4th Spec RSV: Munitions Expert

[Ghorak-laughing-skull]

Alright! Long post inc.

Let me know if there’s something that I’ve misunderstood.

@Lazyguide-area-52

Exploding Shot

Exploding Shot will function similarly to how current exploding shot functions. Firing an explosive shot at the target, it’ll detonate after 4 seconds causing damage to the target and nearby enemies. This effect can stack. Consumes a Munitions Arrow (more on that shortly).

What was your reason for keeping this mostly as it’s designed for MM, rather than taking it back to what it did for RSV in the past?

Also, apart from it’s damaging elements, what is your intent with it in terms of Focus cost, or more importantly, will it have a cooldown or simply be tied to the secondary resource of “Munitions Arrows”?

And lastly, it can stack? How? As in multiple Shots can be applied to the same enemy at once?

Depending on how powerful the explosion of each charge is, that runs the risk of making it too good in terms of burst.

@Lazyguide-area-52

Munition Shots

The hunter gains a new resource in additional to focus, Munition Shots. Munition Shots recharge naturally once every 15 - 20 seconds,. Munition Shots allow the use of certain abilities.

The idea behind Munition Shots is to give the spec another resource to track and build up to help match modern game design as well as giving another potential tuning knob. Additionally, this is here to help add emphasis on using special shots.

This certainly sounds interesting. Mostly curious of how you intend for it to distinguish itself from that of Soul Shards as a resource for Warlocks? Based on what you have said about it further down in your post.

@Lazyguide-area-52

Viper Shot

A short cast time shot that generates 10 focus and 1/5th of a Munitions Shot. Does low nature damage. Can be cast while moving.

This is meant to be similar to how Cobra Shot functioned in prior expansions. Meant to be the specs main focus builder and reliable method of building munitions outside of proc chances or talents.

Is this intended to be the only way to manually generate “Munition Shots”? If so, it should probably provide more than 1/5th of a charge/shot.

@Lazyguide-area-52

Arcane Shot

Sure, all good there. Basic spender/dump.

@Lazyguide-area-52

Black Arrow

Fires an arrow filled with shadowy magic at the target dealing damage over 18 seconds. Additionally, with each tick has a chance to gain half a charge of Munitions Shots. Will always generate at least half a charge. Dispelling Black Arrow will generate two charges of Munitions Shots and deal a small amount of damage. Costs 35 focus.

An old staple making an updated return. Rather than out right proccing the old Lock and Load feature, this helps build munitions charges while applying a strong dot. This is to help facilitate fast paced gameplay with another reliable method for generating Munitions Shots. More Munitions Shots will mean more Exploding Shots that can be stacked together for big bursts of single target damage and bunched up AOE.

Interesting way to further develop the design around Black Arrow as a concept for the spec. And based on the above, quite a natural one.

Curious though, when you say that it will always generate at least half a charge, does that mean that there can be times where you won’t get more than half a charge of “Munition Shots”?

If so, does it still have a mid-range cooldown? If so, in my mind at least, it should probably generate at least 1 charge, perhaps even more, as a guarantee. Especially since in that case, there wouldn’t be a way to use it for multi-DoT’ing purpose for more damage along with a higher rate of generating “Munition Shot”-charges.

@Lazyguide-area-52

Incendiary Shot

Fires a flaming arrow at the target, burning them over 18 seconds. If the target takes damage from Exploding Shot, the flaming arrow flares up dealing a small burst of immediate damage and consuming one second of the remaining duration of Incendiary Shot on the target. Costs 30 focus.

Another dot, this was based on fire damage to help compliment Exploding Shot. Incendiary Shot is there to help add to the rotation and dot focused gameplay while also giving an interaction with Exploding Shot to help vary the gameplay as you build up Munitions Shots.

Sounds as if the damage-trigger/interaction with Exploding Shot is a guarantee, depending on the intended cooldown/rate of use for Exploding Shot, along with it’s own damage profile, it’s certainly capable of adding more burst/a way to maintain additional pressure.

