Cataclysm

[Ingmar]

Eh, hunters are like the one class that can CC *anything*, if anything an emphasis on CC will make them more desirable, not less. At least that's how I'll think of them as a tank.

[Fordel]

I'd expect the Heroics to be like the ICC heroics.

[Zetor]

Yeah, I think surv hunters are the best cc class in game atm. They have two universal CC abilities at range:
- freeze trap: nothing is immune to it (as long as it isn't immune to cc in general) except maybe water elementals; takes a few seconds to arm, but scatter shot can hold the mob in place for that; it can also be fired in the mob's path
- wyvern sting: reliable oh-crap cc that works on all everything not immune to sleeps
They can pull mobs off the healer with distracting shot and control aggro pretty well with feign and MD. They're also not as squishy as a caster (I've deterrence-tanked bosses before while the healer battlerezzed the tank) and have a pet which can sort of offtank. The only thing they lack is a spell interrupt (unless you use a nether ray pet, but that's on a long cooldown).

Now compare this to the CC abilities a shaman's or a warrior/DK's (frost spec has hungering cold, granted)...

[Sjofn]

With the reintroduction of CC to dungeons it's going to be just like the old days once more! No groups for huntards!

I assume you mean "stupid hunters that manage to break their own CC" here. In which case, fuck 'em!

Of course, we will have a lot of hunters (and mages and warlocks and and and) who have no idea how to CC to start with, now. It will be exciting!

[Rendakor]

He did say huntards.

[Ashamanchill]

With the reintroduction of CC to dungeons it's going to be just like the old days once more! No groups for huntards!

I'm kind of sad for this.  One of the reasons random heroics are viable is becuase you can AoE tank everything.  Hopefully it won't be back on part with the harder BC heroics, because you seriously didn't want to go anywhere near a PUG for those things, especially when appropriately geared for them.   The ability to faceroll heroics might be lamented a little, but realistically speaking, its one of the things that has made this expansion by far the most accessible, its much harder for shitty players/idiots to ruin your run.

I am with Malakili on this. I really don't want it to go back to the BC days. A lot of the fun of the current dungeon set up comes from overgearing it; getting a shiny new purple and seeing huge numbers pop up as you AoE your way through UK or something. I really hope it doesn't go back to the days where competent dungeon runners are too few and far between, and many dungeons are just plain not done anymore.

[Merusk]

Eh, hunters are like the one class that can CC *anything*, if anything an emphasis on CC will make them more desirable, not less. At least that's how I'll think of them as a tank.

Did you not run the difficult heroics in BC or something?  Hunter CC was only of marginal use because it was so short.  Even if they kited the mob while waiting on the CD, that meant their dps wasn't on the burn target.  Hunters in CC situations proved less useful than Mages, Rogues (or even Locks for some dungeons).   On my server it was quite common to see, "LF CC for Steamvaults/ Arcatraz, no hunters."  

With the reintroduction of CC to dungeons it's going to be just like the old days once more! No groups for huntards!

I assume you mean "stupid hunters that manage to break their own CC" here. In which case, fuck 'em!

Of course, we will have a lot of hunters (and mages and warlocks and and and) who have no idea how to CC to start with, now. It will be exciting!

We have a 44 page thread dedicated to idiots in a subforum of a small population website.  Which do you think is going to be more common in your PUG, a good CCing hunter or a multi-shot moron?

[Zetor]

I actually ran most 'hard' bc heroics (including magister's terrace; we didn't raid, so we only had blue gear and some pvp purples) with a hunter guildie. Freeze trap wasn't shabby at all with a group that knew how to use it, and she was always #1 dps. Bringing a hunter was better than bringing almost any other dps class / spec (except mage and - depending on the instance - warlock and RARELY shadowpriest). But that's moot now; hunter CC is a lot more powerful nowadays than it was in BC, especially for survival spec.

As for multishotting huntars: by that token we should include anyone else who carelessly spams aoe near cc'd enemies. Mages can living bomb near CC, warlocks can SOC near CC, melee can use their AOEs carelessly near CC, DKs can place d&d on top of CC'd enemies, stuff like that.

