I’m talking in a vacuum man. If you can’t function with a dead zone in a game that has a dead zone. You’re not getting taken over people who have that skill cap.
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i don’t mind using melee in melee range, but the literal dead zone where you can’t do either is actually dumb and annoying.
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Dead zone is only a problem to those hunters without engineering or broken tooth.
It is still an outdated mechanic that doesn’t work in modern raid environments which are far more complex than classic. There are times in raids you need to stack in melee, or close to melee so you are inside this dead zone. This mechanic should not come back.
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How do retail hunters live without AotCheeta? I know there is some Sprint ripoff version now. So sad.
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I would like to see Blizz focus on class and spec depth and diversity in general. BM hunter is super basic but most classes are basic across the board.
Not sure who thought it was a good idea to start trimming character building out of an RPG…
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Melee weaving was rare in Vanilla, period. Go look through the old guides; none of the contemporary ones actually mention it and its largely a product of private server theorycrafting. Remember, you can’t just take the original Hunter meta and add melee weaving and expect it to be effective, because a) that meta does not include things like the Savage Strikes talent and b) it generally includes dual-wielding when optimal melee weaving is done with a two-hander. It also has a very tight latency and positioning requirement to be worth it and increases the strain on your mana usage. Don’t get me wrong; it is optimal, but it’s not a free/obvious mechanic and VERY FEW PEOPLE USED IT even in high-end raiding.
About Serpent Sting: I don’t really care. Unless I just got a new rank of SS at my current level it really sucked. Like, “maybe equates to an auto-attack and a half” sucks. It was much more valuable before level 40 or so but often I was fighting mobs that died before a full duration anyway at which point it was just a waste of mana. If you want to see the real good implementation of Serpent Sting, look to MoP where it was actually a powerful core ability. Can any of you Classic fanatics actually defend the numerous instances where Blizzard designed Hunter abilities that don’t scale with Hunter stats or is it all just “something extra you have to think about :D”?
Yeah, no. It pretty much sucks in dungeons, too. It doesn’t scale with weapon damage, Aimed/Multi do. Therefore it’s an epic waste of mana. It’s relegated entirely to movement filler.
Face it: the Vanilla WoW iteration of Serpent sting was just… bad. It was relegated to niche situationality due to its failure to scale with our core stats and our dependence on mana. And the worst thing about its design quirks was that it’s not intuitive or obvious to new players. I loved the idea of SS and poisoned arrows back in the day, and I was very young and clueless and didn’t have any addons/read many guides. When I did eventually find out how it actually worked it really jaded me to the class until WotLK camew out. I completely fail to see any value in its Vanilla design. It was just a design mistake, as much as you people love to deny it.
What the hell do you mean “you don’t know where this is coming from”? You know damn well where it’s coming from. You have to buy pet food. You can ease it by getting a pet that eats bread which is suboptimal at max level so you have to tame a new one and go through the arduous process of levelling one (a dreadful mechanic, by the way). You can level cooking, but that itself takes money and more inventory space. I held on to all the meat that was dropping but for whatever reason the “level” of the meat doesn’t really go up beyond the 40s from most mobs so that quickly becomes a huge waste.
One way or another pet happines is costing you money. So stop being a facetious smart alec and own up to it.
Oh? You want to dispute my take on the rotation?
Was the optimal rotation a standard Aimed Shot/Multi-Shot weave: yes or no?
I have researched vanilla Hunters and ALL sources point to that answer. I understand there were consumables and trinkets and wierd shenanigans like trinket-swapping/drinking after an FD, full v.s. clipped, plus the aforementioned melee weaving, but the core of the Hunter gameplay in classic was absolutely those two abilities weaved with auto-shot. It was a static ROTATION with no dynamic element as much as Masochism likes to dump that word everywhere because he doesn’t understand what it means.
I did acknowledge these spells have niche usefulness. Hell, I make use of it from time to time (usually when soloing a tough mob). But that’s the thing: Hunters have a ton of abilities but MOST of them are very situational. Again, there’s some value in that, but it is often used to hide away the fact that the core gameplay is just dull. Look at my armory. I’m a PvE player at heart. My main focus in this game is raiding, as it is for many players because it is a PvE-focused game. Ultimately I find it much more dull and boring playing through a dungeon/raid on classic. There’s great exploration value the first time through but after that there’s only dull, static gameplay. And BFA gameplay itself isn’t even that good, for crying out loud. But look at my most recent boss kill:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTTKHH6nA7Y
3 core abilities and 6 (!) cooldowns to manage. Not to mention a boss fight more mechanically involved than probably every MC boss combined.
“I enjoy having my class being objectively weaker :D”
Your Hunter class values are repulsive and I can only hope you never get your way.
