Pre-patch BM Hunter is depressing

Classes Hunter
1

I’ve been playing around with the “changes” for BM since the pre-patch dropped and I haven’t been more uninterested in playing my class since… well for a while.

While the class as a whole has gotten a few new things in the form of unprunning, BM as a spec has gotten literally nothing worth mentioning changed. Let me briefly go over what’s been changed:

  1. Arcane Shot has been given to all specs. What does this mean for BM? It’s a useless shot that deals half the damage of Cobra Shot, costs 5 more focus, and has none of the utility Cobra Shot provides. There is no reason to ever put this on your bar. No idea why it needed to come back for all specs.
  2. Tranq Shot. We already had this ability before, in the form of Spirit Shock. While it is nice to have the freedom of pet choice (I guess…), I quite like my Spirit Beast so this feels like a pointless addition to me, as I had this ability all last expansion.
  3. Hunter’s Mark. Has about a total of 1 use in PvE and marginal use in PvP (from my perspective, I don’t PvP all that much). Near useless utility ability that was butchered. Not sure why the damage component was removed.
  4. Kill Shot. While it’s nice to have this back, I don’t think it’s current form is really anything to write home about. A shot that deals marginal damage compared to a basic Kill Command, and has a 10 second cooldown. And, like it’s previous incarnations, can only be used when the target has less that 20% health. This shot is completely out classed in damage when you have your buffs up and you can spam Kill Command. It just seems like a pointless extra button in this current climate of class design.
  5. Scare Beast and Eyes of the Beast: no idea why either of these abilities had to come back. Scare Beast has very limited uses, and Eyes of the Beast is just a cosmetic ability with no practical uses.
  6. Mend Pet and Resurrection feel so… wrong. Mend Pet heals almost nothing compared to what it used to, and my pet dies way more frequently than it did. And, when it does die in combat, waiting 4 seconds to revive my pet is just annoying. Not sure why rank 2 of mend pet is locked behind level 52. Would have been better to put an actual cool ability there.
  7. Spirit Mend nerfed into the ground for seemingly no reason. The heal it provided was already negligible, but it did help in longer raid fights, as I could spam the tank with a slow HoT, or heal someone else near death but not in dire need of a healer’s attention until a healer could properly heal them. Spirit Mend had its roles, while niche, in raids, and I loved it. Now its heal is so pitiful that I really am starting to feel that someone on the dev team hates Spirit Beasts, because don’t even get me started on the ability they gave them to replace Spirit Shock. Worthless.
  8. Oh yeah there was a new talent, right? It didn’t sim well, so I already forgot about it. Thanks, Blizzard.

Overall, I really felt like the class dev team really dropped the ball here. It just feels like I’m playing the same spec I’ve been playing since Legion, maybe even before. It was fun to play in Legion, and marginally fun to play in BfA, but it’s time for a change. In my mind, expansions are meant to bring something new to all classes and specs. Try something different, flip the script, force players to relearn at least a part of their play style. But instead SL is just making me depressed. My spec feels the same, and I don’t know what to do. It just hurts to hear my fellow guildmates saying things like “Ahh man, Enhancement is so fun to play now!” or “Fury’s rotation is so much better now, so many options.” And I’m just sitting here doing basically the same rotation I’ve been doing for the past 4 years.

Now, I understand that BM in SL is so much more than the pre-patch. What with Covenants and other things that come into play. However, that’s what good should do: they should augment specs with expansion specific things (Artifact weapons, Azerite traits/corruptions, etc). The devs should not just rely on the expansion to make a spec feel different, that’s just being lazy.

Pets just feel as boring as ever. My abilities feel tired, overused. The design for my spec is solid, but it’s time for something different.

Things I’d love to see: the return of meaningful pet talent trees. The ability to choose my pet’s ability, and have it be something more engaging than a PvP ability. For instance, I can choose specific damaging abilities my pet can do, whether it be a bleed, poison, or something more interesting. My pet’s spell book should be similar to mine: abilities that actually do something. The changing of how I interact with my pet.

