Community Council discussion on Hunter design

Ashræl-emerald-dream · June 25, 2022, 5:28pm

For Sv. From a casual who is here for class/spec identity.

Decouple focus generation from the pet. Neither MM nor BM are tied to their pet for their focus generation. A working spammable version of flanking strike would be more in line with shared spec designed but also lean into class fantasy of fighting next to your pet in melee. I would also give it a small focus generation for the pet at the same time as pet focus spenders are part of SV mastery. Looking at the damage from other hunter specs. MM is 100 percent hunter damage. BM is mixed but mostly* pet damage. SV should have a respectable damage being done from their pet.
Increase mastery percentages.
Make it more attractive as a stat. This is admittedly a poor fix but, outside a reworked mastery, this is the best we can do. I would also increase the health regen by 50% of the ratio now or decrease the intervals between regen. Make it punishing to let the SV hunter slip out of players grasp knowing that they will be ticking healing slowly but meaningful. Then on top of that I would add a decrease damage taken factor while within a fixed distance of the pet. Almost like old resilience. Its Survival. Make SV more durable than the other hunter specs.
Give Survival a meaningful spender.
BM has Kill Command. MM has Aimed Shot.
SV has… Raptor strike. Which after balancing for the other specs passives and their actually meaningful masteries is basically arcane shot or cobra shot.
I would give Lacerate back to SV. It would fit in line with the in-and-out, guerilla warfare fantasy of SV. It would feel good to get that off on targets just like it feels good to hear the crunch of KC for BM or the Arrow plunk of Aimed Shot like MM. Now just like Legion gave Lacerate a chance to gain a Mongoose charge, I would give this Lacerate a chance of making the next Raptor Strike free and, if I really had my way, I would let your pets next focus spender also be free or at the least generate pet focus for more spenders. This would make it enticing to enter melee range and slam that raptor strike.
Make Serpent Sting and Kill Shot thrown.
For the sake of class fantasy I would change the animation of these two abilities to thrown.
Make Serpent sting a thrown dagger like the rogue knife throw. Then make Kill Shot, Kill Throw.
Make it the like the Axe toss ability we had in Legion. Very akin to Paladins Hammer of Wrath. If you really want to be crazy let us Transmog the axe we throw for this animation.
Give SV dual wield
Yes. We’ve done it for DKs giving back 2H. Reverse it for SV. There wouldn’t be a meaningful difference in loot distribution if we did go that route. And if SV wants to slow down their gear progression by going for two 1Hs, let them. Let me be Rexxar. Sylvanas. Nathanos. Every Dark Ranger, and so many others. Huln is cool but have you seen how cool we look swinging 2 axes?
Id like to see SV only Aspects.
Something like [Aspect of the Wolf] that provides a raid wide combat buff for a short duration. Maybe like %more crit damage or something. SV more than any hunter is more in tune with the wild. Being able to emulate animals should be an identifiable trait of SV.
Butchery instead of Carve.
Such a better ability that wont make SV feel bad for using. Play around the bomb CD reduction to make it balanced. Carve just feels bad.
Take steps away from Wild Fire Bomb.
WFB is an amazing ability and i would never want to remove it as it solves the AoE problem of SV neatly where the other specs revolve around loads of passives. All of that is baked into WFB. I do not however think that WFB should be the mainstay of SV. Looking at it from a class fantasy aspect, there is nothing about SV that makes them especially tailored to throw what amounts to a suped up engineer grenade. SV could hand off WFB to a priest and it would do the exact same thing. But ask a Priest to cast Chaos Bolt and you can see that Chaos Bolt is wholely what makes being a destruction warlock different from other classes and spec because they are especially tailored to do so. Again. Keep WFB but dont let it become the class identity. Take two steps back from the current tier set bonus.
Coordinated Assault is nothing more than Bestial Wrath renamed. Change my mind.
There’s gotta be more for CA than just flat damage for a duration. Spice it up and make it more than just the thing you hit during BL and every two minutes thereafter.
Spear and Fang: Let SV be able to tame exotics
BM will be the master of multiple pets but SV can make a deep bond with the wildest of animals. It fits so well with the spec fantasy. When I watch Primal with Spear and Fang I cant help but wish my SV hunter could tame a Devilsaur.

Bonus!
Yeah if you can do it, try and make a Ranged option for those that want it.
I personally like MSV and i dont want it to go but we cant deny the pain the hunter community felt at its passing.

Anyway this is just my opinion and perspective as a casual player who loves SV.

Thanks.

Yura-area-52 · June 25, 2022, 5:39pm

SV should not get exotics, tbh they should lose kill command too.

Bepples-barthilas · June 25, 2022, 7:31pm

I didn’t say that BM’s identity is only in its ability to tame exotic beasts so this entire paragraph was a waste of time.

