Wanted to write down some thoughts on what has been revealed for the class so far, looking at the Shadowlands announcements and the Alpha-testing up until now.
Focusing on General changes along with the Beast Mastery specialization.
General changes/additions
Arcane Shot
Not entirely sure why this was added to be there baseline. Marksmanship already have it as a signature ability. For Survival, it seems out of place, especially as it doesn’t work without a ranged weapon at the moment(unintended?).
For Beast Mastery, there’s currently no point in using it over Cobra Shot.
Eyes of the Beast
Is at least for me personally, a most welcome ability to see return to the class. It might not be of any use for our core damage-focused playstyles, but it’s an ability with a lot of flavor to it and is something to just have fun with.
Hunter’s Mark
I can very much understand why many players would want this to be a baseline ability. Especially in certain types of content(PvP in general).
Though I’m hoping that the damage-portion of the design can be removed in favor of keeping only the mechanic of preventing enemies from going invisible/stealth.
Why? For PvE and unless changed, it will for the most only be an another global spent on applying a passive buff/damage boost which, most likely, will not be an actual bonus anyway. That baseline damage will probably(?) be compensated for by lowering the damage dealt by several other abilities and attacks.
This might not be a big problem for single-target fights, but especially in end-game content, those are few in numbers. And with a lot of target-switching, this makes for a very tedious/awkward mechanical addition.
Kill Shot
As a PvE’er, at first I wasn’t that exited about it. But it is indeed a neat addition and a most welcome one for the class as a whole.
P.S. Currently for Survival, it requires you to have a Polearm equipped. But when used, the ability has the regular Survival-specific crossbow animation. I can’t imagine that this is intended(?).
Scare Beast
Neat flavor ability that brings some niche functionality(read: usefulness) in certain types of content. Nothing more to say about it really.
Tranquilizing Shot
Finally! I was quite bummed out to see it being removed during the Battle for Azeroth-beta after thinking that it was going to return for BfA.
Note: I would love it if the current abilities our pets have that act as offensive purges, could be reimagined as friendly dispels instead. Meaning that those pets bring with them an ability you can use to remove harmful magical effects from friendly units. Maybe with a 25-40 yard cast range?
Misc changes
Misdirection
Functionality changed(back to how it worked in earlier iterations).
Not a massive change but, a fairly good one if you ask me.
Revive Pet
The increased cast time of this ability by 300%(from 2 to 6 seconds), maybe it has an underlying reason based on PvP(?). But no matter, it’s not exactly something expected nor welcome. Especially not for Beast Mastery which relies so heavily on pets for most things. Survival as well ofc.
Increased stable size for pet storage
More beasts to tame in the world, requires more space. All good here if you ask me. A welcome change!
So, in addition to the above, I would not mind also seeing the following additions/changes:
Distracting Shot
I would very much like to see this ability return, mostly as it was before.
But in addition, I would also want to be able to combine the use of this ability with that of Misdirection.
Meaning? After having activated Misdirection, I want for Distracting Shot to direct that one particular enemy it’s used on, to the target of my Misdirect. Such as a tank in a dungeon/raid or your pet when out in the world doing quests or leveling.
This would be a very helpful addition for Beast Mastery in particular due to how Misdirection works and how most of the damage dealt does not come from you as the hunter, but from your pet. At least this way, we’ll be able to guide that one stray mob/enemy back to the tank!
Aspect of the Fox
Specifically, the version we saw in Warlords of Draenor.
This is another ability which many players would want back, myself included. It has the potential to make the class in general be more sought after in various types of group-based content.
It probably needs some type of Sated-debuff or similar in order to not heavily promote class stacking in raids and such. But that wouldn’t be very complicated to implement.
Master’s Call
This ability is currently exclusive to all pets that are of the “Cunning” type(the specialization).
This was previously a baseline ability, and I would argue that it should be so again. Basically, if you have a pet out, then you should be able to use Master’s Call. No matter what pet you have.
Changes to Beast Mastery.
Thoughts on currently announced ones along with further wishes
Core abilities
I’m mostly okay with the core features of Beast Mastery as it seems to work when looking at Alpha-based gameplay. Having said that, I do think it needs to have one more baseline ability/core function to be used during combat.
Personally, I would not mind seeing the talent “A Murder of Crows” become a baseline addition for Beast Mastery.
One way to make this specific talent/ability interact with others would be to make Kill Command, if used on the enemy currently affected by A Murder of Crows, make it extend the remaining duration of A Murder of Crows by a certain amount each time.
Beast Mastery doesn’t need massive changes to it’s baseline functions. But it still needs something(other than the addition of class-wide abilities as seen above).
Talents
Here’s where I want to see further changes being made, for several reasons. Note that I will only bring up specific talents that I want changed somehow.
Animal Companion(15)
If you ask me, this talent currently suffers some of the same problems as Lone Wolf did for Marksmanship when it was still a talent. In short, I would very much like for this to be a baseline passive for Beast Mastery.
How would it work? You should be able to call out 1 main pet as usual, but you should also if wanted, be able to go into the Call Pet-menu and manually call out a second main pet. They should both use the same abilities and attacks(excluding family-specific ones like Primal Rage along with the ability Growl).
This way, it makes little-to-no difference in terms of numbers and balance, if you use 1 pet or 2 during combat.
If you manually choose to call out 2 pets, then from that point on you will always call out that chosen second pet whenever you call out the first one. If you want to go back to using only 1 pet again, simply right-click the second pet’s unit frame and dismiss it. And so on.
Dire Beast(15)
I have wondered since the Alpha for Battle for Azeroth, why the option to choose between this and Barbed Shot(Dire Frenzy) was removed.
During Legion I heard some hunters who did not like using Dire Beast but wanted to focus more on that 1 main pet, which is ofc understandable.
But why remove the option to pick either choice?
I was one of those that preferred to use Dire Beast. I’m no fan of the current Frenzy-buff mechanic and I would very much want the option to opt out of playing with it again.
Scent of Blood(25)
I can see this as being a neat addition and would like to test it further myself.
I hope that it can be designed to not affect the baseline charge count of Barbed Shot though. Meaning if you have 1 charge of Barbed Shot left, then activating Bestial Wrath with this talent chosen would cause you to have 3 remaining charges of Barbed Shot(or Dire Beast).
Spitting Cobra(35)
Seems okay. Though I’ve seen on some streams that it currently has the same problem as it did from it’s previous iteration in Battle for Azeroth where the cobra, once summoned, does not seem to move if the target is out of range.
Hopefully this can be fixed before it goes live, if it hasn’t been already.
A Murder of Crows(35)
Like I said above, I want this to become a baseline ability/core feature for Beast Mastery. Maybe a talent that improves it somehow could be put here in it’s place?
Barrage(45)
Personally, I would want for nothing more than for this talent to be removed for Beast Mastery. I can’t stand it.
My own idea, is to replace it with another AoE-focused talent. Something like below:
Attacks coming from Beast Cleave now deals X% more damage and Beast Cleave lasts for an additional 4(?) seconds.
When you activate Bestial Wrath along with Beast Cleave, this causes Kill Command to hit up to X additional enemies for the duration.
Stampede(45)
While I understand the thematic design behind it’s current iteration, I really want it to change, going into Shadowlands.
Change it into a passive effect that is added to your Bestial Wrath.
Meaning:
When you activate Bestial Wrath, you also call out 2 more of your stabled pets to fight for you for the duration. These summoned pets Auto Attack and they benefit from Kill Commands as well as Beast Cleave.
As for the final talent row(50)
I’m pretty much okay with those talent-designs. Have yet to try out Bloodshed though. But it looks decent enough.