f13.net

I'm embarrased to say where I found this link ...*cough* vn *cough*

Future Expansion Areas (http://episteme.arstechnica.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/39309975/m/236001477631/r/185001334731#185001334731)

That's really cool, I like that whiteboard shot. I noticed this a while ago.. http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/downloads/wallpapers/wallpaper30.html

If you look at the snatch of map that's visible next to the Tauren, it doesn't look like any part of the current map, and the letters don't lend themselves to Undermine (which brought it to mind) or Northrend (which wouldn't be there anyway.)

Lots of 20 man+ level 60 raids. Ugh. More low-mid level content plzkthx.

I second that motion!

The Caverns of Time sound fairly interesting to me.  Sort of reminds me of the light/dark versions of Hyrule in the SNES Zelda.  Might be fun exploring some of the ruined sites like Stromguard back when they were thriving cities.

I'm with you on the raid instances.  Most of those I'll probably never see.  Additional continents/outdoor zones would be much better for my playstyle.

More Expansion Speculation (http://wow.azzor.com/225/expansion_speculation.php)

As long as we are voicing our wants for expansion:

I am going to continue to support the thought of more casual player content.  On top of the raid content, please work on 1-5 player group content as well.  In fact, I'd love to see all of the instances be scalable much like other games these days.

Obviously, the drops and mobs would have to be scaled, but as said before, as a casual player, I won't see more than 50% of these high end content additions.  I haven't seen 50% of what is already there and probably never will.

I'll resign myself to the knowledge that if I don't spend 5 hours raiding I won't get the shiniest items, but at least let me experience these instances.  I feel so disconnected from the game lore since I do not participate in the major raiding areas that I start to lose interest in the game itself.

I did get into a small raid group for Scholo for 2 hours on Saturday and got absolutely nothing from it and they hadn't gotten anywhere yet before I had to log.  Further evidence that I'll be left out of this large chunk of the game.

Don't raid scholo.  Its a 5-man instance and this latest patch reduced the # of pulls for 5-man groups to further drive home that point.  All a 10-man does is trivialize the bossfights, which is dumb since thats the funnest part.

Scholo is actually a fun dungeon now, though you may still have some problems with Jandice and her cellar.

I know.  It would have been more fun with a 5-man.  However, I'd probably never get the older raiders to figure that out.  They all seemed perfectly comfortable killing everything with absolute ease and getting nothing for it.

Next time?  I'll require it to be 5-man only or I'll just keep solo'ing someplace else.

All I can say is fuck the catasses. We don't need 500 uber-raid dungeons with Orange/Red level loot, we need WAY more level 10-50 instances and content that require 5-10 people at the MAX to enjoy. The more people I have to group with the less fun I have.

You don't really need to scale the drops, just the drop rate on those drops, if you want to keep things "fair" A 5 man group isntance should drop a super item 1/8 as often as a 40 man group instance.

It's so easy.  And would make the game about 20x more fun.  Fuck you Tigole.  Fuck you in your EQ Asshole.

I'll be facing the "join the uber raid guild or actually have fun in current guild" quandary soon. Unfortunately, most of the 60s in my guild left for the uberguild. We still communicate via ventrilo, but they seem to be in their own little raid world now and it's difficult for me and my friends to get instance groups together.

One of my friends who just recently hit 60 just couldn't find anyone to help him gear up for MC, so he up and quit the game - but he's the impatient sort. I'm hoping at some point they'll raise th level cap or something and let casual players like myself get some shineys without spending hours a day raiding some ooberdungeon (or PvPing to the bone).

I don't see why you need any more lvl 1-59 instances, you have way more than you need already.  Two 40 person raid instances is more than enough also, three if you count onyxia.  Whats needed is more strath/scholo/brs level content, and something to bridge the gap between ubrs and MC.  You already have instances for every single level starting at around 16 all the way to 59, more would be simply wasted content.

Another thing we need more of is low level Item Sets.  Why is it that the only sub level 50 item sets are Defias Leather (Rogue) and Vambrace of the Viper (Druid), and I guess the Scarlet monastary chain stuff?

Having some Mage, Priest, or Warrior themed instances at low levels would be nice.

And really, they COULD use another low level instance or two.  Just for some variety.

What's the point of low level item sets? By the time you collect them they'll be outdated.

