The issue is that, for BM, any idea of adding a talent or modifier to Multi-Shot damage, to a point where it’s significant enough to make MS feel worth pressing, and make the talent itself be a worthy pick, is fundamentally flawed. For BM, you never want to end up in a scenario where players feel obligated to spam MS over using other abilities, in order to deal the most damage.
3 Likes
I’m gonna try a different approach for providing feedback and take a crack at rewriting this entire Hero Talent tree as part of a personal mental exercise to explore what “Pack Leader” could be:
Dire Pack - Row 1
Beast Mastery
Dire Beast summons 2 Dire Beasts, and Dire Command’s chance to summon a Dire Beast increases by 10%.Survival
Kill Command cooldown resets summon a Dire Beast to attack your target for 8 sec. Additionally, Mastery: Spirit Bond now also increases the damage of Kill Command and your Dire Beasts.
Pack Coordination - Row 2
Attacks from your Dire Beasts have a chance to reset the cooldown of your pet’s Basic Attack and reduce its Focus cost by 50%.
Hunt as One - Row 2
You and your pets now benefit from the passive effects of Predator’s Thirst, Endurance Training, and Pathfinding at all times.
Pack Focus - Row 2
Attacks from your Dire Beasts have a chance to restore Focus to your pet.
Greater Spirit Bond - Row 3
Your Mend Pet ability is now always active, healing your pets at 33% of its normal effectiveness. Actively using Mend Pet temporarily increases this healing to its normal effectiveness.Wilderness Medicine now also gives Mend Pet’s healing a chance to cure bleeds, poisons, and diseases.
Choose One: - Row 3
Snapping Turtles
Aspect of the Turtle no longer prevents you from attacking, and its effects are shared with your pets.Tireless Hunt
Aspect of the Cheetah now provides its full speed boost for its entire duration and you retain Trailblazer’s benefits even while attacking.
Pack Intimidation - Row 3
When you use Intimidation with your main pet, each of your Dire Beasts also use Intimidation on separate nearby targets with partial effectiveness.
Choose One: - Row 4
Covering Fire
Beast Mastery
Kill Command increases the duration of Beast Cleave by 1 second.Survival
Wildfire Bomb reduces the cooldown of Carve or Butchery by 2 seconds.Dire Stampede
Double the number of active Dire Beasts and refresh their remaining durations.If you have Stampede, Dire Stampede replaces it and gains an additional charge. You cannot call another Dire Stampede while one is currently active.
Cull and Overwhelm - Row 4
Kill Shot gains an additional charge and summons a Dire Beast when used.
Choose One: - Row 4
Strength in Numbers
Beast Mastery
Bestial Wrath and Call of the Wild summon a Greater Dire Beast which lasts until their respective effects expire. Greater Dire Beasts are more powerful and benefit more greatly from talents which affect Dire Beasts.Survival
Coordinated Assault and Spearhead each summon a Greater Dire Beast which lasts until their respective effects expire. Greater Dire Beasts are more powerful and benefit more greatly from talents which affect Dire Beasts.They’re Getting Bigger
Dire Beasts have a small chance to summon as a Greater Dire Beast instead. Greater Dire Beasts are more powerful and benefit more greatly from talents which affect Dire Beasts.
Pack Assault - Row 5
Beast Mastery
Dire Beast summons 3 Dire Beasts, and Dire Beast now benefits from effects which reduce the cooldown of Kill Command.Survival
Dire Beasts join in on your Flanking Strike, greatly increasing its damage based on the number of Dire Beasts you have active.Any excess Focus produced by Kill Command or Flanking Strike increase their damage based on the excess Focus generated.
Sigh… now my hopes are up and I just want this version of Pack Leader. 
6 Likes
It’s funny because it wouldn’t be good in pve and would be nightmare in pvp.
Another design that force players to use certain talent skill, just like the class set.
2 Likes
That moment when you realize Dark Rangers gets more pets than Pack Leader… 
7 Likes
LOL True. I think the only saving grace is how Dark Hounds is worded. It doesn’t say how long the dark hound lasts. It just says it charges the target and does shadow damage. To me, that seems like it just rockets in and explodes, doing damage one time rather than attacking for a period of time.
It most certainly triggers a lot more often than Beast of Opportunity though.
1 Like
how do you figure? hound is 8 chances to summon a (presumably single attack and leave hound) every 30 seconds, while beasts of opportunity is a guaranteed pet every ~30 seconds for 6 seconds.
