1. Slightly consolidate the baseline kit.
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Replace Arcane Shot with Cobra Shot.
- Arcane Shot, frankly, has never made any sense outside of a potential spell-archer spec that we have never gotten. Virtually all our other sources of non-physical damage are still physically derived. Cobra Shot also offers a much more fecund thematic ground for potential interaction with other spec elements, as it doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb among the surrounding kits.
- Moreover, this makes immediate room for Kill Command to be added at the top of the Beast Mastery tree, and, with the further change below, for Survival to gain its own version of Kill Command, of different name to avoid ambiguity in two utterly different effects, at the top of its own tree.
- Finally, Cobra Shot offers a far smaller balancing obstacle over PvP implications than does the spammable purely magical damage of Arcane Shot.
- Instead of Cobra Shot replacing Steady Shot while leaving Arcane Shot as awkward refuse, the BM tree will now make clear that Steady Shot is replaced by Pack Tactics and BM will no longer lose its no-cost filler attack prior to halving its downtime via its massive Focus increase.
2. Remove the Survival basic functionality tax.
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Have all ranged skills “Become {their melee variant} while a melee weapon is equipped and within {melee variant striking range} of your target.” All melee tooltips will likewise append that they “Become {their ranged variant} while more than {melee variant striking range} from the target.”
- Each melee variant offers some affordance commensurate to its being usable only from melee range.
- Cobra Shot, for instance, becomes Raptor Strike (greater damage).
- Countershot becomes Muzzle (lower CD).
- Concussive Shot becomes Wingclip (no/ignores CD, longer duration).
- Serpent Sting becomes Serpent Strike (greater base damage).
- Steady Shot will become Tiger Lunge (20-yd dash strike after a readying cast, 20s or so CD).
- While no (out-of-range) enemy is selected and a melee weapon is equipped, the melee variant tooltips are shown.
This allows for Survival likewise to begin with its own variant of Kill Command, which should be named separately to avoid confusion with the completely different Kill Command functionality available to Beast Mastery.
Finally, Alpha Predator / Killer Instinct can then be moved to the Survival and Beastmastery trees themselves, replacing currently dull or ineffective talents (such as Kindred Spirits or Killer Command for BM or Flanker’s Advantage for Survival and allowing for a real pet-based capstone like a revamped Lynx Rush.
3. Replace the Row 1 Talents with ones that give meaningful gameplay choice and value to all three specializations.
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Replace the top-left node (Beast Mastery) with some manner of pet utility, such by moving Wilderness Medicine up and making it a single-point talent, even if at reduced effect. Ideally, make it a choice node with Mending Bandages (stolen from PvP) or some other form of utility of similar capacity that would be usable even by non-pet-users.
- This finally makes the whole entry tier of generally decent use to all specs.
- Replace Improve Mend Pet, then, with Rejuvenation, which is currently barred behind Natural Mending / Countershot and two other talents.
Now that Concussive Shot is baseline, replace the top-center node (Marksmanship) with a choice node housing Kill Shot and a passive option of similar purpose and the ICD for which scales with all Kill Shot talents.
- This allows for Kill Shot to be an actual choice worth having on the talent tree instead of its being made baseline. Those who don’t want to use a discrete execute don’t have to, though avoiding it will likely be a slightly inferior option in most settings.
Finally, use the top-left node (Survival) to house Serpent Sting and a passive means of applying its effect, though perhaps for a shorter duration.
- This allows even the passive variant still to scale with Hydra’s Bite /Latent Poison Injectors, but allows those who did not want to use a discrete DoT anyways a means to avoid that unwanted gameplay component.
- Leave Hydra / Injectors at the right edge of the capstone tier but allow Master Marksman access also to a new ability, separately pathable, such as Black Arrow.
At this point, we can remove the pre-purchased nodes from the Hunter Class Tree, leaving players full freedom of choice. However, to compensate for the point lost, we should then remove a point of/in obligatory talents, such as by making Improved Kill Shot baseline (or removing it and granting its value in some other way).
4. Return Beast Training to Hunters and make Primal Rage baseline via a Hunter, rather than pet, ability.
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Axe the Ferocity, Tenacity, and Cunning paradigm completely. Instead, simply provide Hunters with Beast Training, which will open a pane for the specific purposes of picking one each among…
- a passive (Leech, Movement, or Extra HP [and healing received]),
- a short active (effectively, mortal wounds, snare, or shorter-CD defensive),
and - longer active (Master’s Call, longer-CD defensive, or brief significant Leech bonus).
The pane will have underlying tabs for each of your up to 5 pets AND one for yourself.
- The effects of your own tab are only useable while in Lone Wolf, and the inherit any ongoing CDs of any pets dismissed to enter Lone Wolf.
- I.e., if you use a 2-minute longer active on a pet and then dismiss it, your own longer active will continue counting down from where the pet’s left off, even if that’s in excess of your longer active’s cooldown.
5. Revamp certain talents useful only to certain specializations.
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Replace Intimidate with Wyvern Sting, adding to the latter a stun component after the incapacitate fades or breaks.
Replace Beast Master and Improved Kill Command. Ideally have the second provide pet utility that would be valuable even to MM as to retain Beast Mastery flavor while not being better off in spec-specific trees.
Perhaps attach Trick Shots, Frenzied Strike, and Beast Cleave effects to Lynx Rush or whatever other talent replaces Killer Instinct / Alpha Predator.
In summary…
- We get back pet choice.
- We don’t have to wait until level 54+ to get back essential playflow functions previously available by level 15 (Serpent Sting, Alpha Predator).
- All talents are now useful to every spec.
- Kill Command is no longer unintuitively two completely different abilities in its functionality between SV and BM, nor offered as a trap to a spec to whom it would be useless (MM).
- We aren’t spending spec talents just to catch up to pre-specialized functionality or power levels (costing BM Steady Shot just for access to what is initially a redundant Arcane Shot equivalent in Cobra Shot rather than only upon replacing any need for Steady Shot with Pack Tactics, or having to buy back our filler attack just to use it with a melee weapon on SV).
- We get two new capstone talents (e.g., Lynx Rush and Black Arrow) that should better feel like real capstones.
- Hero/Lust is now provided in a separate and straightforward manner independent of pet choice (via Horn of the Hunt or whatnot).