Lackluster improvement nodes rolled into their original ability (i.e. Improved Kill Shot into Kill Shot).
More choice nodes.
More talent paths.
More talents.
Avoid unnecessary button bloat (such as multiple buff/cooldown abilities that each require a separate global cooldown to apply).
Baseline Ability Changes
Multi-Shot / Carve made baseline.
Serpent Sting made baseline.
Class Tree
Add Bursting Shot (from the Marksmanship tree) as a utility option.
Spec-specific nodes for core talents (i.e. a single talent node offering: Beastmastery = Animal Companion, Marksmanship = Lone Wolf, Survival = [NEW] Exotic Beasts)
Mending Bandage as a healing/utility option, reworked as necessary for balance. Could still have a PvP Survival Talent to improve upon it.
Survival’s “Mastery: Spirit Bond” healing mechanics repackaged as a sustain utility talent.
Utility talent associated with applying Hunter’s Mark without consuming a global cooldown. Perhaps also talents which augment/change/improve the group/raid utility offered by Hunter’s Mark, make it undispellable, etc.
Less “awkward” utility talents that are clearly inferior to what any other classes bring (i.e. Binding Shot as an awkward AoE stun, etc). Improve what’s already there, or replace with new options.
Beast Mastery Tree
Redesign Bestial Wrath and Call of the Wild’s effects into a single cooldown, even if the effects of Call of the Wild still have to be acquired via a separate talent.
Provide options to increase the complexity of Beast Mastery rotational gameplay. Having 2 or 3 more talents like Dire Beast can help with this considerably, particularly if their cooldowns are fairly low. Current options are usually “1 minute” or longer.
Increase active ability interactivity, such as “Barbed Shot damage immediately triggers X Nature damage if Serpent Sting is active on the target.”
Marksmanship
Provide an option for Aimed Shot to be used on the move.
Rework Volley into an ability that replaces Multi-Shot, but otherwise provides similar effects.
Provide an option to stealth while Lone Wolf is active, outside of combat.
Survival
Rework the various DPS cooldown options into a single cooldown, with talent options to customize its benefits (Coordinated Assault behavior vs. Spearhead behavior, etc). Then move the talent for this cooldown into the middle talent tier.
Minimize the number of anti-synergies in the rotational flow (Mongoose Bite vs. Kill Command Resets within a narrow DPS cooldown window, etc). Mongoose Bite vs. Kill Command Resets is probably the biggest offender.
Provide options to make ranged survival viable (such as a talent that replaces Raptor Strike but makes Arcane Shot significantly stronger and otherwise benefit from talents that affect Raptor Strike).
Rework Mastery. Remove the healing mechanic. Allow it to improve or trigger bombs in some way.
Hero: Dark Ranger
Have Black Arrow replace/improve Serpent Sting (also make Serpent Sting baseline). Allow for more synergy opportunities.
Shadow Hounds should also always trigger if a target died while Black Arrow was active on them.
Look at the abilities and talents associated with Sylvanas in “Heroes of the Storm” for more inspiration on how to really lean into Dark Ranger class fantasy. (https://www.heroesprofile.com/Global/Talents?hero=Sylvanas)
Hero: Pack Leader
Lean into summoning lots, and lots of pets. A Pack of pets. A whole herd of pets. A “pack leader” shouldn’t feel like it’s just making your existing 1 or 2 pets slightly more damaging… should it?
Consider reworking “Stampede” as an incredibly awesome major cooldown associated with this hero talent tree.
Needs to summon more pets. That is the core of this hero talent tree’s class fantasy. Think “Rexxar” number of pet companions back in Warcraft III.
More pets. Summoned.
More. Pets.
Hero: Sentinel
Survival’s version should play/feel more like Maiev. See https://www.heroesprofile.com/Global/Talents?hero=Maiev for inspiration.
Marksmanship’s version should play/feel more like Tyrande. See https://www.heroesprofile.com/Global/Talents?hero=Tyrande for inspiration.
Would rather not take a defensive option from survival for the rest of the class, survival is the only hunter spec that gives up safe positioning and should have the best defensives (not by a huge gap).
Plz stop trying to make surv be both.
Would rather a completely new mastery honestly.
I really enjoy your ideas and just nit picking a couple.
Id like to add to this either brind back pet talent trees (ideally) or at the very least let us switch between Tenacity, Ferocity and Cunning at will so we can all use the pets we WANT to use and not the ones we are FORCED to use.
The thought process comes from the realization that whenever players have multiple “major cooldowns” on any single class, they usually reserve them until they’re all off cooldown so that they’ll use all of them simultaneously, since major cooldowns tend to build into one another.
MM: fix sentinel owl to be more like the useful ability resonating arrow
Survival: make mastery increase damage of all spells regardless of focus cost. Increase hps
BM: Make mend pet count as healing towards leech
So vers without the defensive benefit? No thanks. Surv would be no different from BM just stacking mastery once we had DR of crit and haste. They have to do something creative like additional nature and fire damage when using spells for the new mastery.
This sentence doesn’t even make sense.
I’m not even going to question what Sentiant Owl has to do with MM.
Mend pet healing used to count towards leech healing the same way it does for healers currently but was removed going into DF. They are asking to have it back.
It’s the spec that has the most to gain from this talent since it actually has cast times. I guess survival can use KC and bombs but not MB since lunge is being removed. And BM can do max damage while completely mobile.
MM has the most to gain from altering LoS obstruction
Fun fact, Sentinel first showed up in the Legion expansion, but all it was was an AoE Hunter’s Mark application on a 1 minute cooldown, due Marked Shot only shooting targets affected by Hunter’s Mark.
Regardless, my wish list is the following:
MM delving into being the best at using Hunter’s Mark. I.E., multi-target application. Perhaps Aimed Shot applies it, or crit Arcane Shots, Steady Shots, Chimaera Shots, etc.
Marked Shot returning, or maybe a talent where Multi-Shot also shoots all targets with Hunter’s Mark.
Multi-Shot being baseline for MM, but still talented for BM, I think thats fair, gives us a difference between the two, beyond BM getting Multi-Shot BEFORE MM!!!
Maybe a capstone, the old Focusing Shot and Powershot, split talent, something like Focusing Shot prevents you from casting Steady Shot (what it used to do), but causes Aimed Shot to generate Focus instead of spending it? Powershot causing Aimed Shot to pierce through targets caught between you and your target, knocking them all back? Or maybe just the secondary targets? I dunno!
Intimidation being on its own, higher up the tree like the Warrior’s Stormbolt perhaps? (Accessible in the first tier)
Options for Lone Wolf to allow us to still use Intimidation/Roar of Sacrifice without a pet.
Maybe a return of more damage-based traps? Immolation Trap, Snake Trap, Explosive Trap (maybe a split node with High Explosive Trap, ground damage/slow or damage/knockback?), etc.
Edit: And Barrage being a split talent with Volley.
I’ll be honest, I’m nervous about next week. Whatever happens can decide whether I change my main, which I don’t want to. Most of the WoW community is looking at us and our future, and I hope Blizzard comes hitting hard with outstanding ideas for all three specs and hero talents.