I’ve been raiding again a bit on Kitsune – I missed my friends. :) Plus, each upcoming content patch is like designer drugs to an addict…I have to hang around to see what the new stuff feels like.
I am a bit worried about the upcoming patch, though. Since there are substantial nerfs in store for hunters, I worry about our raid viability.
Volley is going to be nerfed, and yes it admittedly allows hunters to do a lot more damage on trash than non-aoe classes. Note the italics. We’ll still get our butts kicked by a good mage, and it’s hard to keep up with Death Knight aoe. All buffing volley did is make us an aoe-capable class, but the actual damage isn’t silly damage when compared to other classes.
The shot to the left is not absurd damage. I’ve chosen one where I happened to be on top, but on trash mobs the hunters, mages and death knights will all be fighting for the top spots, doing very similar damage. I think on this one I must have been slacking a lot less than the others, since there’s a gap – normally, I need to really fight for a place. (Hey, allow me what epeen I can!)
On boss fights, things will equal out. You’ll see warlocks, rogues, and retri pallies added to the top spots. The screenshot below is the damage done on Patchwerk, showing more reasonable numbers. (Yeah, I read hunter blogs where the meters they post show them doing a gazillion more dps than I can do…I’ve no idea how they do it. All I know is that I can’t, boohoo.) Anyway, a normal night, not one to be proud of, just for comparison.
That 4k dps probably put me in the top eight or so players on that fight – and I guarantee you I wasn’t in the top four, or even six. I was still sporting a blue item or two, but I would have been fully flasked and buffed…how are hunters doing too much damage? This (to me) is an example of a midrange hunter, no shining star, no Nihilum hunter, just a regular gal on an average night.
It’s one of the reasons, aside from burnout and the fact that a long commute will make it impossible to raid, that I will probably eventually quit Wow. Losing 20% or so of my damage will mean that I’m much, much less likely to justify my raid spot. This bothers me a great deal. On the above night, I probably felt bad about my performance…how much worse will I feel after a major nerf?
I don’t understand the reasoning behind this, I really don’t.
Nerf as reason to quit isn’t sound. Its WoW. Raid balance changes all the time. Seriously, dependable player with right attitude is worth much more than his/her dps, especially because in next patch balance may shift yet again. Coming from casual background my views are flawed, but come on, if you are not in top guild (like EU top 100 at least) and such nerf threatens your spot, sorry to say, but guild management needs to get off high horse and make peace with fact, that they are not up to challenge.
Quit WoW if you want, or think it would be good for you. Otherwise, keep being dependable player with right attitude and you have guaranteed raid spot in any serious (but not agonizing-serious) raid guild. Of course not on Moonglade, where as You saw, being accepted needs you to be more of a social butterfly than good player, but well, its Moonglade.
I sorta feel the same way. It’s bad enough that I’m getting ganked by dk’s 2 levels below me every time I turn around. Now they’re going to nerf us? That’s just now right.
It’s true that raid balance changes all the time, and I do hope they reverse most of these changes out. In our guild, however, performance is king. Everyone has to be dependable of course, and know their class. But dps meters are posted after every boss fight, and if we are struggling on something, quite often it’s announced that the bottom few on the meters will be replaced from those who are on reserve. Basically, that’s what hunters do, really – since we don’t bring a lot of yummy buffs to the raid. We dps.
I think part of the emphasis on dps meters is that everything is so easy now – we’re clearing all available content in two nights (unless they’re trying to do Sartharion with as many drakes up as possible, which extends it a bit). It’s natural to compete on damage in that environment…it may change when we have new content to learn.