What exactly do button bloat mean? I don’t feel it that way, maybe it’s just me that I don’t feel like hunters have too much buttons.
6 Likes
My thoughts on the Survival changes;
I’m not as negative on the Flanking Strike change, as I thought all this time it should have been a Kill Command replacement, though it really needs to work with Kill Command proc talents (Quick Shot, Sic 'em) and instead of a dash it should use the crossbow to do a synchronised ranged attack instead, making your pet dash to the target like the new Spearhead. Losing your primary ranged ability if you ever have to leave melee because it would send you back in is a horror.
EDIT; after playing with it a bit the old one is still much better than this, though I don’t think this is without salvation. Reverting Flanking Strike to it’s own button would be better, and if focus/economy is the issue; make it cost no focus instead so it’s a neutral tip of the spear proc.
I believe this Mongoose Bite suits the tree more but it still feels like missed opportunity to double down on a mongoose bite heavy build and instead almost completely loses the opportunity. Raptor Strike should probably be baseline for survival so when you actually pick it as a hunter you’re not ranged until level 13 for no reason(incapable of casting your free Kill Shot talent because it requires a 2h weapon).
Bloody Claws I’m not sure if these talent changes make this better or worse (6% all the time vs 2-10% sometimes), but it would be more interesting if it expanded on the Mongoose Fury buff in some other way instead to bring back life into this button (haste per stack to give it more feel, or scales dot damage/pet damage).
Spearhead off the gcd would feel really good.
Coordinated Assault is a step in the right direction In my opinion, but the tip of the spear amp from Relentless Primal Ferocity should be the style this cooldown buffs your damage, flat 20% amp is very uninspired. Maybe take the original uncapped tip of the spear scale and apply it here.
Death Chakram, Personally relieved to see this gone for survival with the implimentation of the Spearhead rework.
Arcane/Serpent Sting; Once again I request spammable pull button that is not rotational.
Pack Leader Would love some information about what the plans are for this.
I would have loved to see Dual Wield still too, but some of these changes in my opinion are still working in favour of the tree, it is still quick slick to play, I am personally extremely partial toward the new Sic 'em. I feel the new flanking strike is also rotationally quite nice for weaving even if it is currently not generating focus.
4 Likes
the new FS is rotationally not different than KC though? it’s just a blue kill command that does more damage in exchange for not working with half your talents + an entire hero talent tree
KC already does this 
so we gave up an exciting and satisfying spender (and controllable) ability that had its own niche in the rotation for a passive that makes every 4th kill command not work with half of your talents on top of potentially killing you 
6 Likes
It’s a nebulous buzz-term that people keep haphazardly throwing around. Hunter wasn’t “bloated.”
4 Likes
Some survival feedback based on the latest build:
Let’s start with some overwhelmingly negative critical feedback, because it’s the most important to be seen.
Flanking Strike changes:
The move from an active button to a passive one, and an clunky gap closer on one of our most frequently pressed buttons, at that, is horrendous. Don’t misconstrue this as if “the gap closer” part is the main issue, it’s the fact that it went from a focus spender for AoE to a nearly non-functional KC passive generator replacement talent with nothing else going for it. Last week’s build was perfect for this iteration of the ability.
My main problem with it is that it’s passive now. Not that it’s a buggy mess that doesn’t properly inherit any KC modifiers. Not that it’s a Skyreach with extra steps that’ll be getting us occasionally killed for trying to do our rotation normally. Not that it’s a change no one asked for. Not that it’s a generator when we needed more spenders.
The issue is entirely that this is a change from active button that felt great to press to a poor man’s KC. All other issues stem from this. We went entirely backwards.
Please revert Flanking Strike to it’s previous build state prior to the current one. If you take anything from the feedback this week, please do this.
Now, onto some other stuff regarding Survival.
The loss of Death Chakrams, while sad, is ultimately not really an issue. I find it odd that a damage amp was considered bloat while we still have stuff in our toolkit like Hunter’s Mark, world’s most unsatisfying raid buff, but whatever. I’ll miss the funny discus ability, but I’ll probably miss the damage amp effect even more. I’m personally not a fan of it’s removal if I were asked to decide, one way or another. I would gladly welcome it back, it wasn’t really a button bloat issue to me.
The Sic 'Em change is a welcome one. I’ve come to terms with Survival never getting Flayed Shot back, and this is likely the closest I’ll ever get to seeing it again short of just going back to Shadowlands Zones. Pretty good here.
