So I think first glance at Dark Ranger is interesting at-least. I do kinda concur with the majority in regards to the tree seeming underwhelming and bias towards MM though. I’ll have to add more thoughts later.
I will add though that I’m kinda disappointed that y’all went with BM as its second spec compared to survival. It make sense to a point but I can’t even recall any pet centric DRs but plenty of them do/have seemed melee oriented.
Very excited to see survival getting pack leader though!
Black Arrow should summon a skeleton on death like in WCIII. Currently not seeing the necromancy side of things as mentioned in the description.
Would have preferred MM/Survival instead. Dark Rangers are melee fighters too and this would have been cooler.
Would be nice to see abilities get a Dark Ranger themed visual overhaul.
Blood Elves dont fit the Mountain King Fantasy and we’re getting that.
it summons an undead hound, thats pretty necromancy
I’m kind of sad they didn’t add a talent to make camouflage a permanent stealth like rogues and druids have and even if it isn’t a permanent stealth it should have a major reduced cooldown after casting aimed while in camo like another person said weeks ago in another hunter thread. Balance druids have permanent stealth through cat form and can engage enemies at range with no problem so why shouldn’t a hunter, let alone a Dark Ranger?
The chain slow after disengage would be better if they added an arrow to chain the enemy and pull them back like how Sylvanas uses in the Sanctum of Domination raid or how druids get that typhoon ability and warriors with spear of bastion. It’d help a lot with infinite gap closers that all melees and most other classes have now.
Darkhounds are not undead (except for maybe the Maldraxxus variety), they are beasts.
And skeletons are far more necromancer than Darkhounds. Dark Minions are summoned in Warcraft III.
At any rate, there’s a necromancer theme here with Dark Rangers and yet raising of dead is no where to be seen. Would be a cool touch for Black Arrow to raise a skeleton upon death of the target.
it specifically says “undead hound” not “dark hound”
Ah yeah, you’re right.
Would still be cool to raise a skele boi for more spooky necromancer fun.
could be cool! I believe it used to summon an undead boar at one point too
Probably best to divide this into two categories thematic and mechanical.
Mechanically as BM we’re already drowning in Barbed shot procs, and damage wise it’s an important ability but Kill Command is the heavy hitter(as heavy as BM hits get I guess) maybe shifting some of the power to making abilities hit harder/do additional damage as shadow, especially with Kill Shot being as lackluster as it is for the spec and the synergy with shadow healing.
Thematically I’m not sure why the fantasy is “hate” and not “a bond that lasts beyond death” but I’ll table that for now. I’m really hoping for some significant visual flair here(and for all hero talents for hunter) because the baseline class is so lacking in visual punch in a game that’s pretty much defined by it. I want the art team to go wild with shadow effects because feeling like a Dark Ranger needs to have way more oomph that a purple cobra shot and an occasional darkhound.
I do feel like it’s kind of a missed mark that dark ranger doesn’t reduce the CD or otherwise amplify wailing arrow
This, it’s my only real “issue”, wailing arrow would fit this thematic so well
I honestly think survival is a better fit for dark ranger than bm considering the 2 famous dark rangers both use melee abilities.
Would have loved to swap between melee and ranged spec as a Dark Ranger…
While I agree, one of the other trees is Pack Leader, a very BM/SV themed tree, that wouldn’t fit well with MM at all.
Sentinel probably fits better with BM/SV too. I don’t know, I’ll have to see all the trees before I comment more on this.
Black Arrow even used to summon a Dark Minion back in the day.
Why remove that feature?
BM Hunter here who mained a Venthyr in Shadowlands and played survival before it was made into a melee spec. So those are the perspectives I come from.
I love the concept of another ability that creates random procs, but for BM as stated several times before we don’t need more barbed shot procs, and with the current talent tree setup Kill Shot is very underpowered.
Some talent suggestions that could make this much more exciting for BM Hunter would be as follows.
(NEW) Bloodletting- Allows your Barbed Shot to stack multiple times on the target.
Razor Fragments- Kill Shot Procs from Hunters Prey deal 50% more damage and cause the target and 5 targets near your Kill Shot target to take 25% of the damage dealt by kill shot over 6 seconds. (Stolen from MM Talent Tree and Venthyr Legendary)
Hunters Prey- Barbed Shot Ticks have a 10% chance to reset Kill Shot and allow it to be used on any target regardless of health. (Figured Ticks would be more fun, but with 10% on kill command it feels like it never procs.)
NOTE: Hunters prey needs to be moved and not gated behind cobra sting, which is useless.
With some new talents like this this tree would be awesome, allowing all our barbed shot stacks to not be wasted (especially in ST) and would encourage talents like Sharp Barbs and Serrated Shots. It would also make Kill Shot a much more fun ability to press.
I love the idea of a Hero Talent tree making it to where we aren’t just spamming kill command and looking towards other buttons. Thank you for sharing this early tree and honestly getting me excited for the possibilities.
but it does that on the hero talent tree too
After giving the tree some more thought, I feel like the Grave Reaper talent should just be baked into Black Arrow. That choice doesn’t feel good to make.
Aw thought the Dark minion from old Black Arrow talent would look like WC3 version. But it was just a hellhound.
Need cooler summon like the Black Guards.