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[caladein]

Steady shot spam is not fun for the vast majority of people.  It will never be fun for the vast majority of people.  They removed 31/30 warrior for a reason.

None of the Hunter specs really spam Steady Shot (or Cobra Shot).  Part of that is the free shots from 4pc T12 and that at least will continue with the T13 set bonuses last I looked (double focus from Steady/Cobra and a proc for a big haste buff).

Marks uses it to keep ISS up and that combined with things like Aimed Shot and Chimera's 10s cooldown give it a very structured, planted, feel that's pretty neat.  It's usually two pairs per ten seconds if you're not in an Aimed Shot burn.  Marks AOE is pretty boring though if you're not able to roll Rapid Killing procs, but unless you're in a 25m guild you won't be doing it more than once in a blue moon.

Survival has a lot of free shots and focus coming in even without the 4pc T12 set bonus and the short CD of Explosive Shot means that you're rarely firing off a string of them before you're in full CD resolving mode.  I might have mentioned it before but Survival plays a lot like Elemental where you're trying to squeeze in Lightning Bolts in between CDs that can come up randomly but you can't just sit there and spam them without capping one of your effects.

BM actually uses Cobra/Steady the least of the three specs from the spreadsheet I'm looking at (I don't carry it regularly).  I imagine that's got a lot to do with all the focus it's saving and gaining and that it has a big passive haste buff that's based off the pet.

[Zetor]

Well, I liked the DK class changes in that my blood spec is actually a decent tank now with most of the WOTLK aggravation gone, and as a bonus I do insane amounts of dps (usually finish #1 or #2 in a pug 5man, and that's with no raid gear... definitely #1 if I use Dark Simulacrum on a few ZG bosses  ). There are still a few quality-of-life issues (snap aoe aggro, rune starving), but I can deal. I also like what they did to shamans (resto/ele) and priests (disc/shadow).
OTOH, I stopped playing my hunter because of the focus and 1-sec GCD change; I play with a 600+ ping, so classes that need to spam ability_x to do competitive damage at a one-sec GCD are right out. And yeah, I remember having to chaincast cobra shot as survival after the hunter changes at the end of wotlk, or I'd just get focus starved. Lock&load didn't proc nearly enough, and they killed double procs from fire / frost traps.

Part of that is the free shots from 4pc T12 and that at least will continue with the T13 set bonuses last I looked (double focus from Steady/Cobra and a proc for a big haste buff).

I hate it when raiding set bonuses change how a class plays. Most hunters don't - and won't - have 4pc T12/T13/etc, and will have to continue spamming...

[caladein]

OTOH, I stopped playing my hunter because of the focus and 1-sec GCD change; I play with a 600+ ping, so classes that need to spam ability_x to do competitive damage at a one-sec GCD are right out. And yeah, I remember having to chaincast cobra shot as survival after the hunter changes at the end of wotlk, or I'd just get focus starved. Lock&load didn't proc nearly enough, and they killed double procs from fire / frost traps.

Part of that is the free shots from 4pc T12 and that at least will continue with the T13 set bonuses last I looked (double focus from Steady/Cobra and a proc for a big haste buff).

I hate it when raiding set bonuses change how a class plays. Most hunters don't - and won't - have 4pc T12/T13/etc, and will have to continue spamming...

I can't speak to end-of-life Wrath because I wasn't subscribed at the time .  Not sure if the queue they added in would help at that high of a latency.  (I get annoyed by it more than anything.)

Also, I don't want to overplay 4pc T12's effect on "spamming" (whatever definition of it you may have).  For Marks, it means that you're swapping out a spare Steady for something else a bit more often because you then have both Master Marksman Aimed Shots and free Kill Commands from the set bonus.  For Survival, it works out to be maybe 10% or so less Cobras.  With either spec you're rarely hitting more than two Cobra/Steady Shots in a row even without it.

More broadly though, as a raider, I like set bonuses that offer up new or tweaked mechanics as they provide a nice change of pace each tier.  I don't think they're appropriate as a balancing tool of sorts (either in numerical terms or "feel") but I also don't think that's been the case with the three Hunter sets.

[Sheepherder]

Also, I don't want to overplay 4pc T12's effect on "spamming" (whatever definition of it you may have).  For Marks, it means that you're swapping out a spare Steady for something else a bit more often because you then have both Master Marksman Aimed Shots and free Kill Commands from the set bonus.  For Survival, it works out to be maybe 10% or so less Cobras.  With either spec you're rarely hitting more than two Cobra/Steady Shots in a row even without it.

More broadly though, as a raider, I like set bonuses that offer up new or tweaked mechanics as they provide a nice change of pace each tier.  I don't think they're appropriate as a balancing tool of sorts (either in numerical terms or "feel") but I also don't think that's been the case with the three Hunter sets.

