Is that not the whole issue people have with the talent tho? The whole specs power revolves around getting 3 stacks and maintaining it but here comes a talent that is designed so we need to drop stacks? Like someone else noted, the buffed pet special attack needs to be freaking strong for it to be worth to drop the stacks and then rebuild them…
Or its just poor design/wording and the special attack should happen on every refresh of 3 stacks as well. Other wise its a dead talent.
That… doesn’t sound that odd, actually.
The point of the talent is its functionality, not its base damage increase. That functionality is also already significantly more valuable for SV than for BM.
Not balancing Kill Command around the assumption of Alpha Predator being basically obligatory, moreover, allows its base damage to be increased, rather than it only reaching anything like its former lv15+ damage upon nearly reaching the level cap.
More so than before, though now those points in Ruthless Marauder are looking pathetic.
…Why would Survival, for whom Kill Command is a generator, need to deal nearly as much damage with Kill Command as Beast Mastery, for whom it is a spender? It makes perfect sense for more of the raw damages increase available to be shuffled to BM instead of being mostly shared with SV.
Moreover, that or literally any other part contributing to Survival’s ST performance (as we’re just talking about direct damage here) can be buffed on ST’s end.
The Alpha Predator nerf is not gutting. It will still be obligatory over Killer Instincts for SV and will likely remain the comfort pick, if not still superior given the slightly increased ceilings on KC interactions, for BM.
Predator is not DoA. It’s node is still a must-take for all but MM. This change merely means that KC isn’t kept comparatively wimpy all the way until level 58 and that Killer Instinct is now a real choice for BM.
Guerrilla Tactics’s passive damage increase accounted for a quarter of WFB’s improved damage. Now, still a sixth. And that should already be a flag to you. It was only the damage affected. Without Guerrilla Tactics affecting its damage, it is free to be stronger without Guerrilla Tactics—either via baseline %AP or via other interactions. Guerrilla Tactics will still be taken for its functionality and the fact that it’s still a hugely efficient single-point talent even when ignoring the added damage over time of having a second charge (due to reduced CDR waste and available window optimization).
That said, they could remove the damage bonus entirely, or just have it convert would-be DoT damage into instant damage at no direct increase to the total damage dealt, and anyone playing highly into bombs would still typically take Guerrilla Tactics. It’d merely become an actual choice, rather than choice being constrained to how to path to it.
:: I jest; there was no choice there, either. The answer was always Bloodseeker, since you need its and WFB’s points just to continue on anyways. Surprising no one, the SV Tree remains virtually absent of choice and is just generally terrible. But not for the reasons you’re drawing attention to here. Those are actually improvements to the tree’s ability to do what it was supposed to do—provide player customization/choice.
Why are we just assuming that you can proc this only when moving from a 2nd to 3rd stack of Frenzy, instead of just any time you apply the 3rd stack of Frenzy (which, yes, will usually therefore happen to refresh it)? Are there gameplay videos that have come out showing this to be the case? While the talent would be more interesting if it created more opportunities for decision-making, it’s incredibly unlikely to work in that way.
Without any evidence that this much less likely functionality will be how it works, this interpretation stretches belief just to, what, actively pursue greater anger?
Any event which refreshes something is literally also the event which originally generates it. They never had to specify “or refresh” on Serpent Spread. Why would assume that just not going out of their way to explicitly say “or refresh” here, then, would mean that the trigger is now conditional (on their being exactly 2 stacks prior)?
Hes not totally wrong here.
Survival needed its Own Generator Identity they should NOT have borrowed The Kill Command concept, then instituted a changed functionality to a Focus Generator.
They just complicated things and made a balancing problem.
Having their own SV specific Focus Generator would have alleviated this.
That said lowering or raising the damage % of what specific spells do is a tuning perspective Indicating there will be no further adjustments changes to the Node chain or how it will work.
I am Hoping it works on refresh. But we will see.
The Damage quotient on Barbed Shot was changed as well by 75% plus changes to other interactions like Serpent sting applying thru Barbed Shot Via Latent Serpent Injectors and Serrated Shots increase to Barbed Shots Bleed Damage.
