Feedback: Hunters

In Development The War Within Beta Test
630

I am really going to miss Serpent sting solely for the purpose of tagging/rounding mobs up. All the way from leveling up to end-of-patch farming. It’s such a nice ability to spam for tags and aggro.
People have been suggesting that it won’t be missed because we can use eagle-raptor strike or bombs or explosive shot. But that’s just silly. Very inefficient way to gather up 5-15 mobs in a quick way.

I don’t want to be negative Or shoot down someone elses ideas but god no, please NOO! If I wanted to play zookeeper then I’d just play BM. The whole atrocity that is Dire beast needs to die. Or at the very least stay with BM where I can avoid it.

I do on the other hand agree that Pack leader needs a lot of work. But a Pack doesn’t need to be a swarm of beasts. A pack can be as small as two individuals.
But we need it to interact with our rotation/gameplay more and we need a lot more visuals to make us feel like we picked Pack leader.

This would just mean we are now forced into Mongoose bite though. I am all for making Raptor strike baseline (I mean a melee build without a melee ability? And having to play ranged the first bunch of levels is weird) but I’d like Mongoose bite to still be a optional pick. Sure most people probably already pick it and I often do. But if we’re making Mongoose bite forced and Raptor strike baseline then why not just… make Mongoose bite baseline and remove Raptor strike? Perhaps replace Raptor strike with something empowering SV’s melee build? Perhaps put Flanking strike over to the right and then give the AoE tree something else on it’s side?

Very much agree! SV needs to be considered as well. And Pet AI badly need some polish.

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631

Sloth’s suggestions seem to only be for the benefit of BM while leaving Survival out to dry. Hard pass on adding more pet AI to bug out, imo.

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Two big points of feedback on survival, first balance which I know is cringe at this point but worth pointing out: Mongoose Bite/Raptor strike need huge buffs, like 100%.

Second, you’re sort of force into bomb playstyle since it’s your only viable AOE. I think it would be cool to redesign Merciless blows. Id like it to reduce the focus cost on butchery by 20 and apply a stacking bleed. If talented into Mongoose Bite will will consume Mongoose Fury to do the same % increased damage per stack.

This would open up an alternative AOE playstyle revolving around building stacks then dumping into a big bleed.

Edit: also one more thing I forgot. Mongoose Fury is the only buff now (I think) that doesn’t either refresh duration or behave like festermight where stacks have individual durations. I like it this way, but worth pointing out if the goal is to eliminate that style of buff for accessibility.

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633

My feedback is mostly about BM, with a focus on how things “feel.”

Class Tree - This seems pretty good. You can get a lot of things that feel important to a hunter kit, and while you obviously can’t get everything the tradeoffs don’t seem debilitating. It all seems to make sense based on what you want to prioritize. Nothing feels both mandatory and out of reach.

Spec Tree - There are a lot of improvements, but it still feels point starved. Once again we have an inordinate number of multi-point talents compared to the other specs. MM has 2, SV has 3 (one of which is a capstone, so it’s theoretically functional with even one point), and BM has FIVE. Most are basically in the middle of the tree, and they all act as gates to move further down the tree.

One of those is especially bad (Kindred Spirits) so it incentivizes trying to avoid it just to move efficiently toward cap talents. All of the cap talents have 2-pointers in the way, but the left and the right of the tree feel especially frustrating because of Killer Instinct and Basilisk Collar being the only ways to get to the bottom talents (and Killer Instinct blocking the way to the cooldown we waited so long to get).

The other point sink is the one everyone mentions, which is that it takes 3 points in three separate talents just to do meaningful AoE damage. Multi-shot already feels bad as a talent because there’s no world in which you’d just grab it by itself, so you need to pick up Beast Cleave just to make it a button that’s worth pressing. Then it feels even weirder to spend another talent to make it work on Kill Command. The equivalent would be if MM needed another talent to make Trick Shots work with Rapid Fire in addition to Aimed Shot. There has to be some workable consolidation here.

Speaking of consolidation, if Kindred Spirits is going to be a thing (and not a baseline spec passive like it was many moons ago), it’s not clear why it’s not simply a single talent that’s baked in with Pack Tactics. Again, this whole thing feels bad because Pack Tactics was a spec passive (just an invisible one that doesn’t show up unless you compare focus regen when you change specs) that now we need to pay to get–which is compounded by the point starvation in the class tree. It just feels like two steps back for every step forward.

