Beast Mastery - future improvements[Partial rework]

Ghorak-laughing-skull · February 26, 2021, 6:13pm

I know this is a big overkill in terms of suggestions for a 0.5 patch(any mid-expansion patch really). But I though I’d take another look at what I would like to see from Beast Mastery in the future, based on it’s current design.

Some things, such as a lack of potential single-target burst, cleave, or burst AoE/AoE in general, have been mentioned by others in regards to the spec several times both recently and further back in time. Along with the “squishy” nature of Hunters. Hopefully, some of the things mentioned below can address those issues.

Remember that any specific numbers written are just there to give context/further the concept. Obviously some testing/tuning would be required to make it work in-game.

Bullet point-version/list of changes

Core Abilities

Reduce the Focus cost of Kill Command by 5 for each enemy you hit with Multi-Shot.
Make A Murder of Crows into a baseline ability for this spec(BM). Same base funcionality/design(more options through talents).

Major Cooldown

Add a Focus cost-reduction to other abilities during BW, when it’s active. Similar to the Legion-lego effect(Roar of the Seven Lions).
Remove Aspect of the Wild entirely.

Mastery Bonus

Make Mastery slightly more effective by adding a scaling component for the damage bonus granted by Bestial Wrath. See the full concept link below for specifics.

Passive Effects

Make Animal Companion a passive choice for us, one that does not affect our damage but rather is just a cosmetic option. Again, see the full concept for specifics.
Extend the duration of Beast Cleave from 4 sec up to 5, to allow for some leeway in terms of maintenance and ability usage.
Make Kill Command benefit from Beast Cleave, dealing reduced damage to nearby enemies.
Increase the proc chance of Wild Call from 20% up to 25%.

Utility & Defensives (Class-wide)

[Posthaste] - Should become a baseline effect.
[Master’s Call] - Should be reverted back to a baseline ability.
[Pet Specializations] - Make Ferocity, Tenacity, and Cunning changeable for individual pets again, like it worked in Legion.
[Revive Pet] - Preferably, reduce the cast time down to 2 seconds again.
[Camouflage] - Should be reverted back to a baseline ability.

This section also includes some changes to talents that focus on utility. See the full concept below for specifics.

Talents

Change BM talents, in addition to what’s mentioned above, in several ways to allow for more interesting and impactful choices to be possible. Some talents are more or less useless and have been so for a very long time.
This section covers changes/replacements to multiple talents so check the talent-section of the full concept below for details.

Core Abilities

[Cobra Shot] - 35 Focus - Instant cast
A quick shot causing X Physical damage.
Reduces the cooldown of Kill Command by 1 sec.

[Kill Command] - 30 Focus - Instant cast - 7.5 sec cooldown
Give the command to kill, causing your pet to savagely deal X Physical damage to the enemy.

[Barbed Shot] - Instant cast - 12 sec recharge - 2 Charges
Fire a shot that tears through your enemy, causing them to bleed for X damage over 8 sec.

Sends your pet into a frenzy, increasing attack speed by 30% for 8 sec, stacking up to 3 times.

Generates 20 Focus over 8 sec.

[Multi-Shot] - 40 Focus - Instant cast
Fires several missiles, hitting up to 5 targets within 8 yards of your current target for X Physical damage.

The Focus cost of your next Kill Command is reduced by 5 for each enemy you hit with Multi-Shot.

Casting Multi-Shot activates Beast Cleave(Passive)

[A Murder of Crows] - 30 Focus - Instant cast - 1 min cooldown
Summons a flock of crows to attack your target, dealing X Physical damage over 20 sec.

If the target dies while under attack, A Murder of Crows’ cooldown is reset.

Class-wide abilities

[Kill Shot] - 10 Focus - Instant cast - 10 sec recharge - 1 Charges
You attempt to finish off a wounded target, dealing X Physical damage.
Only usable on enemies with less than 20% health.

Major Cooldown

[Bestial Wrath] - Instant - 1.5 min cooldown
Sends you and your pet into a rage, instantly dealing X Physical damage to its target, and increasing all damage you both deal by 25% for 20 sec.

Bestial Wrath’s remaining cooldown is reduced by 12 sec each time you use Barbed Shot/Dire Beast.

The Focus cost of all abilities is reduced by X% while Bestial Wrath is active.

Mastery

[Mastery: Master of Beasts] - Increases the damage done by your pets and summoned creatures by X%, and the damage bonus of Bestial Wrath by Y%.

Passive Effects

[Animal Companion] - You may call 1 additional pet to fight for you at all times. The second pet will obey your Kill Command, but cannot use pet family abilities.

If you have two active pets, they both use the same damaging abilities and benefit from the same effects but they only deal 50% of normal damage(each).

Only using 1 pet instead causes that pet to deal 100% of normal damage.