Literally the only thing they should do is bring back some pruned abilities like Distracting Shot, Scare Beast, and Eyes of the Beast.
Everything else? Take inspiration from later, better iterations. Leave the cancerous “RPG mechanics!” back in classic.
I literally acknowledged PvP in my post so nice try (not) at being clever.
You cannot excuse crappy PvE gameplay with “oh but it flows well in PvP” or whatever. It is a PvE-focused game. And classic Hunter plays like dog crap in PvE to be frank.
You can have skill caps without having quirky, half-baked, nonsense mechanics that make the class a chore to play. Modern WoW does that, believe it or not.
One example of a skill cap in modern WoW that doesn’t in Classic: knockbacks. Hunters don’t have any in Classic, we have 2 in BFA. You can be of immense value in BGs with proper use of knockbacks. It’s fun and rewarding. Mastering things like immobile Auto-Shot, not so much.
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You didn’t actually offer any counter-examples to what he said. You just keep resorting to the tired-old Classic fanatic strategy of bludgeoning the thread with buzzword after buzzword.
No, the Classic gameplay is not dynamic. It’s the opposite of dynamic. “Rotations” are inherently STATIC. Classic has a rotation, retail has a priority list. Instead of trying to disprove this you instead go on a ridiculous tangent where you pretend that watching a swing timer is not trivial. It absolutely, certifiably is trivial. Pray tell what is so god-damn hard about watching a bar fill up and only using Aimed/Multi when it’s empty?
You might despair that I’m focusing again on PvE rotation, but the reason I’m doing that is because that’s where most players will spend most of their time. Dungeon runs are by far the most commonly played content at the end game. You cannot keep excusing deficient gameplay in that area of the game with “oh but it’s OK in PvP”.
I do appreciate the kiting challenge. But it’s not encountered particularly often. And frankly it seems like you people keep defending blatant, unfun weaknesses in the class because “it’s something you have to think about!”. The reason I place no value in that excuse at all is because it can be applied to literally everything, from bad class design to literal bugs (yes, I have seen people defend the current auto-shot delay bug as “something you have to keep in mind!”). Having Hunters run at -50% speed would make kiting much more challenging and would sure be something to think about; that doesn’t make it a good idea. As for Auto-Shot: It shouldn’t be immobile because all the melee have a mobile auto-attack, and clipping was one of the wors tmistakes of early class design as it promoted static rotations over dynamic priorities.
I’m level 60 on Classic, genius.
In terms of raw number of specs, we dominate most of them because most of them are crap (i.e. feral druid and ret paladin). But the overwhelming majority of melee we will face are Warriors and Rogues. Any warrior worth his salt will beat a Hunter most of the time, so cancel out that one. As for Rogues: We fare better against them than most classes and the outcome is mostly up to the skill of the players involved, so we have that going for us but I sure wouldn’t call it “dominating”.
I guess I interpreted it as a comparison to modern WoW. Anyway, the point is Wing Clip would be obsolete if you could just use Concussive Shot in melee range.
I knew I could get you to drop the nice-guy facade.
Classic WoW isn’t really too much differnt to pre-flying content in modern WoW. You fly to the nearest place you want to go via flight path and go on ground mount to the place. The only difference is modern WoW introduces flying later once you’ve done all the content as a long-term reward, and that’s pretty nice. Eventually people will have little reason to go out in the world in Classic. I’m already pretty much only running to-and-from dungeons.
Blah blah buzzowrd soup
The reason I contend with people on this issue is because many people believe that these mechanics should be brought back to modern WoW. I hated them, always did. They made the class less fun, period. No amount of spin-doctoring changes that. So when I see people demanding these mechanics get brought back to modern WoW I see it as a threat to my preferred playstyle. You know well that after what happened to Survival I’ve learned to never let that pass and never back down from confronting it.
And also, frankly, I think you are talking up your enjoyment about it just out of bias towards classic WoW, but yeah.
So it will be a parked alt of yours. Amazing.
You should ask yourself why it’s not your preferred PvE choice in classic v.s. later iterations.
This is just an overly romantic and optimistic viewpoint. Classic is very much a dungeons and raids game. It has other tasks, but PvE is central to the progression and reward system. BFA also has world stuff and PvP. That doesn’t make raiding not the primary focus.
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The optimal rotation, is weaving melee and stutter stepping with weaving aimed shot/Multi shot… You admitted it yourself earlier in you post.
That’s cool you don’t care about SS, but i’m going to trust Jona’s (since you know… he had the record of speed leveling.) guide on hunter optimization, over Bepples the goblin hunter’s opinion.
If it’s good enough to include in your rotation to be the most optimum while leveling, its good enough to use in dungeons.
