[Feedback - Build 45480] Hunter Class Talents + Beast Mastery

Beast Mastery

General Pathing/Structure

With how the tree looks atm, and with the most recent changes, I find some of the pathing to be a bit odd.

  • I’m starting to think more and more that the AoE-talents Multi-Shot, Beast Cleave, and Kill Cleave, that they should be moved to one of the side paths, rather than being in the center path, going down past the first gate. Mostly because it locks you down pretty heavily in any scenario where you might not want to pick talents for AoE.
  • The fact that you have to go through either a 3 pointer that is Thrill of the Hunt, or Beast Cleave as your only other option, in order to reach the signature major CD of the spec, Bestial Wrath, doesn’t feel good.

Individual talents

Some interesting choices can be made in the tree, incl some of the new additions. Though, there are still several talents that leave things to desire.

  • Animal Companion - This is one of my main gripes with the tree/spec. I like that we have it as an option, but it really shouldn’t be a talent choice. It should be reworked to a passive effect, where we can make said choice without a throughput dependecy factor.
    • While I’m in favor of doing the above with Animal Companion, there’s also the issue of how it works, mechanically. The undisclosed deficit aura that reduces the damage of your main pet by 35% is causing many issues with how it’s implemented. How it affects many other talents if picked, and in doing so, lowering their value. Such as…
      • Aspect of the Beast
      • Dire Beast
      • Call of the Wild
  • Several talents that currently require 2 points, considering what they give, they should really be made into 1 point talents.
    • Training Expert
    • Kindred Spirits
    • Killer Command
    • Sharp Barbs
  • In the capstone section, past the second gate, the left path really should have its point requirement for each node reduced.
    • Dire Command - Same effect, but max 2 points
    • Dire Frenzy - Same effect, but max 1 point
  • Wailing Arrow is still not a good fit for a talent tree like Beast Mastery. I still think that it would be best suited as a class-wide option, in the class tree, and thus, should be removed from both the Beast Mastery and Marksmanship trees.
  • The new talent: Brutal Companion, it has potential. It needs to be clarified how it’s intended to work though. Whether it works even when Frenzy stacks are refreshed, and not just the first application of the third stack.
    • And if it’s only intended to work with the initial application of the third stack, this should ideally be looked over again, as it has a heavy conflict with the very core gameplay found within the spec.
  • Call of the Wild - not sure why the cooldown was increased from 2 min, up to 3. Just to give it a different edge compared to Aspect of the Wild, which remains at a 2 min CD?
    • I would be okay with the increased CD, if the pets summoned during Call of the Wild are able to do more than just auto attack.
    • The capstone choice for this ability, the talent Wild Instincts should ideally be reworked into providing a different effect. The high chance of gaining charges of Barbed Shot is promoting a chaotic event window where you generally won’t be able to make full use of it. Especially if you have picked other talents, such as Wild Call/Scent of Blood, etc.
      • It would be interesting to see an alternative choice here where every temporary beast summoned, or with every Barbed Shot used, the CD of Call of the Wild could be reduced, or perhaps even provide an extension of the remaining duration, while active.

Final thoughts

Here are some thoughts on what could be done to improve the general composition of Beast Mastery as a specialization/talent tree.

Animal Companion - Not about throughput
Really, I can’t stress this enough, make Animal Companion a baseline passive choice that we can make. One that simply splits normal pet damage between 2 permanent pets, if we so choose. Or if we go with 1 main pet, that pet will then deal 100% of normal damage.

Dire Beast - Back to Legion design
It should preferably be reworked to how it was in Legion, so that we could choose between that and Barbed Shot in a choice node in the beginning. And with that, talents that have an interaction with Barbed Shot should be iterated on to also include elements tied to Dire Beast.

Call of the Wild - Embracing the “Beast Cannon”
Would love a talent or bonus trait of some kind that allows you to extend the duration of Call of the Wild, by using another ability. My hope is that the capstone choice below Call of the Wild, where you can currently find Bloody Frenzy/Wild Instincts, my hope is that Wild Instincts can be reworked to interact with the new version(see above) of Dire Beast. Something like…

Wild Instincts - Every Dire Beast summoned increases the remaining duration of Call of the Wild by 1 sec.