[Beast Cleave] - After you Multi-Shot, your pet’s melee attacks and Kill Command also strike up to 5 other nearby enemy targets for 75% as much for the next 5 sec.

[Exotic Beasts] - You master the art of beast training, teaching you the ability to tame Exotic pets.

[Kindred Spirits] - Increases your maximum Focus and your pet’s maximum Focus by 20.

[Pack Tactics] - Passive Focus generation increased by 100%.

[Wild Call] - Your Auto Shot critical strikes have a 25% chance to reset the cooldown of Barbed Shot/Dire Beast.

Utility/defensives

Includes all other abilities, such as [Tar Trap][Frost Trap][Aspect of the Turtle][Concussive Shot][Counter Shot][Tranquilizing Shot][Misdirection][Pet Utility][Exhilaration][Disengage][Feign Death], and more.

Note that I would prefer if(on a class-wide basis)

[Posthaste] - becomes a baseline effect.

[Master’s Call] - comes back as a baseline ability.

[Pet Specializations] - Ferocity, Tenacity, and Cunning were changeable.

[Revive Pet] - Cast time brought down to 2 seconds again.

[Camouflage] - comes back as a baseline ability.

Talents

– Level 15 –

[Killer Instinct] - Kill Command deals 45% increased damage against enemies below 35% health.

Kill Command deals an additional 10% damage against bleeding targets.

[Bloodshed] - 50 yd range - Instant - 1 min cooldown
Command your pet(s) to tear into your target, causing your target to bleed for X damage over 18 sec, and increase all damage taken from your pet(s) by 15% for 18 sec.

[Dire Beast] - (Replaces Barbed Shot) - Instant - 12 sec recharge - 2 Charges
Summons a powerful wild beast that attacks the target for 8 sec.

Generates 20 Focus over 8 sec.

– Level 25 –

[Scent of Blood] - Activating Bestial Wrath grants 2 charges of Barbed Shot/Dire Beast.

[One with the Pack] - Wild Call has a 20% increased chance to reset the cooldown of Barbed Shot/Dire Beast.

Using Barbed Shot/Dire Beast increases your Haste by 5% for 12 sec.

[Feeding Frenzy] - Damage dealt by Barbed Shot is increased by X%. When the periodic damage effect applied by Barbed Shot is refreshed, the remaining damage will be added to the new effect, and it now lasts for a total of 9 sec.

In addition, Frenzy’s duration is also increased to 9 seconds.

Dire Frenzy(Requires talent: Dire Beast)
Each time a Dire Beast is called, the damage dealt by your main pet(s) is increased by 1%.
When you activate Bestial Wrath, this consumes all stacks of Dire Frenzy and increases the initial damage dealt by Bestial Wrath by 50% for each stack that is consumed.

– Level 30 –

[Trailblazer] - [Natural Mending]

[Bestial Dicipline] - While your pet is active, you and your pet(s) regenerate X% of total health every 3 sec. Healing done to you and your pet(s) is increased by X%.

Damage taken by your pet(s) is reduced by 15%

– Level 35 --

[Spitting Cobra] - Bestial Wrath also summons a Spitting Cobra to aid you in combat for 15 sec. Each Cobra Shot used during Bestial Wrath extends the remaining duration of the Spitting Cobra by 1 sec.

[Thrill of the Hunt] - Barbed Shot/Dire Beast reduces the remaining cooldown of Bestial Wrath by an additional 4 sec.

Barbed Shot/Dire Beast increases your critical strike chance by 5% for 12 seconds.

[Birds of Prey] - Kill Command extends the remaining duration of A Murder of Crows by 2 sec.

Damage of A Murder of Crows is increased by X%.

– Level 40 –

[Born to be Wild] - [Binding Shot]

[Adaptation] - (Replaces Posthaste) Getting hit with an incapacitating effect(Stun/Fear), reduces the remaining cooldown of your Aspect of the Turtle by 30%. This effect has an internal cooldown of X sec.

Aspect of the Turtle is now usable when incapacitated.

When rooted or slowed, the remaining cooldown of Aspect of the Cheetah is reduced by 15 seconds. Aspect of the Cheetah frees you from movement impairing effects and you cannot be slowed below 100% movement speed while it’s active.

– Level 45 –

[Stomp] - When you cast Barbed Shot/Dire Beast, your pet stomps the ground, dealing X Physical damage to all nearby enemies.

[Chimaera Shot] - Instant cast - 15 sec cooldown
A two-headed shot that hits your primary target and another nearby target, dealing X Nature damage to one and X Frost damage to the other.

Generates 10 Focus for each target hit.

[Talon Frenzy] - While Beast Cleave is active, A Murder of Crows affects up to 8 enemies near the primary target.

– Level 50 –

[Aspect of the Beast] - Increases the damage and healing of your pet’s abilities by 30%.

