I am so underwhelmed. I hate being negative but seriously the Hunter Hero Talents lack enthusiasm.
The entire mechanic is just a DoT that will self-manage itself. The cool new toy? Roughly half the time an Owl will be attacking the target too.
Am I just being negative here or is this so boring?
I contrast it to what Affliction gets, and itās a night and day difference for me. Maybe Iām just wanting to reroll Warlock so Iām seeing more positives there than negative.
But Iām struggling to see something fun in this tree beyond a visual.
I just finished posting a list for all the available specs and talents in the other thread. I plan to update it as the talents change.
It seems the biggest buff from all of these changes is the healing that the specs get from hero talents
Smoke Screen
Exhilaration grants you 3 sec of Survival of the Fittest.
Survival of the Fittest activates Exhilaration at 50% effectiveness.
Hunters have had a hard time in Mythics and PvP when no healer is present. This seems like a strong solution and its a shame its only available on dark ranger.
Sentinel does have some passive mitigation which may help in the form of
Donāt Look back
Each time Sentinel deals damage to an enemy you gain an absorb shield equal to 1% of your maximum health, up to 10%.
Though I believe Smoke Screen is far more flexible for burst and still helps passively a bit as well, effectively giving you two shields and two heals
Pack leader has access to the following
Den Recovery
Aspect of the Turtle, Survival of the Fittest, and Mend Pet heal the target for 20% of maximum health over 4 sec. Duration increased by 1 sec when healing a target under 50% maximum health.
is pretty decent as well, but smoke screen still looks strongest.
Canāt say I care much for the RNG nature of it. RNG to apply stacks. RNG to trigger the stacks. Might be ok for single target boss fights. Canāt imagine youāll see value on trash.
Donāt like capstone ability for static ground target AOE either.
Honestly I was hoping some of these capstones would really change up the mechanics or rotation in creative new ways.
Since when did implosions or lunar storms have anything to do with Sentinels, even? >.>
They were just guerilla archers, scout infantry, and light cavalry.
The only users of Arcane magics in post-Sundering Night Elf lore are priests. Moonkin Form wasnāt even in the lore, Moonfire, etc., werenāt even in it.
Here is the complete list of Night Elf abilities in lore that have any connection at all to Arcane since the Sundering (and likely since the time Night Elves descended from trolls):
Starfall ā A Priest(ess) ability. Generally described as divine or holy.
Fairy Fire ā A scouting and anti-armor ability. Generally described as a natural/innate beast ability.
Mana Burn ā A demonic/demon-hunter skill. Generally described as, yes, demonic (or chaos- or void-related).
Thatās right, there is no moon fire, even, and its nearest approximates were described solely as divine magics, not arcane.
Sentinel makes Surv and Hunter as a whole feel even more forgotten about than we already did. It could have came with a rework to make sentinel owl an interesting ability instead of leaving an entire side of our class tree dead. I would honestly be elated if a lead dev came out to take ownership over the lack of direction and genuinely ask for feedback.
Pack leader equates to spamming more Kill commands as Surv? I think Surv hunters would be happier with a coordinated assault rework rather than building around it as is. (Adding more triggers doesnāt fix the fact that you would want to make sure to consume your procs with killshots if at all possible on CD)
Dark Ranger should be MM/Surv and focus on building up to a big hit or dot respectively, Pack Leader should be BM/MM and focus respectively on LOTS of pets or being the LONE WOLF that scouts for their party (Enabling their PACK), and Sentinel could augment sentinel owl to allow it to be placed by Multi-Shot and triggered by Aimed Shot/Kill Command for combo potential (Guarding/laying siege to said area).
Everything above that seems sensible. I donāt think Pack Leader needs to be all support or all Zookeeper, nor do I want Sentinel to be related to the Sentinels only through some stupid owl, but, as I said, your preference seems reasonable.
āHereās an artillery barrage that has nothing to do with the Hero Specās namesake but wait! It includes an owl visual!!! Crazed gesticulations. Sentinneeelllll!ā
nothing in the tree implies this as the focus at all I really wish people would read the talent tree before giving feedback. there is a single node that gives an extra chance at KC resetting a CD, which you want as it generates your focus
The best part of Pack Leader is it letting CA stack so you arenāt munching the buff without the use of a macro (Maybe), which should be a baseline fix to survival, not locked in a hero talent tree that struggles to be exciting.
The rest of it is a mash-up of powers much like our tier-set designs in DF with lots of āpet damageā sprinkled in.
No its is this bad. Ive been hoping around all the class forums and looking at the changes to see what ill main next expac and out of every classes reaction to their hero specs hunter is the worst.
I think persoanlly ill go back to monk, they aeem happy and they git a rework that they all seem to like.
But every. Single. Hero spec of hunter is absolutely boring. The gameplay revolving around sentiental, dark ranger, and pack leader is terrible.
No one likes it and the only one thats gotten some positive feedback is dark ranger simple because of the theme the gameplay sucks on that too.
I played surivial most of this expac and it looks like im parking it next expac causw this isnt exciting at all.
Revised my post based on Alpha testing:
I was pretty disappointed at first glance and read-through. Sentinel is just an arcane DoT with 2 passive increase % damage nodes. Itās incredibly boring/passive and gimped by a non-moving āstormā so hunters will be at the mercy of their tank (See nightfae wild spirits) but carried heavily by the impressive moonkin-like starfall visuals. I was expecting a node similar to Kyrian covenent ability giving crit again for your party (Your bird drops the same visual but itās wild spirits basically) or at least the DF S3 tier effect - hopefully, that set effect gets baked into a talent node when they eventually rework Hunter - one of the few classes still sitting with too many āability does 5% more damageā nodes gatekeeping capstones.
My primary concern is if I continue pushing higher keys on Surv, Iām pretty much forced into this tree cause the Pack Leader defensive is literally non-existent for survs that can already use leech for rot damage. Sentinelsā defensive node seems solid as an extra layer of leech/DR. Itās not exactly on-demand DR like Smoke Screen from Dark Ranger but it seems to do a solid job while remaining entirely passive - itās a rare āBlizzard got it rightā event.
The focus of the Pack Leader tree is Vicious Hunt. Which is about pressing KC for additional KC and Pet damage.
SV currently has a mini-game with the bomb management. Pack Leader will simply throw that out the window every so often as you just press KC ā Mongoose ā KC ā Mongoose ā KC ā Mongoose .
The rest of the tree is simply resetting your existing spells. Thereās nothing new beyond that empowered KC cycle window.
