I’d suggest leveraging Dire Beast instead of Barbed Shot for all talents. Dire Beast leans into BM’s mastery much better and isn’t already flooded with cooldown reset mechanics from the BM tree.
Have Dark Hounds also transform any summoned dire beasts into dark hounds.
Have Grave Reaper reset the cooldown of Black Arrow entirely, not just reduce its cooldown. In a similar vein, Shadow Assassin would be more interesting if it caused Kill Shot to have a chance to reset the cooldown of Black Arrow instead.
Replace the current Darkness Calls effect with something more interesting that plays with Wailing Arrow (since both BM and MM hunters have access to it). Perhaps an effect like, “Wailing Arrow inflicts Black Arrow on all affected targets.”
Feedback from a MM Hunter’s perspective:
Despite some possible gameplay redundancy with the Lock and Load talent, the layout of the Dark Ranger talents seem to line up fairly well with how MM would want to play.
I’d still expect there to be at least a choice node option for Black Arrow to play off Wailing Arrow in some way.
Feedback from a SV Hunter’s perspective:
Kinda funny that Black Arrow was originally an ability only available in the Survival Hunter tree and now Survival is the only spec that has no access to it, but I agree that Survival’s new melee direction doesn’t fit as well as it used to.
I really HATE the theme of cobra shot. I don’t want to shoot snakes at people. I’d much rather have a non serpent shaped and colored arrow. Something brighter and more obvious, something with pizzazz ! Not just dark smoke either please. So this is a great idea to update cobra with something more dark ranger themed and or damage typed.
Looking at the actual talents, if we are actually stuck with the whole ‘dark ranger’ theme, I’d much prefer if Embrace the Shadows ALSO made ALL pet damage shadow damage. Then that 15% heal would actually feel good. This would also synergize well with Darkness Calls. And also with Withering Fire.
I’m not a fan of the theme, but just that one change might go a long way towards really buffing this up to mean something, and it would at least stick to the theme.
The issue with this tree is that I feel it is favoring MM over BM. BM’s side of this tree feels like an afterthought and incredibly uninspired. It plays into the lackluster playstyle that BM has had for the past few tiers. Resetting cooldowns and increasing damage. It doesn’t do much to change the rotation or feel of the class which is what I feel these hero talents should set out to do. We get one new button, cool. I mean looking at the other revealed hero talents and I feel like those people are playing an entirely different game.
That being said, a lot of people have already provided feedback and other suggestions that are way more thought out than mine. I mean just go look at Cog’s response for BM and it sums of my opinion perfectly in better ways than I could ever explain.
However, I would like to posit an idea. There could be some thematic changes to Hunters as whole if they chose this. Some cosmetic things (visually changing abilities), but also something like all abilities deal less physical damage, and some shadow damage. Like Cobra Shot now deals 15 physical and 5 shadow (previously just flat 20 physical) as a completely arbitrary example. The shadow damage component would be small, and would not overshadow classes that deal strictly Shadow damage. However, this would play into some of the abilities on the tree that seem to do nothing for BM, or rather minimal things for BM.
As it stands, this tree doesn’t feel great for BM. And save from a complete rework of BM (which I’ve been longing for), I don’t know how exactly to make it feel better for BM. Maybe make it so Barbed Shot can stack or spread to other nearby targets. Have some play with Kill Shot. Do something other than just reset the cooldown of Barbed Shot.
This aint it.
Frankly this is just dissapointing, I just want a sylvanas esque class, and I thought dark ranger could be it. But this is just an after thought of an idea. Hunter is just in such a bad state that Hero talents cant save it. Hunters need MAJOR reworks and honestly save the Dark Ranger concept until you can do something fun and interesting with it that isn’t just “Black arrow”.
God forbid we got a new ranged class that could maybe use bows so the weapon type isn’t reserved for 1 class.
Imagine sylvanas banshee being a 3 min cd. Melee range hybrid class. Steal “Wailing Arrow” from mm. Melee interrupt. Roots that deals dot damage for the duration. Maybe Auto attacks apply stacking dots on enemies for good prio damage and potentially maintaining these dots on 2 or 3 targets for ramping cleave damage(could be the mastery so you can opt in or out).
Just look at Sylvanas dungeon journal and tell me you cant make a good spec/class out of those spells.
Despairge
After spending some time reading feedback from other class Hero talents, they seem to be designed to address current issues with their respective specs. There are hits and misses, but the thoughts behind them are solid.
