OMG, Nerfz0rz!!

Well it was gonna happen sooner or later, but they've finally nerfed Hunters Aimed Shot and Multishot abilities.

Wulfsblood uses the Bloodseeker at present until he can do his Hunter quest and get a really nice Epic Bow. The crossbow, is, frankly sick in terms of single-shot damage because of it's slow attack speed. In fact, it gives Wulf more DPS in a raid than many bows and guns that are, on paper, superior weapons, as this comparison shows. A quest reward that's obtainable at lvl 51 sits 5th on the damage charts above many epic-level weapons.

Since all level 60 ranged weapons at present have a base damage below 200,when a hunter looks at most ranged weapons, they tend to ignore the damage value, and hone straight in on the speed. The speed of the weapon affects how much damage is added to each single shot. A slower weapon does more damage per shot, but this is supposedly compensated by the fact that the faster weapon can fire more often. It doesn't work like that, and ultimately Hunters, like Rogues and DPS Warriors before them found the best results came with the slowest weapon possible. And with a speed of 3.30, Bloodseeker is one of the slowest available. It's been a bone of contention for a long time that Hunters are imbalanced because we have easy access to such a devastating weapon, or it's close cousin, the Carapace Spine Crossbow.

However, it's been announced that in the forthcoming 1.10 patch, the weapon speed on aimed and multi-shots will be 2.80 for all weapons. This knocks my little Crossbow down from 5th to 15th place in the comparison, which I can accept, but it's the secondary effect of it that worries me. Suddenly, with the speed factor normalised, there isn't as much to strive for. OK, now the actual epic weapons are better than Bloodseeker, but they aren't that much better. It's suddenly not worth me aspiring to getting the Crossbow Of Smiting from Blackwing Lair now, since the shot damage isn't significantly better than the Epic Quest Bow (although I seem to have the worst luck getting my hands on that as well.)

This, combined with the crappy upgrade that is Dragonstalker vs Giantstalker makes me wonder if there's any point in going to Blackwing Lair when CD starts there on Friday.