Changes to CA are regrettable, but necessary. It wasn’t going to work as a whacky poor man’s flavor ability if it wanted to be an actual cooldown. No complaints further.
Wildfire Infusion caught… Another nerf? Felt pretty good at 1s, it’s hardly going to be noticeable at 0.5s. Would’ve rather seen Lunge get a nerf over this, honestly.
Mongoose Fury caught a net sort of(?) nerf, since while it appears to have been reduced to 3 stacks to cut out start time, the damage amp wasn’t adjusted with it. Unless that was the intent to sideline our main spender for whatever reason. Might just be an oversight? I don’t hate it, but it doesn’t exactly help with the button just being weak. Needs it’s AP scaling buffed, as others suggested.
Anything else not mentioned is pretty good.
Except.
I’m not sure what visual changes you guys were cooking for Spearhead, but they clearly didn’t make it to the new build.
Revert Flanking Strike.
8 Likes
-
I still think Kindred Spirits should be baseline. It’s especially egregious as a 2-pointer. I’m sure there are people who would prefer to have the extra 20 Focus, regardless of the DPS benefit, but for us optimizers, the only way we’re taking that is if it proves a better route overall to BW, not because we actually want it. Which is a bit of a pity, because I do like the extra Focus – BM sometimes have Focus flood issues – but it’s just never been a strong talent, AFAIK.
-
I think it’s great that you’re having Intim work for Lone Wolf MM. Primal Rage next?
1 Like
I just want to bring a very tiny thing out of left field, and I recognize its inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.
But could we remove the restriction of BM only for exotic pets usage already? At this point, BM schtick is that they have 2 of them roaming around, and exotic pets don’t exactly do much different. Allowing Surv and MMs to use any pet they wish would be a nice change.
Requiring special training to be able to tame new families is a better experience than restricting them to BM.
Just my 2 cents, sorry for distracting from the main topics.
5 Likes
Leaving my feedback here as well as the Hunter forums in hope that it gets seen.
Are you serious “button bloat” there’s literally no button bloat for damaging abilities as MM hunter you already took away double tap and now you remove chakrams the only unique ability we get to press once a while?? Now we are literally a 3 button spec Aim shot- arcane shot - rapid fire……at this point as a mm hunter I feel like I’m just losing all my “fun” buttons to press and is just left spamming my core rotation forever. Which gets repetitive and boring!!
chakrams was also a great ability for mm In pvp to have some on demand burst dmg this change feels bad not good. As a hunter I feel like I just keep losing tools in my kit
Also removal of steel trap as a pvper you’re taking away all my unique abilities to outplay others in this game.
I still think dark ranger is extremely lack luster visually and gameplay wise nothing about it has me feeling excited as I should because I’ve always wants to be like sylvans. It’s just not hitting the mark compared to other classes getting awesome stuff.
The class talent trees are a nice improvement but a couple of notes
Both legacy of the Windrunner and focused aim do not feel good as two point nodes they both are weak and not exciting to use up 4 talent points. Making these 1 point nodes would help with making more dynamic builds. I love the increased walls we got but I still feel like turtle should be 2 minuet cool down at this point especially since you can die in it. The cd actually got increased slightly from where it is right now in DF.
7 Likes
I’m very confused by removing Death Chakram to get rid of button bloat, but replacing it with another ability rather than a passive option?
Like, that defeats the entire purpose of removing Chakram???
All you’ve did is create a useless capstone talent. I genuinely think that capstone talent will be chosen by less than .1% of hunters. Even in PvP the traps in that slot have very niche uses.
6 Likes
Alright Survival Hunter Feedback Time.
CLASS TREE
Implosive Trap! Heck yeah, this is great. Kind of odd its a longer CD than Hi-Explosive Trap though.
Scrappy being on the opposite side of Intimidation and Bursting Shot now AND having to go through Binding Shot to get it? Not great.
Territorial Instincts, neat. 5 seconds is kind of very little difference though.
Blackrock Munitions, not…sure why it exists? The added damage to Explosive Shot is nice but whys it a whole talent, why not just buff Explosive Shot?
Steel Trap being gone is apparently bad news for PVP, I don’t PVP so I don’t know but I can see it being an issue being gone entirely.
Death Chakram being gone. It’s a bit of a shame we have no Shadowlands Covenant spells now but I’m not unhappy to see Death Chakram go.
SURVIVAL TREE
Alright let’s get the worst out of the way.
Flanking Strike was absolutely fine last week. No reason to change it into …whatever it is this week. Even if you were to take the gap closer out so we don’t accidentally kill ourselves every 3 Kill Commands it just becomes…Kill Command Two at that point. Please just…put it back to last week’s version.
