Hunter weapons broken?

#0 - Oct. 13, 2010, 9:10 p.m.
Blizzard Post
I was hoping someone could explain this to me. The hunter weapons (talking bows, xbows and guns) are all kinds of messed up. Here is a list of weapons and their stats:

Heroic Stakethrower (ilvl 264)
764 - 1296 Dmg (343.3 DPS) (532dmg spread)
43 agi
71 stam
36 crit
23 haste
1 red socket

Heroic Windrunner's Heartseeker (ilvl 271)
910 - 1285 Dmg (365.9 DPS) (375 dmg spread)
54 agi
67 stam
28 crit
36 haste
1 red socket

Fal'inrush, Defender of Quel'thalas (ilvl 271)
746 - 1120 Dmg (311.1 DPS) (375 dmg spread)
54 agi
81 stam
36 crit
36 haste

Heroic Fal'inrush, Defender of Quel'thalas (ilvl 284)
834 - 1252 Dmg (347.8 DPS) (418 dmg spread)
62 agi
80 stam
41 crit
33 haste
1 red socket

Heroic Zod's Repeating Longbow (ilvl 277)
638 - 1186 Dmg (325.8 DPS) (503 dmg spread)
22 Agi
57 Stam
1 blue socket
5% chance to do 50% wep dmg

Wrathful Gladiator's Shotgun (ilvl 277)
969 - 1361 Dmg (388.4 DPS) (392 dmg spread)
58 agi
86 stam
38 crit
38 resil

The Wrathful Gladiator's Repeater is about the same as the shotgun so I won't put it in the list but, if you look through the weapons you notice that the PVP gun has the highest DPS, highest Dmg and a small dmg spread on the weapon. I'll be comparing weapons to heroic Zod's as it was 2nd best in slot for hunters before the patch and is probably the most common weapon used by high-end raiding hunters. The PVP weapon has more agility than the Heroic Zod's (even when socketed with a 22agi gem).

Zod's proc--and the MM mastery Wild Quiver--is useless because of the unbelievably low damage on the weapon. Zod's now has a 5% chance to deal 341.5 - 593 damage and wild quiver does 785.45 - 1383.9 damage at a 35% + mastery chance. When equiping the PVP weapon, wild quiver now does 1114.35 - 1565.15 damage.

If we look at our best in slow weapon, Heroic Fal'inrush, Defender of Quel'thalas, the top end dmg of the crossbow is lower than that of the PVP weapon, Heroic Stakethrower, and Heroic Windrunner's Heartseeker. This imbalance of damage in the weapons greatly affects the benefits from the MM wild quiver mastery as well as the overall damage.

After a night of raiding and comparing my damage between this week and previous weeks, it's very clear that all my shots this week were doing, on average, 50% of their previous damage.

Could someone please explain to me what it is that I'm missing. Judging from the weapon damage changes, our best in slot list has changed from:

Heroic Fal'inrush, Defender of Quel'thalas
Heroic Zod's Repeating Longbow
Wrathful Gladiator's Shotgun
Heroic Windrunner's Heartseeker
Heroic Stakethrower
Zod's Repeating Longbow

to:
Heroic Fal'inrush, Defender of Quel'thalas
Wrathful Gladiator's Shotgun
Heroic Windrunner's Heartseeker
Heroic Stakethrower
Heroic Zod's Repeating Longbow

As for damage (average dmg) below is a table of different shots and the average damage they did during a night of raiding ICC25. The first column is the name of the shot, the second column is the average damage for that shot during patch 4.0 and the last two columns are average damage for said shots for the two previous weeks of raiding before 4.0.

Shot.............................4.0...................Previous weeks
Auto Shot.................2735.1...........4853.4...........4165.2
Auto Shot (crit)........5488.1...........9966.6...........8543.3
Steady Shot.............3131.0...........4027.4...........3598.8
SS (crit)....................6545.1...........10094.0.........8875.1
Chimera Shot.........6101.1...........6755.5...........6344.6
CS (crit)....................12285.7.........16591.4........15094.6
Kill Shot....................6878.4...........16763.9.........16690.2
KS (crit)....................15058.0..........46595.4.........33284.6
Quick Shot...............1211.3............2143.3...........1999.2
QS (crit)....................2362.0...........4604.4...........4210.0
Aimed Shot..............6119.0...........5624.5...........5243.7
AS (crit).....................12765.0.........15762.9.........13836.4


I really don't understand blizzard's thinking behind this change and I'd like it if someone could explain it to me. Clearly all of our damage and shots have gone down the drain. Aimed shot damage go up slightly but I didn't cast nearly as many aimed shots as I did in previous weeks.


Edit for formatting
#7 - Oct. 13, 2010, 11:13 p.m.
Blizzard Post
From a quick glance it looks like bows are correct and guns and crossbows are wrong. I wouldn't trash my bow and go get a gun just yet.