Hunters have plenty of utility and mobility. What hunters need is throughput. While you may only pvp or your one of those “i dont run dps meters”, your .00001% of the community. Even looking at sl logs atm shows the overtuned surv near top but BM still bottom and mm hasnt left the 12-20 range all season 3. Plus, looking at the poor capstones and Cooldowns just emphasizes the need for more throughput.
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Or just fudge to boring throughput talents and just give us actual utility and gameplay changing talents with choices and balance the class/spec through tuning?
Your reply to some imagined fear Hunters will be undertuned is to wish for more throughput in the talent trees… That wont work since the more throughput you can pick the weaker each pick must be. Further forcing you to always have to take All the throughput for fear of being undertuned if you choose some utility/survivability instead. Your logic is flawed and would lead to a Horrible spec/class.
Instead what a class/spec tree should be is utility, flavor and talents that give you a choice in how you play. The actual throughput must be balanced by tuning the core kit and what our choice picks happen to be. We as players should not have to “tune” our class by talents.
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What utility is that? Please list the utility that isn’t redundant to other classes.
Why? All of these trees and abilities are just numbers Blizzard can tune. If these capstones aren’t impactful damage-number-wise, they will just be tuned. We have to consider these things practically, which is why having some random 2%/4% damage increases, or other throughput options higher in the tree is the opposite of what we need, for a few reasons. First: Blizzard will tune around us having them, making them must-picks, essentially giving us fewer points to spend in the tree. Second: this gives Blizzard other tuning knobs if our damage is low—why buff specific capstones and make those feel better when you can simply pour a little juice in the flat damage increases? If Hunters are 3% behind the rest of the pack, Blizz isn’t going to make Death Chakram hit harder, it’s just going to tune some of the passive damage increases.
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The number of throughput talents has no correlation to tuning. Any dps spec is strongly encouraged to pick up every damage-increasing option available. When there are many throughput talents throughout the tree, there’s little room for choice.
Leave most, if not all the DPS-increasing nodes to the spec trees.
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Or don’t have them at all. Throughput talents are going to always be mandatory, because the implication is that if you don’t take them, you are by default doing 2/4% less damage, or critting less often or whatever.
I’m a fan of things like “Increase critical strike chance by [X%] on target if [debuff] is active.” They need to be specific to paths in the tree and lend to the intended patterns of that path (like the difference between an Icecap build vs Sindragosa’s Breath for FDK.) Talents that increase damage, but do so through synergies within their branch, and reflect the intended playstyle of that branch.
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How does that differ, though?
That’s just a X% damage node… that further constrains your build choice and playflow options. (Or, if the condition is CD-gated, it’d just be an augmenting talent to that CD.)
That’s especially the case if you already encouraged to maintain the triggering condition. Which, you almost always are; else, the triggering condition is simply undertuned in itself and needs to be addressed individually.
Synergy isn’t always a good thing. It sounds nice, but it’s essentially a euphemism for bundling, the same thing that results from typically despised pathing. If you want Volatile Bomb, you must take Serpent Sting, and vice versa. If you want the “while enemy is Bleeding” talent, you must take Bloodseeker. If you want Windrunner’s Guidance, you’re obliged to take every Aimed Shot talent you can, because their effects will be buffed by 88%.
Many of your sources of gameplay customization, though, cannot help but have throughput, because they alter your use of your throughput skills.
Are you using “throughput” here to only mean “stat” or “stat-stick” nodes?
If so, I’d agree that we should have almost none, that they should never constrain pathing to gameplay-affecting nodes, and that they should be purposely undertuned compared to gameplay-affecting options (allowing for more casual build options by offloading points usually spent on complicating/gameplay-affecting elements to passive ones), but a “if X debuff is active” throughput (or, more narrowly, stat-stick) talent would, again, typically be even worse unless it’s for a non-maintainable condition… in which case that’s really just a buff to whatever CD applies that condition.
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Yes, sorry. Specifically just the “You or skill does X% more damage” for no synergistic reason other than to do more damage. That’s not a choice.
Correct. Who uses Crows? Would they use us it if pet special attacks were amplified in that window? Probably. There are plenty of talents across specs and in the class that tree that have no reason to be used. Having talents that provide synergy would at least make them somewhat more appealing.
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- The primary fallacy you all make is the assumption that blizz will actually tune specific nodes in correlation to what the spec needs. In fact, 95% of the “buffs” we get after an xpac goes live is aura tuning. While, yes, i know there is a max limit on how much dps blizz allows and the more nodes makes each weaker, there comes a point where inevitably blizz will refuse to buff the handful of throughput talents and yes they will refuse to add more nodes so your f*****.
- Throughput nodes dont just mean +5 dps, thats a moronic statement. Plus we are already looking at ability bloat.
