For me, Beast Mastery still feels too similar to Marksman, at least mechanically. There’s only 1 ability that relies on a Beast being active/present, and that’s Kill Command (at least to my knowledge).
When I think of a Beast Master, I think of a character akin to the Summoning Druid from Diablo 2, who can summon an entire zoo! If we had that sort of freedom, with abilities that more or less direct where our pets go and who they attack, it would be a dream come true for me! I mean, Demonology Warlocks can summon over six imps, so why can’t us Beast Master Hunters have our entire Stables unlocked (5-6 Pet Slots) and Active?
Survival was ranged until it was reworked to melee in Legion. But it needs to stay melee regardless, has a better identity as it. Otherwise it’s MM but more explosions
Yeah, there are different ways for sure, but it wouldn’t fit the theme of Survival Hunter; Melee. I do like your idea of turning Beast Mastery into a Tank Spec! I mean, Beast Masters are supposed to have a literal pack of beasts, right? Why not let them Tank with all those claws and teeth?
There are only pros to range survival, all those debates turn into warriors and rogues mains getting upset about anyone asking for survival to go back to its roots and them losing their 2nd favorite alt.
BM does more with pets than you think. Beast Cleave, Bestial Wrath, Stomp, Bloodshed and if you look at damage profiles roughly 15% of our damage done is from the Hunter itself
Dire Command is RNG compared to Hand of Gul’dan but we easily get out quite a herd of beasts. Also Call of the Wild factored in gives us 4 pets active for 20secs while summoning an extra pet every 4secs for 6secs on top of more kill command casts in that window for more Dire Command procs.
Id like a group aura, like 5% leech or something for the party/raid.
It’d take hunters with ferocity pets to 9% overall Leech, nice to have but still not a game changer ability, it’d be a base 5% with non ferocity pets too, would help with the hunters survibability.