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In no unclear terms, last World of Warcraft (WoW) patch buffed the Hunter class thanks to the significant decrease in dead zone, allowing Hunters to fire their ranged weapons at a much closer range than they could before. Other Hunter abilities were buffed as well, such as the dispel effect added to Arcane Shot, and the healing debuff added to Aimed Shot.

Unfortunately, the patch did nerf the Hunter’s ability to have more than one freezing trap active at a time, which has been a staple of trapping masters for some time. The removal of this key ability may not have effected a Hunter’s ability to deal damage, as per the mantra of many Hunters out there, but for those of us who believe that a Hunter’s intrinsic ability to crowd control is a key component to the class, the last patch served as a real kick in the proverbial groin. Effectively, the change to double-trapping asserted that Blizzard’s current stance on the Hunter class is for ranged DPS with less of an emphasis on crowd control, which I consider to be a poor decision.

Fortunately, someone at Blizzard agrees with me, and the double-trapping mechanic will return in patch 2.3.1. This gives me more faith in Blizzard’s upcoming changes, and follows the design philosophy that utility is receiving more focus than the black-and-white roles that most MMORPG classes tend to fall into.

Now if only Survival Hunters received an advantage in their trap durations in PvP, we’d have some corroboration that crowd control is indeed being looked at as a staple to the Hunter’s design. Sadly, diminishing returns, and a poor 10-second duration, leave the Survival spec wanting.

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