One has to wonder if this was done to reduce the impact penalty from having Frenzy fall off in the first place.
Lmfao just because you put FaCT: before a point like some high school science project doesn’t make it a fact slugger
For once it is worded as if the pet special attack will happen when we reach 3 stacks. Reaching a certain stack is not the same as refreshing it. And I am far beyond just assuming Blizzard will make something work a certain way because it’s logical or for us seems like the best. Blizzard quite clearly does weird/bad changes all the time. I am not just going to assume something works the logical way even though they specifically wrote it will work in a different way, although it is vague. Have no expectations and don’t get disappointed when we hit live and it’s all a mess that takes the whole expansion to get to a working state.
Everything that refreshes something also reaches it. They are one and the same in terms of triggers.
Purposely creating a distinction between them would require actively constraining the existing on-Barbed Shot condition to only, itself, be applied when working from exactly 2 stacks of Frenzy.
Consider—for it to do as you suggest, it would have to have 2 conditions:
The ability to trigger the pet special attack on next Barbed Shot (Condition B) would itself be added only upon reaching Frenzy Stack #2 (Condition A), and meeting Condition B would have to go out of its way, as part of the triggered effect, to remove the successful check on Condition A.
Why would that far more convoluted system be the ‘natural’ assumption here?
If sufficiently tuned, I wouldn’t mind if that were the case, but there’s no way that that’s the reasonable assumption over just “Each Frenzy-cap Barbed Shot deals bonus pet damage.”
You make a valid point regarding generator/spender damage, however, the damage decrease for even a generator is obvious and will be felt for surv. Considering that surv already suffers too much from relying on KC being buffed by what, 9+ talents, dont you think that a proportionate nerf, a rather large one at that, will have a nerfing affect across surv’s tree.
I knew that they were going to nerf predator bc the other talent was so trash that there really wasnt a need for a choice node. However, with that being said, they could have buffed the other one, or buffed/nerfed 50/50 which would have been much more reasonable.
The reason why predator will remain the go-to for surv isnt because 15% is worth a damn, its not, its bc that 15% is STILL BETTER then any of the other “capstones” in the hunter tree. I quote capstone bc in reality, they arent worth a middle of a tree placement, let alone capstones.
Essentially what happened is that surv took a nerf so that bm could be 1. Buffed. 2. Provided more choice even though 1. Surv’s tree is heavily laddened with KC talents. 2. You dont have the option not to talent into kc as surv. 3. Surv is always going to be the one taking hits for bm since blizz is too damn lazy to give surv its own generator.
I understand that by taking power from tactics that it can be allotted elsewhere. How you forget one thing. That we would have to TRUST BLIZZ that the damage would return in a different way, and in all reality, i trust nearly EVERYTHING else before i trust blizz in making sure that damage returns.
Another issue with them nerfing tactics is that there is ZERO option to take another bomb buffing talent. There isnt one. Look at rhe left side of this garbage of a tree. You have focus buffers, a SS which is trash bc why the hell would i be using raptor strike in aoe when it would make more sense to add it to carve or butchery bc i would want to spread my ss out, right? Bc the ENTIRE reason for that talent being there is for bomb infusions to have SS. Since the capstones on the generic tree are yes, that bad, we end up taking ss anyways. So a second dead talent.
Since we are already in the tuning phase, do enlighten me where that 50% damage from bombs is going to come from? If you say from the cd reset at the beginning and end of CA, im going to text your mom to have her smack you. 
What i am saying is that in well thought out and well balanced trees there is always a way to side step a huge nerf like the one to tactics. You choose another talent that provides better dps and you move on. You just mark the other one dead and never touch it again. But with the surv tree there is no other option, no other bomb talents. Heck, no where to even put a point to advance a bomb-side build or somewhere else in the tree to gain that damage back. Its just lost which makes it twice as bad.
Literally depends on what effects on those talents follow.
In the same sense that having 9 Kill Command-augmenting talents necessarily provides more damage or overall spec power than having, say, just 2 talents that are each more effective.
