First bit of good news since Pack leader was announced!
Maximum rated it the worst hero tree ever!!! Finally!
He has a 5-hour review video on his channel (cannot post links) - go to 4h 10min to see his reaction, and it’s worth every second
For context - this is the guy who had Oracle priest scrapped in a matter of 24 hours 
so there is still hope
oh man if he thinks this is the worst then he must not have seen slayer or dark ranger yet
Tried looking at his channel. Not seeing anything.
He actually has it listed just above Lightsmith, Trickster, and Oracle.
Aside from that, Max has a weird way of ranking Hero talents.
He really should rank the two things separately, because Dark Ranger is definitely worse than Pack Leader IMO.
Agreed. Right now it’s at best equal in terms of theme with Pack Leader and worse mechanically (being quite likely to add significant issues, rather than somewhat likely to offer modest issues — that is, as long as you don’t mind MB being way more spammy if the bonus KCs give Focus).
Pack Leader still seems to me like a decent tier set with some extra perks. I’d rather it be more Heroic, more involved, more obviously thematic, but… at least it’s no (current) Dark Ranger.
Dark Ranger looks like an actually gameplay-degrading one in terms of its rotational impact. Even if it were strong, it’d still be bleh, under the present mechanics.
i would not give him total credit for oracle being scrapped as the outcry on the forums and from the priest community at large was swift, loud, and overwhelmingly negative.
i cant even recall any positive feedback oracle had, even the name was controversial
He also actively ignored any Survival element of the tree because he does not know anything about it, his own words.
This is not someone who, in this situation, you want to pin the absolutely validity of this Hero Tree on.
From a Survival hunter perspective the first draft of Pack Leader is very promising. It ties in very well with Kill Command resets, which is key to how the spec functions. Wanting the core element of Pack Leader to be a nature-themed Demonology Warlock was not going to ever be a viable avenue for a BM/Surv shared tree.
Yea that tier list was bad mostly because its weighted on theme and talents. He said dark ranger was so bad it brought it down to mid but yea weird tier list
is ok sentinel will for sure be cool and with impactfully theme abilities right right
One doesn’t have to understand the spec to be able to tell how bland, dull and uninspired some design is.
He said (paraphrasing) - the general monk tree “tiger” statue some intern came up with is more inspired than the whole pack leader tree.
Numbers will be tuned in the end across the board for all classes, so I don’t care if something looks strong numerically right now, I care about the gameplay most of all.
I played Survival to 2.2k in S1 and S2 and I hardly ever pressed Kill command, was even considering swapping its keybind to something else.
What shocks me most of all is Survival players defending pack leader. How could you settle for so little? A talent tree designed around your filler ability….
I mean realistically 2.2 is not high and you don’t have to play well or correctly to reach this io which clearly you haven’t if you think that kc isn’t pressed very often.
Cuz they are able to see the interactions that will happen and how its actually good
I’ve mostly used KC to “teleport” the pet out of danger, or to chase somebody, or to harrass people from stealth, or to attack with something when I have zero defensives and I cannot push into melee and I’m out of bomb charges and don’t need to reapply SS.
That’s it.
I’ve never used it rotationally to do “real” damage.
I can also see the interactions, f.e. the basic attack from the pet on mongoose bite during CA, and 1-2 more. That doesn’t change the fact that the whole tree is super dull, and built around what is a filler in PVE and essentially a utility button in PVP.
Except… you should generally understand how a spec works before you make comments on it.
The Kill Command node is a single talent. Are you going to ignore the rest of the interactions in the tree? The capstone talent making it so every time you Mongoose Bite during Coordinated Assault, you get an empowerment? This is incredible synergy and fits the theme of working with your pet.
I played Survival to 2.2k in S1 and S2 and I hardly ever pressed Kill command, was even considering swapping its keybind to something else.
This tells me you don’t understand how Survival works.
While running Spearhead builds, Kill Command starts doing noticeable damage. Each stack of Deadly Duo causes KC to hit 40% harder, up to 120% harder (and Frenzied Tear would, presumably, cause a second hit based off the Deadly Duo stacked Kill Command). KC also causes Mongoose Bite to hit 25% harder.
KC resets also have several layers of effects.
What shocks me most of all is Survival players defending pack leader. How could you settle for so little? A talent tree designed around your filler ability….
Random log from S1: Kill Command was my 2nd most used ability, vastly outnumbering 3rd place.
Random log from S2: Kill Command was, again, my 2nd most used ability.
Random log from S3: Kill Command is still 2nd place, though if you merge all bombs, it becomes 3rd.
Calling it a “filler” ability and ignoring all the other interactions in the kit is disingenuous.
Yes, I don’t argue it’s going to be weak. I know it will be strong and that’s the issue. They will not change it to something fun because it would probably end up a big DPS gain due to all the passive modifiers. They might as well have replaced the whole tree with one node saying “increases your total damage by 18%”.
You are very misinformed and probably dragging even your 2.2k groups down if you aren’t using KC.
This is some truly bad feedback from someone who doesn’t actually play the spec well or even fully know how it works.
I meant 2.2k arena rating, not mythic score
What would be fun for you? As Survival, half of the tree actively affects how you play.
Pack Coordination, combined with Pack Assault, gives you control over empowers during CA. Mongoose Bite immediately gives you an empower. Previously, you only got these every 3 seconds (realistically, every 4 seconds, because you would manually turn bite off and empower Kill Shot only)
Pack Coordination, if active during Spearhead, feeds into the loop of KC resets, from the following chain. Mongoose Bite->Pet Bite->Frenzied Tear->Furious Assault. These completely alter your Spearhead window.
Covering Fire reinforces your AoE loop of Bombs->Butchery->Bombs
Frenzied Assault does all of the previously mentioned interactions with KC and KC resets, changing how often you press your abilities or how long you stay in your cooldown windows.
Furious Assault lets you stay in your cooldown window longer.
If you think KC is not valuable in arena I think you and I are living proof the arena rating inflation works.
It’s very valuable as a utility button, as described in my previous post, not as a rotational ability
While my perspective is mostly from a high-end PvE perspective, I do have experience in PvP as well. In S1, I pushed over 2400 as Survival.
There are times you can’t just sit in melee range and need to kite. Cornered Prey gives you extra melee range while kiting. Kill Command is something to press while kiting.
The extra buffs and interactions with Coordinated Assault enhances your kill windows with how potent bomb dots and Kill Shots are in PvP. Buffed Mongoose bites also do this. Are the interactions as large in PvP as they are for PvE? Maybe not, but they also still exist.