Hunters need a reason to be brought

Classes Hunter
61

I just don’t understand Hunters, I’m trying to say you guys need more then what they have, I even wrote.

Hunters are just lacking a personal identity/niche that they only can provide, so for example when PuGing and going up against the Meta, a person would say, “Ohh group wide Leech buff, we need that!, Grab that Hunter.”

I still strongly think Binding Shot should actually “Bind” and pull all targets to the centre, and stun for 2 seconds, that would be huge in M+. No class has a instant cast ranged AoE stun and Bind.

Aspect of the Turtle should 100% act as an immunity, and cleanse you from all DoT effects aswell rather then 30% DR.

62

nah its fine. all 3 hunter specs are parsing near the bottom while we bring zero utility to raid and dungeons. everythings ok bro. just as blizzard intended it stop worrying. did you get the battlepass on diablo 4?!

63

ive felt this way for a long time as i dont care much for mythic plus and the game literally revolves around it anymore. everyone shoots up 30 ilvls the 2nd week of new content drops cause theyre smashing their face against it and then makes the rest of the content subpar until next drop

64

Hunters should just bring a passive Crit buff for their group, call it Efficient Tracking or something.

5 Likes
65

They could just put a crit buff in hunters mark for the target it is applied to for all party members. Give us a niche for priority damage.

3 Likes
66

My opinion. Feel free to agree or disagree. Hunter’s toolkit is mostly okay, but there are a couple of things I think should be considered.

Survivability - Despite having the worst survivability in the game, it’s not as bad as people claim. Just requires a bit more management than most classes.

  • Survival of the Fittest: 3 min cooldown for a minor 20% damage reduction for 6 seconds is underwhelming. It should be a 90 sec cooldown, or include some passive damage reduction.
  • Natural Mending should reduce the cooldown on Exhilaration by a lot more.

Raid Utility - Hunters offer raid utility to a point, but we lack any “we need a hunter” abilities.

  • Make Sentinel Owl actually useful. This has to be the worst implemented talent in the game. The tiny area of effect is counterintuitive to it’s purpose, and 5% Leech to party members is laughable.
  • Hunter’s Mark should go back to granting some type of damage bonus - be it crit, +damage, or whatever.

Talent issues - All three Hunter specs need their talents reevaluated. Too many bugged or underpowered talents that make certain paths unviable.

67

What does Feign death do for the group? Feign Death is a selfish ability that only benefits the hunter. It doesn’t not help the group in any way, so what does it have to do with the original post considering that the post is about reasons to bring a hunter?

I’ve never been invited to a group as a hunter and the group leader told me “Hey bud, glad you’re here, we need you on FD duties ok?”… lol

2 Likes
68

NO.
hunter’s mark can be removed i wouldn’t care.
i don’t want to be mantaining that crap in anything.

2 Likes
69

Make it so pets are able to cover down on missing buffs/debuffs for a raid! Jerry the monk is on vacation next week? Have a hunter take out the monk pet for a 5% bonus Physical damage. Same thing with Illy the Demon Hunter. Bring a pet with the buff. It could be 4% or something but it is better than nothing.

70

I don’t necessarily think we need something unique, but bringing back the “choose the buff/debuff you need/are missing” that pet families used to bring would be fantastic. Pick the strongest one for your party in M+ or the one you just happen to be missing in a raid.

71

Here’s one use case… Doing M+, pull goes bad and group is going to wipe. Hunter feigns and uses engineering rez to get healer up. Healer mass rez and saves the group time from long run back.

Here’s another… Tank dies and no Brez is up, hunter has agro. Hunter turns on pet taunt and feigns so that they drop agro. Hunter continues to kill left over trash with rest of the group while tank either walks back or waits for rez.

Both these scenarios I thought of immediately after reading your post. In either of the above examples, they could both branch of in different ways where Feign Death could be used. If you couldn’t think of these then you’re too blind sighted on the possibilities of the class.

Whilst I agree, it’s not a need in a group- it is a potential reason to bring a Hunter.

If this doesn’t answer your first question then nothing I say will quench your thirst.

Cheeky edit, in some dungeons this ability could be used so that the Hunter could pull mobs, allowing the group to pass or start certain fights. Using Feign Death to survive and rejoin, thus saving time. Yes… other classes can also do this, but it is still another reason to bring a Hunter, in line with the OPs post.

1 Like
72

Do tell how we can possibly have all these when they all cost a point investment, should i switch specs between each spellcast?