No, its identity is based on several pet interaction mechanics, many of which have already been handed to SV. That’s what I mean by “going even further”. We are already in a position where SV has borrowed far beyond what’s acceptable from BM to the point where BM’s uniqueness and flavour is diminished. I’ll again point out the utter hypocrisy of this given that Blizzard allegedly made it melee specifically to avoid this sort of thing.

We should not be talking about more BM stuff to give to SV. We should instead be talking about removing the existing BM borrowings in SV.

I don’t know why you’re suddenly fixated on the viability of exotic pets. This is mainly a matter of flavour. BM gets to tame special, more exotic families that make the spec visually and thematically stand out. Things like Thok the Bloodthirsty and Faultline are awesome pets that stand out from most others so it makes sense for them to be exotic pets only BM can tame.

Exotic pets should not be automatically stronger from a DPS perspective. BM should be able to choose a non-exotic pet if they so please. The current compromise is good: exotic pets come with an additional specific ability for added utility. It makes them a bonus but not mandatory.

You also seem to be operating on outdated information. Firstly, we don’t have battle res anymore. Secondly, Ferocity pets are generally preferred for PvE due to the high amount of leech but there are situations and arguments for all three pet specs. We are close to an ideal situation for pet family and spec design. The only major positive change to be made is to allow us to respec pets again. You mentioned Raptors; the reason they’re preferred in PvP is because they’re the only pet that both has Cunning spec and a healing reduction. There are exotic pets with healing reduction but they aren’t Cunning. If we could respec them to Cunning it would be fine.

BM’s signature assets are interaction with the pet. That’s why it’s called Beast Mastery. The problem is they’ve been handing SV those assets. SV now has Kill Command, Bestial Wrath (renamed to Coordinated Assault so as to pretend it’s a different approach to pets, of course), and Spirit Bond. That last one is actually SV’s exclusive mastery now when it used to be an important specific passive of BM. BM should be the spec with ALL the unique buffs and bonuses when it comes to pets, including exotic pets.

What are you talking about with “data”? This isn’t a discussion based on data. It’s a discussion on spec thematics. It sounds like you’re just crapping out this line because it sounded good in your head. You’re not going to successfully tone-police this discussion so don’t even bother trying.

Notice, BTW, that you’ve spent much of this post downplaying the importance of exotic pets while earlier saying that it would be great for SV to get them. If they are apparently so “meh” why do you want them so badly as SV?

I do NOT want SV Hunters showing off things that were a unique feature of BM. If melee Hunter is so thematically stunted that it needs to steal and leech from BM to have any sort of substantial identity then there shouldn’t be a melee Hunter. Enough with this preferential treatment and bandaiding to make melee SV work.

The easiest and most effective quick fix to SV’s mastery would be to give Wildfire Bomb a small focus cost.

The primary problem is that SV revolves around Wildfire Bomb yet Wildfire Bomb is not buffed by the spec’s mastery due to having no focus cost. It’s a similar problem to BM: a large part of BM’s damage is now Cobra Shot yet the mastery only buffs pet damage… only BM also does quite a bit of pet damage so Mastery at least has some value there. SV is so much more dependent on Wildfire Bomb that mastery not buffing it is fatal to that stat.

It was just a stupid idea. MM had this mastery in Legion; it buffed focus spenders. It worked a little better but it got very similar negative feedback; anything that didn’t cost focus was just bad. Originally Explosive Shot didn’t cost focus for MM; they had to add a cost so that it scaled with the mastery. It’s nonsense to take a formerly failed idea and just move it to a different spec but Blizzard is infamous for obvious and repeat design failures.

The problem with adding Lacerate would be that it just increases the confused and directionless nature of SV. Lacerate is a pretty generic melee attack just like Raptor Strike, and it would be a poor fit alongside Serpent Sting and Wildfire Bomb. I don’t think it would solve the problem you described, either; it’s just a second Serpent Sting but physical damage and melee (i.e. worse).

If we are talking about class fantasy, Hunters use ranged weapons so SV should too. Serpent Sting and Kill Shot using an animation-only is at least an attempt to fix that, so it’s best not to double down on the lack of a ranged weapon.

This is just doubling down on the thematic conflict with BM. Pass.

It would just thematically conflict with Wildfire Bomb just like Carve already does. The only reason they added Carve to begin with was to make SV’s AoE more active. Originally in BFA it wasn’t going to have it.

There is if you look at it from a perspective of what SV historically used to be. It used to be the utilitarian munitions expert that used practical improvements to its ranged shots to gain an advantage. In that context Wildfire Bomb fits great, as does Serpent Sting (something that ranged SV actually focused on and improved quite a lot).

The problem is it doesn’t fit with the melee “berserker” that fights alongside its pet, so they just awkwardly cram both in one spec.