Umm.  Are you sure you're playing the same game as all of us?   Seriously, it's three cobras more often than not on my alt.

But lets talk about something else.  The focus tick coming after the shot fires rather than as it's cast: stupidity or malevolence on the developer's part?

[Ironwood]

Arcane Mage is currently a bastion of stupid design in a SEA of stupid design.

Further, check Brokentoys for an excellent article on fiddling while Rome Burns.

[Merusk]

Please link the hunter stuff you found, Cal.  The one guide I just found on some place called "The Hunter's Union" was complete crap because it claimed CS was more damage than SS so BMs should always use CS.   

SS Formula: Weapon Damage + RAP*.021+280 (+10% if glyphed, which as a BM is good.  Arcane Shot, SS, and Kill Command are the best Prime glyphs.)
CS Formula: Weapon Damage + RAP*.017+276

It also implied you'd have to drop the pet talents in the Marks tree to pick-up Improved SS instead.... No, just drop the 3 point 3% haste you're slobbering over in the Surv. tree you twits.    You're spamming a higher-damage shot now for more haste. Yarg.

The priority seemed correct other than that, though. Which amazes me.  Frenzy - Kill Shot - Kill Command - Arcane Shot - SS (replace with a CS if SS is about to drop.)

No wonder they were talking about people not being competitive with BM at Blizzcon.   My problem with it is it's a lot to track and they're all on short CDs.  DKs have a lot to track but they're all on a bit longer duration or CD - Or the UI goes all flashy so you know "Oh, push this button now."   BMs get one flashy and it goes off intermittently.

[Sjofn]

Arcane Mage is currently a bastion of stupid design in a SEA of stupid design.

I am curious why you feel this way. I heart my arcane mage.

[Ironwood]

As you know by now, my recent hacking set me up for playing for another month.  In this time I've been doing some things that I wouldn't normally do.  I've always been impressed and wondering about the Arcane mages ability to do massive dps with what appears to be solely Arcane Blast (80%>on my Recount).

So I specced into the relevant spec and glyphed the relevant glyphs and took my wee level 80 mage with shite gear into Throne of Tides.  At which point I did 8k dps, which straight up doubled the nearest dps and tripled the next one.  It was clownshoes stupid for TWO main reasons.

1 - I pressed one button.  The entire instance.  Except on the occasional bit where I had to move and then I could use an instant or two before blasting up again.  ONE  Button.

2 - Designed an ability that charges up and gets more powerful and DOESN'T mix with any other spell (save arcane aoe, big whoop) means that either the spell is useless or it's going to have to be made to be a big damager.  So, you're kinda fucked from a design stand point already, since by designing it that way it's either going to be used exclusively or not at all.

Don't get me wrong, I like some of the shit in Arcane.  I'd used it before (not as a BLASTER) and really enjoyed the missiles and Incanters Absorption and instant invisibility and the 'other' cool shit.  But the fact is that this spec is about DPS, pure and simple, which makes it all about Arcane Blast.  ONE.  BUTTON.  Hell, even casting my other instants or missiles as NORMAL dropped my dps due to casting time.

So, in conclusion, I'm using this to beat other noobs and I'm not happy that it ever went out the door like this.

[Sjofn]

I like the "push 2 to win" dump phase, after which you evocate and then get to play the "keep my mana as close to 100% without wasting any" game. You don't really get that until 85, though, as I found from 80-84, the bosses didn't live past my manadump phase. <3

[Ironwood]

I'm not saying I'm not enjoying it.   

However, for those not a million miles away giving constant and undeserved blowjobs to the 'Class Designers', they may want to actually stand back and take a hard look at some of those decisions.

I've spent the afternoon glancing at the new Talent Trees.   It's unbelievably unfunny how bad they are, even at this stage, and how much they didn't need fucked about like this.

[sinij]

  ONE.  BUTTON. 

Why are you acting all surprised that mage as a class is a complete faceroll?

[Lantyssa]

Well, I liked the DK class changes in that my blood spec is actually a decent tank now with most of the WOTLK aggravation gone, and as a bonus I do insane amounts of dps (usually finish #1 or #2 in a pug 5man, and that's with no raid gear... definitely #1 if I use Dark Simulacrum on a few ZG bosses  ). There are still a few quality-of-life issues (snap aoe aggro, rune starving), but I can deal. I also like what they did to shamans (resto/ele) and priests (disc/shadow).

Blood could be made into a very effective tank before the changes.  Aggro was never a problem for me.  Non-stop Heartstrikes with free Death Coils proccing everywhere also put out respectable damage.

[Nevermore]

And Frost tanking was awesome. 

[Rokal]

For what it's worth, they said they aren't happy with arcane either at Blizzcon and they'll be changing it.