@Lazyguide-area-52

Chain Shot

Fires a quick bouncing shot, dealing single target damage before quickly bouncing to additional targets. Bounces up to 5 times and will give priority to targets it has not already hit within range. Chain Shot will spread any dots on the current target to other targets it hits.

Hmm, thematically odd, but alright.

@Lazyguide-area-52

Cannot spread Blacklick Arrow

What’s “Blacklick Arrow” ?

@Lazyguide-area-52

Heartstopper Venom

Fires a dangerous venom into the target. Movement quickly causes strain on the target’s heart causing a rapidly stacking debuff. At 10 stacks, the victim is stunned for 5 seconds. Heartstopper Venom lasts 5 seconds.

Neat idea.

May I recommend that you add the following to it?

Movement quickly puts a strain on the target’s heart causing a rapidly stacking debuff, reducing movement speed by X% for each additional stack. At 10 stacks, the victim is stunned for 5 seconds. Heartstopper Venom lasts for 5 seconds.

The duration of Heartstopper Venom is increased by an additional 5 seconds if the target is affected by Black Arrow.

Changes aren’t necessary. But(IMO) could make for a fun addition.

But yeah, again, nice addition indeed.

@Lazyguide-area-52

Aspect of the Serpent

Take on the guile of the serpent for 15 seconds. Your damage over time effects rapidly damage your foes at a 25% increased rate. You also gain an additional 10% mastery. 2 minute cool down.

Major cooldown I presume.

Is your intent that the 25% increased rate is only in the damage profile of each ability or does it also have an impact on the duration of the periodic damage effects it intends to empower?

IMO, the duration of each effect should remain unchanged despite the above.

@Lazyguide-area-52

Mastery Effect

Your damage over time effects deal an additional X% damage. Your Munitions Shots deal an additional X% damage.

Yep, sounds good.

Personal preference: If more Mastery also allowed for a somewhat improved rate of generation for “Munition Shots”.

@Lazyguide-area-52

The base kit focuses around building dots, and spending charges of Munitions Shots on Exploding Shot or Chain Shot to maintain spread dots for AOE. Building Focus and charges through Viper Shot and dumping focus through arcane shot as need be. Avoiding focus capping, building charges without capping on charges, and maintaining dots. The extra management of the Munitions Shots helps bring the spec up to more modern standards by making it differentiate itself more from the other specs as well as giving the player another resource to manage.

As a summary of the base toolkit/core…

Is the intent for any abilities that cost “Munition Shot”-charges to have/not have cooldowns? If not, I would love if the rate at which charges were generated either manually or otherwise, was tuned quite high to allow for more fast-paced gameplay.

@Lazyguide-area-52

— Talents —

@Lazyguide-area-52

Tier One

@Lazyguide-area-52

Serpent Sting - Same as current Serpent Sting for MM and SV.

How come you want this to be a talent rather than a core element of the spec?

Mostly asking due to it’s history with the spec of the past.

@Lazyguide-area-52

Tier Two

@Lazyguide-area-52

Fire Everything! - After expending a charge of Munitions Shots, the damage of your next ability that consumes a charge Munitions Shots is increased by 25%, lasts 4 seconds.

Interesting aim of design. A bit hesitant towards how long the buff lasts, considering the above design, and how it seems that “Munition Shots” are somewhat rare.

I guess it needs a bit of testing to figure out^^

@Lazyguide-area-52

Ready? Aim. Fire! - Expending a charge of Munitions Shots will increase your damage over time effects for five seconds.

Increase how?

Damage? Duration? Increased rate of dealing damage?

@Lazyguide-area-52

Tier Three

@Lazyguide-area-52

Warping Shot - Fire a warping shot at a target point on the ground. The first ally to step into to the portal will be warped to your location. One minute CD.

Interesting.

I’m listening

Edit: How long does the arrow last for btw?

@Lazyguide-area-52

Tier Four

@Lazyguide-area-52

1. Use All of the Bullets! - Viper Shot now generates 25% more Munitions Shots charge*. Arcane Shots now also generates 10% Munitions Shots charge.

*My math might be off, though this is intended for Viper Shot to generate 1/4th of a charge rather than 1/5th.

Seems a bit weak indeed. As always though, testing is required to see how things turn out.

