Hunter Rune Restructure

In Development Season of Discovery Phase 4 PTR
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Hiya Folks! After much tinkering, I want to share my suggestions for Hunter Runes going into phase 4 of SoD. The majority of these suggestions already exist mechanically in other areas or versions of the game, and this is intentional. My suggestions are intended to be as easy to implement as I could make them. I realize the dev team has limited time and resources, and I wanted to offer feedback that was well-reasoned and useful as I could manage. Devs, I’ve had a great time in SoD so far, so thanks for all you’ve done and are doing.

I’ll be giving an overview of where all the Runes land before offering the specific changes for each set of runes by slot. I haven’t posted enough on the forums to be able to post images, so I’ll do my best with the formatting tools the forums provide. Click the dropdowns to learn more about changes to any given rune. I put them in collapsable sections to make this whole thing easier to read. The first row of every table is bolded, and I can’t figure out how to make it not do that, so I apologize in advance!

Rune Slot Overview

Helm Catlike Reflexes Truestrike Aura Lock and Load
Back Carve Hit and Run Improved Volley
Chest Go for the Throat T.N.T. Master Marksman
Wrist Beast Mastery Lone Wolf
Hands Cobra Slayer Explosive Shot Chimera Shot
Waist Kill Shot Expose Weakness Focus Fire
Legs Flanking Strike Wyvern Strike Sniper Training
Feet Dual Wield Spec Savage Assault Resourcefulness
Baseline Heart of the Lion Aspect of the Viper Trap Launcher Melee Specialist
Deprecated Rapid Killing Serpent Spread Cobra Strikes Raptor Fury
Click me for Overview Commentary

You’ll notice on the bottom row “Trap Launcher” and “Melee Specialist” are both now baseline runes. This is because these two runes offer such a drastic change in functionality that they crowd out most other runes in their slots. Ultimately, these two runes unlock almost half the abilities of Hunters as a class for use, and I determined the best course of action would be to have them as standard for all rune setups. Here are the details:

Trap Launcher (Baseline): “Your Traps can now be placed at any location within 18 yards, and can be placed in combat. Additionally, your Fire-based and Frost-based traps now have separate shared cooldowns.”
Melee Specialist (Baseline): “Raptor Strike is now an instant attack. Whenever you or your pet critically strike with an ability, your Mongoose Bite ability becomes active for 9 seconds or 1 attack. Mongoose Bite deals additional damage equal to 40% of your melee Attack Power.”
  • You’ll notice that Trap Launcher had its range slashed. This was to avoid situations where melee Hunters could lob their traps at far distant opponents in PvP and prevent escape. The original range is restored to Marksmanship Hunters via a rune, so they still have that capability.
  • Melee Specialist still makes Raptor Strike an instant attack, but it is still a 6 second cooldown and no longer has a lottery reset mechanic. I have my reasons for this, so read on. This rune also now borrows a mechanic from a Warrior rune called “Taste for Blood” to enable the use of Mongoose Bite consistently.

Leg Runes: The Big Three

The following three runes are designed to be core to the three main Hunter playstyles I had in mind: Melee Beast Master, Full Ranged Marksmanship, and Melee Weaving Survival. After this section we’ll cover the runes from head to toe, but these are interconnected with other runes that I felt they should be covered first.

