Community Council discussion on Hunter design

Classes Hunter
61

Tracker, tamer, master markswoman; some hunters have a connection to the wild only surpassed by druids. I think for me the class fantasy is also informed by the racial fantasy - there’s a world of difference between the like, classic night elf huntress stalking the woods of Ashenvale with her loyal nightsaber and her owl; a mechagnome hunter who built her K9 herself for Battle Bot Bash (This Time It’s Personal); a troll shadow hunter whose arrows are tipped with things far worse than just poison; a frostwolf clan orc with her wolf-brother; a sin/quel’dorei Farstrider who ambushes Amani trolls from stealth with pinpoint accuracy; or perhaps even a goblin who invents their own trick arrows to sell to other goblins (“Guaranteed to bring the boom, baby! Uh, management accepts no responsibility or liability for any explosions that may occur while the arrow is still in your quiver. Asbestos quiver sold separately.”)

I’m a visual person! So I decided to answer this with gifs.

Beastmastery:

Marks:

Survival:

Generally, to me hunters are excellent marksmen no matter the spec. Beastmastery hunters have a strong bond with one (or two) loyal companions and work together as a team to bring down prey, with the beast at the front and centre of combat and the hunter keeping back, finding weak points for the pet to tear into and buffing the pet to enable it to hit harder and faster. The BM hunter can tame stronger and more unique pets because they truly understand their animal companions - it’s very much a partnership. The BM hunter archetype for me in game is the night elf huntress with her nightsaber and her bow.

MM hunters are the true archers - they’ll take or leave the animal companion, and take a little longer to line up shots but will hit much much harder. They’re masters of ranged physical damage and hit like an absolute truck. MM can choose between slower, well-placed shots that hit for crippling damage or a faster, burstier spree of bullets/arrows, switching between both abilities effortlessly as the fight requires. The MM hunter archetype for me is the Farstrider holding a defensive position, raining death from above.

The survival hunter is the mad scientist or “bounty hunter” of the hunter world - they can have a pet if they want but their focus is on their innovative collection of tricks. The SV hunter archetype for me is the troll hunter fighting with vicious homebrewed poisons and savage explosives.

I think WFB is a fun spell and I’d love to see 10.0 SV revolve more around WFB/serpent sting, and have the pet integrated better into the toolkit than current “SV, but also BM for some reason” (ideally I’d like to see SV’s pet buff the hunter as a kind of mirror of BM hunters buffing their pet - perhaps the pet could apply debuffs to the target that affect WFB?) I think Coordinated Assault perhaps ought to be changed to something else; it’s an uninspiring rip-off of BW and I think SV’s big CD should be something munitions-focused.

7 Likes
62

Hunter PETS abilities shouldn’t be locked on families.
Please i don’t want to be locked on wasps/scorpids/aliens in order to get mortal wound and leech.

6 Likes
63

Well, simply, they hunt. They utilize RANGED attacks to kill their prey. They are the most ‘realistic’ class in the game and that is why many people relate to them.
I do not relate hunters with the “wild” as that is more of a druid approach to the class. Instead, I tend to relate hunters with their environment, whether that is in a forest, a jungle, a city, or a mine. They generally use pets to help dispatch their enemies. The pet used to be a core element of the class but is now more of an ‘extra’ element. The bond between hunter and pet has surely diminished over the years.

BM: A hunter that is a MASTER of pet(S). They work side by side with their pets to kill their enemy. They heavily rely on their pet to cause damage and kill the target. The hunter is more of a support to the pet than vice versa. The pet should do multiple specialty attacks to kill their prey based on the race of the pet. The hunter should be supporting the pet and buffing its damage. The hunter has the power to command countless pets in a supportive way, growing an entire herd of wild animals to kill the prey.
MM: MM is where the hunter is very removed from the ‘wild’ as seen in the druidic approach. It is the spec that specializes in sniper-like shots that are supposed to be lethal. They are not to be seen, they are to be at max range, and they are not to move. When necessary, they turn into a heavy machine gunner. They should specialize in sending countless rounds down range as fast as possible. This is where they are somewhat mobile. They sacrifice their pet because it would just be in the way, and this is a 100% NONE MAGIC SPEC. This means that none of their shots should be magic-ish like rapid-fire is now. They get their kicks and powers from watching a round split a head wide open, or seeing an enemy get sawed in half by 1000 rounds.
SURV: This spec should be RANGED. It is the most magic of all of the specs. Its purpose is to kill the target, with help from its supportive pet, with the LEAST amount of energy used as possible. It is a DOT spec. It utilizes all different sorts of magic. It is a spec that utilizes its environment to its advantage and can camouflage itself. The spec can use bombs and other non-magic attacks as well and is essentially a well-rounded hunter. It does not practice the messy “guerrilla tactics” like warriors or even rogues. Instead, it uses precise attacks from afar to diminish its enemy while its pet finishes it off. The hunter is never to be in melee range as that increases the chances of the hunter being wounded which would burn more energy.