@Lazyguide-area-52

Tier Six

@Lazyguide-area-52

Darkest Night

Your Black Arrow can now spread through Chain Shot at a reduced duration (procs not always guaranteed).

Aww, man!

I would think of this as a perfect way to vastly increase the rate of resource-generation, especially considering the rarity of them from the base toolkit.

@Lazyguide-area-52

Acidic Shot

Replaces Explosive Shot - Fires a volatile shot of explosive acid at the target, dealing damage to the target and nearby targets after three seconds. Additionally, for the next 3 seconds the target is covered in acid, leaving acid puddles in their wake that stay for ten seconds, continuing to damage targets within. Acidic Shot can stack just like explosive shot.

Hmm, again, Exploding Shot can stack? How?

@Lazyguide-area-52

Tier Six

@Lazyguide-area-52

Firing Squad

Rapidly fire a surge of shots infused with random elements from frost, fire, nature, or arcane at the target, channeling for two seconds. At the end of the channel, a delayed explosive arrow will arm on the target, dealing a burst of damage matching the type of the final elemental shot fired. Deals additional damage by 2% per damage over time effect you have inflicted on the target. Ten second CD, costs 30 focus.

I would assign a longer CD to that ability, seeing as it doesn’t cost a charge/charges of “Munition Shots”.

@Lazyguide-area-52

What would you do differently?

It’s a different take on what a Munitions-styled spec could look like, compared to what RSV originally aimed for. Nothing wrong with that ofc. And other than what I mentioned above, with this specific theme, nothing really.

My personal preference is to bring it back with a design that more closely resembles the core of the old RSV, but that’s just me.

Either way, some very interesting elements mentioned here!

[Waidmann-gilneas (Waidmann)]

Ok I just have one question .

I may have missed it but what would be the signature hard hitting shot for the spec, the one comparable to say aimed shot ?

[Dawnspirit-wyrmrest-accord]

@Dobbix-illidan

Mostly thinking about the naming themes they use for specs. All specs of a class usually follow suit (say, noun/noun/noun like mistweaver, brewmaster, windwalker) although not strictly (some that stick out like Outlaw).

Then just call this idea Munitions.

[Lazyguide-area-52 (Lazyguide)]

Hey! I apologize if my replies may seem a bit off, spent a good portion of my evening indulging in the rare drink with my family. So sorry in advance if I’m not entirely clear, I shall try my best to address your posts!

@Ghorak-laughing-skull

What was your reason for keeping this mostly as it’s designed for MM, rather than taking it back to what it did for RSV in the past?

So, this was something I struggled with initially with the proposed design as I fundamentally really enjoy both quite a bit. Ultimately, I decided I wanted to keep the current design because of a few different reasons… I like the delayed damage from the current variation quite a bit and like that it is good for both single target and AOE, acting similar to a more traditional cleave. I also like the idea of leaving some counter / misplay potential for the hunter, raising the skill cap slightly. Determining who to use exploding shot on to maximize damage output or avoid breaking certain CC should be important to the spec. Additionally, the burst of damage is simply satisfying.

@Ghorak-laughing-skull

Also, apart from it’s damaging elements, what is your intent with it in terms of Focus cost, or more importantly, will it have a cooldown or simply be tied to the secondary resource of “Munitions Arrows”?

I’m flexible as far as the resources required. While I was trying to balance the spec when thinking of the design ideas, I admit I’m not proficient enough with balancing to know whether a focus cost would be needed or not. A focus cost could make it more limiting with some of the potential burst, though I felt the munitions charges were meant to do that as well.

@Ghorak-laughing-skull

And lastly, it can stack? How? As in multiple Shots can be applied to the same enemy at once?

Stack may not have been the best word choice there. Essentially, if you fire an exploding shot it’ll still keep ticking down. Firing an additional exploding shot will add an additional exploding shot debuff to the target. So they won’t literally all explode in the same exact moment, but you could have moments of rapid bursts of damage. More on that in a bit.

@Ghorak-laughing-skull

This certainly sounds interesting. Mostly curious of how you intend for it to distinguish itself from that of Soul Shards as a resource for Warlocks? Based on what you have said about it further down in your post.