In FFXI gear is very important at all levels and gear also tends to last a while, at least some gear. It's not unusual to be wearing items 10 levels below you, and 10 levels takes some time to accrue. I don't see what the point would be in a game like WoW where the levelling is significantly faster.

Also, low-level instances and smaller raids really aren't related. I think the problem many people have is that the end game consists of mega-groups, whereas the rest of the game is pretty solo-friendly, which is pretty silly. The idea of fighting in a battle with 40 other people really doesn't appeal to me *at all*, and I think many people here feel the same way.

I'm getting fed up (Totally) with ten men raids in a guild of really good people.  The bickering over loot and the slow pace of what SHOULD be easy phone-in fights is really annoying.

I CANNOT IMAGINE trying to do this with more people.  The idea of a 40 man group that isn't in the BG makes me physically ill.

Ouch, I hear you there. When I was in my own guild we had MC cleared up to Rag, had downed Onyxia and Kazzak. Nobody had less than 3 epics... and yet we wiped 3 times before even hitting Rend in UBRS the day after a full-MC-clear which only gave us one wipe (someone went LD vs Baron... GG). Then when we were keying up for BWL when it came out we had a run where we wiped 7 times. Seven goddamn times, TWICE on GENERAL DRAKK. It took us something like 5 hours. Seriously the 40-man raids really messed us up. We used todo 5/10/15 men runs in our sleep and now everyone is so lazy and stupid because the raids require very little from the individual and they don't respect the other instances. It was so fucking annoying.

Yep, that's what I meant.  Scale the drop rate.  This would fit my playstyle perfectly.

We may not need 5 more instances for the lower levels, but I'd like to see more.  I've been having fun going back through the game making new alts, but each time I do it I find it less appealing just due to the lack of variety in content.  It would be nice to have a slightly larger amount of choices while leveling.

I agree with the rest of your point. 

For me it is simple, put more content in but make it so that all playstyles can enjoy it.  This trend to only reward those that join big 40 man raids is totally leaving me (and I'm guessing many others) out in the cold pretty quickly.

The only thing keeping me playing so far is leveling different races/classes and enjoying the content that made the game good.  Why does all that have to stop when you hit 60?  Once I have 4-6 characters at that level, what's left?  At this point, I imagine it is the next MMO to hit the market.

You would think Blizzard would notice that their success has been largely due to catering to more casual players than ever before.  Why cut their success short for the sake of the catasses?

Yeah.. my doomsday prediction is that 2 years from now [when tier 8 equipment will be the norm], casual guilds won't exist anymore in wow.

The item gap is already huge between ubrs-level stuff and MC stuff.. from what I've seen of BWL loot, oooh boy. Shaman arcane power trinket? Better invest in a good bubblehearth macro now! And that's just tier 2, blizzard hinted at there being 9 tiers in the end.

An average joe like myself [who's a semi-hardcore player in an old, casual guild] won't ever get to MC -- this is not a matter of difficulty, it's about numbers. Teaming up with another guild sounds like a good idea in theory, except that it doesn't actually, ya know, work. And even if by some miracle the 2-guild alliance survives the 40 wipes and bazillion loot disputes [ZOMG azuresong mageblade hunter weapon lolllllllllz], they'll now have to outfit everyone in MC gear to have a chance in BWL. And so on. You want to pvp against folks with full tier 9? Tough shit, enjoy being 1-shot fodder. Oh wait, we'll have level 59-60 blues from Zul'gurub.... 2-shot fodder.
[I wish I was exaggerating, but I've fought against people with full MC equipment. Even though they only had a 'noobie' weapon like the earthshaker, I didn't stand a chance.. half of my spells got resisted right away, the other half didn't do nearly enough damage. And he stunlocked me to death. He was a friggin' warrior! :P]

The alternative? PvP gear? Yeah, let me go and spend 16 hours a day in WSG, losing over and over again against a guild that only does WSG and nothing else and already has a full rank 16 pvp set [or just a 10-man from your average raiding guild kitted out in MC gear].

This rant was brought to you by the letter "FU" and the "Furor needs a hydrochloride enema" foundation.


