Community Council discussion on Hunter design

Classes Hunter
750

There are spells from Legion that could make a return, be tuned, and supply SV with a unique identity.

  1. [Laceration ]-- Tear a wound in the target, dealing 1159.2% AP over 12 seconds
    • [Caltrops] – Scatter Caltrops on an area. Enemies who step on a caltrop will take Physical damage, and be slowed by 50% for 10 sec. Replaces Tar Trap. (This could be a choice for tar trap or this spell.)
    • [Sticky Bomb }-- Hurl a sticky bomb at your target which sticks to them, and explodes after 3 seconds, dealing damage to nearby enemies and knocking them down. (This could make a comeback and be good in PvP)
    • [Animal Instincts] – When you attack with Flanking Strike, you gain the instincts of your pet, providing you with a random combat enhancement. (Can be a bonus to crit, or haste)
    • [Dragonsfire Trap] – Hurl a dragonsfire trap to the target location that explodes, setting the enemy aflame, inflicting fire damage over 8 seconds and sending it into a state of panic. While the target is affected, the flames periodically scordch its nearby Allies as well. Replaces Explosive Trap. (Can go where we have a choice for Explosive trap now)
    • [Expert Trapper]-- All traps are improved:
  • When your Freezing Trap breaks, the victim and all nearby enemies’ movement speed is reduced by 50% for 4 seconds.
  • The damage dealt by the fire left on the ground after explosive trap is increased by XX per second.
  • Enemies moving through the tar of Tar Trap have a chance to be rooted in place for 4 seconds.
  • When your Steel Trap is triggered, the target will also take XX physical damage.
  • The Dragonsfire of Dragonsfire Trap now spreads to nearby enemies, causing them to burn and panic as well. (This needs to come back. If SV survives, why not let us throw bombs and traps)

Mastery: [Hunting Companion] – Your pet’s attacks have a 4% chance to grant an additional charge of Mongoose Bite. (Can be adjusted for MB or RS)

These are all talents we had in Legion. They can easily be added, and tuned to current SV and give us a better sense of identity, and a different play style.

So there are talents we can go back to.

3 Likes
751

Well i pointed out the first one.
Caltrops i thought blizz said was not coming back
Thats a minor passive

I dont consider traps rotational, so i dont take them into consideration. They are utility only.

So no, not rly.

752

Can you tell me class-defining rotational/combat characteristic of Mages?

I don’t know why you would seemingly pretend that Lone Wolf or access to melee spenders would somehow rob Hunters of an identity, or that they should be uniquely capable of being described across the whole class by characteristics beyond the obvious (access to pets, traps, and high relative mobility).

Mages (shared access to Blink, Popsicle Form), Warlocks (Shadowbolt and Corruption but probably not really), Warriors (Rage, Shouts, Charges, and Spell Reflect), etc., are no more readily or simply describable in terms of their class characteristics across the whole spec. Nor do they get aneurysms over Whirlwind, Fire Blast, Corruption, Shadowbolt, etc., all playing totally different within each spec.

It is both precedented and fine for one spec’s version of something to have a bonus feature baseline. It’s fine for Countershot to become Muzzle (9s shorter CD) or Arcane Shot to become Raptor Strike (10 less Focus) from melee range, etc. And it is fine for Kill Command to be a spender in one spec and a builder in another (just as, say, Execute is for Warrior). Those are not problems. We can prefer a Kill Command-less Survival, sure, but its place makes sense, is not an issue, and certainly does not make the class incoherent.

Tl;Dr: I do not understand your implication that every hunter spec must use a pet and be ranged to be a “Hunter”, especially given that you’d faulted Kill Command just for existing across multiple specs.

That level of self-similarity holds for no other class. Not every DK makes heavy use of pets, nor Frost, not shadow magic. Not every Warrior has multiple rage spenders or mainstay builders. Not every Mage has simulcast or ramped damage. Not every Warlock actually cares to maintain as many DoTs as possible. Not every DH has significant access to Sigils, nor will they build or spend in the same way.

Hunter specs need not all be ranged, castless, and pet-using. It would be entirely fine for every spec but BM to choose—actually choose—whether they want to have a pet and every spec but MM to choose whether they want any casts and/or any compensatory advantages from/when playing in melee range.

