Feedback: Hunters

In Development The War Within Beta Test
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Your whole premise is that complicated does not equate to fun? While that might be true some times I would say that it often is. Harder rotation means more interaction, more satisfaction when you manage it and a better pay-off/performance. To many I do believe this equals more fun.

Also what are you on about? You don’t need 6-8 hours per day to learn any spec/rotation in WoW, ever. I do just fine without avoiding the “hard” specs/builds and I have a full time job, renovating my house and have a family with a small kid. I get on average 30-60min playtime per day. You are heavily exaggerating.

There should be easier builds out there and many specs do have them. And no you will probably never get the same performance by having half the buttons and a quarter of the API as a more complicated build… and that is as it should be. You are not being punished, come on. Perhaps you can’t push high m+ first couple of weeks of a season or compete in raid firsts but that is also reasonable.

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Are there plans for any changes on the Hunter’s Pets? Pets right now are extremely limited on usage, which makes it feel like you really only have two options of families for 90% of situations. I would rather have a stance type system for the pets so we have more variaty there and we can use any of our cuties.

Another problem is the AI, which have being so problematic that we have to use macros to try to speed it up and make them very hard to track in combat scenarios. Maybe a toggle which highlights the pet location with the one Sentinel Owl gives to targets within its area. Just so we can see the exact location even behind mobs and players.

Thank u!

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Hello Hunter Devs. I’ve been playing hunter on beta for the last week and compiling notes on the changes and now the second lot of changes are out I will add my feedback on all 7 trees this week.

Starting with Class tree for this post;

The BM version of the Class tree has a missing link between tranq shot and counter shot

Concussive shot coming off Imp Kill Shot is a potential inconvenience

Scout’s Instinct coming off Misdirection is also not very smooth, especially in PvP

Devilsaur Tranq is not a good counter to enrages. Very few situations occur that you would want to soothe a target again so often and use more GCDs to do so. In PvP often 1 soothe is all that’s needed for 10 seconds at least. in PvE (especially in M+ enraging affix weeks) Hunter is a counter to that affix but Tranq shot only dispells 1 stack of 1 enrage on a target. If the mob has multiple enrages (maybe it enrages already and not the enrage affix gives it 2) or if the mob has multiple stacks of an enrage (think skitterfly) then Tranq shot is an extremely weak GCD to push vs these abilities. getting to use/waste another GCD even sooner than 10 seconds is not much a reward for spending a talent point. I would like to see this dispel all enrage effects on a target and idealy to counter to enraging M+ affix I would like Devilsaur Tranq to hit multiple targets (maybe 3?) so that it’s powerful on these weeks. otherwise every other soothe class is better at countering enraging (especially the only aoe soothe from evoker)

Please make Misdirection work with pet’s threat to make it more useful for BM Hunters

Lone Survivor is able to be selected without getting Survival of the Fittest which seems unnatural. Swapping Survival of the Fittest with Tar Trap and therefore Entrapment with Padded armor has better ‘flow’ imo. Creating a “CC line” from trap into Intimidation, and a “defensive line” from Survival of the Fittest into Lone Survivor.

Binding shot is still an extremely unsatisfying and useless button. As an ‘unbreakable’ root it was considered ‘OP’ but we were not given the ‘Mass Dispel’ treatment. Priest did not get it’s unique utility removed but it got balanced. hunter deserves the unique utility it had in Binding Shot in Shadowlands but needs it balanced. It’s CD could be increased to 90 seconds or 2 mins or be given a target cap. As a stun, Binding shot is the worst stun in the game.

Tar-Coated Bindings is in turn extremely disappointing and not worth the talent point. Most of the PvE situations that Binding Shot stuns a target it’s already on DR and an extra second is not a worthy talent point. Perhaps this talent point could turn Binding shot into the root it once was? or perhaps it could ‘Add the L’ and turn it into Blinding shot to be a disorientate. Or Perhaps even makes Binding shot stun on contact with mobs so that it is an actual aoe stun. there are many good options.

