Looking at these I think we are only getting half the picture of whats to come - some of these talents and abilities are basically existing talents which implies those talents are getting changed or removed - otherwise you are going to end up with INSANELY powerful stacked multipliers.
For Example:
Rangers Finesse is +15% damage to Rapid Fire and Aimed Shot. Thats literally a 50% better version of Focused Aim.
Shadow Assassin proc is basically the Surging Shots proc.
Black Arrows proc is yet another Aimed Shot reset talent.
There is a lot of overlap and some stuff that is obviously targetted at the whole Lone Wolf issue like Withering Fire being Lone Wolf but also WITH a pet and helps the pet as well as other talents talking about shadow damage done by pets which implies no more Lone Wolf nonsense and changes to pets too.
I dont think we can look at these in the context of the current talent trees as I think a fundamental overhaul will be accompanying these and currently we are seeing them out of context.
Also what even is Dark Chains? A single target reverse Binding Shot? LOL? An entire talent point to momentarily inconvenience a single target in a way we already have multiple better abilities to do that with? How about this:
Dark Chains - When you Disengage leap backwards pulling in all mobs within X range and slowing them by 40% or stunning them for x seconds. THAT would be a useful talent across the board, sticks with theme and really cool. You could even have a cool purple smokey chain shoot out and grab every move when we do it providing an awesome visual that leaves no doubt âThis is a Dark Rangerâ.
But no that would ACTUALLY good and fun so lets just do useless stuff.
Most of this seems interesting, but for a BM hunter this all need to apply to Kill Command and not Barbed shot. Kill Command is far more on par with Aimed shot in priority and damage output. Though I suspect the Packleader talents will revolve around Kill Command so I suspect they didnât want both working off the same ability.
If they could work this around call of the wild. Each tick has a chance to lower the CD of call of the wild instead of barb shot that would be pretty sweet. Call of the wild is actually a fun button.
After seeing the mage hero talent tree, im kinda disapointed with what we got. Rangers Finesse is just a dmg increase meanwhile mages pops 2 abilities at once everywhere.
Like, something cool like Haunting Wave from HOTS would be cool af.
Have it replace disengage and give it 2 charges, would work kinda like Spatial Rift but add dmg on it for offensive use.
BM is already drowning in Barbed Shot procs. This just makes the problem worse. Have this Hero Tree also transform Barbed Shot into a stackable Shadow DoT instead of just Bleed that gets keeps getting overwritten.
So far weâve seen a handful of hero talents that affect trees and a common theme is empowered basic abilities with secondary effects.
I know that unique design is a big thing, but Iâd rather we get similar design strategy - appropriately flavored to a Dark Ranger of course.
Proccing free abilities of your compatriot spec(in function not theme I know Bestial Wrath makes no sense for MM but giving into rage during Trueshot Aura makes sense for a Dark Ranger), empowering/free/secondary effects for abilities from the tree, powerful utility/cc options, all of these are missing from the hero talent tree.
Right now these just feel like talents across the board
When the Survival Hunterâs tree / talents are released, will we see refactoring of the talents and abilities? Abilities such as Barrage do not work with the current game mechanics. For example: We can not swap weapons in combat; yet Barrage requires a bow and Raptor Strike requires a two handed weapon.
Side-Note: Would love to see Survival Hunters receive the Loan Wolf ability (AKA no pet). Maybe something like Sentinel playstyle, melee / ranged Head Hunter playstyle, or even Shadow Hunter playstyle.
Iâm sorry I have to major disagree, Lightsmith and Oracle feedback isnât positive at all, Holy Armaments and Premonition is absolutely horrible in every way possible, Holy Armaments a 20 sec rotation ability and Premonition a 1min/50 sec ability that on press has to cycle through buffs is just plain bad. Tuning will not save them, they should be flat out removed and redesigned.
At least Mountain Thane, Frostfire, Keeper of the Grove, Sanâlayn and Chronowarden modify an already used ability, enhancing it making it have more synergy without disruption of the general feel and play style.
Now if Black Arrow did this to say Arcane Shot, it be a different story, but something from reading all Hero Specs players do not want more complexity, added maintenance, convoluted rotations.
Hero Specs should be enhancing our already play style with the theme of the spec. Not create further complexity.
I mean, what shared ability are you going to have Dark Ranger alter? BM doesnât use Arcane Shot and MM doesnât have anything else. I guess they both have auto attacks. Not to mention a frequent âcomplainâ is that BM only is a â3 buttonâ spec, so I donât exactly know if a 30 second cooldown DoT is the complexity or convoluted rotation youâre concerned about.
I feel like Dark Ranger does this directly? Black Arrow directly gives you immediate uses of your already existing playstyle. It misses the mark (heh) for BM surely, but I mean what else are you going to give MM besides AiS charges?
Itâd be cool if Dark Ranger upgraded Serpent Sting into something like Shadow Dagger from HotS.
Throw a dagger at a target enemy that deals 30 damage and an additional 150 damage over 2.5 seconds. Damage dealt by Sylvanas to the initial target spreads Shadow Dagger to all nearby enemies
Obviously not a 1:1 copy, but itâs an ability that both specs could share.
yeah, but unfortunately SS is really deep into our class tree and I donât think BM takes it very much in PvE, no? as SS doesnât have any sort of spec interaction for BM
Yeah⌠I think this hero spec kinda suffers due to the design of the specs itâs tied to, unfortunately. They donât share a lot and thereâs not that many ways to spice up their rotations with shared passives either, you just get bland stuff like the reset proc.
which is kind of a problem in itself cause people apparently donât even want the hero talents to actually change the rotations at all or add button bloat, so Iâm kind of confused what people ITT want aside from passive damage amps or visual flair RNG procs which seems kind of odd to want from a hero talent tree but
Changing the rotation is fine, but it needs to be a meaningful change. My fight openers are already 7-9 buttons, depending on the fight. Adding one more sucks.
Itâs also not just about button bloat. BM Hunters already come very close to the GCD wall with decent gear. Black Arrow would need to do a substantial amount of damage, or add other substantial benefits, to even be worth using a global. Unlikely it will be a massive DOT, however, because it only has a 30 sec cooldown.
Rangerâs Finesse is just a passive and not tied to Black Arrow.
Dark Hounds would need to do substantial damage and have a high proc rate.
Death Shade is worthless for BM, because we arenât likely to waste a global on Kill Shot.
Dark Empowerment would be useful for the undergeared, but geared players arenât struggling with Focus.
Grave Reaper might be useful in M+, but only if Black Arrow is actually worth using.
Embrace the Shadows is a joke. Even at 50%, Smoke Screen would be superior.
Smoke Screen is too powerful and will get nerfed before launch. Iâve never been more sure of anything.
Dark Chains is just dumb. Almost purely pvp oriented and we already have multiple snares.
Intense Darkness also depends on Black Arrow being big damage.
Shadow Surge having a 6 sec cooldown just destroys our AoE rotation.
Darkness Calls has the same issue of depending on Black Arrow being big damage.
Shadow Assassin is useless because it requires using an underpowered ability to reset an ability we already have reset enough.
Withering Fire is the only useful talent tied to Black Arrow and is only good for the 10% damage boost.
If all of this adds up to Black Arrow being a damage increase, it will come down to how much it disrupts the existing rotation. Will it be fun to press that button? Or will it feel like an annoying chore?
In the end, Dark Ranger for BM is just a convoluted mess. Fingers crossed Pack Leader will be better.
