Developers Intend to Scale CS/SS With Haste!

#1 - Jan. 11, 2011, 10:54 p.m.

The patch isn't finished. Our intent is to bring Survival DPS down to the level of some of the other dps specs while making Marks and BM more attractive in PvE.

...

Second, we made Steady Shot scale with haste, which will let hunters get more attacks in overall and have more focus with which to do so. These changes would have been a net buff for Survival without additional nerfs to compensate.

We also changed Cobra Shot and the warrior ability Slam to scale with haste. This does not mean all physical cast-time abilities will automatically scale with haste though.

Now, reading this, you're probably all thinking... "But, Odinson, Steady Shot and Cobra Shot are already affected by haste. We already lower our casting time with haste deliberately to fit in ES/AS on optimal rotations..."

Oh, I know. But the developers don't know.

The developers. Don't know. That our shots. Already scale. From haste.

LOL

Zarhym

Community Manager

#20 - Jan. 12, 2011, 1:29 a.m.

I posted about this on the Public Test Realm forum, but I'll bring it over here as well for visibility. The wording in the patch notes is our fault. We have heard of this elusive hunter class before and even kind of know how it works. :p

We made a code change to alter the way haste works for hunters. It should now be a much more favorable stat. We're looking to provide more technical details to explain these changes soon.

I'll concede that the patch notes don't accurately describe this behavior. It's not as simple as adding haste to two abilities that didn't previously have it (because that's not exactly correct). We'll work on the wording for the next update to the notes.

Zarhym

Community Manager

#40 - Jan. 12, 2011, 2:14 a.m.

Zar, as the Hunter blue, are you given any input into decisions on our class or are you simply here to try to appease our community and pass on information? Do you fight for us or do you just Feign Death and let them do whatever they want to our class?

I'm not the "hunter blue". I've been handling the compilation of all of the patch notes for 4.0.6, so I was the first to jump on this when I recognized that the hunter notes were misleading. The compiling of patch notes is a tedious process, particularly during PTR time, so I'm more concerned initially with formatting. It's not as easy as it may seem to ensure all of the notes are explained perfectly on my first pass of them during testing, particularly when I'm gathering changes for everything from dungeons to professions -- not just for one class.

Just the same, when the developers first check in their balance changes, they're working very hard to make sure their code changes are picked up in time to make it in a new patch build. This means the initial notes I'm given may not always be explained as thoroughly as we'd like (because they're actually directed more at QA for testing purposes). But we scrutinize all of the notes several times over by the time the patch is ready to be officially pushed to live realms.

Do I fight for you? I fight for a better game all around. :)

The class designers are aware of this thread and we're keeping an open dialog with them. When we have more insight to share, we'll make sure that happens.