Blizzard decided to introduce some additional class changes, namely to the Hunter as it seems that the ranged build was doing that great in comparison to melee Hunters. Although class changes can be quite beneficial to maintain the meta balance and power levels of different specs, it is interesting to see the devs tackling ranged Hunter all of a sudden.
With that being said, we will review all of the changes that were added to Season of Discovery Phase 3 and what they can potentially mean for the state of the game as the community is always critical to buffs and nerfs to the classes. Given the rather experimental and unbalanced nature of Season of Discovery, it can be difficult to pinpoint which issues need to be resolved before Phase 4 starts.
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WoW SoD Phase 3 Hunter Changes
Hunter Buffs
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Rapid Killing now reduces the cooldown of Rapid Fire by 80% (was a reduction of 2 minutes).
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Chimera Shot weapon damage percent increased to 135% (was 120%).
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Explosive Shot base damage before attack power increased by 50%.
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Sniper Training has an additional new effect: while Sniper Training is at 5 stacks, Aimed Shot is instant.
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Serpent Spread now causes Multi-shot to apply Serpent Sting to its targets for 12 seconds (was 6 seconds).
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Steady Shot now deals 100% weapon damage (was 75%).
Developers’ notes: There are more adjustments coming for Hunters. In general, we intend to improve the ranged playstyle and diminish the melee playstyle so that the two become more equivalent.
Although these changes will definitely help ranged Hunters perform better in PvE, there are major concerns over how this will affect PvP as well. Not only did Blizzard buff Shadow Priests and Balance Druids, but now Hunters are among the best PvP ranged classes in terms of damage.
Hopefully, the devs are quick to react if they start seeing PvP being plagued by the unfun PvP specs in Season of Discovery.
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