Increases the effectiveness of your pet’s Predator’s Thirst, Endurance Training, and Pathfinding passives by 50%.

[Stampede] - Instant cast - 30 sec duration - 2 min cooldown
Summons 5 of your stabled pets to fight for you for 30 sec. These pets deal X% of normal damage and obey your Kill Command.

Pets summoned by Stampede heal themselves for 200% of the damage they deal.

[Unleashed Fury] - Instant cast - 20 sec cooldown
Sends your pet into a rage, causing it to deal X Physical damage to the target in a flurry of 5 attacks. Damage dealt is increased by X% for every stack of Frenzy the pet currently has.

When this ability is used, your pet lets out a savage roar, increasing your haste by 10% for 12 sec.

Bestial Fury(Requires talent: Dire Beast)
Damage dealt by Dire Beasts during Bestial Wrath is increased by another X%.
Any Dire Beasts called during Bestial Wrath will have their duration increased by an additonal X sec. This also applies to Dire Beasts who have already been called to fight when Bestial Wrath is activated. Attacks made by Dire Beasts will now also benefit from Beast Cleave, if activated.

Changelog

2021-02-27

Changed the design of the Mastery-effect to no longer include Beast Cleave and instead now also provides a benefit to non pet-based attacks.
Increased the base duration of Beast Cleave from 4 sec, up to 5.
Increased the duration of the crit bonus effect gained from Thrill of the Hunt from 8 sec. up to 12.
Talent: Barrage, has been removed and the talent: Chimaera Shot has taken it’s place/moved there. Purpose was for cleaving-capabilities and choices for such, to be made in relation to choices for AoE.
The talent: Feeding Frenzy, has taken the place of Chimaera Shot on the second row. The intent is for that entire row to be focused on Frenzy-maintenance/Dire Beast-management.

2021-03-02

Changed the Mastery-effect. It no longer includes a variable bonus to the Wild Call proc chance. It now instead has a secondary effect focused on improving Bestial Wrath.
The base proc-chance of Wild Call has been increased to 25%, up from 20%.
Talent choices on the level 50-row no longer include passive effects tied to healing taken/self-sustainability by you or your pet(s).
Changed the design of the talent: Adaption slightly, lowered the CDR for Aspect of the Turtle to 30%, down from 40%. Also clarified that it should have an internal cooldown on proccing the effect.
Talent: Bestial Dicipline has been moved from the level 50-row to 30, and it has been redesigned to focus solely on self-sustainability.
Added a new talent to the level 50-row in the form of Unleashed Fury.

Vitwolfen-nazjatar · February 27, 2021, 4:26am

Sorry for the lack of quote boxes to organize my thoughts here — typing this up between shifts.

Any ideas on what you want to do with the pet specializations (especially, their exclusive ability/abilities)?
- Sadistic, I know, but I kind of wish a Cunning-type bird could steal an enemy’s trinket or grab onto and reduce the efficacy of their weapon for up to a few seconds…
  — I want to see more potent and unique skills coming out of our pets, at least from Beastmaster, even if (or, ideally in that) those follow talent choices rather than pet families.

If AMoC weren’t so difficult to balance against competing choices, would you have still made it baseline? What, to you, is its gameplay appeal? I.e., what makes it worth having as a button for everyone, even those players who likely might not want a further on-GCD kill-snipe mechanic.

If you could go all out on this, rather than limiting yourself to a more reasonable number of changes, would you have still kept talents without any gameplay effects—e.g., Aspect of the Beast?

There remain a number of minor technical issues among the unchanged talents, such as Stomp sometimes bugging out or being too early to benefit from the pet’s automatic charge to an enemy’s position? Would any of these be addressed or left as is?

Can Talon Frenzy benefit from deaths across any of the enemies it strikes, or still just the primary target? If the primary target dies, do the cleaved instances of its DoT-aura instantly end as well? (I imagine this could make for a powerful, but often frustrating, interaction in MT.)

I feel like if Revive Pet is going to have as low a cast time as 2 seconds, it should perhaps revive the pet at a bit less HP?

And… that’s about it for now.

Vecarry-velen · February 27, 2021, 7:36am

I have to say, I really love your formatting. So readable.

Ghorak-laughing-skull · February 27, 2021, 11:04am

Appreciate the feedback @Vit !

Hopefully I answered some of it^^

Haven’t thought much about changing any abilities for either the specs nor the individual family types.

The specific elements which I’m referring to are:

[Ferocity]

Gives you/your pet some passive Leech.
Allows you to make use of the ability Primal Rage(lust).

[Tenacity]

Gives you and your pet some passive health.
Allows you to make use of a small DR(Survival of the Fittest)

[Cunning]

Gives you and your pet some passive movement speed.
Allows you to use Master’s Call(which I want to turn into a baseline ability again) to free you from roots/slows etc.

