Recently Blizzard asked us to brace ourselves for an impending nerf-storm that would affect our beloved Hunter class, and then yesterday Blizzard released a new patch onto the beta realms.
Like the mighty Thor wielding Mjolnir, Ghostcrawler took his nerf-bat and pointed it at the sky. Thunder boomed, lightning flashed, the heavens opened up, and down came – merely a drizzle. Arcane Shot was nerfed, Thrill of the Hunt was buffed, and Wild Quiver was restored to it’s prior state. This last change thanks to that goddess among Hunters, Zeherah.
I present to you, Ghostcrawler’s wrath,
- Arcane Shot – An instant shot that causes 110% weapon damage plus 2,742 as Arcane damage (was 5,484 as Arcane damage).
- Thrill of the Hunt – You have a 20% chance when you fire a ranged attack that costs Focus or Kill Command to reduce the Focus cost of your next 3 Arcane Shots or Multi-Shots by 20 (was 15% chance).
- Mastery: Wild Quiver – Grants a 16% chance for your ranged attacks to also instantly fire an additional ranged shot that deals 100% weapon damage (was 32% chance and 50% weapon damage).
As you can see, sound, fury, but nothing of significance.
Beta is not over, however, and patch 5.0 is not released. To say the storm has passed would be foolish and premature. Thor does not smite his foes with a single blow, and the nerf-bat is to powerful a weapon to let stay idle. Don’t pack the umbrellas just yet, Ghostcrawler, king of Azeroth, still has work to do.
I do love the optimism, but I believe these were changes set to take place before they realized the extent of huntar-OP-ness (or, in other words, a build that was already set to be released). I don’t like being the doom and gloom guy, the hunter community has enough of those, but the nerfbat will come down hard, very hard, within the next few weeks. I just hope they do it soon enough that after GC inevitably nerfs us into the depths of Hades, they will have time to readjust before MOP release.