The fact that Wildfire Bomb is the most aesthetically and thematically prominent part is the signal as to what they should side with. Physical melee is not unique; there are many other specs that do that. Fighting with pets is also not unique; our own spec BM already does that. They should not try to build “ranged BM” and “melee BM” in the same class as different specs; especially considering that the whole Rexxar angle, to be frank, is a very niche interest in the playerbase. It should just be a variety of BM e.g. a melee “subspec” stance like Gladiator. SV focusing on being the munitions expert was always a more unique and exciting angle.

Yes it is. It’s part of the over all effort to usurp BM’s identity as the pet spec.

Absolutely not. SV has already borrowed far beyond what’s acceptable from BM. Enough is enough. Exotic pets are a unique bonus of BM, end of story.

No, BM is not unique because it’s the “master of multiple pets”. This isn’t Legion. BM by default has one pets. It has a talent that lets them have a second out at the same time, alongside a talent that lets them summon a temporary expendable pet on the same row. Just because Animal Companion happens to be the best option doesn’t mean that’s the core spec identity. It’s still the pet spec that bonds closely with its pet.

Trying to make BM and SV both pet specs but differentiate them via how close they are to its pet is a farce. It just ultimately infringes on what was always BM’s identity. We already see the results of this with Spirit Bond now being an SV-only thing when it started off in wow as an exclusive part of BM. “Controlling multiple pets” and “closely bonding with one pet” should be variants of BM. They should NOT be separate specs just to justify melee Hunter. Again we do not need “ranged BM” and “melee BM” as separate specs in this class.

Ashræl-emerald-dream · June 25, 2022, 9:15pm

No thank you. I want to step away from bomb reliance. Like I said in my previous comments.

I disagree. Lacerate felt great to put up and you were rewarded with little bits of happiness when you got that free proc of Mongoose Bite. If it makes you feel better close your eyes and think of it as Black Arrow. Serves the same function.

The reality is that SV hunter is not using a dedicated ranged weapon and so in the current spec fantasy it makes absolutely no sense to pull out a minixbow to perform these functions.

How on earth does that infringe on BM whatsoever. BM is not trying to emulate animals its trying to master animals like a dog trainer. Invoking an aspect is a general hunter thing. Bm has aspect of the wild that is their personal aspect. Give one to SV that fits with their theme. This would be an attempt to give SV some more spec definition with a unique Aspect to invoke.
Not to take away from BM.

Sorry I just dont see it Bepples. Carve feels like crap to press. Butchery does not. Simple as that.

Yes back then, historically, they augmented their ammunition. Then they shot it with precision at their target to great effect. That being said there is very little precision when it comes to grenades. As I said, you could hand it off to another class and they dont even have to throw it accurately for it to explode in the vicinity of the target. Effectively making the SV hunter worthless from a fantasy perspective. So no. Grenades are not the way to lean and Im sorry you feel that way.

Glad we can agree on at least one thing. Lets really give SV something different than basically reskinned Bestial Wrath.

Not the end of the story. Every hunter has a base one pet. Its what they do with it that makes them different. MM says nah for most situations. BM commands them like a dog trainer. SV treats their pet like a hunting companion. Its primal and relational not training and commanding. It would still make sense to give every hunter the ability to train exotics. The way we make BM still feel like the masters of beasts is to give back pet talents at the same time as the revamped talents. Then give BM more points to load their pets with. Substantially more. Also multi pets should be baseline for BM.
MM = choosing to go with 0 pets
BM = 2 pets (or more)
SV = 1 Pet
Easy.

The specs are different based on the varied way each one would “hunt”
MM hunts alone with ranged weapons and accuracy
BM hunts with their pets like a hound master treeing their prey siccing their prized beasts on the target.
SV hunts in the thick of it using guerilla tactics with a vicious primal companion side by side.

Frànkiepie-emerald-dream · June 25, 2022, 11:04pm

I would like a solution to pet ressing in pvp, having to use a big CD like turtle to resummon kinda sux

Ghorak-laughing-skull · June 25, 2022, 11:31pm

I will preface this by saying that I would want the class to get a 4th spec in the style of RSV from pre-Legion, allowing us to pick the playstyle we prefer, and to venture deeper into any such particular fantasy.

Edit: Changed some stuff to clarify the intent for how it would work with 10.0

If, however, we’re to work with the idea of combining anything, I would go for the route of returning RSV to Survival(although a more appropriate name these days would probably be something along the lines of “Munitions”). And then, I would combine the core functions of BM with much of that of current SV. To a point where BM essentially would have additional core abilities early on in the talent section, one set requiring ranged weapons, while the other would require melee-weapons. And then you’d have the newly realised talent tree(spec) to allow players to focus more on the bestial aspects of BM, and how it would tie into the use of ranged weapons, or you’d have 1 “branch” where you could find the more melee-oriented aspects, also with ties to bestial elements.