On the food, I don’t know if you know this man… but mobs drop food. Either meat off animals, or actual food from humanoids. I’ve spent very little on actual.
I disagree, i think your hunter values are repulsive. You’re typng things out about the classic hunter when you CLEARLY have no idea. I’m not going to say anything about the retail hunter. Because I haven’t played it.
Again, I can’t speak for modern WoW, but you also had to master a dead zone, while mastering an immobie auto-shot. Theirs a lot of depth to the classic hunter man. You don’t have to like it, and you clearly don’t know what youre talking about. Keep buying food man, you’ll get that mount… one day.
Oh, and for the record. I haven’t, nor have i ever campaigned for changes to retail wow. I DO think it’s silly to think the devs won’t take anything from classic to implement it to retail. They’re trying to improve retention, getting people to switch at some point increases the probability they’ll stay.
Keep your youtube links man, I don’t care about retail boss fights. Thanks though.
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Stutter-stepping is not a rotational element; it’s a movement strategy. That would be like calling Disengage in BFA a rotational button.
So it’s clear that your rotation is aimed/multi. That’s what I’ve been saying. Melee weaving is largely an optional bonus.
I’ll admit that it’s fine for levelling, but I don’t think it’s so universally useful. There were points during levelling that it seriously did about as much damage as an auto shot crit and frankly I’d rather save the mana. I’ll have to check how often Joana used it but at the end of the day I got to 60 just fine.
Um, no. No, it’s not. Literally all the Hunter guides say it’s not to be used in PvE content. Even in dungeons where the debuff limit isn’t so much an issue. It’s a big mana waste. Again I’m sure it’s useful at lower levels but once you have Aimed Shot it’s not worth it, and most of your dungeon runs in classic will be at high level. You realise that there is 1 open spot in the auto-shot weave? So you get to throw in one extra ability if you need to. You said yourself that melee weaving was optimal. So there you go: Raptor Strike is a better choice than Serpent Sting.
Yes, it does. Like I said in my post (which you skipped over, again) I saved up food wehn it dropped. The problem is the food was more often than not much lower level than my pet. And once you are 60 and sticking to dungeon runs you’re not killing so many mobs out in the world anymore. You can spend time grinding food off mobs (lol), but as we goblins say: time is money.
I disagree, i think your hunter values are repulsive. You’re typng things out about the classic hunter when you CLEARLY have no idea. I’m not going to say anything about the retail hunter. Because I haven’t played it.
I got my normal mount at level 40, thanks. And I’m currently at 600/850 gold for my epic mount with less than a day played at 60. Thanks for your concern but I’m good.
Cool story. That doesn’t make the playstyle difficult. The core gameplay is still dull, and you have to throw in gimmicks like those you mentioned + optional boosts like feigning and switching trinkets. I guess you can call that “depth” but it feels very artificial. It’s not part of the class you’re playing. Hunters in BFA aren’t that complex either but they at least have fun and interesting mechanics built into the core of each spec. It is very rewarding and fulfilling to manage frenzy properly and execute great cooldown management on a boss fight or a mythic+. I don’t feel like I’m working around some half-baked gimmick of the class all the time and I can switch to a different spec for a mostly new gameplay experience. It’s just more fun to play.
And this is coming from one of the most outspoken critics of Legion/BFA class design on this subforum.
Serious question: do you think people will enjoy the class more if they, say, make Auto Shot immobile and clippable again? Do you think people quit when they removed that and that people will come back and stay for it if they do it again?
I’d like to imagine that on a Blizzcon slide. “Good news! We made your class way less versatile and capable… but it’s something you have to think about!”
Most of people’s gripes with BFA are pretty recent. Titanforging and gem socket randomness suck. Pruning sucks. Timegating mostly sucks. But that doesn’t mean bringing back obsolete crap from classic will fix things. If you go look at threads where people talk about their favourite iterations of specs, it’s rarely Classic/BC. It’s usually MoP, WotLK, and some of the in-betweens.
Yes I’m sure it would be much more exciting and complex if it were a video of, say, Lucifron 
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Oh, by the way, can we take a moment to appreciate classic Disengage?
I’ve literally used it twice in classic. Both times it failed to help me drop aggro to any significant degree. What a stellar ability of such situational importance.
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Just laying down my input:
Firstly, despite current playstyles and limitations, there has been an absolute crapton of QoL changes to the class since vanilla. Being someone who had played both classic and day one vanilla, I can appreciate these alterations to the Hunter design.
There are a few things that I do enjoy out of vanilla/classic, that absolutely would not translate to retail. These should remain the their respective environments.
Deadzones, pet happiness, and fixed auto shots were legitimately cancerous, and removed for good reason.