Territorial Instincts is not succeeding in it’s goal. Stunning 3 targets (2 of which are ‘random’) is not a useful piece of Utility for an extra talent point. Having a pet pop out of no where for a MM hunter is not a bonus you want to spend a talent point on, it’s a downside you have to then cast a 3 second dismiss on. Perhaps the MM Hunter isn’t using Lone Wolf but then if there’s 3 targets to stun then having a pet out is a larger dps loss than on single target. This talent should be stunning all enemies within 8 yrds of the target, or be redesigned.

Kindling fire is also not worth a talent point spend. This utility should be baseline for the flare spell. Flare is not an ‘overpowered’ button that needs this to cost a talent point to get. This talent could instead be ‘Flash Bang’ - Flare disorientates all enemies it lands on, the Cooldown is increased by 40 seconds.

I have now suggested 3 different options that could give Hunter the ‘aoe stop’ it’s desperate for. either Binding shot (in multiple ways could aoe stop as said above), Territorial Instincts being ‘uncapped’, or Flare given a disorientate. There is even an option to give a talent that makes Hi-Explosive trap knock up instead of away, much like the shaman talent for thunderstomp (thunderstorm?).
4 options of an aoe stop, we would like 1 of them please.

Binding Shackles has almost no use in PvE situations and I believe it should deduce damage to all allies instead of just the hunter for 8 seconds. Also I’d like to see it swap places with Improved Traps, which makes more sense as it gatekeeps Moment of Opportunity.

Moment of Opportunity does not need to have a 1 min internal cooldown, it would then require tracking on a WA to optimise and only happening once per minute is rather lack luster. The Traps already have cooldown costs, talent costs, and GCD costs, therefore this internal CD should be removed and then it might be an appeal talent (especially if Improved Traps was above it)

Guillie suit has very little use in PvE as all damage brings you out of camo and therefore you gain 20% DR for 3 seconds during a time where you don’t particularly want or need it for 1 talent point investment. I also believe the PvP uses aren’t amazing. The best suggestion I’ve ever seen for Guillie Suit is ‘While camouflaged all Hunter abilitiy cooldowns refresh 10% faster’
This is balanced because you must spend at least 1 min not in camo.
If it stays as a DR it would be good to be able to use in combat somehow?

The Hunter class tree has a large amount of talents that seem more useful in PvP than in PvE. which is fine by itself. however PvP main Hunters will find it hard to actually get the talents they want as there are so so many. namely; Guillie Suit, Roar of Sac, Concussive shot, Entrapment, Kindling Fire, Quick Load, Moment of Opportunity, Binding Shackles, Scout’s Instincts, and more. All of which lean slightly towards being stronger in PvP than PvE. A PvP Hunter would struggle to get all the talents they want/need without giving up a huge amount of damage or other ‘required’ talents.

I Love the new class tree it’s a huge improvement on what we had and I appreciate the time and effort that went into developing it. This feedback is intent on making Hunter the best possible version we can. Thanks for reading

Videos explaining my notes in more detail can be found on my youtube channel @Slothfaceyoutube

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530

The recent change to make wailing arrow so powerful has fully comfirmed we are locked into taking it. making our tree even more expensive.

We desperately need redundant talents like multishot/trickshots/iss completely made baseline. and fix some of the pathing in the tree. while your at it fix the design issue with trickshots and remove the 3 target requirement, make it after multishot your next aimed/rapidfire/wailing arrow gains trickshots.

Also what is that focus aim change?? 2.5% and 5% for 1/2 points. that is beyond dumb. make it 1 point for 5% or increase it back to 10%, its in a spot that its mandatory, so now its just sucking up points for no reason.

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Hi Hunter devs! I appreciate the big rework we had last week, and I’m sure more stuff is in the pipeline, but the changes this week don’t compare to the constant changes classes like warlocks are getting weekly to address player concerns, really hope there’s more substantial changes

Also please god rework the hero talents completely, I’m so excited for this feature yet the version of it for my favorite class adds literally nothing to it, no play style, no cool visuals, barely any flavor

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These are all great changes!

Happy you listen to the feedback we have been given esp. on Harpoon and AotE . Good to see you adress the focus economy for Survival (Bomb change is great). Here are some things I would like to be seen addressed also.

Tip of the Spear

As TotS becomes such a centric aspect to the Spec it may need a visual indicator showing your current economy on it (in similiar fashion to combo points for rogues). Currently new players would need to use a Weak Aura or watch the buffs to track it.

