Feedback: Hunters

[Frackek-sargeras]

Survival Hunter changes first impressions from a pvp perspective:

the new flanking strike change is terrible, having no control over when a charge happens especially when its tied to one of your main ranged abilities you use while kiting someone is really bad. Make flanking strike an active ability again, otherwise its just really bad its supposed to only be an ability that’s used for additional burst during your Freezing Trap windows.

Steel Trap being removed is also really bad for survival. Its one of the main abilities you use to get someone off of u after you were just in melee on them. Survival isn’t like the other ranged hunter specs where someone has to use a mobility spell to touch you and then you disengage you need abilities like steel trap to help you out.

Also i think now that Coordinated Assault is changed back to being a 20% damage increase that doesn’t alter your rotation bombardier explosive shots should activate after casting your bombs at the start of coordinated assault. It happening after CA ends was understandable when u had so many rotational abilities during CA but now its going to happen after the kill window is over and is not very great. And i know people have stated this already but in pve it wont line up with any on-use trinkets either.

And then finally serpent sting should be added back as an active ability. In pvp one of survivals main ways putting out pressure when kiting out of melee range is bombs, kill command and spamming serpent sting and now that’s its just tied to mongoose bite you no longer can put pressure onto multiple enemies very easily. Which also hurts swapping between targets which is part of survivals playstyle(especially against melee when u have them in a steel trap and don’t want to break it).

[Puglisi-illidan]

So many good changes were made both this week and last to clean up both the focus economy and the flow of Survival’s gameplay.

To start the change to Sic ‘Em being something that can actually be played around is excellent. The reversion of Coordinated Assault to being a damage amp from this really weird and deceptively complex cooldown is also fantastic. Quickshot not being reliant on Kill Command resets is another change that I am excited to see.

Unfortunately not all changes are for the better in my opinion though. First and foremost the change to Mongoose Bite from a damage window to a maintenance buff is a loss in gameplay that was fairly unique to Survival. I can understand the direction that the change was coming from where there’s the added level of gameplay that the Tip of the Spear change brought. However I don’t believe that it was an actual issue. With Mongoose Bite you are not looking to weave every Bite with a Kill Command, you more often want to save the Kill Commands for the later Mongoose Bites in the window for the focus generation. So while it may seem like Tip was adding some global bloat to this window I think it was actually reinforcing good gameplay. If there is a desire to have a gameplay similar to the new iteration of Mongoose Bite I would instead recommend a choice node with Mongoose Bite for the return of something akin to Way of the Mok’Nathal.

The other change worth touching upon is the Flanking Strike change. It seems from what I’ve been reading that this current iteration is not liked generally however I feel like it is a fine change. What’s worth noting though is that now that it replaces a Kill Command use it should intuitively benefit from talents that affect Kill Command. Flanking Strike also has a charge attached to it that should certainly be removed with this iteration now that we are not completely in control of when we are able to hit the button. The last point I have is that Flanking Strike being back to a builder makes it a bit awkward again with Exposed Flank wanting you to Kill Command after hitting Flanking Strike

I have one note that pertains to tuning in regards to Mongoose Bite. Mongoose Bite as a whole feels undertuned from where it used to be. Even with a 5 stack of Mongoose Fury, Wildfire Bomb was hitting harder on a single target than the Mongoose Bite was. While the changes made this week would kind of make this point moot as Mongoose Fury isn’t a window any longer I still want to make this feedback as I feel the Mongoose Fury change should be reverted. In fact I think even with the Mongoose Fury changes this stands true as it now takes 2 globals to make Mongoose Bite to do a whopping 10% more damage than your standard Raptor Strike.

Once again really good direction so far with Survival and I’m really looking forward to the spec going forward.

[Thazen-sargeras]

Ok. I’ve got a few thoughts.

First the good!

Quick Shot
Good change. The proc rate was horrible previously, and it being a chance of a chance felt bad. This is much more consistent. Numbers can probably be tweaked further if needed through Ranger talent or baseline.

Sic’ Em
Great change! I missed having a button light up to smash that the previous version of grenade juggler brought to the table.

Coordinated Assault
On paper I’m digging the changes here. No longer need to work around pet’s basic attack and seems to be an appropriate damage buff not tied to specific abilities.

