That is a terrible idea because would make the pet the best talent in that node by far since you are essentially sacrificing nothing. The pet gives the same benefits of the other two talents plus extra damage and pet family abilities.
Are you sure about that? I tested last week (when there were naga mobs in Siren Isle that could stun you) and it was working just fine. The mob rotation has advanced so I can’t test it again. They didn’t list any changes to it in the build notes.
RoS works while stunned now. It wasn’t in the first ptr build.
I did not mean literally, just as a general concept, maybe change Tenacious/Cunning to do something else when pet is out or create new pathing in the tree.
Currently you can have Cunning talent + tenacity pet and Master’s call won’t work f.e. although it’s in your spell book, and it’s overall a mess.
Great news about RoS! I tested it a few times in duels last week, hadn’t since the new build.
I assume the implementation of Unbreakable Bond is still not finished in this build and we will see further changes/fixes next.
I’m more concerned by what they’ve done than what they could do. Streamline’s effect got a 50% nerf in PvP while the spec had a lot of bugs helping it do more damage than the bugged talents were ment to. So they put in the pvp nerf, then fixed some bugs…ok…will MM actually do damage to players though? In the training dummys it is 2.5million dps below Arcane mage…
It’s clearly not. Half of the buffs aren’t showing up on on your buff bars but are there. The behavior of which things you can double down/take at the same time isn’t consistent. However, they have not made it at all clear what the expected behavior actually is for some of these scenarios. You can reasonably make the case either way. Why does marks get to double down on some very important stuff? Also why should marks not get an entire talen point’s worth of value from the spend on the talent?
Just the talent improved streamline. Honestly, after testing more - imp streamline is not even worth taking in pve or pvp anyways, because of how far below gcd 2 stacks sends your aimed shot. You end up just creating a lot of dead space between casts that you can’t do anything with. I think streamline in general should be changed to give you 30% on the first stack and then moves up to 40% for the second stack. Make tensile bowstring a base function of trueshot, and have it put your streamline values at 50-60% off instead of 30-40.
I agree with you that numbers are very concerning right now. The spec has oneshot potential and is already really bursty, yet it’s dead time is so long between trueshots, it actually needs significant buffs to average out. IMO, its not going to be a tenable situation unless they halve the cooldown and duration of trueshot such that each one doesn’t have to make up for 20+ seconds of very low dps deadtime. 40s cd ballpark on trueshot removes most if not all of that dead time and makes more sense for what it does.
I really like the new Pack Leader, but I think the Power of 3 beasts can be more balanced. Right now, the bear is significantly stronger than the other beasts, which creates an issue where you have to “save” your bear at the end of a pull to maximize your damage in the next pull. Treating the bear as a resource and having to pool it for the next pull doesn’t feel fun—it’s frustrating.
It’s similar to the current live realm Stormbringer Enhancement Shaman, where you’d pool your Tempest at the end of every pull and then have to beg your tank to pull next quickly. If the tank doesn’t pull quickly, or if there’s a delay in combat, the setup becomes extremely depressing, especially in M+. Imagine saving your bear for the next pull, but the bear isn’t consumed within 30 seconds (since the beast buff only lasts 30 seconds and can not be refreshed, which is stricter than the Tempest buff) —it completely ruins the momentum and enjoyment.
I think a potential fix could be made to the beast buff duration. Additionally, I feel that the original idea of summoning random beasts wasn’t bad. It could be improved by ensuring that the summoned beasts are ones that aren’t currently active, so they don’t override themselves. This would make combat more dynamic and avoid frustrating overlaps. A little bit of gambling at the start of every pull feels much more fun than pooling resources and calculating setups for the next pull.
Finally, I appreciate that the buff is now reset when a key starts in the recent patch. I’m 100% sure everyone hates the prework like hitting dummies before inserting a key—it’s just not fun and takes away from the experience. I hope my thoughts represent most of the not-so-“hard-core” hunters out there. I’ve always believed the core of the game lies in the enjoyment of playing.
While I understand that reducing cast time below GCD doesn’t help with DPS, I like when the cast is so fast because it still compensates in mobility. The less you are rooted to your spot, the more you can keep moving, and that’s still valuable (though how valuable in comparison to competing talents, I can’t say).
Yeah but when you’re talking about the difference in something like .35s and .58s, those 23 hundredths of a second probably won’t be the difference in you being able to get that aimed shot off or not despite that being a ~40% difference or whatever. Imo this is why it makes more sense to lower the ceiling on how high it stacks but also raise the floor for how much value you get from one stack.
Ok but if players don’t like the rework how long is it going to be before they essentially do another rework?
I keep seeing some players say that the new Trueshot is terrible, as an example. I assume the new TS mechanic is pretty critical to the rest of the rotation? Can they just kind of tune it and it will be great or are they making it entirely unfun and no amount of toying with it will make it feel worth playing?
They reworked marks going into WoD, then again going into Legion, then again going into BFA. We’ve been riding the same base mechanics since then. Technically you could count Cata as its first “rework” since thats when hunter shifted to using focus instead of mana. Either way, they’re just as likely to turn around and rework it in the next expansion’s PTR as they are to leave it in a place nobody likes for 5 years. Impossible to tell.