Flanking Strike (Legs): “You and your pet deal simultaneous 100% melee damage. Afterward, your Mongoose Bite, Raptor Strike, and Flanking Strike deal 10% increased damage for 10 seconds, stacking up to 5 times. Critical strikes by you and your pet reduce the remaining cooldown of Flanking Strike by 1 second. 12 sec cooldown.”
Wyvern Strike (Legs): “Replaces your Wyvern Sting ability with Wyvern Strike, a stinging strike that deals 100% weapon damage and poisons the target with a Sting for (10 / 100 * 10 * Attack Power) Nature damage over 10 sec. Refreshing the Sting deals instant damage to the target equal to the remaining periodic damage. Only one Sting per Hunter can be active on the target at a time.” 6 sec cooldown.
Sniper Training (Legs): Your Shot abilities gain 5% increased critical strike chance and the cast time of Aimed Shot is reduced by 50%. After not moving for 6 seconds, these bonuses are doubled for 15 seconds.
Click me to show more about Leg Runes!
  • Flanking Strike now has a base cooldown of 12 seconds, and the remaining cooldown is reduced by the critical strikes of you and your pet. This mechanic is inspired by the recent changes to the Paladin rune “Art of War”. You’ll notice that Flanking Strike also now stacks up to 5 times, and this is due to the Raptor Fury rune being depreciated.
  • Wyvern Strike is intended to encourage the melee weaving playstyle many Hunters love if used with Chimera Shot. Refreshing the Sting effect as often as possible is the goal of the ability, and the cooldown has been reduced to 6 seconds to allow the Hunter to opt out of using Chimera Shot if desired.
  • Sniper Training, in my opinion, is one of the most annoying runes in the game in its current version. This version allows more freedom of movement than the current iteration, asking the player to find islands of time in a stationary state rather than asking them to become a statue to optimize damage. It is inspired by the WotLK version of Sniper Training.

Helm Runes

Catlike Reflexes (Head): “Increases your chance to dodge by 20% and your pet’s chance to dodge by 9%. In addition, reduces the cooldown of your Flanking Strike ability by 50%.”
Truestrike Aura (Head): “Increase the attack power of party members within 45 yards by x [and increases their ranged attack power by an additional 100]. Lasts 30 min. Does not stack with Trueshot Aura.”
Lock and Load (Head): Same effect as current version.
Click me to show more about Helm Runes!
  • Catlike Reflexes is functionally the same. Mentions of Kill Command have been removed. Lock and Load is also unchanged. Note that Catlike Reflexes now brings Flanking Strike’s cooldown to 6 seconds.
  • Truestrike Aura is here to be available to Melee Hunters without requiring them to dive to the bottom of the Marksmanship tree for Trueshot Aura. It is intended to be functionally identical.

Back Runes

Carve (Back): “A sweeping attack that strikes all enemies in front of you for 65% weapon damage. Benefits from most talents and effects that modify Raptor Strike.” Moved to Back slot
Hit and Run (Back): “You gain 15% movement speed for 4 sec after dealing damage with a melee or ranged basic attack. This effect cannot be triggered by the same type of attack more than once every 6 sec.”
Improved Volley (Back): “Reduces the cooldown of Arcane Shot by 2 sec. Reduces the mana cost of your Volley by 50%, reduces its cooldown by 100%, and is no longer channeled, but has a cast time of 1.5 sec. Volley also deals 3% of your ranged Attack Power as additional damage each time it deals damage.”
Click me to show more about Back Runes!
  • Carve now benefits from talents and effects that modify Raptor Strike. This includes Savage Strikes (Survival Talent), Dual Wield Spec, and Flanking Strike’s damage bonus.
  • Hit and Run is designed to enable the weaving playstyle, but could be picked up by pure melee or ranged setups with reduced effect. I’m not overly concerned with Hunters being too fast in PvP, but if this ends up being a problem feel free to adjust it.
  • Improved Volley now has a brief cast time instead of a channel. Volley can be a filler spell if needed, and offers some mild AoE for full ranged Hunters. The Arcane Shot cooldown reduction addition is for our lurking Bowmage friends. I see little harm in a buff like this since Arcane Shot is such a weak spell. I also suspect that a simple flat reduction in cooldown is relatively easy to program.