The difference SHOULD be in the details. Each spec brings something different to the general idea of the hunter. The hunter kills, whether by its pet, from a sniper shot, or from a bleed/spell dot. The identity of the hunter is RANGED. Its ability to use its environment, its pet, and even trap (but NOT in a rotational combat scenario, super clunky af and horrible to use) is what brings the two together.

6 Likes
64

Can we make Aimed shot the main damage dealer for MM and have it castable while moving please?

1 Like
65

God, can we please get dual pistols/revolvers as a weapon transmog?

That has been my one wish for hunters FOREVER.

2 Likes
66

Why?

  1. Thats a rogue thing.
  2. We cant even get illusions on our ranged weapons, so why would we ask for that?
67

How do you define the class fantasy of Hunters?

Someone who hunts using the tools of the warcraft universe to kill their target. There is no tool they won’t use. No beast too small or too large a hunter will take the challenge if there is a need for it and use the respected tool for the hunt be it dabbling in melee, ranged, or magic. Sometime a beast needs a good rocket launcher to the face its so big or rocket or magic propelled axe or spear.

  • How do you define the spec fantasy of each spec?

MM are like the sharpshooters who can unleash powerful aimed shots or a flurry of shots that can hit many targets depending on the situation they use magic and poisons and explosives to gain an edge on tougher foes.

BM though skilled with any ranged weapon depends on their beasts its as if the BM as their arrows cause wounds and poisons the hunter can command a host of different beasts be it trained magic summoning from one’s own menagerie or tossing bait on an enemy so wild animals will help attack a target by clawing at them for food.

SV there no weapon it won’t consider its survival of the fittest they are the trap masters and abusers and will use any magical or explosive payload needed to strike their prey hard and then escape and disappear if their plan fails and they become prey. If the prey is too large they bring a bigger gun if there isn’t a bigger gun they bring a bigger trap if there isn’t a bigger trap they bring a bigger spear and command their companion to keep the prey off balance inflicting damage and slowing the prey as they widdle down the enemy outlasting it.

  • How do you define the difference between class and spec fantasy?

MM is all about the hunter they may bring a beast but should have the utility to not have to when hunting in a group.

BM is all about their mastery over beasts training a small army of beasts to overtake foes be it flocs of crows or a large basilisk or a stampede of kodos. And using their ranged skill to give there beasts every advantage inflicting bleeds and wounds and poisons.

SV hunter’s focus should be on flexibility and survivability able to whittle down their prey with there companion pet from a distance or go in for the kill up close with a burst of melee damage. Survivability for this class could be improved with either improved self-healing or an improved aspect of the turtle that flows with SV melee or improved stealth.

3 Likes
68

This is absolutely hands down what I one hundred percent agree with! This poster hit the nail on what it would feel to play an actual SV hunter.

Ps: imagine the mog options for sv hunter with dual wield?! Also maybe a back piece mog that just looks like a spear or a bow. Something purely cosmetic.

1 Like
69

This is still one of the most frustrating things about Survival - our focus generation entirely relies on pet AI, which is horrid. If my pet decides it wants to randomly go after an add that I dotted instead of my main target, I have to wait until it gets back in range to get focus back. Ugh. This was horrible on Denathrius with the mirrors.

I feel like the current mastery is too much like something BM would have, not SV. Spirit Bond used to be a BM skill too, so it felt weird being given it. Something involving Caltrops, or DoT damage, etc. would be better IMO.

I wasn’t a fan of Legion’s Lacerate (having to tab target a melee DoT sucked), but like, a re-worked Lacerate that functioned as our main damage would be great. Maybe have Butchery/Carve spread Lacerate too, so we don’t have to rely on tab targeting for a melee skill lol.