Symbiotic Adrenaline
Like the TotS buff but requires dumping any TotS stacks before using. Would it be OP to allow you to overcap your initially gained TotS stacks for the initial hit?

The Neutral

Spearhead
Sprearhead charge removed. I’m ok with that because honestly in most cases its going to be chained with CA, especially since CA is a heavy hitter now. Double charge was redundant. CONSIDER adding focus generation we had with Death Chakram on use with this ability.

Death Chakram byebye
Although a cool ability. I’m ok with it going. It was essentially a damage prepper that required excessive cd chaining, and in survival’s case Sprearhead is already filling that role. I’m more than ok with returning the majority of the power to the core abilities in tradeoff. Can we get some kind of Chakram ability in Sentinel now please? When I think Sentinels I think Chakrams not owls tbh.

Bye bye Steel trap
Going to miss dropping you on DHs and have them stare at me when they can’t press W anymore. Agree that it was probably for the best because there were a lot of extra utility abilities to manage.

Hunter Tree Capstones
While useful, none of the capstone abilities in the hunter tree really scream THIS IS A CAPSTONE! All 3 are useful in their own ways, but not as impactful with the loss of DC. I could see each of these anywhere in the tree.

The Bad/Horrible

Mongoose Bite
I’m a bit confused on the direction you’re going here. I agree with the sentiment that Mongoose Fury windows were challenging to fit in this updated rotation. But again it seems that you are further solidifying Mongoose Bite as a must have over Raptor Strike as it only takes a few extra hits to get the damage buff rolling at max and maintained, making the very early transition a no brainer…

Again, please just scrap Raptor Strike OR Mongoose Bite to have 1 melee focus dump. Use talents further down the right side of the tree (cough Bloody Claws) to beef it up. Maybe decoupling mongoose fury or whatever buff you’re attaching to it as a separate talent.

Maintaining and maximizing Mongoose Fury windows was still part of the fun of the spec. I still think this could have been preserved by either extending the window or reducing number of stacks to cap. Something that rewards paying attention and banking/spending focus at correct times. Now its very much fire and forget.

Flanking Strike
No No No NO. This change will literally ruin the spec in pvp, and give less control in PVE as a fun way to supercharge TotS.

In addition to forcing the hunter in melee range at intervals you cannot control, it also introduces inconsistent range usage for Kill command. KC is a 50 yard ability until it isn’t.

Please revert this change! It was great in the last build and I’m super confused on what you’re trying to accomplish here other than reducing a button to push.

[Altani-mannoroth]

Continuing the discussion from The War Within Beta Development Notes:

@Linxy

Sic’ Em has been redesigned – Kill Command has a 15% chance to reset the cooldown of Kill Shot, make it usable on targets regardless of Health, and strike up to 2 additional targets. This chance is doubled during Coordinated Assault.

This is fine. Mixed feelings on using it to preclude desire for a returned proper Birds of Prey talent, but not bad.

@Linxy

• Coordinated Assault initial damage increased by 60%.
• Coordinated Assault has been redesigned – You and your pet charge your enemy, striking them for combined Physical damage. You and your pet’s bond is then strengthened for 20 seconds, causing you and your pet to deal 20% increased damage. While Coordinated Assault is active, Kill Command’s chance to reset its cooldown is increased by 15%.

This is painfully dull compared to the gameplay provided by a Dragonflight fully augmented Coordinated Assault, which I imagine is exactly why we swapped to the DF version after Shadowlands once Spearhead was made available for contrast.

Now, sadly that DF Coordinated Assault never got properly tuned to offer meaningful burst in its own right, but between tuning the more interesting effect appropriately and reverting the skill to the former version you moved away from because it was dull (AND watering that former version’s gameplay effect down)… I would think the better option obvious?

@Linxy

Symbiotic Adrenaline has been updated – Additionally causes Coordinated Assault to grant 3 stacks of Tip of the Spear.

Helps to give back a bit of the palpable impact lost from the base CA changes. Though sadly only a bit.

@Linxy

Quick Shot has been updated – Now has a 30% chance to fire an Arcane Shot when you cast Kill Command (was when Kill Command reset).

Deemphasizes resets, making it synergize less with certain talents (which could be a good thing for increased freedom in choosing this talent). The added potency over time is appreciated. This seems fine.

@Linxy

Butchery damage increased by 100%.