Wailing Arrow - To the class tree
Like I mentioned earlier, it should be moved to the class tree. If the damage component isn’t important, place it somewhere around Counter Shot. Make it an extended “branch” pick from Counter Shot. If people want to keep the damage, it could instead be added as a capstone talent, between the choice node for Chakrams/Death Chakram, and Explosive Shot.

It makes no sense why this ability is in the spec trees for BM/MM. Especially as the intent is for Survival to be able to use all abilities in the class tree anyway, despite not wielding a ranged weapon.


Hunter class tree

Aspect of the Fox has long been an ability that the hunter community wants for to be brought back. While it was indeed at times a very powerful piece of utility, I would argue that with a few changes to it, this would allow the entire class to have raid/group-wide utility that would still be very strong, but also situational.

I would love to see something like the example below put back, as an option in the class tree. As per the tooltip, it would have a substantially longer shared cooldown, however long is required to not heavily promote class stacking or other things similar to that.

Aspect of the Fox - Instant - 3 min cooldown/30 sec global(shared) cooldown
Party and raid members within 40 yards take on the aspects of a fox, allowing them to move while casting all spells and abilities for 6 sec.

Here are some of the main points of specific talents I’d like to see, or to have changed in the class tree. See below for further thoughts.

  • Aspect of the Fox should be added to allow for the class to bring some additional utility, other than Primal Rage(which isn’t exactly a massive perk in group-based content). A lot of other classes/specs are getting additional raid/group utility, and atm, I think hunters are the only ones left out in this department.
  • Tar Trap should be taken out of the tree. The intent is that it should be given to us as a baseline ability, when we level up. Same as it works currently with Freezing Trap.
  • Wailing Arrow, like I wrote earlier, should be added to the class tree. It shouldn’t be in the trees for Beast Mastery/Marksmanship. It could be placed either around Counter Shot for the added utility(silence effect), or as a capstone talent if people also want it for the damage.

Looking at the class tree, there are some additional points in my view, where issues or inconsistencies are present…

  • The things they’ve added, especially with the latest build, amount to how the class is now much more capable of keeping itself alive. We’re not by any means at the top, but at least now, we have gotten some tools to increase our survivability. Note that the recent change to Lone Survivor, where the effect was reduced by 50% from its first iteration, wasn’t at all needed. If anything, Nature’s Endurance should’ve had its effect increased to match Lone Survivor.
  • With all changes that they’ve made to the class tree over the weeks of alpha, we’re now in a state where the positioning of individual talent nodes, and general structure of the “tree”, should be questioned.
    • Everything is more or less mixed together, different types of talents blend with eachother in terms of pathing and connections.
      • If you take Tar Trap, it leads to Tranquilizing Shot, Rejuvenating Wind(HoT), or a node that now increases our Dodge chance. Taking Rejuvenating Wind then leads to Improved Tranq Shot, or choice nodes for various types of CC. Most trap-related talents are to the left side of the tree, but then you have the node for Improved Traps by itself, on the right side, which you get by going through Camouflage, or a choice node tied to Survival of the Fittest.
    • Some talents that are designed to focus on somewhat niche/situational utility, they are placed in key positions(crossings) that you would want to go through, when heading to the third bracket/bottom section.
      • As an example, in order to get to the bottom left side that is focused on Beast Mastery/Survival talents, you have to go through Improved Tranq Shot, or Binding Shackles. Both of these are highly situational, and often aren’t at all useful to what you’re doing.
  • Several talent nodes aren’t very useful, more-or-less in any scenario. By that, I mean that they often enough are not worth the talent points required to get them.
    • Hunter’s Agility - Increases dodge chance by 4/8%.
    • Improved Tranquilizing Shot - Gives you 5 Focus when you dispel an effect.
    • Improved Traps - Reduces the cooldown of traps by 2.5/5 sec.
    • Agile Movement - Increases movement speed by 3/6%.
  • Some talents, I would question whether they should be in the tree at all, regardless
    of their power level.
    • Hunter’s Agility - Again, increases your dodge chance. Might see a rework in an
      upcoming build, based on what was said by the hunter dev, Nimox.
    • Nesingwary’s Trapping Apparatus - Increases Focus gain when you successfully trap something with Freezing Trap. As mentioned by several other players, it promotes degenerate gameplay, where people would want to use utility/CC for damage.
  • Like other people have pointed out, the hunter class tree contains several talent nodes that require 2 points, nodes with individual effects that in similar cases, with other classes, only require 1 point.
    • Rejuvenating Wind
    • Hunter’s Agility
    • Improved Traps
    • Born to be Wild+Lone Survivor = 3 points, for Survival of the Fittest CDR.
    • Agile Movement
  • Building on the previous point, the hunter class tree is somewhat sparse. It has a fairly low amount of talent nodes to pick between, when compared even to other pure damage classes like Rogue, or Warlock. But proportionally, we still don’t get to fill out more of the tree, due to how our individual talents require more points on average.