If any class is going to be greatly disadvantaged in cata wrt cc, it's dk / warrior (their only 'cc' is offtanking and in the DK's case zero-dps ghetto kiting) and the two 'CC king' classes are going to be mage and warlock, everyone else has some disadvantages when it comes to ccing. Shaman got the short end of the stick as well with a single humanoid/beast-only cc that has a longer recharge than duration, but it's still a lot better than it was in BC. Rogues still only have one sap, but they can at least provide some short-duration stuns / blind / gouge reliably.

edit: added some BC stuff

[Malakili]

I actually ran most 'hard' bc heroics (including magister's terrace; we didn't raid, so we only had blue gear and some pvp purples) with a hunter guildie. Freeze trap wasn't shabby at all with a group that knew how to use it, and she was always #1 dps. Bringing a hunter was better than bringing almost any other dps class / spec (except mage and - depending on the instance - warlock and RARELY shadowpriest). But that's moot now; hunter CC is a lot more powerful nowadays than it was in BC, especially for survival spec.

As for multishotting huntars: by that token we should include anyone else who carelessly spams aoe near cc'd enemies. Mages can living bomb near CC, warlocks can SOC near CC, melee can use their AOEs carelessly near CC, DKs can place d&d on top of CC'd enemies, stuff like that.

If any class is going to be greatly disadvantaged in cata wrt cc, it's dk / warrior (their only 'cc' is offtanking and in the DK's case zero-dps ghetto kiting) and the two 'CC king' classes are going to be mage and warlock, everyone else has some disadvantages when it comes to ccing. Shaman got the short end of the stick as well with a single humanoid/beast-only cc that has a longer recharge than duration, but it's still a lot better than it was in BC. Rogues still only have one sap, but they can at least provide some short-duration stuns / blind / gouge reliably.

edit: added some BC stuff

Thats not especially the point (or at least not MY point).  I can hard BC heroics with 2 hunters some times because I had two of the absolute best hunters I've ever met in my guild and then were magicians when it came to getting mobs to do what they wanted.   If you need a 5 man group of guild members to do the more difficult ones (regardless of class), that kind of defeats the purpose of the random dungeon finder.

[Zetor]

Guild groups are always going to be better than pugs, that wasn't my point either. I was just saying that hunters were not bad at CC then (compared to most other classes), and they're even better off now.

If you want to mourn, mourn the dps warrior/dk/shaman/rogue.  

[Malakili]

Guild groups are always going to be better than pugs, that wasn't my point either. I was just saying that hunters were not bad at CC then (compared to most other classes), and they're even better off now.

If you want to mourn, mourn the dps warrior/dk/shaman/rogue.  

Maybe we were just having two different discussions.  I'm not mourning any class to begin with, I'm mourning the fact that I might not be able to do random dungeons anymore and feel confident that the experience won't suck.

[fuser]

Maybe we were just having two different discussions.  I'm not mourning any class to begin with, I'm mourning the fact that I might not be able to do random dungeons anymore and feel confident that the experience won't suck.

Try random H:HoR much? 

The game has gone full retard on AoE, it really needs to be scaled back a bit. In almost all of the non boss fights my warlock is harmed in damage if I don't spam SoC on every single pull.

[Paelos]

I agree that the game shouldn't be a simple AE fest on every damn pull. However, I never want to go back to the days of requiring CC in every damn group just to get by. Every group was Tank, Healer, Mage, Lock, Other.

[Lakov_Sanite]

A lot of it is due to the random dungeon finder being introduced so late in the expansions cycle. Right NOW we think it's an aoe fest because it's easy to go from fresh 80 to full toc level purples but it was a lot harder when naxx was the only thing out there.

[Ingmar]

Eh, hunters are like the one class that can CC *anything*, if anything an emphasis on CC will make them more desirable, not less. At least that's how I'll think of them as a tank.

Did you not run the difficult heroics in BC or something?  Hunter CC was only of marginal use because it was so short.  Even if they kited the mob while waiting on the CD, that meant their dps wasn't on the burn target.  Hunters in CC situations proved less useful than Mages, Rogues (or even Locks for some dungeons).   On my server it was quite common to see, "LF CC for Steamvaults/ Arcatraz, no hunters."  

We found it to be generally long enough to be useful. The only classes that had 'hand' over hunters for BC grouping in every instance were mages and arguably rogues, but I always liked trapping better than sap as a tank because you could re-apply it if everyone was gooning it up on the other mobs. The real classes that were getting shut out of BC heroics were dps shamans, warriors, feral druids, even warlocks and shadow priests, that sort of thing. The ones who couldn't do any kind of useful CC at all or who had CC that was too corner case to be reliable - "sorry DarkBob, there are no elementals or demons in this one for you to banish."

I mean yes, if you were going to do Shadow Lab suddenly the warlock was your best friend, but the trap was useful anywhere.

[dd0029]

A lot of it is due to the random dungeon finder being introduced so late in the expansions cycle. Right NOW we think it's an aoe fest because it's easy to go from fresh 80 to full toc level purples but it was a lot harder when naxx was the only thing out there.