73

B8PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIBaBAKBBAAAAAAAAAAgEpQKaCJCJJgGAAAAA

The out of my whole list, on the class tree, the only two you can’t have is ST stun and Explosive Trap, as they’re on the same node. Bonus reason, scare beasts works a treat on new affix when frost trap fails and that can be had too.

Satisfied? I’m guessing you won’t be.

74

It’s an outlier scenario and not a good enough reason for people to insta-invite hunters to groups, which is the point of this thread. Don’t get me wrong, FD is a great ability, especially when solo questing, or for PVP, or for one off situations in group content.

But it doesn’t buff the group.
It doesn’t mass rez the group by itself.
It doesn’t heal the group.
It doesn’t do anything for anyone other than the hunter.

And if a hunter FD’s when the group wipes, but he’s not an engineer? What does FD do for the group then? The boss aggros the hunter and 2 shots him and then group is done.

75

It is but one ability from the list that I gave, combine it with the others and there’s a substantial kit and a reason to bring a Hunter.

You asked for what it can do for the group and I think it was answered quite well.

To you last point… The same thing that would happen if anyone else were to survive and not have the engy rez or normal rez. The group sucks it up and runs back.

76

So if you took all the DPS specs in the game, and prioritized them on a list from 1st to 20th etc, on the importance of bringing this DPS spec to a raid or mythic…where would hunter specs fall?

So for instance, if taking a enhance shaman is ranked 2nd or 3rd place on importance of bringing them in a group…you think hunters are like 5th place out of the 20 odd DPS specs in the game? Or would you say it’s more like 11th place? Or…where would you place them in terms of importance?

77

already planning to fail isnt a great plan. and i would hate to be forced to go engineering cause of this

1 Like
78

Before 4.0.1 there was one pet to rule them all, Wolves that brought Furious Howl. If you didn’t bring this one pet then you were doing it wrong. It was the same back in Burning Crusade, but back then the same situation applied to the Cat rather than the Wolf.

Cataclysm came and Blizzard redesigned pets to apply raid buffs:

5% increased stats

Shale Spider (exotic only) - Embrace of the Shale Spider

Burst haste

Core Hound (exotic only) - Ancient Hysteria

Stamina

Silithid (exotic only) - Qiraji Fortitude

10% attack speed

Hyena - Cackling Howl

Serpent - Serpent’s Swiftness

5% spell haste

Sporebat - Spore Cloud

10% spell power

Water Strider - Still Water

5% critical strike

Hydra - Bellowing Roar

Wolf - Furious Howl

Devilsaur (exotic) - Terrifying Roar

Quilen (exotic) - Fearless Roar

Water Strider (exotic) - Still Water

Increased mastery

Cat - Roar of Courage

Spirit Beast (exotic) - Spirit Beast Blessing

Weakened armor

Raptor - Tear Armor

Tallstrider - Dust Cloud

Physical vulnerability

Boar - Gore

Ravager - Ravage

Rhino (exotic) - Stampede

Worm (exotic) - Acid Spit

Magic vulnerability

Dragonhawk - Fire Breath

Wind Serpent - Lightning Breath

Cast speed slow

Fox - Tailspin

Goat - Trample

Core Hound (exotic) - Lava Breath

Physical damage reduction

Bear - Demoralizing Roar

Carrion Bird - Demoralizing Screech

If you have mostly physical DPSers, for example, the physical vulnerability debuff is going to help you more, whereas if you have more magical DPS the magic vulnerability will help you more. Most of of all was Ancient Hysteria could for its haste buff.

This forced Hunters to bring only the pets with these buffs or required them to go tame one of these pets to have when needed. You would show up to a group and there would be someone looking at all the hunters to tell them what pet they were to switch to, or run back to a stable to get that pet.

The Blues didn’t not like that Hunters should be forced into taming particular pets, so they removed raid wide buffs from pets in Legion.

79

We also had pets that could rez.

The reason why switching out pets for a missing buff wasn’t the best for hunters was due to the pet’s damage not being equal. When I switched to say Spore bat my dps went down.

Now that pet’s damage is equalized it wouldn’t be a dps loss to switch pets for missing raid buffs. I wouldn’t mind bringing a mouse if the damage was the same and I could give a buff.

80

I very much remember this. Thank you for putting up such a comprehensive list. As a raid leader, I find myself struggling to consistently find the people to supply the buff. I feel like they should bring back the utility to it to help bridge the gap and provide a greater amount of flexibility.