Aside from the above, the class is still lacking a sufficient type of raid-/group-utility. The newly added talent Sentinel, isn’t going to amount to the same value as what other classes/specs can bring to certain encounters. It does have some value ofc, especially in PvP, and Mythic+, in some cases. But in raids, unless they rethink their general approach to encounter design, Sentinel definitely won’t be what “puts us on the map”, again, talking a raid setting.

Note that my thoughts above aren’t necessarily always pointing to how they should simply get rid of all the aformentioned talents. But I would like it if they take a look at their individual design, and respective power levels. And, in cases like Born to be Wild, you could pick that talent apart to provide enhancements to individual abilities via several 1-point talents, instead of a single 2-pointer. And with that, increase the power of each of those individual nodes by a little more. Example:

  • Born to be Wild: Cheetah - 1 point. Reduces the base CD of Cheetah by 60 sec.
  • Born to be Wild: Turtle - 1 point. Reduces the base CD of Turtle by 60 sec.
  • Born to be Wild: Survival of the Fittest - 1 point. Reduces the base CD of SotF by
    30 sec.

Something like that…

The class tree should allow us to work our way down, by getting most of the base abilities/effects, things that are useful in most/all scenarios. And if you want additional improvements to those abilities/effects, or if you want certain niche utility/defensives, that’s where you would need to commit to spending additional points on tangent nodes, or diverging paths. Like what they’ve done with Scare Beast, or the placement of Sentinel.

21 Likes

My biggest issue is that a lot of things that we have baseline now are being removed from our baseline and being added to the tree. Considering that you can’t take everything it’s going to be interesting to see how the spec plays when you can’t use certain abilities or expect certain passives to work.

For instance, Barbed Wrath is behind Aspect of the Wild. Barbed Wrath is a baseline passive that we’ve had for a while now, and if I decide to not take AotW, I’m not going to have the ability to reduce the CD Bestial Wrath, which is going to make the rotation feel slow.

Loaded Quiver is also a baseline thing that for whatever reason was taken from us. Unless it makes Barbed Shot have 3 charges, please don’t make this a talent.

But then talents that should have been made baseline, like Stomp, is stuck behind getting Bloodshed, a talent that in the past has proven to be lackluster.

The other thing that doesn’t feel great is that baseline abilities are on the tree, and you are forced to take them which occupies a point that could be spent elsewhere on the tree. Like Multi-shot and Cobra Shot. Or Countershot, an absolutely essential ability, also requires a point. These should not require points and you should get them automatically.

There are also duplicate talents. Killer Command and Improved Kill Command do the exact same thing. Granted they are on different trees, it’s just lazy to duplicate talents like that.

Also I agree Animal Companion should be removed. It should be a passive, cosmetic, option for players who like to have 2 pets. I prefer to just have one.

Overall, the tree feels bad, and should be fixed to add things rather than take things from the hunter’s kit. Starting with removing abilities that are required to take and just occupy points.

4 Likes

The positioning of several talents make no sense to me for Survival. Why is Mongoose Bite locked behind Tip of the Spear, or Terms of Engagement? Why is Spear Focus locked behind Mongoose Bite? Why are Kill Command and pet buffs locked behind what is clearly the Raptor/Mongoose side of the talent tree??