Essentially, with what we have today, you’d have something like this in 10.0:

Remember that any specific numbers written are just there to give context/further the concept. Obviously some testing/tuning would be required to make it work in-game.

Core abilities(talents)

These would then be provided as options in either the class tree, and/or the BM spec tree.

Class tree:

Pick between Cobra Shot - Raptor Strike
Pick between Multi-Shot - Carve
Pick between Kill Shot - Mongoose Bite

BM spec tree:

Bestial Wrath
Kill Command
Pick between Barbed Shot - Lacerate, with a small branch to choose Dire Beast if wanted, as a replacement.

Ability details

Bestial Wrath
Would work the same as it does on live, no matter if you go ranged or melee.

Cobra Shot - Raptor Strike
Both would have the same functionality of dealing physical damage, and reducing the remaining CD of Kill Command. Just one is ranged, one melee.

Kill Command
Would work as it does now for BM, for both ranged and for melee. Though, one change should be made to the ability, where Kill Command should be included in Beast Cleave by default, allowing Kill Command to hit nearby enemies while Beast Cleave is active.

Barbed Shot - Lacerate
Again, same functionality as Barbed Shot on live – applying a bleed, increasing pet attack speed, CDR for BW, passive Focus regen. One ranged, one melee.

Multi-Shot - Carve
Both would work as they do on live currently. Though, Carve wouldn’t have a CDR for Wildfire Bomb, but instead would activate Beast Cleave, like Multi-Shot does.

Kill Shot - Mongoose Bite
Kill Shot is technically a class-wide ability, but it would still fit with some spec specific adaptations(such as a passive talent in the spec tree, see below). Both Kill Shot and Mongoose Bite would become usable on enemies that fall below 20% health remaining.

Kill Shot/Mongoose Bite could now also have a high chance to proc whenever you score a critical hit with Kill Command. And you could also include a version of Mongoose Fury, where, if you score a critical hit with Kill Shot or Mongoose Bite, the damage of your next Kill Command is increased by X%. See talent suggestion below for tooltip…

Instead of the suggested talent(effect) above, Marksmanship could have a talent in the form of the current MM talent “Dead Eye”, which already improves upon Kill Shot.

Passive effects

In the spirit of keeping with the wishes of some MSV players, return the ability for us to dual wield two 1H weapons. Ideally through the class tree somewhere.

For BM, in general, keep what is currently there for passives, as talent choices.

And on top of that, the talent Animal Companion should be changed to a baseline passive choice, rather than a talent-based choice. A choice that is granted to you at some point above level 10, as you level up, when you’ve chosen Beast Mastery as your specialization. This because of how some players really don’t want to make this choice for a talent based on what provides the most damage. It should be a choice for aesthetic purposes only. Something like:

Animal Companion
You may call 1 additional pet to fight for you at all times. The second pet will obey your Kill Command, but cannot use pet family abilities.

If you have two active pets, they both use the same damaging abilities and benefit from the same effects but they only deal 50% of normal damage(each).

Only using 1 pet instead causes that pet to deal 100% of normal damage.

While I won’t go into detail on a potential full talent setup for the proposed concept for BM found above, some things could be included as talents that would either fit both ranged and melee, depending on your preferences ofc. First off…

As it looks like they are putting interrupts in as talent choices, in short:

Counter Shot - Muzzle
As a talent choice in the class tree. Note: Octagonal “choice” node, you may obtain one of the two choices for an interrupt, at a time.

A Murder of Crows
Should be a talent in the class tree if you ask me. Beast Mastery should provide talents that can enhance Crows in various ways.

Spec specific talent suggestions(BM)

For the spec tree, in addition to the core ability suggestions above, I would like to see those found below here for BM. Or at least many of them. Note that for this base concept, I’m not bothering with the inclusion of ranks for specific talent choices.

[Killer Instinct] - Kill Command deals 35% increased damage against enemies below 35% health.

[Bloodseeker] - You and your pet gain 10% attack speed for every bleeding enemy within 12 yds.
(Part of the current SV talent: “Bloodseeker”)

[Improved Bestial Wrath] - The Focus cost of all abilities is reduced by X% while Bestial Wrath is active.

[Bloodshed] - 50 yd range - Instant - 1 min cooldown
Command your pet(s) to tear into your target, causing your target to bleed for X damage over 18 sec, and increase all damage taken from your pet(s) by 15% for 18 sec.

[Dire Beast] - (Replaces Barbed Shot/Lacerate) - Instant - 12 sec recharge - 2 Charges
Summons a powerful wild beast that attacks the target for 8 sec.

