My thoughts on Hunters in Cataclysm

Over all it is not as bad as I thought it would be.  I figured that hunters would get screwed a lot more then it seems we are being screwed.  Focus still seems like it will be a total disaster and has me already considering trying to find a new "main" character.  The new abilities are almost completely useless except in the most extreme of situations.

Click to read more to get a detailed break down on my thoughts which are probably all wrong and all over reacting.  But if I did not gripe about things I would not be the grumpy elf.

Cobra Shot:  Sounds like a nice little addition to the BM tree by giving them another shot to work with.  However, it shares a CD with Steady Shot which basically makes it useless.  It is not "another" shot, it is the same shot with a different name and in the form of nature damage.  Woohoo for completely unoriginal creations.

Trap Launcher: Are you fucking kidding me? Now you can lay a trap or shoot a trap.  Okay, I like that.  I always use my freezing arrow in PvE to catch a wayward pack and use it in PvP to catch someone off guard that is approaching. This is just another skill to click so I can click the skill to shoot it.  Just let me shoot the fucking thing and don't make me have to click a skill to then shoot it.  Why are you adding a move that is not needed?  At least we can macro it because it is not on the global cooldown, which I will do the second I get it.

Camouflage: Okay, let me get this straight.  Now I can "hide" while still getting hit by melee damage, still getting hit by AoE damage and as soon as I get hit the Camouflage disappears?  It is complete useless in the middle of a battle in PvE and at all in PvP for that reason being there is always AoEs going crazy all over the place. The only practical use for this is to use it to sneak up on a target to do extra damage.  Once... at the start of the fight.  Woohoo... I get a tiny bonus to one hit every once in the rare situation where I might be able to use it.  Once you reach max level and everything dies in 2 hits at most there will NEVER be a need to sneak up on something for a little extra damage (outside of a boss).  If this was a level 5 skill it would ROCK.  At 85? Thanks for nothing.  Make it completely remove you from combat and only break on you taking an offensive or defensive action and screw the damage bonus and we might be talking about something that can be useful.

Focus Resource: Lets compare.  Rogues us focus, Hunters use focus.  Rogues can stealth and vanish, Hunters can Camouflage.  Rogues stun, Hunters Trap.  We are now a ranged Rogue.  You want to know the worst part?  We wear mail and they wear leather yet we stay as far away as possible and they run in for close combat.  Woohoo... Hunters are now rogues with bigger armor and smaller balls.

Focus Resource: Lets see a reasonable start to a battle.  Serpent, Chimera, Aimed... I'll stop there.  They did not tell us how much a sting costs but the chimera and aimed is already over 100 right there.  Even if the sting is cheap we are stuck doing nothing and waiting to do things?  Okay, I am willing to rotate a little and make it Sting, Steady, Chimera, Steady, Aimed, Steady.  That is all fine and dandy.  Will keep me moving but will never have a reserve if I need to Disengage or Deterrence or Trap or anything extra because I will always be playing with zero focus.  I can adapt to this, but I do not like it.  Tell you what.  Make steady an instant shot and we got a deal.  That will make it so much more manageable.  In a heavy moving battle where we can not stand in one place to "recharge" our focus with lots of steadies hunters would be focus starved and useless in a raid.

Removing Ammo: I am interested to see how the ammo effect will be reflected in the skills and shots like it is now.  I like the removal of ammo.  Frees up 9 bag spaces.  Yes, I always keep 9 stacks for some strange reason.

Pet Management: Something even a grumpy elf can love.  More room for pets.  Active pets and passive pets.  Ability to call out whichever one you wanted is already here.  What do you think they lowered call stabled pet to 5 minutes for?  So you can switch them nearly every big battle if you want to.  The more room to collect pets with is what I love.

New Hunters: Starting hunters with ranged weapons, skills and pets is full of win.  We live on pets and ranged skills.  That is like starting a priest and not letting them heal or even use mana until level 10 or starting a warrior and not letting them melee until level 10.  Standard knowledge is that no hunter should ever melee... yet we had to level that way.  Nice change.  Might save future generations of huntards from looking like a fool.

Now to what they did not address...

Stats scaling to pets? They said all stats would scale to pets, did they already scrap that idea.

Hunters are a full DPS class, how come there are no updates that help DPS in any way?
- Cobra Shot is just a magical version of Steady Shot. No DPS increase there, just flavor change.
- Trap Launcher might make traps get used more but not a DPS increase.(except for survival)
- Camouflage even if they change it will not be a DPS increase past the one opening shot.
- Calling Pets is not a DPS increase and does not add anything we can't already do.
- No Ammo will actually lower DPS.  I like my 91.5 DPS arrows.  Hunters are starting out with a 91.5 DPS loss.
- Focus is reactive (wait for focus, use skill) and mana is proactive attack, attack attack use pot or viper as needed. Focus is a HUGE DPS loss.

Maybe there is more coming that they have not told us, but as I see it, so far there is only one DPS increasing skill (camouflage) and it is only really usable for the opening shot.  So as far as an increase goes, it is useless.  There are however two clear DPS losses.  Focus and Arrows are both huge losses to DPS.

How is gimping a pure DPS class to do less DPS a good thing?  Why even bother.

Anyone have any advice on another class that might be fun for a possible ex-hunter to play?  Seems like there will be no need for me and my low ass DPS in the world of cataclysm.  Everyone else is getting increases and we are getting decreases.  This is one really grumpy elf.