I’ve been playing Melee Hunter since the recent changes, and while I think they are a step in the right direction, there are several issues that need addressing.
First, moving the melee AP bonus for TSA to Lion does solve the problem of a melee hunter needing to spec into TSA to provide the buff to the melee group. However, this change also means that you really only need one hunter in the raid to provide the buff. Given that melee DPS currently isn’t as good as ranged DPS, most guilds will just have one hunter in the raid, put them in the ranged group, and stack warriors and rogues in the wildstrikes groups. To address this, melee hunter either needs to provide enough DPS to make them essential, or TSA from Lion should be made party-wide rather than raid-wide.
The other major issue is the rotation. The current 2H melee hunter rotation is extremely clunky and doesn’t feel good to play. I really enjoy the ranged rotation; despite some complaints, it is engaging, and there is always something to press. Every time Lock and Load procs, I can hit either Chimera Shot or Aimed Shot and continuously weave in traps. 2H melee should offer a similar experience, but the problem is that LnL only works on Kill Shot in melee range, and the cooldowns on Kill Shot and other abilities result in wasted LnL procs with nothing to press.
A simple fix for this would be to make LnL reset the cooldown of Raptor Strike. This would create a smoother rotation that could look something like this: Wyvern Strike, Raptor Strike, Trap, Kill Shot, Kill Shot, Trap, Raptor Strike, Raptor Strike, Wyvern Strike, Trap, Kill Shot, Kill Shot…