In short, no matter what pet we called out in Legion, we were able to switch between these 3 specializations. They don’t really have much to do with individual pet families but when locking them in, they severely limited our capability to play with whatever pets we wanted(based on performance and usefulness).

I did briefly consider some design where we as BM, if we go with using 2 permanent pets, we would be able to make use of the family abilities tied to both pets.

But I decided not to go through with including that as, well, many players don’t want to rely on 2 pets. Especially in content like PvP, where it would be more or less required for the added utility.

Yes.

On it’s own, it’s a fairly simple press-once-a-minute ability with a little something extra to manage, if you so wish, if you’re fighting low-health/weaker targets.

Having the option to further extend it’s duration, making it easier to manage for multi-target chain usage, or the option to make it a priority for AoE…

It’s ofc not the only way to go about it, but it’s IMO a somewhat interesting way to address certain issues with the spec. Not to mention how well it fits the theme(again, IMO).

To a certain degree, yes.

If you ask me, the best talents are the ones who aren’t actual abilities added to your action bars, but rather talents that are in themselves passive effects. But the effects do impact your choices made in combat, they can have an impact on what abilities you use, and when.

At the same time, there are those who don’t want everything to change what is there by default. So, with that in mind, having some talents that are entirely passive, is okay in my book.

This concept is only meant to allow for players to make more impactful choices in terms of gameplay and thematical preferences.

No matter what I propose/suggest, I ofc want glitches/bugs to be fixed.

What I did with Animal Companion should fix the issues with that hidden 35% deficit aura for other pets/guardians.

Stomp, as an example, not working correctly isn’t really something I can fix in a concept such as this, other than flat out removing the talent. But ofc the issues with it should be fixed. No matter whether these proposed changes are implemented or not.

The on-death reset mechanic should only be tied to the primary target. Having said that, with some reservations in mind, I do hope it’s possible to design it so the cleave effect lasts the duration of the currently active Beast Cleave buff.

Don’t think of it as multiple AmoC-DoTs being applied, but closer to something like what ground-based AoE-effects(like Earthquake for Shamans) do. This one would ofc last a minimum of 20 seconds which might not be all that fun when enemies move away. So, the upside here is that the primary DoT is placed onto a target which means if the pack of mobs you’re fighting moves, they won’t be able to move out of it, assuming they are kept together.

I haven’t mentioned how large of an area the AoE-component of the DoT should be able to cover. Mostly because I’m not sure. But considering it’s not based on actual pet attacks, but flying birds, I would suggest that it should be somewhat wider than Beast Cleave(which is…what…12 yards?).

I know this is not an exact match in comparison but…

When melee-weapon based classes/specs get disarmed, do they have to spend X seconds casting(interruptable) to get it back? When it does come back, does it come back broken(and has to be repaired in order to do full damage/not soon break again)?

The advantages gained from using pets as hunters, compared to a class/spec which doesn’t, are fairly small compared to the disadvantages.

…are essentially my thoughts on this matter.

Vitwolfen-nazjatar · February 27, 2021, 11:37am

If Master’s Call becomes a/the baseline again (and is that in the sense of it’s available even without the pet out, in place of Survival of the Fittest, or we get both and there’s a further new Cunning skill?), what goes in its spot?

To be clear, I’m not conflating “passive” with “without any gameplay effects”. Indeed, I’d never even thought of passive vs. active when asking that question.

Talon Frenzy, for instance, is a passive, but provides an, albeit obvious, addition to gameplay. It changes something you do. Same with Killer Cobra, in terms of timing, or Scent of Blood, in terms of “do-nots” or sequencing.

Aspect of the Beast and Thrill of the Hunt, on the other hand, do not change anything from what you’d normally do. They do not affect playflow in any way, only capacity.

Personally, my general goal with any big design concept is to include as much interesting (i.e., accessible yet deeply nuance-capable gameplay) playflow effects/choices as possible with as few buttons as can be smartly done (my ideal usually being around 24 total buttons not including pots, etc.). Passives (or at least those that affect gameplay, playflow, the way the spec’s main concerns are pictured and how they interact, or its ‘win conditions’) will obviously be a huge part of that.

That’s fair. Perhaps my scales here tipped too greatly according to imagined strengths per what I’d want to see from BM, as opposed to what exists currently or has been suggested here.

That said, I still caution towards gradualism in certain of these respects, as 2 seconds to revive, say, a 28k HP pet is, essentially, windows of 14k HPS useable to toss out at mobs and sac on tankbusters as often as that 35 Focus is available (already a far smaller concern on BMs). Add that atop Thick Skin and BM Hunters become obligatory in high-key M+ just for their pressure-swaps against key mobs. The PvE implications of this would have to be considered as well.

tl;dr: I feel like something else would probably need to be included here to keep it from getting out of hand.

