Can we get an explanation on Double Tap removal?

Community WoW Community Council
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Title.

Currently expected for 10.0.5, the Double Tap removal from MM hunter is a very significant nerf, one could even say that it is rendering an already struggling class near unplayable in PvP in the current meta.

The replacement talent does practically nothing to even reduce how big this nerf is.

But most importantly… We just don’t know why this change is even being considered to begin with? No explanation given, no compromise, not even any acknowledgement of the issue hunters have with this change.

So my question is…
Why? Why this change? Why no explanation? Why is this only targeted at MM hunters, a change that is clearly going to affect PvP in a major way, when their representation is abysmal on the high rated PvP ladder?

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Still waiting on that blue text to explain this change that made MM unusable in rated PvP (now a spec rated at or below tanks in F-tier) and dropped MM by 14 spots in PvE when it was already struggling in mythic dungeons.

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The worst part about almost every PvP change like this is that they do it and give nothing back. Brewmaster was the most underplayed over complicated class in PvP and had 2 gimmicks that were thrown in the trash with ZERO balance to fill the gap. It was not recovered since and its looking like MM hunter is the new unfortunate soul to recieve a major nerf for a actually easily avoidable mechanic. It was a little over powered but not to the point of the 1.2 mil deathbolts or the 900k radiant decrees.

As far as communication goes the Devs for PvP have changed several times but lack of communication or hidden changes has stayed the same forever. DF really had me excited and I was finally going to experience the Community Council with extra communication from blizzard and its been almost nothing besides reading patch notes or submitting feedback. They have addressed some solo shuffle stuff that was not fairly well recieved. They have also thrown out changes that were obviously terrible and received backlash that was deserved because they ignored feedback. The leaver problem, off meta classes being ignored and absolute destruction of certain specs because everyone cries about how OP they are when its just once again balance issues of using a sledgehammer to smooth out inbalance instead of removing the 25th damage modifier stack from the fotm class.

They need to communicate with the people who play the game. They havent been doing it and I had hope for dragonflight but its the same so far. Im not saying they are terrible and unable to be redeemed by changing it. I have certainly enjoyed the constant changes to classes but they have alot to make up for.

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Just to preface, I’m one of the few people happy they removed Double Tap, but that’s just because I disliked it. I’m well aware I’m in the minority. Just to get that out there. Lol. (I’d have liked it if it were off the GCD, but on the GCD I just never liked it, thematically or practically, as an ability)

What I don’t agree with though, is removing it from the class entirely because of PvP reasons. PvE Changes should NEVER be made because of PvP.

You had an aura to make the 2nd Aimed Shot do less damage when shot with Double Tap in PvP combat. This led to people using it on Rapid Fire instead. Why did you not just make an aura to make Rapid Fire do less damage if empowered by Double Tap in PvP combat as well? Why outright remove the ability completely with zero explanation or taking feedback from the community into account?

I don’t think Double Tap’s removal is what caused the significant drop. Back in Shadowlands, Lethal Shots (competing talent on the row) was only ~50-150 dps (depending on your gear) behind Double Tap, and I used it for ease of use compared to Double Tap, as I always forgot to use Double Tap on cooldown, so it’d end up being more dps for my forgetful self.

I think the more likely reason our dps dropped so much is the fact they swapped the places of Steady Focus and Double Tap (now Tactical Reload) - this forces us to spend 2 points on Steady Focus to access Serpentstalker’s Treachery and Bullseye (Mandatory Talents), whereas Steady Focus is a talent we didn’t touch before because it’s not a good talent. So where did we get those points for Steady Focus? We had to take them away from Volley (which not only is strong, but unlocks Trueshot instead of Steady Focus), and Wailing Arrow (a strong ST/AoE Burst skill/silence). So that simple change they made robbed Marksman of 2 strong active skills on top of Double Tap.

Simply swapping the position of Tactical Reload and Steady Focus back to where they were would go a long way towards fixing our dps again and allow us to properly pick up Volley and Wailing Arrow again in an optimal build and avoid Steady Focus. Steady Focus was listed as a dead talent to avoid by wowhead/icy/method prior to this patch and now it’s mandatory because it locks 2 mandatory talents behind it, which is just bad design.

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It should go both ways but it dont. My personal favorite is changes that drastically change PvP because PvE reasons and it totally kills the class.

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I doubt the removal of double tap was done for PvP reasons, but we’ll never know because Blizzard won’t explain it to us.

I’m fairly certain the majority of hunters are fine with its removal, what they aren’t fine with is that it was removed with nothing given in return for a spec that was already struggling at anything other than doing damage in PvE.

While every other classes got paragraphs of changes, hunters got nothing for BM and survival, got MM completely gutted in a few lines of changes and the only thing that was explained was the completely out of touch change on Roar of Sacrifice.

Hunters needs a dev to actually take a good look at the class, all of the specs are having an identity crisis, none of the feedback is being listened to, and, for PvP, hunters are forced into playing the RNG barbed shot or needing to be a MLG player to succeed with Survival while MM is completely dead in the water unsalvageable. I won’t comment on PvE, but people are complaining about lack of survivability, beast cleave being bad, and MM being forced steady shot down their throat when it completely breaks the flow of the spec.

Lone Wolf is a problem, Sentinel owl is poorly designed, wailing arrow is a weak capstone, salvo is worthless against minion factories, bullseye is in the way, windrunner guidance is too RNG, barbed shot RNG is bad and has always been bad, survival has no tools to survive in melee while being a melee class, pets dies instantly to begin sneezed at by cleave damage, and the list goes on.

So yeah, no explanation whatsoever why double tap was removed with no compensation.
It really feels like they don’t care nor want to care about hunters. But that’s just part of the course for hunter, they’ve never truly cared much about the class given how out of touch they have been historically with it.

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This is the biggest thing. We are speaking from the supposedly greater communication from blizzard. And we recieve nothing.

How does this bode for the future of the game? How does trying to communicate for the sake of the game work if the so called “community council” cant even hear from the devs?

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