State of Hunters in Shadowlands Beta

[Adreaver-undermine (Adreaver)]

Cross posting from the Beta forum for those who don’t have access.

@Adreaver-undermine

Being as we are at nearly 1100 posts, and with the new time available from the delay, I want to try to consolidate some key feedback as to “State of the Class” at this point in Beta. I’ll post my feedback (and consensus feedback I’ve read, even if I don’t personally agree with it) here for MM, I’d encourage others to do similar for BM and SV, and if anyone wants to add to (or dispute) my MM points I think expanded discussion on the class/specs as a whole (rather than getting into the weeds on specific issues, as we have been doing for a while in here).

Hunters in General

High Points:

• Return of Scare Beast and Eyes of the Beast are nice thematically with clearly defined niches of usefulness/flavor, and don’t bloat the base gameplay.
• Covenant abilities offer interesting effects and gameplay options.
• Expanded stable allows us to tame many more pets and still keep our old favorites.
• Tranquilizing Shot baseline, especially now that old Purge pets have a self-dispel.
• Kill Shot feels great.

Low Points:

• Hunter’s Mark feels like a wasted GCD most of the time. The rest of the time, it is set-and-forget on a single target boss and it serves very little purpose.
• Talent balance in the 30 and 40 rows needs help.
  • Trailblazer offers little to no value in combat, as it does not help you create distance against enemies you are actively fighting. Camouflage is nice for soloing but offers no in-combat utility. Natural Mending is really the only good option for group content
  • Posthaste so badly outclasses the other options as to make them irrelevant (possibly different for BM and SV, since Binding Shot is definitely more worthwhile than Binding Shackles. It should honestly be baseline.
• Covenant abilities are poorly balanced and don’t really offer comparable options for different specs/content.
• Not much of a change from BfA iterations, which isn’t necessarily terrible for BM, but for MM and SV leaves something to be desired.
• 4s Revive Pet, when combined with pets general lack of durability, the ability for Mend Pet to be purged, and the ability for Revive Pet to be interrupted, makes Hunters extremely vulnerable to pet death with little to no recourse.
• Pet specializations being locked severely limits the usefulness of many families.
• Pet families in general are heavily tilted towards defensive abilities, one of which is almost entirely useless, all of which preclude the use of the Mortal Wounds debuff you are expected to bring to PvP.
• Very lackluster class-wide legendary options.
  • Call of the Wild is exceptionally boring.
  • Nesingwary’s offers little to no utility most of the time. (It was good for SV in Legion because Explosive Trap was rotational in Legion, which is no longer the case).
  • Craven Strategem is really nice, but does not compete with DPS legendaries.
  • Soulforge Embers is fun and interesting, but requires the use of multiple ground-targeted utility abilities that are on the GCD, and Tar Trap is difficult to trigger on many bosses in PvE.

Possible Solutions:

• Trailblazer could fall off when taking damage, rather than dealing damage.
• Baseline Camouflage as-is, replace the talent with something else (Improved Camouflage, making it last until cancelled out of combat, and usable in combat with a ~6 second duration, would be really nice)
• Baseline Posthaste, replace with Narrow Escape (Disengage applies a snare to enemies within a 5yd radius)
• Increase pet durability significantly such that enemy players need to make an actual commitment to kill the pet.
• Make Mend Pet immune to dispels, or reset the cooldown if it is dispelled early.
• Allow Pets to be respecialized as the player sees fit.
• Swap some of the 30% Dodge pets over to Mortal Wounds or Snare, or introduce a new defensive that is less RNG dependent (and not totally useless against casters).

Marksmanship

High Points:

• Shorter duration on Rapid Fire helps the rotation feel snappier.
• Improved talent options over BfA, though there remains some work to be done.
• Kill Shot feels great as a rotational tool, and for finishing off enemies in the open world while questing.
• Baseline Binding Shot is a great tool to have.
• Legendaries:
  • Serpentstalker’s Trickery is a really nice damage boost.
  • Eagletalon’s True Focus solves the Trueshot Focus issues entirely.
  • Surging Shots provides some fun reactive gameplay.

Low Points:

• Poor Focus economy.
• Trueshot is lackluster, primarily though not entirely due to poor Focus economy.
• Precise Shots makes everything very crowded, feels bad to overcap Aimed Shot to use Precise Shots, feels bad to munch Precise Shots to get all your Aimed Shots off. This is exacerbated by the Focus issues.
• Aimed Shot in general has issues - the long cast time combined with the relatively low damage makes it feel underwhelming, and the way it is propped up by talents all but guarantees it will feel this way all expansion, if not getting worse due to nerfs.
• Master Marksman gives free damage comparable to or better than Serpent Sting and A Murder of Crows (excepting add fights where you can game the reset), making those talents very unappealing, even for players who might like the DoT management playstyle.
• Careful Aim feels necessary for Aimed Shot to have appropriate damage, despite being fairly unengaging.
• Barrage is useless. It is worse than Explosive Shot in all relevant content, it is a straight DPS loss in single target, and unless it is buffed or reworked, it is a noob trap.
• Steady Focus does not provide enough Haste to be competitive.
• Dead Eye introduces severe Focus issues and overcrowding to the rotation below 20%, and throughout the entire rotation if you choose Venthyr.
• Double Tap exacerbates the Aimed Shot tuning issues, because if Aimed Shot’s damage is where it needs to be, Double Tap makes it far too strong.
• Volley is very strong compared with Lock and Load and Calling the Shots, even on single target.
• Scatter Shot and Freezing Trap on the same DR means that MM is unable to effectively set up their own traps, unlike BM and SV who can use Intimidate.
• Legendaries:
  • Eagletalon’s True Focus should not feel required to make Trueshot feel good to use.
  • Unblinking Vigil feels near-useless, as you already have Precise Shots available on demand via Multi-Shot.