Ghorak-laughing-skull · February 27, 2021, 12:21pm

Edit:

I’ve changed the design of the Mastery-effect seen above. It no longer includes Beast Cleave + now affect the damage we deal as well as our pets.

No. You can’t call a pet to you if you don’t have a pet(within the scope of the thematic design of the ability).

Got a suggestion?

The old TotH(what we have on live), does change your gameplay flow. It doesn’t necessarily change your priorities that much, but it impacts what buttons you can press.

I do however think that the current design of TotH, where it just gives you passive crit, is a bit…meh.

Again, considering the theme of the talent, I felt that the new design of it which is based on the old T19(Nighthold) BM set bonus, is much more interesting. Especially as it can be utilized differently depending on whether you use Barbed Shot/Frenzy or if you go for Dire Beast.

Note: Changed the buff duration of the crit component of TotH from 8 sec. up to 12. I meant to do this initially but forgot

While I’m not as focused on the number of buttons you need to include, my main goal is to have a base/core with enough depth and interactions to it to make it interesting to play with, without there being too much from an early point.

I want that core to be more or less what you can play around with, and I want talents to mostly affect that core, rather than adding entirely new abilities to said core. Having a select few optional ones you can add is ofc okay, but compared to now where we can get around 6 additional buttons added(on top of for example the Burning Embers-lego, which includes another 2 abilities for damage. And on top of trinkets or other on-use effects) to our action bars, from talents alone, is IMO not the best way to design a spec.

By that, I mean how every single talent row have options for adding more abilities. If 1 row contains multiple choices of abilities that you can pick between(pick 1 of to play with), this is more in line with the above.

Well, obviously I don’t want it to get out of hand, and thus numbers are ofc subject to change.

Having said that, if for example Thick Skin is enough to offset certain issues we have with pet survivability then, perhaps Revive Pet doesn’t need to have it’s cast time lowered any further.

Vitwolfen-nazjatar · February 28, 2021, 5:33pm

Wait, so it just affects 100% of our damage (minus trinkets)? Wouldn’t the scaling have to be nerfed for that, thus just making it Versatility, but more boring?

We’ve the 6th best Mastery scaling in the game already for sustained AoE damage, iirc, behind just Marksmanship, Arms, Unholy, Assassination, and Affliction.

I don’t think it’d necessarily be a bad idea to have Mastery start a bit higher and BM to, say, double the effect of your Mastery and make it apply also to your own attacks (harkening back to the likes of Beast Within) and retune it accordingly so it provides more (and cooler) burst opportunity, but… Mastery doesn’t seem an actual issue at present.

If this were Survival (for whom Mastery is worth only less than half as much as on BM in ST and is somehow even worse in AoE), yeah, I’d be going after Mastery asap. But alas.

My point was more that you could as easily be planning to rename the ability and just making its capacity baseline. Understood now.

Sorry, I should have specified that I was referring to the old one.

On that note, though, I have to disagree. While the added Crit chance technically increases your chances at more Barbed Shots, it’s just not enough to be noticeable or to really change when you’d use your Barbed Shots.

Tbf, at least it’s a matter tuning, rather than the overcomplicated mess my last take on Mend/Revive/Pet Durability amounted to.

It was essentially three-pronged, between a return of an old baseline (sort of), a bit of pet QoL without making them outright tanks, and a combination of Mend Pet and Revive Pet together:

Spirit Bond (Passive) – You and your pet heal for 1% of your combined HP every second, split between you. The lower health among you gets a proportionately larger share of the healing.
Will to Survive (Passive) – Your pet delays damage taken, based on its Agility, taking it instead over 5 seconds, and would-be fatal damage instead knocks your pet unconscious, becoming invulnerable. Your pet will revived if healed for more than 30% of its HP in excess of overkill and delayed damage, but healing received by sources other than its master are greatly reduced* in this state.
Spirit Bond (Active) – Spend Focus over time to greatly increase* the effect of Spirit Bond and cause it to siphon health from the healthier of you or your pet to heal the other at a rate based on the difference in your health.
- Asterisk-marked (currently qualitative) values obviously TBD.
- Yes, this also meant healers could revive your pet in combat, but Spirit Bond itself was generally sufficient for rapid pet revival unless a Warrior really had it out for your puppy with an over-the-top Execute crit.
- The main reason for counting the fatal damage against healing necessary to rez the pet is — you guessed it — preventing the healer from simply HoTing the both of you and spamming the constantly-rezzed pet into tankbusters.

Honestly, not really.

Every time I think of something, somewhere else in my brain reminds me that I’d really just rather see pet-specific talent choices than pet specializations.

