Anyone Else Not Looking Forward to Cataclysm Changes? (rant inside)

I know I'm new here, but just felt like I should share. I went to BlizzCon and honestly, when they announced the changes to the Hunter class, my heart sank. I've been playing my main (Doaix) since Vanilla WoW. Raided MC, ZG, Ony, and AQ20 when they were level appropriate (missed out on BWL, AQ40 and Naxx40 since the guild wasn't good/geared enough). One of my happiest days in WoW was when I turned in the Epic Bow quest from the leaf off of Domo. Getting help from the guildies to provide all the pre-combat buffs and support while hunting those four demons was great. I took it in the chin with all the other hunters when Blizz made the change from 1Agi=2AP down to 1-to-1 without re-itemizing our gear right away (1/2 the AP without any talents to up damage DOES suck). We got through that and then moved on to BM being THE raiding spec in BC. I even managed to get enough Haste going towards the end of BC while raiding BT and Hyjal to swap back to MM since I was having clipping issues with Steady Shot. I've now leveled through Wrath, raided all the current content and had two raiding guilds vanish around me just before each of the major raid content patches (so only gotten 2 Drakes on 25OS and only up to Freya in 25Ulduar). I've leveled one hunter to 80 as MM, another as BM. I've raided MM, BM, and Surv. I've started seriously playing with pet tanking (although no major achievements IMO as of yet) and hope to continue progressing at least my primary Alt if not my Main down this path.

But this? No Mana. No good details on the means of Focus regen indicated yet (Steady Shot is not an answer unless heavily reworked). On top of CD's gone or dropped on most of the shots, after moving traps to different families and removing the CD on Volley. There will not be enough Focus to do what we need to do. Most of our escape talents are based on Mana. Our shots are HEAVILY based on it, at least for sustained damage output. They are just trying to encourage us to use more traps as of 3.2, but those too are mana-heavy. I don't see how there will be enough Focus to go around. I'm not saying I don't trust Blizzard...wait, that's EXACTLY what I'm saying. They have screwed us over before (as they have many other classes), so I would not put it past them to do so again. It will merely be a question of how long it will take them to 'normalize' the class back to the damage standards that are accepted at the time. Just as I'm starting to get excited about the class again due to pet tanking (really enjoying things instead of just playing the game), they go and show us how much they are going to screw up the class I love to play.

I know I should wait until the Expansion is released (or the major content patch prior to release that will change all the mechanics around as usual). But I figured I would at least vent my frustrations now, as early in the process as it is. I'm sure some of you are excited about things coming up, so please don't let me totally bum everyone out. The ammo changes sound interesting, especially since only one of my four hunters currently has Thori"dal. The lack of ammo use and extra bag space is great and will be most welcome. But it really is starting to sound to me like this and the legendary 2H axe are just distractions to blind us to the complete 180 they are doing to the class. I love hunters currently, but I am really not sure I will be playing one too far into the expansion.

TL;DR: Cataclysm is *BAD*.

Cataclysm is... *how* far away? For me, I look at it as 'Let's wait until it comes out'. Ranting now just gets people into a frothing frenzy, and who knows what changes will happen between then and now. It's not even been tested yet, after all. I understand the fact that it's way different, and a lot of stuff will not go people's way, but I'm fond of waiting until it's at least hit the PTR before I go with gripes.

YMMV, obviously.

Remember: 3.3 hasn't even been out. How about complaining about that one?

Cataclysm won't be out for at least a year...

By that time, I'm going to be so bored of my hunter, pally, warrior and other classes that I'll probably consider playing a different game. Perhaps the new changes will make the game fun again (like playing a new game).

Ground

Big hunter fan here- and happy with the idea of the changes, obviously need to see how they end up panning out, but not to concerned on focus.

I have my concerns yes - Will being focused based mean we change from being the sustained high damage to being burst damage then recharge? Or will it be more balanced so providing you stack haste you recharge focus at pretty much the same rate you use it? On the flip side will a player's ability to think about what he is doing and how to balance his focus mean the patient hunter will get the best damage output over a fight- rather than the old BM tact of mashing buttons and screaming 'MOAR DAMAGE!'?

The mastery talent show massive promise to help the devs balance. It gives them another, very flexible, tool to add a lilttle dps there, nerf a bit of defense here. It allows them to 'stealth nerf' so we should no longer get the hidious nerf bat of doom on our classes. Above all - this extra amount of flexability in the dev's tweaking means all classes will be balanced - even if one is 'better' they will be near enough. You can pump out raid damage as any spec.

I applaud finally being able to play the game my way and still get my raid slot.

Lets face facts, WoW needs a new direction and Blizz are effectively putting WoW 2 on the table for us in the next expansion. All classes, gear, talents, stats and abilities are changing - its a hell of a lot to put into a xpac...

I'm a fan.

While i havent been playing a hunter quite as long as you doaix, I have been playing for quite some time, and I played a rogue before that. I am though, familiar with your sentiment and I understand that you have been through several years of blizzard absolutely positively fumbling over our class. I understand your distrust.

However, I would objectively suggest that blizzard is doing a better job as of late. They removed the deadzone, they have brought out of oblivion in pvp, they have allowed us to do reasonable damage. They gave us more stable slots and made all pets have special moves. They gave us pet talent trees, which are lots of fun. I should also mention that they havent made any major misteps inbetween these changes. So as of the last year or so, they have been batting pretty well.

A year ago I would have shared, nay, outshined your skepticism regarding the proposed changes. But now, after watching them get things right for some time, I have tenative faith that they will probably get this right. Also, I think that if they do get it right, the focus concept could be a lot of fun.

If you look at all the revamping, this expac is more like a sequel than an expansion. All the leveling is being revamped. Stats and talents are being revamped, Raiding philosophy is changing significantly, and several fundamentals of each class are evolving or just getting completely overhauled.

It could be really great, but if it totally blows, well, wow had a good run of several years and maybe its just time to move on.

Kurasu, hunters had focus in beta and it was a catastrophy then. They really have to get a better and more innovative system if it's going to work. My biggest fear is that we will become ranged rogues. Instead of Sinister strike X 5 -> Eviscerate we will have to do Steady X 5 to get focus to do aimed shot.

Simplified of course, but you get the drift.

The biggest concern for the class, and not myself, is that we will once again become looked upon as morons. We will have a ton of lvl 80 hunters that all of a sudden don't know shit about rotations. It's like asking a hunter to play a rogue in a raid and hope that he understands what to do.

One of the main reasons why Blizz doesn't want to remove leveling up process is because we need to learn playing the class along the way. This will be ripped out from under us.

I think the focus thing could be done really spectacularly, or really really badly.

Worst case: It turns out like black arrow- flash and new but once you read the tooltip you already know it is going to be a nightmare.

Best case: It turns out like tanking- it acknowledges the nature of the hunter class and simply embraces it, rather than trying to fit a round hole into a rhomboid peg.