Reading through 6.02 PTR Patch Notes I, naturally, pay attention to what changes are coming for hunters as a class more than anything else.
So
So
- Racial traits leveled out - good, not that I struggled with them, but it sounds fair;
- No reforging - ok, I guess it makes gear different again, right now the difference between best in slot and not-so-good in slot gear is negligible, it is probably a step in a right direction;
- Different stats system - I need to play with it to understand how it works and I am fairly sure some adjustments will be made after it goes live;
- Stats shrinking - long overdue, in my opinion;
- Combined AH - nice, more consistent prices and opportunity to buy some items unavailable for Horde right now;
- Healing changes - probably huge, but I never had a healing character, I don't know how it used to be and have no baseline to compare to what it is going to be in WoD.
While not all of the above is a good news at least it is not a bad news. Hunter changes, though, concern me.
Now hunters have no interrupt or silence ability/shot/talent. Not only hunter does not have any anymore, but all the pets lost it too. Pets lost all rooting abilities as well. The only thing that's left to hunter is a Freeze Trap. So if a mob starts casting anything at me I just stand there waiting for it to finish.
Hunters also don't have any raid utility on their own anymore. Hunter's Mark is being removed and I can bet new Fox Stance the way it's described in the PRT notes is not going to be used by anyone in the raid. Pets still provide raid buffs though but I feel something valuable was taken away from me and nothing was given in return.
Also from the notes looks like Survival spec is going to be overpowered in PvE. Pandaria was the first expansion I experienced where all three specs were fairly close to each other in damage output and raid utility and I feel my favorite Beast Mastery is being neglected for the Warlords of Draenor expansion.
