The idea of removing traditional pets from marks in favor of an eagle which most players probably don’t want or fit their character theme has got to be one of the worst ideas I’ve ever seen. Abort mission asap. You don’t understand hunter players at all.
Same for the pack leader changes. This is making pack leader worse not better. Forcing players to summon Rexxar pets is so lame.
Hunters want to use the pets they want. Stop forcing hunters into certain pets for mandatory buffs like mortal strike effect or powerful talents like the hati talent.
Considering the new Marksmanship direction with the spotting Eagle id like to put in my 2 cents and maybe have some feed back from other hunters if im hitting the spot with my suggestion.
First off with the new direction MM is taking why dont we take the Hero Talents of Sentinel and make them either Owl or Hawk themed. Basically themed after a Falconer, I believe it would fit better than the SUPER nightelf coded Sentinel atm. I personally dont play Sentinel cuz im a belf and it just doesnt hit the character theme im really going for. Which RN is DR but thats only cuz its the other option.
Speaking of Dark Ranger, while im at it, the only reason DR is okay being so horde coded while the Nelf Coded Sentinel isnt is due to one reason. I think most of the hunter player base has wanted Dark Rangers for so long I believe that gets a pass, at least thats why it does in MY mind. Might be different for others, but flat out DR is far more interesting of a Hero Spec than Sentinel is. Its another reason why DR passes but Sentinel does not.
Just had to get that out there so kinda show where Im coming from but anyways, yeah, I believe a Falconer would be much more thematic and generally more approachable for a hero spec simply because it can relate to far many more hunters than Sentinel currently does. (Sorry nelf hunters out there). I would rename the hero spec to Harrier or Falconer (which just means a person who works with birds doesnt mean JUST falcons). For ppl who like the current theme bring in a glyph that lets the spells be owl/lunar themed or vice versa for sun/nature/falcon/eagle themed.
One reason Im so against Sentinel as a theme is mainly due to no other hunter examples in game (lore characters) are themed after this. (No Tyrande doesnt count , she a priest, ik someone is gonna say something). An example of a Falconer would be in reference to Alleria Windrunners Statue or other High Elven Statues that display falcons or eagles with them. Even if not seen with Alleria in game, her statue or the Elven Statues do have the bird with them but I could easily see Kul Tirans, Humans, Tauren and Orcs all lean into this far more broad idea of “Falconer” over just the nelf coded “Sentinel”.
Idk maybe im the only one who feels this way. Other hunters let me know how you feel about this. Basically all im advocating for TLDR is ; The talents play the same but have a different coat of paint, one that appeals to more races than JUST nelves, but allow a way for the ppl who like the theme to keep it. New coat of paint via a glyph one way or the other. The only thing id change is the magic school for each theme, arcane is lunar, maybe nature for solar.
Anyways lemme know what your guys opinions are, Id love to hear others input on this and maybe see if we cant get a change if enough ppl are behind it. Thanks!
I think dark ranger is passable because for one, there have been dark rangers of races other than blood elf. Not many, but some. So that’s cool. And for two, because I think they kept the wording for the talents fairly neutral in talking about “darkness” rather than undeath, the scourge or Sylvanas (unless I’m forgetting) . Even though obviously that’s what it’s based on, an outsider with no knowledge isn’t going to make some connection to the inspirations. They’ll just think “emo hunter”.
Sentinel though, is literally the name of the night elf army. It is utterly specific to that one race and has no meaning to any others. What does the arcane damage and owl have to do with hunters? Because we have arcane shot? Because Tyrande, a priest who also sometimes uses a bow but is not a hunter, has a pet owl? It’s awful.
But then, what could they possibly change it to now? They would have to find some connecting tissue between marksman and survival, and thanks to this pet removal for MM there just isn’t any. Those specs are as disconnected as different classes.
The thing about Dark Ranger is that the hero spec is mostly based on Black Arrow, and you can handwave as things other than necromantic power. For my void elf, she’s just imbuing arrows with void power. For a Night Elf, one can handwave it as using Dark Moon magic. Other rances can say it’s poisoned or magic ammo. Or you can just ignore what you are shooting, it’s not like the hero class is full of other visuals that force you into its fantasy.
As for other hero classes, Blizzard went trying to emulate famour characters for the most time. Which is why we have the “Rexxar” hero class now, or the “Tyrande” hero class (yes, she’s a priestess, but she feels more Hunter than Priest in gameplay terms).