A Vulture, for instance, might take Scavenger’s Inevitability, a passive which generates, with time spent in combat against the vulture, increased damage taken based on missing %HP. Alongside this one would maybe have access to, perhaps, Voracious Kettle, Callous Committee, and Condor’s Wake (too many references to the group names of vultures?), alongside slightly more generic choices like, idk… Winged Menace (steal a weapon, shield, or trinket from the enemy, preventing of their certain actions) and Tear Tendons (a snare, ofc).

I can spitball their effects if you like, but the point here would be that their capacities are all found among other pet families (even if not among every family), but the unique names are at least fun and quirky, and by only taking 2 or 3 among those choices beyond the generic Dash/Dive or Bite/Claw/Smack there’s still plenty of freedom by which to pick a pet aesthetic you like.

A Wolf — bring back Furious Howl for a faintly stronger than average (when well managed) PvE feature (especially for bursty MM) via a brief AP bonus window for oneself, another Howl as a very short AoE snare, etc., etc. Certain Cats, Raptors (the non-winged kind), and Apes, etc., might have that prior capacity, too, but still it’d just feel so rightly iconic to give it its name.

In the end, you’d still only have a dozen or so capacities, by which names you’d actually discuss these skills, but the in-game flavor would just be so much better, imo.

If I had to choose, though, I’d just revise the Ferocity/Cunning/Tenacity skills to Sic’, Harry, and Guard, respectively.

Sic’ = damage, somehow someway. TBD. Long enough and low enough in potency of a CD to feel more like utility than mere throughput.

Harry = snare and slow an enemy, fading over 4 seconds, OR free target ally from roots and snares and cause them to move at a minimum of your pet’s normal speed for 4 seconds.

Guard = intercept a portion of damage and status effects to be dealt to target ally while taking 25% less damage and duration from status effects for 4 seconds.

Bundle Survival of the Fittest into baseline, add a new Horn of the Hunt in place of Primal Rage, and

Ghorak-laughing-skull · March 1, 2021, 8:24am

If you check the OP, you can see that the Mastery has 2 separate values, one for our pet-based damage, and 1 for our(the hunter’s) damage.

The intention is that those have different formulas for scaling, so that they scale individually.

I would say that the issue with Mastery for BM isn’t how it scales for AoE, as much as it’s a problem for ST. Or barely even that really…
The issue is that BM gets nothing from Mastery towards for example Covenant abilities, like FS/DC. And since the hunter does proportionally more damage himself/herself now compared to for example Legion, it tends to devalue Mastery as it doesn’t affect the damage we do. Especially considering how much of our damage comes from Cobra Shot, again, as an example.

Do I want this to boost Mastery-values by miles? No, not at all. But I want us to benefit from it for our own attacks more than what we do currently.

Also, if you check that Mastery-effect again, my suggestion is also to give it a secondary bonus effect, in improving Wild Call, based on Mastery.

There are ofc other things that can be done to Mastery as well. Any suggestions?

Ah, no that wasn’t the intent

To me it’s more about how it doesn’t make sense that you’re only able to call back some of your pets, but not all, to help you out if needed. Meaning: only Cunning pets.

I’m not saying that it vastly changes how we play, ofc not.

I guess this would depend on what we’re after when it comes to how talents impact our gameplay and playflow.

But yeah, either way, hopefully that new one could turn out better. I know that I myself very much enjoyed the set bonus in Nighthold. All that uptime of BW was a lot of fun.

The result would essentially, hopefully, be less downtime(due to the element of lowered Focus-cost to abilities during BW) and ofc more damage.

And yes, I’m aware of how we don’t have anywhere near the same degree of downtime nowadays as we did back then. But still…

Hmm…

Yeah, sounds a bit complicated(IMO).

But…yeah…with the recent 20% buff to pet survivability, and if a version of the above 25(?)% passive DR is enough, then perhaps there’s no need to reduce the cast time of Revive any further.

Yeah, I would be up for something like that as well.

Details TBD ofc.

Vitwolfen-nazjatar · March 1, 2021, 10:22am

Tbf, neither does Survival, on any of the Cov Skills (come 9.0.5, even Flayed Shot’s Kill Shots are removed from its Mastery effects due to becoming Focus-free, while DC, WS, and RA have always been without Mastery effect as they’re not spenders).

I have to wonder if it might just be better to take Covenant skills out of any Mastery effects altogether… Not exactly a satisfying solution, but a better one than making any Mastery truly effect everything (no matter its scaling).

:: Now, if we could, say, make it so Death Chakrams truly AoE-scaled (even if not as well as WF or RA’s inherited scaling) and triggered an instance of Trick Shots, continuously reprocced Beast Cleave (across its bounces), and reduced the CD of WFB per hit as per Carve… that’d be more satisfying than either end of that false dilemma.

Ahh, I didn’t see/notice that bit last time.

