Data Driven Feedback for Hunter Talent Trees for 10.1.5 and Beyond

Classes Hunter
1

Over this past week I took a look at every DPS specs tree, the amount of talent nodes they had, and the quantity of nodes that required more than 1 point investment. The results somewhat shocked me—SV and BM are very egregious outliers when it comes to both quantity of talent nodes and nodes that require more than one point.

TL;WR: The Hunter spec talent trees need some TLC compared to other DPS trees in future content patches for Dragonflight.

I believe this information really shows that the specs (and general Hunter tree) needs a Paladin tier refresh in a future content patch for Dragonflight to be more consistent with other DPS specs, strengthen Hunter identity, and give players more options for both expressing themselves in talent trees and making our class even more fun to play.

The information is below, grouped by melee DPS and ranged DPS. This information was pulled from 10.1 PTR talent trees. An * by a spec name means the spec received a significant talent rework within the last patch. (Retribution, Devastation, and Shadow).

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As you can see, Survival has both the fewest number of talent nodes available to the spec compared to all other melee DPS as well as the MOST amount of talent nodes that cost more than 2 or more points to fully invest in.

The quick and dirty math shows that a whopping 39% of our tree is nodes that take more than 1 point to fully invest in, which drastically reduces the amount of talents available to the spec.

Compare that to Retribution Paladins which quite frankly have a hilarious talent tree break down. They only have two talent nodes in the entire tree that cost more than 1 point.

Not only is our talent tree set up in this very (frankly, odd) restrictive way, Survival also has a tremendous amount of talent nodes that are simple passive abilities.

This is eight of our nodes that are simply purely passive bonuses to our damage. I understand that not every talent needs four layers of daisy chained synergy or to be an active node (quite the opposite! I love a good simple talent) but 8 entirely passive nodes with no procs or interactions of an already restrictive class tree is not exciting to play with, theorycraft, or even think about, especially when compared to other melee DPS specs.

On top of that, several of these entirely passive “do more damage” nodes also buff the same abilities and end up being redundant. Another point of contention here is that many of these nodes simply gate other passive nodes—not many exist to act as a gate to more exciting talents (active or exciting passives).

Even in it’s short era (BfA and onwards) Survival has a wealth of previous Azerite traits, Legendaries, or even tier sets from Legion that could be brought forward and added to the tree. Many of these two point talent nodes can be reduced to even 1 talent point total—much like the precedence set with Devastation recently.

63 Likes
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Moving on to our Ranged friends, that data can be found here.

As you can see, Beast Mastery is suffering from many of the same problems of Survival’s tree.

It has a very few amount of total talent nodes offered to it as well as many nodes costing more than one point to fully invest in. Beast Mastery is also unfortunate enough to be one of the two specs in the game to still have 3 point nodes on the tree. As mentioned above, this gives the player a less-than-stellar experience on the spec as the tree is narrow, options few, and there is less exploration to do in the talent tree compared to other specs.

I hope moving forward into 10.1.5 and beyond, the Hunter specs (and class tree!) can get a once over for the health of the class and the enjoyment of the passionate player base.

Thank you for your time!

(In before Bepples says lol just make it rsv)

45 Likes
3

So, first off, I agree with pretty much everything here.

I don’t mind that there are some pure, simple throughput talents (Sharp Edges, iWFB), but to me, they MUST be optional — essentially acting only as a way to avoid complexity for those who’d otherwise be overwhelmed.

Those basic/ stat-stick talents, though must not block access to gameplay-affecting talents (i.e., simple talents should only ever be either choices on a choice node or in an edge or terminal position), and they must not outperform (in practice) complicating talents except in particularly niche circumstances.

I feel like part of the issue that most plagues SV, though, is that the gameplay-affecting complexity all stems from very few locations/anchoring mechanics, with little breadth of those options having been imagined into the spec.

I suspect that to most, SV does not even feel “complete” without Butchery, MB, WFI, and either an augmented CA or Spearhead.

While we’ve had other things in the past, like AMoC, (old) Chakrams, or Steel Trap, they’ve never been particularly synergetic. Those things make sense on the class tree — not in SV. But that leaves a hole in SV’s own options, a hole that needs filling.