4 Likes
634

I agree, Raptor strike/Mongoose bite barely feels worth to use even in single target if you have anything else to press. They badly need to buff this up. Not sure about numbers but like people previously have said: using ToTS to buff a RP/MB at the moment is a waste.

I like your idea and it’s similar to what me and others have proposed before. I personally don’t like the explosive/bomb side of SV and would love to get the option for another AoE build. Perhaps it’s too much of a ask? I don’t know if any other spec have two different AoE builds available. But considering that we have Butchery as a proper melee AoE ability and then have the bombs for a explosive AoE it would fit quite well.
Bleeds that you can “pop” or synergize with would work for sure but.
I would recommend that they double down on the merciless blows talent and make it buff RS/MB and make it strike at least 5 targets. That way we could use Butchery for decent AoE and KC for ToTS and then do the majority of our damage from empowered RS/MB attacks that cleave as wide as other comparable AoE. With Flanking strike as a big hitter and spender with KC also hitting in AoE (FS and the Exposed flank KC also need their AoE count to go for 5+ targets) we’d get a really interesting AoE rotation that focuses more on our melee abilities.

2 Likes
635

Feedback on behalf of FatLeonard

I think the readiness talent needs a bit of tweaking fundamentally. The first paragraph makes us generate more wind arrows (and therefore wailing arrows) during trueshot.
this is cool! But the second paragraph makes wailing arrow reset all of our charges of Aimed and the cd of Rapid Fire. There are a few problems with this section:

a) this will instantly cap us. we will now either sit on full charges of aimed, or full cd of rapid. this feels bad.

b) this does nothing when we have our CDs up, which is either on the pull or coming into a pack in m+. both scenarios that happen a lot!

c) cooldown is largely wasted during aimed shot. In aimed shot, our CDs are being refreshed almost faster than we can press them. GCDs are the limiting factor here, not CDs, so having them reset in trueshot again has very minimal if no impact, and just feels worse because there are all of these cooldowns we are sitting on.

My suggestion is to remove this second paragraph, and instead focus on making the first paragraph better. Instead of just 2 extra arrows, make it 4 or 5 extra.
Instead of us having a wailing arrow at the start of trueshot, and then 1 or 2 extra during trueshot, make it so we get 4 or 5 wailing arrows.

This change would both remove the clunky parts of the ability that feel bad and have little impact, and make it so that readiness is a talent you are tempted to take on aoe so you can blast out wailing arrows during your trueshot. that gameplay seems fun, and would be a reward for committing to the wind arrows section of the tree over other choices.

It would also be a strategic option for those who want to use wailing arrow for CC. Even though its a passive skill, I can still hold my trueshot for a tough pack, and know that every 4-5 seconds of the 20ish second duration I am silencing in aoe.

Obviously numbers tuning could be changed however you want it, but the goal is that when I am in trueshot, I want to feel like that meme of the guy trying to hold all the limes except with wailing arrow procs.

TL;DR: remove 2nd paragraph of readiness talent (not fun, bad), and double down on the 1st paragraph (fun, cool) so during trueshot you get a bunch of wailing arrow procs

2 Likes
636

I am once again petitioning for changing Bloody Claws to increase Mongoose Bite’s damage by 5-10% and increase Mongoose Fury’s buff by 2% per stack. Or possibly make Mongoose Fury’s amp 25% per stack and let it stack to 3 to cut out some build-up time. Or 30%/4 stacks.
More big goosin’ is needed either way.

Edit: Or per Leak’s suggestion; maybe we just undo the DF S1 MB damage nerf and see where we’re sitting.

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637

One of the major concerns/issues we’ve had with our hunter trees is that they have/had way too many generic increase X% damage talents. We just lost a few of them so why oh why suggest that they add another one?
I would much rather them just buff the base damage of RS/MB and then make Bloody Claws something else actually interesting.

But the decrease in MB stacks would be welcome. 3 stacks with anything X% per stack would be sweet. Enough to make it worth the hassle but not enough to break the ability.

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638

This is the interesting part, I guess? Not every talent needs to be glamerous.
If anything, the talents leading into our capstones should be the interesting part.

