SoD - Hunter Changes (That I would like to see)

WoW Classic Season of Discovery
1

#NoChanges

  • No Hunter Tank (Pet off tanking a mob is fine)
  • Keep Mana
  • Keep Ammo
  • Keep Feeding Pet
  • Keep Pet Skills (or Wrath Pet Talent Tree)

I don’t want to see Hunter completely stripped of what the classic Hunter is supposed to be. Tanking Hunters ruins class fantasy. If hunters could tank, rune slots would be eaten up by tanking runes decreasing options for the other 3 specs. You can already see this happening with the other classes they have added tank to; there is little to no choice depending on what spec you want to play. At the moment, Hunter is one of the few classes that have great rune options to play in multiple specs.

#SomeChanges (QoL)

  • Don’t make Quiver use a bag slot
  • Add using traps in combat
  • No Dead Zone / Reduced Dead Zone
  • Pets take 90% or X% reduced AoE damage (at least in instanced content)

Micro managing your pet is fine, but when you are Beast Mastery or need your pet for Flanking Strike as a melee Hunter and they constantly die from AoE and cleave damage it makes the game less fun. This change allows all Hunter specs to be more viable.

Melee Hunters

  • Dual Wield Melee Hunter is the fantasy not 2 Handed
  • Melee Hunter uses a Pet
  • Melee Hunters being able to scale with agility

Talents

  • Hunter’s Mark - Melee Rework (Melee need a reason to use this iconic ability)

ex 1: Moving toward your marked target increases movement speed by 5-20%. 5 talent points in Improved Hunter’s Mark increases speed 1% per point up to 5% (doesn’t stack with Aspect of the Cheetah)

ex 2: Also increases melee AP of the Hunter

  • Disengage - makes you leap backwards in addition
  • Volley - Shorter/No CD
  • Rapid Fire - Grants Melee attack speed as well
  • Aspect of the Beast - Gives Melee AP or % Melee Damage
  • Trap Launcher (New) - Toggles ranged traps on and off

If throwing traps is implemented, I want the option to toggle it on or off so we can drop traps at our feet as melee Hunters.

I don’t want to see an iconic ability such as Hunter’s Mark go to waste and be unused by melee Hunters. I think a rework should be added to allow all specs to continue to use it. I would prefer to see option 1 added (the movement speed) . This only works while the Hunter is chasing a marked target. If the Hunter decides to turn and run the movement speed will be lost. This gives melee Hunters a gap closer and just feels “right”. When you are Hunter’s Marked: You are being hunted, you are marked for death, and the Hunter will track you, catch you, and kill you! Of course the speed% numbers can be adjusted from baseline 5% to 20% then allow the Improved Hunter’s Mark talent to add an additional 5% on top for 5 talent points. Doing this will allow Melee Hunters to get much more use of the movement speed than a BM or Marks Hunter due to the amount of talent points that must be invested.

Altering the Talent Tree for melee is a MUST!

Talent tree

-Marksmanship tree

  • Efficiency - applying to traps and melee attacks as well
  • Lethal Shots - applying to all attacks
  • Mortal Shots - applying to all attacks
  • Improved Hunter’s Mark - works with melee rework
  • Improved Arcane Shot - also works with Explosive shot (they are a shared CD)

-Beast Mastery tree

  • Improved Aspect of the Hawk (Improved Aspects) - Works with new Aspect of the Beast/Aspect of the Lion and causes all attacks to increase ranged/melee attack speed depending on the aspect being used.

When looking at the Talent Tree these changes seem necessary in order to give melee Hunters a proper build. If changes are not made then every melee Hunter will be a Beast Mastery or Marksman Hunter pretending to be a melee Hunter. These changes allow you to go deeper into the Survival Tree while picking up a few needed options in the others.

Rune Wishlist

  1. Camouflage (Retail)
  2. Kill Shot (Wrath)
  3. Wildfire Bomb (Retail)
  4. Lock and Load (Wrath) - (Wildfire Bomb for melee, Explosive Shot/Arcane Shot for Ranged) -Procs with Serpent Sting instead of Black Arrow

Ex: You have a 100% chance when you trap a target with Freezing Trap or Frost Trap and a 6% chance when you deal periodic damage with your Immolation Trap, Explosive Trap, or Serpent Sting to cause your next 2 Wildfire Bomb or Explosive Shot/Arcane Shot spells to trigger no cooldown, cost no mana and consume no ammo. This effect has a 22 sec cooldown.

I would be very excited to see Wildfire Bomb and Lock and Load runes added into the game. I absolutely love the Lock and Load playstyle and to be able to integrate it to work with range and melee is awesome.

Feedback on all Runes

Chest

  • Master Marksman - Change (Should apply to traps and melee attacks as well)
  • Cobra Strikes - Change (Should work with melee attacks as well)
  • Lone Wolf - Love
  • Aspect of the Lion - Love

Please don’t force Hunters into cookie cutter builds by making only one rune viable per spec. These simple changes give variety for every Hunter spec to choose any rune with the exception of Lone Wolf BM.

Hands

  • Beast Mastery - Love
  • Carve - Love
  • Chimera Shot - Love
  • Explosive Shot - Love

Legs

  • Flanking Strike - Love
  • Kill Command - Remove
  • Sniper Training - Love/Change (Could make it also last for 3 seconds after moving once you have gotten the buff)
  • Serpent Spread - Ok

Kill Command doesn’t feel good to use. When you press this button the damage is delayed and most of the time not noticeable.

