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
- 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…
- 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.
- Everything is more or less mixed together, different types of talents blend with eachother in terms of pathing and connections.
- 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.
- Hunter’s Agility - Again, increases your dodge chance. Might see a rework in an
- 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.
