Feedback: Hunters

In Development Undermine(d) PTR Discussion
3218

Today’s PTR Update for Hunter:

  • HUNTER
    • Implosive Trap knock up radius increased to 8 yards (was 5 yards).
    • Counter Shot visuals have been updated.
    • Tranquilizing Shot missile speed increased.
    • Aspect of the Cheetah visuals have been updated.
    • Hi-Explosive Trap visuals have been updated.
    • Implosive Trap visuals have been updated.
    • Posthaste visuals have been updated.
    • Disengage visuals have been updated.
    • Beast Mastery
      • New Talent: Thundering Hooves – Casting Explosive Shot causes all active pets to Stomp at 200% effectiveness.
      • Poisoned Barbs has been updated – Now also applies Serpent Sting.
      • Liberation of Undermine 4-set bonus has been updated – Potent Mutagen damage increased by 100%.
      • Barbed Shot visuals have been updated.
      • Barbed Shot travel speed increased.
      • Serpent Sting is no longer tracked on nameplates for Beast Mastery only.
      • Explosive Venom has been removed.
      • Dark Ranger
        • Black Arrow damage increased by 15%.
        • Fixed an issue causing Unnatural Causes to benefit Black Arrow’s direct damage rather than just its periodic damage.
        • Withering Fire has been updated:
          • Now triggers from Call of the Wild (was every 3 Bestial Wraths) and lasts for the duration of Call of the Wild.
          • No longer allows Black Arrow to ignore health requirements.
          • Now grants Deathblow every 4 seconds for the duration of Withering Fire.
          • Developers’ notes: These changes are targeted at simplifying Withering Fire and improving its consistency for Beast Mastery.
      • Pack Leader
        • Shell Cover now triggers at 60% health (was 40%).
        • Shell Cover cooldown reduced to 90 seconds (was 120 seconds).
        • Pack Mentality now reduces Barbed Shot cooldown by 10 seconds (was 18 seconds).
        • Howl of the Pack Leader’s related auras will now expire while out of combat. Howl of the Pack Leader will be reapplied upon entering combat.
          • Developers’ notes: Players have found it odd that Howl of the Pack Leader auras advance and resolve while out of combat, so we’re letting them fall off to reduce visual clutter.
        • Howl of the Pack Leader’s summon order is now reset on raid and Mythic+ encounter start.
        • Fixed an issue where Dire Cleave was granting incorrect Beast Cleave damage.
    • Marksmanship
      • New Talent: Unbreakable Bond – Regain access to Call Pet. While outdoors, your pet deals 15% increased damage and takes 15% reduced damage.
        • Developers’ notes: We appreciate your continued feedback with regards to the 11.1 Marksmanship update. We recognize that there is a community of Marksmanship Hunters that wish to retain access to their pets. While Marksmanship’s unique Eagle pet will continue to be the source of their pet utility, such as Master’s Call, Bloodlust, and similar effects, we think it is only right that Marksmanship Hunters be able to continue to traverse Azeroth with their beloved companions.
      • Intimidation has been updated – Now requires line of sight against non-players.
      • Liberation of Undermine 4-set bonus has been adjusted – Consuming Lock and Load now fires an Explosive Shot at 300% effectiveness (was 200%).
      • Nerub-ar Palace 4-set bonus updated – Now increases Aimed Shot and Rapid Fire damage by 4%.
        • Developers’ notes: With Moving Target’s inclusion into the Marksmanship talent tree, the Season 1 tier bonus needs to be replaced.
      • Razor Fragments has been reimplemented and many of its bugs have been resolved.
      • Fixed an issue with Obsidian Arrowheads critical rate incorrectly scaling with other critical effects.
      • Fixed an issue with Precision Detonation damage bonus being consumable by other Hunters.
      • Fixed an issue where Spotter’s Mark could not trigger from Kill Shots or Black Arrows while talented into Headshot.
      • Fixed an issue where Improved Spotter’s Mark benefitted Ohn’ahran Winds twice.
      • Fixed an issue with Ohn’ahran Winds procs granting the wrong bonuses via Spotter’s Mark.
      • Fixed an issue where Aspect of the Hydra Aimed Shots could not trigger Precision Detonation.
      • Fixed an issue where spell-queuing a Streamline generating spell after Aimed Shot would consume the newly generated Streamline.
      • Fixed an issue where Double Tap was not correctly reducing Aimed Shot’s effectiveness in PvE and PvP combat.
      • Fixed an issue where Razor Fragments did not benefit from Unnatural Causes’ execute effect.
      • Aspect of the Hydra no longer has an internal cooldown and will work correctly with queued spells.
      • Aspect of the Hydra will now more robustly check to make sure it is casting on a different target than your current target.
      • Fixed an issue causing Unnatural Causes to benefit Volley’s direct damage.
      • Dark Ranger
        • Withering Fire has been updated – No longer allows Black Arrow to ignore health requirements.
          • Developers’ notes: Marksmanship does not struggle to produce Deathblow procs, so this effect was being largely wasted.
        • Black Arrow damage increased by 15%.
        • Fixed issues with Phantom Pain’s interactions with Double Tap and Aspect of the Eagle.
        • Fixed an issue causing Unnatural Causes to benefit Black Arrow’s direct damage rather than just its periodic damage.
    • Survival
      • New Talent: Wildfire Arsenal – Quick Shot and auto attacks with two-handed weapons increase the direct damage of your next Wildfire Bomb by 4%, stacking up to 3 times. Casting Coordinated Assault grants 3 stacks of Wildfire Arsenal.
      • Viper’s Venom has been updated – Now also increases Mongoose Bite and Raptor Strike damage by 15%.
      • Contagious Reagents has been updated – Now spreads Serpent Sting to 4 nearby targets (was 2).
      • Explosives Expert has been updated – Now increases Wildfire Bomb and Explosive Shot damage by 2.5/5%.
      • Bombardier has been updated – Now grants 1 charge of Wildfire Bomb (was 2).
      • Liberation of Undermine 4-set bonus redesigned – When your Winning Streak! ends, your next Mongoose Bite or Raptor Strike deals 400% increased damage and reduces the cooldown of Wildfire Bomb by 10 seconds.
      • Wildfire Bomb damage increased by 6%.
        • Developers’ notes: As previously stated, a goal we have in 11.1 is to reduce how crowded Survival’s rotation can feel and open up the opportunity to cast Raptor Strike and Mongoose Bite more. Our goal with these changes is to reduce access to Wildfire Bomb and provide some throughput as compensation.
      • Improved Wildfire Bomb has been removed.
      • Pack Leader
        • Shell Cover now triggers at 60% health (was 40%).
        • Shell Cover cooldown reduced to 90 seconds (was 120 seconds).
        • Pack Mentality now reduces Wildfire Bomb’s cooldown by 10 seconds (was 18 seconds).
        • Frenzy Strikes damage bonus increased to 40% (was 15%).
        • Fixed an issue where Frenzy Strikes was contributed significantly more damage bonus than intended.
        • Howl of the Pack Leader’s summon order is now reset on raid and mythic+ encounter start.
        • Howl of the Pack Leader’s related auras will now expire while out of combat. Howl of the Pack Leader will be reapplied upon entering combat.
          • Developers’ notes: Players have found it odd that Howl of the Pack Leader auras advance and resolve while out of combat, so we’re letting them fall off to reduce visual clutter.
3 Likes
3219