Generates 20 Focus over 8 sec.

Note: Octagonal “choice” node, you may obtain one of the following two choices at a time.

[Scent of Blood] - Activating Bestial Wrath grants 2 charges of Barbed Shot/Lacerate/Dire Beast.

Or…

[One with the Pack] - Wild Call has a 20% increased chance to reset the cooldown of Barbed Shot/Lacerate/Dire Beast.

Using Barbed Shot/Lacerate/Dire Beast increases your Haste by 5% for 12 sec.

[Bestial Rage] - Increases damage dealt during Bestial Wrath by an additional 15%.

[Giantstalker] - Cobra Shot, Raptor Strike, and Multi-Shot increases the damage bonus granted by Bestial Wrath by an additional X% for the remaining duration.

[Feeding Frenzy] - Damage dealt by Barbed Shot/Lacerate is increased by X%. When the periodic damage effect applied by Barbed Shot/Lacerate is refreshed, this causes the remaining damage to be added to the new effect. The bleed effect caused by Barbed Shot/Lacerate now lasts for a total of 9 sec.

In addition, Frenzy’s duration is also increased to 9 seconds.

Dire Frenzy(Requires talent: Dire Beast)
Each time a Dire Beast is called, the damage dealt by your main pet(s) is increased by 1%.
When you activate Bestial Wrath, this consumes all stacks of Dire Frenzy and increases the initial damage dealt by Bestial Wrath by 50% for each stack that is consumed.

[Go for the Throat] - Kill Shot/Mongoose Bite now also have a high chance to proc whenever you score a critical hit with Kill Command. If you score a critical hit with Kill Shot or Mongoose Bite, the damage of your next Kill Command is increased by X%.

[Spitting Cobra] - Bestial Wrath also summons a Spitting Cobra to aid you in combat for 15 sec. Each Cobra Shot/Raptor Strike used during Bestial Wrath extends the remaining duration of the Spitting Cobra by 1 sec.

[Thrill of the Hunt] - Barbed Shot/Lacerate/Dire Beast reduces the remaining cooldown of Bestial Wrath by an additional 4 sec.

Barbed Shot/Lacerate/Dire Beast increases your critical strike chance by 5% for 12 seconds.

[Dire Command] - Kill Command has a chance to also summon a Dire Beast to attack your target.

[Aspect of the Wild] - Instant cast - 2 min cooldown

Grants you and your pet 5 Focus per sec and 10% increased critical strike chance for 20 sec.

[Birds of Prey] - Kill Command extends the remaining duration of A Murder of Crows by 2 sec.

[Stomp] - When you cast Barbed Shot/Lacerate/Dire Beast, your pet stomps the ground, dealing X Physical damage to all nearby enemies.

Note: Octagonal “choice” node, you may obtain one of the following two choices at a time.

[Chimaera Shot] - Instant cast - 15 sec cooldown
A two-headed shot that hits your primary target and another nearby target, dealing X Nature damage to one and X Frost damage to the other.

Generates 10 Focus for each target hit.

Or…

[Flanking Strike] - Instant cast - 15 sec cooldown
You and your pet leap to the target and strike it as one, dealing a total of X Physical damage.

Generates 20 Focus for you and your pet.

[Talon Frenzy] - While Beast Cleave is active, A Murder of Crows affects up to 8 enemies near the primary target.

[Improved Beast Cleave] - Increases the duration of Beast Cleave by 6 sec. Increases the damage dealt by Beast Cleave by X%.

[Improved Multi-Shot/Carve] - Casting Multi-Shot/Carve reduces the Focus cost of your next Kill Command by X.

[Improved Cobra Shot/Raptor Strike] - Increases the damage dealt by Cobra Shot/Raptor Strike by 30%.

[Improved A Murder of Crows] - Damage of A Murder of Crows is increased by X%.

[Cobra Commander] - Casting Cobra Shot/Raptor Strike has a 10% chance to create 2-4 Sneaky Snakes that attack the target for 6 sec.

[Killer Cobra] - Casting two Cobra Shots/Raptor Strikes in a row increases the damage of Kill Command by X% for Y sec. If at least one of the Cobra Shots/Raptor Strikes lands a critical hit, this causes the next Kill Command to not incur a cooldown, and have its’ Focus cost reduced by 50%.

[Aspect of the Beast] - Increases the damage and healing of your pet’s abilities by 30%.

Increases the effectiveness of your pet’s Predator’s Thirst, Endurance Training, and Pathfinding passives by 50%.

[Rylakstalker’s Piercing Fangs] - While Bestial Wrath is active, your pet’s critical damage dealt is increased by 35%.

[Stampede] - Instant cast - 30 sec duration - 2 min cooldown
Summons 5 of your stabled pets to fight for you for 30 sec. These pets deal X% of normal damage and obey your Kill Command.