I understand the intent, “one less button to press and make it easier to have Kill Command cleave in AOE and sometimes generate 2 stacks of Tip of The Spear”.
Okay sure then just…give us a talent that lets Kill Command auto cleave in AOE and have a chance to give us two stacks of Tip Of The Spear. Leave Flanking Strike alone.
KC auto cleaving and occasionally giving you 2 stacks of Tip Of The Spear is really nice to be honest, but don’t sacrifice Flanking Strike for it.
Mongoose Bite and Mongoose Fury. I’m not even a Mongoose Bite fan and this change is… pretty meh. Almost nothing about Mongoose Bite feels different from Raptor Strike now.
Coordinated Assault, much easier to manage now. Somewhat.
That “Somewhat” is entirely because Bombardier is still the same way as it was last week.
Bombardier causes: 2 GCDS to dump bombs before pressing Coordinated Assault, another 2 GCDs to spend those two new bombs, and then at the end of Coordinated Assault 2 additional GCDS to spend the Explosive Shots. Bit of leeway when you spend those Explosive Shots sure.
That’s 6 extra GCDS worth of abilities. That’s 8-12 additional GCDS if you want to buff any of those bombs or Explosive Shots with Tip of The Spear. Now imagine that every minute. It’s awful. Getting extra charges of stuff isn’t even fun.
Just make it so Bombardier makes the first two bombs in CA do double damage or hit twice and have 100% chance to proc Explosive Shot or something that doesn’t cost us GCDs. Make it so it makes Bombs and Explosive Shot hit x% harder during CA’s duration or something, I don’t know, anything else.
Sic 'Em is pretty cool now. But I’ve a bit of a problem with it I’ll come back to later.
Quick Shot is pretty good now too. But… I have a bit of a problem with it as well.
Fury Of The Eagle and Ruthless Marauder still aren’t really worth taking right now unfortunately.
It feels like the Wildfire Bomb CDR reductions have swung a bit too much in the other direction now, def not getting as many bombs as I’d like, especially in ST.
BIG PICTURE PROBLEM
Now for the bigger underlying problem I’m noticing with our new talents.
Why is everything centered around Kill Command?
We’re not BM.
And yet, Kill Command gives us Focus, gives us Tip Of The Spear, procs Quick Shot, procs Sic 'Em, reduces the CD on bombs, procs Flanking Strike, can cleave, reduces the CD on Fury of the Eagle, procs Bloodseeker, gains additional reset chance during Coordinated Assault AND is core to the entire Pack Leader Hero Tree (which is still half broken).
Right now on Beta I’m pressing Kill Command as much as BM. I’m pressing it more than any other ability right now. It’s supposed to be a generator.
If I wanted most of my talents centered around Kill Command I’d go play BM.
In comparison Wildfire Bomb interacts with Explosive Shot, Ruthless Marauder and Bombardier. Butchery if you wanna count that. That’s it.
Raptor Strike/Mongoose Bite interacts with Bloody Claws, Merciless Blows and Wildfire Infusion. That’s it!
Some of us really like Mongoose Bite and Mongoose Fury. Some of us really like throwing Bombs. But most of us don’t really feel THAT enthusiastic about Kill Command for it to be doing everything and the kitchen sink.
I would love to use Bombs and Mongoose Bite more, and KC less.
7 Likes
Ok, so quite a few changes to Hunter and SV this patch as well. But a very mixed bag. Not at all the W the last two patches was. Here is my feedback. Starting with the good:
Very nice addition. This is something we’ve been asking for forever. Thank you Blizzard! I would like the effect to be a bit higher though. But ultimately it’s just used as a AoE stopper. Nice!
While sad to see Chakram go (it’s pretty much one of few abilities that actually has a decent VFX/visual for hunters) it was kind of just used to ramp the following abilities. I did not have a issue with it but can see the point. And steel trap, did anyone actually use it?
Very nice change. Getting some nice Kill shot synergy with Kill command is a welcome change and will spice up our rotation quite a lot since it’ll probably always be worth to use on proc. Thank you.
So while I generally see this as a W because the previous CA was quite atrocious to use it’s still…boring. I mean sure it’s easier to use but it’s very uninteresting now. You will literally just use it as any random damage modifying ability. I’ll take it over the previous CA.
So this is nice I guess. Getting more ToTS stacks is nice. But it will also kind of force us to burn ToTS stacks before we use our capstone. Not terrible but will feel bad if you overcap on ToTS. Might be a headache to optimize but might also give some room for complexity. Overall nice to get some areas where we can get a influx of ToTS to then use up.