Well, that’s pretty much how the game operates. And, besides, there’s a lot of feedback that’s based on rejecting change. Sometimes you need people to get used to something in order to see how it can be improved.
It’s certainly not as satisfying as the previous version, no doubt. But I feel a lot of complains are more due to how many talents you have to spend on it (5, not counting the ones on the way to it), so it feels a lot of investment for little benefit. However, we need to consider that they also freed a lot of basic talents (like Steady Shot’s improvements or to learn Multishot), so it’s kind of a trade-off of where talent taxes are in the tree.
I feel it’s likely that as this version of MM is iterated further, they’ll reduce the number of talents related to Trueshot and free space for ones that cover spec weaknesses, but they need to see the spec performing in live before they can do that.
I can’t say how it is balanced. Numbers are not my thing, and the tuning phase hasn’t started yet. I guess Blizzard wasn’t happy that the previous Trueshot reduced our rotation to just Aimed Shot and Rapid Shot for its duration. The new Trueshot feels like they trying to keep the rotation during the buff the same as your normal one, but now faster and with big crit numbers. I’d expect them to tweek the crit bonuses in order to adjust how powerful its live version will be.
It’s also possible Blizzard’s objective is to reduce the burst of Trueshot and shift some of its damage to the regular rotation.
I’m not particularly insightful when it comes to these things and I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about how many talent points something eats up because at the end of the day it’s always pretty much one build is superior to the rest. The new MM rework doesn’t sound very appealing to me, but it isn’t right now either which is why I’ve mostly ignored the rotation rework portion because at the end of the day they aren’t going to go back on it.
Survival/Pack Leader Feedback
Updating with my thoughts following the new changes to this build.
New Changes This Week
Good changes overall! Less bombs and more room for Raptor Strike (and possibly Mongoose Bite!) to shine is much needed; these abilities were really on the backburner for season 1.
The reworked 4pc for the tier set feels great! It feels both fun and rewarding to get a powerful Raptor Strike/Mongoose Bite and gives us some potential gameplay by holding it for certain moments, like cooldown windows. It’s pretty nice in AoE as well, especially with the Raptor Strike cleaves from Pack Leader.
Pack Leader Needs Some Attention
I understand that tuning has not happened yet, but Pack Leader still seems to be pretty weak compared to Sentinel. The rework is great/thematic and fun to play, but the numbers aren’t there yet for Survival.
No Mercy is a very weak talent currently. Pet basic attacks for Survival don’t do very much damage and don’t have any type of interaction with our kit.
Ursine Fury is lacking for Flanking Strike. Over 5 minutes, the CDR results in 1 extra Flanking Strike. This desyncs every Flanking Strike from our cooldowns and actually makes the current CDR a dps loss.
If we could consistently gain enough CDR to gain casts while still lining them up with our cooldowns every 60 seconds (or a different effect like amplifying Flanking Strike some other way) it would feel a lot better.
Envenomed Fangs also does not feel great. It’s the only alternative for single target and it’s a VERY low amount of damage. This was sub-1% of my damage over a 5 minute fight.
Shell Cover being updated is nice but it’s still lacking compared to the alternatives provided by Sentinel and Dark Ranger.
New Kill Shot/Bleed Talents
Born to Kill is not actually doing much. The extra duration on Cull the Herd is nice and all, but the 2nd portion increasing Kill Shot damage feels bad.
It’s trying to incentivize spending more globals on Kill Shot, but realistically you never land Kill Shots during this window to even use the damage amp. Kill Shot procs are just completely random and not frequent enough even with every KS talent.
It also feels like it clashes with the developer intent to declutter the rotation to make more room for Raptor Strike/Mongoose Bite. I think changing it to the strong Kill Shot bleed that was attached to Cull the Herd would fit the bleed package more by making each KS more impactful and align with the Raptor Strike/Mongoose bite changes to open up the rotation.
Another Bug
Closing out with a bug this week: Spearhead/Deadly Duo are supposed to be buffing your pet as well but still is not working currently.
Thank you for reading!
Thank you for letting us swap our pet specs again, but please go further. Give each spec separate Call Pet slots. When I play BM, I want to roll out with 5 exotic pets. But I can’t do that because I need to have pets for MM and SV as well. On all 3 specs I am unable to bring my ideal pet loadouts. This would be solved by giving each spec its own separate Call Pet slots.
Can we get any updated info on True Shot from the boys in blue please? 5 talent point investment on a CD that feels bad is not a good rework. Reworks should be feel-good upgrades not downgrades.
Also, hear me out, rework the 2pc tier.
Ditch buffing autoshots.
Make it give reliable explosive shots OR:
Idea:
Make the current 4pc effect the 2pc effect and
Make the 4pc cause explosive shot to set the target on fire burning for X amount of the explosive shot damage.
Go full send on the Goblin theme with explosions and napalm!
Change Shell Cover to reduce the CD of Aspect of the Turtle and allow attacks while Turtle is up.
I’m not sure if this is the coolest or the most OP suggestion for a Hunter defensive, lol.
I’d be satisfied with Den Recovery being brought to the new Pack Leader version, but a way to improve Aspect of the Turtle wouldn’t be bad.
That definitely sounds cool. But I still prefer the idea of the defensive talent also giving aid to our pets.
Eh, it turns aspect of the turtle into another paladin bubble of sorts.