
Originally Posted by
Lendas
Folks... with the recent nerf to our weakest legendary trait to restore 4.9 - 7 power per hit, It's become obvious what has been suspected for a long time now.
lets not delude ourselves into thinking that anything will ever get better, because its been going steeply downhill since RoI. The current playability of the class and the state that we are in is debatable, but what is not debatable is the fact that we have been systematically nerfed, directly and indirectly, for a long time now. The many changes both global and class related as well as the intentional INACTION by our overlords is obvious, and I'm afraid that with this recent round of intentional, direct, and precise changes, My worst fears have been realized.
My fellow Hunters, Turbine has done this intentionally. No one could possibly make the changes or LACK OF changes without having the direct intent of weakening the Hunter class.
I don't know why or what they intend to do with the class. Some steps indicate that they want to move the Hunter population into different classes that they have made similar to Hunter in some abilities (Wardens with 40m range, ports, cost TP to play) or similar DPS output (Champions). Of course, Its impossible to know for sure, but Turbines behavior is almost surely as a result of their corporate overlords' plans, be they some statistician's numbers or some consumer behavioral scientist from WB figuring out how to make the most money.
Of course, this is a long time in the making. WB took over Turbine in late SoM (the time of our last revamp) and undoubtedly have a hand in the situation here. Notice that since SoM, we have only become more dependent on Pen shot, Weaker compared to everyone else, received a disproportionally large amount of borked up/ ineffective skills. We have fallen behind other DPS classes and have become undeniably in a very serious condition in the moors.
But Turbine could not just destroy the Hunter class and be do whatever it wanted to do. This had to be done subtly. If turbine came at the once thriving Hunter population and crushed the class in one swoop or whatnot, the outcry would be enormous and people would just quit off the bat. No, The Hunter class needed to be slowly made distasteful, slowly made the lesser of the classes. They had to maintain the illusion that they still wanted the class to exist, without giving too much hope to those who would wish to stay in the class.
The goal has sadly been achieved. Most Hunters that I know have alts of other classes that they play with increasing frequency and overall the population of Hunters has plummeted. The fun and challenging Hunter play style of old has been, intentionally, replaced with a boring pen-spamming system, with low survival and ineffective skills along the way. Don't you find it odd that in our pre-WB revamp, we had penshot focus cost INCREASED to 3 focus to stop what 1 update later was implemented: the pen-shot-derp-spam.
sure, Turbine lost customers and VIPers.... but their math most likely says that it will pay out in the long run. Having the most popular starter class do fine in the LVLing process only to be dead-ended at endgame is an ingenious business plan to say the least. People, who have already spent on x-pacs, quest packs, store items, and other fluff, will find their Hunter dead in the water at endgame, and will either quit (in which case, money has already been spent and turbine wins) or will re-roll the most similar class to Hunter in terms of DPS or playstyle (in which case turbine also wins with warden purchases or lvling an entirely different toon, getting even more money)
So its win-win for turbine, and maintaining the illusion of viable Hunter endgame is less than the profits they make from those who buy the stuff only to find their Hunter is underpowered in it, and re-roll a different toon.
my friends, This nerf marks the end of the line when it comes to any illusion of the class. This is the plan... Turbine's plan.... and as much as we can tell ourselves it's going to be alright and we will get buffed..... we're not. Any supposed class updates are highly questionable when it comes to weather it will be any real class "UPdate" or weather it will be a re-shuffling of the same broken skills we already have.
the proof is, as always, in the pudding.
I will personally continue to fight for the Hunter class, and I encourage you all to fight as well. I am just trying to warn those who would still hold on, that I would get out of the class now. Yes that plays right into the hands of Turbine, but they make the rules, and I would not struggle on with this any longer. Lets post the warning signs and strobe the lights here "dead end".
Dont expect turbine to buff us folks, cause its their loss.
I know this sounds like a big overblown conspiracy theory, but when big public companies with big money and big data along with company behavioral analysts come along to take over a company, they want to maximize profit, and that's what it's all about. When you follow the Hunter as closely as I have for as many years as I have, you can see that this is a perfectly reasonable explanation. If you have a better one I would love to hear it.
Keep fighting.
Thank you.
TL; DR
Turbine planned to nerf Hunters intentionally over time.