This tree needs to be similar to Horsemen or Celestials. Few Surv/BM abilities call on big beasts that each give different bonuses/empowerments for your stuff. Capstones calls them all for one massive bite.
7 Likes
My feedback from a primarily BM Hunter;
For a keystone talent, this is boring. I was hoping for something more ‘beastly’. I think I was expecting something like summoning one of the spirits of Rexxar’s pets randomly, with each offering a different bonus.
Outside of the thematic issues, I think this is okay. It doesn’t negatively affect anything I can think of.
Does this triggered Basic Attack cost pet Focus or is it Focus free? If it costs Focus, it will mean more Bite/Claw/Smack attacks, but the lack of Focus will reduce the damage of the next standard Basic Attack. Currently, Basic Attacks(Bite/Claw/Smack) do “100% more damage and cost 100% more Focus when your pet has 50 or more Focus”. If triggered attacks costs Focus, the next natural basic attack will likely to half damage due to lack of Focus. Also, does this triggered Basic Attack restart the 3 sec natural cooldown? Or is it independent of the natural cooldown?
For this talent to be viable, the triggered Basic Attack needs to be independent of the natural cooldown AND not cost Focus.
There are also issues of imbalance and interactions with other talents.
- BM Mastery is going to make this substantially stronger versus SV.
- Animal Companion’s 35% damage reduction directly diminishes the power of this talent. AC really needs to be fixed. It’s been years…
Issues:
- It will likely make Brutal Companion a default talent for BM. With the weird pathing in the tree, this may cause more issues with finding a balanced spec.
- +Crit damage is going to make crit a stronger stat, which may cause gearing problems.
Works in synergy with Howl of the Pack, but is otherwise boring. Really gives off Multi-Shot vibes, where it’s only purpose is to activate another talent. This should probably just be baked into Howl and replaced with something new.
Um, does Mend Pet heal the Hunter in this case or the pet?
- If it heals the pet, this is all but useless. Mend Pet is already plenty strong enough.
- If it heals the Hunter, a 20% heal for the cost of a global would be great, but something tells me others will complain. It is a HoT though, so not exactly spammable.
Note: After looking at the defensives offered to many other classes in Hero Talents, I don’t think a 20% HoT on the Hunter is all that powerful in comparison. Hopefully it’s on the Hunter and not the pet.
Tireless Hunt is… something. Not exactly a game changer. Seems like a placeholder talent option. Cheetah has a decently long cooldown, and 15% for a few seconds is nothing.
Cornered Prey would be virtually useless for BM, but situational for SV. An extra 5 yards for a melee spec is good, but 5 seconds isn’t enough time to really capitalize on it. Would love to see this changed to:
- 5 yards for all of Survival. This might actually make SV more popular. The melee spec with the longest melee range.
- 5 yards for BM pets. This would fix some issues with pet AI, but not give the BM Hunter a major component of MM Mastery.
- Back to cooldown resets on a class that doesn’t need them. A bit of napkin math tells me there would be a pet Basic Attack approximately every 1.5 sec (Natural 3 sec CD, Pack Coordination, Brutal Companion). 20% chance to reset the CD of Kill Command every 1.5 sec is quickly going to overcap charges. Direct faceplant into the GCD wall.
- This is also an imbalanced talent due to BM’s Mastery.
Possibly the most imbalanced choice node I’ve seen yet. Covering Fire is great for keeping Beast Cleave up, as Multi-Shot is nothing more than an activator. Scattered Prey is almost no damage at all, because Multi-Shot does such little damage. This could be changed to 100% or even 200% extra damage and it would still be a garbage talent.
With Kill Shot being targetted by both Dark Ranger and Pack Leader, I’m hopeful that Kill Shot will be buffed/fixed for BM before TWW.
Two questions about this talent though:
- Is the additional damage over 5 sec a bleed as well?
- Is the 25% damage increase to bleeds only while that DoT is active? Or is the 25% to bleed damage just another part of the talent that is active all the time? The wording suggests only during that 5 sec, which would be difficult to play around.
Furious Assault: The number of times I’ve been confused by wording… Please have your people write these descriptions in a way that is more clear.
“Consuming Frenzied Tear has a 50% chance to reset the cooldown of Barbed Shot and deal 30% additional damage” Frenzied Tear is triggered off a Basic Attack from Pet, but resets the CD on Kill Command and makes Kill Command hit a second time for 30%.
Is the 30% extra damage from consuming Frenzied Tear applied to the Barbed Shot? The Kill Command that was reset? The reduced damage second Kill Command?
