Trueshot Aura

My heroic Bot run wiped last night because the wrong mob hopped into my trap, and the mob I had JUST TRAPPED suddenly running around beating on people. Oh, crap! The mob that had gotten into my second trap was also pretty much instantly free, since it had already been DoTted. I couldn't apply my dps to any target effectively, as I was busy kiting the mob that should have still been trapped while waiting for the other 25 seconds of my cooldown to be up. After 25 seconds of scatter, petattack, concussive, auto, arcane, wingclip, run like hell, wingclip, raptor strike, runrunrun, arcane, the healer was low on mana, I was low on health (those heroic bot mobs hit HARD), and the offtank bit it while I was kiting.  The freed mob came right over to join the "beat on Elenna" club, and I died right after I put the trap down. No more CC meant that in 10 seconds when that trap broke, the mob went straight for the squishies--game over. Well, what the heck broke my trap? I found out after I logged for the night.  Enter the Stealth Nerf. Here comes the blue post:

This was another bug fix that unintentionally didn't get into the patch notes. It's getting added in now in order to clear up the confusion. Here is how the note actually reads:

 • Fixed a bug in which Hunters were able to use Readiness in conjunction with Freezing Trap on two different targets. Being able to double-trap was not intended to happen so the bug has been corrected.
 
As always though, constructive feedback on changes are always welcome. What should happen is if you trap another target, the first trap should release much like what happens when a Priest Shackles Undead or a Mage Polymorphs a target.

Wait a minute...the first thing that comes to mind is the lack of a 30 second cooldown on Shackle Undead and Polymorph.  The second this is that now if a feared/badly controlled mob or an add runs into my trap, I'm losing the 5 sec or so of cooldown/"oh shit" time I had to get ready to kite that mob when the trap broke. It's not that I can't still chain trap, I got compliments on my trapping in that group and the Mech run I did right after, but no question it just got trickier.  The kicker? This applies to Readiness, too.  I'd be seriously pissed if I were a SV hunter.  Okay, fine. We move on to the first boss. We're fighting along, and then Fang's happiness ticks down from green to yellow. Uh oh, we're losing DPS, here. Fang goes on passive, FD, Feed Pet. Wait...still in combat? WTF. Once again, enter the blue post:

Just so everyone[sic] aware, there was a bug fix that unintentionally didn't make it into the release patch notes, but has been added into the bug fix listing on the forum as well as is being added onto the Web version of the patch notes. Here is the actual note for you in regard to this-

• Fixed a bug in which Hunters were able to disengage from combat using Feign Death during boss encounters.

Please note that this should only apply for when you are engaged in a boss fight and shouldn't affect trash mobs.

Faaaaaaaaaantastic.  First of all, trash pulls are so long that I'd need to feed my pet?  When do I go OOM on a trash pull?  Okay, moving on a bit.  I'm not saying that Hunters should be able to swap gear mid-fight, but I'm surprised to learn that drinking or feeding our pets has been "bugged" since Beta.   

Let's get this out there: Hunters have crappy mana pool and crappy mana regen.  If I want to take a drink for 5 seconds while Moroes is vanished, I don't think it's breaking the game.  If I want to blow a cooldown to get my pet's DPS back to normal after I rez her, I don't think it's breaking the game.  God forbid your pet die twice now, you can only rez once--if he/she dies again you don't want to rez them because now that pet is pissed off. 

I can't use enervate, I don't benefit from melee combat buffs, I can't make or carry a mana gem, I'm usually not in a group with VE, and when I'm DPSing I burn through my mana pool quickly.  I shouldn't have to respec BM and/or make sure I'm in the caster group to DPS a raid.  I really shouldn't.  Yes, as a MM hunter, my Aspect of the Viper is better than that of the other hunter specs since I'm more likely to stack Int, but at the end of the day, a MM hunter is going to use more mana anyway, and I've blown gem slots on gems with Int and mp5 because I have crappy regen. Regardless of spec, the truth of the matter is that AotV is lousy mana regen, and it comes at the cost of some major DPS (AotH).  And before anyone starts thinking I'm cheap, I always bring stacks of mana pots, and I always end up using them, but that cooldown's a killer.

Can I still be effective as a Hunter?  Almost certainly.  Am I going to reroll? No.  Am I annoyed? Well...yeah, I am.

It's an interesting coincidence that the two nerfs to the Hunter class just happened to be "bug fixes" that somehow "unintentionally didn't make it into the release patch notes" AND were not live on the PTR at all.  Come on, Blizzard, man up and own up to the Nerf.  Or at least the stealth nerf.