Thank you! This is 10 times better. The RNG upon RNG was horrible. This is a nice change that fixes the issue. Now if we get rid of the bugs for sulfur-lined pockets this will probably be a nice little proc.
I mean it’s just numbers tuning but a badly needed one. As someone who loves Butchery and wish we could have a AoE build revolve around it instead this is a very nice change.
This was a badly needed fix. It will be nice to test further now and see how the spec feels now. Hopefully all the bugs/issues was caught.
I think this was a nice change. I always felt that we had a bit too much charges with CA, FS, Harpoon and then Spearhead. The capstone itself is still very lacking, but further on that down below.
Nice amount of good changes to be sure. If only it stopped there though. But we got quite a few changes that honestly make this builds SV hunter feel a lot worse than last weeks. Here is my opinion on bad changes this week:
I am sorry what? Why are you adding another X% damage modifier talent? We just got rid of a few and still have quite a few around still. We need to get these removed not add more! Very bad change. If you feel bombs need a buff then just buff it! Or if you feel that we need more talents to smooth out the tree then at least give us something else than X% damage modifiers…
I mentiond CA on the good feedback because it is easier and less cumbersome to use now, which is a good change. But overall the Capstone CA is incredibly boring and lackluster now. I mean now we have 3 capstones. Fury of the eagle is a bad fists of fury, CA is a pure x% damage boosting ability and Spearhead is also just a X% damage booster but via crits. I mean both the latter capstones can just be macroed and used with bloodlust/beginning of the fight and then you are done. We badly needed old CA changed but this was still a bad change. Easy to use but boring and forgettable now.
This change is by far the worst I’ve seen all Beta/Alpha. I honestly don’t know where Blizzard are going with this? Last weeks FS felt very nice and rewarding. I loved to have it as a big spender that hits hard and gives some ToTS. Now the ability is removed and every 4th KC is a FS? It messes with so much of the rotation.
It makes the core rotation feel worse, it removed the fun and good FS from last week and it messes up KC.
this change needs to go ASAP if you ask me. Revert it to last weeks FS. This did not need a change! Please Blizzard!
I understand where Blizzard feels this interfered with the feel of the spec now where we want to weave with ToTS. But changing it to this might fix that divide in the rotation but it instead makes Mongoose fury/Mongoose bite a very boring and bland maintenance buff. And to be honest with how low the numbers are at the moment I doubt it will be worth to maintain.
It also makes Raptor strike and Mongoose bite more or less the same. RS hits slighly weaker but doesn’t have the maintenance buff, MB has the maintenance buff that will just be boring to maintain but hits slighly harder (still very weak, both of them).
This change while perhaps needed from the overall perspective of the spec is still a bad one. I personally think that considering where you are taking the spec perhaps Raptor strike or Mongoose bite with Mongoose fury needs to go? Would be better to just keep Raptor strike, give it the looping visuals Mongoose bite had (dependent on the stacks it had) and then give us something else to focus our ST rotation around? Or perhaps ToTS is enough.
Bad change, might be a needed one? But with the change as is now you might as well remove MB or RS. They are more or less the same!
I would love to see Spearhead either reworked or changed. Or CA made back into a proper Capstone. I mean we have two Capstones that are pure damage boosting CDs. We’re just going to macro them and forget they exist.
Issues that I still have with the spec after these changes:
We still have too many X% damage modifiers for my taste. Especially bad are the 3 talents (6 talent points!) that are blocking our capstones.
The SV spec is revolving way too much around KC I feel. It’s starting to get the problem where 50% or more of your ability presses is KC just to fish for different procs or synergies. This does not feel good. Since KC is our builder it’s natural that most synergies/procs are from it but it needs to be kept in check. Last FS change made it way over the top.
I mean it’s me. So I’ll mention Dual wield. Still no dual-wield or comment about it. The least you could do was make a decision around it. Either let us know it won’t happen or let us know you wish to implement it/are working on it. Please and thank you Blizzard!
Pets are still terrible to work with. We are still locked into the same very small amount of pets. Please let us “bring the pet not the pet specialization”. I wish to pick the pet I like depending on spec, transmog, taste or just flavor and then pick what benefits I wish the pet to give me. Give us freedom to use whatever pet we like.
As a finish I’d like to thank the dev team for the actual work that has been done on Hunter and especially SV. It’s not all good but that’s to be expected. Most of it is though and it’s nice to see the class and spec being improved upon. Please keep listening to feedback and doing your thing. I have hopes for a good and fun spec come TWW launch.