Edit [to reduce the Vault Quotient of this post]: I believe that the naga and the draenei along with the blood elves will be the third faction in an expansion... maybe the goblins as well. Maelstrom and the Outland could make up their 'home continent'.. of course the Outland would only be accessible once the dark portal in blasted lands is opened. I also have a suspicion that the recent change of making Theramore its own faction [allied to the Alliance] hints at possible splinter factions / subfactions later on.



-- Z.

Actually, the only real problem you get fighting people in full MC gear is that you are fucked if you are a fire mage (GG 250+ fire resist and 100 damage crit pyroblasts), happen to run into their main tank (our guild Main Tank has soo much +Deffence gear that appearently it is impossible to get a crit strike against him in mele, and nice protection spec makes him take so little damage it is laughable)  or one of their rogues (backstab/eviscerate from an MC weapon is nasty).

Other classes dont reallly benefit super much from MC gear (good going Arcanist +15 seconds to Polymorph that doesent work in  PvP).

Now BWL sets, thats a different story.

Apologism ahoy!


The solution is to guild with really good people who are really good people, rather than really good people who bicker constantly over loot and take 15 years to clear shit that should be blown through trivially.


I presume they will try to keep the gap large but not overwhelming by constantly adding new 5-10 mans along with the raid targets.  The latest & greatest 5-10 man gear will be behind the latest and greatest 40 man gear, but not overwhelmingly so.  Hell, they already had to buff the hell out of MC gear because Dire Maul gear utterly obliterated it.  "Soon" (in Blizzard land) there'll be 5 mans spitting out stuff equivalent to MC so you'll only have BWL vs MC type disparity (which is small), and then when Next Uber Raid is released it will be followed by Next Uber 5-10 Man, which will spit out BWL-quality stuff.  This, combined with regular ole mudflation which will soon allow 6 monkeys hitting random keys to kill Ragnaros, should keep the difference reasonable enough.

This model mostly worked for EQ, until Luclin (and especially PoP) came around and they forgot about the whole "put loot comparable to the best stuff from the last expansion in places where it is easy for single-groupers to get in this expansion" part, and the differences between groupers and raiders became so enormous that they could not realistically group together again in a mutually challenging environment.  Blizz will probably fuck it up too, but in theory it isn't so bad.


More is (usually) better but I have a hard time seeing this as an effective use of resources.  My sense is that a good number of the lower-end instances languish unused most of the time already.  I mean, how many people really hit up Blackfathom Depths or Razorfen Downs? 


I doubt very much that this is "so easy".  Just scale down Magmadar, which is explicitly designed to require multiple hunters working in harmony and (kind of ) an anti-fearer in addition to your tank-healing-dps for a 5 man group?  Not impossible, but certainly not "so easy."  It would probably be easier to create a 5-man from scratch than to recalibrate MC as a 5-man with the same RvR.

WRONG. Placing the vast majority of the new content only in the range of people at level cap is a fucking STUPID practice that has ruined every single MMORPG that has done it. Why the fuck shouldn't new players or people rolling alts have new instances to run and places to go? Because they'll "level up too fast"?

No, THEY won't level up too fast, YOU will.

I'll say it again: Fuck the catasses.

Catering to catasses creates an incredible obstacle to fresh subscribers and forces obsolescence into the product life cycle.

There are at least a half a dozen multi-guild raiding alliances on my server, many quite successful (as in downing Onxy and Domo). Additionally, many of the guilds raiding on their own started out in multi-guild raiding alliances. Hell, I've heard of Rag downing guilds that literally got their start with a "LFG MC" spamming of Ironforge. It can be done, and it has been done, by many.

To making leveling new characters more interesting, i would greatly prefer more outdoor quests to instances.  As it is, thier are alot of interesting locales that go mostly unused in terms of story, and alot of story that could use more "meat".  I'd like to see outdoor events, and things like the undead widow in the Reflecting Pools on spirit rise in thunder bluff, who gives you the pendant to place on her husbands grave... ways to find out more about thier story.

I'd like more non-instanced dungeons/caves/castles, good for a group of 2 or 3, and most especially more effort put into the faction system.  Things like having the Timbermaw Furblogs controlling a useful cavern passage is a good start, but thier is precious little of this sort of thing.  I also happen to think thier needs to be more conflicting factions, with different advantages depending on who you side with.

