Others have a couple posts in different areas of the forums, but seeing what bites here.
Hunter community has not seen any blue post (even regarding that they aren’t doing any design changes) for hunter with a TON of suggestions and feedback on the Development Forums and Hunter Class forums.
There is a plethora of items that are concerning that if an explanation, conversation, or any indication that you see our apprehension of the changes being made would be awesome. I think most of us would even feel fine with you guys just saying “we want to do no changes with the hunter class.” Many like myself see thoughtful feedback and concerns and feel as if they are being ignored as if the feedback doesn’t even matter. Being the 3rd highest Feedback section in Dev forums with many having repetitious concerns over the same stuff with no blue post just kind of sucks.
I’d like to detail all of them, but truthfully I’d point anyone to #1 the dev forums on hunter feedback. Some folks have put together beautiful feedback that really dives at the issues. Some include:
Hunter’s Mark being almost a waste while being on the GCD, it just doesn’t feel good. No one wants to be normalized on the damage of keeping it up because in places like M+ our damage will be 5% less without it on. We do understand if you take it off the GCD then it becomes macro’d to everything so that wont work either. Maybe give it a better utility function or just keep it for PvP use.
Pet Resurrection 6 seconds. For PvE this will suck. For PvP though, it will cripple hunters. A huge collaboration of arguments for and against can be seen here: Revive Pet cannot be 6 sec cast in PvP
Weapon issues with survival. We get shots back like arcane shot but unable to be utilized without a ranged weapon. What’s the point in going to a class centric system if some of the things we get back are unable to be used? Also why does tranq shot require a polearm? We are now locking down Survival to one type of weapon rather than the 2 handed selections we’ve been able to use.
Dual Wield. As this isn’t my big topic since I prefer 2 handers myself, I don’t have much passion for this, but it’s a big topic issue for many hunters. Why is this not available? Many want to have that “rexxar fantasy.”
Talents. Hunters have been designed to have “No Choice Talents” like Mongoose bite in survival. Meaning theres no choice but to have to pick that. We’d like to see these gone and actually have a choice depending on playstyle. Mongoose bite has been for two expansions now the must have talent. Time to make it baseline.
Lack of identity. We are a ranged class but we aren’t a ranged class. We don’t know what the vision is for hunter after the melee change in Legion. Many are still very upset with that, and would like to see where the hunter class falls in regards to it’s place in the game.
Pet choice. Right now pets are locked into three categories ferocity, tenacity, and cunning. Why they decided to lock them when before you could choose is a question many want answered. It doesn’t make sense to be forced into a pet you don’t prefer.
These are just a few and i’m briefly going over them. Not enough to give each topic justice. Although there is so much more feedback and well thought out ideas just gone unanswered. The class itself has an identity issue even was brought up to Ion which many thought he deflected the answer.
I am playing my monk in a lot more content now and I understand how painful it is to have a major damage skill be a part of your rotation but not pop off.
I don’t want hunters to feel crippled because of it.
Tuning issue. Is it fun to maintain or is it just undertuned? Does the spec require too much headspace that adding Hunter’s Mark is a bit overbearing?
As a non-hunter, I kinda miss when killing a hunter pet was worth my time. 6sec may be too long, but there should be some punishment for letting your pet die.
Requires are there for weapon disarms, me thinks. It would make sense to do away with them otherwise.
Damage would be normalized to Attack Power at that point. Would be okay, but this is mostly a cosmetic issue, not so much a tuning issue. Fair points all around.
Is it an issue of tuning? Balance Druid had an issue where we always picked Incarnation, literally like 3 expansions in a row, so I get the issue you’re having. I’m not a hunter main, so I won’t comment to gameplay – sounds like it got stale from overuse.
IIRC, it’s based on a very niche build. I do think making it melee was the better choice overall, as it let BM and MM shine more brightly and gave SV a new spotlight. I personally feel SV should be more Arms-like, with some spicy traps thrown in.
