In my experience, every class in BFA is boring.
I have been maining this hunter as a filthy casual since vanilla. I want to play it so bad but I am just bored.
The normalization of pets and taking away what used to make them unique just killed it for me.
I should be able to pick whatever skin of whatever pet I want as long as I have tamed it and custom build a talent tree for it.
I’m also so sick and tired of barbed shot and cobra shot. Give me something new.
What NukeJukem said, most people are finding their class boring in BFA. BFA has the worst class design in any expansion to date. Coupled with the GCD changes they added, the game overall feels crappy to play. So don’t take it all out on hunters, but if you truly are bored with them you can see what else is out there, but it ain’t pretty.
That is because you had some damage buff you weren’t aware of. KC can’t hit that hard even in 418 ilvl gear. I have crited KC that high before but it was because a quest gave me a damage boost. You probably didn’t realize you even had it.
No, it can hit that hard, it just takes a crazy amount of stuff to do so.
First, it requires the enemy being at or below 35% to do 50% more dmg.
Then, it takes the azerite traits to increase mastery during aspect of the hawk. When it’s active I have 117% mastery, so it deals 117% more dmg. (I have 58% when it isn’t active)
Then, it requires 2 dire beast azerite traits so it deals an extra 3000 dmg
Then, it requires bestial wrath
Then, it requires 2000 agi from pvp trinket
Finally, it also requires 2 azerite traits that increase agi by 800 during the first 8 seconds of bestial wrath.
Cata hunter was the best imo. Fun rotation, amazing toolkit. Tol Barad was some of the most fun I have had in game since vanilla and through today.
Have to limit this reply to mostly focus on BM. Or it would be far too long:/
Will provide some links down at the bottom though in regards to current melee Survival and what I would like for it.
As well as a link to a suggestion of my regarding a 4th spec option for the class. #ReturnOldRangedSurvivalToUs
I would agree that if you engage in pretty much anything beyond leveling/questing then it does feel like BM is missing something.
If you ask me, BM currently has several issues with it(not counting pet AI issues):
I would want for some of the active abilities you can get from talents to be more tied to your core mechanics as a BM hunter. I want them to be more about your pet. Not just being random stand-alone abilities that you press on CD.
As for passive talents:
-It feels as if Killer Instinct should be a baseline effect added to Kill Command. I mean, it’s called KILL Command…
-Animal Companion, the idea behind it, I love it. In practice, it’s horrible to play with in game. At this stage, it would be better if they essentially just, give us the mechanical design from Hati but added to a second pet of ours. It worked better in Legion.
-Scent of Blood, I honestly don’t know how you can justify occupying a talent slot with something like this. 8 more focus from an ability you use maybe every 8 seconds?
The talent should have another effect added to it. Something like “…and whenever your pet’s Basic Attack hits a bleeding target(affected by Barbed Shot), there’s a chance that your next Kill Command against that target will be a guaranteed critical hit.”
-One with the Pack, same as with Scent of Blood, there should be another effect added to this talent.
I would suggest: “Whenever you get a Wild Call proc, this causes your next Barbed Shot to add an extra Frenzy stack to your pet. Up to a max of 4 stacks.”
Note: If you have 2 stacks of Frenzy, getting a Wild Call proc, this means the next Barbed Shot fired can increase those 2 stacks up to 4. If your pet is already at 3 stacks, it would also increase to 4. You should only be able to stack to 4 if you have the bonus of a Wild Call proc. Otherwise, same as normal, 3 stacks.
-Venomous Bite, same as above, it needs something more.
Maybe this: “The damage bonus of your next Bestial Wrath is increased by 1% for every Cobra Shot fired. And each Cobra Shot fired also causes your next Bestial Wrath to provide you with 1% Haste(the % Haste increases with every Cobra Shot).”
-Thrill of the Hunt, I guess could stay as it is. Although it should also affect your pet, not just you(currently it only benefits you as the hunter).
-Stomp, I would say is a nice idea, though I would want for it to have something like this as well: “If Stomp critically hits your primary target, then the next Basic Attack(Bite, Claw, Smack) done by your pet will be a guaranteed critical hit.”
-Aspect of the Beast, I would like this to be called something else. IMO. Something called that, I would associate it with you as the hunter, and what you do, not what your pet does.
This last point also leads me to something else. I mentioned earlier how it to me, feels like there’s something missing during longer fights as a BM hunter.
Asking myself, what do I think of when I say Beast Mastery hunter.
What comes to mind, is a mechanic we as hunters have had for the longest time.
That mechanic, is the Aspects. Now, all hunter specs have Aspects to some degree. I just would like for BM to be the spec that really embraces what it means to take on the Aspects of all the wild beasts out there.
