I’m going to keep this short and simple, all 3 hunter specs feel terrible on ptr. I don’t have access to the beta but I doubt in 10 levels any of the specs are going to feel much better. Ignoring the glaring class-wide group utility issue, none of the trees feel anywhere near complete. I’m getting a little worried that hunters are going to be left as is with some band-aid fixes before DF goes live. I know a similar thread was made only a day ago but I rather at least try to get some dev recognition with another thread than not try at all. I feel like hunter is a sinking ship and we’re just waving a white t-shirt in the air trying to get the attention of the developers. I hope I’m completely wrong and they’re just working on other classes right now but I’m starting to get concerned. Am I wrong for starting to get worried about all this?
Just some quick spec-specific thoughts: MM is the best out of the 3 but could still use improvements and BM’s tree would feel just okay if it wasn’t insanely expensive to try and get anything. SV’s tree is a complete mess with many boring % damage increase nodes and two major CD capstones that while both are good ideas and fun, are counterintuitive to each other. If they were on separate sides of the tree ala something like Frost DK’s tree, then at least that would make more sense.
Once again, sorry for posting a similar thread to one that was posted yesterday but
I am right there with you! I feel very worried that they think they’ve improved Hunter enough and feel done.
But considering how extremely bad the class was on reveal they still have a long way to go before the class is good. Its not even decent now outside of MM.
For the first time since vanilla i am Not pre-ordering the game. While the core systems seem much better than previous expansions the whole experience is going to still be terrible if your class is as bad as Hunter is. And i’m not going to reward bad game/class design.
Still hold a silver of hope they are working on some big changes for BM and SV and give us a few Badly needed changes like utility. But with each week that goes by with miniscule changes i lose more and more of that sliver. I am not one of those players who jump around classes, i always have been Hunter main and whole DF seems great in some parts i wont touch it if they fudge up Hunters this bad.
yea i went on ptr and was mega disappointed. MM is still so boring even though they had weekly changes for like 2 months. the problem is the specs are still just the boring BFA bases. there is no time to revamp them now so this is what hunter is stuck with for another 2 yrs.
they didnt even bother to give steady and barbed shot new animations. its been the same weird yellow laser ever since bfa. idk how arrows look better on my wrath hunter that they made in 2008 vs 2022.
Hunters have been in dire need of a closer look at for a long time now. If you look at warcraft logs through the diffrent patches you get very clear data that people have not been happy with hunters for some time.
During all of WoD Hunter logs represented around 20-22% of all normal dps parses. With Legion another dps specc got added so it went form 23 to 24 dps speccs in the game increasing choices by around 4%, however going into Legion with the rework Hunters went down to around 16% class representation, losing around 20% popularity with just one patch.
A rework tends to lose more players than it gains at the start since it will be quicker for the current players of the class to decide if they wanna play the rework or not than it will take for players of other classes to discover that they like the rework. However the numbers mostly just went down from here exceptt for a couple of times where you saw a small bumb in popularity of a stagnation of loses. But the general trend continued downwards into the BfA rework and it continues from there until 8.3 where it reached its bottom at 11% representation. So over the course of about 3 years they halfed the popularity of Hunters.
After this we see the first proper rise of popularity in Hunters since the legion rework, they manage to reach about 17% popularity. For people that dont remeber this is the period where they were top dps and i belive 3 bm hunters either won mdi or it was one of the meta builds, either way this was a period when they were absolutly broken. However once Shadowlands came they started going down in popularity again down to 15%
However throughout the rest of Shadowlands Hunters have gone back to their WoD numbers, having around 22% representation in 9.1 and then going down to around 19% in 9.2.
But the question is if these numbers are a indication of general like for the current speccs or if these are other factors. In 9.1 Hunters got the first class legendary since Cata, over 10 years ago. I dont think its wrong to say that this most likley infalte the numbers somewhat. And since then Hunters has had some pretty strong periods, i belive the highest key push has been done with trippel survival ( maybe it has been broken by now).
I think its a valid question to ask if we would’ve seen a continued drop in shadowlands if not for these things, and what does this means for DF. Will the popularity drop when they lose their legendary, will the popularity drop continue if they are not broken in the first patch. I dont know what the numbers will look like in the future but looking at the past numbers it looks like Hunters has lost alot of popularity and only gets propped up with legendaries and patches they are really strong in.
seriously considering going Elemental Shaman over BM
They haven’t done beans to fix AC, yet seems like AC is going to be better than just about any other node in the BM tree. I really don’t want to be penalized 35% for anything beyond the 2nd pet.
Just too many multi point nodes in BM tree, they really need to free up 4-6 points from these.
It’s all a hot mess. I mean, you can literally choose Binding Shackles, which buffs Binding Shot and Intimidation, without actually having Binding Shot or Intimidation.
In the BM tree, Animal Companion is still the strongest talent in the tree, but still gives the -35% damage aura to pets. That’s bad when there are so many talents that add extra pets or buffs pets. If they don’t fix the Animal Companion issue BEFORE launch, BM is going to experience Shadowland all over again.
Fool-proofing every possible connection would, in turn, cost you pathing options.
Do we really want to give up pathing options on the mere basis that some might not read before clicking?
This. This feels so damn bad. It makes it feel like there are essentially two forms of BM:
AC & No Other Sources of “Pet” (or “Summoned”) Damage,
—or—
Avoid AC.
…Why? Or rather, how, has this seemingly unintended effect been allowed to go on for this long?
And the saddest thing to me, just personally, is that I don’t want to be a Zookeeper, nor to use Animal Companion. Animal Companion looks awkward as all hell to me because it looks like a pet, but it’s actually solely bonus KC damage that can be uniquely screwed over. If what we see is two pets, what I want it to be is two pets. I’ll gladly pay the difference, but it ought to be what it looks like. Alas, if I’m not taking summons, that cleverly disguised KC buff is just way too powerful not to take.