However, as far as instances go, more mid-low level stuff would be dumb.  As others have mentioned, getting a group together for RFC, BFD, RFD, and Uld is PAINFUL (especially uld).  Hardly anyone does these instances nowdays, adding more would be a complete waste of developer time.

There won't be enough new players on any given server except for the ones near the top of the login list to form the large clumps of similarly-levelled lowbies needed to support the low level instances they have, and why the hell would a "new player" need "new instances to run and places to go" in the first place.  The instances that are in the game now are new to a new player, who by definition is, like, new to the game and stuff.

Alts have similar issues re: clumping and do typically level too fast because they are typically twinked to the gills.  Most players skipped many of the instances the first time around so there is some new-to-them stuff.  Basing your entire game around alts is lame anyway, since a lot of people don't care two shits about alts while almost everyone gives several shits about their main character.


-add 3 new 5-man instances at 60 so non-catasses can enjoy this new content right now with their characters that they have spent the last 9 months developing in a group of their friends they have made over that time = OMG CATASS

-add 3 new instances at 20, 35 and 50 so non-catasses get the joy creating another alt and slogging through the 1-50 level grind all over again so they can enjoy the new content if they are lucky enough to find 4 other people who happened to have their 17th alt at that same level at the same time = WORKINGMAN'S PARADISE

Gotcha.

I hate alts. But let's face it, when you hit 60, you can PVP or you can make alts or you can uber-raid. The uber raid part requires a lot of time and effort that most people do not have, not to mention it is boring in the extreme unless you are leading the raid. It is also completely, diametrically opposed to the playstyle of the previous 60 levels, which does not really encourage grouping, especially in nothing larger than 5-10 man groups. Thus, the uber raid part is custom-fit to 1-fucking-percent of the population.

PVP has the inherent problems that all PVP systems have, all of which can push the casual player away. It is also geared not only to appeal to the uber raid crowd, because of group size and the item advantages gained from doing raids, but also to the uber competitive crowd, which may make up another 1-fucking-percent of the population.

Then you have alts. Making an alt can provide a new experience by trying a new class or class/combo, but again, a lot of the quests are generic, not class-specific. So short of making an alt in an opposing faction to your main, on another server, you'll be repeating content, which can get boring. Boring leads to quitting.

Or at 60 you can just quit once you get bored.

See, being bored should be anathema to the dev team, and that's why they should be adding content in general. Because boredom leads to quitting, and the dev team's primary goal in a subscription MMOG is to keep people subscribed and playing. Focuing most of your efforts on those 2% loudmouths who do uber raids is repeating many of the same mistakes of previous MMOG's.

I wouldn't mind if the current raid content eventually gets handed down to the 5-man groups while new raid content is introduced as mentioned.  It would be a nice life cycle that would keep me somewhat interested I think.  I am not one that feels I need everything handed to me, nor do I feel like I have to be the first to get shiny item number XXX.  Thus, I'm a casual player-type.

I think there could be a good mix of new 5-man plus 40-man content added as long as the older content is toned down and opened up to the masses over time.  Seems smart to  me.

[/i] This is true, but you have difficulties if you go the other way too of course. 

I'd say that maintaining a healthy MMO isn't a question of catering to either one extreme or another (casual or hardcore) but rather to strike a proper balance between the two, and sticking to it.  You can't rationally ignore your most dedicated and outspoken subscribers, even if they're technically your "least efficient" ones. 

If you have the misfortune of being a hardcore gamer who doesn't like traditional hardcore content.. I guess you'll have a lot of time to be angry.  I'd say that the MMO industry recognizes two main types of subscribers- the hardcore group players and the casual solo/small groupers.  If you don't fit into either mold very easily, then I guess it'll always be a labor of love.  Or whatnot.

Saying that a new player doesn't need more content because they're new is a really stupid excuse. The low to mid level game hasn't ever felt like a means to an end for me in WoW, mostly because I knew I wasn't going to experience half of the high-end content. I'm enjoying rolling alts as it is, and new stuff to do would make it much more fun.

Also, your server must suck (more), because none of my alts have had any trouble finding groups for pretty much anything, outside of Shadowfang Keep (which is mostly ignored by Alliance players) and even then I still eventually got into some. Doesn't hurt that I've been recommending SFK to everyone in their mid-20's since it's a cool instance.