Pets summoned by Stampede heal themselves for 200% of the damage they deal.

Note: Octagonal “choice” node, you may obtain one of the following three choices at a time.

[Unleashed Fury] - Instant cast - 20 sec cooldown
Sends your pet into a rage, causing it to deal X Physical damage to the target in a flurry of 5 attacks. Damage dealt is increased by X% for every stack of Frenzy the pet currently has.

When this ability is used, your pet lets out a savage roar, increasing your haste by 10% for 12 sec.

Or…

[Way of the Mok’Nathal] - Requires melee weapon(s).
Embrace the teachings of Rexxar, and the clan Mok’Nathal.

Wielding melee weapons causes successful Kill Command critical hits to grant you Mok’Nathal Tactics, increasing the damage of Raptor Strike by X% for Y sec, and any Raptor Strike performed within that time will reduce the remaining cooldown of Bestial Wrath by X sec.

Or…

[Bestial Fury](Requires talent: Dire Beast)
Damage dealt by Dire Beasts during Bestial Wrath is increased by another X%.
Any Dire Beasts called during Bestial Wrath will have their duration increased by an additonal X sec. This also applies to Dire Beasts who have already been called to fight when Bestial Wrath is activated. Attacks made by Dire Beasts will now also benefit from Beast Cleave, if activated.

Mock-up talent tree, based on the concept above:
Image updated to include additional talents.

This took way longer than expected, I’ve probably forgotten something. Feel free to post some feedback^^

Adreaver-undermine · June 26, 2022, 12:50am

So without seeing a Hunter class tree or MM spec tree, I don’t want to get too much in the weeds, but there are some changes I’d like to see.

Remove Lock and Load (please don’t @ me yet) from MM, and return OG Master Marksman - 50% chance on AS/SS to gain a charge, at 3 charges you get a charge of AiS and the next AiS free and instant.
Return Imp Aspect of the Hawk in the class tree - chance on Auto Shot/Auto Attack to gain a Haste buff. I’d tweak it from the original to be a 3 point talent with a flat proc rate and let the buff stack 1/2/3 times, as opposed to the OG version which had a flat Haste buff and a 1/2/3/4/5% chance to proc. Obviously it couldn’t be 30% Haste with that design, maybe 10% per stack?
Put a choice node in the MM tree between Rapid Fire and Steady Focus - Rapid Fire would be as it is now (maybe with baked in Streamline?), while Steady Focus would give the current buff when cast in pairs while also increasing the Focus generated from 10 to 15.
Put a choice node in the class tree (ideally tier 2 with no prereqs, basically where Wild Charge is in the Druid tree) between Flayed Shot and Death Chakrams. Maybe rename the abilities and give them new animations that are more “Huntery” and less “deathy”.
Give Flayed Shot at least one guaranteed proc per application, as well as a CD reset if the target dies while Flayed Shot is up.
Change Deadeye to apply a short DoT with Kill Shot in addition to the 2nd charge.
Keep Trick Shots, ditch the 3 target minimum.
If the idea is still to have RSV-within-MM-talents, give MM Serpent Spread or similar as a talent. Alternately, make Serpentstalker’s Trickery a talent, but allow it to apply SrS to trick shot targets as well. Spread DoT cleave was the defining feature of RSV, so throwing us a few unrelated talents with the same name as RSV shots doesn’t remotely give the same feel.

With those changes, you could take Flayed Shot/Dead Eye/Steady Focus/Serpent Spread and be very close to RSV. Alternately, lean in to the more new-MM talents to have something similar to BFA/SL MM. Or, pick things like Master Marksman and IAotH to have something closer to old school MM.

Of course, I’d rather see a 4th spec or existing MSV have an option to convert to range (since the SL MSV core gameplay loop is actually pretty good, I just have zero interest in being melee on my Hunter), but I don’t think either of those are likely options.

Adreaver-undermine · June 26, 2022, 12:58am

I like the idea, but you are missing that there will be extremely few baseline abilities.

Balance Druids have to talent in to Moonkin Form, which is about as core as it gets. I’d suggest everybody take a baby Hunter through Exile’s Reach, and look at your spellbook at level 10, before picking a spec - I don’t imagine we’ll have much more than that available without talenting in to it.

Bear-scarlet-crusade · June 26, 2022, 1:54am

Please ask to add lesser dragon taming

Ghorak-laughing-skull · June 26, 2022, 7:44am

Note: I’ve made some changes to the previous post.

Not as much missing, as it’s more the fact that I’m not entirely sure how they would realise the specifics of the spec. Granted I’ve not looked at druids pretty much since WotLK, so I couldn’t say all that much about where their respective talent concept(s) put them in their overall design.