753

The inherent problem in the difference between kc as s spender and kc as a generator is that as a spender, if there is no way your pet can reach its target, at least you still have focus and can use other abilities. Same goes for if your pet dies. As a generator, however, your pet camt attack, you get no focus, your literally screwed. No focus is coming in. Its the same thing for CA and SH. They literally made 2 of the most BM styled cds we have ever seen. So if your not targeting your pets target AND they cant attack, your dps is complete and utterly trash bc the cds rely on the pet to give your the cdr and the incr. Dmg.
Now, yes, specs borrow feom other specs, but usually there is a need for it. Right now, there is ZERO need for it. Make raptor strike our generator, make MB the core ST spender and call it a day. It fixes sooo many issues.

But, if it fixes so many issues why wouldt theyy do it? Well for 1, 2/3 of their hunter spec trees consist of about 80% of the nodes in each being about KC. Two blizz would actually have to work. 3. Blizz is too cheap to change it. Four that means change for to ion’s baby he never plays and changing it without his photocopied butt print as proof of signature

754

It’s weird that’s your takeaway. I asked what makes a Hunter a Hunter, and implied it’s NOT a pet because MM doesn’t necessarily need to use one because of LW. SO, what makes a Hunter a Hunter? That’s my question.

755

And I said above. Traps, aspects, high relative mobility, and access to pets and ranged weapons.

It’s not going to be just one single thing. Just as it’s not for any other class.

1 Like
756

No specs are identical for any class. But there is certainly similarity in flavor. I don’t think anyone looks at a hunter before knowing their spec and says, “Ahh, traps and aspects.”

757

Are you alluding to something? :stuck_out_tongue:

758

No, Arcane Shot and Steady Shot are not okay and should be altered or adapted to Survival. The problem is, Blizz got so enamoured with their new starting-zone they ignored that not all specs play the same.

2 Likes
759

I agree, now if only Blizzard would do something like that.

760

Fury is literally an inverse of Arms. Everything but Charge that spends resource on Arms builds it on Fury. Only Protection has access to a spammable filler and its peak resource consumption comes from oGCDs, to which no other spec has access. None of them play or flow anything like one another. Their overlap is solely Shouts, Leap, and Charges. That may or may not be what initially one connects “Warrior” to, but that is the sole point of shared play; all else isn’t Warrior so much as Arms, Prot, or Fury.

The same occurs for virtually all pure DPS or mostly DPS classes. Enhance is nothing like Elemental. Arcane is nothing like Fire. Demonology is nothing like Affliction. Etc., etc.

761

Fair enough. What is the identity of an SV hunter then?

Edit: Actually, just ruminating on your point there. General playstyle for each spec has been more or less established since their inceptions. Certainly those have evolved over the years, but the general idea has remained the same for each (as near as I can recall). The exception to that is SV Hunter.

The reason I will suggest that SV uses BS as it’s builder, and only BM has access to KC is because there is no fantasy for SV anymore, and again I will suggest that the hogwash Blizzard has been peddling doesn’t match with the reality of how you play it. My OPINION is that is should play kinda like an Afflock, but derive it’s damage from sources that aren’t specifically magic - fire, poisons, and bleeds, with the occasional explosions for burst or whatever. They should achieve that through shots, stings, and traps, and the pet should function as a source of damage, but also a distraction to enable empowered abilities. That’s the fantasy that makes sense to me - wrong or not.

If given the option, I will again reiterate, that no Hunter would ever choose melee over ranged if they have the choice within the same spec. I like the idea of having that interchangeability, and have in fact suggested it in various forms myself, but I just can’t see a situation (outside of VERY niche scenarios) where melee>ranged.

762

Im all for merging the current melee survival spec in with BM spec, have there be an option to use ranged weap or melee.
BM->melee bm
cobra shot > raptor strike
barbed shot> lacerate/coordinated strike/bleed/focus regen
multishot> carve
kill command > lol kill command
This list of transferable spells can go on, hell this would give (melee survival) bestial wrath and ect for cooldowns as well and allowing for exotic beasts too, it just makes sense to implement as they are so close.

This would open up survival spec to return to a ranged survival which would fill the niche of magical archer, can reinstate immolation trap and some older traps as well, and other things that does not encroach on MM vibes.

MM and a ranged survival would encompass the ranged playstyles people would want.

Lone wolf should be baseline for MM / new ranged surv spec as well

Pets need their own specs that we can choose once again, fits the hunter theme of training your pet, you are the master/trainer, stop the ferocity turtle hate, maybe my pet turtle wants to be a ninja turtle

Id also like to see dual wield for melee hunters, possibly enchanted bows/auto arrow attacks (think Thori’dal, the Stars’ Fury auto attack)

Hunter class in general needs some love, the class really hasn’t received too much new stuff, just keep getting spells taken away and rehashed/repurposed over the years.