Chest Runes

Go for the Throat (Chest): “Critical strikes with abilities grant your pet 10 Focus.”
T.N.T. (Chest): Moved to Chest; Same as current version.
Master Marksman (Chest): “Increases your critical strike chance by 5%. Your critical Shots cause the target to bleed for 30% of the damage dealt over 8 sec.”
Click me to show more about Chest Runes!
  • Go for the Throat replaces Cobra Strikes, a now depreciated rune. Go for the Throat triggers off critical strikes from any ability, so it should be useful for melee and ranged players alike.
  • T.N.T. has no changes, other than having been moved to the Chest slot.
  • Master Marksman lost its Shot mana cost reduction and gained a bleed effect on critical Shot hits. This is borrowed from a WotLK/Cata rune called “Piercing Shots”. With Aspect of the Viper existing, a mana cost reduction on a rune doesn’t have as much value as it once did. The hope with this change is that Hunters will synergize a little better with group effects like Mangle from Feral Druids.

Bracer Runes

Beast Mastery (Wrist): Moved to Wrist; Same effect as current version.
Lone Wolf (Wrist): Moved to Wrist; Same effect as current version.
Click me to show more text!

The Wrist slot is now a very simple choice: Do you want to play with a pet or not? For pet-centered runes in other slots, there should be a decent alternative available for people that want to opt into the Lone Wolf rune.

Glove Runes

Cobra Slayer (Hands): “Mongoose Bite now activates when an enemy dodges your attack, and you gain 25% attack speed for 5 seconds after using Mongoose Bite.”
Explosive Shot (Hands): Same effect as current version.
Chimera Shot (Hands): Same effect as current version.
Click me to show more about Glove Runes!
  • Cobra Slayer now causes Mongoose Bite to grant melee attack speed haste. All other melee classes have some method of increasing their melee speed, but Hunters do not. I saw this as an opportunity to make Mongoose Bite a little more appealing, especially when combined with the changes to Melee Specialist.
  • Explosive Shot and Chimera Shot remain unchanged.

Belt Runes

Kill Shot (Waist): Moved to Waist; Same effect as current version.
Expose Weakness (Waist): Same effect as current version.
Focus Fire (Waist): Moved to Waist; Same effect as current version.
Click me to show more about Belt Runes!
  • Kill Shot and Focus Fire have been moved to the Belt slot, but other than this move all three runes here remain functionally unchanged.

Boot Runes

Dual Wield Specialist (Feet): “Increases the damage done by your offhand weapon by 50% and causes Raptor Strike and Mongoose Bite to strike with both weapons while you are dual wielding.”
Savage Assault (Feet): “Increases base damage and time between attacks of your melee and ranged weapons by 20%. You gain melee Attack Power equal to half your Agility.”
Resourcefulness (Feet): “Reduces the mana cost of your Traps by 100% and their cooldowns by 40%. The range of Trap Launcher is doubled to 36 yards.”
Click me to show more about Boot Runes!
  • Finally, boot runes. Dual Wield Specialist now includes Mongoose Bite in its list of abilities that strike with both weapons. It’s worth noting that Carve also now benefits from this rune since it inherits all effects that modify Raptor Strike.
  • Savage Assault is my “big ask” of the post, and it requires a bit of math to understand how it works. The TL;DR is that your ranged and melee weapons have more time between “swings”, but you don’t actually do any more DPS with just the first half of the Rune. The second half gives you more melee attack power (and thus bigger melee damage) for your Agility, bringing you closer to the value that other melee classes get for their primary offensive stat.
    The idea with this rune is that your weapon speed is increased (for example, from 3.0 to 3.6), allowing you to weave melee and ranged attacks better. Increasing the base damage of the weapon (the printed damage range on a weapon, before Attack Power scaling) by the same percentage actually only keeps the DPS of your weapons the same, you just hit for bigger chunks at a time. The second half of the rune (where the Hunter gains melee Attack Power equal to half their Agility) grants Hunters a total of 1.5 melee Attack Power per point of Agility when combined with their base stat scaling. All melee classes get 2 melee Attack Power per point of their primary attribute, and while this would still leave Hunters behind them in terms of raw statistical conversion, they do still get 2 ranged Attack Power per point of Agility. There isn't an effect like this in any version of the game that I’m aware of, so I don’t think there’s an existing effect somewhere that could be pulled and modified to easily create this, but I think it would be an excellent rune for the weaving playstyle.
  • Resourcefulness doubles the lower base range of Trap Launcher from 18 yards to 36 yards. This rune is intended for ranged Lock and Load players who could benefit from the extra range and don’t mind losing out on Dual Wield Spec and Savage Assault.