Personal feedback: The talent node for with pet and no pet is a good middle ground and should stay as it is.

The bug fixes are nice since we can now test the spec properly.

I am honestly astonished that there are 0 changes to Trueshot despite the overwhelming feedback. I am also shocked that the spec is going to continue to be built around lock and load, including the tier set, despite people pointing out for weeks now how terrible lock and load is on the PTR currently.

6 Likes
3220

Why “while outdoors”? What about Delves?

11 Likes
3221

Awesome job!

Great fixes. I agree with the target % effect on withering fire - you put the ability on cd and can’t cast it again without a proc anyway. However, the ability itself is still extremely lackluster. It more or less just makes black arrow cleave, which does nothing for single target and most pvp applications.

Also, why does bm get:

Marks desperately needs some kind of guaranteed or at least increased proc mechanic in withering fire. BM procs black arrow significantly more often than marks does anyway. I also don’t think you’re going to be able to use all of your globals logically as BM during cotw. Could be wrong about that though, I don’t play as much BM.

2 Likes
3222

The point isn’t to make its output scale equally with not using a pet. Delves count as competitive content to some degree. BM and sv pets don’t take a blanket 15% reduced damage there either.

1 Like
3223

I understand that, but I’m not entirely sold on the delves restriction, either.

We are assuming that the MM pets no longer have access to family and spec abilities — which means MM pets are significantly weaker than BM and SV pets.

