Perhaps I’m misinformed on the matter, but it sounds like you’re talking about a problem that is very easily fixed by simply tuning the damage modifiers of a spec’s ability? Without thinking too much about it, I can’t think of a single spec that doesn’t have at least 1 ability shared with another spec that has spec specific modifiers.
Not quite that simple, because Mastery depends on gear. MM’s Mastery is Sniper Training, which increases damage and range of ranged abilities. BM’s Mastery increases pet damage. Black Arrow, Kill Shot, etc will do more damage for MM than BM because of it.
If you add a modifier to bring BM inline with MM, what modifier do you choose? The amount that Sniper Training adds is dependent on how much Mastery they have. I’m sure they could come up with some convoluted way to make it fair, but it seems like reworking the talent tree would be easier. There are simply too many variables.
Honestly, it would require a video and a whiteboard for me to explain all the issues that pass through my head as I think about it. The downside to having a math degree is seeing the crazy amount of math that would be required to solve the problem of “just add a modifier”. I’m not trying to be dismissive of your suggestion either. Just saying it’s far more complex than that.
In the end, it just seems so much simpler to change the entire tree from “gives you a charge of” to empowering existing charges in some way. As it is, both specs already get enough charges of those abilities and granting more isn’t always good.
For example:
- I have one charge of Aimed Shot and my cooldown is halfway to another. Black Arrow procs a charge, giving me two charges. That half a cooldown is now lost, because I can’t have more than 2 charges.
- I already have 2 charges of Aimed Shot, because I’m moving around to avoid damage. Black Arrow procs a charge, but it’s wasted.
Pretty much the only time this entire tree gives full benefit, is if you make sure you always have zero charges of Aimed Shot or Barbed Shot. The vast majority of the time, you’re only getting partial benefit.
Then we get into people saying “Well, they can tune the class for that”. Problem there is multiple Hero Talent trees. If Dark Ranger resets cooldowns and they tune the class to compensate, and keep it inline with other classes, how does that tuning affect Sentinel or Pack Leader? If those Hero trees don’t focus on cooldowns, suddenly that tuning makes them significantly stronger.
When I say Dark Ranger can’t be tuned and needs to be redesigned, it’s because that tuning doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
I think the “easiest” way to solve the Black Arrow problem is to make it affect Kill Shot for both instead of Barbed / AiS.
It will initially be stronger for MM, sure, but you can easily make it appealing for BM with spec specific aura enhancements or even directly buffing the Hunter’s Prey talent, as Dark Ranger’s talent Death Shade references it directly
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That is one option, and superior to what it does now, but it would essentially turn Black Arrow into Flayed Shot.
You also run into the question of how much do you buff Kill Shot via Hunter’s Prey to bring it inline with MM’s Kill Shot? It would need to be between 40-60%. To keep it close between the two specs, the percent would need to be based on gear, as Sniper Training is typically between 30-60%(depending on gear).
right, which is much preferred than having it do nothing exciting at all : P
I don’t think it needs to be inline at all, it just needs to be more exciting for both specs than barbed/ais resets. it’s hard to make things comparable without knowing if the dark hounds scale off of BM’s mastery, for example
I guess it doesn’t technically need to be inline, but if it isn’t I can foresee a lot of negative feedback. I think it’s safe to assume Blizzard is aiming for Hero talents to be about the same percent gain for all specs. To be fair, it goes without saying that every spec in the game is going to have a de facto Hero tree choice for min-maxers, but Blizzard has stated they want that difference to be as small as possible. If the damage of Kill Shot isn’t very close between the specs, it will throw the options out of balance.
sure, but the balance is already out of balance no matter what you do with black arrow as the options will almost assuredly be affected by MM’s mastery and not BM’s mastery 
assuming that the dark hounds summoned by black arrow is impacted by BM mastery anyway, BM’s draw to dark ranger may be the dark hounds and less the kill shot resets.
no matter what direction it goes i do think it should move away from barbed shot. of course, this is also entirely depends on making pack leader v dark ranger a meaningful choice for most BM players
Agreed.
We won’t know until it’s testable (or Blizzard clarifies lol), but something tells me probably not. The description of Dark Hounds reads more like a nuke than a pet. It doesn’t suggest this Dark Hound will hang around. It just manifests, charges, and does damage. We shall see though.
Speaking of descriptions, pretty much everything I’ve commented has been based on the assumption the description of Black Arrow would be clarified at some point. As it stands, it says…
“Each time Black Arrow deals damage, you have a chance to reset the cooldown of Aimed Shot or Barbed Shot.”
I think most of us have been assuming that means a free charge, but it says “reset the cooldown”. If I have zero charges of Aimed Shot, but I’m at 95% of the reset to get to one charge, does that only give me the remaining 5%? Or do I move to 1 charge and 95% to a second?
Maybe have Black Arrow affect Kill Shot, and then pull a Frostfire and have a node to replace Kill Shot with a more Dark Ranger themed ability, like Withering Fire or Shadow Dagger or whatever, that works for both specs?
This tree’s probably gonna get a lot of iteration, anyway. Feedback’s been positive for the theme but almost entirely negative otherwise.
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In my opinion, Black Arrow should not be another button. Of the currently previewed Hero talents, only two contribute to button bloat - Black Arrow and Holy Armaments. Paladins are just as upset by Holy Armaments as we are about Black Arrow, which means it will likely be changed.
There are so many options for Black Arrow, that it just seems odd that they chose this route. It should either replace an existing ability or trigger something that is equitable between the two specs. Blizzard has repeatedly said they don’t want Hero talents to substantially change the way the specs are played, which is exactly what adding a button to the rotation does.
