Rather than a buff Id like multi shot and beast cleave to become baseline for BM hunters again. I think its really unintuitive to have to lose talent points to choose them for single target builds. If I want to do decent single target damage I have to completely lock myself out of my main source of AoE damage? That’s pure jank. I think the tree as a whole needs a rework, more focus put back into cobra shot instead of kill command, return multishot and beast cleave to being baseline things that BM hunter has access to, as it has been for so long.
8 Likes
Having to spec into it is fine, it’s kind of the future we chose when we asked them for the old talent trees.
imo the problem right now is that we lose far too much of our already weak ST when we spec into AoE, which makes us downright a menace in any m+ with strong bosses, or even raid fights with inconsistent AoE phases.
Due to how many talent points we have as taxes, we have to go all in on either AoE or Single Target, which imo is the second biggest issue we have. The first one is that both our ST and AoE are already far below par, so when we sacrifice one to get the other we’re just falling even further behind.
Personally, as much as I love BM, I feel like the current numbers make it impossible to justify using it over either of the other specs. imo the spec would be playable if we got like 6 extra talent points, like by axing the taxes we have (we pay 4 points to have the bare minimum AoE, 5 points on our mandatory line for every situation, 7 points to unlock our Single Target assistance, it’s just too many points).
MM is not exactly doing much better on the talent front, but they have two advantages: their ST is already pretty good; and they have very few mandatory talent points at the bottom of the tree, which gives them enough points to spec on top. MM loses far less than BM from going single with an AoE build, and also gains far more than BM from the AoE when they do go AoE. Both specs suffer from basic functionality being stuck behind multiple talents (“you got multi shot for one point, but to make it actually do anything you have to spend another point, and then there’s this other AoE proc which is another point” etc).
Hunters in general need a heavy talent fix up. The current 4 points dedicated to AoE on BM could just be a single talent, make it two points if they must. Likewise, MM could get a bit more of their AoE right off the bat - multi shot coming with trick shots would make it a lot more bearable.
BM is probably the worst talent tree I’ve personally interacted with thus far. Most specs can afford two or three capstone talents, meanwhile BMs get one, because each of them demands 4, 5, and 6 points respectively.
BM does not need a complete talent rework. Its overall in a good place talent wise when compared to other classes. However that whole right side with Aspect of the Wild down to Call of the Wild underperforms so bad that those talents are essentially useless.
As far as playstyle. BM is one of the best classes. Everything flows so well together and once you have your T30 4pc set, Bestial Wrath is up a ton. However, our single target dmg is a solid 7k below what it should be to just be in the middle of the pack with everyone else.
As far as MM goes. It sims REALLY high. But actually pulling those numbers is another thing all together. Even as simple as MM is, I just do not see the numbers the sims say I should be doing. But with BM I can easily do more then what is simmed. Again MM isnt hard, its easier to play then BM. But IDK for me the sims do not line up with reality, even on a target dummy setting in Valdraken.
That said, both MM and BM tier sets are underperforming compared to other classes tier sets from what I can see. I may be wrong, but I just do not see the outcry and backlash from other players playing other classes.
Personally I am fine with the tier being less then stellar if they just revert the nerfs we got before 10.1 was released. We had got buffed to make up for the Bow being OP, then before this season came out they reverted those buffs and this is why BM is so bad right now.
2 Likes
The tree is horrid and needs a full rework and waaaayyyy more options
Its a bare bone spec with NOTHING going for it, no flavor no variation and half the tree doesn’t work at all.
Where is flayed shot and wild spirits, we go nothing of any value in the BM tree from Shadowlands, now check what other class/spec got.
Give us some interation with our pets especially in AOE. If we KC with MS up, make KC cleave SS, if we BS with SS up then it refreshes MS. Any sort of gameplay loop/flow I feel would be good. Instead we have the bottom right half of our trees that even after being buffed isnt viable and has degenerative gameplay.
And KS, really a 10% chance on a spell that we avoid pressing if possible. Should be 10% chance on any ability and puts a bleed on the target that increases KC for the next 10 sec.
Stampede should not share a node with Chakram and buff the crap out of it.
These are just ideas I came up with in 2 mins, maybe not the best but still better than what we have now.
We have no burst or execute of any real sort. Killer Instinct should be baseline. It’s just a slow grind of sustainable dps. No fun or glory moments where you go “hell yeah” nailed that…
Yes a full tree rework is what is needed, but if Blizz can do it without making it worse is the real question.
8 Likes
The flow of BM spec is fine in single target, but 40 focus for multi shot feels terrible. It should be 20 focus like MM with a 10 sec cleave buff for it to feel good on aoe.
8 Likes
how did you come to that conclusion? BM has the least amount of talents in the game for RDPS, has a very high amount of 2 point nodes, and as of right now one of two specs in the entire game with 3 point nodes on the tree still. It’s a very dated talent tree design, especially as many specs are getting reworks in DF.