You’re right that delves are intended to be competitive… and also intended to be solo-able. Brann is getting a tanking spec for healers, for crying out loud! So I find it an odd choice on their part to not include delves for MM pets.

I have no other complaints. I’m just puzzled by the lack of consideration for delves part.

(Although, if it turns out MM pets get to keep family and possibly spec abilities, then I rescind my puzzlement.)

9 Likes
3224

Hi with this weeks changes I am gonna post all remaining bugs with the spec as a whole, as the list is getting relatively small now:

  • Dark Ranger Issues:
    • Shadow Hounds was not updated to reflect the new tooltip. It still does a physical Beast Cleave.
    • Damage from your Shadow Hounds do not heal you via Embrace the Shadows.
    • Whenever Withering Fire is Active, the buff on your character still says that it fires automatic Black Arrows.
    • I would pay a bit of attention on the single-target damage of Dark Ranger, the removal of Basilisk Collar affected it more than Pack Leader by a good margin. Even if it’s supposed to be a more AoE-focused spec, it’s quite far behind.
    • Consider adding Bloodshed to Withering Fire as a support for 1-minute builds.
  • Pack Leader Issues:
    • If you have a rolling Howl of the Pack Leader buff to summon a pet on your next Kill Command available, and cast Bestial Wrath to give you a second one (via Lead from the Front), casting Kill Command in that scenario will cause a third buff to immediately be available (for the third pet you didn’t summon before), despite no effect being supposed to give you one in that scenario.
    • Lead from the Front is supposed to increase the damage of your How of the Pack pets by 25%. This does not currently include the melee hits from The Bear pet.
    • The Boar secondary target effect hits the main target.
    • Slicked Shoes will always reduce the cooldown of Disengage even if it does not remove a movement impairing effect.
    • Envenomed Fang, Shell Cover and No Mercy are all a bit better, but probably not super-great still.
    • No Mercy, when Combined with Hunter’s Prey, will cause your pet to swap to and attack whatever target is FIRST hit by Kill Shot, rather than what you are targeting. With this week, it no longer causes a full pet swap for your main pet (the Bear will still fully swap). This is still annoying.
  • The Season 2 Tier Set issues:
    • Seemingly all bugs fixed! Good job!
    • The 200% increased Barbed Shot can be overwritten by a normal Barbed Shot, which isn’t a bug but feels bad. If this fixed I’d be cool with a nerf to the tier set as it’s looking quite powerful at the moment.
  • Misc Issues
    • The Bloodshed spell tooltip makes no mention of the 20% increased Kill Command damage when specced into Venomous Bite.
    • Pets will both have their own seperate buff for the Tauren racial “Brawn” and the Dwarf racial “Might of the Mountain”, and inherit the Crit Damage / Healing from the player, making them benefit twice from the effect.

Thank you for reading!

8 Likes
3225

I find it amazing that Trueshot manages to dodge every single patch and update. Truly remarkable.

8 Likes
3226

So this is part of why I didn’t like this solution from the get-go and said it would not make sense for the rest of the rework. You shouldn’t get to double down on pet family abilities. So yes, you’re going to have a pet hard coded to not give you its family buffs and instead you’re going to spend a talent point to regain the passives that the pet would otherwise give you in the other specs. It kinda doesn’t make sense but this was your concession.

3227

I’m thinking mainly of family abilities. I don’t believe we’re getting access to all the family abilities.

I mean, the manual shell ability? The automatic shell ability? The dodge ability?

The only family ability I’ve heard of MM getting is Mortal Wounds.

Scalehide pets are my “secret” to doing tier 11 delves at ilvl 610-620. The family ability is key to that.

You see why I’m puzzled, I hope.

1 Like
3228

You pick between cunning and tenacious because lust is baseline and ferocity doesn’t have another master’s call ability. That talent gives you the pet family passives and master’s call effects.

3229

Are… are we getting the spec and family abilities mixed up? Are we misunderstanding each other? I feel like I’m not being clear.

I’m speaking of the pet’s shell ability, the one that goes onto the pet itself. Will MM still have access to this via the talent you mentioned?

Man, I can’t wait for Jan 27, when I can finally download the PTR and test it for myself.

3230

PTR just came up and i’m literally testing this right now. hang tight.

2 Likes
3231

Welp. Tested it and they forgot to take out pet passives/command pet stuff.