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I did not ask for glamerous now did I? I asked for interesting. Simply make it into 5-10% more damage is probably not enough and very lackluster when I think it’s completely reasonable to request they rebalance RS/MB since they are obviously underperforming.

I do agree with how lackluster our capstone gating talents are. But you know why? Because they are generic damage increase talents, and all three of them are 2-point nodes which makes it even worse!
But I would be fine with that (as you say, not all talents can be very interesting or glamerous) if the actual capstones were good/interesting. Coordinated assault still feels terrible to use and it honestly feels like the only good part about it is when it ends (god that is bad design) and spearhead is simplified down to oblivion as a pure crit increase/crit damage increase debuff and Fury of the Eagle is just straight up a dps loss. 4 seconds to channel that weak an ability. And that is not taking into account how poorly designed it is. They literally took Monks ability and then made it less and worse and gave it to Hunters. All three capstone talents need reworks. Then I’ll pay the 2 talent points and be happy.

640

It is a bit much to ask, yeah. Survival has been bomb focused for AoE at least since SL. Asking for a build where they’re on the back burner in any way is essentially asking to remove a large part of Survival’s identity for no real reason.

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Who said anything about putting anything on the “back burner” You think they only should/could focus on one specific part of a spec/build?
And for no reason? I just said it’s because it would be nice to have a AoE build that isn’t standing in melee and spamming bombs in the face of your enemy. Yes yes it’s a game etc. But I just don’t see how improving on Exposed flank and Merciless Blows would remove your bomb build? Or how it would force Blizzard to put it on the backburner?

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642

What if, and hear me out… what if they remove Mongoose Bite completely…?

Not sure if this is an unpopular opinion but a mechanic that incentivizes you to spam the same button over and over again isn’t the most enjoyable (to me, at least).

What I am imagining as a replacement is a couple talents that modify or buff Raptor Strike. More creative people than me can maybe have some ideas on that.

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It’s not really incentivizing you to spam one button. It’s rewarding you for properly managing focus (starting Mongoose Fury windows at a high enough amount of focus) and reinforcing the focus spender/generator loop. Just spamming MB will result in pretty weak windows and you won’t be getting as many 5 stack MB as you should (or you’re delaying the next window).

Tuning is a separate issue, though, because these windows are pretty weak and unrewarding currently.

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644

Hunter feedback, repeated for visibility.

Some of these have been mentioned by many hunters:

Steel Trap:

Remove or make baseline with no damage so there is no question about it place in a rotation.

Explosive Trap:

Make a choice node to knock back or up. The ability to knock up would give hunters more M+ viability. As it stands now, our damage has to be really good to get invites as we don’t bring dispels, brez, off-heals, or AoE stops. Yes, we bring lust, but have to sacrifice abilties to do it.

Binding Shot:

To the point of M+ viability, again, make Binding Shot work like Sigil of Chains. We can already root with Tar Trap/Entrapment. I think it would be cool to MD a tank and group up a pack and serve it up for them to take it from there.

Disengage:

This definitely needs a 2nd charge to keep up with mobility changes to other classes.

Scare Beast:

100% of the time you make this baseline. Can be a fun ability for some players and occasionally sees some use in PvP, but almost never worth the point and you probably never feel good spending a point on it.

Coordinated Assault:

This needs a rework badly. Having it still tied to the pet’s attack is awful. I don’t care what you do just take the pet’s attack out of the equation.

I’m focusing on these as I feel these are easier to fix (mostly) than some of the other issues we have right now.

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explosions have been survival’s thing since 2004 for what it’s worth

Extremely unrealistic thing to ask. Explosions are half the specs identity since its inception. You might as well ask for an assassination rogue tree that doesn’t use poisons or a frost mage tree that doesn’t use ice magic. Also it’s pointless to try and inject realism into a high fantasy video game

2 Likes
646

I’m failing to see why Ruthless Marauder is still 2 points. Additionally it is nerfed compared to live - only granting bonus critical strike chance to enemies below 50%, where live is 65%.

Really need FotE to get a more general buff as a capstone ability.

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647

why are you complaining about a free talent point, you don’t have to press eagle ever lol

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648

I would give it the ironfur treatment, where it doesn’t matter when you start it the buff ticks down individually from other stacks

649

Not sure if this has been mentioned but both butchery and coordinated assault are bugged consuming all tip of the spear charges with one use

1 Like