Honestly, part of me thinks something like Flayed Shot would function well in place of Lacerate, but like, just named Lacerate.

I was surprised that Kill Shot wasn’t just something like Chakrams for Survival - since we’ve had Chakrams as hunter weapons since at least WoD in talents.

No idea about Serpent Sting though. I kinda like pulling out the crossbow - though not being able to customize it is meh.

The stupid thing is we have Dual Wield - we just can’t use our skills with it. Lol. Like, why?

Carve is such a basic skill. Like… oh wow, we swung our polearm. Other classes don’t really have basic skills like that, there’s always some sort of flair to them - like Mortal Strike isn’t just whacking with your axe - it’s hitting their weak point. Even whirlwind is unique in that regard.

Butchery could be a nice baseline replacement, yes. Especially since it’d get rid of the stupid cone AoE Carve has. X_X

I also find it weird we’d be tossing bombs at enemies our trusted companions are right next to. The same issue I had with Explosive Trap in legion - we wouldn’t be risking our companions like that. At least with BM, they are masters at aim, but like, we can’t control a trap explosion or a bomb.

The tier set made it even worse - as if you get lucky (or unlucky depending on how you see it) procs, you pretty much do nothing but spam bomb after bomb.

Yea… there’s a lot of things they could do - from something like, while active, our raptor strike becomes Flanking Strike, doing X more damage, or something as simple as our pet gains a stacking buff that increases our damage for every auto attack the pet lands. - to lean into the “coordinated” part of it.

Kill Command was such an odd choice to give survival in BFA and I’m not sure why they kept it. Flanking Strike had a lot of flavor and it was replaced with a BM skill and I don’t understand why lol.

I’ve brought up the thought to have us learn how to “befriend” dragons - similar to the taming books. We go through a quick questline to learn how to befriend dragons, as companions, not pets.

But gameplay reasons, they act like pets, but lore wise, they’re just friends we call on similar to the Dragonriding dragon.

I also included thoughts on updating the existing “hidden” pet families, as some have silly requirements in this year.

Rexxar is weeping right now.

4 Likes
70

Sorry man, but could NOT care less, surv is supposed to be ranged. Just does NOT make ANY sense for it to be melee.

I mean, look at all the questions you just answered and tell me msv isnt just a melee version of bm. We all know bm should be melee if one spec HAD to be melee.

I want lk ranged surv back.
Explosion shot, black arrow serpent sting. Heck you could keep the bomb aspects and make it as a spender. Have it bring the spell dmg debuff that dh bring. Dots provide resources as well as arcane shot for on-demand resources. Mastery increases spell dmg done, increases haste and resources from dots, and during its primary cd es, ba, and ss have a chance to burst, causing x dmg to all targets in a 10 yrd radius, deminishing after 8 targets. Primary cd could be like increases vers by 20%, bombs apply all 3 debuffs to the target at the same time (phermone affects arcane shot not kill command since they wont have it), and allows 2 procs of kill shot at 300% increased damage. The hunter would have a secondary cd where when a pet attacks a target over 75% the pet will cause an additional bleed and slow the target. If the target is under 35%, the pet will frenzy, increasing its attack speed and power by 150% and gives the hunter blood frenzy, causing its auto attacks to do a high dmg bleed and decrease kill shot’s cd and resource cost everytime it ticks.

See, not so hard to come up with a wonderful idea around an old spec that needs to return. Keeps with spec and class “flavor” and even interweaves abilities, creatimg synergy and flow. Of course this is only a base idea.

Rexxar can go off and be forgotten for all i care.

5 Likes
71

Well, that thread on pets took… longer… than I expected. I didn’t touch every point I wanted to, but still, I posted it! Hop on over to the Community Council and find the thread titled “Fluffy and You: Hunter Pets.”

I’ll get started on the draft for the second thread later tonight. I didn’t realize it’d take me this long. :sweat_smile:

2 Likes
72

How so? Cause Rexxar was a melee bm?

Looking at the original talent trees would indicate SV was more for melee than BM ever was man

LOL

3 Likes
73

Speaking on the melee side of things

-I would prefer another baseline melee attack. All SV has right now is raptor strike/MB and Carve (not including auto attacks of course). Whether that could be bringing back some form of Fury of the Eagle or changing Kill command to something else or a whole new melee ability all together.

