#0 - Feb. 5, 2009, 2:53 p.m.
The developers have answered a few Hunter related questions. Some of you may have seen this already somewhere else, but in case you have not, you can find it below:
Q. You said you are happy with the dps a MM hunter can pull. I have been playing in a competitive raid environment for 4 years and when I spec marks I fall 1000 dps behind ele shams, 800 dps behind the moonkin and 700 dps behind the arcane mages. We also then see you stating that you feel arcane mages are performing well in pve. Do your internal tests have MM hunters and arcane mages near each other or are we reading too much into what you are saying?.
A. What we have said before was that players tend to look at relative numbers while we look at absolute numbers. All the players saying "SV is not too high" justify that by saying "because I am not topping the meters." And in some cases, SV is topping the meters. :)
Q. You want all ferocity pets to feel viable in PVE but pets like wasps, wolves, tall striders and carrion birds have utility specials instead of damage specials. The only way I can see balancing the pets would be to give them 2 unique specials, one utility and one damage oriented. What ideas have been brainstormed at the table?
A. There is a trade-off between damage and utility. We specifically gave some hunter pets raid buff / debuff options in case your group, esp. a 5 or 10-player group, has trouble having access to that bonus. We have seen a lot of wasps out there lately.
But as we have also said, more parity among pets is something we want to pursue. Currently most of the hunter discussions on the forums are about SV-MM-BM differences or PvP however.
Q. 41 point survival talent was due for a buff coming out of beta but we have seen no further discussion on it; last patch it even received a nerf! What are your plans for this?
A. We hope to be able to announce some 3.1 changes soon. (http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=7913091638&sid=1)
Q. MM is still crippled by Chimera shots ~580 mana cost. Any chance we could see some arcane shot glyph inspired solutions to this? Possibly make rapid recuperation like shamanistic rage?
A. We will be adding more glyphs over time, especially for newer abilities. We didn't want to add them all right away for fear that players would just assume the glyphed version of the spell was the way the spell worked rather than realizing what a benefit the glyph itself brought. If that makes sense.