What might fill those gaps? What fun mechanics can be added? Would/should it be, given those potential additions, possible to have a build at least as complex as our current most complex builds that carry WFI… without taking WFI or even WFB? Can there be an alternative to MB, or should Mongoose Fury center the whole spec?

7 Likes
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I feel like WFB is pretty tantamount to the spec itself, especially cause you can’t not take it in the current design. I (generally) like the ability and personally feel like it’s a great addition to the spec as it’s a unique spell both in practice and in flavor. :smiley:

3 Likes
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You should post this on the development part of the forum. Class forums are very much echo chambers that devs don’t look at. Not even sure they look at the development forum either but eh.

6 Likes
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I feel like with the 10.1 patch almost here they won’t read it there anymore than here. I 'll cross post over the weekend though for more eyes.

2 Likes
7

I mean one way they could fix the too many multipoint and lack of talents compared to pass classes is for the 3 specs to share more skills and talents that would synergize.

Also if there is any azerite power or anima power abilities people miss then at least playstyle wise hunter would get better.

But big weakess is hunter has mobility but not aloud to have good self healing apparently…i say depending on how the current balance is we could us more self healing if we are easier to catch in Dragonflight and you might as why not ask for more mobility it fits better with hunter theme? Mobility boost only drastically helps with pvp and its PvE most people are complaining about so more exhilarates and retuned healing and defensive CD adjustments would me more useful and not as op as asking for damage reductions or immunity dodge frames.

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The chart I posted was just the spec specific talent trees and not the general Hunter talent tree. 3 specs sharing abilities wouldn’t do much to the spec specific trees. :slight_smile:

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I love this post OP, it really narrows in on what I have been saying for months on the forums. I hope one of the devs picks it up because with the consistent nerfs and refusal to communicate or address the other issues with the class like survivability and group utility, hunter is in a very sad state.

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Deeply appreciated! Best way to do that is post frequent, reasonable, feedback on the forums in an open dialogue. :dracthyr_blob_dance_animated:

3 Likes
11

Let’s be honest, hunter trees, particularly the surv tree, are actually still in development. Thier unfinished products. There’s no way a group of devs looked at them and said “Guys, this is really good work”, high 5ed each other then went to lunch… Guessing that thier trying to save cash by simply giving mediocre damage buffs instead doing the work of actually delivering 3 cohesive dps specs. As long as they "mostly " work in some content nothing will change.

2 Likes
12

Really good post here, the trees could definitely use some work.

3 Likes
13

SV saving one point with the 10.1 Marauder change. I popped me some champagne when I had heard the news.

1 Like
14

Unfortunately the information in OP is with that change already in mind D:

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15

Well darn it!!

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16

i love it when people on forums have the numbers to back up their complaints! hopefully daddy blizz recognizes the issue, as well.

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As a notation for Survival Specifically, I know that harpoon and terms of engagement are on our talent tree specifically because only survival gets them. However, are we not meant to equalize this to charge/Feral Leap etc? Additionally, aspect of the eagle is purely a non damage increasing cooldown that is smack dab on the second row of the tree. While adding nodes, blizzard should consider dealing with these talents accordingly.

2 Likes
18

this is an excellent post, succinct, clear and it feels good knowing other people are starting to notice, too. personally i liked a lot of the torghast hunter abilities, i feel like many of them could have a home in the hunter or sv tree.

and for more visibility, i suggest posting this on other places (reddit, mmochamp, etc)

3 Likes
19

Fully agree with the sentiments shared here. It would be desirable to see more inter-tree cohesion and symbiotic effects. There’s currently a slew of throughput talents that are uninspired when comparing to some of the recent tree reworks.

1 Like
20

I’m honestly surprised to have not seen a blue response to this, yet. This is extremely constructive critique, and for blizz to not even acknowledge it is honestly a little disappointing. I think we, as fans, greatly appreciate when we can feel seen and heard by the dev team; collaborating to make a game that we can all enjoy is such a motivating force for fan and dev alike.

I’m going to keep my fingers crossed, that someone might at least validate our frustrations, if nothing else.

2 Likes