I’m assuming the “Frenzied Tear” that is consumed is the extra Kill Command that does 30% damage. If that is the case, does the “30% additional damage” from Furious Assault make it 60%? Or is it 30% of the 30%?
Based on how things have been done in the past, I’m assuming it will simply change Frenzied Tear from 30% to 60%, but clarification would be appreciated.
Beast of Opportunity:
- The only talent in a tree called Pack Leader that summons a pet. Sure, Pack Leader doesn’t necessarily mean it summons a pack, but I think most of us were expecting more to do with new pets. /shrug
- For BM, please make sure this pet’s damage isn’t reduced by Animal Companion. I bring that up due to a long history of forgetting that is a thing.
- For SV, we’re back in the land of BM’s Mastery causing imbalance. Also, Coordinated Assault is a 2 min CD, while Bestial Wrath can be cast every 30 seconds or so. Not only is the pet stronger for BM, it’s summoned far more often.
Definitely need clarification on what any of this means.
My best guess: During CotW and CA, every Kill Command does additional physical damage - twice - from Vicious Hunt. And every BS/RS/MB causes our pet to use their basic attack - twice - from Pack Coordination. Is that correct?
Overall, my opinion is that this tree is severely lacking on thematics or “cool factor”. There are also so many functional issues and imbalances between BM and SV. At least this one is ‘technically’ tunable to balance it between the specs, but it’s still boring.
3 Likes
That’s literally what I’d like to have with Pack leader!!
Super simple - summon tempararily a tenacity/ferocity/cunning animal/avatar/spirit/companion… whatever it might be. They give you bonuses (f.e. Leech/speed/stamina) and during your main ability all 3 are present at the same time. That’s how you get the “pack”. You summon the whole pack when you do the big damage
How can they do it for all other even remotely pet-based classes BUT hunter is beyond me!
4 Likes
This is exactly what Call of the Wild already does. You summon your pack and they give you the benefits of their pet family for the entire duration.
Yeah, something like that but better bonuses, and not with your stable pets but some iconic WoW beasts that come to your aid, and for both BM and SV. Maybe give the bonuses to the whole party, not just the hunter…
I’m no class designer, but I assume they’d have the design space to differentiate it enough from CotW. They made 3 new interesting demons for diabloist, 4 dk heros for Rider, and the monk celestials. Should be able to incorporate the same for hunter
2 Likes
Those would be great! It SOUNDS fun and fixes many frustrations we have.
2 Likes
And mechanically very bad for the spec, but who cares about spec being good when the real end game is RPing in goldshire.
Couldn’t care less about rp, as I don’t do it. But a bunch of passives that make us ‘too strong’ are just going to get nerfed to heck anyway, at least we could have some interesting visuals .
Difference between % tuning and mechanic tuning.
Spawning 900001 dire beasts is mechanically bad without also reworks to the rest of the spec/class. The current passives are mechanically good and could be visually fine if procs get some effects.
SV PVE Perspective
Vicious Hunt: Kill Command prepares you to viciously attack in coordination with your pet, dealing additional physical damage with your next Kill Command.
It’s thematic and it’s free damage that doesn’t conflict with the normal gameplay at all. Having it not tied to KC’s damage is nice. Extra knob of ST tuning is appreciated. Will be interesting what the range requirement on this extra physical attack is.
Pack Coordination: Attacking with Vicious Hunt instructs your pet to strike with their basic attack alongside your Raptor Strike or Mongoose Bite
very thematic with SV’s fantasy and the hero talent tree. it’s super important this talent is a free basic attack, as we don’t have the pet focus generation BM does, so if this is balanced around BM’s economy mechanically, it should be looked at. otherwise, again, not conflicting at all with normal gameplay and even has a ton of bonus synergy with our coordinated assault cooldown
Howl of the Pack: Your pet’s Basic Attack critical strikes increase your critical strike damage by 5% for 6 seconds, stacking up to 3 times.
much like the last point, if this is tuned to BM’s quantity of basic attacks it might not feel possible to keep the stacks up and rolling for SV. increasing the duration by just a second would give a lot more leeway
Wild Attacks: Every third pet Basic Attack is a guaranteed critical strike, with damage further increased by critical strike chance.
not much to say here. free extra damage that acts as howl of pack enabler if you’re the unluckiest person alive.