This was something I just sort of acknowledged to myself making it. It is similar to the soul shards system but I wanted to make sure it was involved with generating charges actively outside of black arrow and limited the cap. I want the shots to feel more impactful / meaningful than Maelific Rupture for Affliction locks for instance but having less overall they could store up.

@Ghorak-laughing-skull

Is this intended to be the only way to manually generate “Munition Shots”? If so, it should probably provide more than 1/5th of a charge/shot.

Fair. I wasn’t sure what would be an ideal rate. You’ll probably notice throughout the talents and what not, for a lot of the actual numbers I was trying to be fairly conservative about how I set things up. The numbers could of course be changed. I wanted to focus more so on the mechanics to build up charges rather than necessarily the hard numbers. For this in particular, I thought keeping keeping the generation low since you’ll want to use it at least a few times after building up dots / dumping focus via arcane shot would make it a more meaningful part of the priority / rotation, with at least a few talents to make it more meaningful in different ways.

@Ghorak-laughing-skull

Curious though, when you say that it will always generate at least half a charge, does that mean that there can be times where you won’t get more than half a charge of “Munition Shots”?

So, sort of like how old BA would always generate one Lock and Load for RSV, the idea here was to help build charges. I was worried that putting it to one would lead to moments where exploding shot starts to feel a bit erm. Superfluous? I still wanted to keep it meaningful and have a build up to it via Viper Shot while of course leaving potential for it to generate more charges than that.

@Ghorak-laughing-skull

Sounds as if the damage-trigger/interaction with Exploding Shot is a guarantee, depending on the intended cooldown/rate of use for Exploding Shot, along with it’s own damage profile, it’s certainly capable of adding more burst/a way to maintain additional pressure.

That’s the idea. I wanted to make it so there is additional burst factored into when you use exploding shot along with incendiary shot. The goal was to make it feel rewarding for the player while giving a maintenence DOT to keep track of.

@Ghorak-laughing-skull

If so, does it still have a mid-range cooldown?

I was thinking of it being no CD or a low CD, with the idea that you could potentially manually spread it or use chain shot in an AOE situation to help gain additional charges without constantly hitting the 3 shot cap, if that makes sense?

@Ghorak-laughing-skull

What’s “Blacklick Arrow” ?

Typo on my part. A lot of this was done via phone, ended up fixing it!

@Ghorak-laughing-skull

Hmm, thematically odd, but alright.

I think you might be right there, could end up updating or changing it somewhat. The idea original was to have a trick shot of sorts spread your dots around, but I think probably tightening that up with at least some sort of magic of its own would help it fit more thematically.

@Ghorak-laughing-skull

Neat idea.

May I recommend that you add the following to it?

I definitely like that! The original idea came from Tol’Dagor and the final boss’ own version of Heartstopper Venom. I think the slow effect you added could definitely help. The black arrow portion could also work, but I would be concerned about that part in PVP. The idea being that Heartstopper Venom would be a good way to peel melee off yourself or others and could be used in dungeon settings where kiting might be necessary.

@Ghorak-laughing-skull

Is your intent that the 25% increased rate is only in the damage profile of each ability or does it also have an impact on the duration of the periodic damage effects it intends to empower?

IMO, the duration of each effect should remain unchanged despite the above.

Unchanged. So, we’ll say Incendiary shot is on the target for 18 seconds and you activate Aspect of the Serpent. It’ll last for the 18 seconds still and deal damage faster, acting sort of like a haste buff in that you’re generating extra ticks of damage.

@Ghorak-laughing-skull

Personal preference: If more Mastery also allowed for a somewhat improved rate of generation for “Munition Shots”.

Something I toyed around with, not opposed to it at all.

@Ghorak-laughing-skull

Is the intent for any abilities that cost “Munition Shot”-charges to have/not have cooldowns? If not, I would love if the rate at which charges were generated either manually or otherwise, was tuned quite high to allow for more fast-paced gameplay.

The intent right now is no focus cost, with the charges being the more limiting factor. I believe I gave a reply above expressing a similar sentiment meant to explain being open to increasing the rate but wanted to be cautious with it to start.