Edit: I forgot to mention that Bloody Claws, which already before this patch was both weak and uninteresting (perhaps worked better with other sources of KC resets being removed or nerfed?) are now even worse off with the reduction in MF stacks to 3. Not considering the other changes to MB/MF changes, lowering the stacks to 3 was something quite a few suggested but it always came with a rebalance in each stacks value. Lowering them to 3 but keeping each individual stacks bonus the same is even more of a nerf to MB. And it’s already very weak and often not even worth it in the tight rotation.
7 Likes
Overall this week changes for survival fee so much worse…
Flanking strike was useful outside of being improved Kill Command. If anything it should have see improvements in being important to rotation.
Chakram was useful outside of being just rotational cooldown. it had gameplay to it. I would rather see spearhead removed over chakram.
This weeks changes make the rotation feel not like a rotation… I no longer care about my focus… I no longer care about my cooldown burst window… I no longer care about mongoose stacks… I no longer care about dot management… What is survival managing now? Spam bomb and explosive shot anytime it procs? Overall it feels like we have taken the core mechanics tactical nuked them.
The key points I enjoyed in survival was managing Dots, building burst windows, It feels like survival offers none of that anymore. It feels like it plays like a demon hunter which honestly is my least favorite class in the game… it feels like it has no agency for skill expression in the spec.
7 Likes
Blizzard really needs to be listening to this man!
1 Like
The biggest glaring issue with this to me is the forced movement, both in PvE and PvP. Kill Command is our focus builder and tip generator and tying that every 3 Kill Commands (or even at all) causes a lot of issues.
Let’s say you’re fighting a boss who has a soak mechanic that requires you to run out and soak, or a mechanic that you have to run out from that the boss casts around itself. Well now you basically can’t use Kill Command because it’s going to take you back out of position or you are going to be out of Flanking Strike range and now it has become a dead button.
Aspect of the Eagle becomes a dead talent if you spec into Flanking Strike because again if you are not in Flanking Strike range your builder (KC) just becomes a dead button.
In it’s current form it just doesn’t work, you would need to change it so after every 3 Kill Commands it just empowers your next Kill Command granting extra damage and 2 TotS stacks, and if you have Exposed Flank it hits 2 additional nearby enemies. Or remove the movement aspect from the FS that replaces KC but not from the FS that you manually press.
Seems people dislike this change though and I have no real opinion on the builder vs spender side of it. I just see the problems this will cause in it’s current state.
From a PvE perspective no one is going to lose sleep over Steel Trap going in the bin. Have mixed feelings about DC. It gave you something to push (especially true for BM) and generated focus (which was at times helpful for MM) but I also didn’t like the ramp up in certain cases or the “launch sequence” as people seem to call it.
5 Likes
This might be a dumb question but does ANY other class have a forced “slam you into the mob” rotationally necessary attack? I just don’t understand the need to do this, but combined with losing things like Lunge, and the whole “all melee need to be closer to the mob” company line we’ve heard has me concerned. and on top of that, button bloat stripping feels like code for “playable with a console controller”, especially as we keep getting more and more passives.
I don’t want Survival to lose all of it’s uniqueness and simply be the “2h + bombs and pet” melee class. And I definitely don’t want WoW to become an XBOX ARPG.
2 Likes
Havoc Demon Hunters have Felblade. It is however something that you have control over. Flanking Strike replacing Kill Command after every 3rd use and retaining the forced movement is the problem.
5 Likes
I dislike the new version of Flanking Strike. I preferred the version that cost focus. Thank you!
6 Likes
If you mean explosive/Implosive trap, it’s the first AoE kick that hunter has and I’m very happy with it as I suggested it. It being a capstone is odd and the 1.5m CD is a little long and while it can be reduced with talents to (I assume) just above a minute, it’s still less than ideal. Anyway, it’ll be taken by every M+'er and there’s plenty of those, myself included.
9 Likes
WW monk has a talent with tiger palm. But it is a very short range and tied to a melee attack, not a ranged attack.
They scrapped it in tree for a reason.
4 Likes
Blizz if you’re dead set on keeping the flanking change, make it a choice node that keeps last build’s flanking and make it a compelling on use ability comparable to the “baked-in” option.
It wouldn’t be the only time you’ve give choice nodes to reduce complexity for those who want it (see Brewmaster). But again, the underlying mechanics of the forced charge are going to get you killed in a lot of scenarios.