The Great Hunter Nerf of '08

[Fordel]

So is it safe to assume you have a Holy Priest(paladin resto etc) alt ready to go at all times too?


Or does the Heal Tax only apply to those with respec capabilities.

[Paelos]

So is it safe to assume you have a Holy Priest(paladin resto etc) alt ready to go at all times too?


Or does the Heal Tax only apply to those with respec capabilities.

Yeah it does. It's not a tax, either. If you hate healing, don't do it. I'm not saying that OMG BE HEALING ALL THE TIME. I'm saying don't whine about not getting into the raid when you refuse to even consider paying 50g to spec over. If there are 6 healers and 25 DPS signing up, the first player willing to respec is going to get your spot. If the raid was full on tanks, I wouldn't bitch to that Raid Leader. I'd go make my own raid.

Do I think every leader and tank needs to have a healer alt in the wings so they can have that opinion? No. I have one toon, and I'm fine with everybody else having one toon. I hate alts and I'm not really into leveling. I picked what I wanted to play as my main, the same as everyone else. It's ridiculous to expect that people should be a jack of all trades across all toons before they can ask somebody to try healing if they aren't getting into a raid.

[Soulflame]

Ret paladins have replenishment, and can judge Light or Wisdom, plus put out competitive DPS.  Why must they respec holy again?

Oh right, because putting an onus on someone else to respec, plus waste bag/bank space on offspec gear isn't your problem.

You're a real humanitarian, you are.

[Vinadil]

Threads like this remind me why WoW has destroyed more guilds than any game I have seen.  This game is so solo focused that it amazes me that people still manage to group up to complete content.  Or maybe it is just the guilds doing the hardest content that attract those types of players and the "rest" of the player base gets along just fine.  In any case, as soon as these arguments start turning into spreadsheets I just lose interest.

Strangely I did not see any nerf in that list that would make me too upset.  Then again my hunter probably sucked in the DPS charts.  By the time I get around to this Xpack it will probably be changed again anyway.

[Calantus]

Why do some people in dps classes who raid get happy when other DPS get nerfed? Are you that retarded? It's one thing if you're not raiding and you can't get in because nobody will take your low-dps-ass, but being actively upset at the people are #1 who are pumping up your overall DPS towards the win?

Honestly, if a person actually said something like that to me as a raid leader, I doubt I'd keep them very long.

The best way to improve your raid DPS is to replace your rogues with hunters. So yeah, I can see why a rogue would want them nerfed. Actually he shouldn't even be 3rd either, his mages have some explaining to do.

[Paelos]

Ret paladins have replenishment, and can judge Light or Wisdom, plus put out competitive DPS.  Why must they respec holy again?

Oh right, because putting an onus on someone else to respec, plus waste bag/bank space on offspec gear isn't your problem.

You're a real humanitarian, you are.

You don't have to do shit. Enjoy your time as ret if you like. Have all the fun you want. Just don't cry about not getting into raids if you're competing against 20 other DPS, and you refuse to heal when they are short.

I'm not making you do anything. I'm trying to impress upon you the overwhelming imbalance of DPS/Healing in the game, and that those willing to adapt will succeed. Is it fair? No, but get a fucking helmet. 80% of the game is DPS.

[Ingmar]

I hate alts and I'm not really into leveling. I picked what I wanted to play as my main, the same as everyone else.

You mean just like those paladins who picked their paladins so they could play like a paladin and smack people in the face with a giant hammer instead of a priest in plate? You're not helping your case here.

IMO if you want to tell people they need to heal and 'put their ego to the side', you should put your money where your damn mouth is.

[Paelos]

I hate alts and I'm not really into leveling. I picked what I wanted to play as my main, the same as everyone else.

You mean just like those paladins who picked their paladins so they could play like a paladin and smack people in the face with a giant hammer instead of a priest in plate? You're not helping your case here.

IMO if you want to tell people they need to heal and 'put their ego to the side', you should put your money where your damn mouth is.

Because you say so? Sorry chief, but your unrealitic opinions on how holier-than-thou I have to be before I can ask a hybrid to consider a respec in order to help the team don't matter to me. You don't run with my runs, but we do fine doing just that. More often than not people will post what specs they are and what they can respec to. We have good players who think about the goal and not about just themselves. I'll run and have run in any job that my warrior can do. Others try to do that with their classes as well.