Also I’d love to feel less like a melee class at times. If my pet is en route to a target my DPS is effectively nil, as I only really have 2 (well 3 now, and technically 4 total if you spec into Chimaera Shot) ranged shots. Would be cool to have some more ranged abilities to allow myself to maintain great DPS while my is changing targets. Instead of falling behind because of bad pet AI/pathing.

If all this expansion did was expand on pets (talent trees, meaningful abilities, pet training, maybe even pet gear), I’d be happy. It would have been a step in the right direction.

There’s just so many things I’d love to see this class do, but it’s just stuck currently. Stuck in a solid state, but overall boring state.

Disclaimers:

  1. I know that BM Hunters are near the top DPS at the moment, while that is nice and it does feel good to put out some impressive numbers, I’d rather be last with an interesting spec, than first with a boring spec.
  2. I know the old adage “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” But again, that almost has nothing to do with anything in this context. Expansions are meant to introduce new things and consequently break old things. That’s the whole point of experimentation to make things feel new and interesting.
  3. I understand that there a literal tons of other specs/classes I can play, but that’s not the point of this post. I like BM Hunter’s class fantasy (in theory). I’ve been playing this class since Vanilla, and I don’t want to give up on it now.
  4. I understand that BM is in the same boat as other specs that got passed over by the class dev team, and have received literally nothing interesting to change or improve their specs fun, and I’m not trying to downplay any other spec/class. This is just my experience.
16 Likes
2

Reworks on classes aren’t necessarily a good thing. Boomy eclipse comes to mind. I’m glad they didn’t mess with the BM spec too much. Being ultra mobile and having almost everything instant cast is what makes the spec fun. I don’t enjoy standing flat footed casting aimed shots. Especially on quaking weeks. Scare beast is great for fearing feral in pvp. I use it a decent amount.

My only complaint about the spec is I wash we would have gotten binding shot baseline like MM did.

9 Likes
3

You have a stunning baseline, unlike marks. Also, I feel like the OP doesn’t fully understand this class since half of his ability list has uses.

5 Likes
4

Coming from a Boomkin this guy gets it. I’m likely switching to BM for SL with no regerts…

4 Likes
5

Can we get some love for Stampede? lol…

Such a funny cool looking spell but really don’t know why it’s still in the game for 3 expansions and bottom talent in row all three expansions (6 years now)?

2 Likes
6

If you want to have some fun and troll some people in AV, take stampede and find a Horde tower that is in conflict.If there is a big glob of action going on inside the tower, stand in the doorway and hit stampede and watch the zoo run through everyone.

2 Likes
7

ha ya it seems like such a fun and silly spell, but numbers wise it’s abysmal.

8

it was removed because how blizzard tunes damage numbers. It wouldn’t be a %5 buff in reality as your total tuning would be with that buff in mind. Meaning in order to do our max potential we would constantly be having to use a clunky ability on a GCD moving it from target to target. in most multiple squishier mob fight it wouldn’t even get used much meaning an actual dps loss. Removing the damage component was a good thing cuz the only way it would work is if the mark was baked into the shot, or off gcd and maccroed into an ability, but they didn’t want to do that.

I agree that arcane shot and some other abilities are worthless additions to BM. I am happy to have kill shot back tho.

4 Likes
9

im thrilled Hunter’s mark is back. As soon as I see. rogue or feral I mark them

5 Likes
10

100% agree here. It has been a missed ability for a long time and I am very happy to see it back.

11

We specifically asked for the damage component to be removed. Like, en masse we asked for it.

The damage component was never a buff. We were balanced assuming it was active. It was a nerf to anything not marked (short-lived adds, AoE, cleave, etc). It was a dead GCD that did literally nothing more than un-nerf us, and only against that one target. I do wish they’d added some PvE utility to it, of course, but I’m not sad to see the damage portion gone.

Mend Pet heals based on max HP, so it heals the same percentage of pet health that it did before patch, 7% pet HP per tick. We get a rank-up at level 52 that bumps that to 10% per tick (50% total). Pets do appear to be taking more damage than before, but Mend Pet itself wasn’t nerfed or anything.