As the rotation remains tight we would greatly benefit from an easy way to see it.

There are also some nifty bugs still with TotS such as it only works on Wildfire Bomb if you have 2 Charges of TotS.

Mongoose Bite

Remains to be a problem child, with the loss of the old synergies from the DF Tree. This results into it being currently very weak in comparison to Raptor Strike. Esp. since our new Mastery greatly benefits all of our abilities. This results into MB feeling a bit left behind with its 202% AP (Raptor Strike has 248% default).

Some increase to the default AP% would be great to offset the loss of those nodes.

Also, maybe even reducing the maximum amount of Mongoose Fury Stacks to 4 would make it even more acessible of a talent to players. Esp. with the new TotS Mechanic it can get overwhelming so shifting its power might be wise.

What I have in my mind is spliting the 15% we would gain from the 5th stack over Stack 2,3 and 4 while upping the default AP of MB.

Another idea i have is maybe allow Raptor Strike and Mongoose Bite gaining the double benefit of TotS (all other abilities 15% - RS/MB 30%). So using a TotS Stack on those feels more impactful.

Generally it is hard to fit in MB GCD wise.

Fury of the Eagle

While it being effected by TotS is great - it still only hits for neutral damage in ST and an okayish amount in 5 target AoE. Currently it just doesn’t feel like a real cooldown or big pay off. I would like to see a small buff to its base AP as the 4 GCD it takes up for casting could be filled by more powerful abilities atm. (esp. something like a TotS Explosive Shot feels way better than current FotE).

Ruthless Marauder

While the change to Flanking Strike and the overall CD Economy might help this talent it just doesn’t feel like a great pay-off. The only benefit I see here is the reduction in FS as it now feels a lot more impactful. The Bomb CD doesn’t feel necessary imo.

Hope we see also see some Hero Talent changes coming soon as they remain very uninspired and also have being bugged for the whole duration of alpha/beta.

Yumuros-Thrall EU

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533

Hello Hunter Devs. I’ve been playing hunter on beta for the last week and compiling notes on the changes and now the second lot of changes are out I will add my feedback on all 7 trees this week.

Marksman Tree for this post;

At first there feels like a pathing issue around ‘having’ to go through Lock and Load and also Serpentstalker’s Trickery to get our aoe kit in Volley. It would seem like ‘I’m trying to build an aoe kit why do I want these talents in that?’ however I believe the problem is the opposite. There are so many aoe talents from Volley + Killzone to Salvo + Smallgame hunter to Wailing arrow kit to kill shot kit into razorfragments aoe and also Rapid Fire Barrage. that’s not even mentioning our Multishot + Trickshots + Bulletstorm + Heavy/Light ammo. This amount of aoe talents that barely/neautrally increase our single target damage, makes MM into a spec that is heavily reducing it’s single target damage every time it wants to cleave anything.

A Single target build as MM right now can barely get all the talents it wants to take. So every point you take away from this ST build to get any cleave at all is drastically punishing this spec for cleaving anything. A current single target build cannot do any damage to any target other than what it’s targeting. there is no multi-shot, no volley, no barrage, no razorfragments, no Hydras Bite, no Chimera shot.

Therefore to pick up aoe toolkit every single point will reduce your single target damage. there are 12 talents to minus from ST to move into aoe.
DPS specs should be able to move talents around to move their toolkit from ST to AOE/Cleave depending on the build you want. however this sliding scale should not start at ‘Zero Cleave whatsoever’. if the scale is 0-10, 0 being full ST build and 10 being full aoe build. It feels like most dps specs should start at 3 and go to 8 and move between the scale like that. Meaning that your full single target build is at a 3 and can cleave a little bit, but Hunter starts at zero. Also meaning that your full aoe kit spec would reduce single target and move potentially up to an 8 on the scale so you are fully aoe padding and you still are spending say 20% of your talents on single target abilities.
MM feels like it goes to 11. you can remove 13 talents from single target sources and put them into aoe/cleave talents that are barely (or not at all) any hybrid talents that increase damage in both situations.