It’s about time.

@Linxy

• Flanking Strike now replaces Kill Command after casting Kill Command 3 times.
• Flanking Strike range increased to 25 yards (Medium-Short range).
• Flanking Strike no longer benefits from Tip of the Spear and now generates 15 Focus.

This is awful. Please revert.

@Linxy

Flanker’s Advantage no longer grants additional reset chance based on your critical strike.

• This effect also had a bug that was causing you to roll for Kill Command resets twice per cast of Kill Command, which was creating substantially increased Kill Command resets.

This is fine. Crit was already plenty valuable.

@Linxy

• Mongoose Fury now refreshes its duration when a new stack is applied.
• Mongoose Fury max stacks reduced to 3 (was 5).
• Mongoose Fury duration reduced to 10 seconds.

This is garbage. It reduced Mongoose Fury to Way of the Mok’Nathal, probably the most hated mechanic ever seen on Survival.

@Linxy

Wildfire Infusion’s Kill Command reset chance reduced to 10% (was 15%).

I hate this trend to reduce palpable effects to nearly nothing.

@Linxy

Wildfire Infusion’s Wildfire Bomb cooldown reduction reduced to 0.5 seconds (was 1 second).

Again. If it’s too powerful as to leave no choice and you fear others wouldn’t like the WFB pace caused, offer an alternative via a choice node. Don’t gut it into unnoticeability.

@Linxy

Developer’s note - We’re still making adjustments to Survival’s action economy and reducing how crowded the rotation feels. Part of this is reducing the increased access of Wildfire Bomb from the various spec tree changes we’ve made, particularly through Wildfire Infusion.

Crowded will be exactly what many want from a wild bomber jungleman take on the spec. If you’re not going to make WFB itself optional, don’t remove that option; instead, provide alternatives takes on/around WFB.

@Linxy

Spearhead now only makes your pet charge.

Then Spearhead ought to reset the CD of Harpoon, or, ideally, offer a temporary additional charge of Harpoon or (active/manual) Flanking Strike.

(Ideally, do the same for CA.)

[Dessta-burning-blade]

Flanking Strike feedback:
There is absolutely no way this change makes it to the weekend. Do you know how many times I’ve been killed by Flanking Strike trying to move me to an arbitrary location around a boss instead of just moving me TO the boss? Do you know how often I’ve wanted to use Flanking Strike but couldn’t and had to wait because using it would put me in an AOE and get me killed? Yeah, there’s no way it’s going to fly that every third cast just flings me randomly at my target, or wherever the hell it decides to send me.

Option A) I don’t care if it ends up a builder or a spender, but it should go back to being its own button. It’s no worse having the extra button to hit every 30-ish seconds than it is for Ret to hit Wake of Ashes (except Wake of Ashes does AOE and won’t throw you into your own death). But if it is going to continue to MOVE the player, it needs to be a separate button.

Option B) Make it replace Harpoon, make it work with Terms of Engagement, etc. I think people could get behind having one strong movement/engagement attack instead of two, if the extra button is a problem (which it really isn’t).

Option C) Remove the movement component for the player from Flanking Strike and increase the range to match Kill Command. It would basically just be a stronger Kill Command which is pretty lame, but at least it wouldn’t get me killed by throwing me at things. Maybe make it also reset Harpoon so you have the OPTION to pull yourself to the mob after but are not FORCED to the mob.

[Bananon-area-52]

Flanking Strike: Please revert it. This new thing is awful. It was much more fun before. thats all.

[Drakaga-shandris (Drakaga)]

@Belindoris-area-52

Remove Fury of the Eagle. Not sure what I would currently replace this with but we will never have time to press this in any scenario.

I don’t think FotE needs to be removed, I think it just needs serious help. Blizz needs to bake the DF Season 3 tier bonus into the ability and that would immediately make it a satisfying button.

[Bankerbetch-area-52]

The survival changes have been so good the last two weeks. I was ready main this class in TWW and then today happened. The previous iteration of flanking strike where it was a short cd was amazing. This current change could not have left it in a worse state. Flanking strike is borderline unplayable and flat out no longer enjoyable to press. Totally disappointing.

