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Remember our previous post on a WoW Europe Forum member looking for developer responses to his collection of Hunter related questions and concerns? Well folks here's an update to that.
Blizzard Community Manager, er, Blizzard Poster (whatever they prefer to be called,) Vaneras, informs that he's managed to get some feedback from the developers. That means some of the questions in the long thread, have now been answered. Vaneras writes:
With hunters no longer being so focused on Agility heavy gear, is there any plan of introducing more items with Ranged Attack Power instead of only Attack Power to make certain items more geared towards hunters? For example an item with +x Attack Power, +y Ranged Attack Power [+other stats].
Vaneras: There are currently no plans for adding more hunter specific items with focus on ranged attack power, but this is a good idea that could prove useful in the future.
With the different builds focusing on different parts of the Hunter class, different stats are interesting based on stats. The current raid sets seem to be very Marksman-centric, leaving much to be desired from other builds.
Vaneras: The developers create items for what they feel the class needs or wants the most, however if something does seem inadequate or insufficient in some regards, then those things would be good subjects for adjustments or changes. In this particular case it is possible that the developers would want to change a talent (ie: Lightning Reflexes) to mesh better with the itemization.
Currently, both the Marksman tree and the Beast Mastery tree seem to be very viable. Survival seems to be falling a bit behind.
Vaneras: The developers agree with this observation. They feel that the Survival tree needs some raid help, mostly because of changes to itemization/Lightning Reflexes.
All in all the Survival tree seems unfocused, some PvE-focused talents, some more PvP-focused, but without being as fluid as for example the Marksman tree. This might also stem from having 4 first tier talents and 3 second tier talents; it seems a bit of a mess. The 41-point talent also seems a bit underwhelming, since hunters don't really have that many long-cooldown abilities. Any thoughts on possibly improving or streamlining the talent tree?
Vaneras: Some useful changes should hopefully be made to the Survival tree in order to solve these issues. That being said, you should not expect any full class revamp or full talent reviews.
The Marksman tree seems, as I mentioned, pretty decent. There are some talents seeming a bit disharmonious to me personally, and I'll mention them briefly: Mortal Shots needing Aimed Shot, Trueshot Aura requiring Scatter Shot, Concussive Barrage seems a bit lackluster (what's its viability in endgame and bosses, will it boost Steady Shot, or is stuff immune?), as does Combat Experience (with current gear at least). Other than those, I personally have no major gripes with the tree.
Vaneras: The developers agree with this. The Marksman tree isn't perfect, but it is good enough for now :-)
Well, despite their many problems with getting players to see their reasoning - just look at the Priest "nerf" issue/mess/hoopla - it seems that Blizzard employees are still trying their best to keep their players in the loop, and at the least they're trying to show that they're making an effort to reach out to their players. Something that can't be said for some other MMO devs.
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