I’ve seen some discussion here on the struggles to find a sufficient number of Feral Druids for the Wild Strikes buff in raids on the Alliance side. The proposed solution has been to extend the ability to bring a Windfury/Wild Strikes effect to another class, but much debate has been had over which class should get it. I wanted to toss in a specific suggestion that I haven’t seen.
To say it directly: I propose that Hunters be able to find a skill book that improves their “Aspect of the Wild” ability to grant a Windfury/Wild Strikes effect.
For reference, Aspect of the Wild currently reads as follows:
Aspect of the Wild (Rank 2): “The hunter and group members within 30 yards take on the aspect of the wild, increasing Nature resistance by 60. Only one Aspect can be active at a time.”
The new skill book would read something like:
Improved Aspect of the Wild Book: “Improves your Aspect of the Wild, causing the hunter and affected group members to gain [Windfury/Wild Strikes effect]. No effect if the party member is already benefiting from Windfury Totem or Wild Strikes.”
Aspect of the Wild bringing granting a Windfury/Wild Strikes effect would do a few things:
- Melee Hunters would get an aspect that directly improves their melee damage. They currently don’t have something that fulfills this role.
- Melee Hunters would help fill a critical role in melee groups by bringing this buff. Feral Druids tend to be rare relative to melee hunters in my experience, and this should make it easier to build well-rounded raid groups, especially on the Alliance side.
- The timing of switching to other aspects in combat will become a little more important for melee hunters. I see this as a potentially interesting interaction.
Hunters lack a meaningful aspect to use to enhance melee damage. If AotW provided Windfury/Wild Strikes, this would offer a clear option to fill that missing component of the Hunter’s kit.
I know there have been some talk about Paladins specifically being enabled to bring the Windfury effect, but I’m not fond of the idea because Paladins already need to juggle seals, blessings, and auras. Where would a windfury effect go that feels good to use? All three of these effects already have well-explored and useful options.
Hunters by contrast have a pretty clear deficiency that could be adequately addressed by Aspect of the Wild offering this effect, and you dodge concerns of favoritism to one faction or another by adding the effect to Paladins since Hunters are fairly poplar on both factions.
For the Horde, Hunters bringing a Windfury effect frees up Shamans to use other Air totems. For the Alliance, Melee Hunters become an asset in building powerful melee groups.
Because the effect is a book, you can safely assume that every melee hunter will bring the effect because it would be their only Aspect that improves melee damage. This is currently a pain-point for bear form druids who have to choose between their dedicated tanking rune and a team-wide DPS rune.