You picked a class that has the option of healing, it's a very likely possibility you'll get asked to heal. So what? Do it if you want, don't do it if you don't want. You can only take so many ret pallies and feral druids before it becomes ridiculous. At some point, you have to find a healer, and if they won't respec you go hunting for one.

[Ingmar]

/shrug

I have a resto druid alt (and an elemental shaman for the times when we need a dpser - it happens) that I play when we need it for the raid to go off precisely because I think making other people play something they don't want to without being willing to do it yourself makes you kind of a dick. But hey, if you're happy.

[Xanthippe]

The only reason I'm playing my hunter now is because pve is fun.

Pvp on hunters is broken.

Or maybe I just completely suck.

All I know is that I used to be able to be competitive in battlegrounds, and have a shot at killing at least half the classes out there.  Now?  Equally geared, unless I'm facing a healing spec (and then only maybe I have a shot), I can't kill shit.

I don't understand it.  BM Hunters are too strong in pve, but everybody's bitch in pvp.

[Paelos]

I don't understand it.  BM Hunters are too strong in pve, but everybody's bitch in pvp.

You can probably chalk that one up to the fact that mobs are too stupid to attack the hunter and not the pet, whereas players quickly jump all over the hunter. That would be my guess anyway. Also resilience and junk. Roots, stuns, and snares. IDK.

[Fordel]

The only reason I'm playing my hunter now is because pve is fun.

Pvp on hunters is broken.

Or maybe I just completely suck.

All I know is that I used to be able to be competitive in battlegrounds, and have a shot at killing at least half the classes out there.  Now?  Equally geared, unless I'm facing a healing spec (and then only maybe I have a shot), I can't kill shit.

I don't understand it.  BM Hunters are too strong in pve, but everybody's bitch in pvp.

Anything that survived on keeping distance is pretty much broken currently. No PvP armor and everyone's damage going up to 11 has reverted things back to a pre-TBC era of 'balance' except everyone has 15 ways to close distance and interrupt now.

Very few ranged specs are having any real success, mostly they just try to get inside the safety of the turret slot on a siege vehicle and cast from there.

[Soulflame]

You don't have to do shit. Enjoy your time as ret if you like. Have all the fun you want. Just don't cry about not getting into raids if you're competing against 20 other DPS, and you refuse to heal when they are short.

So, just to keep score, I have to keep a full set of healing gear, and a full set of ret gear, not to mention gem and enchant both, plus store consumables for two specs.  On top of this, I get to spring for 100g to respec any time the raid is short of healers.  Because, you know, once the damn raid is over, I'm going right back to ret so I can do dailies and whatnot.

You get to tank, and you don't have to roll a healer alt.

That about sum it up?

I'm sure you have no idea why this is unfair.

As for the "good luck not getting into raids", I guess I'd better cancel my invite to Naxx this weekend.  As ret.  Damn the luck.

I'm not making you do anything. I'm trying to impress upon you the overwhelming imbalance of DPS/Healing in the game, and that those willing to adapt will succeed. Is it fair? No, but get a fucking helmet. 80% of the game is DPS.

You don't have to tell me about the lack of healers and tanks in WoW, I've been bitching/laughing about it for years now.  Very little warms my heart more than "Group looking for healer+tank then GTG!"  Or my personal favorite, joining a group with paladin+warrior and finding out, you guessed it, "Group looking for healer+tank then GTG!"  The situation is so ridiculously out of control that I didn't even bother with instances while leveling, other than a very early Nexus run, and an extremely abortive attempt at Old Kingdoms that resulted in 8+ wipes and only getting 2 bosses down.

So yeah.  I'm all too aware there's a dire lack of healers.  Unlike you, I don't place the blame on players, but rather on Blizzard.  If they'd make it so heal/tank specs could solo somewhat on par with DPS specs, there'd be less issue.  If healing and tanking were lower stress jobs, yes JOBS, in an entertainment, then perhaps there'd be more people tanking and healing.  Instead, people'd rather do something relatively low stress like push buttons in the correct order to DPS down a mob, while maintaining a minimal amount of situational awareness.

No doubt I'll be pushed to go back into healing at some point, if for no other reason than heal plate apparently rains from the sky in Wrath.  I can hardly contain my enthusiasm.  Hooray for single target healing in an AE environment.   

[Paelos]

Unlike you, I don't place the blame on players, but rather on Blizzard.