-Melee with Kill Command looks dumb. I mean you are up close and personal with the enemy and instead of swinging your sword, your polearm or whatever you instead point at the bad guy and yell at your pet. Honestly even when BM does it, it kind of throws me off but I can deal with it but with SV bleh… I wouldn’t mind if SV got a different focus builder instead of kill command, new melee attack whatever

-I could take it or leave with DW. Honestly just means more of a pain to get 2 weapons.

-I like the bombs I don’t want to see the bombs go away, I think at this point bombs are the “iconic” ability of SV. That being said I do wish the other end talents would be more competitive

-I know blizz is iffy about giving classes and or specs some kind of raid buff because then bringing that class will feel mandatory but if they where to give one to SV, I would like to see something like “While Aspect of the Eagle is active all party members can also use their melee abilities from range”. Adjust as needed to not be OP in pvp.

-In terms of bringing back ranged SV, I would not say no to having an option/talent to allow SV to attack from range (make raptor strike into raptor shot whatever…) but if that is done I would hope blizz would be able to balance all 4 specs relatively well. Now yes I know perfect balance can never be a thing but I would hate to be in a situation of “Well RSV and MM and BM are doing fine, we can buff MSV next patch because 3 out of 4 hunter specs are fine, so that is good enough”. If blizzard cannot balance all 4 hunter specs reasonably well then keep SV melee.

-As good as the tier set is, I think it promotes a style of game play where nearly everything is bomb. You don’t even care about not focus capping, why bother using your 1 melee ability because everything is bomb. I would hope to not see this play style carry over in the next expansion.

-Baseline camo for all hunter specs then put in a new talent

Overall I like MSV, I don’t think it needs a major overhaul or a total rework. If the choice came between keeping SV melee or making it ranged again, I would keep it melee unless blizz is able to find a way to balance melee and ranged within one spec. I.e… I think it goes beyond making SV’s one melee attack be able to be used from ranged.

In any case good luck Watermist, I know blizz has been quite spotty to non-existent when it comes to class suggestions so I am not holding out much hope, but no harm in trying.

1 Like
74

Eh- Lock and Load and Explosive Shot were the defining features of RSV. You’d need them in there somewhere.

3 Likes
75

OMG!!!

I am stunned and completely in awe. Your posts on pets are so thorough and well thought out! There is a degree of Hunter passion and sentiment while still being completely logical and reasonable.

Every point is bolstered by facts, making clear points in outlining many of our concerns. The details are far beyond what I was expecting and an excellent expression of how I feel.

I can’t even begin to fathom how much time you spent compiling all our feedback and all the Hunter pet history and then putting together this amazingly written post.

I can not thank you enough for taking the time and caring enough to do this. I would not have been able to balance the line between passion and logic as you did.

Whatever does or does not happen, you’ve given me hope that we can see some positive changes and, at least, I know many of my concerns have been heard.

Thank you Watermist. You are certainly an MVP in my opinion

5 Likes
76

Surv was never meant to be melee. There was never a viable melee build. Nothing in the classic era ever pointed to surv being melee.

8 Likes
77

I wiuld have preferred if you requested that pets have a talent tree. No, not the 3 small ones, just one big one.
Just getting to choose what class thr pet is stillvery boring and detached.

78

You need the mechanic - a DoT that procs a CD reset on another key ability. Flayed Shot covers this.

I think for an RSV-in-MM scenario, the gameplay is more important than the theme.

1 Like
79

Pretty sure when Blizzard announced that there changing survival to the melee they “meant” it to be melee from that point on your statement makes you look a bit foolish cause it implies that Blizzard accidentally made its melee.

Say it like Bepples at least something along lines of " Ranged is the superior DPS damage delivery method and playstyle and is objectively more fun cause it has a lot fewer limitations than melee. They need to bring back ranged survival here is a link -www.thisisalink.rp- to a forum post with info on how cool ranged survival was"

pssst bepples what was your link?

80

I dont nees to say it any way. Blizz screws up a LOT of stuff, even to the point where those bad decisions are taken as the company’s actual choices.

Surv was never melee. Every hunter spec had a couple of melee talents. It was part of the flavor. When hunters were in the world and their pet lost aggro (is was basically with one two shots always), they had to melee the target. PLUS, there was a minimum range that hunters had to be at to use their ranged weapons. So when an enemy got in that zone, hunters had to melee. However, it was NEVER considered a full-time, viable way of playing the class. Ever.

5 Likes