It wasn’t “no reason”. Spirit beasts were simply too strong and too dominant for BM. It made pet choice basically non-existent (well, outside of PvP, where cunning/MS takes priority).

Also, the heal was hardly “negligible”. It healed for literally as much as Exhilaration, on only a 30s CD, no GCD, and freely targetable on any friendly.

3 Likes
12

I am actually happy that BM didn’t change much. It was a really good spec in pve and is really fun to play. Yes, it sucks that we didn’t get a bunch of new fun stuff to play with but that will come from the borrowed power/legendaries. Our spec is one of the better ones for pve in the game, and especially mythic+.

Where we need improvements is pvp but even that feels better right now because of no more corruptions.

Maybe i am in the minority but I don’t have any complaints about my spec. I love BM, and I love playing it. Everything just works… The only complaint I have right now is pets are way to squishy. I mean they seem unable to tank even the easier content that I did before. Stuff that would take my pet to 50% pre-patch out right kill my pet now, and content where my pet would hover between 80-95% life is taking them to 10-15% health even with mend pet on cooldown. However that is just a tuning thing which hopefully gets fixed. This is a problem with all pets, and Voidwalker on my warlock is having the same issue, as well as Felguard.

4 Likes
13

I generally like BM’s core gameplay loop and ability set, but there are certainly some QOL changes it could benefit from, and some issues with talents and such:

  • Let Beast Cleave’s duration stack up to twice the base duration (so 8s with 2 casts). That would give a 4s window to refresh instead of the last-possible-instant gameplay it currently has. Last-possible-instant gameplay was thrown out in WoD when Blizzard applied Pandemic to all DoT and HoT effects and a number of rotational buffs (ex. Roll the Bones, Slice and Dice, etc).
  • In the same vein, let Barbed Shot and Frenzy pandemic. That would give them a 2.4s band to refresh without loss, rather than last-possible-instant refreshes to minimize clipping. BM too often has situations where we don’t want to cast Barbed Shot yet, because it’s too early, but we don’t want to cast anything else either, because the GCD would make Frenzy fall off.
  • Let the charges restored by Scent of Blood exceed the normal charge cap of Barbed Shot (or alternatively, make Scent of Blood grant two stacks of a buff that makes the next Barbed Shot not consume a charge or refund a charge). Right now, during the opener, you must waste something with this talent. If you cast Barbed Shot first, you get the benefit of the charge restore, but waste the Barbed Shot CDR. If you cast Bestial Wrath first, you get the benefit of the CDR, but waste the charge restore.
9 Likes
14

Yeah between Hunter’s Mark and Scare Beast we now eat Feral for breakfast.

Rogues can still CoS and drop the mark, but it means they need to burn two cooldowns when they Vanish, which is always a good thing.

1 Like
15

That makes a lot of sense, but it have it have near 0 uses in PvE makes the ability feel worthless. I saw your post in the SL Hunter Feedback post regarding adding a PvE mechanic to it, and I agree with everything you said.

This actually makes a lot of sense. But I never said it was nerfed, I just said it felt different. I couldn’t put my finger on why, but you explained it. It’s because pets are taking more damage, and thus Mend Pet isn’t working as intended.

I disagree with the nerf % and I disagree with your assessment. It was in perfect spot in my opinion. Sure, I never felt the need to use anything other than a Spirit Beast, but I’m a BM Hunter with the capability to use Exotic Beasts, so I just chose the pet that I love, and stuck with it.

I’ve been playing this class since vanilla. I understand my class perfectly. And everything I said has been coming from years of experience. I shouldn’t be taking back talk from a person showing as Priest in the Hunter forums. Would you like me go through all the abilities and explain to you how they have no use once again?

These are all PvP changes. I don’t PvP so these changes literally have nothing to do with me. Giving a spec abilities that literally add nothing to half the game (and in my opinion, the only half that matters), feel lazy and short sighted. I’m glad that PvP got a boost, but it literally does not affect me. These should have been baseline PvP talents, and not baseline abilities in general.

Stampede was a much better talent when it actually summoned your 5 active pets from you stable. It’s current state (and the state it’s been in post-WoD) is lackluster. I’d love to see it either go back to its old form, or replaced with something interesting. It’s been a dead talent for years.