[Donnydotts-area-52]

Really love the overall changes to survival thus far, it’s got a great flow to it (minus a few bugs). However, the flanking strike change (being tied into kill command) feels much worse than the iteration last week. It felt much better! I understand streamlining abilities and rotation but the class will feel empty if abilities continue to be removed or simplified/combined. Thanks for the great work so far! Please give flanking strike back

[Eskers-uldum]

Please make Improved Steady Shot and Crack Shot baseline, thank you!

[Huttser-moon-guard]

The Flanking Strike change is horrible. It felt so good to use it last week, and now you may not even want to take it in a lot of situations because of how potentially dangerous the random charge is. It was a big meaningful hit and now it just seems like precarious nothingness.

I’m not super sad to see death chakram go, but some of these changes seem to be a severe overreaction to perceived “button bloat” for our spec. After the first round of adjustments to the changes, the rotation was feeling great. Don’t gut this spec until there’s barely anything left to press.

Also, please buff Fury of the Eagle and make it worth taking. Perhaps consider baking Ruthless Marauder and the Season 3 set bonus into the base ability so that it feels powerful on its own and isn’t a 2-3 point investment. It’s an iconic survival ability, and potentially outright avoiding a capstone AOE ability in AOE builds is just weird.

[Firegoblin-emerald-dream]

These are some amazing changes for Survival Hunter.

Imploding Trap is like jump height, and is very underwhelming.

I would just say the points below Coordinated Assault feel even more lackluster now with the Flanking Strikes change and the flow of the tree is not very accessible.

I wish the top of the spec tree was wider with butchery and it’s passives before the gate, and then compress Gate 1 talents with more accessibility to the side nodes.

Flanking Strike procing and disabling > 25yrd kill command is awful I’d rather disable the charge unless ur within 25 yards but let me still use the skill.

[Markelf-zuljin]

Class changes

Implosive Trap - This is one of the things I asked for so super happy to see it added. The long 1.5m CD for an AoE kick is a bit of a letdown though when you have other classes with 1 minute AoE stops like Monk’s Leg Sweep.

Territorial Instincts redesigned - I’m not a fan of this change. This is much worse than the previous iteration. The 8s of 10% less damage taken is really 3s after the 5s of being stunned which I guess is useful in overworld content or the slim chance the mob targets the hunter again with their cast. I’d still prefer this to be a 5 yard stun.

Removal of Steel Trap & Death Chakram - Good changes. DC was kind of button bloat and Steel Trap was not a good button to press as a slightly better Ice Trap.

Notes: I’d still like to see the PvP nodes be usable in PvE. Make Ghillie Suit allow camo in combat and Roar of Sacrifice a 10% DR for a party member.

Beast Mastery

These changes seem pretty minor but are fine.

Survival

Sic’ Em Redesigned - Great change.

Coordinated Assault Redesigned - Great change, much more simple.

Symbiotic Adrenaline Changed - Good change, makes the shorter CA feel more impactful.

Flanking Strike - I feel like these changes were from old feedback that FS was a better KC (in DF) and while I appreciate the less button bloat, there are concerns about ‘leaping to the target’ as KC is a ranged ability. Also, this iteration of FS doesn’t proc/activate interactions with KC making it now a worse KC technically with this iteration.
Personally, I’m fine with this change because we have Aspect of the Eagle baseline, Disengage if needed, and we’re generally in melee already (I also forget FS is even a button at times as it was so unimpactful in DF) but a lot of people in the Hunter Discord seem to dislike this change and prefer last week’s interaction with FS being a spender and feel like this is an overreaction to the button bloat feedback. I’m fine either way.

Mongoose Fury(MF) Reworked - It’s more of a maintenance buff now. This somewhat feels like the right direction since we have a lot of buttons competing to be clicked during the window between bombs, KC/FS, ES, SH, CA, and harpooning for focus with ToE. I suppose since it only takes 2 globals for MB to do more than RS throughout an entire encounter, the change seems positive for raid while maintaining the filler role (or not being taken at all) for M+ still. Overall, decent change in the right direction.

Wildfire Infusion - Haven’t tested this but I’m sure this okay. Quick Shot casting off of KC casts instead of resets probably makes the KC reset chance reduced to 10 fine.

Deadly Duo - Can the tooltip just be changed to ‘Reduced SH by 30s’? Not sure why it needs to repeat the description of Spearhead.