When I said I was a fan of the class design in Cata, I was only talking about classes I've played to 85. I don't know how fun/unfun mages are in Cata since I don't play one. I disliked that frost was a permanent pet class on my low-level mage, but that's as far as I got. To be really specific, I'm a fan of the Cata class design for: Rogues, Hunters, Druids, Priests.

[Zetor]

Well, I liked the DK class changes in that my blood spec is actually a decent tank now with most of the WOTLK aggravation gone, and as a bonus I do insane amounts of dps (usually finish #1 or #2 in a pug 5man, and that's with no raid gear... definitely #1 if I use Dark Simulacrum on a few ZG bosses  ). There are still a few quality-of-life issues (snap aoe aggro, rune starving), but I can deal. I also like what they did to shamans (resto/ele) and priests (disc/shadow).

Blood could be made into a very effective tank before the changes.  Aggro was never a problem for me.  Non-stop Heartstrikes with free Death Coils proccing everywhere also put out respectable damage.

I didn't have a problem with how 'effective' blood was in wotlk, but it was clunky as hell and didn't react to situations happening in typical pugs (such as someone pulling an extra group) well at all; it was also pretty bad in 4+target situations, especially when d&d was on cooldown. More importantly, it felt like I was doing a damage rotation in my tanking spec, which was pretty off-putting. It just wasn't fun compared to warrior or druid.

e: I haven't actually tried frost tanking, but I still suspect it had the same issues as blood and unholy tanking (the two specs I tried... unholy tanking spec was just a big joke :p). Blood/unholy/frost damage specs were fine though, and still are.

[Fordel]

What kind of Druid?


The general casting changes combined with the specific Moonkin changes made the spec a pile of ass and hate for me. To the point where I unsubbed.

[Ingmar]

I never saw the 'oh no my haste' problem you did levelling my mage from 80-85.

[Merusk]

Unholy tanking was fantastic at the start of WOTLK.. before the tremendous nerfs to the spec.  Someone over there hates pet classes/ specs.

Never tried frost in WOTLK.. hated the procs and juggling.  I find I actually enjoy it quite a lot in Cata.  Seems odd it got all the AOE via free HB procs when Unholy was nerfed to shit for being so great at it.

Blood tanking - at least when I was running dungeons - still felt way too squishy.  Normalization of Parry and the intro of mandatory self-healing was a lot of BS.  I don't expect a lot of other tanks are going to enjoy it when they receive the new mechanics either.  At least the problems will be the same across all classes in the role, though making everyone equally shitty in answer to "well nobody wants x class tanking" seems a poor decision.

[Fordel]

I never saw the 'oh no my haste' problem you did levelling my mage from 80-85.

A Mage doesn't double every cast time come level 81.

[Ingmar]

I guess I will have to finally go level the moonkin so I can see what you're talking about.

[Fordel]

You also get the chance to level with shitty haste Starfire, have fun with that since if you don't use it half the time your spells do half damage.  


I have no idea how the many mana situation is now, but that was ass when I leveled too.

[Rokal]

What kind of Druid?

The general casting changes combined with the specific Moonkin changes made the spec a pile of ass and hate for me. To the point where I unsubbed.

Moonkin/Bear. I like how balance plays, and I like the lunar/solar eclipse mechanic. I don't know how balance played in Wrath though.

Edit: Mana is fine at 85. Lunar/solar eclipse restores a huge chunk of mana, so as long as you're moving between the two you'll never have mana problems until you start spamming AoE abilities.

[Ironwood]

  ONE.  BUTTON. 

Why are you acting all surprised that mage as a class is a complete faceroll?

Because the other two trees aren't ?

[Ingmar]

Fire is totally fun in Cataclysm, there's a lot of interesting interaction with the DoT spreading, timing your combustions, etc.

[caladein]

Please link the hunter stuff you found, Cal.  The one guide I just found on some place called "The Hunter's Union" was complete crap because it claimed CS was more damage than SS so BMs should always use CS.   

SS Formula: Weapon Damage + RAP*.021+280 (+10% if glyphed, which as a BM is good.  Arcane Shot, SS, and Kill Command are the best Prime glyphs.)
CS Formula: Weapon Damage + RAP*.017+276

It also implied you'd have to drop the pet talents in the Marks tree to pick-up Improved SS instead.... No, just drop the 3 point 3% haste you're slobbering over in the Surv. tree you twits.    You're spamming a higher-damage shot now for more haste. Yarg.

The priority seemed correct other than that, though. Which amazes me.  Frenzy - Kill Shot - Kill Command - Arcane Shot - SS (replace with a CS if SS is about to drop.)

No wonder they were talking about people not being competitive with BM at Blizzcon.   My problem with it is it's a lot to track and they're all on short CDs.  DKs have a lot to track but they're all on a bit longer duration or CD - Or the UI goes all flashy so you know "Oh, push this button now."   BMs get one flashy and it goes off intermittently.