- Utility does NOT always equate to “fun” playstyles. In fact, many people would find a certain amount of utility cumbersome and annoying af. Plus, most utility across the classes are all the same. Stuns, slows, frozen, etc. All your going to get with blizz is a reinvented wheel with a different name. Besides, have you even looked at the surv tree? That alone is a prime example of why you should NOT be asking for blizz’s new “innovation.”
Okay, gotcha.
- Generally, if something is passive and nonconditional, it’d be a “stat” talent.
- If it does the same as above, but is constrained to a condition you’d keep up anyways, it is then a “stat” talent that reduces spec flexibility (a.k.a. “baggage” and “a bad talent” or an “unfortunate, spec-flavor stat talent”).
- And if it only buffs another talent or baseline action without adding a gameplay, it’s typically called an “Improved” talent, referring to the prefix most often slapped onto those talent’s names.
Right, but is that supposed to be the point of crows? Would that use put Crows at conflict with its execute use, for instance? Those are the things to think about before bundling them together.
:: In Crow’s case, for that particular example, it’d probably be 100% fine, as you already want to get one tick short of its max duration out of it, thus optimizing its Focus efficiency and getting its CD reset.
On this, though, I again have to disagree somewhat. Often the last thing I’d want during an execute, for instance, is to have Kill Command buffed.
Imagine if Crows buffed just Kill Command, for instance. I’d hate that. Why? Because I’d want to be using Kill Shot during that period, and the more I’m specced into Kill Shot features, the more I’d then waste that synergy, so if Birds gets balanced around that synergy for a KC-heavy build, I’m effectively barred from using Crows for its original intent, and even in KC builds those original means of optimization may be greatly watered down (i.e., it might not be worth holding AMoC, even briefly, for a kill if this use aligns with Bestial Wrath and the reset use wouldn’t anyways).
I.e., if the synergy only gives added damage while constraining gameplay, I’d rather AMoC itself just be stronger.
Now, if that synergy were both (A) kept in check, as not to be too powerful in conflict to the original play of the talent, and (B) affect gameplay positively the triggering skill’s use outside its original occasions, then there are alternate benefits. Perhaps such could even expand the use cases of AMoC without overly watering down its original means of optimization.
Tl;dr: Yes… but it’s complicated. Synergy is bundling, and bundling isn’t always good.
This is an odd “fallacy” to note while specifically asking for your favored nodes to be overpowered on the basis that they’d “be taken anyways”.
More like 80% at most, and that’s only for certain specs. Talents have been and will almost certainly continue to be tuned individually, too. For most specs, such are the majority of tuning tweaks.
As for the rest, it would help if you actually used the Reply and Quote tools so others have any idea what you’re replying to / misconstruing.
That depends on what you consider utility.
If your idea of “utility” is the likes of Resonating Arrow’s party crit buff (which is throughput and solely throughput), Windfury Totem, or Skull Banner, then sure, there can be unenjoyable utility. Similarly, put Stampeding Roar on a 20s CD and even it could be annoying.
That’s “CC,” specifically, which is only a very small portion of utility.
How does that have anything to do with utility? The survival tree has 0-3 points of utility, depending on whether they’d be a reliable source of added damage for a given fight: Harpoon, Aspect of the Eagle, and Energetic Ally.
How would a tree with such a low count of potential utility be a black mark specifically against utility?
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This is somewhat difficult to parse, but I’ll try.
Your argument is that we are assuming blizzard will tune – likely on the basis of more and more frequent tuning passes of the last several major patches – and that is a fallacy to assume that those frequent tuning passes will continue. Fine, just because something has happened in the past does not mean it will necessarily happen in the future.
You then blanketly state that 95% of buffs are aura tuning, which seems like an awfully high number considering the vast majority of buffs and nerfs affect specific abilities. Just look at the season 4 tuning pass, of the 17 changes, 0 were aura buffs or nerfs. For your number to be correct, Blizzard would have to have made 323 aura buffs and nerfs without tuning a specific ability just to achieve a 95% rate for that patch alone.
You then acknowledge what every other person has been saying: that having too many throughput nodes that are widely available necessarily dilutes the power of every other throughput node, if they are not contained to the bottom third. But you “refute” this with your own assumption that Blizzard will just inevitably refuse to buff things or to add nodes, as if Blizzard has never tuned or changed talents in the current system. Is that not the same fallacy you accused everyone else of above?
Honestly, I try to assume the best of everyone, so I think that you’re just misguided and not actively trolling, but many of your takes just don’t even hold together logically.
I don’t know on whose behalf you speak, but this could not be further from the truth. Hunters are crying out for more utility, for a reason to be brought to raid. And describing more utility as “cumbersome” is one of the strangest takes I’ve ever seen.
But critical utility is not: Rallying Cry, Anti-Magic Zone, Arcane Intellect, etc etc. The majority of classes have unique utility to their class that demands a raid spot. Hunters do not. It’s as simple as that.