@Ghorak-laughing-skull

How come you want this to be a talent rather than a core element of the spec?

Mostly asking due to it’s history with the spec of the past.

My reasoning with the design is that this spec focuses more on various elements to deal damage. However, due to its history I wanted to leave it as a potential option for the spec to have and fits with the idea of being able to focus more on the venoms / poisonous aspects if the player wants while also giving another maintenance dot to keep up with.

@Ghorak-laughing-skull

Interesting aim of design. A bit hesitant towards how long the buff lasts, considering the above design, and how it seems that “Munition Shots” are somewhat rare.

I guess it needs a bit of testing to figure out^^

That’s pretty fair! Honestly, I probably could make that buff at least a little longer, and make watching / keeping it up more important to add something more to keep up with if the player wants.

@Ghorak-laughing-skull

Increase how?

Damage? Duration? Increased rate of dealing damage?

Was meant to be damage, sorry for lack of clarity.

@Ghorak-laughing-skull

Interesting.

I’m listening

Edit: How long does the arrow last for btw?

I was thinking about 8 seconds to make it comparable to MM’s binding shot while serving a unique and different role

@Ghorak-laughing-skull

Seems a bit weak indeed. As always though, testing is required to see how things turn out.

Fair enough!

@Ghorak-laughing-skull

Aww, man!

I would think of this as a perfect way to vastly increase the rate of resource-generation, especially considering the rarity of them from the base toolkit.

I think if the charge rate is indeed too low, I would retool the baseline to increase the charge rate like you’ve suggested rather than let this guarentee charges. My hesitancy is I do no wish for it to become a mandatory talent and was concerned if this were to overload the spec with charges players might feel it to be necessary to talent into.

@Ghorak-laughing-skull

Hmm, again, Exploding Shot can stack? How?

Similar to the above answer to that question. I may have to edit for more clarity, but stack probably isn’t the correct word. The idea is that if you fire an Acidic Shot and manage to fire another before the first debuff is gone, it’ll simply add another debuff of the shot rather than reset the Acidic Shot debuff.

@Ghorak-laughing-skull

I would assign a longer CD to that ability, seeing as it doesn’t cost a charge/charges of “Munition Shots”.

That’s fair. I wasn’t sure whether to give it a low or mid range CD. I had two different thoughts with it. The first with it being on a lower CD it would act as additional rotational complexity, and a higher CD would be on demand channeled burst.

@Ghorak-laughing-skull

It’s a different take on what a Munitions-styled spec could look like, compared to what RSV originally aimed for. Nothing wrong with that ofc. And other than what I mentioned above, with this specific theme, nothing really.

My personal preference is to bring it back with a design that more closely resembles the core of the old RSV, but that’s just me.

Either way, some very interesting elements mentioned here!

I definitely appreciate the input! Ultimately, I wanted to pay some homage to the original spec by bringing back the elements I felt were important to it. But I also wanted to update it enough to fit more in line with the redesigns Blizzard has done going forward from Legion to make the various specs fill a clear thematic niche. And unfortunately, as much I disagree with Blizz, they didn’t believe old SV’s identity was clear enough. So I figured I’d double down on some of themes I thought would help differentiate it, modernize the gameplay somewhat, and simultaneously try to show respect to the old spec.

@Waidmann-gilneas

I may have missed it but what would be the signature hard hitting shot for the spec, the one comparable to say aimed shot ?

Exploding Shot would be this spec’s version of Aimed Shot essentially. It is intended to be the main hitting ability for this proposed spec.

[Uglúk-area-52]

This would be pretty cool to play! Just replace exploding shot on MM with piercing shot and leave the explosives to RSV.

I think you could even do something like a mortar round that lobs an explosive shell in an arc, kind of like how resonating arrow moves but with a big boom at the end. Explosive shot currently is more of a rocket launcher, so there is some room for expanding the munitions concept there.

[Lazyguide-area-52 (Lazyguide)]

@Uglúk-area-52

This would be pretty cool to play! Just replace exploding shot on MM with piercing shot and leave the explosives to RSV.

