Cytuj:
Kalgan, thanks for taking the time to discuss the hunter changes with us. I have a few questions:
1. Since Aimed Shot will now reset the auto-shot timer and also add the weapon's delay to the spell's cooldown, are there any plans to remove the weapon speed normalization from it?
2. Are there any plans to make Kill Command scale with attack power? It might be pretty nice for fresh 70's but abilities that deal a flat amount of damage with no way of increasing it become useless eventually (think of Mongoose Bite).
3. On a related note, will Mongoose Bite scale with weapon damage or attack power in the expansion?
4. Why do Arcane Shot and Steady shot scale with attack power rather than weapon damage? Wouldn't it make weapon upgrades more appealing if weapon damage was considered?
5. Will ranged weapon damage scale faster than before? What I mean by that is currently, the DPS difference between Rhok'delar and Ashjre'thul is 1.6. In the "leaked" screenshots I have seen, the DPS on both weapons was increased significantly. However, the difference between the new upgraded versions was still 1.7 DPS. In order for weapon upgrades to be more appealing, ranged weapon damage needs to grow faster (similarly to 2-handed weapon damage growth). Obviously I'm only looking at 2 weapons, and those are not official screenshots, so could you provide us with some additional insight? My beef was that ranged weapon damage increases at about the same rate as 1-handed weapons, but hunters don't have % multiplier attacks like rogues.
6. The new agility to AP/crit ratio seems interesting. However, don't you think the optimal distribution might still be something along the lines of: X agility + 2X attack power? For instance I was looking at the new hunter versions of current hunter items such as Dragonstalker's Helm. The new version has 18 agility + 36 attack power (I think) instead of 27 agility. This stat spread seems to be optimal as it provides a nice balance between attack power and crit, providing more crit than the old version, but the same attack power (and therefore it is "better" than the old stat distribution, which you said was optimal already in the current game). Am I wrong?
7. Can you tell us about how feign death is being changed in the expansion as far as its functionality?
8. Would you consider moving Hawk Eye to a level 1 survival talent?
9. Will +attack power buffs (blessing of might, battle shout) once again apply to ranged attack power?
That's a lot of questions and I hope you can get to at least a few of them!
1. Aimed Shot's cooldown should not be affected by the weapon's delay. This is bug that will be corrected.
2. Kill Command actually already scales (just not in an obvious way). First, as your crit % goes up, you'll be able to use it more often. Second, since it's an instant attack for your pet, its damage goes up as the pet scales with your gear improvements (the ability deals pet damage + the "an additonal" bonus listed in the tooltip).
3. Mongoose Bite does scale based on your melee attack power in the expansion.
4. Arcane and Steady shot scale with your attack power rather than your weapon damage so as not to overemphasize weapon speed (while we don't mind having slow or fast weapons have abilities/talents that favor one or the other slightly, we don't like being in a place where fast weapons are considered drastically inferior to slow weapons).
5. Noted, although I suppose everyone would like for their weapons to scale more quickly, wouldn't they. ;]
6. We actually gain several viable stat combinations that you haven't mentioned (ie: AP/Crit, Agil/Crit, in addition to +hit rating and +crit rating being more comparable to agility on a point-for-point basis than they were before).
7. This is described in more detail in one of the other threads I posted in. In summary, only the actual creatures that resist feign death will completely ignore its effects.
8. Yes, this has been under consideration for some time now and has not yet been ruled out. No promises though.
9. We hope to be more clear about what effects should and should not affect Ranged Attack Power. However, that doesn't mean that all melee attack power buffs will be extended to affect ranged attack power (otherwise there wouldn't be much point to having them as different stats).