This 0-11 sliding scale from single target to aoe/cleave makes it sound like a very versatile tree with many options and flexibility. However the reality of playing a spec like this means that it not flexible at all, it is either doing one thing great where it will be tuned for it’s best single target spec in ST, and then tuned in aoe in it’s full aoe spec. While actually playing the spec you will feel suboptimal is all areas. When adds spawn on a boss you won’t even be able to do any damage to them if you are optimising boss damage to make dps checks. Or Perhaps you are playing dungeons and you are specced into aoe for every pack and then a dungeon boss comes and you are doing quite sad boss damage for that tyrannical timer you want to push.

The best specs in the game go from 3-8 and not 0-11
obviously being optimal wouldn’t mean moving all 12-13 of these talents in move cases. But it would be more appealing design to have aoe talents that still increase single target damage a bit (Like Razor Fragments)
Or have the ‘optimal’ single target build still path through some aoe options (Like Volley + Salvo)

This brings us to the famous Multishot + Trickshots debate about whether they should be talents or not. Obviously the most powerful option is to have them be baseline.
However after spending time since 10.1.5 taking hunter talent trees of my own (on talent tree manager) I’ve decided there’s a rule that should apply.

‘If there are two talents that are, next to each other in a line, and buff the same ability/usecase situation, you ask yourself; Will I ever want one of these without the other? If the answer is no, then should they just be 1 talent? (the answer is ‘not always’) If the answer is yes, then which one should be accessible first? (and how far apart should they be?)’

So if we apply this rule to some MM tree duos lets see.

Multi-shot and trick shots?.. I will never want Multishot without trickshots… just make them 1 talent imo

Volley and Killzone?.. I will sometimes want Volley and not want Killzone… therefore i think they are correctly placed (Although I believe Volley should be much more accessibly early on in the tree)

Small game Hunter and Salvo?.. There are many occasions I would want Salvo and NOT want Small game hunter… therefore I think Salvo should be more easily accessible in the tree and Small Game Hunter should be the ‘capstone’.

Trueshot and Eagletalon’s True Focus?.. I can’t think of a time I would ever want trueshot without eagletalon’s… please make them 1 talent.

Barrage and RapidFire Barrage?.. they are correctly placed imo.

moving on

Trick shots should activate on casting Mult-shot (much like beastcleave activates) rather than relying on hitting 3 targets. Often you will push this global to not to rewarded with trickshots because 1 mob wasn’t quite close enough or was stunned or you weren’t hitting the target in the centre of the group, but instead hitting a prio target slightly off to the side. This results in the worst feeling ever, of pushing multi-shot again, which is a waste of time and focus.

It also doesn’t allow for cool opportunities to think ahead. There may be times where you know adds are about to spawn, so you want to multi-shot on the boss in single target, and then swap to adds and cleave with the trick shots buff already up.
You cannot do this. You have to, not only wait for adds to spawn, but make sure you hit the middle one, and also wait until they are close enough together. There is a horrible feeling of delay to a class that is supposed to be target swap master.
Plus we deserve to at least be able to trick shots 2 target situations, which then creates more use cases for the Heavy ammo talent.

Fan the hammer and careful aim should swap places. making it a choice to get careful aim or not and therefore use it when it will be useful

Rapid Fire Barrage feels strange to target. I often push it and don’t hit what i expect to hit, and I obviously can’t spray other targets after I cast it like regular Barrage. because it’s channeled I really want to know how many targets im going to rapidfire before I press it and invest a 1 min CD.
It doesn’t say how close the targets need to be and it obviously doesn’t target things as far apart as barrage does, so it feels too different to barrage. It’s a great ability I just want it to be more obvious what I’m going to hit.
Thinking I’m going to hit all 5 targets in front of me and then pushing my 1 min CD and it only hitting 2 feels really bad.
(any chance of making it a 45sec CD so we can death chack buff it? please <3)

Barrage should give trick shots. (if barrage gives beast cleave then please give us at least 1 trick shots from pushing barrage)

I would like to see a talent like Salvo go above small game hunter instead of the way it currently is.

The new MM tree is an excellent improvement and I appreciate the dev’s giving Hunter attention. great work. this feedback is so that we get the best version of Hunter not to ‘complain’

Thankyou for reading

Videos explaining my notes in more detail can be found on youtube @Slothfaceyoutube

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I am here once again to ask you to make Primal Rage baseline.

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ok, I don’t play MM so I can’t say anything on that.

I don’t either

And I thank you, I think we had a civil conversation.

