Shadowlands Hunter changes are uninteresting

Classes Hunter
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I can’t seem to make a reply on the official post in the Shadowlands Hunter feedback forum, so I’m making my post here.

I’ve read through all the changes and additions to Hunters in Shadowlands so far, and I’m extremely underwhelmed. I’m feeling the same way I felt when BfA was announced. The Hunter changes are just so lackluster.

When a new expansion comes out I always except something really cool about the main class I play to be added. I really enjoyed TBC’s approach to Hunters, adding a lot of QoL abilities, as well as cool additions to our class that made it really fun to play again.

Wrath came in with a whole slew of new abilities to play with, that made branching out to other specs really enjoyable.

Cataclysm introduced Focus as well more interactions with your pet to really make the class feel rewarding to play.

MoP made Survival really fun for a change, as well as some other great additions to pets and other things.

WoD had some cool things, but it started to slow down at this point. Legion made Hunters cool, but only because of the Artifacts and Legendaries, but then we went back to being boring again when we lost all those things.

And then we hit a wall. The extremely stupid Family changes in BfA that made it so I couldn’t bring my favorite pet to Raid and had to instead bring some other pet that fit the meta. And that was their big change in BfA. Which was more of a gigantic nerf than anything. Pets do need a lot of work, but limited them by family was not the change needed.

And now we’re onto Shadowlands. I’m removing the AoE changes, and Covenant stuff from my argument, because those are outside of class changes (but for the record, the AoE change is idiotic).

I’ll say it now: I primarily play BM Hunter, so this post will mostly be about the changes related to them, sorry SV and MM, but I don’t play those specs. Until SV becomes ranged again, there is no reason for that spec to exist. And MM is just a mage with different aesthetics and spec elitism. Not exciting.

So what’s new? We got a few of our old abilities that shouldn’t have been removed back. Such as Kill Shot (which is awesome), Eyes of the Beast (meh), Concussive Shot (meh), and Scare Beast (super meh). Also apparently all Hunters now have access to Titan’s Thunder? I mean it’s cool to see that return, but why? Just seems like a weird ability to bring back, considering it was directly tied to a specific weapon.

Overall I’m not impressed here with these returning abilities. I feel like with exception of Titan’s Thunder and Kill Shot, they aren’t adding much to our class. Flavor, sure, but it’s just extra frills for no reason. Why not add new abilities? Abilities that do something interesting? Like shots that explode, or poison, or cause bleeding. Abilities that heal a portion of the damage dealt. Abilities that cause cool interactions with your pets. I am not an idea maker, so my ideas are terrible. But that being said, new abilities are always cool, and I really hate to see the class flounder in repetition.

On to BM Hunter specific changes. The major changes here are unfortunately something that affects all classes and specs, and not just Hunters. The AoE changes. I won’t get into those, but that’s already a major problem. If the major changes to our spec is AoE changes, then clearly no time was really put into making a BM Hunter have more class fantasy. I’d love to see BM Hunters have way more interactions with their pet. Barring AI changes (which I still don’t understand why pet AI is still so awful 16+ years into development), I’d love to see more abilities for pets. The return of meaningful pet talent trees. Teachable pet abilities, that actually do something beneficial to your DPS/Utility. I don’t know, overall I’m just so underwhelmed with these “changes.” Other classes/specs seem to be getting some really cool stuff, major reworks, etc. Where as BM has been in roughly the same spot since WoD (Legion had some improvements, but it was mostly the Artifact that did something).

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, I swear no one at Blizzard plays a Hunter, let alone a BM Hunter. The changes to Hunter are just so… easy. Safe.

Anyway, I’ve gotta go raid. I wanted to say more, but I don’t have the time. I’ll add more to this later.

Of course, this is just my opinion. Please only constructive replies. I don’t want to see people come in and say “lol BM hunters complaining. Easy spec. 3 buttons” whatever. None of that is constructive.

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I agree with this. Rather uninspired changes, or a lack of changes really.

I do understand their logic. Nothing is broke, so why fix it? Mostly talking about BM. We are considered viable and strong atm in PVE ONLY. PVP is a totally different story however.

But hey we got hunters mark coming back? Thats awesome right? /s

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Wat. Concussive Shot was never removed, we literally have it right now. The only spec that lacks it is SV, because they have Wing Clip instead.