Den Recovery: Aspect of the Turtle, Survival of the Fittest, and Mend Pet heal the target for 20% of maximum health over 4 seconds. Duration increased by 1 second when healing a target under 50% maximum health.
not nearly as strong as dark ranger’s defensive node, but we are the only hunter spec that can really get any mileage out of predator’s thirst. still, the mend pet part is super weird. mend pet already heals a ton, so adding more of a heal to that seems redundant
Tireless Hunt: Aspect of the Cheetah now increases movement speed by 15% for another 8 seconds.
A 20 second movement speed buff is a bit absurd, I can’t really think of a situation where that would be useful, especially when we have disengage/posthaste and harpoon. wish it was just aspect of the pack 
Cornered Prey: Disengage increases the range of all your attacks by 5 yards for 5 seconds.
with lunge and aspect of the eagle we’ll be able to straight up negate a lot of mechanics with this. even without eagle, an on demand 13 yard melee range (lol) is gong to be real nice for a lot of mechanics
Frenzied Tear: Your pet’s Basic Attack has a 20% chance to reset the cooldown of Kill Command and cause Kill Command to strike a second time for 30% of normal damage.
We have a lot of passive talents that work with kill command resetting in our spec tree, so if this works with those, that’s a TON of free synergy. i’m curious if the second hit generates focus or applies a second stack of tip of the spear.
could really push our focus economy into super high levels, which may feel weird being at high focus a lot of times, but we’ll see how it works
Covering Fire: Wildfire Bomb reduces the cooldown of Carve or Butchery by 2 seconds
this makes our tight and fast AoE gameplay loop even more self contained and efficient. simple and fun, ends up giving you more bombs. 
Scattered Prey: . Carve or Butchery increases the damage of your next Carve or Butchery by 25% (Survival).
butchery/carve don’t really exist as aoe damage abilities, just aoe enablers, so much like BM this node probably is really weak and won’t be picked
Cull the Herd: Kill Shot deals an additional 30% damage over 5 seconds and increases the bleed damage you and your pet deal to the target by 25%.
an absurdly powerful node. we have 5 bleeds, our kill shots already hit like a truck, and this is even more coordinated assault / birds of prey synergy. i don’t want to discuss numbers too much now, but this will make our execute damage really nutty
Furious Assault: Consuming Frenzied Tear has a 50% chance to make your next Raptor Strike or Mongoose Bite free and deal 30% additional damage. .
a new version of our 10.0 tier set bonus that people really liked. the way this is set up it’s less likely to spiral out of control / get OP compared to bestial barrage. super cool, thematic, and sounds like it will be fun to play around and get procs. adds a much needed element of randomness to the spec
Beast of Opportunity: Coordinated Assault calls on the Pack, summon a pet from your stable for 6 seconds.
I can only assume tying this to CA is an error, as that’s a two minute cooldown and BM’s version is tied to a 30-40 second cooldown. if this remains tied to CA and competes with furious assault, it won’t be chosen. for a pack leader hero tree, it might be nice if this was more freely chosen or tied to flanking strike
Pack Assault: Vicious Hunt and Pack Coordination now stack and apply twice and are always active during Coordinated Assaulted
the way i interpret this talent (based on the comma on the actual tree) is that any time you would gain a stack of VH or PC you would instead gain two stacks. so, your KC would make your next TWO KC trigger the extra damage, and the next TWO MB you use after VH would each trigger a basic attack. during CA, you don’t need to trigger either and the bonuses are just always on.
a very flavorful and thematic capstone, which feeds into tear, ferocious assault, which feeds back into itself.
it seems like this tree will be fun to play with for survival. excited to see how the numbers end up. only a few big concerns.
- is pack coordination free?
- will howl of pack / VH damage / etc be tuned separately for each spec like diabolist for demo/destro?
- this tree makes FS even more unappealing to use
- we might have too much focus at any given time. making FS a spender would alleviate both of these concerns
2 Likes
Just to start off I gotta say what a disappointment; which has kinda been the stardard for hunters these last few years.
I was expecting at a minimum to see a tree that rolled in the current tier set into the game (all pets cleave and kc). It’s been nice knowing all of my pets are actually following my commands and I was expecting this talent tree to carry that forward.
Additionally, I was kind of expecting to get a new Dire Beast: Basilisk/Hawk like ability and the tree to actually call in the pack after seeing the demo tree.
What a disappointment seeing this tree is. Where is the PACK exactly in this tree? The tree should have been called Kill Commando.
6 Likes
100% agree feels like the Devs don’t play hunter and have given up on it. More kill commands and barbed short procs wow… a pack leader that summons 1 pet during cool downs… completely passive boring tree especially when you check warrior, mage and monk talent trees… rip
5 Likes
what else is a BM hunter going to do on a hero tree