How would you redesign our class

Classes Hunter
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Was just playing this weekend and was thinking how I see the classes.

Beastmaster
Make the current survival spec BM instead. As I posted previously, this is the most synergistic spec out there. So having it where you and your pet are 50/50 damage dealing and fighting in the trenches together makes sense.

Marksmen:
I actually think this is currently ok as is. A lot more mobile and maybe a little more damage.

Survival:
Unfortunately I am not sure how I would use this. Maybe the trap class of previous expansions. But that would be all utility and minimal dps. Unless it was designed to counter certain raid mechanics while the 2 other specs were the damage ones.

Opinions?

2

MM-haven’t played since Wrath
BM- MELEE: KC as the big nuke, Raptor as filler, Reduce CD on Butchery or replace with Carve as baseline (make this skill trigger pet cleave), Give a stacking bleed to the hunter (which would provide resource gen/frenzy like barbed shot) OR-Make frenzy proc based tied to pet or hunter crits (and make talents like Thrill of the hunt give some crit to the pet, too). Replace harpoon with a mounted charge (ride your active pet into battle and root), this minimizes bad pet AI, since your pet will appear next to you most/all of the time due to using this ability for mobility. Keep BM’s 2 current DPS cooldowns. Give snake trap (snake dmg affected by mastery).

Surv-For me at least, the golden age of this was in Wrath. I had black arrow, explosive shot, Lock and load. I had a wolf pet to increase attack power and a split talent tree that gave me as much AP as I could eke out. I believe there was a pet or class ability which allowed me to provide a “+% magic dmg on the target” debuff. Iirc, I did quite well in the content I played, often topping meters. In short, give serpent shot/serpent spread. I’d be ok with steady as a generator, or even give Surve barbed shot. Give explosive shot and black arrow. Improved traps, etc.

2 Likes
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Just bring back mobility for Aimed Shot on Marksman where if you move, you lose some damage, if you stand still you can get bonus damage. That way we can still be mobile while functioning relatively the same rather than be a standing turret.
(Our Aimed Shot takes longer to cast than Warlock Chaos Bolt and does less damage. Something to think about. If that’s the case give us mobility tax like BMs then.)

3 Likes
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BM: Convert to melee, give Spirit Bond

Marksmanship: Remove Precise Shots, make Chimaera Shot and Kill Shot baseline, reduce Trick Shots target req to 2

Survival: Revert to WoD but keep Wildfire Bomb

12 Likes
5

Revert back to MoP.

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I’m planning on making a bigger post about this at one point but here’s a summary:

Survival

  • Actives:
    - Explosive Shot: Same as WoD, although now it will double as the primary focus dump. 15 focus, deals initial damage followed by 2 or 3 periodic ticks, 6-second cooldown.
    - Charged Shot: Same as WoD Black Arrow, only rebranded as an electric-themed ability to better fit the spec’s theme of a munitions expert. Gives a chance on each tick for a charge of Lock and Load with a guarantee that you’ll get at least 1. 35 focus cost, 25 second cooldown, 25 second duration, ticks every 3 seconds (I don’t remember the exact numbers of the original BA right now).
    - Serpent Sting: Mostly the same as to current Serpent Sting. 15 focus cost, substantial initial tick and DoT damage.
    - Wildfire Bomb: Mostly the same as current Wildfire Bomb; no focus cost, AoE burst with a DoT. It should be a proper radial AoE rather than a cone. Grants two charges of Lock and Load. 18-sec cooldown.
    - Steady Shot: Single-target focus filler, same as current Marksmanship Steady Shot. I’m actually really torn on whether this should be here or if we need a different method of generating focus on single target for SV. For now I’ll focus on other elements of the spec’s gameplay.
    - Multi-Shot: Primary method of clumped AoE
    - Expose Weakness: Primary cooldown. 2-minute CD, 15-second duration. While active. Lock and Load proc chance is increased by 100% and all focus costs are reduced by 50%. I’m thinking of other possible effects here, such as reduced GCD or splash AoE, but I’d like to keep it simple, unique v.s. the other specs’ cooldowns, and more interesting than a simple damage boost.
  • Passives:
    - Lock and Load: This will NOT resemble the live WoD version, but rather the beta version. It will only make the Explosive Shot not incur a cooldown; the ES will still have a focus cost. It can also stack up to 10 times. The effect this has is making Lock and Load move beyond being a situational proc and effectively become the spec’s secondary resource, providing interesting avenues for talents and a real incentive for multidotting (improving single-target damage). Having this also removes the need for a spammable focus dump like Arcane Shot in WoD; Explosive Shots will be plentiful and in the event of no procs Serpent Sting can double as a filler.
    - Opportunism: Serpent Sting ticks have a chance to reduce the remaining cooldown of Charged Shot by 3 seconds. This proc chance would be frequent enough for Charged Shot to be able to scale out in multi-target scenarios. More Charged Shots = more Lock and Load procs = more Explosive Shots. This is a powerful incentive for multidotting.
    - Toxicology: Serpent Sting grants 3 focus per tick for up to 5 targets. This will help provide the focus needed to sustain the spec in a multidotting scenario while also providing a small boost in single-target.
    - Serpent Spread: Multi-Shot applies Serpent Sting to all targets it hits
    - Trap Mastery: Same as WoD: reduced cooldowns on traps
    - Mastery: Essence of the Viper: Same as WoD: All magic damage is increased based on mastery.

That’s mostly it for now; basically it should look similar to WoD Survival but with an emphasis on multidotting. It should be highly mobile and fast-paced, with a strong underlying theme of utilitarianism with augmented shots and bombs. I’ll talk about talent options in another post.

