The balance now at 25 honestly does not matter too much, as long as things can perform well enough in raids and nothing is broken then it’s fine. There was never good class balance in classic wow for pvp anyways, it’s always been rock paper scissors and that meta is shifting. The balance at 60 matters a lot more and we still have yet to see the runes that will come later and possibly new tier sets and anything other additions to affect gameplay. I’m 100% certain they wouldn’t leave hunters as boring as their classic rotation with bad scaling. BM will definitely get complaints because of the pet damage and people feel its OP to receive any considerable damage from an npc companion.
I personally want them to make BM the pure melee spec, like sure allow range abilities and all that but really highlight how BM benefits off the hunter being melee more than you playing ranged. Make BM synergize with the hunter’s melee attacks and take some damage off the pet unless the hunter is also using melee abilities with the pet, like we already see with flanking strike. This makes it easier for players to accept a pet’s damage when it also requires the hunter being in melee range and also contributing to the damage. We’ll see if BM hunters are competitive at 60 and it would be good if they could make each tree viable for different playstyles - bm melee, mm ranged, survival meleeweaving+ranged
Either way hunters are not being nerfed below shadow priests so rest easy. Groups still want hunters for their great dps and they offer some utility through kings.