I'd say in the overall population across the servers that the minority are doing level 60 raids. Why cater exclusively to them? Because they use the boards and bitch the loudest?


Uh, and raiding yet another instance in Blackrock over and over and over and over again endlessly for phat lewts is any less lame? Since when was letting a MMORPG get top-heavy and 90% focused on level-cap content ever good? A good balance of content will keep a majority of the players (be they new, alt-rollers, or high-end) from getting bored, at least moreso than content geared totally for 50+ players.


(http://img57.imageshack.us/img57/3325/strawman8ma.jpg)

>_<

MMORPGs are designed to keep subscribers, not add new ones. Usually expansions do very little to attract new players. The theory seems to be shoot your load in the first few months and hope you get a lot of subs up front, then hold onto them forever by continuously raising the level cap, adding more items, etc.

I think one reason it's hard for MMORPGs to grow over time is that if your friend tells you the game is cool and you join up 5 months after he does you basically can't play together unless he makes an alt.

Bingo.  Main problem with WoW atm.

Sidekicking, I hear good things about...

Nope.

We do not even need the "drop rate". Just link the loot to a quest and we're done. You do the quest and get your reward as intended.

Btw, if an instance drops a set item to a 5 man group as often to a 40 man group, there wouldn't be 40 man groups. At all.


That's a wonderful summary.

But I believe the problem is about the "mudflation" as a development attitude. Mudflation ultimately builds gaps between the players. Between "have" and "not have". This is directly bad for a Virtual World.

What if the development focuses on different approaches? PvP can be so much more interesting without being another treadmill. There is no need to have the players separated between the group with uber loot and the group without it. In fact this is what removes the fun from the PvP, which is directly more a virual world compared to PvE.

Nothing can go well with this old approach. If they remove the grind from the PvE endgame they simply won't be able to produce enough content. They have ALREADY big problems even with those painful grinds. Think if they remove them. They cannot.

My point is that it's the whole approach that is completely wrong and pointless and that needs to change.

Putting the Uber Items in PvP ruined it.  Totally.

Last night's AV instance was a total fucking joke as we got totally railroaded because the horde group didn't give a fuck about winning.

It was all about the quests (that give items) and leeching CP's from the players that were trying.  It was a fucking joke and, in one fell swoop, has totally put me off AV play.

I don't mind gear-oriented PvE progression, just give me Dire Maul and a quest or two every couplethree months and I'll be fine with that and filling in gaps with a little PvP and raiding.  Fuck making new content that I'll be forced to make another alt to see.  Though I bet the % of people participating in raids  is much higher than 2.  There are something like 20 guilds on my server that have killed at least some boss in MC with more joining the list all the time, and my server is kind of a backwater.  That's got to be at least ~1,000 players.  I don't know how many active accounts there are on my server (or any other), but the Census site indicates that there were ~3,200 unique level 60's and ~4,700 unique 51-60's who played at some point in the last 30 days on my server.


Why are you ranting about raids?  I'm talking about 5-10 man instances just like you.  We only disagree about what level characters they should be designed for.  You are right about one thing, somebody loves their straw man.

I will say one thing, Blizz messed up their order of instancing. Even if I wasn't sick of 40-man raids I'd still be damn sick of BRM. If they had only put a couple of instances in BRM, then given us some other high end instances to play with we could embrace the nostalgia of going back to BRM when they put in those instances after all the time spent elsewhere. Instead BWL was met with a resounding "BLACKROCK MOUNTAIN AGAIN?!?!?" from even the hardcore raiders in my former guild.

Yeah, I don't even raid at Blackrock and I thought that when I learned where it was going to be. 

Blizzard sure likes their Blackrock theme I guess. (MC, BRD, UBRS, LBRS, BWL...am I missing anything else?)

I like the fact that  BRM has such a high concentration of desired instances.  It creates an area of very high traffic and lots of pvp.

The day BWL was released, the level of spawn camping was insane, full raid groups viaing for control of the quartermaster, rampant ganking, trying to time and position your res to escape... good times.

Actually, expansions as they are done now are about attracting new players as well as keeping existing ones. They are there to put a new box on the shelf 6 months after the old one should have come off. By putting a new box up, they can also bundle the expansion with the main game and get 2 boxes on the shelves, which does attract new players. Keeping that box on the shelf is what cuts down on turnover, because you'll always lose subscribers, but as long as you gain about as many as you lose, you should be doing well.