You just have to look at the actual result. And given the pace of iteration, there’s no sense in assuming that a nerf in one part of Survival’s power (Kill Command, on the class tree) will never give cause for a Survival buff elsewhere.
It is not reasonable assume that an overpowered talent that forced Kill Command to have lower relative power until late in leveling being balanced down means that Blizzard is out to kill Survival, Kill Command, or even just Kill Command’s relative value to that Survival.
But, as you mention just below, that still doesn’t leave the NODE a choice. Unless there’s another capstone you’d take, you’d merely allow for a choice between 2 effects when we’d rather have, say, a choice between 8.
“Always”? By all means, point out where Survival’s underperformance was ever uniquely caused by Beast Mastery?
Moreover, Blizz routinely aura-balances particular skills shared between multiple specs specifically for a given spec. Why would they suddenly stop doing that in Dragonflight if somehow they couldn’t just up the most pathable KC talents here or there on SV? (Note that such which would only ever be an issue, anyways, if they were somehow so overtuned relative to other SV talents, in just making up for a mere 15% KC damage, that they denied SV talent choice.)
First, Guerrilla Tactics was never a 50% increase to WFB damage. It used to be a 33% increase. It is now a 16.7% damage increase.
It increases only the direct damage of WFB, which was only a third of the total damage.
Second, most likely it’d just be given back over the other, currently undertuned WFB-affecting talents and/or baseline value.
Again, the point is to simply squish down overpowered, must-take talents so that one has actual choice. Guerrilla, previously, did not provide any choice.
The obvious solution: You buff Improved Wildfire Bomb and Sharp Edge (pathing payoff towards Coordinated, Deadly Duo, and T.N.T.) heavily, and the WFB portion of Tactical Advantage slightly. Each is a currently undertuned talent that you’d want to buff regardless.
When it’s so much more powerful than its competitors that it denies choice.
It is so powerful that it breaks its purpose (player choice/customization). Therefore, overpowered. Not complicated.
Because the power otherwise available to the other WFB talents had almost all been pushed into Guerilla.
The solution: Make them actual choices. When you want even value, and all others have a quarter the best node’s value, you take power from where it’s excessive and put it where it’s lacking. Not complicated.
As opposed to what, wanting bombs to have in two points (WFB itself and Guerrilla) what other builds need 6+ talents to achieve so that there’s no real choice in degree of thematic investment?
Your logic is correct but your reality is wrong.
There is no choice on the bomb side of the tree and it has NOTHING to do with tactics being op. In fact there is ZERO choice in the surv tree in general. So what choice do you speak of? The trash on the left side of tactics that includes focus? Or are you speakng of the just as bad path on the right of tacitucs that includes a whopping 3yrds and 3% crit? Because your speaking some off the wall crap about all these choices when in reality if your building a bomb build your taking tactics whether or not its 5%, 50% or 100%. Why? Bc thats going to outweigh all the gutter trash thats in the other paths.
You have to take infusion or else you dont have a bomb build. That means taking the required dead SS talent. Theres only 3 paths to go for infusion, focus, tactics, or yards. Since pure throughput is ALWAYS going to outrank everything else, its always going to be tactics. Thats what happens when you have some dumb dev creating trees for specs when they have ZERO clue what they are looking at.
So, in brief, you can buff all the talents you want to get to the crappy CA cd, it means NOTHING unless you pick up bomb infusion. This means focus, throughput, or yrds. 1% throughput outweighs the focus AND the yrds.
It absolutely does.
Improved Wildfire Bomb, TNT, and the impact on WFB of CA, Deadly Duo, and Tactical Advantage had to be as weak as they as they were because Guerilla would otherwise have overbuffed them. So long as the choices bomb-related and conjoining left-side choices were themselves competitive, that choice would exist. That they weren’t was largely due to Guerilla.
How would 2 sources of bomb CDR and greater WFB direct damage (exactly what you said was crippling to have been reduced from Guerilla) be useless to a regular Wildfire Bomb?