Possible Solutions:

• Revert the Focus cost increases on Aimed Shot and Arcane Shot to BfA values.
• Precise Shots (one of the following):
  • Change Precise Shots to a single stack per Aimed Shot, adjust the damage buff accordingly.
  • Add a secondary effect to Precise Shots reducing the Focus cost of the buffed Arcane Shot or Multi-Shot. (This exists in BfA as the Master Marksman talent, which is almost universally chosen).
  • Allow Precise Shots charges to stack higher and/or allow single Arcane/Multi-Shots to consume multiple stacks for an increased benefit.
• Adjust Serpent Sting and A Murder of Crows base damage and/or scaling to make them more competitive with Master Marksman once a given level of crit is attained.
• Bake Careful Aim into Aimed Shot for the first hit on a target, replace with Bullseye (Legion artifact trait that stacked Crit when damaging a target under 20%).
• Buff Barrage to reasonable damage levels and change the AoE effect to hit all targets in the cone, scaling up to 8 targets, and distributing the damage evenly beyond 8 targets.
• Remove the Aimed Shot CDR from Dead Eye and change it to a different effect, or provide some other way to offset the increased Focus required.
• Adjust the Trick Shots provided by Volley to last 8 seconds, or to still trigger if you are casting Aimed Shot when Volley fades.
• Bake Eagletalon’s True Focus into Trueshot, or change Trueshot to be flat Haste so that base Focus regen is buffed as well (Aimed Shot CDR could be removed as it scales with Haste already, Rapid Fire CDR should stay).
• Change the DR category of Scatter Shot from Incapacitate to Disorient.
• Replace Eagletalon’s True Focus and Unblinking Vigil with other historic effects. Some suggestions:
  • MK-II Gyroscopic Stabilizers (Aimed Shot makes your next Aimed Shot castable while moving)
  • War Belt of the Sentinel Army (Multi-Shot increases the damage of your next Aimed Shot by 10% per target hit, stacking up to 20 times)
  • Flamewaker’s Battlegear 4-piece bonus (Auto shot has a chance to make your next Shot cost no Focus)
  • Dragonstalker Armor 8-piece (You have a chance when dealing damage to apply Expose Weakness, increasing ranged attack power of all attackers against the target [I would update this to apply an Armor Penetration buff to the Hunter instead])
  • Wyrmstalker Battlegear 2-piece (Steady Shot generates twice as much Focus)
  • Guise of the Unseen Path 8-piece [and several others] (Aimed Shot has a chance to increase your Haste for 12 seconds)

[Ghorak-laughing-skull]

@Adreaver-undermine

High Points:

For much, I agree with these.

I find that the list is pretty thin considering how many abilities returned to us are simply not intended to be used, for w/e reason, depending on your spec.

That however is a bigger problem, which stems from the fact that we now as a class have to deal with design elements that have to account for specs that focus on ranged weapons as well as a spec that relies on melee weapons.

And in order for certain utility/damaging abilities to work for all specs, we have to design them to work differently depending on the spec chosen.

Having said that, here are some non-damage based abilities I would want back on a class-wide basis, as part of this new focus on “class fantasy”.

Aspect of the Fox(WoD-edition) - just modified a little in order to not heavily promote class stacking, something similar to how Bloodlust/Sated works for us.

Distracting Shot - with the addition of allowing it to interact with Misdirection. Meaning we can get more use out of Misdirection even when playing BM in group-based content.

Master’s Call - should return as a baseline ability, and thus, be replaced by something else for the Cunning-specialization. In short, if we have a pet out, no matter what pet it is, we should have access to Master’s Call.

@Adreaver-undermine

Low Points:

@Adreaver-undermine

Hunter’s Mark

Yeah, they should just remove the damage component and keep it strictly for the utility as a situational ability(mostly for certain use in PvP).

@Adreaver-undermine

Trailblazer offers little to no value in combat, as it does not help you create distance against enemies you are actively fighting. Camouflage is nice for soloing but offers no in-combat utility. Natural Mending is really the only good option for group content

Agreed.

@Adreaver-undermine

Posthaste so badly outclasses the other options as to make them irrelevant (possibly different for BM and SV, since Binding Shot is definitely more worthwhile than Binding Shackles. It should honestly be baseline.