Most of the Runes are great adding amazing combos for all specs. They just need to be melee Hunter friendly. By far, the most important thing to me are the talent tree changes. BM and MM need to be changed in the starting rows of the trees to include melee. I think with all the runes added it will make most Hunters excited to play all 3 specs, I know I am. I’m curious to know what other Hunter mains think of these changes. What are some of the things you like, don’t like, or would like to see changed?

6 Likes
2

Add two more pet slots is all i’m asking for!

3 Likes
3

Dead zone removal i’m not really a fan of. If they just made the skirmisher style of melee/ranged weaving better I think it would make much more sense.

Kill Command is absolutely terrible in it’s current state and BM rune probably needs to go even higher on focus increases. Cobra Shot should change to ranged crits giving focus to pet and special crits imo. Someone did the math and it still takes ~5 seconds for a Wind Serpent to get enough focus for lightning breath even with the new BM rune. Wish cobra shot would switch with KC in the rune spots and something new come into play for BM. Giving pets another special ability that the hunter controls with a button would be cool for BM.

For example
Cats could get “Pounce” - Cat jumps to the target snaring them for 5 seconds and unleashes 5 quick claws in succession.

Wind Serpents could get “Lightning Storm” - Unleashes a charged chain lightning breath to all enemies within 10 yards of the target.

Gorillas could get “Tantrum” - Gorilla pounds the ground stunning all enemies in a 7 yard radius while dealing periodic pulsing damage for 3 seconds.

Making something interactive like that would be cool and give more flavor for pet decisions.

2 Likes
4

To be clear I don’t want to be able to use bow in melee range. Just want to be able to at least hit the target with melee attacks… or even a reduction in the range would be more than welcome.

5

No pet abilities should be locked in a raid or dungeons and you should be able to find them in the open world. Add pet abilities to pet families with no abilities ( bears, tallstiders and so on). Add another pet slot or two.

6

Your first request is a change.

7

Melee hunter is such a disappointment. I was hoping for something a little more creative.

SPELL POWER HUNTER.

2 Likes
8

Honestly i would love to see a rune that would give us access to more tame-able pets like the deep beast master talent from wrath yet in a rune form. This would be more for just more pet variety, but if it added additional stats or access to a special ability the different pet families had it could be fun too that way.

1 Like
9

Exotic Pets, LnL, also, if you want to play a melee hunter why not just play a warrior?

1 Like
10

so, in your opinion, running out of ammo and feeding your pet to keep it happy are key parts of being a hunter and shouldn’t be touched. but deadzone and pet squishiness are totally just quality of life upgrades and should be changed? that’s absurdly arbitrary and inconsistent even with your own weird internal logic.

anyway all the stuff you said you wanna keep is the crap that kept me from playing vanilla hunter. warlocks dont have to give their pets candy every 5 mins to keep them from running off, and it’s dumb that hunters do have to

1 Like
11

I dont mind having to feed my pet every ten minutes or so. What I DO mind is getting deadzoned in a pvp match and my nades are on cd. Frostbolted to death is NEVER fun.

12

I can take or leave pet feeding, since i normally take cooking anyway so i have food to feed it an keep up the happiness. I could really see a rune that would remove the deadzone at some cost like at a slight reduction to damage. I agree pet squishiness could use a look over. Also melee hunter plays different than warrior does or even rogue. I always liked the idea of battling in the thick of it with my pet as a hunter over sitting back away from it lobbing arrows at the enemy.

13

If mend pet could add happiness like it does in Wrath id be really happy.

14

I’d prefer it if they added focus and made ammunition just an equipment slot.

It’s a cool resource and matching the one your pet has is neato jets.

If they’re making rogue warlock and mage into hybrids then pets not being able to tank makes zero sense. I’d prefer it if they didn’t undo the pures, but as long as we’re experimenting in sod then hunter pets should be able to tank raids.

15

Rexxar is cool, can we get a Rexxar / Misha questline?

Why waste such a cool character??

16

Although it would be nice I doubt they’d ever add focus for hunters in SoD…seems like they are going to need to adjust the mana cost numbers or let melee and trap abilities be used with the mana efficiency talent and rune though. With the playstyle they want you to have using flanking strike and keeping a 3 stack of the raptor strike buff…using raptor strike every 3 seconds is gonna drain mana so fast.

17

Yes, that’s right. Ammo is a huge part of playing a hunter for immersion. You want to shoot a bow with no arrows? Good luck! Absolutely, feeding your pet is important for immersion as well. Are you gonna let your pet starve to death? Warlocks don’t have pets they have servants that are summoned from the void and enslaved…yeah you don’t need to feed them and they probably wouldn’t eat what you gave them anyways. Deadzone is QoL it makes no sense in the game. I’m not asking to be able to shoot a point blank range, but you should be able to shoot your target if you can’t melee them. I can do that in real life and this is a fantasy game…come on. I don’t care that much about them giving pets a reduced AoE dmg taken in instanced content, but yeah it is just QoL…im not sure you know what that means. That is why they made the change in the game for many years now in retail.

1 Like
18

It’s really not. In terms of gameplay, hunter is a mix of attacker and spell-caster; without deadzone it has the benefits of both and the drawbacks of neither.

Also, while they do tend to cave to players whining about any drawbacks experienced and that’s why retail is complete garbage gameplay, the big reason for changing the deadzone was wonky boss hitboxes. So laziness trumped class flavor and design differences.