3 Likes
763

Presently, a bit of a mess. Or, as said before:

Now, what should it be? Ideally, choicefully eclectic—resourceful, adaptable.

And, if not for the obvious opportunities of Dragonflight, I probably wouldn’t be so hard on it. But, we’re getting talents trees now. Its variety of tools isn’t an issue, but if it’s to be given a broader network of customization, then it ought to bring further choice to that matter. It needs to feel like a toolkit with above-average agency over what it brings to the table, rather than merely a muddled hodgepodge.

Personally, I feel like the previously mentioned melee variants should be baseline for the class, not just SV, even if it will obviously go to waste on MM, who’s all about ranged weapons.

BM, for instance, is about pets; whether it is melee or ranged has no bearing on that, so I’d prefer to leave the choice with the player. Playing in melee range and with a melee weapon (under likely the exact same talents, or having just slightly traded stuff like sight-through-walls for additional mobility) would likely have slightly higher theoretical damage but likely faintly lower damage in practice in an average fight with some melee downtime.

764

SV didn’t get anything like an actual identity outside of PvP sturdiness/utility until Wrath. BM didn’t launch with Exotic Beasts, and Animal Companion didn’t even come in until Legion (and only indirectly, via Hadi) or BfA. Other mainstays like Stomp, Stampede, AMoC, etc., are all from Mists or later. MM’s likewise gone through huge changes to its playflow over time.

I would, from time to time, so long as there is some sort of compensatory advantage.

No, there is no inherent advantage to having a shorter range. But that’s why things are given in exchange. Mobility, durability, utility, CD-flexibility, etc., etc.

Actively having to play around constraints in positioning and uptime is fun to me. That’s why I play MM over BM, and SV faintly more often than MM when it’s competitive and melee slots aren’t already filled.

1 Like
765

I’ve been ruminating on this post for a while. I know the class tree already converts Counter shot to Muzzle when you choose Survival. Has anyone suggested they do the same with Multi-Shot? Moving it to the class tree and having it covert to Carve when you choose Survival. It could be on the first row and be baseline along with Kill Command for BM and SV and Kill Shot for MM. I know the Shaman Tree does this. Gives two baseline talents depending on the spec.

2 Likes
766

Greymarc had originally said that Multi-Shot could not be given baseline (i.e., before level 11, available to all specs) simply because it ends up as Carve on Survival.

My rebuttal was that we already replace (Countershot->Muzzle) or noticeably adjust (20 Focus Arcane Shot on MM) baseline skills in Shadowlands, so there’d be no need for Multi-Shot to be given as a talent instead of baseline on the mere basis of it then being able to appear differently on a different spec’s Class Tree.

But yes, even if Greymark was right that that Dragonflight would randomly lose the ability to adjust baseline skills unless that adjustment is explicitly mentioned on the Class/Spec Trees (never mind all the hidden spec-based, skill-specific aura adjustments), we could do as you say above: just put it as a second free Row 1 skill in the Class Tree.

2 Likes
767

Reminder that the fact that they have to make class tree talents change depending on what spec you are is a red flag that something has gone wrong with the spec design.

In a time when Hunter class design made more sense, all 3 specs had Multi-Shot but it had different additional effects depending on spec: Beast Cleave for BM, Bombardment for MM, Serpent Spread for SV.

3 Likes
768

AOTW was never a powerful CD on its own, but coupled with Wild Spirits and/or BW it was a powerful adition to our burst and sustain burst.

Now with Serpent Sting, Explosive Shot, Barbed Shot, Chakrums, Killshot, Kill Command we wont care about a 1/3 focus reduction to Cobra Shot for 20 sec every 1 to 2 mins (asumptions on duration). But Cobra Shot fires two shots and does 30% more damage, wow who cares. That should just be a node, not remove our sustain to our burst and 10% crit.

Our off burst sustain was never strong, our niche was regular mid strenght burst not punished my movement. And metres have represented that in total, to counter this our off cd dps will need to be improved from what it is now against other classes in retail.

Revert this change, BM was mostly looking good. Yes it needed a few little changes, but this wreaks our bust for a filler that we dont care about.

769

Why? Peak spec design means that all specs of a class must be homogenized to the point that any shared ability has to be and work exactly the same way?

3 Likes