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Cherry picking.
twisting. I am saying that blizz WONT buff certain nodes. I am actually asking for a FEW more nodes to allow for better spread buffing.
You missed the point. The tree was an example of blizz not creating new and exciting things to the hunter trees, and therefore blizz will most likely not be creating any utility that will be “fun and exciting” as most people assume.
ah, another biased anti-dpser.
Cherry picking. They are crying out for SPECIFIC utility, not just BASIC utility. Theya re looking for the exposed armor debuff, or basically speaking and probably a better way to describe it, a raid cd. thats what hunters are looking for, a raid cd. They are not looking for more random utility you just throw in the tree because your anti-throughput.
So, lets make this clear, hunters want a RAID CD, ie Critical Utility. Lets keep this seperate from BASIC UTILITY like stuns, slows, movement speeds, etc, etc, etc… I support a raid cd for hunters, i dont agree that hunters need more basic utility.
I meant pet-specific special attacks: claw, bite, etc.
Then show me your data that backs up that 95% of tuning is aura buffs/nerfs. It’s pretty easy to just say “cherry picking” without providing any of the numbers that supposedly show the whole tree.
What? What even is an “anti-dpser”? Like I said before, I’m trying not to assume you’re just trolling, but good lord, that’s taking more and more effort.
It is overwhelmingly simple: the balance goal at its most simplified is to have all specs performing within a certain percentage of each other. That means that spec and class power is essentially a zero-sum game. Therefore, having our damage and throughput in the class tree limited to 11 points as opposed to 15-20 means each of those 11 points has a greater impact and is less diluted.
Cherry picking from the general consensus of the Hunter discord? Seems like a tough line to take.
But okay, you finally seem to get it, yes a raid cd or buff or debuff would be fantastic. I have not been arguing for another stun or what you have now defined as “basic utility.” I’ve been pretty consistent on talking about needing a reason-to-give-us-a-raid-spot utility.
Again, I don’t understand what this “anti-throughput” nonsense is. I want the throughput in the tree to be good. I want Blizzard to be able to tune the impactful abilities in a way that makes them actually feel impactful. For this to happen, they have to be confined to the bottom third and competing against one another. If anything, it detracts from the throughput nodes they’re watered down with other throughput nodes scattered in the tree — I would consider wanting to water down and detract from capstone throughput abilities to be “anti-throughput.”
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Watermist, sure hope you post BM thoughts very soon on alpha because I am tired of seeing Ingvaeonic, Jaggles and Tanaris argue about nothing 
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Second this. That conversation should be in Alpha PvP thread. Even there its a farse.
I only argue to the betterment of the hunter class and specs, not to be marginalized by obvious tiny amount of information that blizz listens too.
Henseforth, you will probably see a decrease in debate flowing from my keyboard. Since the creative period for the specs is obviously over, we will just see blizz tune the crapshow they decided to agree upon with the alpha testers. I dont need to input thoughts on numbers, by then, the battle has either been won or lost.
Spec representation will tell the story, the only thing that will ascrue those numbers will be if blizz decides it wants to let surv be viable, then it will overtune it.
I meant only to give an example, as per the
Anywho, slapped together a quick mock-up of an alternate class tree, for anyone interested. Very spitball. Some talents still say only what the design intent is instead of even attempting concrete details just yet.
For TTM, of course.
Additions to Baseline:
- Tenacity Affinity buffed. Now also increases Armor and healing received by 10% and doubles base health regeneration.
- Affinity: Allows you to select between Ferocity, Tenacity, and Cunning. This is no longer based on your pet.
- (Affinity Skill) - Based on Affinity, allows use of Horn of the Hunt, Survival of the Fittest, or Chain-cutter, respectively.
- Concussive Shot
- Mending Bandages (reworked slightly)
Only two real throughput talents before capstone: Mercy Blow and Serpent Sting / Rending Wounds.
LEFT: Self-sustain → Aspects
MID: General purpose stuff
RIGHT: Traps → Party utilities
Capstone tier starts with orphan nodes for full freedom of choice / not to constrain throughput pathing to/via earlier utility.
Chief Utilities added:
- Means of speeding along the group
- Partial Aspect sharing / partial Affinity sharing
- Able to form temporary LoS points; these cannot LoS a raidwide attack, but can be used to gather enemies.
- Party heal
Much of this is still WIP. Some nodes show only the basic design intent, not the full effects.
And here I’d wish other classes, too, would actually talk about what better a Class Tree design would look like, what we’d like to see added, etc.
It seems to be an entirely PvE-related discussion, though?
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It’s coming! Things have been very hectic here — had two last-minute IEP meetings this week alone! On the bright side, my niece was born yesterday. 
I feel bad that I’m so slow with this, though!
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