I had an idea I didn’t want to waste: Triage Hunter. You can use it to bring back the bandage flavor of vanilla that was so prime at the time. Post other good Augmentation-like spec variants in the thread! 
That’s an idea that has been thrown around a few times in variations and I have to say… I’m all for it.
Channeled bandage heals, plant salves, maybe even mechanical “healing guns”. It would be nice to have a support / heal spec as a hunter. Pets that run in to pick up downed teammates a la Guild Wars 2. The possibilities for a Hunter Medic type spec are endless.
When I ran into Morgan Day at Blizzcon he emphasized that he personally wants to see more support specs and that Blizzard would like to. He said he pushed personally for Augmentation. But he also said it is very very unlikely in War Within.
I brought this idea forward as a Ranger-esque spec from DnD before, and everyone hated on the idea because “I don’t want to play a healer”.
I want a support hunter spec. Not purely damage or healing, but something like augmentation. I have this on Gw2, it’s tons of fun (Ranger, Druid Elite Specialization), and it allows me to provide damage buffs, heals, and revives out for free, while also doing good damage and controlling the battlefield. Really a jack of all trades, and because of that, I’m valuable for filling any role in a group.
The Hunter class from WoW was basically a direct rip from Ranger in DnD 2e, which was a year or two off from the third edition. In third edition, Ranger was given a few healing, utility, and control spells that made them more competent in a group. Before this, Ranger was essentially just a damage class, which is what Blizzard used and implemented into the game.
I think the best way to go about it? Spirit beasts! You have one spirit beast pet that provides AoE effects as part of your rotation, but this pet isn’t always with you (and are temporary summons from your abilities). You’re primarily a damage class, but allies near your Spirit Beast gain effects each time you deal damage. You also have a few single target heals, but the main thing is that your beast grants damage buffs/damage negation, and pulses heals/passively regenerates other player’s HP near them during your rotation.
I think an awesome mechanic they could implement is temporary Pets. Instead of constantly having a pet up 24/7, you have cool abilities like “Howling Arrow (or Blade, choice node)”, “Crow’s Talons”, and “Roaring Bolt (or Bite, choice node)”. You use the ability to hit with a high damage attack, and summon a temporary spirit beasts that pulses an effect/attacks the target afterwards. This beast could respond to Kill Command as well. So Howling Arrow would spawn a Spirit Wolf, that increases the Hunter and Nearby Allie’s damage by xx for xx seconds through a howl. Crow’s Talons would fire several shots/swing several times and inflict a heavy bleed on the target, and summon a crow that boosts the hunter’s and nearby allies movement speed when in range of the crow (alongside a small haste effect, like +8% haste) and Roaring Bolt would daze the target and summon a Spirit Bear, which would would roar to restore health to nearby allies and provide a temporary shield.
You can also directly target an ally and have the Spirit Beast heal them instead of damaging the target, with the Wolf granting a greater power boost, the Crow granting a greater speed boost, and the Bear granting more shield before quickly fading.
Overall, most of the damage should come from the Hunter themselves. They don’t have a pet up front, but have temporary effects that provide Ferocity/Cunning/Tenacity buff while active, with the most recent Pet granting its Beast Command ability. On top of this, since you don’t have a permanent Pet, Mend Pet instead becomes Mend Spirit - which is your new single target heal, and will cleanse targets affected by it. Mend Spirit has a cooldown, and obviously doesn’t heal a % of someone’s health (rather a number based on your Agility/Mastery).
Steady Shot should be the focus generator, I feel, and the main damage could come from empowered Arcane/Chimera shots, a bit like MM. When you summon a Pet, you get 3 stacks of buffed Arcane/Chim always, and every time these 3 Arcane shots are consumed, your next Kill Command does massive bonus damage. The Hunter should always gain the effects of their Spirit’s pulses, as well, but their attacks should have slightly reduced range. On top of this, you could still use pet abilities like Intimidate to stun. The spirit simply fades when its timer runs out, so you never have to worry about healing them. So your rotation would be: Summon your Spirit Beast for a burst of damage/AoE buffs, 3x Arcane Shots, Kill Command, 2x Steady Shots (which could give a large buff to your next spirit summon and refill your Focus), and restart. You could have a conditional Kill Command pop from Auto Shots, (which will summon another Spirit Pet to inflict it) and Arcane shots could randomly grant Kill Shot for conditionals. The spirit beast could be a cast time summon so it could be interrupted for PvP, but I think it should be a 1 second Cast and be castable while moving.
I think either Mastery or Versatility could be a good main stat for this, with Versatility increasing the duration of buffs applied, and Mastery increasing the Healing and Damage. Crit would be high value, since you don’t really have many cast times.
I’ma shut up now 'cause everyone is going to hate my ideas for no reason. 
2 Likes
Late/Necro, but…
If you want people to read consider your stuff fairly and/or throughly, preemptively calling them unreasonable is probably not the best course to take.
This doesn’t sound bad… but it does sound like something that’d better belong to BM.
Doesn’t that just make it a standard buffer, then? Granted, that has a higher ceiling and easier balancing than just applying (de)buffs through attacks.
My concern here is that this will just feel like a rehashed hybridization of what BM should perhaps already be capable of through its spec tree and MM through its class tree.
If it’s castable while moving, you may as well leave it at a GCD’s cast-length (1.5s pre-Haste).
Deciding on a “main stat” just means taking away that much more player choice and making gearing that much longer.
Having or not having cast times has no impact on the value of crit.
Tl;dr: I like the mechanics and capacities, but you may want to consider it as an extension of the class and BM tools rather than as a new hybridized spec of its own.
Darkest Dungeon’s Arbalest has MM and SV skills, and has a bandage heal.
Arbalest Skill Sound Effects - Darkest Dungeon (youtube.com)