I plan on playing DK as a main but i’m at a crossroads as to what I should play as an alt. I’ve narrowed it down to Shaman, Hunter, or Druid (boomchicken/resto). I want to play as a ranged DPS for the alt but don’t mind also going heals since I healed for Uldir and most of BoD. How is Hunter looking atm?
MM is looking very strong for the beginning stages in the next expansion. Hard hitter in PvP, and excellent DPS in PvE.
BM is a little behind, but should theoretically be easier to play and adapt with in PvE, but will suffer in PvP against players who know to go after the pet first.
Survival looks like it will work well in PvP again, however it remains a meme-spec for PvE. You can make Survival work in PvE, you can perfect it, but MM/BM will do more dps by just smashing their faces on the keyboard.
I would go with Warlock. It’s a fun class to play on any spec. Destro is the way to go right now. Not sure in new expac. Hunters are fun as well. I love having two pets out.
I have always been interested in MM more than BM and Survival (Is it abbreviated as “S” just seems weird). Though with Hunter I don’t have the ability to heal like Druid and Shaman. But Hunter seems to be in a decent spot and it’s nice to know that when going into something. Thanks for your opinions and thoughts!
I may be wrong, but I didn’t think any sort of tuning had happened yet? I was under the impression, just based off the PTR, that MM is overtuned by a good margin and will probably be coming back down to earth before the end of beta. So, I don’t know if I’d make any decisions yet based off what is strong or not.
But I will say, of those three, Boomkin is a mechanically very clunky spec right now.
The most common abbreviation is “SV”. You’ll also see “MSV”, for melee survival, typically in discussions about current (melee) survival versus old pre-Legion ranged survival (RSV).
Don’t focus too much on tuning, though, as that can change wildly over the next few months.
In terms of gameplay, MM is in a fairly solid spot. They have focus starvation issues during Trueshot, but otherwise it’s pretty solid. The addition of Chimaera Shot to the talent tree shored up one of their most substantial weaknesses (2-target cleave).
BM hasn’t seen a lot of baseline changes since BfA, but their talents got reworked in a couple areas. They also lost pretty heavily from the removal of corruption, essences, and Azerite powers, leaving them feeling a bit limp at times. They’re still generally more flexible and durable than the other two specs, however.
SV has seen literally zero changes since BfA, and even their legendaries are largely just recycled Azerite traits. Survival didn’t see immense game-changing impact from corruptions or essences, as far as I know, so losing them wasn’t as great of a loss as it was for certain other DPS specs out there.
All of the class changes (and the level and gear squish) are up on the PTR right now, if you want to jump on and play around with the rotations and talents and such. Prepatch is also likely within the next 2-3 weeks, at which point you’ll be able to play with them on live as well before making a final decision.