While I do agree the pruning was absolutely too much, Ion himself admitted this was the case well before Classic release. Time will tell if this will come into fruition.
While our BFA situation ranges from ok, to a complete dumpster fire, it would absolutely be a step in the wrong direction to move into back into past rotations (which are an issue with many classic playstyles). Yes, we could absolutely do for unpruning in regards to the situational abilities and utility that are no longer present in retail, care must be given when discussing what is being requested.
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Now, the Classic PvE hunter rotation is quite stagnant, where the player weaves in their Aimed/Multi with the Auto Shot timers. This isn’t difficult, or engaging. To allude otherwise, is both hyperbolic and hypocritical to the amount of blatant ignorance.
Nonetheless, there are options for situational circumstances that may not warrant the typical PvE rotations. For example, Aimed (talented) and Arcane share a cooldown for the case of allowing a shot that can be used in movement (in times of PvE and PvP kiting), while also allowing the player a powerful option where they can plant. This cooldown sharing is purposefully made that Aimed is used for non-situational circumstances, while making sure Arcane is not placed in the regular rotation.
I’d come to the conclusion that Stings are very similar as being available as an option, but not necessarily optimal for standard gameplay.
I do believe this is as aspect of pruning, and something that could be improved upon in retail. For example, we may have retail MM, and lets just say the non-situational gameplay in PvE is what we have now. In this regard (instanced PvE, it isn’t horrible). Now, add a baseline sting, and an instant shot that shares a CD and cost with Aimed. Lets say these two baseline abilities are not economical in damage/cost with comparison to base gameplay options, but still allow options for those in a situational environment, such as open world/PvP.
That alone would be an improvement for retail, and a lesson that can be learn’t from Classic, while still allowing some form of non-situational gameplay.
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It is a rotation, because you know… its key binding you hit in a sequential order, and you’re adding in raptor strike to that rotation.
Take up cooking, it will reduce your food cost.
The play style is difficult and the core play being dull is your OPINION. If you don’t like it cool man, no worries. I disagree, Just from knowing wing clip was taken out of BFA it sounds like a lot of pruning happened that took away from the class. I wouldn’t be interested in giving it a shot.
On your serious question do i think people will come back if they make Auto Shot immobile and Clippable? I can’t speak for BFA, but blizzard had over 200% increase in digital subscriptions revenue to play classic wow. Obviously the market demand is there. People enjoy the old styles of play. Just because you don’t doesn’t mean others don’t. The market research is already done for you.
Let your tank get aggro? Focus his target? Disengage isn’t going to save you from going hard on a target the tank hasn’t built up aggro. Feign Death also works.
We’re just going to have to agree to disagree mate. You prefer retail hunter, I don’t.
I think an awful lot of people have completely missed the point.
The point, for those who missed it, is that we (I) do not like the dumbed down ability striped current retail version of what they call hunters.
We (I) like the ability to customize and be creative with builds.
We (I) do not feel that various skills should be tied only to certain specs or pruned out of the game.
In short, we like the way Hunters were, not just in vanilla but at various stages of the past with proper complexity and yes even situational skills, not how they are today.
Now, to be clear, that doesnt mean there is nothing good about current retail etc… it isnt a one extreme or the other choice here.
Weve made many lists on these forums about things we want back, many many more even than anything making suggestions for new things. For me thats very telling.
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Well put man, well put.
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No dodging…THIS is what you said.
…….but almost all of that CRAP on the hunter is broke in your post titled "AFTER PLAYING CLASSIC… Devs you need to pay attention…YES the GAMEPLAY is better…but you only VAGUELY ELUDE TO THAT, BY MENTIONING KITING.
NOW you say this…
Which specifically AGAIN refers to the hunter…….but now you’ve made your statement EVEN MORE VAGUE as to exactly what you want. As seen here specifically.
Which leaves the door open for things that we (I) never, ever, want to see again. For goodness sake! YOU’VE GOT A CRAZY PERSON THAT WANTS THE DEAD ZONE BACK AS YOUR STAUNCHEST ALLY.
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I never said I wanted the dead zone back. Even if I hinted or implied accidentally I did want it in retail I’ve since made it clear that I’m not campaigning for changes to retail. I said I PERSONALLY like the dead zone. I’ll stand by that comment, but please don’t make things up.
You’re extremely Naive to think Blizzard won’t take ANYTHING from the classic Hunter to implement in the next expansion. You have tons of things taken that we (I) never wanted taken away. Classic wow lead to over a 200% increase in subscriptions due to classic wow, Blizzard wants to maintain that. Their best bet, is to get Classic players like myself to TRY retail. I have ZERO plans to try retail in it’s current state, as do many other players. They’ll have to change things to entice players to give it a shot.