Dark Ranger, on the other hand, doesn’t really address any issues. It seems to be focused on cooldown resets. The problem is, those resets are likely going to cause both specs(MM/BM) to overcap on charges, especially during burst windows. No current issues are addressed and new issues are added.
Thematically, these talents might tickle the fancies of some. However, it just seems like more evidence that the folks in charge of the Hunter class don’t actually understand how the class/specs work.
This seems like a worse version of the old survival Black arrow, Explosive shot and lock n load proc playstyle. It felt good becuase it gave you multiple instant cast of one of you stronger abilities. For BM this gives you one cast of barbed shot which feels really lack luster and for MM you get another aimed shot which cripples your mobility. Maybe kill shot would be beter to get free cast of since it instant and you could get multiple stacks of it pretty easy. You had double cast kill shot as MM in WoD and that felt pretty nice.
It resetting killshot would be neat because then it would basically be the same as flayed shot from Shadowlands. It seems better in the rotations as well.
More of a comment for the community team than the class designers, but is there a reason all the hero talent feedback threads are only posted on the NA forums? People play the game in Europe too.
This is the hero tree that sits between Marks and BM. It’s interesting and ties to something longstanding in Warcraft. I like that……
I’m much more interested to see the hero tree that’s going to sit between Marks and Survival. Heck of an opportunity sitting there if Blizzard takes it.
I’m down for Black Arrow as a thematic core, but there’s a disconnect happening that I’m worried about.
The thematic and gameplay interaction of the abilities doesn’t go far enough.
A Dark Ranger’s abilities should be empowered, not simply happen more often, the procs should be instant and do increased damage.
If it’s locked in on simply being a Barbed shot then the proc should have a heavy shadow damage component, either a DoT or an AOE, going beyond another simple proc in a kit with so many ways to procure them already. Similarly an Aimed shot procced from Black Arrow should be instant as well, providing a true thematic bonus instead of “more of the same”
There is a real lack of actual power in the tree, focused as it is onproc based gameplay. There’s a gcd limit on just how many procs you’re going to feasibly use, and still locks us in that “hit same buttons more often” mindset instead of “become a dark ranger and empower your abilities” mindset.
I get the design direction, but to me it doesnt go far enough in terms of truly empowering the player that chooses the spec, either mechanically or thematically.
Unless just wanting to massively increase the power of this effect, that’d likely just mean reducing the %chance in turn, at least until the point that it’d so increase likely waste that it’d therefore produce disproportionately little increase in performance.
Personally, I don’t much want to spam Black Arrow, so idk how I feel about massively buffing the passive. I’d almost rather have CDR on it and mildly on something else.
Aside/Tangent:
Or, heck, have Black Arrows be a passive affecting Barbed Shot and Aimed Shot directly, allowing both to deal shadow damage for greater direct damage and AiS to cast a little faster in exchange for dealing a portion of its damage over time instead, and have Withering Fire to strike each thus-DoTed enemy each time you cast another. For BM, I’d also love to see a choice node between Withering Fire and something to do with, say, Wailing Arrow, perhaps making the CD of Wailing Arrow more granular (1 stack per 10s, usable after 3 stacks or up to 9) and capable of a bit more utility and far more burst. FOr BM, perhaps it would also sacrifice your Darkhounds into a single massive bone wyrm to gulp down your enemies when erupting from below (draw-in + stun). Idk. Just anything to make Black Arrow less bloated and more capitalizing instead of maintenance-like.
This is an interesting start, however, there are some issues as it currently stands.
General: The idea of using shadow magic as a hunter sounds fun, but the talent tree feels like it could better fulfill that fantasy. Maybe having some of our abilities do shadow or shadowstrike damage can help with that. Having some of our abilities have a shadowy animation would also go a long way for the fantasy of a dark ranger, hunters don’t exactly have the best looking abilities, so this would certainly be appreciated.
MM: You’re giving us a charge of aimed shot whenever the effect of Black Arrow procs, and a chance from using Kill Shot. Without making the proc turning aimed shot instant, we have the chance to overcap charges. Additionally, this will make the issue of us ignoring precise shots even worse since we already do so during trueshot.
BM: Barbed shot is a bleed that doesn’t stack from multiple uses, and we are already up to our eyes in procs. Black arrow will have much more value for BM if it reset kill command instead.
I have to say I finally watched the interview, and I was left feeling like not much is going to change in the philosophy of the hunter design. The guy that did the interview mentioned survivability a couple of times and the two devs seemed indifferent to that all together. It was very uninspiring.
Hunters survivability is not pretty solid. They get completely wrecked by rot damage. Yes, these talents have the potential of helping that, but I didn’t get the impression it was a priority.