Feedback: Hunters

In Development Dragonflight Alpha Test
#3

Found a few bugs and some abilities aren’t working at all, but I already sent bug report for those so I’ll focus on feedback here.

Base Class

  • Thick Hides and Improved Mend Pet are bad talents, too much point investment for barely any benefits.
  • Scare Beast is locked behind Thick Hides and Improved Mend Pet which feels real bad.
  • Improved Tranquilizing Shot costing 2 points seems too steep.
  • Would love a talent to reduce Wing Clip Focus cost to 0 to make it worth using over Concussive shot.
  • Choice between Intimidation and Hi-Explosive Trap feels like High-Explosive Trap would never be chosen, maybe make the choice between Tar Trap and High Explosive Trap on the Tar Trap node instead and add High-Explosive Trap to Improved Traps.

Marksman

  • Wailing Arrow is extremely satisfying, definitely keep the damage of that ability high like that.
  • Deathblow currently isn’t working (Not receiving it in my spell book when taking it) but 10% on Aimed Shot sounds quite low.
  • Volley or Salvo being mandatory to go down to double tap feels bad, something like this would feel much more appropriate (Or a variation of this):

8 Likes
#4

Survival Based Stuff:

Concussive Shot, Scatter Shot (A Choice Talent, at that lol), Chimaera Shot, and Serpent Sting all require a Ranged Weapon to use, even though Survival can spec into them. The latter is Survival’s most iconic skill too. And no, I tried, if I spec into them, I can’t use them with a melee weapon. Kill Shot and Explosive Shot are fine though.

Likewise, Survival can spec into Master Marksman - despite the fact it only affects Ranged Attacks. And if a Survival Hunter wants Serpent Sting, Explosive Shot, and Chakrams/Death Chakram (the only other end talent they can reach with Explosive Shot) - it’s a mandatory talent.

As I said earlier, Serpent Sting is way too far down one side of the tree when it’s one of Survival’s main skills. Please move it up a tier or something lol.

I know you said Survival has too many points, and that’s very obvious as I’m in game trying to spec lol. So hopefully the pruning on that happens soonish. :stuck_out_tongue:

If you spec into Butchery - the game “teaches” you Carve instead - however, since you specced into Butchery, you don’t have Carve. Thus, you can’t use Butchery. Neither Carve nor Butchery appear in your spellbook, and if you drag Butchery to your action bar, it becomes a greyed out Carve.

4 Likes
[Feedback - Build 44999] Hunter Class Talents + Beast Mastery
#5

Hello Hunters,

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.

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.
edit4: Frenzy Strikes note was wrong, you have to take Butchery/Carve, but not Wildfire Bombs.

35 Likes
[Feedback - Build 44999] Hunter Class Talents + Beast Mastery
#6

Excellent changes so far. I actually came to write up my own take, but I think all of my gripes have been addressed.

4 Likes
#7

I love this.
Point of clarification - I assume this means it will bounce to targets even if they are not within Kill Shot threshold?

Will these 3 points have the same combined effect as the 5 did previously, or will that be changed?

3 Likes
#8

Current plan: Yes

Same combined effects.

18 Likes
#9

These changes sound great, thank you!

Is the plan for this talent to be a passive or a cooldown?

1 Like
#10

The problem becomes its still one of survivals main skills. This makes a third tier talent mandatory for survival in all situations, something no other spec so far has had, as tier 3 talents are meant to be choices based on encounter type or flavor.

You are locking a core ability behind level 52.

If the intent is it’s no longer a core ability, that’s just bad. Why? The single target rotation for survival is now a two button rotation without serpent sting. The discords I’m in are talking all about it. You can spec into serpent sting and explosive to gain 2 more, but they compete with better talents on the other side of the tree.

Honestly, why is serpent sting even in the class tree in the first place? Why not just move it to the survival tree and leave mm the ability to apply it if they spec into serpentstalker?

Will the skills like Scatter Shot not being usable with a melee weapon be fixed as well, or is that intentional?

5 Likes
#11

The intent is every ability on the class side of the tree is usable by any spec, regardless of what weapon is equipped. It may not be in that state now, but is is planned. Barrage might be an exception to this, but Barrage is also much less mandatory as a connection point in an upcoming build.

Hunters had years of history with Serpent Sting, and it is available to Marksmanship as a talent. Multi-shot is also something many people would consider a core button, but is now in the spec trees for BM and MM. There is certainly an option where Serpent Sting is put in each tree and available with your first few points.

In general, we like to put as much class-wide stuff that we can, on the class side of the tree. This gets much more difficult when there are very crucial interactions within your spec with these buttons, such as Multi-Shot->Beast Cleave, or Multi-Shot->Trick Shots.

Serpent Sting is a cool button for Hunters. It is a nice thing for all three specs to have access to. Is it important to have before level 52? Maybe. It is early in the alpha testing stages for Dragonflight. We will get a lot of feedback from sources both internally and externally. If we decide it has to change for whatever reasons, we have time to do so.

22 Likes
#12

Just to preface, I’m very grateful for the replies, and glad y’all are keeping an active watch. I don’t want anyone to think I’m being nitpicky or pestering or such D:

Just to clarify though, Serpent Sting hasn’t been available to BM in 6 years in 4 days. :sweat_smile: That’s why I suggested just moving it to replicate how it is on live, with Survival using Sting, MM using it with a passive if they spec into it, and BM not.