Thanks! Piercing shot would definitely be cool for MM. Or something else that could further enhance their burst window or emphasize aimed shot in another manner, I think there’s probably a couple different ways that could be achieved!

@Uglúk-area-52

I think you could even do something like a mortar round that lobs an explosive shell in an arc, kind of like how resonating arrow moves but with a big boom at the end. Explosive shot currently is more of a rocket launcher, so there is some room for expanding the munitions concept there.

I think that could be another possibility or even a different talent than one of the ones I have up in the post. I think shadow priests have some sort of void eruption AOE they can lob, kind of reminds me of that. Though if you were to talent into that or change how I have explosive shot working currently, it would be interesting to see how a spec revolving around that would ultimately flow.

[Nuskurghain-eonar (Nuskurghain)]

Just having an actual heavy dotter alone is enough to support it. True dotters are rare among the DPS spec table.

[Heffner-kul-tiras]

Think multi pull here, what if explosive shot put out shrapnel and applied all your poisons/bleeds to all mobs in the area.

[Lazyguide-area-52 (Lazyguide)]

I think it’s a possibility. I thought about including more ways to spread dots but was hesitant for two reasons.

The first, Explosive Shot as the main hitter for the spec is both a single target and AOE function. Since it needs to hit hard to feel worthwhile, it should already be doing strong damage in both single target and AOE.

Second, I think keeping chain shot helps raise the skill cap slightly by having another ability to decide when to use it or not.

That said, I would be fine with the shrapnel idea but I think it would require tweaks to Explosive Shot. If it multi dots on its own, I think the explosive shot should do full damage to the target, then reduced damage to additional targets most likely. Additionally, I think I would need to change Chain Shot and much for the AOE talent row.

Edit: It’s certainly a possibility and I could definitely see it working. Would be curious to see others thoughts on that idea actually.

[Heffner-kul-tiras]

How about then explosive trap instead of knocking mobs back it spreads the bleeds/poison.

[Lazyguide-area-52 (Lazyguide)]

As a PVP talent? I think having explosive knock back is a good utility to have there for both allied and self peeling purposes, and works well in certain BGs (AB LM, AV towers, EotS, etc).

A new trap that was specifically designed for that could work as a PVP talent, though Chain Shot is already intended to spread dots. Perhaps in addition to spreading it could enhance their damage for a brief period of time after activating, so it would be a PVP only thing meant to make keeping dot application easy while being an offensive trap?

[Heffner-kul-tiras]

I am just thinking of the downfalls of the current DoT spec AFF.

When I play my AFF my biggest issue is kiting. Even with the 50% slow lego they still get to me. I think a Hunter has a better kiting kit so this will be good.

Other issue is DoT damage in itself does not apply enough pressure, but raising DoT damage higher could cause issues because the more players you can do DoT the more pressure it could add as well as DoTs basically have 100% uptime.

I would like to see more leach from DoTs to help stay alive while we kite and abilities that offer a fun burst window that isn’t tied to the amount of DoTs we have on targets.

[Lazyguide-area-52 (Lazyguide)]

@Heffner-kul-tiras

When I play my AFF my biggest issue is kiting. Even with the 50% slow lego they still get to me. I think a Hunter has a better kiting kit so this will be good.

Yeah, Aff I think is made to be a bit tankier with their use of health stone, drain life, and DR CD as well as access to other CCs that don’t DR with each other. I think having this spec be much better at kiting is a good trade off personally.

@Heffner-kul-tiras

Other issue is DoT damage in itself does not apply enough pressure, but raising DoT damage higher could cause issues because the more players you can do DoT the more pressure it could add as well as DoTs basically have 100% uptime.

I think in the current meta, you are correct. Burst is valued much more than consistent damage and generally speaking that is true across the board.

That said, the spec idea has burst built into it with explosive shot. For instance, pooling multiple Munitions Shots you can get multiple explosives . Due to their nature of functioning similar to a dot (delayed damage) but doing it all at once (at the end of the 4 seconds) you could have a window of rapid damage coming in rapid succession.