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to be fair, we haven’t even seen what, 25% of the total hero trees? I don’t think Black Arrow could work as a passive amplifier. Some suggest it replaces serpent sting but then that mandates taking serpent sting talents in both the class tree and spec tree for MM, meanwhile it would still be an active button for BM since they don’t use SS at all
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True. But the overwhelmingly negative feedback about button bloat seems likely to push them away from doing it with other trees. Of course, it’s Blizzard, so who knows.
I was thinking more along the lines of Frostfire and just granting a stacking buff. Or perhaps having a chance of giving a stack of a Shadow empowerment type of buff or debuff. Visually, it could add shadow effects to most, if not all, of our abilities to tie into the Dark Ranger theme.
Ideas off the top of my head;
- Damaging abilities have a chance to add a stack of Shadow Apparitions. After reaching X stacks, they are consumed and summon shadow clones that assault your target with shadow damage.
- Damaging abilities have a chance to grant a stack of Shadow Surge. After reaching X stacks, they are consumed and all damage done by you and your pets for the next 10 seconds does an additional 10% damage as shadow.
I’ve seen similar suggestions, but falls into the same trap with Mastery. I’ve also seen it suggested to be SS for MM and BS for BM, but BS is virtually default of BM and SS is at the bottom of the tree for MM.
Overall, I think any fix is going to be difficult. For a pure dps class, the three Hunter specs are as different as it comes. I remember in DF pre-patch, the sheer amount of negative feedback over the Hunter tree, because the talents at the bottom of the tree are so heavily weighted in favor of the different specs.
the thing about button bloat is that a lot of the complaints i feel are unfounded. most specs in the game are within the same 3 to 5 button priority system for s/t. needing to press black arrow every 30 seconds or so isn’t exactly bloat. another thing to consider is that adding a ton of different new passive abilities to a hero tree would start to feel very homogenized and boring
There’s no need to make it dependent on Hunter’s Prey, and that would still retain the same issue: It scales with one Mastery but not with the other and contains more synergy with one tree than the other. Kill Shot is an AoE for MM. Kill Shot hits for 50% harder to its initial target for MM. Kill Shot can have an extra 20% crit chance on MM. BM has none of that, which was why the Beastmastery-Deathblow (Hunter’s Prey) doesn’t get taken.
If you want to make that work, it needs to scale, even if that’s just by causing Kill Commands to duplicate a portion of their damage dealt stored towards your next Kill Shot (indirectly but, after a flat offset, fully scaling with Mastery).
Not taking up additional buttons needlessly does not make the resultant gameplay passive. On the contrary, it’s often far more choiceful. Sometimes even finnicky, yes, but certainly no more passive.
- Consider talents, for instance, that change spammables into a CD or cause it to gain damage-amplifying stacks over time, rather than just adding a new button outright. They require more thought and interaction to optimize than the separate key.
Adding another button is definitely bloat. Whether you think it’s good or not is entirely a subjective opinion.
Black Arrow as an active ability would absolutely change how the specs are played though, which is contrary to Blizzard’s design philosophy.
Blizzard’s Official Note(Gameplay and Hero Talents):
- We like to say on the team that our goal for Hero Talents gameplay is for them to make you “what you are, but more.” We know that many of you have long histories with your favorite classes, and you play them because you like their gameplay and the spells and abilities that matter in their rotation, whether it’s the spinning plates of Affliction, the cycles of Arcane, or the frenetic reactivity of Fury. Hero Talents don’t override what matters to a class. You should feel like you’re playing your spec with a twist or a boost and not as if the things you care about have become unimportant or been replaced.
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I am not sure what the official note on hero talent(s) has to do with our current discussion 
Probably because I neglected to copy/paste the other part of their statement.
- We want Hero Talents to add new fun without creating new burdens, either in customizing or playing a character. Most Hero Talent trees do not add new buttons that players will need to add to their action bar or find a new keybind for. There will be additional opportunities for players to express their skill, but we’re trying not to add things like complex maintenance buffs that increase the cognitive load for everyone playing a class.
Black Arrow adds a new button, and would be considered a maintenance buff, as other talents would require Black Arrow be active.
4 Likes
Black arrow should have zero cooldown and it should just replace serpent sting. I really dont want more buttons on mm. Not for boring maintance buffs.
Blizzard is making a huge mistake with these trees they should be 80% cosmetic and 20% new passive abilities and yet they are going to over complicated and bloat specs put even more. Huge mistake they will regret it.
Dragonflight is complicated enough the class trees and spec trees and all thr buttons thst dont work well, we need refinment and fixing we dont need another layer of bloat and trash on top of it. Huge mistake and its going to hurt the game in the long run. More modifiers more maintance buffs more stuff you need to balance but you never actually balance. Its a disaster waiting to happen.
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Agreed. (Though not quite all maintenance buffs are necessarily boring.)
Disagreed.
If we’re going to bother with more than just visual glyphs and wonkily divided tuning passes (to-70 and post-70), let’s actually do this thing and make Hero Talents interesting.
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I think you are being naive. Blizzard wont balance these trees just like how terrible thr hunter class tree and mm tree has been for nearly 2 years now. I have played long enough to see how this goes.
Over bloated stacking passives and maintnance buffs, hardly any good balancing and only doing the minimum that is how i see this playing out.
These trees should just be slightly transformative not just adding more bloat and trash onto the already messy trees. They cant balance 2 trees per spec let alone 4 per spec.
Lets see blizzard has like 60+ trees in dragonflight they can barely maintain and now they are adding 2 per spec. Doubling the complexity. Do 12 class trees with 3 specs each so 50 odd spec trees and each spec has 2 hero talents.
Like think about that complexity and tell me they can balance all combinations over a hundred trees they have to balance. Its beyond stupid if you already struggle with complexity and bloat and balance.
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