You are misinformed. WoW is not a virtual world, it's a persistent multiplayer game.

That is true enough, but most expansions themselves are skewed very heavily in favor of high-end players. I'm not sure how much just having a box on the shelf again really helps now that everyone knows that if you didn't like the original so much the expansion won't do anything for you either.

It's odd because there are simple things that could be done like reducing travel times that will make people with alts happy as well as new players. I don't think just adding more and more content for new players makes a lot of sense, but you could certainly jigger things around a bit. For example making travel times more tolerable.

---

It's funny the comments about AV and PvP. Blizzard did the same thing in Warcraft 3, where as part of the PvP you had to PvE. It's like they have attention deficit and they can't make something that is just straightforwardly about one fun thing. IMO Warcraft 3 was a step backwards from SC because of crap like "sure, I could fight my opponent - or I could go fight some AI monsters and level up first!"

Likewise having quests in PvP-centric areas is just silly. If people want to do quests, let them do quests in the quest areas.

WoW's subs continue to ramp.  The rulebreaker continues to shatter old assumptions.

When expansions cater to the power players that simply ramps the obstacles to fresh subs.  Expansions should emphasize wider over taller.

Not really.  The power of mudflation, when properly harnessed, ensures that the difference between a new character and an apex character remain relatively constant throughout the game's life.   

Wider over taller would possibly work in a game designed from the ground up to do that.  WoW is is a linear character development game with some story glommed on, just like 99.9% of the computer RPGs that have been released since Akalabeth.  Taller is the only way to go.  Wider also offers its own problems: like the fact that you'll end up with 8 shitty games packaged together instead of 1 decent one.  I think HRose & co are barking up the wrong tree.

Well that's certainly the way it has been done.  And it's certainly locked those services into an ever decreasing sub count.  Planned obsolescence and something that given the current state of client-side technology is wasteful of the IP.

The difference with WoW is that I don't find the prospect of leveling a new character all that terrible.  If they added new content and perhaps even new races/classes I'd be willing to level some other character while I level the rest of my originals.  The system is just that easy and the lvl'ing curve is low enough especially if the new content is good.  I won't notice the grind as much. (Vive le rest experience!)

EQ - Can't say that.
SB - Can say that since leveling consisted of 48 hours of macro spawn groups. Wait, that sucks, nm.
SWG - Absolutely not!
CoH - Wish I could say it, but the damned lvl curve is way too steep.

EQ's population fucking exploded after Kunark and Velious and only began to grow more slowly after DAOC was released [getting slightly flatter with PoP which violated the mudflation rule by making the difference between casuals and non casuals enormous], and only began to decline after WoW and EQ2 were imminent.  I'm not seeing an ever declining sub count.

Please to logically reconcile those last two phrases.

You outline the history which is my exact point.  You're citing a period where there was little genuine competition and the shiny was less sophisticated.  The newer products have reached a stage of client-side sophistication where they can hold their own much longer.  And we've reached a saturation of competition that will self-fulfill any earlier beliefs in planned obsolescence.

It's insane to intentionally abandon a proven franchise simply because an older implementation is losing ground.  Retooling with a clear migration path for the customer base is much more preferable than walking away.

Wide expansions are phased implementations to a more competitive implementation of the proven franchise.  They attract new subs.  Tall expansions are just money spent clinging to a shrinking base of subs.

Of course a wide expansion needs to be calibrated to what new subs want.  Mythic's TOA was wide but assumed new entrants to the MOG market wanted even more time burnt.  Sony's EQ2 should have been treated as wide didn't offer a clear migration path and so became a competiting product that undermined retention.

I understand WoW's next character expansion opens up new characters, new lands, new quests, new abilities.  That's a wide expansion and it's calbrated to the new entrants to the MOG market that want quick entertainment and accumulation.

Caydiem on the Blizzard boards just verified that Druids will be getting major changes to their feral forms in the 1.7 patch. Yay me. (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=4258650&p=1&tmp=1#post4258851)

I suspect starting a Hunter (new talents) and druid in the near future.

There's still no timetable on when 1.7 is coming out. Could be months.

And being a druid means being an elf.