And considering they’ve said this(I wasn’t even sure what choosing a Specialization would mean for us, going forward. Whether that would still work somewhat like it does on live, where we at least get some key abilities when choosing one(spec), and then it opens up the talent section):

When do talents become available?

The talent system becomes available at level 10 when you choose your Specialization for your class. For the Evoker, because they are starting at a higher level, the talent tree will be made available at some point during their starting experience.

But either way, you could certainly put a few of the proposed core abilities I mentioned above in the BM branch of the class tree, to either be selected automatically for free whenever you spec BM, and/or be provided as optional choices in the BM branch of the class tree. And you would then put the rest of them as talent options early on in the BM spec tree. As an example, put the abilities where we need to choose between ranged vs melee, in the class tree, and the other ones in the BM tree. See below:

Class tree:

Pick between Cobra Shot - Raptor Strike
Pick between Multi-Shot - Carve
Pick between Kill Shot - Mongoose Bite

BM spec tree:

Bestial Wrath
Kill Command
Pick between Barbed Shot - Lacerate, with a small branch to choose Dire Beast if wanted, as a replacement.

The Balance druid tree alone has 34 talent options. And then you also have the spec branch of the class tree, that is way more than enough to fit these choices in there, looking at the equivalent for the Hunter class.

Although, considering what they’ve said, as seen below, I’m not holding my breath for any form of merge of BM/SV:

Will the class talent tree change at all when changing specs?

With very few exceptions, nothing will change in the class tree when changing your specialization. One such exception might be Counter Shot, which will change to Muzzle if you choose Survival. They are both the interrupt button, but are themed differently and have different cooldowns. Keeping that distinction is important.

Oldasdirt-area-52 · June 26, 2022, 11:21am

OMGoodness This is an amazing thread. If only 1/3 of the ideas are used my qol would be increased many fold.
There is only one thig I would add and that’s make hunter pets account wide and treat them like mounts, you qualify you can use.
Being older I had to give up on some pets due to interference by other players. I am not going to frustrate myself into an early grave due to a game. If I get pet on one hunter why can’t I use it on my others? Remember they are all me playing the game. I have not hope of getting others to stop harassing me while I tame.
Please give account wide hunter pets!!

Adreaver-undermine · June 26, 2022, 2:17pm

As of right now, based on the existing trees, choosing a spec gives you 2 free active talents that fit your spec. Resto Druids get Rejuvenation and Swiftmend, Balance gets Starfire and Starsurge, etc. Resto can talent into Starfire and Starsurge, but has to spend points while Balance does not.

I’d expect we’ll see things like Aimed Shot and Kill Command as the “free” spec-specific talents in the class tree.

Spec trees have no free points and AFAIK you get nothing except Mastery without spending points, but it’s hard to say with only 2 class trees out and no alpha yet.

Ghorak-laughing-skull · June 26, 2022, 2:48pm

Maybe, but I would prefer it slightly different.

So far, they do not, no. We’ll see.

Bepples-barthilas · June 26, 2022, 6:04pm

WFB is the most iconic and recognisable part of the toolkit.

Pet involvement isn’t unique because that’s BM’s forte. No, “coordination over command” is not a real thing.

Physical melee isn’t unique because it’s already done by Warriors, Rogues, and Druids.

WFB is what’s truly unique.

Doubling down on pets and physical melee at the expense of special munitions would be an enormous mistake. Just like how melee SV itself was an enormous mistake.

Lacerate is such a generic physical melee ability that another spec in the game already has it (Feral Druid).

Survival already has a DoT: Serpent Sting. It’s far more unique and iconic. Hunters have had it since the start. It’s a venomous arrow so it represents that special munitions fantasy that’s now so sorely underrepresented in the game. SV does not need another dot but this time only melee, physical, and generic.

Giving procs of another ability is an implementation detail. They could just make Serpent Sting do that.

Yes and that’s a major design error. It should be using a ranged weapon. Moving away from what little ranged weapon representation it has would be a mistake. In fact in Legion it had no ranged weapon representation at all yet they made the current design specifically because Legion SV did not work out.

Aspects were always mainly a BM thing as a matter of fact. SV already has Aspect of the Eagle. Giving it more beast-themed aspects would in fact infringe on BM’s identity. I understand that this is your end goal but people do actually want BM to be unique and special in some way rather than handing everything over to SV just because a handful of people liked the idea of melee BM.

They’re both uninteresting generic physical melee attacks anyway. In the past I’ve listed them among Warrior abilities to people who don’t know much about WoW or at least not much about those classes and they can’t tell in a list like Rend, Mortal Strike, Butchery, Whirlwind, Carve, Execute, Blade Storm which ones are the Hunter abilities and which ones are the Warrior abilities. We should not be doubling down on SV being a mock Arms Warrior.