Simply put, it means something rather grim, especially when considering how much fun the likes of, say, Venthyr (+Razor Fragments) added or the unique damage profile strength of Wild Spirits.
By level 70, many specs will still have less than they had at level 60 even prior to acquiring their legendaries. Hunter seems hard hit by this—maybe not especially so, but significantly impacted nonetheless.
There are some new tools, of course, and thankfully some unwanted synergies lost (the kinds that allow for turret-caster 4-Tier AiS-for-days Marksmanship), but… it’s hard to see where any of it is/would be more polished or fun than before—which ought to be the direction any further expansion goes in—let alone takes full advantage of this new talent selection system to maximize player customization where it matters most (imo, playflow).
BM: Took some testing but was able to make a single pet build that felt strong, maybe more so then live. Whent a long time without losing my 3stack, everything was hitting hard, and never focus starved.
MM: After reconciling myself to sacrificing stuff to gain spec points I was able to make two builds that felt effective, if overly simple… One very basic Lonewolf, and one slightly more involved KC pet.
I put in about 6 hours the last 3 days trying out different builds, leggos, ST, and aoe at the target dummies and dungeons on the ptr. I also played shaman for about 3-4 hrs on my shaman.
Without a doubt the 2 complaints I have for MM is that anything that is ST related has a very boring rotation. AoE is interesting but not by much considering it’s only fun during CD’s, after that is basically weaving in Multi-Shot. In
ST its basically mostly Aimed-Shot, Steady Shot, RF and either 2 procs with L&L and KS or a heavy rng arrow build. Even trying to maintain Steady Focus is easy. 2 steady shots back to back is just an AS and an ArS. The spec needs a rotation overhaul. It’s not just simple but it’s repetitive with limited interactions or exciting synergies, animations and not enough impact in sounds.
The other complaint is having to bring my pet out to use bloodlust lol
Hunter utility in raid/M+ is still severely lacking, and their survivability is about to be nuked once all the conduits and soulbinds are removed.
These two points need to be addressed. Exhilaration is a USELESS ability, too long of a CD and heals nothing. Make it a 60 second cooldown. We also need another defensive cooldown better than survival of the fittest.
It will be tuned down, not “nuked”. And so will the survivability of everyone else.
A heal for 30-50% of our maximum HP is… “nothing”? I have to disagree.
Similarly, I’d rather have the full power on the original 2-minute CD than reduced power on half that CD.
I’d suspect I’d agree with you on most of the directions you’d want Hunter tuning/development to go in, but it’s hard to tell under the latter two points’ hyperbole.
Hunters are already the squishiest class in the game, and that’s on top of hunter’s mark and feign death offering 20% damage reduction on a lot of pulls.
Exhilaration is a useless talent. It’s barely serviceable if you take the talent that makes focus spending reduce cooldown, and even then you’re looking at 90 seconds for a 30% heal.
Meanwhile rogues have a 30 second potion that heals 26%.
Blizzard doesn’t balance around classes having more or less utility anymore. Mages and warlocks still top damage as the meta specs, while bringing insane utility and CC to a dungeon group.
Hunters have a fraction of that, and take way more damage on top of everything else.
Hunter survivability in general needs a complete re-work, which we are obviously not going to get. Buffing leech, cooldown reduction, more damage reduction, or higher heals on Exhilaration are the only things we can ask for that we an reasonably expect.
It’s not a talent. It’s baseline. Survival of the Fittest is the talent.
And SotF, too, perhaps ought to be baseline via, say, a hunter-direct choice in Affinity between Ferocity, Tenacity, and Cunning.
It can be buffed to 25% (20 x 1.25) for 15 Energy, on the GCD. If you’re to use its two-talents-buffed state as a point of comparison, you should compare it to as many talents’ worth of buff to Exhilaration, putting it at a total of 50% healing or on as little as a 60s CD for its base 30% heal. Note also that Crimson Vial is on a melee, who cannot therefore simply kite other melee and cannot outrange spammed proximity-scaling AoE without downtime.
This isn’t really a matter of “on top of”. It’s not as if Resilience of the Hunter and Marksman Advantage were a tier above all other classes’ Endurance Conduits. Many other classes were getting, and will therefore be losing, just as much value to their self-sustain.
Couple of Changes I would embrace. For all 3 specs.
Binding Shots is no longer a Tether!.. SO Double the area of effect to 8-10 Yds. Rename to Stun Grenade.
This will situational y free up 1 point from the Intimidation node for AOE type interactions… While still allowing it to be taken for fights that will need that extra stun opportunity.
Make Binding Shackles Damage reduction apply to our Misdirect Target. This will make it a Viable option for LW MM.
Make the cooldown reduction on Improved Traps apply to Intimidation, Binding shot and Scatter shot.
Make Sure Master Marksmen works for BM and Surv Reports are that its not working as intended.
BM
Get A/C dealt with Double pathing issues is not fun.
Still too many Multi point Nodes. Even freeing up 2 will help.
Reduce Stomp Node Cost to 1 Tool-tip remains same whether 1or 2 points applied.
Reduce Scent of Blood to 1 Point for 2 Barbed shots.
Fix the Tool Tip wording on Qa’Pla ??? Barbed Shot deals10% increased Damage And 100% chance to the Cool down of Kill Command [Reset—Reduce ???}
Have the Dire Command spawns Charge the Target not do the basilisk wobble saunter to it. They only have a 8 second lifespan and if they take 4 seconds to get to target why bother added to the High point base cost of this Dire Pack node Even if you did like he old Beast Cannon build Its too expensive unless it hits like a freight train.