I never said it was fair. In fact I think I said that not 5 posts ago. Being mad at Blizzard is pointless though. You can make due with the reality of the situation while advocating something better, or you can be bitter and remove yourself from that aspect of the game. I choose the former. I hope they make healing so much fun that every player in the game would want to give it a shot, but I'm not going to stop organizing raids until they figure that part out. Hell, I wish it was like Diablo where healers and tanks didn't exist, and we could all beat everything down with impunity.

That's not the game we signed on for though.

[Soulflame]

Blizzard has crafted a game that requires tank+healer+3x dps, on average, to advance.  They've done this three times now: Vanilla, BC, and again with Wrath.  I think it's safe to blame them for building a game with intentional cockblocks such as "80% of the playerbase likes to play DPS, let's make it so 20% have to play tank, 20% have to play healer.  That all adds up to 100%, right?"  Safe to say, it's their fault.

Hell, their new tank/dps class has blown up in their face, just as everyone knew it would.  Finding a tank DK is probably as difficult as finding a holy paladin.

[Merusk]

You don't have to do shit. Enjoy your time as ret if you like. Have all the fun you want. Just don't cry about not getting into raids if you're competing against 20 other DPS, and you refuse to heal when they are short.

So, just to keep score, I have to keep a full set of healing gear, and a full set of ret gear, not to mention gem and enchant both, plus store consumables for two specs.  On top of this, I get to spring for 100g to respec any time the raid is short of healers.  Because, you know, once the damn raid is over, I'm going right back to ret so I can do dailies and whatnot.

You get to tank, and you don't have to roll a healer alt.

That about sum it up?

I'm sure you have no idea why this is unfair.

As for the "good luck not getting into raids", I guess I'd better cancel my invite to Naxx this weekend.  As ret.  Damn the luck.

It continues to be hilarious how everyone else has to "suck it up" while he was right there bitching up a storm when Druids and Paladins were putting warriors on the back-burner for a while in BC due to mitigation or AOE tanking ability.  Now that warriors were given better AOE tanking and druids mit was nerfed, it's funny how the tune changes.

Hell, their new tank/dps class has blown up in their face, just as everyone knew it would.  Finding a tank DK is probably as difficult as finding a holy paladin.

I rolled a DK to tank initially.  Then I discovered what a stone cold bitch it is tanking with a 2hder when we can't stack parry, Dodge or Def because then wars could as well, overpowering them.  Whoopsie, Blizz forgot the tanking/ mit talents to make up for the lack of a shield on the new tank class.  IBF and Bone Shield go a long way towards helping, but they only help reduce the problem, they don't eliminate it.

[Fordel]

Nah, there are way more tank DK's then Holy Paladins.


Way, waaaay more.



Also of note to DK Tanks: http://blue.mmo-champion.com/28/13393389855-upcoming-death-knight-changes.html

[Lakov_Sanite]

My god the about of bitter tears in this thread is enough to fill a lake of anguish.

I will say though that it doesn't matter how fin you make tanks or healers, people will always gravitate towards dps. Now you could make a game where you have neither tanks nor healers or give everyone all those abilities but then things tend to feel bland.

Also i guarantee even if every single player had the same heal button, only 30% would ever want to use it.

[Soulflame]

They could implement a game where the damage isn't so high that it's required for 20-33% of your players have their eyes glued to a UI tracking debuffs, buffs, dead people, and healthbars that are going down.  While focusing on removing debuffs, re-applying buffs, ressing people who stood in fire, and making sure that healthbars go back up.  All while trying to not stand in fire yourself.  Oh, and not run out of mana while you're at it.

Good times, good times.

Or, you know, not so much.

[Fordel]

My god the about of bitter tears in this thread is enough to fill a lake of anguish.

I will say though that it doesn't matter how fin you make tanks or healers, people will always gravitate towards dps. Now you could make a game where you have neither tanks nor healers or give everyone all those abilities but then things tend to feel bland.

Also i guarantee even if every single player had the same heal button, only 30% would ever want to use it.

People gravitate towards self sufficiency and usefulness. That just happens to be DPS most of the time.

Now that they made all the tank specs fun to play and able to solo without hating life, there are a lot more tanks to go around. 3 out of 4 tank class/specs are even viable in PvP now.


Once they make healing a non-Bitch job, and self sufficient, you'll see a lot more of those too.

[Ingmar]

The healers I know who PuG are reporting tons of DKs trying to tank. They aren't reporting a ton succeeding but I put that up to lack of experience mostly. The new changes will help them a lot.