9 Likes
Nah, having to spec into most of our core abilities is terrible and is not at all how the game worked before Blizz got rid of the old talent trees. You learned spells permanently as you leveled…sure there were a few abilities you got through talents but most were obtained from trainers. When some of us wanted the old trees back I don’t think anyone was asking for them to look like they do now. But as usual, whenever Blizzard gives players what they want there’s always, always a caveat because their egos just cannot let them give us a change straight up. It’s always good news, bad news with this company.
2 Likes
With the raid being mostly ST, I dont mind choosing between either full aoe or full st. I wouldn’t mind if we just had the 1 spec though because I dont really like the ST rotation.
1 Like
Probably because it doesn’t need a full rework?
These should be fast and easy changes. Reduce the costs of things like posthaste, natural mending, traps, and winds. Make owl decent. Attach pathfinding to avoidance and replace it with hunter’s mark giving an aura to the group. Lower tier requirements and let bm get access to explosive shot and poison injection in the class tree.
In the spec tree, reduce the cost of thrill, stomp, dc and scent of blood so we can pick up hunter’s prey and parts of the right side and we’d be great.
I wouldn’t mind losing nothing right now and still be able to get up to snake bite on the right side 
Also, bloodshed and Crows should be redesigned into one ability (super Crows).
You mentioned 9 changes in your general tree suggestion at least 6 ideas and a very vague “reduce the right side of the tree”. That’s preeeetty extensive and sounds like a full rework to me.
Not to mention with such a narrow tree like BM, if you just reduce the cost of nodes (and plenty of them!) then you end up being able to buy most of the tree which would be quite awkward.
TThis would end up being a full revamp.
It would pretty much the equivalent of what they did in the frost dk tree. No where near a full rework.
We’d pick up 2-4 points? We’d maybe be able to pick up owtp, crows, barbs or aotw. How is that most of the tree?
My opinion on BM Talents…
Multi-Shot and Beast Cleave:
- Multi-Shot should trigger Beast Cleave and be baseline. However, the baseline Beast Cleave would only spread about 20% damage.
- Beast Cleave talent can increase Beast Cleave damage to 50/80%.
- This would help with the complete lack of AoE damage in the Dire Beast build.
- Alternately, Multi-Shot should do a LOT more damage and/or cost no Focus, as it’s useless without also taking Beast Cleave. This makes Beast Cleave essentially a 3pt node.
Other talents:
- A Murder of Crows and Bloodshed need to be reworked to make them actual burst cooldowns.
- War Orders coming between Cobra Senses and Aspect of the Wild is hilarious. Two abilities that empower Cobra Shot are separated by a talent that drastically reduces how often we use Cobra Shot.
- Call of the Wild(and associated talents) are on the opposite side of the complementary Dire Beast talents. Getting both, which are clearly supposed to work together, creates an odd build that all but useless.
- Hunter’s Prey is undertuned, because Kill Shot for BM hits for a fraction of what it does for MM.
General Changes:
- Balance the damage between Hunter and pet(s). Pets doing 70-75% of our overall damage is bonkers. If that was intended, I think it’s probably the worst intentional change they’ve ever made.
3 Likes
MS for cleave in MM is only used one time spell after its casted. MS for BM is active over multiple spell cast. These two operate completely differently. If you are casting MS on BM every chance you cant, your doing it wrong. You should only cast MS right before Beast Cleave drops off.
Bloodshed is an 18% buff to all your attacks on that one target. I admit I would like to see MoCs dmg increased. But Bloodshed itself is perfectly fine.
The problem is BM has to many CDs to ramp up to big dmg. Mostly due to having to stack up frenzy. If anything I would like to see Beastial Wrath apply 3 stacks at the start or at least a nice haste buff.
It’s a 15% buff for 18 seconds and only damage from your primary pet. Unless it’s been fixed recently, it’s also one of the talents that are reduced in power by Animal Companion, because it doesn’t apply to the secondary pet.
It’s needed a rework for years now, but in Dragonflight, it’s even easier to see why. The spec tree is terribly boring.
If it did it would make the 1 point needed for Animal Companion completely over powered.
Couple issues with that…
- It’s so underpowered, fixing the interaction with AC still wouldn’t make it desirable.
- Blizzard straight up said they were working on these interactions with AC, but they had no timeline on a fix. They’ve fixed the interaction on a couple talents, but seem to be dragging their feet on the others.
BM as a whole is in fact around 7.5k below the median for all other classes in ST with only a couple of exceptions. I fully agree we need something to buff us back up in ST. Its just Bloodshed is fine and not what is holding us back.
Honestly the initial dmg from Beastial Wrath is pretty low, buffing that and cobra shot dmg would go a long ways to fixing issues with the class.
Im well aware of when to cast MS. The issue is 1 cast chews up a huge amount of resources. Its very easy to have to wait for 40 focus to MS then have no focus the KC. Doesnt feel good sitting there waiting for focus or a BS shot to proc. There should be a better way.