1 Like

This removing of baseline abilities and putting them into the talent tree is one of the most moronic ideas they’ve ever conceived! Tbh it’s making my interest in the expansion decline, and my main’s class talents haven’t even been revealed yet.

This is just disappointing. :pensive:

13 Likes

Why are 33% of the survival spec talents 3 points, but outlaw has 39 one point nodes, 6 two point nodes, and zero three point nodes. Balancing hasn’t been done and I’d imagine some shuffling will take place and likely more nodes will appear, at least I hope so, cause otherwise this tree is very weak and rigid compared to all the rest released so far.

6 Likes

This really should be a thing. Wailing Arrow as a max level talent for MM is extremely underwhelming. But it’ll be mandatory for M+ I imagine.

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Thing is, this talent would be useless for Survival Hunters as, just like arcane and steady shot, you’d need a bow to use it. Unless, of course, Blizz makes it so Survival Hunters can fire them from their hand crossbow.

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I agree w/ Illidood about the removal then adding back the baseline stuff is lame.

For BM, I can Build a Load-out very similar to Live since it’s more or less the same stuff. Then add in a few new things while (losing / trading) a few.

I’m honestly surprised they didn’t Keep Wild Spirits for us (BM) like they did Convoke for Druids? I love the Burst WS gave BM and would love to see it return. Plus lining up perfect with AotW. Really bummed about that and hope we can get it back in Alpha/ Beta.

I agree with what Pincushion is saying as well. Overall like many other trees, they just don’t feel very exciting. It’s a first draft and you know they are listening now since so many have left the game. So positive / negative feedback should be heard. DF is 5 months away? Hmm, not so sure. LOL

7 Likes

Will never not take animal companion, should be higher up or base line.

2 Likes

it’s 3am here and i should be asleep but i had a glance at the talent trees and my main takeaways are:

  1. wow, they really liked the zookeeper bm archetype from wod and legion, which is weird, because i can count the bm hunters i’ve seen raving about how that was ~the peak~ of the spec and their absolute fav iteration on one hand, and;

  2. rogues get to pick THREE different covenant talents & hunters have a choice of necro or nothing? i knew no devs actually played hunter this xpack but lmfao

9 Likes

Yeah, Rogue’s looking good to me. I’ve only looked at Outlaw and Sub. But Outlaw getting a Party Buff is kinda cool. bad spot on the tree but cool.

1 Like

I agree. I just can’t understand why out of all the choices they went with Death Chakram. That is seriously the worst of all the covenant abilities. It just has no interaction with our rotation, it’s just hit it and forget it. Seriously lame.

4 Likes

Some notes (personal opinion - do not take as gospel):

  • Stampede seems to be worded differently than its current iteration. It almost sounds like it will function as it did before Legion: the target will be mobbed by a bunch of animals for the duration.

  • Dire Command and Call of the Wild are both appealing. Combined with Stampede, I’m liking the idea of calling hordes of animals to attack your foes.

  • Glad to see that Fogged Crystal is a class talent. It proved very useful in Torghast.

  • No mention of how much Focus (if any) is required for Steady Shot or Cobra Shot. I’d like to be free, or at least very low in cost.

2 Likes

I would agree with this. I had this thought yesterday when I first looked at the tree, but I forgot to add this point to the list. Have edited it so it’s in there.

The CDR for Bestial Wrath, this part of the Barbed Wrath talent should just be a default function of Bestial Wrath, like it is on live. And if you ask me, the Barbed Wrath talent should be reworked to something similar to our old Azerite Trait that added mastery to Aspect of the Wild, when you used it. Something like:

[Primal Instincts] - Barbed Shot now also reduces the remaining cooldown of Aspect of the Wild by 4/8 sec, and Aspect of the Wild increases your Mastery by -/- for the duration.

Honestly, just change Barbed Shot back to having 2 charges by default, and replace this talent with something else.

They could always buff Bloodshed a bit. But yeah, the whole section on the bottom left side of the BM tree really is odd.