536

I totally agree, nothing fancy and cool about it. It’s just enhancing our regular talent points.

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Pack leader by far feels the worst of the three talent trees, while I do agree all three is very weak.

Pack leader is 100% passive, with nothing new. It’s all there just to synergize/empower KC and pet basic attacks pretty much. So even if tuned high it would be incredibly boring and lackluster. It also completely lacks visual/flair!! Dark ranger has their little doggos and Sentinel has their purple owl… The latter two are still very weak but they at least have some visual representation.

In my opinion this is what the three trees need:
I think Dark ranger needs bug fixes and some more flair to make you feel like you picked Dark ranger. But it’s quite straight forward since Dark ranger is so well defined in the lore/game.
Sentinel is in my opinion completely a miss… Sure it’s arcane which feels night elfy? But besides that I 100% expected anything with glaives or such. Instead we get a weird passive debuff that randomly go off and one of our abilities (bomb for SV, come on…) summons a weird owl who shoots arcane missiles at the debuffed enemies? Just so far off of what I’d hope/expect from a hero talent tree called Sentinel… rework here is needed in my opinion.
Pack leader was thematically the weakest by far because… what is even a pack leader? And then they slap on a 100% passive completely invisible KC talent tree. I can appreciate them trying to make the tree be about the hunter and our bond with the pet though, so big bonus there. This in my opinion is the best executed one but it needs bug fixes, balancing and some serious work on its visuals!!

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yeah personally i’m really not a fan of the arcane stuff as survival. to me, SV is a scrappy fighter who overcomes their opponents with physical & practical means: explosives, venoms, teamwork with a companion, and the superior range of a spear (RIP lunge tho). arcane magic is… not that.

if sentinel leaned more into glaives and perhaps some “stalker in the shadows” vibes to invoke the idea of shadowmeld, i’d like it much more. i’m not sure how marks would feel about those things, but hey, they might like something more physical too since dark ranger is also fairly magic-y

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539

Feedback on Survival Hunter Gameplay Update

Overview

The latest update to survival hunters has made some strides in focus management, but significant issues remain. This feedback highlights the primary concerns from a gameplay and “feel” perspective, offering suggestions for improvement.

Key Issues

  1. Focus Management
  • Current Improvements:
    • The update has made some progress in alleviating focus management issues by providing additional ways to manage focus.
    • However, these changes are not sufficient to create a balanced and smooth gameplay experience.
  • Remaining Issues:
    • Overabundance of Focus: The combination of talents like Flanker’s Advantage and Alpha Predator results in an excessive generation of focus.
    • Focus Capping: Players often find themselves capping on focus due to the frequent resets on Kill Command and Explosive Shot. This leads to wasted resources and a less satisfying gameplay loop.
    • Lack of Focus Dump Opportunities: With the current talent setup, there are not enough effective ways to spend focus quickly, making the gameplay feel clunky and unresponsive.
    • Management Complexity: The need to constantly manage focus amidst a cluttered rotation detracts from the enjoyment and fluidity of playing a survival hunter.
  1. Problematic Talents
  • Flanker’s Advantage and Alpha Predator:
    • These talents lead to excessive resets on Kill Command and generate too much focus.
    • This results in an overwhelming and cluttered gameplay experience.
  1. Overwhelming Buttons and Cooldowns
  • Current setup includes up to 7 primary rotation buttons in AoE scenarios, 5-6 in single target, and 2 major cooldowns (excluding trinkets).
  • Constant resets to Kill Command and Explosive Shot, along with maintaining Mongoose Bite stacks, contribute to a cluttered and unfocused gameplay loop.
  • The gameplay loop feels more chaotic and less engaging compared to previous iterations in Dragonflight.

Suggested Improvements

  1. Refocus Gameplay on Mongoose Strike Windows
  • Emphasize Mongoose Strike and its windows as the core of the gameplay.
  • Manage focus while weaving in DPS-increasing abilities like Death Chakrams and Spearhead to enhance these damage windows.
  • This approach would create a more engaging and skill-based gameplay experience.
  1. Adjust Flanker’s Advantage
  • Reduce the amount of resets provided by this talent.
  • Consider removing crit scaling to prevent overly degenerate gameplay windows, especially when combined with Spearhead.
  1. Rework or Remove Alpha Predator
  • The two charges of Kill Command become redundant with frequent resets from Flanker’s Advantage.
  • Consider reworking or removing this talent to streamline the gameplay.
  1. Evaluate Major Cooldown Windows
  • Take a closer look at gameplay within Coordinated Assault and Spearhead windows.
  • Aim to reduce clutter and refocus on a more methodical and satisfying gameplay loop centered around Mongoose Strike.

