As a higher level competitive PvP player in renowned guilds and teams, and one of the “top” DH’s in competitive play, I’ll put my two cents into this, as I see this come up a lot and I’ve thought about it myself.
Dragonhunter is a class that many can play. It’s a very basic class, and it has a play style very different than others. For this example, I will take the current meta Meditrap build and explain its reasonings, and why the “nerfs” are “(un)justified”.
You’re running Rune of the Pack and Marauder amulet. This brings you to 2,225 power and 2,167 armor. You have a 59.95% crit chance, with a 187.3% crit damage. Statistically, this looks really kittenty compared to other classes, to where you can get more power and more armor, right? This is where the abilities and roles the Dragonhunter has comes into play.
If you’re running S/F and LB, you have Shield of Courage (5s block on an angle, 65.25s cooldown), Shield of Wrath (Typically used in an offensive burst, but it still blocks 3 attacks on a 36s cooldown), and Renewed Focus (3s invuln on a 72 second CD). Renewed Focus also gives you Shield of Courage again. You also get a 3s projectile block from Zealot’s Defense.
Those are the blocks and invulns, but you also have plenty of other skills. You have a knockback from Heavy Light, 3.75s Retal from each of your virtues, 3s blind from Flashing Blade, 4s blind from Deflecting Shot (I recommend using this for the unblockable ability though, typically doubled over with Heavy Light), 3s blind from Ray of Judgement, 6s blind + .5s daze from Purification, and a .5 daze from Test of Faith. Hunter’s Determination trait also adds another Fragments of Faith trap ontop of all of this for not only more aegis from all of your other skills, but another .5s daze.
You have 2 dodges, with 12s vigor from Symbol of Energy with a 15s cooldown. You have kitten protection from Shield of Courage.
These are just a list of most of the important defensive boons and abilities, so toss out the low armor stats because that makes up for it. A typical True Shot that doesn’t crit hit for around 2500-3000 damage. That’s a lot for a skill on a 4 second cooldown, plus your autoattacks ontop of that. Mind you though, I tend to crit 9/10 times, hitting anywhere from 5500-7500 on them. That’s just with 1 shot. Not even a burst with your utilities and other skills. When I was able to hit 5 figure damages every 4 seconds before the nerf, it was ridiculously stupid. Don’t forget, the shot is piercing as well, so you can hit 5 players, if the stars are aligned.
It’s late, and I can’t be bothered proof reading this and double checking on stats and skills and the whatnot, but TLDR; this skill still hits for a stupid amount, however it’s required to keep DH in play with other classes that can apply an even more stupid amount of their own skills cough chill cough