Not to mention that you have the talent ‘Sharp Barbs’ which increases Barbed Shot damage by 5/10%. But then on the far right, you have ‘Qa’Pla, Eredun War Order’ which also increases Barbed Shot damage by 5/10%, and on top of that, also adding a 50/100% chance to reset the CD of Kill Command when you use Barbed Shot.

Should be baseline, like Arcane Shot etc. Just make each spec interact with it differently.

Yep, same as with Sharp Barbs and Qa’Pla.
And Beast Master in the class tree + Training Expert in the BM tree.

:+1:

4 Likes

I would imagine that they are doing something like that. Otherwise, a lot of the class tree will be useless for Survival.

I have to disagree. It’s ofc about personal preferences, a subjective matter. I did not care for any of the covenant abilities, as they’re all themed after Shadowlands, and anima power. Outside of Shadowlands, I don’t see how something like Wild Spirits would fit, or Resonating Arrow for that matter, “filling the area with echoing anima”…

If anything, I would much prefer something akin to the new talent ‘Call of the Wild’, for burst. Granted we have little info about how it will work. And for AoE, I would much prefer an extension to A Murder of Crows, to make it interact with Beast Cleave, rather than something like Wild Spirits.

Hopefully, they do.

Yep. +1 for baseline, and for it to not be about increasing throughput.

It’s subjective ofc. I for one loved the “beast cannon” or “zookeeper” build.

Unless I’ve missed something, it has the same tooltip as it does on live.

## Stampede Talent
30 yd range
Instant 2 min cooldown

Requires Hunter (Beast Mastery)
Requires level 45

Summon a herd of stampeding animals from the wilds around you that deal damage to your enemies for 12 sec.

Yep.

2 Likes

I just think it’s really funny that they’re pushing zookeeper BM like 24 hours after admitting (after 4 years of hunters raising it) that animal companion applies a flat damage debuff to all our pets and they have no plans on fixing it any time soon, tbh.

2 Likes

So without torghast when will this be useful?

Soloing mainly. Basically any time your pet is being attacked. 90% damage reduction for 8 seconds every 30 seconds seems pretty good against tough enemies.

3 Likes

For BM, they did some good things, however, there was some terrible decisions.

  1. The most glaring issue first and formost is that they basically did nothing with barbed shot. This is extremely sad to see. The spell is abhorrent to manage. If they were to increase the durations by a large margin i could see it being a positive. However, as it sits, its the one spell that literally makes me NOT want to play BM. I would rather manage pet timers then i would frenzy stacks on a spell that is excessively dependent on procs.

  2. They made steps towards having more pets in bm’s toolkit, however, they MUST rebuild stampede. Having it call a bunch of pets for a full duration is 10x better then its current iteration. Plus, when was the last time this talent even viable? I cant remember.

  3. My previous point leads me here. The overuse of unviable talents in the trees. There are soo many talents that havent seen play in years because they werent good in the first place, so why are they here?

  4. I know blizz went full retard on the syl flavor, but unless they massively buff the talent, its worthless. If we were to reference the “legendary” bow with the spells, the spells are going to be horrible. Plus, why not just add all these flavor spells into the hunter tree? I mean, yea surv doesnt really need them but they are hunter wide. Plus, have you seen the surv tree? You literally cant get any worse then whats there now. Besides, surv will prob be using explosive shot, so is it really THAT much of a stretch?

BM was the best of the hunter specs to come out, but its the best of the worst. Lol MM and surv are complete dumbster fires atm.

6 Likes

If they’re going to make us budget 3 talent points into beast cleave then the duration should reflect the heavy cost. Also its way too expensive for a weaker version of what is live

Honestly the whole bm tree feels too expensive as a whole. Kindred spirits requiring 2 points while its baseline in retail? Loaded quiver is another point required to just achieve baseline in retail. Wild Call, Scent of Blood, Barbed Wrath, Stomp, and etc. We require 28/30 points just to build what is live. Leaving no real room to branch out and explore.

A lot of the talents should be baked into each other. Also youre giving us death chakram? I honestly thought it wouldve been flayed shot but shrugs.

8 Likes