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

Classes Hunter
81

First, you quoted me 4 times and spammed me with notifications.

Second, posting in all caps is against the forum CoC, so if you want Blizzard to read it, maybe don’t do that.

Third, the chart shows the disparity between specs in terms of number of nodes, overall cost, and average cost per node, but it doesn’t by itself explain what the problem actually is.

The problem is that SV has too many 3 point talents, more than twice as many as any other spec released as of me making that chart (haven’t looked at Evoker yet), which severely restricts the ability to branch out in the tree. Further, many of those nodes are super basic flat damage increases, which feel like a mandatory pick rather than an interesting choice. On top of that, even if you could branch out more, there really isn’t much interesting stuff to pick. It’s basically “Do you want bombs? If so, take all the bomb talents”, which eats up basically your whole point allocation just getting to Wildfire Infusion.

Nobody is excited over Kill Command doing 10% more damage. Kill Command having a shorter cooldown, or proccing a bleed, or proccing a Kill Shot, those are interesting and worth choosing, when the tuning and costs are balanced properly.

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82

DUH!!! WE ALL KNOW THAT THERES COUNTLESS OF FOURMS SAYING THIS. I MADE A TOP FORUM POST SAYING WHAT YOUR SAID + MORE… AND HUNTERS HAVE COUNTLESS OF PROBLEMS WITH THERE TREE… everything you said plus more.

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If the baseline abilities aren’t baseline by release, I’m done with WoW, I didn’t pre order Dragonflight for this reason, also waiting on how flying will be handled for normal mounts!

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You can keep up with that, but it requires you to stop using Cobra Shot as much. For AoE, I think that, if you pick Alpha Predator in the class tree for an additional charge on Kill Command, which would benefit AoE, your focus must be saved for Kill Command even more so than now. Resulting in more or less no casts of Cobra Shot during such periods.

It was just the tooltip. The ability ingame(on alpha) does in fact still generate 20 Focus over 8 sec.

Yep, I would hope that they keep it at a decent level, and ideally, like I said before, add a talent option/node that we can pick to allow Crows to benefit from Beast Cleave.

I’m okay with the placement as long as they do the above. See my thoughts(further down) about Wailing Arrow as they tie into this part.

It’s mostly fine to me, as long as they make sure that those procced beats spawns actually deal some decent damage.

But yeah, this would tie into my thoughts on Dire Pack.

Yep. Or well, so is the right side capstone, along with Call of the Wild before that. I would probably have changed Dire Pack to something more focused on main pet attacks.

Agreed. With what I said earlier about Crows…I would want In for the Kill to be moved to this position, maybe even another step down to where Dire Command is, and then I would like the talent to make Crows do AoE, take the place of In for the Kill while have Dire Command be where Wailing Arrow currently is. Allowing us to pick between Bloodshed, or the extension to Crows to venture further down the left side.

To clarify, the order in the far left path would be as follows:
A Murder of Crows → CrowsAoE → Dire Command → In for the Kill → Capstone talent
(Or you could pick Bloodshed instead, to make your way down).

With this, I would then remove the connected path from Sharp Barbs down to where the AoE talent for Crows would be. As it would then make more sense, since you’d be going via Crows, continuing downwards.

If you ask me, it shouldn’t have 2 ranks. And neither should In for the Kill, in its current state. Especially since Dire Command is a 3 rank talent that would be the gatekeeper before the left side capstone talent.

85

Have noticed from a stream of alpha footage of hunter gameplay that, despite being in the class tree now, Alpha Predator does not work for Beast Mastery. It doesn’t give you that second charge. Obviously a result of Alpha Predator being formerly a SV exclusive talent, and just haven’t been properly implemented yet.

On another note, Call of the Wild(BM talent) seems to be working well, not talking numbers. It looks great when used in combat.

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Who did you find that is streaming Hunter? I’ve been looking but it seems 99% of people are evokers, and I haven’t found any Hunters yet.

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87

That is true. I stumbled across this one: https://www.twitch.tv/sionz while I checked the page of all WoW streams on twitch for someone who was playing/focusing on hunters. He is currently live atm, streaming.

Although, I thought I saw you posting something in the interface topic on the alpha forums. Don’t you have access? As I recall, only people with access can post on those forums.

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88

Apparently either it’s decoupled, or it’s tied to previous beta access or something. I was in pretty early in SL alpha so I imagine I’ll be in soon, but need to wait for the time being.