And tanks are fixed. Protection warrior is borderline overpowered solo now. I cruised to 80 wearing tank gear in defensive stance the whole time, and soloed most of the group 3 or less quests I came across without much trouble at all. It is just healers (and I know a couple people who say holy priest is fine to solo with vs one who says it sucks, so not even all healers) that blow to solo with. Once that is fixed for real, then I think more people will be wiling to heal and play healers.

As it is we don't really have trouble with tanks OR healers in our guild. We just have trouble with widely disparate leveling speed. 

[Fordel]

Screw you rage user, I still have mana woes :(

[K9]

I used to think I was quite good for soloing on my holy priest, until I duo-ed an equally geared rogue friend to do some rep grinding and mobs that took me 20s+ to kill he would 3-shot in a few seconds. Still, it's not unbearably slow, and the changes to spirit regen and spellpower made things a lot more bearable. Back when healing gear only added to healing, and mana regen was weak, priests sucked balls, now it's not awful. My efficiency is nothing close to a hunter, or lock, or rogue, but I play the class I enjoy, and achieve enough for my ends.

I've found healing in heroics fairly tough at the start. I think in part I got a tad complacent towards the end of TBC because I was well enough geared that stuff like mana became trivial. With the semi-gimpy DPSers I seem to end up teaming, fights are longer though, and there's a lot more dispersed damage, so I have to work harder. It's satisfying when it's done though.

As a healer I can assure you that tanks cause the least of my complaints these days, and the class really doesn't matter (dedicated DK tanks are fine, if a little different to other tanks). Bad DPS are the source of the majority of my woes, and there are oh so many of them.

[Triforcer]

Back in the olden days when I played WoW, I tried a bit of healing and tanking.  But if anyone in your group dies (even because of their own idiocy) or anyone pulls agro (because they used all their cooldowns within the first 20 sec of a fight) then everyone screams at YOU as the healer or tank. 

Screw that.  I went back to DPS, where even if I am lower on the charts, nobody screams at me if there is a wipe.  That's why people like DPS- less idiots screaming at you for their own failings, and/or its easier to hide your own incompetence (I'm fully willing to admit that I could have been fucking terrible and all the abuse was deserved, but I'd rather have fun and fail then feel bad and fail). 

[kildorn]

The healers I know who PuG are reporting tons of DKs trying to tank. They aren't reporting a ton succeeding but I put that up to lack of experience mostly. The new changes will help them a lot.

And tanks are fixed. Protection warrior is borderline overpowered solo now. I cruised to 80 wearing tank gear in defensive stance the whole time, and soloed most of the group 3 or less quests I came across without much trouble at all. It is just healers (and I know a couple people who say holy priest is fine to solo with vs one who says it sucks, so not even all healers) that blow to solo with. Once that is fixed for real, then I think more people will be wiling to heal and play healers.

As it is we don't really have trouble with tanks OR healers in our guild. We just have trouble with widely disparate leveling speed. 

Tanks are fixed, DPS has been fine, MOST healers are okay now (though the leveling speed difference in a mana bound and non mana bound class is HUGE)

Holy Paladins? Still fucked.

But really, leveling speed and solo pve efficiency are lame for healers right now. Both of us have gone lolghettoenhance gear to level the ele and resto shaman.

As for DK tanks: gearing them and learning to use the cooldowns right is key. My DK was going to be a tank, but uh.. we apparently have too many tanks    I know I'm supposed to be leveling the priest though :P

[Gobbeldygook]

Prot warrior soloing has been fixed since 2.2 or 2.3, we just never talked about how effective dual wielding with devastate was.

When I group up with one of my guilds holy priests for dailies, they typically do about half the damage I do as a prot warrior.  They're better than they used to be, but still nothing compared to even a bad soloing class like warrior, much less a good one like warlock.

Screw that.  I went back to DPS, where even if I am lower on the charts, nobody screams at me if there is a wipe.

It's much easier to blame the retarded DPS for wipes than it used to.  Best examples are the entire Ahn'kahet instance and Eck who is only in Gundrak on heroic.

[Fordel]

Prot warrior soloing has been fixed since 2.2 or 2.3, we just never talked about how effective dual wielding with devastate was.

When I group up with one of my guilds holy priests for dailies, they typically do about half the damage I do as a prot warrior.  They're better than they used to be, but still nothing compared to even a bad soloing class like warrior, much less a good one like warlock.