I understand Blizzard’s idea, but sometimes we just don’t want to be emulating famous figures. I’m kinda lost on Survival because both options feel weird.
I like the Pack Leader mechanic effects (essentially: periodic DoT, AoE, and Buff) but its visuals are too on the nose to the point they feel out of character (no, I don’t want a boar, a bear and a wyvern to appear out of nowhere). And I imagine that even for those who like the idea it would be more interesting if we could swap those beasts for things in our Summon Pet slots, rather than predefined beasts you never see with your character.
Sentinel is a bit more tame in visuals. There’s no owl anymore in PTR, and I can excuse the moonlaser as some form of void magic but I really dislike the glowy white shield from its defensive. I also don’t like how the moonlaser is linked to my bomb, since I often pull mobs with it and would rather only use the moonlaser when I’ve gathered enemies together. Still, I’m leaning towards using Sentinel just because it’s not a bear, a boar and a wyvern appearing out of nowhere, lol.
So, what am I going to do? I think will take Sentinel and pretend the moonlaser and shield are just some forms of void magic (because Void elf). Far from what I’d like, but it’s the best I can come with.
I love that theme, which is why I liked the new MM fantasy (and the eagle is so hard to notice you can just pretend it’s not there), but I understand those who don’t like it. I still hope we get ways to swap the eagle for other things (it would be cool to have owls for Night Elves, bats for Forsaken or trolls, and so on). I also think Blizzard could allow some options to make the eagle more visible sometimes, or even a way for us to call it out of combat (but then it flies away when combat begins).
Would a falconer hero talent tree work better? Personally, I think it would, I’d love it. But, again, Blizzard wants to emulate Warcraft 3 heroes and famous WoW figures. This is, however, the first iteration of hero talents, so maybe in the future we may see it branching into wider concepts.
Until then, we will need to handwave how the existing options fit into our character concepts.
After testing the changes on the PTR, both on a Target Dummy and in Heroics, I am enjoying the change and the class certainly feels a bit more streamlined with former active abilities becoming passive, and the new animations with the bump in DPS. I’m excited to play the spec when it goes live.
I was testing on rares in Siren Isle so I had to keep moving and using defensives and didn’t stop to feel the rotation, but after your post I went to Stormwind to test on a dummy and I see what you mean. Yes, I often found myself with a lot of focus and no Aimed Shot charges, and since Steady Shot now builds up 20 Focus and reduces Aimed Shot CD by default, casting it to restore an Aimed Shot charge will often bring you to max focus and then waste some. However, I think the main culprit here is Rapid Fire restoring 2 focus per shot.
I also found a bug in Lock and Load: unlike in Live, if you are already casting Aimed Shot when L&L procs, the buff will be consumed at the end of the casting instead of being applied to your next Aimed Shot.
It is insane to me that Aimed Shot, in the year 2025, still has charges and a cooldown despite literally 7 years of feedback that WE DO NOT WANT THIS GET RID OF IT.
I think the charges and CD are a leftover from a time when Aimed Shot was just better to press than anything other than Rapid Shot, so they wanted you would to cast weaker stuff between Aimed Shots.
With the new design requiring you to build up Streamline before casting Aimed Shot, I’d say the CD is no longer need, unless the excess Focus is intentional and the CD is meant to be what limits Aimed Shot.
(Apologies if there are any typos, I’m typing this out on my phone before I head home)
I was thinking of how to preserve Wailing Arrow within the Dark Ranger hero talents over my lunch break and I think I found a solution. For example: Every X amount of Black Arrows you cast transforms your next Aimed Shot or Cobra Shot into Wailing Arrow, using Wailing Arrow grants two charges of Aimed Shot/Barbed Shot and resets the cooldown of Rapid Fire/Kill Command. Gaining Withering Fire also transforms your next Aimed Shot/Cobra Shot into Wailing Arrow.
The reason why I chose Cobra Shot to become Wailing Arrow for BM is because both Kill Command and Barbed Shot cause our pets to charge toward our target and making either of those become Wailing Arrow would disrupt our pet’s ability to stick to the target.
Hopefully this could solve the Wailing Arrow pruning issue and bring DR more in line with Sentinel and the new Pack Leader. And as an added bonus, BM Dark Rangers will be able to to use Wailing Arrow as well now!