No, SV was not about precision. That’s an MM thing. SV was all about utilitarianism. A grenade fits very well with ranged SV.

Yet you want to also give it exotic pets, more aspects, and in general usurp BM’s historic identity of pet companionship.

No. This is a terrible redesign of the class. You’re again trying to steal away BM’s identity and revise it into something else. Legion was the only expansion in which BM was forced to be a “zookeeper” and it generally wasn’t received well. In every other expansion BM has one pet, and in the last two you can spec into having two pets. It’s not and should not be the core state of the spec. A lot of people over the years picked BM because of the close companionship with one pet and it’s not fair at all to them to redesign their spec from under them because they have to back up Survival… another instance where they redesigned the spec from under its players.

Also let’s appreciate for a moment the irony of saying SV does not train or *command its pets despite Kill Command being a core part of the spec.

Again, we do not need ranged BM and melee BM in the same class. Trying to drive a wedge with pet companionship v.s. command is a farce and also spectacularly hypocritical given the original goals of making SV melee. If SV were ranged like it was and like it should be it wouldn’t have to steal BM’s unique aspects.

You’re just describing “melee BM” and “ranged BM” again. It also makes little sense for a spec that’s meant to be about “guerilla tactics” to be arbitrarily sticking to a melee weapon and not using a ranged weapon.

Talerdiirn-hydraxis · June 26, 2022, 7:11pm

Druid gets 2. DKs get 1. I think that it is far more likely for Hunters to get a class tree closer to DKs as they have 3 specs and only two roles vs Druids who have 4 specs and all 3 (4 if you distinguish melee DPS from range DPS) roles.

Watermist-skywall · June 26, 2022, 8:01pm

I’m really enjoying all the discussion, guys! Lots of good points, and lots of honest, serious debate.

Tomorrow or Tuesday, I’ll be drafting two separate threads. What I’m gonna do is share my opinion in the first post, then in the second post, I will be referring to you guys’ various points — whether I agree or not.

I’m gonna make a thread about pets and pet design, for both the BM spec and the Hunter class as a whole. There’s already lots of great comments about pets in this thread.

My second thread is gonna be about class design and spec design. I already have my own thoughts on this topic, and I will write that in the OP of that thread.

But! I’d love to hear your perspective on this topic. I’ll just throw out a few questions to (hopefully) spark off a discussion on this.

How do you define the class fantasy of Hunters?
How do you define the spec fantasy of each spec?
How do you define the difference between class and spec fantasy?

I’ll start on my drafts tomorrow, and hopefully I’ll have those two threads up on Community Council in a few days.

Iskierkaa-stormrage · June 26, 2022, 8:23pm

Thanks, Watermist! It might be worth asking on Hunter discords too - I know the Icy Veins guy runs one but I’m not sure if there are any other large discords just for hunters.

Watermist-skywall · June 26, 2022, 8:24pm

If you want to, please go ahead. I really only hang out on the WoW forums, partly due to the fact that I usually don’t have the time or energy to spend on multiple forums, heh.

EDIT: Bepples said there’s this big Hunter channel on discord. Trueshot Lounge or something like that.

Ashræl-emerald-dream · June 26, 2022, 9:01pm

Yeah again, that being the direction of the spec identity is a problem. You don’t seem to understand how throwing a grenade is not a unique skill that is representative of being a “hunter”. When anyone can do the thing (throw a grenade) its not special to do the thing.

Thank you for your opinion it brings so much to the conversation and is a step in the right direction. /s.

If we really want to go into the history it was originally a SV talent ability way back when. So truly druid stole it from Hunters. Go haunt another class forum with that one.

Yeah they could do that but that wasn’t the point. The point was to translate Lacerate into todays SV mechanics. Instead of mongoose charge, free raptor strike.

That is 100 percent your opinion. Thank you for such a wonderful contribution.

Yes because Aspect of the Eagle is equivalent to Aspect of the Wild. One gives focus the other shoots green eagle spirits.

Projecting. You know nothing of my goals for BM other than I said to make it multi pet baseline so no.

Smite, Penance, Judgement, Castigation, Divine Star. See we can do the same thing with other specs and classes. Yes there is crossover. There always will be. Its not always bad.

The rest of your comments are just rants at this point and serve absolutely no benefit to the discussions at hand. Which seems to be common place throughout these forums. Which basically just boils down to:

MSV is dumb because I want SV to be a Ranged Engineer class not an actual Hunter.

Honestly you, Bepples, are the worst thing that has ever happened to the Hunter community.

Adreaver-undermine · June 26, 2022, 9:41pm

You don’t seem to understand how stabbing things with a spear is not a unique skill that is representative of being a “hunter”. When anyone can do the thing (use a spear) it’s not special to do the thing.