go, I might as well start leveling up a hybrid character right now. I’d rather be a druid, and have the OPTION of respeccing to tank/heal, than be a hunter and MAYBE be in the top 10 dps, while contributing little to no utility to the raid. Misdirection? Rogues have it on top of 15% more damage for the target.
Also, an afterthought: where’s the Trap Mastery change? I’d like a reason to try Survival again.
Hmmm. That’s a big shot in the chops. I’m actually shocked they went after steady shot; hunter personal damage seemed very much were it was supposed to be. Pets admittedly probably needed to be nerfed, especially the scorpid, though I think this needed to be addressed in the coefficients of the abilities themselves, not in the talents.
Once again, though, it seems like the hunter community is punished for doing our utmost to get the maximum output from out mechanics. After so many years of such screwed up, wonky, inscrutable combat systems, do they expect us to do any less?
I kinda felt this was coming after last night.
73 Hunter + 72 Devilsaur in Violet Hold beating a 79 Rogue for DPS. It wasn’t easy, but I shouldn’t have been able to keep up vs mobs that are 2 – 4 levels higher than me that are all 2 – 4 levels below the Rogue.
Sucks that I may have to give up the Core Hounds and Devilsaur, but this beating is a little too brutal. It’s Beast Mastery Nerf 2.0. Nerfing the crap out of it once wasn’t good enough.
I have very little faith in Blizz but this much nerf can’t go thru or they will ruin the class.
Remember this is what the numbers will be next PTR. So guessing by the next patch or dungeon release any competant guesses as to when? I say 2 months tops 1.5-2 window.
I am so disappointed with this announcement also would agree where is the Survival rework that was supposed to be coming because the wrecked in LK?
I am gonna make the best of it while I have it now. But with holidays coming raiding always slows. 50/21 soon to be RIP if readiness doesn’t go thru they will wreck SS.
It really is a harsh nerf and hopefully it will be changed quite a bit before it goes life. The terrible scaling of Steady Shot really sucks and though I know we are overpowered right now, one has to keep in mind that we are no supporters right now. The 3% damage comes from Retpallys too and they bring guaranteed 100% uptime and even some more nice buffs and alot of damage, all a BM hunter has is his damage. I hope Blizzard keeps this in mind.
(Sorry for my bad english)
Oh this makes me sad =( a couple nice things in there, like the reduced time on kill shot, but come on now, nerfing steady shot, making call of the wild pet and owner only(i got that to help my group out) is a little overboard.
again…. =(
Actually i think this is a step in the right direction, Steady shot was meant to be the primary damage dealing ability a hunter could have…. in TBC, now we are a bit in WotLK and not so much true anymore, its just not right that as drotara said bm should benefit from a spell we learned over a year and half ago more than mm and surv shots rotation. I personnaly dont think bm has a place in pve, and for that to happen you have to remove the most damage dealing ability whilst buffing (yes killshot cooldown reduced woth 20sec duh!) marksman as a pve build. In the long end i would very much like to see explosive shot back up in the top, but thats not going to happen unless people start getting 3k agi or something. So as most feels this is a nerf, i´ll say i agree but its a nerf im happy to take.
//Phytor of Argent dawn – Eu – hunter
currently Kreth of Argent dawn – Eu – Death Knight
“I personnaly dont think bm has a place in pve, and for that to happen you have to remove the most damage dealing ability whilst buffing (yes killshot cooldown reduced woth 20sec duh!) marksman as a pve build”
Are you trying to say that BM shouldn’t be a viable PVE build for raiding and elsewise? Because that kinda negates all that Blizz was trying to do with the changes to raiding in WotLK. There are hunters who love the BM spec for itself and forcing them into a different spec if they hope to raid is not right, just like it wasn’t right for MM hunters to be forced to spec BM in TBC if they wanted a spot in the raid. The whole point of Blizz’s changes and new class balances in WotLK was to make it possible for you to spec what you wanted to play, not “what the raid needs”.
Phytor, have you gone mad?
BM has no place in PVE? Because we have a rockin’ PVP tree, right? Have you tried playing PVP lately as BM? Beast Within is anything BUT an “I Win” button. We are obliterated, our pets are obliterated, whether we’re “big and red” or not. The only place we excel is in PVE – Marks and Survival are FAR more PVP oriented. Your comments truly do a disservice to your fellow hunters, and I suggest you just keep them to yourself. We have enough enemies in Rogues and Mages, who seem eager to bash us after this nerf information went live.
And pray tell, what new WotLK ability should we use to replace Steady Shot? Steady has become baseline for every hunter and the nerf hits each spec, not just BM.
@Caerdwyn
Expect to see Arcane Shot have a rise in importance, as well as possible hybrid builds if it really does do well. As of now it does relatively comparable damage to Steady Shot but a bit more of a mana hog.
Internet blogs from other hunters see this is a) warranted and b) not as big a deal..
Take a look at Big Red Kitty and Big Bear Butt (admittedly a Druid in Hunters’ garb, but he has been playing his Hunter mostly since 3.0)…
Both have pretty solid and rational breakdowns on the patch notes…
Meh…for every person who cries ‘nerf’, a kitten cries…stop making the kittens cry!!! ;)
Shmii:
I agree, Arcane has its benefits. I’ve long been slipping an Arcane in with my Steady Shots simply because I can’t stand the monotony of Steady spam. It IS a mana hog, however, and I really wish Blizzard would add something to BM spec to alleviate this somewhat. Invigoration just doesn’t cut it compared to top-tier MM talents.
Both MM and Survival have talents that encourage the use of the other shots and stings. MM has Chimera, big for stings, and Surv has Lock and Load, big for stings and a subsequent duo of Arcane shots. BM has… Cobra Strikes, which procs on Steady anyway (and Kill Shot for that matter). I’d really like to see something in lower BM that awards a free Arcane or guarantees an Arcane crit, or grants a chance to proc something neat when we use Arcane.
I agree, Invigoration does suck. What if when that proc’ed that caused your next Arcane Shot to cost 50% less mana? 0 mana? I can see that being a nice PvE and PvP buff to be honest, which would certainly compensate for the first (mine at least) understandings to hearing all this. I just don’t think it would proc enough to be a massive difference is all.
Well I’m not super excited about this steady shot nerf but I am glad they nerfed BM because BM is ez mode for most hunters. I am and forever will remain MM. It annoys me to no end to be getting out dps’d by a BM when they just have to spam steady shot over and over again. Where is the skill in button mashing? We will just have to see what it will do for raids. I think the volley nerf sucks though. I loved finally being able to AoE with mages and locks and boomkins.