Overall I think the trees need to be less narrowly defined. The pack leader change being more specifically Rexxar (to the point of summoning his pets) is a problem. Many classes are available to every race, including hunters. Something that fits a goblin hunter might not fit a void elf hunter, and what fits a void elf hunter might not fit a night elf hunter. Even within races, freedom of expression is important. I say this because I think hero trees need to be more flexible for a wider variety of hunters to be able to choose them and say that the trees fit their concept of who their hunter is. For me personally, I don’t want to be Rexxar. Others might.
I do see what you mean though about making dark ranger sound more generic than how pack leader is clearly based on Rexxar to make the concept more applicable to a wider variety of hunters.
Anything darkness themed does not feel right for my concept of my hunter, who is a night elf, so I will never be a fan of it personally.
Making sure any beasts in combat come from our summon pet slots, at most, is extremely important. Zero summoned animals that I have not gone out and specifically tamed via Tame Beast. I can’t emphasize this enough. Seriously. It’s a factor why I want to avoid BM (Dire Beast). The “pet” summoned by Dire Beast is no more a pet than a water elemental summoned by a mage.
I see my survival hunter as me and my one pet that I have a Spirit Bond with trying to survive in the wilderness. The closest that I get from a hero tree perspective is Sentinel.
Pack leader involving multiple pets is a huge turnoff for me. The name alone indicates that it’s something I never want anything to do with because it implies multiple pets. Some survival hunters might enjoy it, if it summoned beasts from the 5 Summon Pet slots chosen from pets that the hunter has tamed via Tame Beast that are from the hunter’s stable, but it’s not for me.
Sentinel does fit my night elf hunter, but it wouldn’t fit any other race. I like the concept of night elf sentinels in general, but restricting it to 2 specific hunter specs as a hero tree bothers me. Night elf BM hunters are just as much nigh elf sentinels as survival/MM. For example, night elf warriors and rogues are just as much night elf sentinels as any spec of night elf hunters, and yet the sentinel hero tree is limited to 2 hunter specs.
It’s incredibly race specific, and even as someone who plays mostly night elves it bothers me. My night elf warrior can’t access the sentinel tree; warriors have a more or less dwarf themed tree instead (Mountain Thane) that bugs me as well for the same reason. I like how the warrior arms/fury hero tree is simply called “Slayer”. The arms/prot tree Colossus works for me as well (any race can be a Colossus). My warrior is just as much a sentinel as my hunter is since they are both night elves and the sentinels are the night elf army. I’d like to see any race-defined hero trees changed to something that’s more generally applicable to all races.
I’m not sure what the answer would be to replace sentinel with something more race-agnostic between SV and MM, esp. with the 11.1 changes to MM hunters. We’ll see how the PTR progresses and if there are any changes to MM based on feedback. Hopefully there winds up being something there to build a revised hero tree from.
You can see my data you can see how long i played MM, you can see when i got forced to be BM bc in legion lone wolf was forced upon me, MM hunters aren’t discount mages, hunters have always a companion in all specs.
A short story before i continue:
When i started in a pirate server in 3.3.5a i pick a paladin bc a friend told me so, then i learned that there was a class that can have an animal companion, in secret of my friend made a hunter in other faction i love it so much, taming, tracking, traps, then totalbiscuit made his alpha worgen video i got hooked to the game! i started saving money bc in a 3rd world back then paying basic wow cost a kidney bc you have to pay a lot of expansions plus subscription, lost official time on cata but i manage to play on pirate, even got to be a bug tester for the devs, but always being a worgen hunter, since then ive mained this character since then.
SO… 14 years being a hunter but your nonesense of trying to make an unique gimick to each hunter kill my mood of even playing pvp, currently i feel mm hunter like an easy target in pvp and a burden in heavy movement fights, you can also see all my previous post about this how i gave you a gunslinger idea with mm while keeping a pet but this new now forced full to not even summon the 14 years of pets ive collected, like when you removed species habilities killing my pet support in battle grounds specially wtih the crabs and hounds that rooted a target with it was vital to fight mele objectives and the annoying (and buffed) rouges.
As a hunter that as been wating to main again MM for so long please don’t do this, this gimick doesnt add anything fun to the spec but only makes it worse, the nerfs to survivalbility only have made MM to me miserable, im sorry to say it blunt but you guys havent listened since the legion.
Im agree that hunter are related to nature but we are not tree huggers we “hunt” we track, we kill our prey, we use special ammo, tools, poison to get our objective, mm are more close to snipers than any other hunter BUT thats not a excuse to not have a loyal companion that gets our prey (like the dog of duck hunt) whos gonna bring they prey to us? a fancy visual effect of a a hawk that doesn’t really exist? come on.