Did you mean Tranq Shot? If so, that one is hardly “meh”. It pulls the only truly vital pet utility effects off the pet and into our hands, which eases the meta pressure on pets (though hard-locked specs still apply a fair amount).

We do not. A fair number of the artifact abilities are showing up as baseline abilities in the Wowhead calculators for various classes (off the top of my head, Tyr’s Deliverance for paladins and Soul Carver for DHs), but none of these exist as abilities on the beta. Datamining isn’t always perfectly accurate.

Personally, I’m still holding out a bit of hope that the devs still haven’t done the hunter pass yet, and that we’ll see some significant changes in the coming weeks, like many other specs and classes have. If they straight up ignore hunters for the third expansion in a row, they’re likely to trigger a revolt or something.

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@Bruffo:

I suppose you’re not wrong. Hunters in PvE are just fine. Nothing wrong with them. I just feel like expansions should add something that changes up the meta of your spec. I felt that almost every expansion did something that changed the class in a positive way to make it feel different while still being (mostly) viable. The Shadowlands changes are just too safe, and ultimately, as I’ve said, uninteresting.

Also cool MM is back. Still no interest in playing it. I’ll only play another spec if they bring back ranged Survival. Either by reverting the changes (unlikely) or adding a fourth spec like Druids, which isn’t unreasonable.

@Xaedys:

I’m sorry I was writing my post quickly because I made a terrible choice to make it 10 mins before my raid time. You’re right, Concussive Shot (and Wing Clip) are both in the game ATM. The page I was looking was making it out as a new ability, and I didn’t look at it long enough to realize that the page was wrong.

No, I was not referring to Tranq Shot. That is definitely not a meh addition. I mean it is in the sense that should have been baseline forever, and never removed. It’s an old ability that is just returning. I appreciate it’s return, but it shouldn’t have to return if you know what I mean.

Also fair enough on the Titan’s Thunder bit. I thought it was it was making a return. I mean I’m all for an additional button and more DPS abilities, but Titan’s Thunder would have been an odd addition lorewise. Glad it was just an error.

Thanks for the great responses so far, everyone.

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Overall: Pet rez cannot be 6 seconds with the current state of pets. We either need major tools to keep them alive, buffs to their health, the cast needs to be uninterruptible with a damage reducer while its being cast, something.

For PVP specifically:

I’d like to see some sort of buff to our traps given that they aren’t direct cc. If you land a freezing trap and it gets broken by damage within 4 seconds, you get slowed 50% for 3 seconds. Same with tar trap. Either increase the diameter or make them slowed for 3 seconds after moving out of the tar. The reward for accurately landing/baiting someone into a trap isn’t there in PVP.

We should be able to do damage with Aspect of the Turtle active - I think I saw somewhere this might be happening? Besides ice block, everyone else’s defensive’s that I can think of allow them to do damage while its up. A mail-wearing class should not be more squishy than every cloth wearing class, especially when they are either nuking us or outhealing our DPS. This would also be a good trade off for the nerf to spirit mend.

Finally, Barbed Shot should also deal nature damage to help against plate-wearers.

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Agreed.

This would be nice. Alternately, baseline Diamond Ice for all specs, and change Freezing Trap to “Shatter Frozen Enemy” while it’s active, so the Hunter can break it early if desired.

This is an Anima Power, so restricted to Torghast.

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I disagree. There is an old adage. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” If something is working and the majority of players enjoy it, they don’t need to add some meta changing changes. Numbers tuning at that point would be alright.

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To my eyes seems they are making everything other than a few baseline ability s to being Borrowed Power so they can remove it at the start of new season and return it again later in a similar but different form.

6 sec to re summon pet upon death Well That’s A Hard NO from me.

Just hoping that Covenant ability’s don’t cause the mini/major instant lag spikes/cast hesitation that Corruption ability’s and de-buff proc 's {High Latency Connection} do to my Characters

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And yeah the 6 sec res time has to go OR the pets need more more tools / passives aimed at survival. One or the other. Cannot go live like this. PVP wise this is going to be absolutely horrible.