The Hunter class still has some issues I go over in my feedback post below:

Consolidated Surv/BM Hunter Feedback for TWW Beta

We’ve received our second wave of changes for TWW. I’m happy to see hunters brought up to the standards of other classes but it still seems to have a lot of utility that requires playing around to use them. We have a lot of knockbacks and not really a solid AoE stun which is far from ideal for competitive M+ content. These are my impressions as a top 1% Surv/BM Hunter, I’ll continue to update this post as changes continue. Defensives & Externals: Hunters now have a strong selection of CDs to e…

[Kirapandora-dalaran (Kirapandora)]

Not thrilled with the removal of the chakrams. Tho I suppose we didn’t need two focus builder spells, since Dire Beast now has that component.

It just makes Beast Master even more boring looking visually.

I hope we really do see a significant uptick in damage for what we’ve lost.

I’d still rather have Trailblazer where Hunter’s Avoidance is.

Can you all at least make Explosive shot more interesting looking? Make the explosion bigger?

The BM tree is still TOOO expensive.

It feels like there aren’t enough points unless you strip everything interesting out.

Is the intent to have our tree only get one end cap if we go with multi target?

I still would rather have Bloodshed and Basilisk Collar swap positions.

[Xastii-stormrage]

I am dissapointed to see Death chakram pulled from survival. I thought it fit the toolkit and playstyle of resource management and burn phases. I hope you can restore that gameplay.

• Death Chakram
  • Developer’s note: One of the biggest complaint’s we’re seeing in the Hunter community is button bloat. Death Chakram was a relatively high-frequency button that you had to click before all of your damage abilities, creating something of a launch sequence for every Hunter specialization. Its removal will let us bake the lost power into each spec’s kit while also reducing the button-presses required before you can begin damage.

[Sharky-stormreaver]

Lets not forget Hunters are already excluded/not played when it comes to higher keys (for the most part), we need all the extra help we can get. Were already squishier then clothies and bring nothing to the group. Give us allll the dps

[Firegoblin-emerald-dream]

@Markelf-zuljin

Deadly Duo - Can the tooltip just be changed to ‘Reduced SH by 30s’? Not sure why it needs to repeat the description of Spearhead.

It’s chance to crit and Critical Strike Damage, not a repeat.

[Koltovincent-area-52]

Overall I like the changes to survival. There is only a few notes I would like to add to them though. RIP Death Chakram, you just got a new fancy animation too.

Flanking Strike: I can’t count how many times I used the extra range on survival to use mechanics and I forget both flanking strike and CA have a tied in leap that makes me go into a danger zone like Volcoross. Now Kill command turns into FS every three uses and forces you to be melee to use it or leap at the enemy and mess up positioning. In addition do the concept of every three kill commands, you get a kill command replacement that takes none of the KC upgrades we now have a full hero tree and spec tree talents upgrading. Seems silly. Either separate FS to its previous iteration, or take our the leap portion and make everything KC stacks with attach to FS.

Mongoose: I personally am fine with this change but I have seen players say this removes any skill ceiling for survival. My small take is if the goal is to align the new tip of the spear KC weaving with MB windows, maybe add either the capability of Tip of the spear granting double MB stacks when consumed or have tip of the spear increase the duration of MB windows at a diminished rate so weaving can be beneficial at high stacks but still award those manage their MB windows properly.

[Biggyronny-stormrage]

Developers. please do not remove Death Chakram, I read that your thoughts were button bloat but this is not the case. Please revert the change.

[Virridian-staghelm]

Initial thoughts so far from a BM main.

With the removal of Death Chakram it ‘feels’ like BM lost a button since it wasn’t too bad of a button minus the opener. So overall I understand it getting removed since it must of felt that way for MM/Surv too. Now with out Death Chakram I was going to test with Dire Beast in its ‘place’, but now is behind either Hunter’s Prey/Venom’s Bite which both frankly feel bad to take as Kill Shot is very low prio for BM. Which leads to my next point.

With the changes to the pathing in the latest update, Wild Call is now limited to going through Training Expert(2 pointer). Overall ‘feels’ like we lost a point if we also wanted to go Dire Beast by requiring either Hunter’s Prey/Venom’s Bite and removing the pathing from Wild Call.

Just my feedback at first glance and testing it for a bit. Do more testing as the week goes on. Great rework overall so far and looking forward to Hunter in TWW.