Zero Hunters brought for Jailer progression.
Shocking!
Firstly, those specs are also better than BM in single target. So BM is good at nothing.
Secondly, when Blizzard’s new model for spec design is as a major personal identity choice rather than a choice of capability, it’s not good to have a spec be strictly worse than others in the same class.
MM and SV are not healthily designed specs right now because they get free AoE along with their single target. They should both be nerfed/redesigned at least at a tier set level. This is coming from an MM main.
All BM needs is a modest ST boost and a tier set that actually buffs their AoE. That’s not asking for much.
Ideally they would redesign BM’s tier set because it’s just poorly designed even aside from the tuning. Aside from exclusively buffing single target, it conflicts with every covenant choice other than Night Fae. This sort of thing is a common occurrence in modern WoW where Blizzard packs in so much borrowed power that they lose track of it all.
Survival isn’t “mediocre single target”. It has the highest damage in EVERY situation v.s. the other Hunter specs. That’s especially unhealthy for the class because the spec is explicitly designed in favour of rerolls and new players instead of Hunter mains (Hazzikostas admits to this).
MM is higher ST than BM as well. So BM can’t be “single-target centric” if it has the worst single target in the class. BM has also typically not been single-target centric; it’s had good AoE since it got Beast Cleave in MoP all the way until it was target capped in SL. People assuming BM is typically a single-target spec because of SL is the same as people assuming it typically scales well just because it did in BFA; it’s a product of short-term memory.
That leaves the ranged mobility. That’s nice to have, but it’s rarely the gamebreaker people assume it is.
See above. Blizzard decided as of Legion that specs were identity choices instead of capability choices. In that context it’s not acceptable to have any spec of any class be strictly worse than the other options and tell them “oh well we can’t be bothered balancing anything so just play the other specs”.
They need to buff BM and nerf MM/SV. Particularly at the set bonus level because that’s where these tuning problems are coming from.
A) Not really. It was the best throughout BFA due to an overpowered borrowed power. Otherwise it has typically traded places with MM and/or SV throughout WoW’s history.
B) Round robin tuning is terrible. Blizzard should take the time to carefully tune things every patch.
C) People aren’t asking for BM to be the best. They’re just asking for it to not be terrible.
See above. Other spec options in the same class being good does not excuse bad tuning for the 3rd. Specs should be balanced; especially when they’re meant to be personal identity choices.
MM/SV in the past have had no problems being popular specs that could match or even outpace BM. This consistent popularity bias towards BM has mainly been a post-Legion thing with the unpopular reworks to both MM and SV… especially SV.
I got the normal version + the heroic upgrade. I didn’t manage to get the Mythic version because I only killed mythic Sylvanas twice. But there was definitely something weird about that bow’s drop rate. One of the theorycrafters in the TSL discord never saw a drop on either normal, heroic, or mythic despite clearing them every week.
The bigger point about the bow is that it’s not nearly as much of a bonus as everyone assumes just because it’s legendary. The damage bonus of Rae’shalare for Hunters was perfectly in line with any other class’s epic weapon; less, in fact, than a few of them. The daggers from Sylvanas were the same item level and were an even bigger DPS increase for Rogues than Rae’shalare was for Hunters.
The only reason Rae’shalare was marked as Legendary was because it gave a new ability instead of a passive effect. That’s cool, but it also comes with the downside of a) that ability being fiddly to work into a Hunter’s rotation (particularly MM Kyrian opener) since it was a 2 sec standstill cast with a slow travel time, and b) being marked as legendary meant it couldn’t drop from the Great Vault like all the other weapons, putting Hunters at a significant gearing disadvantage.
I don’t think Ion has said anything about Hunters in 9.2. In any case Ion is often stupid and wrong.
4 Likes
All Hunters removed from WFR at this point.
Every single class currently represented EXCEPT Hunter. 3 DPS specs and none worth bringing.
Nice balance ya got there Blizz!
Lmfao no. MM and Survival are like A tier specs. Your entire class doesn’t get to be A tier. Not how it works.
At no point was survival ever more played than BM/MM. If it was, someone please refresh my memory.
MM is represented on Jailer progression in a few guilds. In any case it looks like they’re heavily stacking a select few specs. Hunter probably isn’t in favour for RWF on that fight due to their low survivability. I wouldn’t worry about it.
Yes which is why I said they should nerf MM and SV damage. It’s not good to have so much free AoE alongside ST. As long as MM and SV remain in line with other classes it’s fine.
This is still not an excuse to just arbitrarily pick one of 3 DPS specs in a pure DPS class to be bad, in any case.
It was the most represented in PvE quite a few times before the melee rework; for example, Siege of Orgrimmar and Highmaul.
People are just conditioned to SV being an unpopular spec because it has continued to be unpopular ever since the melee rework; even now as it has the highest damage in the class.
This is, of course, because the melee rework was a bad idea executed badly. But people don’t like to admit that.
Didn’t some guilds stack like 3 survival hunters on lords of dread? What?
Yea, low DPS and squishy AF.
Nice combo!
Why? Survival is finally worth it for once. BM had its time in BFA.
MM and Surv ST is mediocre though. Atm at least.
Mage and Rogue have dealt with it. Why can’t hunters?
Yes but I doubt it was more played than MM or BM. That’s what I was saying
It’s funny person a will complain about class/spec unbalance . Person b will come in and say it’s okay as it is.
Then in the future person b will complain about class balance and person will come and say it’s okay as it is.
If the community was more United it would be easier rpg eat classes to be balanced
Agree.