I made a post the other day(based on my original post that was on the old forums before they were changed). This new post, describes what I would like for a true Aspect-system to be like, for BM hunters.
Here’s the link to it: Beast Mastery[Aspects!]
Note: the actual names of the suggested Aspects, aren’t set in stone.
Other links
Melee Survival suggestions: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/blizzard-gave-up-on-classes/153612/223?u=ghorak-laughing-skull
Old Survival(DoT-spec) suggestions: https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/4th-spec-pre-legion-survival-spec-fantasy/47579?u=briz-zenedar
There are only two changes I would make to BM hunter.
Increase the damage of kill command by 15-20%. It only does about 20% more damage than our pets auto cast 3 sec cd ability, yet has double the cd and requires the hunter to be in range and uses the hunters focus.
Remove the 35% dmg nerf in pvp for kill command. It’s dumb how a move where the hunter has to be in range of the target and the move takes the hunter’s focus is in the same category as your pets auto cast moves and gets slapped with a 35% nerf.
Burning Crusade would like a word.
#showtooltip Steady Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot, Auto Shot
/cast [exists,target=pettarget] Kill Command
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()There is (so much) more to a class than its rotation. Or at least that used to be true.
The rotation is what I’m doing most of the time, so it’s the most important part. No amount of flashy utility makes up for a mostly-dead damage toolkit and a one-button “rotation”.
Plus, it’s not like BC Hunters blew post-BC Hunters out of the water in terms of utility either. No Disengage leap, no camouflage, no immunity, no knockback, no Master’s Call… basically most of the cool stuff hadn’t been invented yet.
P.S. Yeah, yeah, some stuff is removed too. No baseline Scatter Shot, no Scare Beast, no Eyes of the Beast, no Readiness, no Distracting Shot, etc. The point is there is little to nothing I miss about BC. Most of my favourite Hunter gameplay elements were introduced afterwords, mainly in WotLK, Cata, and MoP. Namely the best ability in the game, Disengage (the leap version).
EDIT: My rough preference for Hunter iterations is:
MoP > WoD > Cata > WotLK > BFA > Legion > BC > Classic
WotLK is the toughest choice. There are some things I really loved about it (huge toolkit, first introduction of many iconic abilities and playstyles, ranged Survival) while there are some things I really hated and don’t miss (mana, standstill DPS, minimum range/melee). I definitely enjoyed it then more than I do BFA Hunter now, but I wouldn’t go back to it if I had the chance.
I would agree, though as far as the specs themselves go, I’m actually placing Cata as number 1.
It very much improved on the old Survival spec(as well as some class specific stuff,mana now gone being one of those).
But more importantly, Cata held the more interesting talents for Survival, if you compare it to what we got with MoP and partially even WoD.
I found the talents in MoP/WoD to not really fit the old Survival at all.
I definitely do, because with the Specializations we get pigeon-holed into a single perk. Main reason why I’m looking forward to Classic is not only the original maps and quests, but the fact that Hunters used to be both close-combat AND ranged. If you moved within x number of meters, your character would use their close-combat weapon. Back up, and you’d use your bow. Now you can choose to either be long-ranged or close-combat, not both. And how BM has really cool pets exclusive to it, but the bow attacks are boring and basic. MM is my preferred Spec due to the variety of bow attacks at my disposal. With BM, combat feels extremely passive…
And I had basically jumped from Wrath (last time I played) to BfA, so the change in how Hunters played was a huge shock to me when I re-joined last December.
I’ve been playing a Hunter for just over 10 years now (since WOTLK) And I can say that beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is the worst I have ever seen this class. When the LEgion pre-patch launched on live I was so excited! I logged onto my hunter and was immediately met with heartbreak and disappointment; the fast and exciting class that I had loved since day 1 had been replaced by a lumpy and uninteresting mess! BM was completely dependent on RNG and IMO had the absolute worst artifact in Legion, MM was so boring I would literally play it at night just to make myself sleepy and SV was just an ugly unfinished lump that absolutely no one asked for. I am convinced that the class designer(s) for Legion either absolutely hated Hunters or has never played one in their life!
The talents of Cataclysm were still in talent trees that were specific to each spec, so that makes sense. In MoP and WoD the talents were shared between all specs so you got a bit of each spec (e.g. Dire Beast, Barrage, Exotic Munitions being BM/MM/SV themed respectively)
Idd they were.
The part that I did not like.
Sure, in WoD, SV got the Exotic Munitions talent. It was okay.
But as far as the SV theme went, if remembering correctly, that munitions-talent was what we got. The rest(utility excluded), was BM/MM-focused.
Warning: mostly unstructured stream of thought ahead.