Concluding Thoughts

This is already a long post, so I’ll keep this last part brief. I think many of the rune changes on the PTR for Hunter are on the right track, just not quite right. I feel pretty good about where everything landed and how the different rune and playstyles would settle out, but clearly I don’t have any information on if there are more runes coming, or other changes that might be down the road that I just don’t know about.

Again, here is the Rune Chart:

Helm Catlike Reflexes Truestrike Aura Lock and Load
Back Carve Hit and Run Improved Volley
Chest Go for the Throat T.N.T. Master Marksman
Wrist Beast Mastery Lone Wolf
Hands Cobra Slayer Explosive Shot Chimera Shot
Waist Kill Shot Expose Weakness Focus Fire
Legs Flanking Strike Wyvern Strike Sniper Training
Feet Dual Wield Spec Savage Assault Resourcefulness
Baseline: Heart of the Lion Aspect of the Viper Trap Launcher Melee Specialist
Depreciated: Rapid Killing Serpent Spread Cobra Strikes Raptor Fury

Just before I leave, I wanted to highlight some pretty standard rune setups:

Example Rune Setups!
  • Dual Wield BM: Dual Wield Spec, Flanking Trike, Kill Shot, Cobra Slayer, Beast Mastery, Go for the Throat, Carve, Catlike Reflexes/Truestrike Aura
  • Survival Weaving: Savage Assault, Wyvern Strike, Expose Weakness, Chimera Shot, Lone Wolf, T.N.T., Hit and Run, Truestrike Aura
  • Ranged Marksmanship: Resourcefulness, Sniper Training, Focus Fire, Chimera Shot, Beast Mastery, Master Marksman, Improved Volley, Lock and Load.

Of course, there are many other permutations, but I think these would generally be the go-tos. Hopefully this was useful for any Devs peeking at this, and thought-provoking for any players. Thanks for your time.

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Need more stable slots too

K thnx

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I can get behind most of these ideas, but I think one of the runes should make Mongoose Bite a normal attack as opposed to a crappy version of Overpower; especially since they are trying to force us to use it in our rotation now.

Melee weaving doesn’t work in practice, its a good idea but you’re basically killing the spec in its current iteration on the PTR; I sincerely hope they make some drastic changes like some already suggested here and in other threads because melee is currently DOA and no guild that wants to do above average will want anything to do with them.

Carve should be made part of the toolkit as well like stated in this thread, but I think it should do more damage on the targeted enemy and 65% on others because it’s still kind of a joke IMO.

Melee weaving doesn’t work because we currently have no gap closing or push back abilities and the speed increase cloak rune is a joke in its current form, you’re just killing our damage throughput and uptime with this setup.

We’re already a laughing stock to “serious” players, now they are turning us into a literal meme =/ I am so disappointed.

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I can get behind most of these ideas, but I think one of the runes should make Mongoose Bite a normal attack as opposed to a crappy version of Overpower; especially since they are trying to force us to use it in our rotation now.

I agree. I toyed with the idea of making Mongoose bite a generically available ability with a 5 sec cooldown, but ultimately landed on the Overpower-esq mechanic because it already exists and should be pretty easy to adapt. I think that the activation condition for Mongoose Bite proposed will be up often enough that you’ll basically use it on cooldown. With the attack speed bonus that Cobra Slaying gives when you activate Mongoose Bite, I see it being a button we really enjoy pressing.

Melee weaving doesn’t work in practice, its a good idea but you’re basically killing the spec in its current iteration on the PTR; I sincerely hope they make some drastic changes like some already suggested here and in other threads because melee is currently DOA and no guild that wants to do above average will want anything to do with them.

Agreed, the current version of runes doesn’t lend itself to weaving well at all. This was the driving force for putting these suggestions together.

