Feedback: Pack Leader Hunter

Classes Hunter
446

Call of the wild yes, dire beast not near as much, between it becoming a longer CD sustain instead of a spammable ability the number of beasts is Abit lower.

New cotw is a lot like old stampede but the fade in, fade out nature(probably designed to reduce server load) fits much more into the “occasionally several” as opposed to “stampede is up time for 12 pets”

And since “just throw more animals at it” isn’t something blizz seems to want to get back to I’d really like some secondary spell fx for the sake of gameplay.

447

After sitting and thinking about this Hero tree since it was announced, I’ve come to the conclusion that it was solely designed to “fix” the awful design of Survival’s cooldown Coordinated Assault. It should allow you to have many more procs than you can munch with bombs, and has talents that increase bleeds you would apply during CA to make it actually feel like a damage increasing cooldown. After designing it for that, the “dev” then just slapped some BM spells in there and said, “Yep, good enough.”

just putting my thoughts out there, other than this I feel the same way as most in this thread: boring, unimpactful gameplay wise, and “Where’s the pack?”

3 Likes
448

Instead of just copy and pasting

Beast of Opportunity

Bestial Wrath (Beast Mastery) or Coordinated Assault (Survival) calls on the Pack, summon a pet from your stable for 6 seconds.

From Beast Mastery 2 piece they could push the idea further with it summoning beast with unique effects.

A Cobra that spits poison.

A Raptor that adds a bleed.

A Chimera that adds frost/slow.

A Dragonkin that adds a fire dot.

The beasts could have a cycle that would let the player make choices on when to use BW or CA. Might add some extra burst potential.

1 Like
449

Not a huge fan, but IDK. Our hero talents seem to be “summon dogs”, “summon owls”, or “your pet hits more” so I guess it’s a niche different from the other two?

I was hoping for more different themes.
BM-MM - Something focusing on the ranged weapon attacks. (Because hunters are unique in using bows/guns.)
MM-Surv - Something focusing on munitions/payloads. (To focus on the grenades and explosive shot/trick arrow concept)
Surv-BM - Something focusing on pets. (Because hunters are THE pet class.)

At least then it’s just not just 3 flavors of PET PET PET.

450

Why don’t we summon dragons instead?

Not dragonkin, dragons.

Let’s get colored drakes, or even the chromatic drakes that were in UBRS and BWL.

451

Hunters can tame Dragonkin, but not Dragons. I was sticking to what a Hunter would have as a pet to stick with fantasy.

452

ppl here seem mainly focusing on the fantasy of the pack leader and not quite satisfied with not having a pack, which I totally agree
After trying it a little bit on Alpha, from gameplay wise, I would worry that if this tree is too much BM focused as kill command and pet basic attack for BM do AOE but not for SV. BM is Having empowerment on both ST and AOE encounters while the tree nearly has nothing to do with AOE for SV except for the poor +25% on butchery and WFB reduce butchery for 1 seconds talent, even on that butchery and curve feel like they need something like 250% do actually make a difference, and the cdr on butchery I do like it, but 1 seconds is not enough.
Also I don’t see how pack leader “fixes” the stupid coordinated assault issue, some ppl brought it up. Currently what SV hunters do to maximize CA damage output is to turn auto pet basic attack off and manual cast bite or whatever before everytime they use kill shot on a macro then turn the autocast back on after CA ends, and I believe we all agree it sucks. With pack leader, survival hunters can now KC then RS/Mongoose to trigger an extra pet basic attack, 2 gcds during CA well nice try but not helping. Pressing mongoose on AOE is already dumb enough (DF S1/S4 tier set) and now even kill command? Seriously no.

2 Likes
453

I agree and think this is WAY out of customer experience
Remove the clutter and empower our tree, seriously.
Hunters are squishy and none of this is helping that
single point which every hunter experiences over his
entire run as a hunter. Adding more window dressing
is just more dopamine nodes for the crowd.
Put a node in that allows for a Hunter’s Damage to
heal the group plus himself. I can ALWAYS work on
my DPS but working on a tree isn’t something we do.

454

This makes me want to look at other games…
I mean if the people responsible for creating
the game are this far off from the players
where does that leave the players?
Home Alone?