Steady does more damage than Cobra against a zero armor target, but against a raid boss Steady instantly loses ~30% damage to armor.  Cobra doesn't because it's nature.

BM also is pretty competitive with Marks, all the specs are within 10% of each other on paper, but there's not a lot of point to it with so many Arcane Mages around.

[Setanta]

I'm seeing 3-5K difference between BM and MM at the moment (no 4p T12 yet though, just FL boss drops and 2p bonus). Then again, I haven't been game to take my BM spec into H-FL for fear of the derision :D

[Merusk]

Well that explains it then.. I didn't know about the 30% decrease because that's totally 

I'll just put it down to more hunter shit Blizz needs to fix but never will. 

"Hay let's give a mix of resistances to a spec so they have to number crunch their number crunching."

[Fordel]

Physical attacks have always been mitigated by armor?

[Ingmar]

Well, the armor thing is a fact of life for any phyiscal damage class, hunters should surely be used to it being there by now.

[Merusk]

I'm more annoyed that one is physical and one isn't.  I know armor reduces damage.  

ed: Though that does speak to the whole simplicity thing from that thread in the general discussion forum.  Why the fuck should I care one is and one isn't? I just want to do goddamn damage. Make them situational rather than "Oh, they're all affected by totally different mitigation systems!"

[Sheepherder]

Why are you acting all surprised that mage as a class is a complete faceroll?

Because the other two trees aren't ?

This is pretty much Cataclysm system design in a nutshell.  Nothing is consistently high quality, a number of trees are obvious rush jobs after they shitcanned the original 51 point trees halfway into development, and all over the place you see fucking weird shit that is a result of half-baked ideas that were never fully panned out.  "DPS will be choosing to take survivability talents!"  Yes Ghostcrawler, we'll get right on that.

As Ingmar pointed out earlier: fire mage is the most fun shit this game has ever had...  Except when at launch it would run oom in a minute or so because the cost of fireball was ridiculously high, probably as an uncorrected relic of some design decision early in the development process when they were working towards a completely different end in terms on DPS and mana management.  Whelp.  Cast more scorch I guess?

Then there's the arcane tree.  Where you can get like 20 points in without taking more than a ~5% DPS increase if you really wanted to.

[Ironwood]

My mage has always been a frost mage, while wife a firey one.  You're right in that they both play with massive difference and quite a bit of fun.

Which is why the 'endgame' about being a mage and being about damage pretty much means we're both fucked.

[caladein]

Actually you aren't.

Frost is legit.  It sims out a few % off Arcane's pace which is well within the "I'm more familiar with and/or prefer this spec." range in my opinion for all but the most serious use.  And it has better AOE than Arcane and less variance attempt-to-attempt than Fire.

Frost isn't too dissimilar from Beast Mastery in that it's a traditionally PvP-only spec that's actually really really good at PvE now.  That won't show up in empirical metrics like Spec Score because raiders will almost always run the highest spec for that encounter and 25s don't have to worry about buff or role coverage... ever (in broad terms).

Fire is bit behind both single-target but has the best AOE and is usually the encounter gimmick spec of choice (see: Cho'gall and Alysrazor) because of how well it scales with haste.

[Ironwood]

Yeah, I was kinda dancing around the Hyperbole a bit there on purpose.

[Pantastic]

Don't get me wrong, I like some of the shit in Arcane.  I'd used it before (not as a BLASTER) and really enjoyed the missiles and Incanters Absorption and instant invisibility and the 'other' cool shit.  But the fact is that this spec is about DPS, pure and simple, which makes it all about Arcane Blast.  ONE.  BUTTON.  Hell, even casting my other instants or missiles as NORMAL dropped my dps due to casting time.

I really love the design idea of Arcane, where you can burn for really huge burst but end up OOM, or use conservative casting to keep your mana high to max your mastery bonus and do more damage over time. It's unique among WOW classes, and the idea of tying damage to conserving mana is something I hadn't seen in a game before.

IMO the problem with arcane is that mana use is so different in different types of content and with different types of gear. In raids, fights last long enough that you have to practice mana management, and screwing up your evocate timing can really break you (in theory at least, I haven't really raided much this xpac). In PVP, you just burst all the time, but you're balanced by having to ramp up and not really being able to move. But in 5-mans and leveling, you can just go into burn phase all the time, and either regen enough during pauses to keep mana up or drink between combats (depending on gear level). Also, since you don't get mastery until level 80, the main interesting mechanic (keeping mana high for damage) doesn't exist for most of the 'learning stages' of the game.

So for most of the stuff that most people spend most of their time doing with an arcane mage, it's just super simple and overpowered compared to everyone else and plays as a lame one-button wonder. I don't really think you can balance the mana mechanic between raids and 5-mans, the pacing of fights is just too different.