Simplified system plus “logic.” A tiger is ferocious where a turtle is not.
Thank you for the insight. Your summaries made it much easier to understand. A Dev Watercooler seems best for this type of stuff. I hope as Beta progresses, you get some comms!
Hunter’s Mark - Since i’m not tester, the complaint is it is just NOT FUN. It feels like a chore to keep it up rather than anything else and most are concerned our damage will be normalized off of it being up.
Pet Rez - It is definitely a strategy now to kill pets and trust me it is disastrous now. Many times I gotta use my turtle to get it back up, and that’s really our only defensive CD on a 3 minute timer. Since i’m pretty much crippled when I don’t have it since I cannot gain focus as survival and well its the main thing that does damage as BM… Again I reference you to the above link to some very detailed discussion even Dillion (MVP like yourself) has chimed in against.
He details the impossibility of keeping pets alive and something needs to be done about this.
Disarms occur if i have a bow or a polearm or an axe… it covers all of our weapons
I agree with dual wield being mostly cosmetic, some would like it for the additional enchant. I know corruption is going away but the extra slot to corrupt was very nice for some classes.
Talents are an issue of not just tuning but truthfully gameplay Mongoose Bite as the example just is truthfully the better choice and talent. The way you play and stack damage outshines the other two choices tenfold.
As far as identity goes, it’s just really what do you want hunter to be? Hunter forums again are just riddled with the fight over MSV (melee survival, aka current survival) and RSV (Ranged Survival). It’s a hot topic.
I understand the logic of pets being one or the other, but it was open choice before, why take that away for a fantasy that currently is all over the place regardless? Why not let someone have a ferocity turtle? Again, more cosmetic, but I really liked my scorpion being a pet I could use masters call with myself.
It’s sorta the same for some DOT abilities. “It deals damage” is rather boring, and Hunter’s Mark is “it makes me do more damage” – not much interactive gameplay beyond that. I get it.
I trust Dilly, especially when it comes to Hunter PVP (because why not trust a Multi-R1 Glad?)
I think pets should get some resilient buffs, if anything. Your friendly healer should help a bit more on that front. Most already do, but it plays into the punishment for mistakes.
I meant if it had no weapon requirement, Disarm wouldn’t do anything to stop it. That’s really my only point to that.
At least it’s rewarding a more difficult talent with optimal DPS? Silver lining? I still get why you dislike it so many expansions later, though.
Yeah, I’m curious to see how that pans out in future expansions. MSV is staying, but I think there is opportunity for a refresh.
Yeah, that’s the “logic” side of things. Honestly, I don’t mind either way. I sincerely hope your buttons are fun to press and keep you engaged without being too stressed out.
I want to piggyback on this and say, you’re 100% correct. The only true ranged spec, in my eyes, is MM. SV is obviously melee, and with the changes in Shadowlands, apparently more of a hybrid. But it seems odd and honestly awful.
BM is a melee class, and I’ll argue to that to my grave. Yes, we have ranged attacks. Yes we can auto at range. Yes, we use a ranged weapon. But about 60+% of our DPS output comes from our pet(s). Which is a melee attacker and suffers from all the things melee attackers have to deal with, but with little utility those melee attackers bring. Target changing at inopportune times could mean huge DPS losses while the pet is pathing to a new target. If Dash or Charge is on CD (and it usually is in add heavy fights), then our pet will slowly make its way to the new target, probably getting stuck on some terrain piece along the way.
I mean Blizzard purposely designs fights in Raids to have weird pathing stuff that the pet AI can’t handle. It goes back to one of my original points that no one plays a BM Hunter on the dev team. Or else they would realize that pets get stuck ALL THE TIME on seemingly nothing. Causing me to loss DPS in having to dismiss my pet and resummon it. I’m sure SV Hunters have this same problem.