Carve should be made part of the toolkit as well like stated in this thread, but I think it should do more damage on the targeted enemy and 65% on others because it’s still kind of a joke IMO.

I suggested that Carve benefit from anything that boosts Raptor Strike. This includes:

  • 20% crit chance from Savage Strikes (Survival Talent)
  • +10-50% damage from Flanking Strike (and each enemy it crits would reduce Flanking Strike’s cooldown by 1 sec, so you could go wild on trash packs)
  • Dual Wield Spec causes Carve to hit all targets with both weapons, a ~75% damage increase.

Will those be enough to make Carve a decent damage tool? Honestly, I don’t know. I thought this would be a good set of buffs to start with though, because I know many people really like the idea of Carve.

Melee weaving doesn’t work because we currently have no gap closing or push back abilities and the speed increase cloak rune is a joke in its current form, you’re just killing our damage throughput and uptime with this setup.

I also agree here. I tied the movement speed to both melee and ranged basic attacks in my version so that it can serve as both a gap-closer and disengage tool. I know many people would prefer Disengage and some sort of charge ability. Like I mentioned above, I’m trying to work with what they have, which is why I adjusted the current thing instead of suggesting entirely new ones.

To be clear, do you mean that the version I proposed kills “our damage throughput and uptime with this setup”, or are you still referring to the version Blizzard has released so far? I think you’re referring to the Blizzard version, but I wanted to be sure.

We’re already a laughing stock to “serious” players, now they are turning us into a literal meme =/ I am so disappointed.

This seems to be the sentiment with most classes on the PTR so far. I’m sure the devs are open to feedback, I just hope they have the time they need to make good changes.

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I think Truestrike Aura isn’t really needed with Truehsot Aura being a MM staple.

I do think they could bake the Ferocious Inspiration buff from TBC into Beast Mastery rune (3% party damage buff after a pet crit) and Serpent Striker effect into Wyvern Strike (target takes x% additional Nature damage from all sources) potentially based on a % of the hunter’s agility (since they made Expose Weakness a rune and took away the party/raid buff Survival got in TBC).

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I think Truestrike Aura isn’t really needed with Truehsot Aura being a MM staple.

I’d agree if Trueshot Aura became a raid-wide effect. I operated under the assumption that there’s a decent reason they haven’t made that the case yet when I slotted that rune there.

As it stands, the ideal for a melee group is to have a TSA hunter, but that implies that they’re full MM like you indicate, and that means they don’t benefit from Windfury/Wild Strikes, Battle Shout, and so on.

If things change with how Trueshot Aura currently functions, I’m more than on board with something different in the helm slot, but I think it should be focused on melee hunters that choose to play without a pet, since Catlike Reflexes already caters to that crowd.

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I can understand that logic…though for phase 3 TSA was one of the reasons to get into a raid as MM hunter (looks like they can get in on the merit of dps alone in p4 if nothing changes).

Perhaps Truestrike Aura would simply grant ‘melee attack power’ only and I could get behind the idea.

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(looks like they can get in on the merit of dps alone in p4 if nothing changes)

Absolutely at this rate.

Perhaps Truestrike Aura would simply grant ‘melee attack power’ only and I could get behind the idea.

I wouldn’t be thrilled with this since weaving hunters would be a little SOL in this case, but I would probably accept just the melee Attack Power if that’s what ends up happening. Maybe Truestrike doesn’t give the doubled ranged attack power, and that’s reserved for MM hunters?

I do think they could bake the Ferocious Inspiration buff from TBC into Beast Mastery rune (3% party damage buff after a pet crit)

I totally neglected to respond to this, I’m sorry!

Beast Mastery has been gutted so much since P1 that I’d be happy for a buff to happen to it. I would worry a little that the Beast Mastery rune would become obligatory if the 3% damage buff was added, becoming like Heart of the Lion was before it became baseline. I’m pretty firmly in the camp of “Let people have a real choice between pets or no pets” if Lone Wolf is going to meaningfully exist.