Though I am interested to see how it develops over beta with the knowledge you might move it around.

I am curious though - was there a design decision behind Stampede being in the Class Tree? I can’t speak for everyone, obviously, but that feels like a BM spell. (Especially since it has been one since Legion lol)

Minor Note: Is there any plans to bring back the Legion animation for Flanking Strike? The new one is so… not special? The old flanking strike was neat and flavorful - you attacked with your pet, in a way that wouldn’t hurt your pet. But the new one, you jump in the air and slam your staff onto the enemy, which could very well hurt your pet using real life physics lol.

Thank You! I just wanted to make sure because we were told it’d be possible to make “bad” specs - and was worried that meant Survival would have multiple talents they couldn’t use if they specced into it haha.

But Barrage being an exception would make sense, it’d be weird to throw a barrage of arrows from a handheld crossbow <_< Lol.

7 Likes
#13

Friday afternoon thought: This is about 1/3 of World of Warcraft’s retail lifespan.

There are no planned animation changes for Hunters right now.

27 Likes
#14

I plan to add more thoughts here about talents as I get some more time this weekend, but I thought I’d ask about something that has been bothering a lot of hunters for a long time now (years? I believe… since BFA): Trick shots.

Any chance you’d consider removing the target requirement for trickshots? It currently leads to a lot of headache in certain scenarios where mobs aren’t stacked properly and with some hitboxes you can’t hit 3 targets reliably with multi shot. The QoL of AoE rotation would improve massively if Trickshots would activate the moment you use multishot without any restrictions. It would also remove frustrating moments of 2 targets being available and not being able to activate Trickshots.

42 Likes
#15

Two things regarding marksman and serpent sting.

  1. I’d like to not have to take the auto serpent sting talent. For PvP it’s especially important to not leave lingering DoTs that could break your freezing trap.
  2. I want the choice node to upgrade serpent sting in the class tree because it opens up possibilities for burst and sustain. Also the good stuff can’t all be in the spec trees either.
2 Likes
#16

…it’s almost like you could not spec into that talent? That’s the entire point of the fact they’re trying to make this talent system about choice and swapping it through presets as you change content.

As for your second point, you’re essentially saying they should balance all 3 specs around sting, which is silly considering there’s a good 99+% chance BM won’t even go down that side of the tree. They would miss out on every kill command and most pet damage talents if they did. Likewise, in its current spot, survival will lose access to the kill command talents we have on live if we want serpent sting.

#17

I’m saying that I want to be able to have Serpent Sting without using the Marksman talent that makes Aimed shot have 50/100% chance to apply Serpent Sting.

Not saying I want it to be mandatory, saying that it opens up possibilities for burst and sustain should you go for a build that uses Serpent Sting.

3 Likes
#18

This much is untrue.

There are some hard decisions to make, to be sure, but you can have all the KC talents and still get Serpent Sting and Latent Poison/Viper’s Venom. You also have one more point to spend in the top two tiers over what is shown here, the WoWhead trees are bugged right now and only give KC as a freebie to BM.

7 Likes
#19

There are other options they can take.I’m merely trying to point out the location of it is horrible as it stands.

One option for instance, could be placing serpent sting low in the survival tree, and having it be if you grab serpent sting in the class tree while knowing the spec tree one, it acts as hydras bite:

This would fit the theme of that section of the tree as well. Hydras Bite and Explosive shot would work very well together.

My entire point has been its so far down the tree most sv won’t get it, as we’ll have to choose between it and kill command talents, which actually synergize with the spec tree VERY well. The same issue exists for BM. No BM hunter would choose serpent sting over 2 charges and 30% damage/50% under 35% buff to kill command.

You literally have to skip every other active ability except misdirection in that example. Just because it’s possible doesn’t mean it’d be viable lol. The whole point is viability if you grab sting.

Even discounting the utility you skip (which is a Lot as Im sure you know), you’d miss explosive shot, stampede, chakram, and technically barrage right now, but we know that’s changing.

There’s no way grabbing serpent sting would be worth it. For those 5 points you spent getting sting, you could get steel trap, which does more single target than sting, iirc. Then you could grab stampede, which is more burst aoe damage. Then multiple utility talents.

I know your point is I said we’d lose access, and I stand by that. The path you’d have to take to get both just wouldn’t be worth it. And it will feel horrible to be neutered just to feel like I’m still playing SV.

Although we can technically get it, it’d just never be worth it.

2 Likes
#20

You only get 11 points in the bottom tier no matter what you do.

6 of those are the pet/KC talents. By your own admission, those are locked in.

I’m assuming you want Keen Eyesight for the 6% crit in almost any build, which is another 3 points. You can drop those 3 if you want and get more flexibility.

That leaves 11 potential points to take and only 2 points to spend. It’s going to be a rough decision regardless.

6 Likes
#21

That’s… Been my point from the start though? Saying sting should be moved up a spot to the second tier. We shouldn’t have to choose between a base rotational ability and other stuff :sweat_smile:

I only suggested moving it to the survival tree because nimox said they don’t plan to change its location in the class tree lol.

#22

That’s a hard sell, there’s literally no damage in the 2nd tier, it would be a mandatory pick for all 3 specs, at that point just make it baseline.

I misunderstood and thought you were complaining about it being on the right side.

6 Likes