If/when I get an invite I’ll be streaming, I’ll post a link here.

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89

Perhaps. I got in early alpha for BfA, but had to wait for beta for SL. Either way, crossing fingers^^

Please do. If so, will check it out.

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90

Oh you better. Else I am getting my Gilnean worgen hunting kit

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91

Ooo, new blue hunter post:
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/en/wow/t/feedback-hunters/1279513/5

We wanted to discuss some plans we had coming in the next few builds and address a few points of feedback.

Class Tree Changes:

  • Improved Mend pet reduced to 2 points for +25/50%. Also now has a chance per tick of Mend Pet to also dispel a magic effect from your pet.
  • Scare Beast is no longer on a path that connects to other nodes below it, it’s a one-off thing to the side of the tree.
  • There is potentially a placeholder +Agility node where scare beast was. This will be changed if it shows up in your build to something that isn’t direct throughput.
  • Chimaera Shot removed from the class tree.
  • Master Marksman will likely be changed to also work with melee critical hits.
  • Death Chakram will likely be changed to increase all damage taken, rather than just Physical. This should make it more competitive to Survival Hunters, who do a fair bit of non-physical damage.

Beast Mastery

  • Dire Pack needs to be reworked.

Marksmanship

  • Double Tap is being moved near the middle of the tree.
  • New bottom left talent as a selection node:
    • Kill Shot now works with Trick Shots
    • Some number of targets hit by your Trick Shot ricochets also have Explosive Shot applied to them.
  • Legacy of the Windrunners has moved, and is consolidated down to 3 points instead of 5.
  • Chimaera shot added near the top of the tree. It will once again replace Arcane Shot, and things that modify Arcane Shot will modify Chimaera Shot
  • Quick Shot removed.
  • Rapid Fire’s Focus generation will just be part of the baseline ability and no longer an upgrade.

Survival

  • A bunch of 3-point talents adjusted to fewer points.
  • A dependency problem with Frenzy Strikes needs to be resolved where you can get this talent without either Wildfire Bombs or Butchery/Carve

This is not a complete list of what will change in the next build, or even the next few builds. As more decisions are made, we’ll try to post here. As always, things are subject to change and what is there now, or in the builds to come, may not be final.

Bug fixing is also an ongoing process.

One other quick note:

Serpent Sting is intentionally low on the class side of the talent tree. If it’s up higher, it starts competing in space we have designated for utility options and starts to feel like a mandatory throughput choice. We want to put most of the actual throughput stuff past the second gate, so you have adequate points to get the utility you feel is important while playing. Moving it up higher means you would likely be getting less utility options.

edit: The note about Serpent Sting is specific to the Hunter class tree layout. Different classes have different tree layouts and where utility and throughput is scattered about.
edit2: note about Rapid Fire Focus generation in the MM tree area.
edit3: Death Chakram note in class tree area.

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92

These are FANTASTIC changes, especially for MM.

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93

Indeed.

Still holding out hope that they will move Wailing Arrow to the class tree, for both BM and MM. Glad to see that they’re reworking Dire Pack. Although, hoping that more of the feedback for BM is considered.

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Omg I’m soooooo happy Quick Shot was removed!

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95

Same. I would stream hunter if they let me! gotta find and tame an otter!

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IDK that moving Wailing Arrow to the class tree is really needed. For MM at least, I was able to put together this build (which is completely irrelevant given incoming changes, but I’ll post it anyway):

For M+ purposes, this hits all the important points. I could see shuffling a little of the Class Tree utility around (Born to be Wild, Natural Mending, and Camouflage [for stealth skips] would be nice, and could swap with Concussive Shot, Trailblazer, and Tar Trap, potentially even Misdirection if those aren’t needed for a given dungeon). I don’t see much need to change the MM tree at all, and I love that I can make a strong build that completely eschews Rapid Fire.

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It’s mostly that I wouldn’t want it to be a choice of throughput, but more so about the utility of the silence effect. For BM, while playing with it, I did not enjoy it one bit. It felt disruptive to the core elements of the spec, and the general flow. Obv it was very useful, but yeah…wasn’t a big fan.

For the class tree, while this doesn’t include the recently announced changes, I would like to see this for the class tree. The bullet points do cover more stuff, other than just Wailing Arrow as an addition:

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those are good changes (BM changes leave a lot to be desired though Dire Pack is a start) other than the individual that was giving the feedback is notorious for giving atrocious feedback.