[The] Serpent Striker effect into Wyvern Strike (target takes x% additional Nature damage from all sources) potentially based on a % of the hunter’s agility (since they made Expose Weakness a rune and took away the party/raid buff Survival got in TBC).

The % Nature damage buff on Wyvern Strike is a good idea. They’d be something that Balance Druids and Rogues would definitely want in their groups if that were the case. I feel like Wyvern Strike definitely lacks something in its current PTR form. I like the idea of that middle column of runes being heavily based on the Hunter’s agility. The survival tree has a 15% bonus to Agility, which combines with Heart of the Lion to crank up your Agi stat. I’d love it if runes played into that a little (Like Expose Weakness does)

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I somehow feel that the Wyvern Strike hunter would end up in the melee windfury group and would take the Truestrike helm rune (so give both the melee attack power buff and the nature damage buff) and push BM hunters out of raiding entirely (short of the Ferocious Inspiration buff since Wyvern Strike would not be able to make use of Beast Mastery so long as it competes with Chimera Shot).

Though in your rune rearrangements they would actually be able to provide all 3 buffs effectively killing BM (any remaining hunter slots would go to MM hunters).

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I somehow feel that the Wyvern Strike hunter would end up in the melee windfury group and would take the Truestrike helm rune (so give both the melee attack power buff and the nature damage buff) and push BM hunters out of raiding entirely (short of the Ferocious Inspiration buff since Wyvern Strike would not be able to make use of Beast Mastery so long as it competes with Chimera Shot).

That’s a good point.

In my changes (I know they’re dense) I reduce the cooldown of Flanking Strike to 12 sec at base and have critical strikes of you and your pet reduce the remaining cooldown by 1 sec. In theory, you just need 3 critical strikes in 10 sec between you and your pet to keep Flanking Strike rolling.
Catlike Reflexes cuts Flanking Strike’s CD in half to 6 seconds. Clearly this is a personal DPS increase, but my hope is that BM players would be able to flex between Catlike Reflexes and Truestrike and not feel horrible about it. BM hunters get to double dip in the attack power because they offer their pet the extra melee Attack Power too, they just take longer to ramp up to 5 stacks of Flanking Strike than before.

Though in your rune rearrangements they would actually be able to provide all 3 buffs effectively killing BM (any remaining hunter slots would go to MM hunters).

I actually hesitated to put a new group buff onto an ability for the exact reason you’re highlighting. As soon as you add one (Trueshot being a great example) you’re expected to bring it. I do think that in your specific scenario though you could bring MM or BM hunters just fine after you get your Wyvern Strike debuff Hunter. Ideally, all three specs would be about even in damage.

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Replying to boost this. A lot of this is really good. Hopefully the devs see it and consider at least some of it.

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I like this a lot. Good simple decision. Having some basic structure like this with runes is important.

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To be fair: carve already hits with both weapons if you’re dual wielding… it either needs to be buffed to 75% to be on par with other abilities, buff single target damage to 90% and leave the 65% to all mobs in front of you, or just get rid of it lol. I’ve seen a lot of people suggesting giving it an interaction with wyvern strike, like spreading the dot, but even wyvern strike is a subpar skill and needs to be given a unique buff/debuff or more damage.

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To be fair: carve already hits with both weapons if you’re dual wielding… it either needs to be buffed to 75% to be on par with other abilities, buff single target damage to 90% and leave the 65% to all mobs in front of you, or just get rid of it lol. I’ve seen a lot of people suggesting giving it an interaction with wyvern strike, like spreading the dot, but even wyvern strike is a subpar skill and needs to be given a unique buff/debuff or more damage.

True! I noticed this about a month ago. I find it weird that it doesn’t get mentioned anywhere in the tooltip, but I’m glad it works that way.