Yeah.  I can remember wiping on Skadi several times and having to stop and plan things.  Or pulling and working on positioning for Trollgore in DTK to avoid the consume.  VH could screw you over if you got the "wrong" random bosses.  It took several tries and some luck with wave spawns in CoT to ensure the extra badge as well. 

[Rendakor]

Keristraza was difficult if people didn't jump or move to clear their stacks. The commander in Nexus was also difficult if you didn't pull him back far enough.

HoL was a nightmare all around: retards pulling the first boss while his lightning shield was up, people pulling hate and dying while training through the elementals, the big spear throwing trash leading up to Loken, and Loken himself.

[Paelos]

I never found Nexus to be hard early on, and it was usually one of the more popular ones given the number of badges it dropped. Both Halls were awful for all the reasons listed.

In the early stages, when we first saw heroic Gundrak, we failed miserably on the snake boss several times. We didn't have the dps at the time to really crash through him before we would get overwhelmed by snakes or novas. Plus we were just doing it wrong.

[WoopeeTuralyon]

I was very lucky in BC. I leveled my shaman with one of the best warrior tanks I've ever seen. At 70, he could do pulls of 5 or 6 with no CC (and this was when even Thunderclap only hit 4 targets and Shockwave didn't exist) and he almost never lost aggro. That rare event would only happen when I frontloaded and got a double WF crit... but anyway, I never got left out for lacking CC because of him. Then I switched to healing, and facerolled Chain Heal for the rest of the xpac.

[Paelos]

I think the biggest boon to tanking ever was when Blizzard finally added Lucky Charms into their UI for marking. Fights like Garr used to take 15 minutes just to set up correctly for banish rotations.

[Sjofn]

Eh, hunters are like the one class that can CC *anything*, if anything an emphasis on CC will make them more desirable, not less. At least that's how I'll think of them as a tank.

Did you not run the difficult heroics in BC or something?  Hunter CC was only of marginal use because it was so short.  Even if they kited the mob while waiting on the CD, that meant their dps wasn't on the burn target.  Hunters in CC situations proved less useful than Mages, Rogues (or even Locks for some dungeons).   On my server it was quite common to see, "LF CC for Steamvaults/ Arcatraz, no hunters."  

He had me. I was survival spec, and I was awesome.  Back then as survival, my trap cooldown would be up juuuuust about the time it was wearing off. It certainly wasn't unusual to leave my CC'd mob until last, because I was better at keeping the mob in the exact same place than some of our mages.  If it was resisted, yes it absolutely sucked and not being able to reapply immediately was shitty, but I certainly was miles above any non-mage in terms of CCing. If I remember right, though, survival was not the favored spec back then, so that probably didn't help the hunter cause in general.

We have a 44 page thread dedicated to idiots in a subforum of a small population website.  Which do you think is going to be more common in your PUG, a good CCing hunter or a multi-shot moron?

I can't really weep for the people who suck continuing to suck, just in new and exciting ways. It is annoying when people dismiss you outright because of your class, but since I've played both a hunter AND a DK, I'm pretty well immune to giving a fuck about that as well by this point.

I don't really like how heavy the emphasis on AE EVERYTHING GO GO GO is in WotLK. I don't really want to go back to TBC either, but there is surely a happy medium somewhere.

[Paelos]

The happy medium is more large HP tank n' spank trash with some cool abilities, rather than 6 things in a pull every pull. They need to break it up better instead of just tossing more junk at you.

[Fordel]

We found it to be generally long enough to be useful. The only classes that had 'hand' over hunters for BC grouping in every instance were mages and arguably rogues, but I always liked trapping better than sap as a tank because you could re-apply it if everyone was gooning it up on the other mobs. The real classes that were getting shut out of BC heroics were dps shamans, warriors, feral druids, even warlocks and shadow priests, that sort of thing. The ones who couldn't do any kind of useful CC at all or who had CC that was too corner case to be reliable - "sorry DarkBob, there are no elementals or demons in this one for you to banish."

Why the heck did you make a distinction of feral druids? What the shit was my Moonkin CC'ing in TBC?

[Sjofn]

Nothing, because you were facerolling your paladin tank instead.


EDIT: Wait, I lied, you were cycloning whatever I just taunted.

[Chimpy]

The happy medium is more large HP tank n' spank trash with some cool abilities, rather than 6 things in a pull every pull. They need to break it up better instead of just tossing more junk at you.

If they just stopped making every pull a social aggro pack that you either CC, AoE, or die to and let you split up packs it would allow for different ways of doing things.