You get to doule down on pet family abilities by using pets of the opposite family from the talent you chose. You get to double down on master’s call abilities, but only if you pick tenacious and use a cunning pet. If you use cunning and a tenacity pet, you can’t use master’s call at all.

Pets are also still applying mortal wounds and other pet-specific abilities.

This makes pet mandatory in pvp by a solid margin.

1 Like
3232

Can you clarify please? Not understanding the context of competitive here.

1 Like
3233

This means if you’re starting encounters, you have to wait 25 seconds until your first howl comes up. Of course, there are circumstances where you’re chain pulling or opening with CA, but that’s not always the case.
Your Howl proc shouldn’t have a timer on it so it doesn’t just get wasted in between pulls.

3234

I feel like they’ll have to come back and rework this entire Spotter’s Mark/Unbreakable Bond in the future- it’s probably too late for this patch.

Tenacious and Cunning talents don’t make sense for Unbreakable Bond- it’ll either be double dipping, or useless- but it’s essentially forced for pet users.
Pet users will still have the basic, underpowered Spotter’s Mark, but the utility is now awkwardly divided between pet and not-pet, creating tensions.

I feel like there’s a more elegant solution where all utility is divided between pet and petless states, with no overlap or double dipping. Where Spotter’s Mark isn’t tied to having or not having a pet, or an eagle psuedo-pet.

1 Like
3235

Delves are intended to be a pillar of end-game content, with sufficiently strong gear. It’s not as strong as high Mythics, but it does reward gear equivalent to low Mythics. I was replying to Tav (I can’t spell his name).

2 Likes
3236

Updated Feedback for 1.23.2025 Build for Survival Hunter

Pack Leader

  • Shell Cover

The tuning improvements this week are still nice, but it still feels like this defensive node is just very weak and feels like it’s not quite there. I feel like the cooldown is still too entirely long for a passive defensive you can’t control with only 10% DR. Perhaps this could just be a permanent DR when the hunter is below 60% HP or something?

  • No Mercy

I’m still not sure what this talent is supposed to do as a hero talent. It doesn’t do much but direct your pet to attack your target, which isn’t really exciting for SV or BM. Could this add some sort of empowerment to Kill Shot or the pet or really anything to actually make it feel like it’s 1) a hero talent 2) contributing to your character?

Survival Hunter

A lot of the new changes this build are really great. It feels nice to have more impactful but fewer access to WFB while freeing up room in the gameplay to do other things. The new tier set is great and I love how hard the RS hits, how impactful it feels, and the bomb refunding. Being able to spread SS so fast with Contagious Reagent will be very convenient and feel extra nice with the Pack Leader talents Hogstrider and Envenomed Fangs.

However, there is one pain point still lingering with the new talents and I’d like to give some feedback on the “bleed package”

  • Cull the Herd // Born to Kill

These talents still feel a bit too restricted to take and don’t really capture the feel of the 11.0 pack leader “bleed build” they’re attempting to emulate (and stated as such).

cull the herd itself is missing one of the most important/fun parts of the 11.0 pack leader cull the herd—the bleed attached to kill shot itself. without that bleed, it’s a 6 second enhancement window to your existing bleeds. however, at this is tied to kill shot (with a 10 second cooldown and only usable in execute phases barring death blow procs) this enhancement window won’t really feel like it’s doing anything as it’s tied to 1) a short window of uptime 2) rng resets 3) our other bleed abilities our on a cooldown and can’t realistically be lined up with this

moving on, born to kill seems to be trying to do too much without really doing much. the extra deathblow % is appreciated and the +2 seconds of cull the herd seems nice, but it loops back in with the previous feedback of cull the herd not really being something you can play around or consider as it’s tied to kill shot

this is especially apparent with the born to kill effect of the “cull the herd” debuff increasing damage done by kill shot. realistically this won’t really apply to any of your kill shots as (mentioned previously) kill shot has a 10 second cooldown and this debuff is 8 seconds only. you’d have to get absurdly lucky with deathblow for this to get any value even inside of extended execute phases.

i think many in the SV community would be appreciated if this debuff was either extended to actually be something to consider or the old dot was added back to cull the herd (a bleed that does 60% of your kill shot damage)

thank you for the continued updates!!!

2 Likes
3237

Why didn’t they just ditch the dumb eagle and make it so your first stabled pet did all of the eagle things? That way they don’t have to balance the problems with having duplicate pet abilities and everyone still gets to keep using their pet.

2 Likes