WTF?

I'm sure every other hunter blog will have their say on the patch 3.1 preview notes, and I don't plan to be any different - they're just way too bewildering to ignore.

Let's go over the ones that confuse me:

Consumable ammunition has been removed from the game.

This, I equate to: "Hey, starving child, I know you're hungry and will fix that soon." "Good news! I can't tell you what food we have, but you'll be happy to know it will come in your favourite colour!"

What on earth is the point of removing the ammo system at this point in time? It's a gold sink, it keeps engineers in business, and changing it won't have an effect on our DPS one way or another (unless Blizz somehow change the 15% quiver bonus to something different for each spec). I think it's great that they're removing it (I hate having to keep track of ammo as much as the next hunter), but I really don't get the timing.

Piercing Shots – this talent has been changed. Your Aimed, Steady and Chimera Shots cause the target to bleed for 10/20/30% of damage dealt for 8 sec.

Blizzard has said that they're happy with MM DPS. Why are they buffing this talent in particular? I'm not begrudging you MM hunters a buff; I just don't get why (or at least, why now).

Sniper Training – this talent has been changed. After standing still for 6
sec, you gain a 2/4/6% damage bonus to Steady, Aimed and Explosive Shot.

Unless Ulduar consists of a whole raid zone's worth of Patchwerk, who would take this talent? Every time you moved, you would lose the bonus. A fight like Sartharion, for example, involves moving walls of fire and void circles; exactly why would this talent be worth taking, especially that far down in the Survival tree? Not to mention, it's absolutely useless as a PvP talent.


Overall, I suppose it's good we're getting at least a couple of definite buffs, and no nerfs except for Sniper Training (although the talent was pretty mediocre to start with, especially for trap-dancing Survivalists... so maybe it isn't a nerf but just different).

I'm still not convinced the huge overhaul hunters are supposed to get in 3.1 will improve our situation, but I suppose I'll have to reserve my judgement for when we see the rest of the changes.