Screw that.  I went back to DPS, where even if I am lower on the charts, nobody screams at me if there is a wipe.

It's much easier to blame the retarded DPS for wipes than it used to.  Best examples are the entire Ahn'kahet instance and Eck who is only in Gundrak on heroic.

Nah, swapping into DPS gear and dual weidling wasn't "fixed" it was a work around.

Being able to level in defensive stance, using your tank gear, and it being fun and viable. That's fixed.

[WindupAtheist]

I'd just like to mention that in last night's "everyone is still leveling so let's do ZA lol" run, there were four paladins.

One was prot.
Two were holy.
I was the only ret.

Life was good. 

Oh and I whooped the two rogues around my level for DPS. Granted we're all horrible newbs and they were probably doing something unimaginably stupid, but still. Being a ret pally has never been better.

[kildorn]

I'd just like to mention that in last night's "everyone is still leveling so let's do ZA lol" run, there were four paladins.

One was prot.
Two were holy.
I was the only ret.

Life was good. 

Oh and I whooped the two rogues around my level for DPS. Granted we're all horrible newbs and they were probably doing something unimaginably stupid, but still. Being a ret pally has never been better.

Rogues kinda suck at DPS these days <3

But a ret pally handed me my ass for dps in freaking level 76 gear last night in heroic strat by about 200 dps on average. I'm blaming all the undead or something, but really it was just divine storm on the damned zombies.

[Slayerik]

Well, the nerf is needed. I dont run a damage meter, but I am a 72 hunter, my friend was a 78 frost mage, and my brother was a 79 enhance shaman

The damage totals for the instance were not even close.

I had 1.2 million damage total , and 500,000 with my pet

I think the mage hit a million, and the shammy hit 800,000

That is me with 6 less levels, and I pretty much did as much damage as them combined. One of the big differences is I don't have to do much besides a single frost trap, and my other crowd control (my pet) does damage at the same time. The mage has been crying about the fact that I never have to worry about threat either. Wah wah! :)

[Ingmar]

I'd just like to mention that in last night's "everyone is still leveling so let's do ZA lol" run, there were four paladins.

One was prot.
Two were holy.
I was the only ret.

Life was good. 

Oh and I whooped the two rogues around my level for DPS. Granted we're all horrible newbs and they were probably doing something unimaginably stupid, but still. Being a ret pally has never been better.

Rogues kinda suck at DPS these days <3

But a ret pally handed me my ass for dps in freaking level 76 gear last night in heroic strat by about 200 dps on average. I'm blaming all the undead or something, but really it was just divine storm on the damned zombies.

Strat is just bad for figuring anything out. The masses of insta-dying zombie adds screws up the meters something fierce unless you're running something like WWS that can break things down by fight (I need to get that going at some point so I can see individual boss fights.)

[Sjofn]

If they'd make it so heal/tank specs could solo somewhat on par with DPS specs, there'd be less issue.  If healing and tanking were lower stress jobs, yes JOBS, in an entertainment, then perhaps there'd be more people tanking and healing. 

Tanks solo pretty well now, really. Leveling solo as a healer still blows, though. Especially if you're a paladin. 

God, I am so fucking bitter about how fucked holy paladins are right now, it's not even funny. I don't know why it fills me with so much rage, but it finally got me to quit mine completely.

[Soulflame]

I switched my paladin from holy to ret around level 73.  I was fairly unamused after playing ret for a few days. There simply was no comparison between the two specs in terms of dps, ability to grind, etc.  The biggest change was seals, I was able to switch from seal/judge wisdom while holy, to seal of blood, judge light, and never run out of mana as ret.  The worst part is Blizzard has acknowledged that holy got fucked by the nerfs to ret, but they haven't bothered to go back and do anything to boost holy since then.  So far as I know.

[kildorn]

I switched my paladin from holy to ret around level 73.  I was fairly unamused after playing ret for a few days. There simply was no comparison between the two specs in terms of dps, ability to grind, etc.  The biggest change was seals, I was able to switch from seal/judge wisdom while holy, to seal of blood, judge light, and never run out of mana as ret.  The worst part is Blizzard has acknowledged that holy got fucked by the nerfs to ret, but they haven't bothered to go back and do anything to boost holy since then.  So far as I know.

They fixed holy, holy paladins are just too stupid to know it.

I say this using the logic that holy paladins are apparently too stupid to handle a third healing spell. 

[Sjofn]

God, a third heal would be so ... overwhelming.