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99

Get Ye Gone Animal Companion and its accompanying De Buff.

Doing this one thing will re validate so many of our defunct throughput talents. It needs to be done before all other tuning is done.

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100

I’m sitting here, thinking about what they based their BM talent tree design/composition on. One of my bigger concerns is what prompted them to decide to rework Barbed Shot into only having 1 charge by default.

Background

The last time you played BM without having 2 charges of “Barbed Shot”, was back in the early days of Legion. Back then, Barbed Shot did not exist. Dire Beast was the baseline ability in its place, and you could talent into Dire Frenzy, which replaced Dire Beast.

Dire Beast tooltip in Legion:

[Dire Beast] - Instant - 12 sec recharge
Summons a powerful wild beast that attacks the target for 8 sec.

Generates 12 Focus over 8 sec.

Dire Frenzy tooltip in Legion:

Dire Frenzy - Instant - 15 sec recharge(12 sec recharge – after patch 7.1.5)
Level 30 Beast Mastery hunter talent

Causes your pet to enter a frenzy, performing a flurry of 5 attacks on the target, and gaining 30% increased attack speed for 8 sec, stacking up to 3 times.

Generates 25 Focus.

Replaces [Dire Beast].

(In earlier iterations, the tooltips also explained how each use of the ability/-ies reduced the remaining cooldown of Bestial Wrath by 15 sec)

With Dire Beast, it was simply about using the ability whenever it came off CD or whenever you got a Wild Call proc. It did some damage, it reduced the CD of Bestial Wrath, and generated some Focus. That was it.

With Dire Frenzy, which had the Frenzy mechanic of bonus attack speed for your pet, like Barbed Shot does today. Back then, you wanted to stay on your toes for procs of Wild Call, to allow you to stack the Frenzy-effect up to max. But beyond those procs, it was the same thing as Dire Beast. If you didn’t get a proc, the Frenzy-effect simply fell off before Dire Frenzy came off CD again, like in this short video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lDcGhBj0Uc&ab_channel=Michelanvalo). There was no manual way to reliably stack it up.

Looking at the BM tree for Dragonflight

Fast-forward to today, where we can see how the talent tree for Beast Mastery is designed so that you don’t have 2 charges of Barbed Shot by default. You also don’t have Wild Call to allow for additional procs, by default. And you don’t have the CDR for Bestial Wrath baked in as a default function of Bestial Wrath. In order to get it, it also requires you to pick a certain talent. If you don’t pick them, you will never be able to reach 3 stacks of Frenzy on your pet, and Bestial Wrath’s uptime will more or less be reduced by ~60-70%, if not more. It’s not exactly hard to make a build that includes none of these aformentioned effects/talents.

Essentially, you have to spend several talent points on specific talents just to get effects, all tied to specific abilities, which do so much towards enhancing the flow/gameplay of Beast Mastery, the core loop so to speak. Without these effects, the spec would most likely feel incredibly rigid.

The point with all this is that I sincerely think that there are plenty of other ways to construct an interesting talent tree for Beast Mastery, without having to pick apart individual abilities, in order to split their effects into multiple talents just to fill out the tree. Especially when many of these effects are more or less required in order for the loop/flow of the spec to feel more complete, and engaging.

I can be okay with keeping Wild Call as it is in the talent tree. However…I wrote this before in the original post in this topic. I would do this as a minimum, when it comes to keeping that core loop/gameplay flow:

Barbed Wrath - Should be reworked
The cooldown reduction for Bestial Wrath should be a default element of Bestial Wrath itself, like it is on live. Ideally, the reworked version should read 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 now increases your Mastery by -/- for the duration.

Loaded Quiver - Shouldn’t exist as a talent
Barbed Shot should go back to having 2 charges by default. Replace it with a talent that has this effect:

Increases the base duration of Frenzy by 1 second. Casting Barbed Shot reduces the remaining cooldown of Bestial Wrath by an additional X sec.

…or something like that.

I have the other notes in the OP as well, but again, those aren’t necessarily about the issue at hand. Having said that, I would love a change to the talent Beast Cleave. Something like:

Beast Cleave - Increase duration
For the sake of gameplay flow, ideally, something like changing Beast Cleave to a 2 point talent(still 75% total damage, at 2/2 points), and then adding a small tangent branch node(1 point) directly below it that does this:

[Improved Beast Cleave] - Increases the damage of Beast Cleave by 10%, and Beast Cleave now lasts for an additional 6 seconds.

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