I said before that I think the Classic and TBC iterations were ultimately worse to play for me, but I don’t want to downplay how bad 7.0 was. The thing about Classic and TBC was they were good enough for the time, and there was a lot of nice utility to make up for the bare-boned, dull core playstyle. Every expansion felt like an improvement but Legion just felt like such a massive step back.
I’ll never forget the day of July 19th 2016, the launch of 7.0, because it was my worst day of WoW ever. Unlike you, I saw it coming. I followed the beta threads and saw the progress from cautious optimism to despair. Just about every single major concern was ignored. It’s like they viewed the beta as a demo of the finished product instead of a testing ground and it was evident that they couldn’t care less about Hunter feedback. You had people around saying “Stop crying! It’s not as bad as people say! It’s only beta! You’ll like it when you try it! You’ll get used to it!”. All of this was wrong. It was just as bad as the feedback suggested and almost nothing noteworthy was fixed before live. I do think it’s better NOW but it look several years and I still think it’s worse than what came before Legion.
7.0 was the first expansion systems patch I actually dreaded and on the day it came out the realisation that I was stuck with that new version of the class for at least several years made me want to quit right then and there. Both BM and MM just played awfully with maximal downtime, a ton of useful stuff was outright removed, and my favourite of the three specs was effectively deleted. People graduated from “it’s only beta, things will change” to “we don’t have our artifacts” but a) that’s not an excuse; classes should be mostly complete in their playstyle and mechanics long before max level and not be dependent on a feature that isn’t released yet and b) frankly the artifacts did not fix it.
Oh, and can we appreciate how 7.0 was when they pruned Distracting Shot and Explosive Trap knockback when they were both highly useful on very last fight of the current raid at the time, Archimonde of HFC? Boy, that was fun having to explain to my raid why I could no longer help control adds on that fight. Really added to the class fantasy, right?
While it’s generally considered meme-worthy to say the developers don’t play your class, I really do believe the people in charge of the Hunter rework had minimal experience with the class. If I hear someone say something like “BM needs time to manage its pet in its rotation” and “If you’re GCD capped then focus isn’t a concern” I would confidently say whoever said those words had no clue how the Hunter class worked, and both those things were stated by Celestalon in our class feedback threads. There are just too many decisions along the way that any person who knew the class would have avoided.
Well this is the place for that.
There is quite a lot of this that I agree with, and that is saying something.
https://wod-talent-grid-maker.appspot.com/talentgridmaker
You also have Wyvern Sting and arguably Thrill of the Hunt (was originally an SV talent) and Glaive Toss.
The 1st and 3rd tiers seem to be pretty spec-agnositc and the 5th tier is mostly BM-focused. The other tiers each have an ability on them which can be said to fit Survival.
Also, everything important from the Cata tree ended up being baseline (e.g. Improved Serpent Sting, Serpent Spread) and all the passive +damage talents were no longer necessary, so I don’t see much of a problem.
While sure, Wyvern Sting was originally a SV talent, I wouldn’t exactly call it something that enhanced the playstyle(theme) of SV in WoD. But…fair enough.
Remind me again, what was it that TotH did during WoD? It has been changed and moved so much that I can’t remember.
(Also, I should’ve probably added, that just because some talent was part of Survival in the past, does not mean that it actually catered towards the specs fantasy).
Glaive Toss is one example of this…I’m not a fan of these niche abilities that has no real tye in to your specialiazation.
(Which is part of what I don’t like about some of the current BM talents on live).
Spitting Cobra - is a masked turret. Made to look like a beast.
Barrage - no thx…
In short, Glaive Toss did nothing to enhance the playstyle of the old SV. It did not even use your ranged weapon. You have a gun/bow, why throw a glaive?
Again, depends on what you mean by ‘fit’.
I was looking more at how the talents in Cata were more focused on enhancing the playstyle of your current spec, in general.
I always thought that this is what talents should do for you.
Granted that some might’ve preferred the more…general, approach we got with MoP/WoD.
This is something I also like with the current talent-system. That talents are focused on your current spec.
Having said that, some(a lot) talents we got, needs improving still. But the system(focus) in itself, I like.
If you look at my proposed design for ranged SV here: https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/4th-spec-pre-legion-survival-spec-fantasy/47579?u=briz-zenedar
You see in the talent-section that there are very few abilities you can get from there.
Essentially, there is only Dire Frenzy and Resourcefulness that are on that level.
Dire Frenzy - is meant to be a change of pace(alternative focus spender to your quick shot) for those who would not want as much focus on DoTs as the other 2 talents on that row has. It’s also meant to help you with solo stuff(pet utility + threat).
If people don’t like the name as it used to be a BM-talent, we can just change it…
Resourcefulness is meant to focus on your traps and how you decide to use them. IMO, it’s a fun(and new) way to add in some extra utility to the class as well.
ah, tol barad. those are some good pvp memories!