Fuck, that's right.

Ah well, made a hunter at least.  L1 Dwarf named inspirado.  Pure pet hunter.

I used to play an Orc hunter. I had a pet scorpion named "schild".

MrHat is going to have a pet named Explosivo.

Damn fucking straight.

Priest of Pwnage named Zhazha.

Or a cow. Which is just as bad.

No, not even close. ELF, HE SAID ELF.

On a new note, hunters get to be more uber in 1.7. Something about a godly pet every two minutes.

Hunters are shit boring right now and need some major work.

Looks like survival and beast lines got some love, marks... not so much.

Yeah the new changes look really nice. You can see the new talent tree here. (http://worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/hunters/talents.html)  I might start playing my hunter again, if they ever got a real role in a group.  The irritating thing is this new 'trap mastery' that reduces the ability to resist traps, a "bug" that was "fixed" in 1.6.  How odd that the 'bug' of irresistable traps had been in since beta and nobody noticed it until a month ago.  I call BS on this being a 'bug' any more than other 'bug' nerfs to classes since release.

People are overreacting when they look at the 'uber pet' thing, though.  It's +100% damage and 'unstoppable' (which is being interpreted as immune to stuns & CC but could mean anything) for 15 seconds.  However, everyone's so obsessed with fast pets or pets with huge runspeed that they all do anemic damage.  I think 74 is the upper end (without talents) on the faster pets. (1.2 atk spd) There's daggers that do more damage per hit.  Plus, pets are still just a distraction in PvP, even with the talent that gives them a 3second stun every minute (what with all the anti-stun trinkets).  Unless they do crazy damage you're still better-off ignoring them and going after the hunter themself.

The bulk of PvP talents all seem to be in survivability and marksmanship, as before. Sure Footed, Wyvern Sting, Aimed Shot (big buff here, reducing it to a 3 second flat timer) , Scattershot, entrapment, improved wing clip and the new +dam to humanoid talents will really buff hunters.   The new Improved Aspect of the Hawk in beast mastery I'm not sure on.  5 talent points for a 5% chance of an 8 second 30% speed buff.  If you're using a slow bow (or a gun or crossbow) that 5% is going to come very infrequently.


Marks was a strong line, comparitvly, though.  Because of that I don't think it got looked at for buffs. Now it's not as impressive as the other two for pve or PvP, but rounds out both of them well.  The +5% damage talent in marksmanship combined with the two damage talents in survival will be fun to mess with.

Think this post solves your DPS questions.

Perhaps going all marksmanship won't be such a no brainer as it used to be now.

I think WoW is a very solid execution of a 10 year old concept, give and take a couple of small diffrences. Pretty genious, in fact. All they did was use their brand to attract the masses. It would be cool to see he number of how high % of the players in WoW are first timers to the genre.

The thing is, stuns can be resisted or dispelled with a trinket.  Frenzy proc is reliant on crits, and we don't know if the bestial wrath buff is dispellable or not.  Right now there's too many unknowns to make it a reliable PvP build, IMO.  If it's a dispellable buff on the pet, it doesn't help at all.

Then again, I'm also biased against using pets in PvP because I do the big battle stuff rather than the 5vs5, being on a PvE server.  I found that when I tried I was spending more time rezzing and feeing my pet then regaining mana than I was acutally fighting.  When I let the pet take a death and only rezzed it during lulls I was gaining a LOT  more HKs and doing a lot more damage overall.  That's why I like the added damage talents in the survival line so much.

One thing i can say is outside of MC/Ony (where hunters are good anyway) Wyvern Sting looks like it will make hunters a shoe-in for groups.  Good hunters anyway.

In maraudon, hunters are already the only class in the game that can CC the giants (ice trap) to make those double-pulls alot easier.  Now, in places like Zul, SM, and Temple, you'll be able to set trap, mark, and pull with sleep.  One gets trapped so you got about 10 seconds with that 5-pack now a 3-pack.  With 31 in survival, im sure you can off-tank 1 for abit, the DPS goes to town and drops one, works on the second, etc...

Hunters been asking for a skill to be desireable in groups for awhile now, i think they got it.

For pvp every hunter i know is SALIVATING over the prospect of having spirit bond and scattershot, and as a mage im rather disturbed by the Unstoppable Kitty of Death that some of you gimpy fucks will have.