Conclusion

The current state of survival hunter gameplay feels like a step backward. The issues were already present in less optimal talent setups, but have now become more prominent with the latest changes. Refocusing on methodical Mongoose Strike windows, with well-timed DPS abilities and fewer resets, would greatly improve the overall gameplay experience.

Thank you for reading

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Beast Master:

Covering Fire in the Pack Leader tree is still not providing the extra second of beast cleave when kill command is used.

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I don’t think you are playing properly if this is the case. Focus feels like it’s in a PERFECT spot post-changes. The Focus regen from Terms of Engagement is even beneficial, because playing properly has your focus bar mattering once more. I never ran into a single issue overcapping focus or too many charges of Kill Command, especially on Single Target. I spent the entire night last night testing interactions and documenting findings/bugs.

Survival doesn’t have any new additions in buttons. If anything, it is even lower than it was in Dragonflight, as FotE still struggles to find a place in AoE for TWW. The changes this week feel incredible for AoE and it’s very smooth.

You should already be doing this.

FA and AP are both fine. See above comments.

The changes this week are MASSIVE improvements and I firmly believe you need to spend more time trying them.

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Agree focus is in a pretty good spot now, but there are some grains of truth in Soup’s post. I think Mongoose Fury would benefit from maxing out earlier at 4 stacks, since weaving in KCs is more important for both focus and TotS to buff up other key abilities. Its more challenging to cap out and take advantage of the top end of the window, which can leave the ability in an awkward state compared to its original intent.

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I definitely will update my feedback with more testing as I see fit. Turns out the talent “Frenzied Tear” in the Pack Leader tree was also giving kill command reset and I believe causing even more issues. That is where my feedback was coming from. That talent was making it much worse.

That talent may just as well be what broke the whole spec without me noticing because none of my testing lined up with what you were saying. Like I said, I will update as needed.

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Yeah, Pack Leader in general is almost entirely broken right now. Furous Assault doesn’t get consumed at all and gives you 12 seconds of free Mongoose Bite/Raptor Strike.

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So other than some things just not working, either via the rework or hero talents, my biggest gripes on BM atm are-

  1. Please fix leech so pets damage contributes, leech is just bad for BM atm and as far as I know we are the only spec that really suffers from this since so much of our damage comes from our pets.

  2. Both Hero Talent trees have talents that are affected by Call of the Wild without an alternate choice node. This gives the illusion of choice and feels really bad as we will be forced to play Call of the Wild the entire expansion basically voiding a few talent points of option. One of them can stay Call of the Wild and change the other to either Bestial Wrath, Bloodshed, or Dire Beast.

  3. Fix the connection node between Tranq Shot and Counter Shot (I don’t know whether this has been a stated bug via dev, or if it is intentional).

  4. So many talents in the class tree that are focused around PVP, yes they are optional, but it feels really bad for PVE losing out on possible options.

  5. Bestial Wrath being locked behind 2 two point nodes that are very filler feels bad for ST (Kindred Spirits/Training Expert). Hard to explain a solution through typing but I will try-

Have Beast Cleave solely lead into Kill Cleave, clipping its pathing to Kindred Spirits and Expert Training nodes.

Take the three nodes of Improved Kill Command, Alpha Predator, Kindred Spirits and swap them; IKC to KS, KS to AP, AP to IKC. Clip the pathing from new KS node going to Stomp (it’ll just go to new node IKC), add pathing from new AP node to new IKC node.

Take the four nodes of Wild Call, Venom’s Bite, Hunter’s Prey, Training Expert and swap them; WC swap w/ VB, HP swap w/ TE. Clip the pathing from new VB node going to Dire Beast (it’ll just go to new node HP), add pathing from new WC node to new HP node.

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why are we pretending sentinel isn’t 100% passive

kill command has a new vfx on the target

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