It unreasonable for anyone to come here and try to DEFEND one spec performing 20+% better than another.
Someone has to be bottom, that’s fine, but the gap from first to worst shouldn’t be the size of the Grand Canyon.
2 Likes
Tinfoil hat time:
Blizzard wants less people to play Hunter because of how overwhelmingly popular the class is over all other DPS classes.
I say this as a sad hunter main since day one. It’s only grown in popularity.
Echo brought only 3.
Liquid brought five.
1 Like
That doesn’t really matter ?? As long as classes are balanced well and the bottom isn’t too far from top it shouldn’t matter what class is popular
Because, as you said, they’re dealing crazy amounts of AoE damage for free with their ST priority. That’s not good class design, and I’d rather it not be used as a reason to keep BM in the dirt.
“Round robin” class design is bad. Specs should just be balanced.
“This bad thing happens to another class therefore it isn’t bad”
Mages and Rogues shouldn’t have to deal with it. Specs should be balanced. They could be if Blizzard wasn’t severely lacking in class tuning updates, both in quality and quantity. It shouldn’t take months at a time to get lazy blanket percentage buffs/nerfs. They’re literally doing worse at tuning updates than they were 10 years ago.
I mean, why not? If the statistics have SV heavily ahead in representation, which it was in tiers like those I mentioned, it probably had the most active players in the class or at least ahead of MM.
Again, this idea that SV has always been unpopular is a product of the melee rework. People have just been used to it being unpopular because the melee rework has kept the spec at low representation for so many years now. But what people forget or like to sweep under the rug is that Survival was ranged for over a decade before Legion and in that time it was routinely a popular spec.
1 Like
Well look at the upside, at least you have two other builds in the top 10. Not many classes can make that claim.
I don’t think they are trying to make people stop playing Hunter. I do think they’re trying to bribe people into playing Survival with high damage tuning.
When you look at it, it’s kind of ridiculous that Survival gets an uncapped AoE with such enormous damage (even before the tier set which frequently resets its cooldown and buffs it by 80%) which is also part of their single target priority, meanwhile BM gets a softcapped AoE that comes at the expense of single target, is tuned far lower, and isn’t buffed by the tier set at all. Everyone accepts this as fine because “BM has always been single-target focused!” even though that’s absolutely not true: the spec had good AoE since MoP which was almost 10 years ago now.
In any case it seems to not be working so well because BM remains vastly more popular. In M+, where SV has a titanic advantage, BM sees more than double the amount of players. In raids it’s more like 5 times the amount of players. That’s an appalling result. As I mentioned elsewhere in the thread, SV had no problem at all seeing more players than BM given good tuning back in its ranged days. I don’t want to hear ever again that the only reason people don’t play SV is because it’s tuned badly. It wasn’t even tuned badly most of the time, and now that it sees incredibly favourable tuning it still sees a fraction of the play the other Hunter specs get.
3 Likes
It’s really not a bad thing.
And they are for the most part. Someone has to be last. You’re just upset that it’s your spec. We get it. I’m not trying to be dismissive.
You were no where to be found when BM was insane in BFA. Don’t lie.
Yet class balance is probably the best its ever been these last 3 expansions.
Actually it is in fact bad to nullify spec choice via shoddy tuning/design.
Three specs in a class should have distinct strengths and weaknesses. Right now BM is mostly all weaknesses. It’s behind in all forms of damage and its mobility usually isn’t enough to make up the difference outside of extremely specific circumstances. The situation also gets worse as they continue to buff other specs. Today’s round of tuning doesn’t touch BM at all while buffing other underperforming specs.
Within the Hunter class it’s absolutely not balanced. BM is extremely far behind. At a minimum they should move the Beast Cleave soft cap to 20 targets (as it was from the time it was added in MoP until SL launch) and drastically buff Kill Command’s damage. However BM does need a design review because frankly it’s half-baked and uninspired and has been since Legion launched.
I’m Marksmanship, actually. Throughout WoW’s history I’ve preferred MM and SV (back when it was a real Hunter spec) over BM. However I care about spec choice. We’ve had times in the past where you can get away with playing any of the 3 specs. Making BM worse in every situation, especially in what seems to be an attempt to signal boost Survival, is egregious.
You are in fact trying to be dismissive because you clearly have a grudge against BM Hunters. You’re literally defending class imbalance just to get at BM.
Huh? I begrudged MM being unplayable throughout BFA. I actually enjoyed MM in BFA and wanted it to be a valid choice. I even played it when it was briefly good enough. Here’s me killing Jaina as MM:
I didn’t like azerite traits and corruption and I hated the massive imbalance they caused. BM was rocketed to the top because of the ridiculous Dance of Death trait and now every idiot on the forum thinks BM scales well (when it historically hasn’t) because all they can remember is 1 expansion ago.
You’re so unbelievably full of it with these comments. Again, you’re evidently here just to get at BM because you don’t like the spec or people who play it and want to see the spec do badly.
As I said before, it evidently isn’t even within the Hunter class. BM’s AoE capability in particular is absolute garbage compared to MM and SV, and both of those specs get their AoE for free with their single target now (which is not good design BTW).
You’ve gotta be trolling at this point. Again, MM and Survival are mid to high tier specs. BM has the best single target out of the hunter specs in most cases.
Just because MM/Survival are B to A tier, doesn’t mean BM should be brought up right to them. Once again, balance has never worked like that.
Don’t get me wrong. Personally, I think BM should never be high tier dps because they have too much movement.