WoW Hunters mourn after “dumb” Season of Discovery nerf
Blizzard EntertainmentHunters have been on quite the journey since the start of World of Warcraft: Season of Discovery, but the death knell for the all-conquering class of the last couple of weeks may finally have arrived.
When the seasonal take on Classic WoW first launched, Hunters absolutely flew out of the blocks. This was thanks, in large part, to their pet-taming abilities. Specifically, they were able to tame Scorpids, who themselves were able to output insane levels of damage.
This was thanks to pet scaling, raising the overall strength of the pet and an ability that heavily buffed the Scorpid’s poison effect. This became so egregious that the pet could turn out more damage than most classes.
Since then, there have been some inevitable nerfs, and the latest round has upset players of the class.
Kill Command nerf has hurt Hunters in Season of Discovery
In a blue post on the official Blizzard forums, the developer shared the news that Kill Command will now only affect Claw and Bite. After the information was shared on Reddit, accompanied by a disparaging meme, many Hunters quickly voiced their consternation.
One sympathetic player from another class shared their idea that Blizzard had gone about the changes incorrectly: “This seems so dumb as someone who doesn’t even know how hunters work. Like, can anyone explain why it’s so incredibly hard to roughly balance the pet types instead of nuking them from orbit?”
Another added similar thoughts, saying: “Nerf the damage on the ability some or change how kill command works in general. There are plenty of iterations of the spell to choose from. Instead, they just completely kill its interaction with these interesting pets and make it so BM hunters have to either only use cats or simply have a wasted leg rune slot.”
Other, less experienced players are at a loss after the rug was pulled out from under their class choice. One asked: “What are the most viable pets now? I’m kind of lost in regards to classic so I just went with the mainstream pets, but Scorpid poison hits like a wet noodle now. Is Boar/Cat the best for leveling now? I heard the wolf howl ability is bugged.”
With this latest round of nerfs now on the books, Hunters are likely through the worst of it. Whether balancing will happen in the other direction is unclear, but there have been multiple examples of overcorrection so far in Season of Discovery.