As to the ST vs. AoE value of Mastery, though, consider:
— If Kill Command becomes Beast Cleave-capable, that improves the value of Cobra, which means you no longer need to have Multi-Shot hit like extra fine noodles just to leave any place for Cobra past 2-3 targets.

Buff the Multi-Shot damage a bit, reduce the cleave portion, and buff Kill Command itself.

Now, you needn’t feel like your shots are there just to activate a mechanic (e.g. remind your pet that he can swing his claws horizontally, only so he can forget again 4 seconds later), and you’ve far more agency in the timing of that damage, all while feeling far more punchy around your thematic center (Kill Command)!

Put more simply, the same things that’d make Mastery less awkward or shrink its AoE gap would be positive changes both for BM’s capacity and playflow anyways.

We should start there. If it needs more spice thereafter, buffing the BW modifier or Wild Call chance (though that’d be a bit redundant with just gearing Critical Strike unless you had ways of guaranteeing said crits) seem good avenues.

The only defense I can give is that I was trying to also solve the pet survivability issue (and NOT make it overpowered via disposable lives) and provide a thematic sustain niche. The three purposes just happened to be best done as an interwoven design. (Much like how I’d probably handle Camouflage, Trailblazer, and Sniper Training together in a revised MM.)

Ghorak-laughing-skull · March 1, 2021, 11:49am

As far as I can tell, the only spec to have a Mastery-effect which improves WS is Marksmanship.

Same thing with Death Chakram

For Flayed Shot, both MM and SV’s Mastery-effects improve it. BM? Not so much.

For 9.0.5, like you said, Kill Shots from FS will no longer cost Focus, although that doesn’t stop them from including said abilities within the modifiers anyway, if they so desire.

And also…

Afaik, MM’s Mastery will still improve the damage of Kill Shots generated by FS, despite the removal of the Focus cost. Because that one is a flat “increase to damage of all abilities”.

So unless something is done Class-wide there, I don’t see how 9.0.5 will improve much of anything on that front.

Anyway…

Either Covenant abilities should benefit from Mastery for all specs, or none.

Agreed.

If you mean with the CDR-effect, sure. Albeit indirectly and that still only sort of solves the issue with 1 specific ability.

For Kill Command specifically, sure.

For Multi-Shot? I’m inclined to disagree. Wouldn’t that risk us having to spam Multi-Shot for the sake of more AoE-damage?

The thing is, with Beast Cleave as it is right now, and even with Kill Command being included along with if you spec for AmoC to do AoE-damage as well, we still wouldn’t beat the top specs on AoE. We would climb the ranks for sure, but that’s about it.

And again, I would say that it’s more a case of making the gameplay surrounding AoE for BM more engaging. If numbers have to be adjusted in the process, then so be it.

If you consider the changes to secondaries in this expansion, I would say that we need a way to further up the proc rate of Wild Call, other than Crit. We saw that mid-way through Legion. The spec felt very fluid once you reached higher numbers of crit(combined with the OwtP-talent). But now we can’t reach those numbers anymore, not even close.

Vitwolfen-nazjatar · March 1, 2021, 11:58am

For now. I mentioned all this only because a build of the PTR notes mentioned the procced Kill Shots being free, which (while appearing a buff) would actually reduce FS’s SV damage even further. Such is the knife’s edge here.

Ranged ones, which then happens to be basically everything for MM, yep. The weird part to me, though, is Wild Spirits is considered “ranged”, but conceptually… shouldn’t be. You shoot a ranged attack into the field, true, but the field itself (or, the Wild Spirits therein) responds to create its damage. If anything, that’d be at least as arguably a ‘pet’ or “summoned creature” skill.

Not so long as you make KC sufficiently worthwhile such that CB’s value is more a matter of KC CDR — not so far as the present MS is only valued for BC, but nearer that.

And again, I would say making KC and all its synergies part of AoE would help with making AoE gameplay more engaging.

Fair enough, but… wouldn’t the easiest solution, then, to give back some of that fluidity be to just increase Wild Call’s chance from 20% to 25% per AA crit and scale back the most recent damage aura buff as needed to compensate? You don’t need to muddy another stat to make an effect end up less lackluster. You just… make the effect less lackluster.

Ghorak-laughing-skull · March 1, 2021, 12:22pm

Yeah.

So, how comes BM’s Mastery doesn’t affect it…it says “pet damage”

Jokes aside…

Sorry if I missed your point, but I meant “spam Multi-Shot inbetween Kill Commands for the most damage, and avoid CS altogether during AoE”

That it would yes. Enough? Hmm…

But, it wouldn’t exactly provide us with that much more burst potential. More than we have now ofc, but still, not all that much.

My goal with AmoC and the AoE-component tied to it was to give us a proper ability intended for burst AoE.
Same as the above…alone, AmoC wouldn’t be that massive, but in combination with Beast Cleave+KCs, that would amount to quite a bit of burst.