The tier six talent row in general should help add burst options ranging from more controlled bursts / rotational scenarios (Accelrated Munitions and Firing Squad respectively) to more RNG centric moments of power (Lock and Load).

That said, I think the burst being delayed as an intended weakness. It is intended to serve the purpose of burst windows like many other specs but allows room for counter play with CDs since it would be obvious when you would be about to take a big burst of damage in a few seconds.

Leech could potentially be built in somewhere, though I’m not sure how best to do that honestly. We have to account for 10% leech possibility from a ferocity pet, if we add more in it could start to become over bearing would be my fear.

[Otsdàrva-laughing-skull]

Best thing they could do is bring back ranged Survival and make the melee version a 4th spec. This would appease both crowds.

[Chokemehardr-stormrage]

I honestly don’t get why anyone thinks a 4th spec for hunter is even a remote option. There’s literally only one class with a 4th spec and that’s druid. And frankly druid is probably from inception the 1 true hybrid spec. Why would anyone think they’d do that again for a pure dps class.

I mean its really like dreamy that people think that would ever be an option but there’s nothing farther from the realm of possibility than a 4th hunter spec.

They can’t make 3 good hunter specs lol… even they’re not insane enough to attempt a 4th.

[Lazyguide-area-52 (Lazyguide)]

@Chokemehardr-stormrage

I honestly don’t get why anyone thinks a 4th spec for hunter is even a remote option.

To be clear, I highly doubt they will ever do so. I do believe it is the best course of action since the legion rework going forward with the class however.

The alternative would be the outright removal of MSV which I believe is much more likely (despite Ion’s claim to the contrary ages ago), though I feel that would also be pretty harmful to the class.

Leaving it as is also leads to a lot of players feeling pushed away from the class and left dissatisfied since a unique playstyle was removed for dubious reasons.

Anyways, this was more so for fun and to just spark discussion while trying to avoid that debacle.

[Brainard-area-52]

Very cool ideas! I think these would help the survival hunter for sure!

[Lazyguide-area-52 (Lazyguide)]

Thank you!

I need to update and revise parts of this post still. But just wanted to add that this is not intended to replace current survival by any means.

[Danski-frostmourne (Danski)]

Having finally read this (my fault, I always have too many tabs open). I really dig this concept. It’s a different view to the tracker/ranger with alchemist flare, fast paced and adds synergy throughout the spec. At first I was a bit unsure about the munitions shots acting as pseudo combo points/chi but I think it would be fine pending the rotation.

I dunno if anyone’s already mentioned this in the thread, but a slightly faster GCD would go very nicely with this concept spec.

Also, would be cool if WoW had some kind of sandpit where you could test/create these kinds of things to play out the rotation etc.

[Lazyguide-area-52 (Lazyguide)]

@Danski-frostmourne

Having finally read this (my fault, I always have too many tabs open).

No worries, I still have to get around to posting in Ghorak’s thread

@Danski-frostmourne

I really dig this concept. It’s a different view to the tracker/ranger with alchemist flare, fast paced and adds synergy throughout the spec. At first I was a bit unsure about the munitions shots acting as pseudo combo points/chi but I think it would be fine pending the rotation.

Thanks, I appreciate that! And yeah, I was hoping to try and create a distinct feel and was - mostly - worried about it feeling too similar to Warlock’s soul shard system. But I think with the idea of expending munitions feeling more impactful (so a bit stronger than a single soul shard use for example) along with the rest of the base tool kit, it should still feel solidly different from that system while also becoming entirely distinct within the hunter class itself.

@Danski-frostmourne

I dunno if anyone’s already mentioned this in the thread, but a slightly faster GCD would go very nicely with this concept spec.

I don’t think that was brought up (truthfully, I have to go reread some of the replies now since it has been a long while), but this is definitely something on my wish list for the class as a whole. Changing hunter’s GCD back in Legion still seems off to me.

@Danski-frostmourne

Also, would be cool if WoW had some kind of sandpit where you could test/create these kinds of things to play out the rotation etc.

They have something like that for Overwatch, actually! Sadly, I think it’s a bit more involved than what I’m capable of (or at least, able to dedicate the time to). And they don’t have it for WoW which is lame.