Hi! Here’s some quick feedback in regards to specifically the new iteration of Withering Fire on the 11.0.5 PTR. Let me preface this by saying the rework is overall a big positive, both in terms of theme but also talent integration. This one talent however, feels a bit lackluster and is need of some fixes, to summarize:
Issues:
- Tying it to Bestial Wrath was possibly done to cater to feedback that tying it to Call of the Wild forced certain talents. I feel like this is still forced due to the new version of Hunter’s Prey on AoE.
- You are somewhat incentivized to sync the Withering Fire proc with with Call of the Wild due to this new version of Hunter’s Prey. This is awkward to do due to the Barbed Shot changes making Bestial Wrath closer to a ~40 second cooldown (unless you run a bunch of Barbed Shot reset stuff, then maybe it is reasonable, needs a bit of testing).
- Having the stacking buff be one minute long can be awkward if there’s any downtime due to Roleplay. It’s definitely not impossible to drop which can feel awful. (Thinking about City of Threads and The Dawnbreaker here). Downtime can also make the aforementioned COTW sync even harder.
- It’s very possible to NOT gain any Deathblow proc at all during this Withering Fire, which feels awful. You have the 10% chance from Kill Command, and the 15% chance from Bleak Arrow, which makes it certainly not guaranteed. The 15% chance from Ebon Bowstring also does not come into play too often (as your first Withering Fire will be 2+ minutes into a raid encounter, it’s not unlikely boss will already be bellow 80% hp, leaving probably only one overlap window when the boss reaches sub-20% hp). It will often feel like you’re building up this big combo with Withering Fire + Call of the Wild, only for nothing to proc and it all to fizzle. Negative gameplay experience.
- Still being worked out, but the way secondary targets are selected alongside Hunter’s Prey does not feel intuitive and is hard to work out. Sometimes enemies very far away get hit while close targets do not.
Suggestions:
- Make it “Casting Bestial Wrath will grant you 12 seconds of Withering Fire. Can only occur every 2 minutes.” This solves the first three issues on the above list.
- Some adjustment to account for poor rng, make it give you a single deathblow proc by default for example.
Bugs:
- Secondary Black Arrows from Withering Fire or Hunter’s Prey do not apply a dot (Implied that they should due to phantom pain).
- Secondary Black Arrows from Withering Fire or Hunter’s Prey cannot proc A Murder of Crows via Banshee’s Mark.
Thank you for Reading!