I feel a lot of people missed my point and/or did not read my disclaimers.

YES I understand that BM is in a good spot. YES I understand that the numbers don’t lie and there was no need for a rework. AND YES I understand that a lot of people are happy with the way the spec is performing now, but that doesn’t change the fact that there has been literally 0 meaningful changes to the spec since Legion. AND THAT IS WHY IT IS DEPRESSING. I’ve been playing the same spec with no changes for over 4 years.

Please read the disclaimers on my original post again. I cover just about everything people respond with that aren’t straight responses like Xaedys and others did.

Oh and one more thing I didn’t seem to make clear in my original post, I am a PvE player. Outside of playing PvP mid-expansion for fun, I generally NEVER PvP. So to see all these posts about people saying “This ability is great for PvP” is just as useless as the ability itself is. This is a PvE game first, with PvP being completely optional and secondary to me. So I have no use for abilities added in that do almost nothing in PvE, such as Scare Beast, and the current form of Hunter’s Mark. Oh cool I can scare a beast. Wow. Magnificent. Might as well bring back Cower while we’re at it.

Also again, THIS IS ALL MY OPINION.

1 Like
16
This.
17

Ya, you were the subgroup of hunters that was penalized least by spirit beasts being OP, because you wanted to use them anyway.

Frankly, if I had my way, which pet you pick would be completely divorced from their power and utility. Every pet would have a grid of talents for selecting your utility, your defensive, your passive effect, and your Command Pet ability, and BM would get an additional row (or more than one) that allowed them to select an additional power or effect for their pet.

My goal would be for you to be able to use your spirit beasts without feeling like you’re holding yourself back, and me to be able to use whatever pet I want to without feeling the same.

However, reducing the power of a pet that’s been that powerful and dominant is at least a step in the right direction. It at least opens up options for BM. And since the purge has been removed and none of the pet abilities have a ton of relevance in PvE, at least, there’s nothing really stopping you from using a spirit beast, unless you need lust (which was an issue even during BfA). The heal is still solid, it’s just not a second Exhilaration anymore.

18

It’s really kind of odd/dumb that Steady Shot is a casted damage dealer with no resource cost instead of a resource builder, if we’re going with the bringing back nostalgia thing. Especially considering the intro 1-10 experience of two boring abilities that don’t work together in any way and also don’t create any kind of engaging gameplay or even grant any idea of what 10-50 will become for any of the 3 specializations.

19

I will agree with the OP on a few things
Arcane Shot - not even going to bother looking at it in its current state.
Tranq Shot - Another dispel sure ill take it
Hunters Mark - Sure a damage buff would be nice but isn’t needed for me to find utility in this. Wether that be to mark other players or even just to mark the rare tames in Pandaria. Maybe this will even be used in the future to tame hidden pets. But I can completely see how balancing damage and just adding another action I need to add in a rotation doesn’t help much. If we had the glyph before where it would automatically apply this then sure but I don’t think it needs to be there.
Kill Shot - Another damage ability I can use other than spamming the kill command. Maybe its just my perspective but im glad to add it back into my action bar.
Scare Beast - Sure another CC for beasts ill take it.
Eyes of the Beast - This is purely a fun ability I prob won’t have a practical use for but when im waiting for Sha to pop up ill run around as a pet for a bit why not.
Mend Pet - I didn’t notice much but things are certainly hitting my pet harder.
Spirit Mend - Sucks but in their defense it was quite strong. I think there is a middle ground here that blizz can meet but its hardly even worth using at the moment.

I have not been playing as long and only started late WoLK. Im glad to see BM is top charts and gets me more excited to play the spec again. I will always main a BM hunter as I like the utility it has as well as the mobility.

Overall im not that upset about how things turned out. I like the new tools I can use again and even finally getting Eyes of the Beast back which did no harm having it taken away. But that all just my own opinion

20

That’s not a thing.

There are stealthed enemies in dungeons, and there are plenty of beasts all over the place you can fear.

If you don’t want to use them, don’t bind them.