Some things I’m still thinking about are:

  • How should the spec generate focus? Steady Shot seems like a cop-out and Serpent Sting being a pure generator seems untenable (relies on multi-target, it costs focus to use).
  • How can we keep the spec competitive in pure single-target scenarios (i.e. no multidotting)? I thought about having some sort of stacking mechanic for Serpent Sting to account for this.
  • Interaction between abilities. This is what makes the spec, really. I thought of many different configurations for this. In particular I’m concerned with how Wildfire Bomb fits in. A major problem with the current Survival is that there are minimal interactions between the base toolkit and it heavily relies on talents to fill in the gaps. In WoD SV the problem was Serpent Sting had little to do with the rest of the spec beyond “does damage”.
  • I don’t want to overcomplicate the spec with a billion passive effects and I don’t want to pack a bunch of functionality into one ability (Barbed Shot arguably has this problem right now and in the above list Serpent Sting does too).

I have some ideas for the other specs too but for now I’ll mention one:

Beast Mastery

Remove Spitting Cobra and replace with a new talent: Way of the Mok’Nathal (no, not that one). WotMN will give a substantial boost to health and damage in exchange for the following ranged-to-melee changes:

  • Cobra Shot becomes Raptor Strike
  • Barbed Shot becomes Lacerate
  • Multi-Shot becomes Carve
  • Concussive Shot becomes Wing Clip
  • Counter-Shot becomes Muzzle
  • Barrage becomes Butchery
  • Chimera Shot becomes… Chimera Strike? Seems like a cop-out but this one has no obvious melee equivalent currently. Maybe rebrand it as Mongoose Bite and just have the same effect as Chimera Shot but melee.
  • Binding Shot is the hardest one. I’m not sure how I would rebrand this; I was thinking some form of Ranger’s Net.

The “subspec” should also prefer dual-wielding. IMO this would much better match the Rexxar archetype than the current SV and would provide an approachable melee style while also not precluding an entire spec for ranged-preferring Hunters. This would be very ambitious, however, to pack so much functionality in one talent. I sort of look at it like a Gladiator Warrior situation.

8 Likes
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I have no idea why it posted from that toon but you could probably tell from the name that it was me.

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I would probably Revert Survival back to ranged and I guess bring BM back to its WoD design. I personally do not like a melee spec so I would rather BM not be melee as well as making Survival ranged again.
For MM I liked the Cata design of the spec and would like to see that back or something very similar to it.

8 Likes
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MM: add a line of talents that correspond to the old ranged SV style, but put it in such a way that those talents must be chosen for the fully-mobile ranged spec to be realized. Like the first line would grant serpent sting, the second replaces aimed shot with explosive shot (and if serpent sting is chosen, replaces steady shot with cobra shot to replenish serpent sting), the fourth row grants black arrow (which triggers LNL if explosive shot is chosen), the fifth row gives an alternative option (like hunting party to occasionally replenish the party’s resource), serpent spread, shorter trap CD) the final row grants another level of LNL if black arrow is chosen. Optimally, that means that the other two options per row can actually be meaningful for specs that don’t follow the SV route.

Grant MM Hunting Party as a unique spec passive, raising the critical strike damage of Aimed, Arcane, and Multi-Shot by 5 (at 60), 10 (at 90), and 15% (at 120). In addition, every precise shot proc has a chance (33% at level 60, 66% at 90, 100% at 120) to grant up to 10 raid members a 20% boost in passive and active resource generation for ten seconds. This effect does not stack; if a raid member already has the Hunting Party effect, the buff will move onto a raid member without the effect.

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I feel like serpent spread should be baseline. But a lot of what made the spec, was tuning with mastery, once you got to certain stat lvls. So really of like to see a full ranged survival fourth spec. With serpent sting doing its original first tick of dmg on impact. Maybe some haste scaling on dots.

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Bringing back MoP or WoD survival would dramatically improve how I view the game as a whole.

8 Likes
12

Don’t you dare touch my beloved spec! Leave Survival alone! It’s the only fun spec to play! :neutral_face:

3 Likes
13

Well your “beloved spec” overwrote a spec that was beloved by many people.

They need to take the current melee spec and make it a fourth spec and return true Survival. BM should not be melee, MM should not be melee, Survival should not have become melee.

9 Likes
14

That is what I always wanted for Hunters and Warriors (I miss Glad!)

I did loved the old Survival and would love to see it return but I really enjoy the new melee playstyle and would not see it changed to anything else!

2 Likes
15

delete the melee

8 Likes
16

Customize the pet skins, something very similar to the barber shop, but for the pets. Change color, add/remove effects, add/remove decorations, change skin/body hair look.

2 Likes
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Survival: serpent sting changes from a melee ability to a ranged ability based on your distance from the target.

1 Like
18

Make marksman go back to the legion style & include kill shot & make AiS castable while moving

1 Like
19

Just give me back my Lacerate :frowning:

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I think the design philosophy is fundamentally off. This is true for almost all classes currently. But specifically for Hunters, they should have a core kit of Ranged, Beast and Melee.

Points allocated into talents should accentuate and deepen the respective talent line and they should have some measure of cross-functionality.

An example, I think every Hunter should have Camouflage as part of their core Hunter kit. But perhaps Survival has a talent that increases its healing. Perhaps Marksmanship enables it to be a form of perma-stealth. Etc. for BM.

Same with Melee, for example, Raptor Strike. Every Hunter should have the ability to use a melee weapon. But different specs should afford different opportunities and tradeoffs.

The point is they have stripped the depth of gameplay and identity from classes. Anyone who played in Vanilla or pre-Cataclysm knows what I mean.

Perfection doesn’t exist (although the original vanilla design was damn close), but character building was a real thing pre Cata.

Make Hunters great again.

1 Like