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You’re not wrong. However, I’d rather not play essentially the same spec for the second expansion in a row. Yeah we have some returning abilities, but overall I feel the play style of BM Hunters outside of Covenant abilities going to be boring and uninspired. It will be the same exact thing we’ve been doing forever, and it honestly makes me want to reconsider my main.

I also just noticed the 6-sec resurrection cast time. Terrible idea. Maybe have a different cast time for PvP. But in PvE scenarios? Hard no from me. Keep it at the current time.

Also make Aspect of the Cheetah a 1min or less CD. Ridiculous that it is 3mins. Never thought that was a good idea. Or just revert it back to its old incarnation, remove the daze, and just make it so that when you get hit it removes itself and goes on a 20 second CD or something. Never thought it was good idea to make it such a small run speed buff. I also miss pack for wipe runs in raids. I swear Blizzard just wants to make it so people don’t have fun in a video game designed originally for people to have fun in.

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Okay, but when you change the meta/reinvent the wheel every xpac finding actual balance becomes basically impossible because no matter how well it was dialed in by the end of the xpac, changing the meta just to change the meta means you have to redial it in all over again.

Now, I’m not saying changes can’t be made. You can make changes to a class while keeping the core gameplay of that class in tact.

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Killshot is really the only meaningful change/returning ability that we are getting.

Hunter is by far the most the most neglected class going into SL, and its sad since its one of the classes that could use the most attention.

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I don’t want to commandeer this post since I do believe there is some good conversation on here, but hoping to gather support for post in general discussion to bring up issue of lack of feedback.

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I saw your post, and it was the reason why I ventured in to both look at the feedback forum for Shadowlands development and what those changes actually are. I had something slightly different than what your topic was about, so I decided to make my own post.

You’re not commandeering at all, our posts are about similar, but ultimately different topics. Thanks for linking yours!

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This is exactly how I feel as well. It’s even difficult to find any discussion on them in youtube or streams as well because theres so little difference from now to beta that there is nothing to talk about.

There used to be so much more complexity to the specs, and now they seem too streamlined. Albeit hunter was never the highest skill cap, and has always been regarded as the “easy” class, but it seems worse now than before.

Also why arcane shot for bm, with nothing being added to it. At least when it was there before it was the spender since cobra shot was a casted ability that generated resources. (Tbh I miss the only cobra shot, I hate the current iteration of it.)

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Hunter’s are getting shafted, but I’d contend that DHs are getting a far worse deal so far. They’ve nerfed the dominant build that everyone loves, gutted the survivability (granted, Havoc’s survivability right now is definitely too strong, but they’re nerfing literally every element of that survivability), and via a new talent and legendary are shoving a build (Momentum) that nearly the entire DH community loathes (and that’s nearly impossible to use effectively in half or more of raid boss fights) down their throats. On the Vengeance side, they’ve completely ignored an entire expansion’s worth of feedback and left the spec in a state where it’s likely to be less useful and less durable than it was even in BfA Season 2 (when it was hands down the least used tank, by a mile, at any sort of relevant key level). Nearly every legendary effect for both specs can be thoroughly described as “statistically better than nothing, but only just” (for serious, most of the Havoc legendaries are worth less than 1% total DPS).

Spriests are also getting summarily backhanded as well. Of all of their issues, the sum total of changes they got was a half-!@#ed bandaid Devouring Plague that doesn’t fix anything.

I’m not trying to short-sell the BS Blizzard is handing to hunters (hunter is the top of my shortlist for SL main atm), just pointing out they they aren’t alone in being completely @#$@ed over by Blizzard in SL, at least of what we’ve seen thus far.

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Seems to be a Blizzard theme in recent expansions. They spend all their time developing certain classes and ignoring a good number of them and then when time runs out “Oh, well we just didn’t have enough time to get to those classes.”

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I wish the devs can give us an actual reason why Trick shots still has a limit to where its activated only 3+ targets instead of 2+…
If damage is an issue then why not make it so that Trick shots does 33% dmg with 2 targets and 50% dmg with 3+???

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Big class changes will probably happened next expansion after Shadowlands. I remember reading somewhere they were not going to make any big class changes in Shadowlands. Blizzard moves at a snail’s pace for good or bad of the game.

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They did say something about it initially, that classes aren’t supposed to be good at every niche. They consider 2-target cleave a “niche”, that MM is not supposed to be as good at. Silly rationale, but it’s there.