PS: it will be a cold day in hell the day i pick dark ranger as a worgen, death to the undead and death to the banshee and her followers. Jokes as side can you change names of that if we are alliance? feels very dirty.
PS PS: please make stop raining in gilneas some times, it wasnt like that before.
MM has a couple different positive feedback loops that loosely interact with one another and it feels much more cohesive overall.
Absent Streamline, it feels really slow. Streamline is abundant though.
Auto Shot feels really slow. Maybe need to buff Lock and Load proc rates since we will be getting less autos overall.
I did not feel like I had enough Spotter’s Mark procs on short fights. I would frequently have an enemy die with a Spotter’s Mark proc because I didn’t have time/charges for AiS right away.
On a longer session with a target dummy, this was much better. I think this should probably be RPPM rather than a flat % chance.
Animations look great. It’s essentially the same animation for Spotter’s Mark, Intimidation, Master’s Call, and Roar of Sacrifice. Eagle dive bombs the target from either the left or right side, minor particle effect over the target’s head to indicate the aura is active. Harrier’s Cry is a little different, the eagle comes from essentially over your right shoulder, spreads its wings when it comes down, makes a sound effect, and flies forward, up, and away.
Should absolutely introduce glyphs to change this out. There are many possibilities.
Stabled pets (maybe we apply a Glyph of the Spotter to the stabled pet itself, like we do for Glyph of Lesser Proportion? Pet could just do the standard charge animation.)
No creature at all, just the particle effects.
Other birds/flying creatures.
MM Talents:
Precise Shots increasing Auto Shot time while In The Rhythm reduces it makes little sense. I shouldn’t have to take a talent to counteract a nerf that I get from another talent.
Consuming 2 stacks of Precise Shots is only generating a single stack of Streamline, when talented into Moving Target and Windrunner Quiver. Is this intended? It’s not consistent with other talents that trigger from consuming Precise Shots.
Does Penetrating Shots account for per-ability crit chance modifiers? This would only matter for Obsidian Arrowhead and Killer Mark.
We have a ton of different multiplicative damage modifiers to Aimed Shot, some baseline, some Spotter’s Mark, some independent procs. This is problematic when you consider the perfect RNG situation - everything procs at once - and you are oneshotting people with Double Tapped Aimed Shot.
It would be really nice to see this addressed before it goes live this time. Everytime we’ve had Double Tap in the past, within about a week or two of it going live, there was a hotfix gutting Aimed Shot base damage, removing or heavily nerfing Double Tap, or some combination of the two.
I think this will be particularly problematic for Dark Ranger, who also gets the crazy Deathblow procs during Trueshot.
It feels bad to put two points into Eagle’s Accuracy for half the benefit of 1 point in Improved Spotter’s Mark.
We have a lot of interesting Explosive Shot talents. Auto-detonating when you hit with Aimed Shot is genius. It is strange to see these in the MM tree rather than the Hunter tree though.
The lower right “AoE corner” has a really good feedback loop, and with Salvo ties in nicely with the Lock and Load/Explosive Shot talents. Bullet Hell feels completely useless with 2 targets, but really good with 5 targets or more.
Hunter Talents
There are a number of talent nodes with connections to abilities that don’t make sense:
Disruptive Rounds should not have a connection from Misdirection.
Lone Survivor should not have a connection from Entrapment.
Binding Shackles can be picked up without any of the abilities that proc it.
Should change it to “Targets affected by your forced movement, loss of control, or movement impairing effects deal 10% reduced damage to you for 8 seconds after the effect ends.”
That would allow it to trigger from Freezing Trap and Wing Clip baseline, Concussive Shot, Scare Beast, and Tar Trap in the Hunter tree, as well as the root/snare choice nodes in both Hero trees.
Trigger Finger still has “This effect is increased by 100% if you do not have an active pet”. The tooltip for MM should just be changed to read “Your attack speed is increased by 10%.”
Unnatural Causes is significantly weaker for Sentinel than in 11.0.7 due to the removal of Serpent Sting. I’m not sure whether this matters, just pointing it out. Dark Ranger too, but proportionally not nearly as much.
I don’t want to see the pet disappear but that has been discussed to death and I’ve posted a detailed suggestion for that multiple times.
This is maybe a weird minor complaint, but I usually play zoomed out to the level the game zooms you out to if you hit the end key several times, and when playing pack leader, the wyvern spawns right in my field of view and blocks me from seeing anything briefly.