Yet Another Explosive Shot Post

I know the hotfix is still fresh from yesterday but wanted to try to summarize the concern a lot of players are trying to voice as it seems its being misunderstood in a lot of other threads.

Fact: Explosive Shot Rune was doing insane damage in PVE and PVP
Fact: It needed to be nerfed
Fact: Hunters have very few active runes and no significant changes to playstyle aside from Explosive and Melee
Fact: Explosive Shot was not nerfed, it was fundamentally changed from single target damage to AOE
Fact: It shares GCD with Arcane Shot
Fact: Melee playstyle is broken, no traps in combat, Runes glitched

Opinion: The only viable leveling playstyle is now BM which is 99% identical to the build you would use in Classic. Why would I play SOD over Classic if the experience is nearly identical?

The issue is not that hunter DPS was reduced. It needed to happen. The issue is that the “Fix” was to make the only viable, new playstyle unplayable forcing all hunters to revert to default classic build.

Solution: Revert Explosive Shot back to single target and reduce its damage by 30-40%, Heck, maybe even 50%.

To all the people replying saying Hunters are whining, you do not understand the problem. Its not about less DPS, its removing a core new experience for a class without any other viable options.

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It needed to be nerfed, hands down.

But I do agree that the nerf was heavy-handed and hope that Blizz takes another look and turns the knob back a wee bit.

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Not being able to use traps in combat is good design. It adds a lot to the skill ceiling of the class. People need to stop insisting that they dumb down the class like TBC hunter.

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It’s fine to have 1 viable leveling build. If bm is the only one thats good then whatever. Just swap specs when you cap. I’m sure with continued balanced all classes will be good enough for classic endgame crap.

Hunters feel awful in wsg. Getting hit for 400+ lava bursts and chaos bolts. Doesnt feel to good playing hunters in bgs atm

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This is not the issue though, I am playing SOD to experience something new. BM is nearly identical to OG classic. Why would I level BM for the 10th time?

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then dont? Play a class that requires hands for once.

Actual brain dead reply.

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Im currently lvl 20 with my hunter and leveled most of the time with melee.

Meaning pulling frow range and killing in melee.

As for the glove spot, I tried a lot of runes there.
I like carve for the extra button, even chimera shot for some range DMG.

But I agree that Beast Mastery is currently the biggest help with my playstyle, even tho I’m not using the taunt aspect.

BM spec with BM rune is the only mildly fun thing left.

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‘I DONT WANT TO PLAY THE SAME THING AGAIN FOR THE 10TH TIME’

-then dont

‘WHAAA WHAA BRAINDED REPLY WHAAA WHAA’

not mention we now need to to choose between Explosive shot or Aimed shot…seems a bit ridiculous that a rune shares a CD with a talented ability…

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I can always count on classic players having the worst class design takes known to man.

If you had to perform a 360 spin jump before every shot, that would also add a “skill ceiling”. It does not make it a good idea because it’s nonsense. Same for traps with a combat restriction. They should be an important part of the class’s gameplay even in combat.

Aside from the juvenile tone from your posts, people aren’t interested in obsessive fanboyism like this. SoD is meant to be about interesting new gameplay options. Hunter doesn’t have any. They half-assed the runes and the result is more or less just era Hunter with more DPS. People quite rightly want to see more.

For the record, I have gone and played a different class. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t improve Hunter and people shouldn’t give feedback for it.

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Traps already are an important part of hunter gameplay at all times, whether or not you’re in combat. If you’re unable to reliably follow up feign death with an accurate trap, then that’s a skill issue on your part.

If they make traps usable in combat then they will inevitably balance this by increasing their cooldown and giving them an arming timer like in TBC and Wrath. And the arming timer feels absolutely terrible to play around.

Let me guess, do you also want them to remove the dead zone and “fix” melee weaving? All of these changes ruined hunter gameplay in TBC and we shouldn’t bring them into SoD.

And like I said, if they required you to do a 360 spin jump before every shot that would also make it a skill gap you have to overcome and play around. That doesn’t make it a good idea.

It’s not enough to justify a mechanical decision with “it’s a challenge”. It needs to make sense and it needs to fit neatly into the gameplay flow of the class. Combat-restricted traps are neither. There’s no fantasy or gameplay reason why they are locked to out-of-combat usage. It’s especially bad when dropping combat in WoW isn’t perfectly reliable.

Less terrible than traps not being usable in combat? It’s hard to take that as a sincere statement.

Traps are much more potent in BC and WotLK in all areas of the game so this is a gibberish point. If your problem is with the arm time, argue for the removal of the arm time. Traps in retail don’t have an arm time anymore and not only can they be used in combat but they’re also ranged. Having an arm time is not an inherent consequence of traps being usable in combat. It’s a conscious “balance” choice they could choose not to make; especially given all the other class design additions in SoD.

Lmao. Hunters improved in playstyle in every expansion up until Legion.

TBC did not ruin melee weaving. In fact it’s much more potent in TBC because there’s no deadzone. WotLK ruined it, and that’s because WotLK completed and diversified the ranged toolkit that should have been that way from the start. Remember how Classic nonsensically had half our abilities scale off spell damage instead? That was fixed and in WotLK they integrated those into the toolkit so you weren’t just weaving 1 or 2 abilities around Auto Shot endlessly. They did that because it was frankly a more intuitive, fun, and dynamic way to play. Hunters were at their most widely played and enjoyed state in the WotLK - WoD period.

There’s not much point in further explaining it to you because you clearly have reprehensible tastes on what Hunters should be, and you’d rather keep nonsensical and obsolete game design afterthoughts instead of tailored and polished gameplay because it’s interesting to play around or whatever. Like I said already, you might as well be arguing to me that we should have to do a 360 spin jump before every shot. It’s literally the same level of merit in my perspective.

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Don’t worry I wouldn’t look to you for substantive explanation of anything, odious little twerp. Seems that you’re a boss-fight obsessive from retail, maybe vanilla hunter just isn’t for you?

Feign+trap btw. We’re talking about a two ability combo.

I hope blizzard reverts chim shot. I feel like im playing classic era in sod

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I played from 2005 and in every expansion. They all improved the class. At least until Legion.

If you dismiss PVE play so easily I can just as easily dismiss your “PVP obsession”.

And you’re right: vanilla Hunter isn’t for me because it’s a half-baked and incomplete class that got no interesting runes. I’ve rolled a Mage for SoD because it actually has interesting new mechanics unlike Hunter.

Why should traps require a feign? It makes no sense from a fantasy or gameplay perspective. The only defense is “it’s something you have to think about!”, hence the spin jump comparison. You can defend any nonsense mechanic by saying it’s a skill gap.

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The nerf could be just a nerf and not a re-design I agree. But anyway beside explosive shot you have bunch of other runes that look pretty OP to me. Don’t tell me that beast mastery rune ain’t OP. And if BM turned out to be the way who cares. Who said that every single damn class in the game should get a total brand new play style. That’s a wrong assumption.

Did you know that every class have 2+ roles except hunter right? mages, rogues, shaman, locks.

They are introducing melee gameplay and its nice, but its not even close to bm viability, mm is dead basically. And thats the problem, whats new to hunters? more dmg modifiers to pets, awesome…

Hope new runes on phase 2 add some real diversity.

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