1 Like
455

the latter is actually really strong tbf, plus cull the herd is great for coordinated assault

456

Could be ancient Dire Beasts that give temp aura effects, could be loa blessings, there’s a bunch of loa of various beast kinds to pull from as temporary pets, could be former raid bosses that are beasts

All of those are in game existing models that can be used to add some extra unique visual punch to a Pack Leader fantasy.

457

Yes, to this idea. Having a unique Loa as the summoned beast would add more visual impact than just a pet from my stable. I can already see my stable pets with Dire Stable, so Beast of Opportunity not just copying a set bonus it also copies a glyph.

If every other talent a passive Blizzard needs to give Pack Leader a interesting visual.

1 Like
458

I am not a fan of both SV Hero talent tracks requiring Coordinated Assault. I myself am a fan of the No CD build, but some people love Spearhead. By requiring Coordinated Assault, you are shoehorning one build in and removing the ability to use others.

Plus, CA requires 3 macros to work correctly, so not the greatest design there.

Now, perhaps there are some changes coming we’re unaware of at the time I write this that would make CA really great, impactful, and no longer require macros to work. If so, then I will reserve that judgement for seeing that change in action.

But overall, I’d prefer it not be tied to an end cap talent, forcing you to take that one and removing the choice of others. It’ll basically make Spearhead useless or any option not to take CA. Just don’t tie it to an end-cap talent. To me, it’s preferable to tie to something already baked in the kit which means you’re not forcing any specific build as the only viable one

2 Likes
459

Sentinal is an entirely passive arcane dot and you will never take the CA node to summon a pet for 6s.

They’ve confirmed no plans as of a week ago so there’s no reason to speculate any changes at this time. Assume the tree remains as is till they confirm they’re working on something.

1 Like
460

Sentinel also links with CA for a talent that makes all attacks proc Sentinel during CA.

Make sure you know before you correct someone.

4 Likes
461

the fact that both hero talent trees exclusively reference CA is pretty concerning to me. if there isn’t a secret rework in the background happening, that means effectively the entire bottom right corner of our talent tree is a no-go zone.

3 Likes
462

The solution is the delete Carve already. It is inferior to Butchery by every metric known to man and is redundant in the first place. Why do we have a choice node of melee AoE vs melee AoE?

Replace Carve with:

Ferocious Companion - Kill Command strikes all enemies within 8 yards of your pet that are affected by your damage over time effects.

This would have great synergy with Bloodseeker, Pheromone Bomb, and Spearhead, and would be a much more interesting choice of AoE than a slightly different melee attack.

463

Tuning is neither gameplay nor profile.

We don’t have a choice of a melee AoE vs. a melee AoE, as that part hasn’t changed; the frequency of access and bankability have.

You therefore have a choice between something that will favor sustained AoE (as Carve is 50% more frequent), or burst AoE (as Butchery starts with charge enough to fit 4.5 Carves), and between something more anchoring vs. something more bankable.

Yes, Carve is currently worthless, because even when including the relative contribution of Frenzied Strikes towards a fully upgraded WFB (~265% AP magic damage), it’s damage contribution per second is still far inferior. But that’s a tuning issue, simply and purely.

464

I replied to this thread previously to share my disappointment regarding what the pack leader tree was looking like and as more and more hero specs become available for testing on alpha, I do find myself wanting to revisit some of the criticism I have towards this tree and potential avenues for improvement. The more hero spec trees I see other classes getting access to, the more disappointed I become with the design behind my own hero spec trees. I don’t think any of them are fundamentally bad ideas but I would be lying if I said that anything here stands up to the average of what many other classes are getting. I don’t think any of the hunter trees are excelling right now in selling the fantasy but pack leader is by far the weakest looking one to the point where I am wondering if it was, as of current writing, just blatantly misnamed.

Pack leader isn’t inherently a bad idea. It has a cool fantasy. The fantasy is similar to the already existing fantasy of beast master and how it interacts with summoning dire beasts but I honestly love that fantasy and would love to see it doubled down on (and for it to be shared as an optional flavour for survival too). The usage of beasts in combat and having a stable of animals is part of the reason why hunter is always among the most popular classes in the game. Some of the best trees so far are doubling down on existing fantasies.