I don’t disagree with that, but the way you fix it is not to leave some talents as must-picks and the rest as muck, let alone accuse anyone wanting actually functional talent trees (those with real choices) as just being “anti” this or that playstyle as if they were bigotedly discriminatory.
When the inferior Focus generation means that you’re giving up increased uptime of more than 1% throughput value… adding % damage is not necessarily greater than significantly more spenders over time.
The KC talent applies 40% increased active Focus generation (outside of Flanking Strike); that’s generally going to outperform a small % damage increase.
That said, it’s irrelevant anyways, because you could have just pathed through Improved Wildfire Bomb instead. As, you know, you’d do in a bomb build, especially if the damage 16% bomb damage lost from Guerilla Tactics were moved there (increasing its effect from 12|24% to 20|40%).
No. You have to take Infusion or you don’t have an Infusion build. That’s it. Bomb builds do not necessitate Infusion.
If you don’t want to take the SS talent, you can still have a bomb build. It just won’t also be an Infusion build.
Yes, because of relatively poor pathing opportunity. No especially enjoyable and/or vital/iconic talent should be locked behind a single path like that.
Not that the SS talent dead—it’s relatively potent due to not needing to waste 12.5% of your GCDs reapplying Serpent Sting in single target—nor unfitting for a talent that produces Volatile Bomb.
The penalty from dropping stacks isn’t even that bad with Scent of Blood. It’s a new version of Stomp that also isn’t every cast. It’s a weird addition into a bloated tree. If they tame the bloated, they’ve started but still have a long way to go, maybe it’s worth something.
I don’t think AotW needed a rework and certainly not to this. Why would they take out the pet interaction in this Beast Mastery CD? They could have made Cobra also cast the pet skill instead of double Cobras, we would even get some cleave out of the CD too. At least current AotW did something for the pet, below 25% haste the pet needs the focus regen to maintain the bonus damage on the pet skill and the crit is always nice.
It doesn’t make sense to me why they keep buffing Cobra but I also don’t understand their obsession with Cobra in the first place. I’m waiting to see where things end up on Tuesday’s build before I give more feedback but this basically Stomp talent is kinda meh on paper. Combined with the Barbed buff I don’t understand what their goal is with BM at this point.
Got to agree with your point on AotW. Why 2 Cobras. Missed an interaction by having it fire 1 Arcane {like MM} or alternatively a Serpent Sting if talented into.
Wondered about the buffs to Cobra shot also Currently its the largest Single Target damage component in our rotation ahead of Kill Command Our supposed signature.
IMHO The obsession is due to a lack of innovating new BM hunter shot talents lach of such means they add modifiers for Arcane or Cobra…
We did theoretically get an increase to our optional/utilizable active rotation talent count with Serpent Sting, Steel Trap, and Death Chackram. All this will depend on Balancing to AP and Point Budget to decide the actual Value of each individual talent.
Going by the Current state of Talent balance on Retail I am less than assured 10.0 will correct this.
STILL no adjustment to Animal Companion. Good Gravy just make it baseline cosmetic and put the Brutal Strikes Node in its place.
I think the first choice (or near the top) in each spec tree should determine your focus dump, and that focus dump should be a replacement for Arcane Shot. Leave MM as reduced focus, BM gets Cobra (maybe as nature damage), and SV Raptor. Give BM Wolverine Bite back, though it may require some adjustment for tuning’s sake. BM should have more pet command abilities, not more shots.
Which would accomplish what exactly ?
Generally? More pet-focused abilities for BM, and more meaningful buttons to press. There isn’t any amount of rocket science going on in any spec right now, so a little spice would be fun, especially if it was a solid chomp.
I mean, if we do bring back Wolverine Bite, it’s just gonna be macro’d into other buttons and ignored. Offering 0 meaningful gameplay, and not being interesting.
Mate kudos for still trying to discuss with him. But I think most of us have given up. He is the most black and white person ive ever met. He is all absolutes and beyond anything always right.
There is ZERO CHOICES IT IS ALL GARBAGE AND THE DEVELOPER IS THE MOST INCOMPETENT etc etc. Broken record sadly.