After playing Aion where you could leash/split pretty much anything, I never ever want to play a game where you absolutely had to kill all 6 mobs standing near each other at the same time. That is not saying Aion was perfect by any means, but we could do shit with 2 empty group spots that you would never be able to do in pre-WotLK WoW (vanilla or TBC). It made me realize how much the static linking of packs in WoW (and the oh shit it's a wipe try to zone out! pull) was meh.

[proudft]

Nothing, because you were facerolling your paladin tank instead.


EDIT: Wait, I lied, you were cycloning whatever I just taunted.

Only because typhoon hadn't been invented yet.

[Malakili]

Keristraza was difficult if people didn't jump or move to clear their stacks. The commander in Nexus was also difficult if you didn't pull him back far enough.

HoL was a nightmare all around: retards pulling the first boss while his lightning shield was up, people pulling hate and dying while training through the elementals, the big spear throwing trash leading up to Loken, and Loken himself.

I mean, MAYBE.  HoL was sort of hard compared to the rest, but even when I first got there, and even though I didn't get the game exactly at release, Naxx was still the only raid instance, so it wasn't like I walked into the face roll stage immediately,  I still almost exclusive did the "burn down Loken" strategy where you just spam heal everyone.  Then again, druid healing in 5man is kind of easy.

[Azuredream]

I remember his AoE blast one-shotting people, if they weren't topped off or they were a mage or priest, I used the "up and down the line" method quite a lot. A good druid healer makes a lot of difference though.

[Fordel]

Nothing, because you were facerolling your paladin tank instead.


EDIT: Wait, I lied, you were cycloning whatever I just taunted.

You taunted what I cycloned! There wouldn't be an issue the other way around 

[Malakili]

I remember his AoE blast one-shotting people, if they weren't topped off or they were a mage or priest, I used the "up and down the line" method quite a lot. A good druid healer makes a lot of difference though.

Yeah, it could one shot people sometimes.  I always told the DPS, first AoE is on you (use suvivability cooldowns), second one is on me, and he should be dead before the third.  Even when it was the hardest it was still well worth doing for the badges.   Of course, I didn't pug more than a DPS or two most of the time.

[Morat20]

I remember his AoE blast one-shotting people, if they weren't topped off or they were a mage or priest, I used the "up and down the line" method quite a lot. A good druid healer makes a lot of difference though.

Yeah, it could one shot people sometimes.  I always told the DPS, first AoE is on you (use suvivability cooldowns), second one is on me, and he should be dead before the third.  Even when it was the hardest it was still well worth doing for the badges.   Of course, I didn't pug more than a DPS or two most of the time.

Does a Hunter's Deterrence mitigate an AoE blast like that? I admit, for what's a particularly powerful skill, it's not one I'm called upon to use often.

[SurfD]

I remember his AoE blast one-shotting people, if they weren't topped off or they were a mage or priest, I used the "up and down the line" method quite a lot. A good druid healer makes a lot of difference though.

Yeah, it could one shot people sometimes.  I always told the DPS, first AoE is on you (use suvivability cooldowns), second one is on me, and he should be dead before the third.  Even when it was the hardest it was still well worth doing for the badges.   Of course, I didn't pug more than a DPS or two most of the time.

Does a Hunter's Deterrence mitigate an AoE blast like that? I admit, for what's a particularly powerful skill, it's not one I'm called upon to use often.

As far as i know, deterrence should completely prevent something like Lokens AoE.

I have always wanted to know if it is possible to prevent Saurfang in ICC from putting a mark on you by popping deterrence / iceblock.  I know rogues (if they are quick) can prevent themselves from being marked.  SInce the mark has a cast time (like 1 second or something), a rogue could vanish before the mark landed, and since the vanish caused you to no longer be a valid target, the mark never landed.  Always wondered if Iceblock / Bubble / deterrence would do the same thing, but no one i raid with is ever fast enough to try it.

[Threash]

Looks like i didn't really have to decide between rogue and hunter, i was able to transfer them to the same account, something i wasn't allowed to do before as they were under different names.  Yay for improved security! :)

[Rendakor]

No, iceblock/deterrence/bubble can't avoid the mark. The reason rogues can is not using Cloak of Shadows, but using Vanish. The mage skill that would serve the same purpose is Invis, but because of the fade time it isn't nearly as useful.

[Fordel]

Now the Huntards can fret a little bit less: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=26560569308&pageNo=1&sid=1#7

Our current version of Multi-Shot has not target cap. It's a little like Fan of Knives.