Maybe i'll like my hunter alt more then my mage.

I like those changes, considering I just hit 40 with my hunter. Full BM spec so far, because I like to be different. Its gonna be tough to decide where to put the last 20 pts though with these changes. That intimidate talent in BM will be huge since I had no stuns at all without MM.

For my hunter if I go full beast I would not go for the super fast attack speed pet anymore. Sure it is not as efficient with spirit bond but with that new 31 point talent snuffles the war piggy will be a mage eater. I have been my boar already hit for up to 90 damage on a non crit. Now if you double that and add in crits and if unstoppable really means cannot be effected by movement reducing powers mages will fear the piggy.

Hell already once snuffles is on a mage they frozen nova and blink away fast because he does tons of damage and with dash 2 can keep up to them while blinking if he is not rooted. Give him the ability to shrug off roots and mages are going to have a tough time escaping from him. Snuffles would also be good for wacking those pesky druids in cheeta form fleeing with the flags.

kaid

One of the hunters in my guild has a Wolf from AV as a pet.   We are pretty sure it is bugged and WILL be nerfed sometime soon, but we think it is the single fastest mob in the game at the moment.  Not sure how he worked the figures out, but he calculated that with the highest rank of dash, it has a roughly 400% or higher movement speed......  Thats right, it can chase and catch people fleeing on epic mounts so fast they might as well be walking.

That will be adjusted there used to be a number of pets like that such as the longtooth runners and swamp jaguars. With the next patch I think all the built in differences in pets will be evened out so they are all the same except damage/hp/ac and then they will add the new pet skills and abilities.

The new pet skills and abilities are supposed to be passive and active abilities to improve your pet such as turtles could learn an ability to give them stronger armor or cats faster innate speed that stacks with dash and things of that nature.

Enjoy the wolf for now I am pretty sure with 1.7 the majority of visable differances between pets will be what the hunter chooses to teach them and what that pet is capable of learning.


kaid

Yeah the speed buffs are a bug that's going to be fixed.  LIke the pets that used to keep their resistances or sub-1.0 attack speeds. (The spiders in BRS used to have something like a .9 attack)   They originaly indicated that they'd leave the stats until the pet system went in place, but have slowly been removing the abilities from these bugged pets instead.

Yup, and it sux.  This is the biggest shortcomming of WoW, the dev's can't accept good things that they didnt plan on.  With diablo 2, the the game had many many bugs, but the dev's just basically let the "happy" bugs stay, because they were just that, happy.  They made characters and builds possible that otherwise wouldn't have been, and enhanced Fun.

With wow, the dev's dont care if its fun or not, if they didn't plan for it to be that way, if its not part of The Vision, it gets the axe.

WoW Dev's Motto:

Thou shalt not have fun unless it is as we intended!

So true.  Then when they fix it to be as they intended, they cave to the backlash months later and reinstate the feature only this time the "mouse over" shows it too.  They seem to be obsessed with matchng the mouse over text with powers.

Change the damned text if people are that confused.

Yup its a bit annoying as a hunter but I am hoping with their new pet skills it goes back to more of how pets were planned to be in beta. Where you would have to track down a turtle trainer to teach turtle specific abilities to your turtle or a boar trainer to teach some of the boars special abilities.

To make such a system balanced without really causing some really cheesy stuff you pretty much have to even the playing field between pets to a pretty small margin so you can then balance the diversity of the skills you can train to the pets. Just sucks that its on blizzard dev time aka glacial so we have felt the downside of this for months and still do not have the upside for it yet.

kaid

Whining hunters get what they want, realise it has trade-offs, and decide they didn't really want it that bad afterall. (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-hunter&t=547884&s=blizzard&tmp=1#blizzard)

Well that's just fantastic. Jebus fuck, I'm glad I wasn't planning on readiness in my new build.

Just didn't seem like a great talent when i was examining the tree.  Prep on a rogue is devestating because they have so many cooldowns that are Powerful, if they can use them all, TWICE, in one fight, they are extremely difficult to beat.  Didn't seem nearly as useful to a hunter.

You mistake my Jebus Fuck as anger rather than mirth at the "omgwtf we have to lose something?!" cluelessness of the afrorementioned thread.