Another update was made to the PTR and Hunters were given more buffs. Basically all of the shots they buffed last time were nudged up again.
- Arcane Shot additional damage increased by 21%.
- Lynx Rush damage and AP scaling increased by 30%.
- Kill Command base damage increased by 33% and AP scaling increased by 16%.
- Aimed Shot weapon damage increased by 12.5% and additional damage reduced by 2%.
- Explosive Shot damage and RAP scaling increased by 8%.
Buffs are always a good thing, but the impact of these buffs remains unclear. Blizzard has stated that Hunters will be doing more DPS in Patch 5.4 than in Patch 5.3, which means when you hit the target dummy with your current gear you should do more dps than you did before.
Rumor has it that Mages and Warlocks received some nerfs this time around so combined with Hunter buffs everyone should be on more even footing. This makes sense in theory, but we won’t really know where things stand until raiding starts.
Keep in mind that many of the buffs were an attempt to recoup some of the damage loss from the removal of Readiness, which was not an easy thing to quantify. While there is a damage loss from not having readiness, it also simplifies some of the rotations and makes thing a little easier to manage. I know that everyone plays the class perfectly so skill shouldn’t be part of the equation, but for those that may not have executed the Readiness rotation flawlessly you might end up doing better damage because you’re playing better.
This is the final raid tier for Mists of Pandaria. It means the next expansion isn’t that far off and that’s when we can expect to find big wholesale changes to our class. For now we’ll just take our buffs and hope that combined with nerfs to other classes, raid mechanics, etc., that Hunters will be more in line with their DPS counterparts.
Hunters are a pure DPS class and they should be capable of outputting the highest DPS in the game, but big numbers are just a small part of what makes this class awesome. If all you care about is the highest possible DPS number, then you should level up one of each DPS class, gear them up and then switch to whichever one is deemed best at any given point in time.
I want to do the highest dps, but I want to do it firing a gun with stable of ferocious pets at my side. Fireballs, demons, ghouls, and totems? Do Not Want. I’ll stick with my Hunter because it’s fun, and if I’m capable of competing within a few percent of the other dps classes then I’m ok. I’m pretty sure my friends aren’t kicking me out of a raid for lack of DPS. Other things maybe, but not that.
Good Hunting!