On the AoE-row, you now have choices of unlimited AoE(Stomp), advantage for ST and sustained on big packs(although a rarity).

Cleave(Chimaera Shot), top choice for sustained cleave, but decent ST.

Short(er) window-/target cap-AoE(Talon Frenzy). Very good for multi-target burst overall.

Assuming numbers are tuned correctly ofc…

Sure, but how would you propose making Mastery somewhat more attractive as a secondary stat then? For BM.

Because as it is right now, it will never reach a proportional value higher than where it already is.

Vitwolfen-nazjatar · March 1, 2021, 5:09pm

Probably just a Bestial Wrath modifier. Avoid quadratic scaling, though, e.g., increases the damage bonus of your Bestial Wrath by X% and the damage of your pets and summoned creatures outside of Bestial Wrath by Y%.

Some quadratics on Haste or Crit are okay, but you have to keep in mind that the other stats already benefit indirectly from those quadratic scalars. Making the other stats likewise quadratic to compete just forces the spec, then, to be under tuned until near the expansion’s final tier to compensate.

Again, though, I think BM Mastery, on average across various fights, is fine. It’s more a matter of polish than anything urgent, and even then really just a matter of tightening it’s performance gap across different situations and perhaps making it a bit more visibly powerful (without making it any better in sustain). I feel MM Mastery (the best dps value per stat point in the game) is overturned. BM is very near, I feel, to where Masteries should be. (And if it’s ST performance were improved without quite overtaking all other stats in ST it would be that perfect litmus.)

Heffner-kul-tiras · March 1, 2021, 5:50pm

First things first… rename Kill Command and Kill Shot to Slightly Inconvenience the Target Command/Shot.

Ghorak-laughing-skull · March 1, 2021, 7:51pm

Hopefully I understood what you meant with this.

You essentially don’t want it to be a flat damage increase but want the additional effect to be designed around some other way of upping our throughput?

Or was it specifically the part of how you have different factors of scaling/variables that depend on, in this case, Bestial Wrath being active or not?

I think we have to recap this a bit(sorry )

Looking at my proposed design below, what is it that you have a problem with, specifically(and why is it a big enough deal to matter)?

Ghorak-laughing-skull · March 1, 2021, 7:56pm

Well, I would be satisfied if they took away some of the damage dealt by Cobra Shots and put that into Kill Command instead.

As for Kill Shot, it doesn’t do a whole lot of damage no. If, as an example, we get something like the changes to the Mastery for BM that I mentioned above, then that at least makes Kill Shot scale a bit better for us as we pick up more gear.

Vitwolfen-nazjatar · March 2, 2021, 12:45am

If by flat you mean nearly universal, then yes. I don’t want it to be a trinket-less, defenseless Vers, but do want it to improve our thematic burst (such that it synergizes with the quadratics from crit — via TotH, etc — and Haste, via Haste-increasing talents the proc rates of which increase with base Haste) without being redundant with either. Don’t make it our way out of too little secondary stat this expansion, but do let it capitalize upon the rest.

The quadratics in the Mastery itself is like the difference between as affecting both pet damage and Bestial Wrath’s multiplier (such that you really have the pet damage bonus times the Bestial Wrath bonus during BW, making the pet more powerful, and Mastery to provide increasingly more value over its stat amount, than intended).

Kill Command should be buffed enough baseline not to require such multiplicity in Mastery itself (which would otherwise still be too little until some stat value outside BM and some other stat value within BM, largely to compensate for being overpowered later on) to feel appropriately powerful. Wild Call, likewise, should be high enough a proc chance to feel fluid about the same time as it did in Legion despite the lower secondary stat values.

Galavant-frostmourne · March 2, 2021, 1:54am

that level 50 row is mental lol

Ghorak-laughing-skull · March 2, 2021, 7:40am

Meaning?

Ghorak-laughing-skull · March 2, 2021, 8:06am

Could you provide an example of what the Mastery-effect would/could look like with this in mind?

I would agree on Kill Command, I haven’t included many changes for it in the proposed concept as I don’t think that it is in a particularly bad state. I did make a slight adjustment with the Killer Instinct-talent, although still with the primary focus of being execute-oriented. Again, specific numbers TBD.

I would say that they should take some of the damage dealt by Cobra Shot atm, and move that to Kill Command(proportionally).

As for Wild Call, atm it does feel somewhat decent, although that’s purely because of the talent Scent of Blood(IMO), and how it synergizes with BW.

I’ve included it to benefit from Mastery, and in specific talent-designs that focus on making it easier to manage Frenzy uptime/BW management for that reason, how it does feel somewhat lackluster if Scent is not picked.

Can one argue that it should be adjusted to feel better/play better by default, perhaps. Although I find the approach to it through talents to be fine as well.

Hopefully the things I said make sense😃