To you other points: a lot of them are in referrence to SV. I have honestly not played much of it, but BM does suffer from some talent rows that are “No Choice Talents.” I honestly hate having a talent row where the other two abilities, while sounding cool and interesting, get 0 use because if you aren’t using the other one, you’re aren’t performing well.
Overall, there is a huge lack of identity in some aspects of what it is to be a Hunter. And honestly, it’s rather depressing.
Yeah, I have a lot of SV bias due to me playing it bout 80% of the time PvPing, I was also trying to respond quickly on my breaks at work. So my posts do have more chats bout SV but as you even mentioned the other specs suffer in the same way.
I cannot believe I didnt even mention pet pathing… That is absolutely huge. If we cannot find a way to utilize our pets effectively the 6 second rez just seems like an additional slap to the face.
Pet pathing in Raids and even PvP is horrendous. By far the biggest issue in my eyes.
It seemed like pathing got better, I took a break, then it seemingly got worse. Sometimes my pet will not respond to commands, at all and will continue to path to a dead mob and then proceed to sit there without moving. Not sure what happened here but I don’t remember that being such an issue before.
6 seconds for a rez is absolutely insane, not to mention we can be kicked and locked out for additional time. In 3s with a 6 second rez it’s completely possible to prevent a Hunter from ever re-summoning its pet. That should not exist.
I’ve outlined several times in the Beta Feedback post how MM is essentially locked into specific talent choices, and several talents (Steady Focus, Streamline) are trap picks that do essentially nothing for us or actually hinder our gameplay. MM also has issues with their core cooldown Trueshot causing us to need to ignore a base mechanic we have (Precise Shots) in order to make the most out of the cooldown.
Ideally I’d like our active talented abilities to get some more interaction with our base kit and passives. A good example would be if Chimaera Shot activated Trick Shots or if Serpent Sting spread while Trick Shots was up.
I think it is more to do with the fact it hard to appreciate (since it does “nothing” visible compared to a DoT) and it has HORRIBLE synergy with Marksmanship who currently has the spell on live.
Most of the time it is better off to straight up not worth Hunter’s Marking an add or whatever as Marks because that lost global could mean the add drops below 80% where your Aimed Shot no longer does huge damage. Marks only gets to have fun above 80% and below 20% so throwing away globals during that time is counter productive.
Adds get blasted incredibly fast which is the same issue I have had with Flashpoint the whole expansion being based on Immolate Periodic Damage instead of Immolate Damage period. By the time you do your set up your window is already gone.
Hunter pet res at 6 seconds will almost guarantee that hunter isn’t going to be able to rez his pet, and the match will effectively be over once that pet dies.
Currently in arena, it is extremely common versus melee cleaves for our pets to die simply due to the passive aoe damage that specs like arms wars/frost dks/dhs put out. The melee will be attacking one of our partners, but since our pet is attacking one of those melee, our pet will take unhealable aoe damage.
Our mend pet ability isn’t nearly enough to keep our pet up, and damage is so high that our healer can’t afford to toss heals into our pets; they’re forced to heal our partner that the melee are attacking. Using Roar of Sacrifice on those melees’ offensive cooldowns usually guarantees that our pet dies from all the re-directed damage that it takes.
Now, even with our current 2-second pet res, it oftentimes requires us to use Aspect of the Turtle just to get a guaranteed rez off (and that’s a 3 minute cooldown, and we really need to use that to survive). Once any competent team notices that the hunter’s pet dies, they will toss EVERY interrupt and cc into the hunter to stop that rez. The hunter at this point either gets effectively stunned for usually roughly 15-20 seconds (going through all the kicks/stuns/fears/etc) trying to rez his pet, or he has to blow that 3 minute Turtle cd to get his pet up. And then the pet dies again, and the hunter’s screwed.
If they’re going to make the pet rez 6 seconds, then they have to drastically increase its survivability, or decrease the amount of passive cleave damage that specs do. We know they’re not going to reduce the mindless cleave damage that’s existed since the Legion butchering of classes.
for you!