I’d be pretty on-board with buffs to Carve in basically any way. It’s a cool ability (and I have plans to grab some fun on-hit weapons in P4 to use it with) but definitely not a heavy hitter. I’m hoping that getting a damage boost from Flanking Strike (+50%) and the crit buff from Savage Strikes (Survival Talent) would help with that.

My idea with Carve is to have it be part of a 4-ability rotation in melee: Raptor Strike (6 sec cd) Mongoose Bite (5 sec cd) Flanking Strike or Wyvern Strike (6-12 sec cd, maybe lower for FS depending on crits) and Carve (6 sec cd). Admittedly, Carve is definitely the most “filler” of those four options.

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Should try and condense this down to it’s most important elements. Not sure if the devs are going to be able to put the time in for a full rework and restructure like this. We need to wait and see what happens on the PTR when they finally get to hunter and it’s actually playable, but when that happens we should look at what the devs have done and the direction they’re going in and help with that.

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I definitely agree. Once they seem to have a direction I’ll probably post something a little more focused.

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I take issue with a few things:

Something that bothers me about this is: why on earth do we accept the fact that we need to swap a rune in order to some AOE dmg? That’s ridiculous. Carve is such a she/it ability, we might as well just make it baseline for every hunter. Same goes for Explosive Shot. Just make those baseline. It’s not like a MM is going to sneak an explosive shot into his rotation when chimera shot is available… It’s just silly.

Also, if you make the CD of Wyvern Strike 6 seconds, then the whole ranged weaving with chimera just feels… dumb… I would then change the interaction that chimera shot has with Wyvern Sting. Maybe make it so that a target that has wyvern poison on it will make it so that chimera shot has a 100% crit chance? or maybe it increases you and your party’s melee crit by 5% for 10 seconds after hitting a wyvern poisoned target with chimera shot? This would at least get you invited to raid…

I don’t think you’ve tested the details of some of your suggestions. Flanking strike 6 sec CD with a 1 second reduction in CD for every crit of you AND your pet? Bro, I had 35% crit chance in raid today WITHOUT Savage Strikes. That Flanking Strike will constantly be up. It’ll be dumb. I’d keep the CD at least like 20 seconds if you want to include that mechanics.

Forcing MM Hunters to choose between TSA and LnL completely F***s their rotation… DELETE.

I’d rather they just go all the way and introduce harpoon and disengage already. Now that warriors have Deathgrip, we’re playing retail. That’s the end of the debate: Hunters need disengage.

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I did test the details; Flanking Strike being up that often if you opt into Catlike Reflexes was the point. Playing a Flanking Strike build assumes that you’re going full Beast Mastery, so you’ll have to choose between Truestrike Aura and Catlike. Are the numbers out of line? Maybe, but part of the reason I’m posting the ideas is to get feedback.

Why would MM Hunters NEED to take the Truestrike Aura Rune when they already have Trueshot Aura talent? They’re perfectly capable of taking their capstone talent and rolling Lock and Load just like they do now. Truestrike Aura is clearly (or I thought it was clearly?) there for melee hunters to be able to bring the buff to a melee group without bricking their talent setup.

Due to the way this version of Wyvern Strike’s sting damage is dealt, you deal a burst every time you hit Chimera Shot or Wyvern Sting.

So you’re incentivized to weave in and out as much as possible to re-trigger the effect as frequently as possible.

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Oh, you want TSA as a talent AND as a rune??

Yeah, sorry, that feels really lame and clumsy. I don’t think people would like that. And neither do I.

Check out Bousted’s post from about a week ago. It’s a much less cumbersome redesign.

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And that’s fair. I had seen the idea kicked around and thought it had some merit. I apologize for being a little accusatory in my last post, that was unkind of me. We’re all pulling for a more playable hunter class here, because what we have now aint it. I’m glad there are so many other people that are passionate about the class.

I think the easiest solution is probably just letting TSA be raid-wide, but then you run into the question of “Why isn’t every group buff raid-wide too?”

I did see you mention in another post that you suspect they have changes in the pipe for Hunter (if I understood it correctly). I agree, I think they’re cooking something up.

1 Like