Diabolist, an option for demonology warlocks, is about summoning a bunch of scary demons to help you fight. It’s essentially the same fantasy as the base class spec of demonology but the execution of it all is incredible. Diabolists are summoning giant demons that the class was previously unable to summon and it’s a visual treat in terms of animations and models. This tree is also in a similar position to pack leader where it shares part of that specific spec fantasy (summoning demon allies) with a spec that is less pet/summoning focused with destruction warlocks (much like pack leader and survival).

Sunfury, one of the options for fire mage, is in a similar spot where it is essentially “fire mage but turned up to 11”. This hero spec doubles down on the fantasy and adds some incredible visuals that mage players have always wanted to have. It finally gives mage players their iconic spheres they’ve wished for since Kael’thas in Warcraft 3 won them over and the new summonable phoenix is an incredible visual set-piece for the spec. Despite it being “fire mage but more” it managed to pull from Warcraft’s history and tie that into the visuals to make a visually stunning representation of a core component of the mage fantasy. It feels bad to compare something like this to pack leader despite them being in similar spots. If sunfury was treated like pack leader, the core of the hero spec would be that your fire spells sometimes reset more often and that pyroblast would have a slightly changed animation. No spheres, no phoenix, no fantasy to be sold.

Pack leader is in a tough spot because it’s kind of a vague title for a spec in terms of where to draw the fantasy from but it really feels like nothing was really tried. There’s no “pack” element to pack leader. I was shocked that there was only one talent node (an optional one too) to even summon in another beast from our pack. Calling in one beast on a cooldown and having a slightly nicer kill command animation doesn’t feel like living the fantasy of a leader of a pack of animals. It feels really bad we currently find ourselves in the position where a current tier set sells the “pack leader fantasy” better than an expansion defining feature despite it being a replaceable bonus that will disappear in a few months with no new art assets utilized for it.

There’s places to draw inspiration from here. Rexxar is the staple hunter character in Warcraft and is quite literally a pack leader. He shows up constantly in Warcraft with both his iconic trio of pets (Misha, Huffer, Leokk) and new beasts he tames offscreen between appearances. He’s the definition of a pack leader. He’s a character who lives out in the woods among his beasts and his pack is his family. This doesn’t have to be the definitive “pack leader fantasy” that the spec must align with, but surely it’s a good place to draw some ideas from? There’s so many amazing things you could give hunters that emphasize their bond with their pack of tamed animals and I would hate to see this hero spec with so much potential end up as nothing but a kill command visual replacement when it could be so much more (and other hero specs have shown this is possible!).

Pack leader should be great, not only because it has room for so much more and it doubles down on the specific fantasy that many players choose to play hunter for, but also because it’s the only hero spec for hunter that doesn’t have a race specific fantasy. I love the ideas of dark ranger and sentinel specs for hunter. Both of these are two flavours of hunter I have been wanting to play since I started WoW, but both of these fantasies are incredibly elf-centric. For many players, especially those who aren’t playing the elven races closely associated with the other hero specs, pack leader is the only fantasy that feels right for their hunter. I think it’s vital for pack leader to be a standout hero spec when it’s the only one of the hunter hero specs that has a universal appeal across all hunters regardless of race.

I love being a hunter and I love my beasts. I love the idea of the fantasy of pack leader and there’s a plethora of directions I would be happy to see it taken in. I want to feel a connection to my beasts. I want to feel like a pack leader. When people see me in their dungeon group I want them to go “oh wow that hunter must be playing pack leader” the same way they react to seeing another pet based hero spec like diabolist on alpha right now. As it is, this spec just comes off as bland. There’s no visual flair. There’s no inspiration from any parts of the Warcraft series. Heck, there isn’t even a pack with how it currently exists. What I wish for most in War Within right now is to see a course correction on some of the hunter hero talents because I see so much potential here if the designers are willing to take these fantasies and run with them.

Appreciate anyone reading my feedback and hope I was able to get across my current complaints on the state of this tree in a constructive manner because I really just want the best for this class I have been playing for so long.

13 Likes
465

My theory is Dark Ranger talents will be tuned to be the strongest choice for BM, and no player will pick Pack Leader. This is why Blizzard has put such little effort into its visuals.

If no one playing it then no one can see how bland it looks.