Posthaste has pretty much been the go-to for all but some niche situations, despite the continued nerfs it has seen as of late.
Yes, it should become a baseline passive effect baked into Disengage.

@Adreaver-undermine

Covenant abilities are poorly balanced and don’t really offer comparable options for different specs/content.

Yep.

@Adreaver-undermine

Not much of a change from BfA iterations, which isn’t necessarily terrible for BM, but for MM and SV leaves something to be desired.

I find that it leaves some things to be desired for BM as well. Will get to that later on.

@Adreaver-undermine

4s Revive Pet, when combined with pets general lack of durability, the ability for Mend Pet to be purged, and the ability for Revive Pet to be interrupted, makes Hunters extremely vulnerable to pet death with little to no recourse.

Yep, take it back down to the 2s. It wasn’t in need of a change.

@Adreaver-undermine

Pet specializations being locked severely limits the usefulness of many families.

Very much so. I find that Specializations involve you as the hunter and how you guide your pet in combat. That IMO should not be restricted depending on what pet is used.

Pet special abilities should be locked to specific pet-types(as they are themed after individual pet families). But abilities and effects tied to the specializations, aren’t. And therefor, should not be locked.

@Adreaver-undermine

Very lackluster class-wide legendary options.

Haven’t had access to alpha/beta so, haven’t been able to try them myself until now. But from what has been reported/shown so far, I agree.

@Adreaver-undermine

Possible Solutions:

@Adreaver-undermine

Trailblazer could fall off when taking damage, rather than dealing damage.

Better than what we have now, but still not good enough IMO.

Or well, I guess it would depend on how long you’d lose it after taking damage.

@Adreaver-undermine

Baseline Camouflage as-is, replace the talent with something else (Improved Camouflage, making it last until cancelled out of combat, and usable in combat with a ~6 second duration, would be really nice)

Yep. Agreed.

@Adreaver-undermine

• Increase pet durability significantly such that enemy players need to make an actual commitment to kill the pet.
• Make Mend Pet immune to dispels, or reset the cooldown if it is dispelled early.
• Allow Pets to be respecialized as the player sees fit.

Yes.

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Looking at Beast Mastery

Mostly, I find that Beast Mastery suffers from issues involving it’s talent choices. However…looking at what we can find on beta atm:

Baseline

• The change to Bestial Wrath where they added a direct damage component to it, currently it just feels horrible every time you are about to engage in combat. If it had a baked in charge-mechanic for your pet(s) like Kill Command and Barbed Shot does, it would be fine.

Talents

Tier 15

Animal Companion - should be replaced by something else and instead be made into a baseline choice for us. Similar to what they did with Lone Wolf for Marksmanship, going into BfA. Allow us to manually call out 2 pets at once. And if we do, each pet deals 50% of normal damage each. If we only use 1 pet, that pet deals 100% damage.

Make it a choice of aesthetic preferences, not one of damage.

Dire Beast - They should just revert this back to it’s Legion design for those of us who prefered it over the Frenzy-mechanic(Barbed Shot). It was one of the best designed options we had as BM hunters for how to pick our desired theme/style of gameplay.

Tier 25

Scent of Blood - Looking at Bestial Wrath when combined with the altered talent Scent of Blood, again, it makes the gameplay feel very awkward.

You basically have a choice of: Use Bestial Wrath first, possibly losing out on the direct damage hit as the pet might not be near the target. This will waste the initial benefit you gain from Scent of Blood as you already have 2 stacks of Barbed Shot. But at least you don’t waste the cooldown reduction on Bestial Wrath by using Barbed Shot first. You can reverse the order of the actions above and that would ofc also reverse the issues. But it would fix neither.

Possibly the best solution to this: Add the previously mentioned Charge-mechanic to Bestial Wrath by default. And, allow the bonus charges granted when using the talent Scent of Blood to stack independently of the base charge count of Barbed Shot. Meaning if you have 1-2 charges of Barbed Shot and use Bestial Wrath, you’d then end up having 3-4 charges of Barbed Shot.

Tier 35

Spitting Cobra - Finally fixed mechanically after…4+ years of not working.
But due to the Focus cost of Cobra Shot(even after the returned Rank 2), yeah…it doesn’t make the gameplay feel that good, if you ask me.

Thrill of the Hunt - This is ofc useful, but is quite bland/uninteresting in it’s design.

A Murder of Crows - Should be made into a baseline ability for Beast Mastery.
Add in a talent which makes the ability interact with Kill Command, if picked.
Example: Kill Command extends the remaining duration of A Murder of Crows by X seconds every time it’s used.

Tier 45

Stomp - Still has it’s problems where it’s used even when the pet isn’t in range of the target yet.

Barrage - If you ask me, this is just a horrible ability, thematically, for Beast Mastery. It’s practical sure, but it does not fit the fantasy at all.

I would want this to be replaced by a talent which focuses on Kill Command. Allowing Kill Command to benefit from Beast Cleave as well.

Stampede - They changed/reduced it’s cooldown down to 2 minutes. Still, I find that this ability lacks the engaging momentum in it’s design which we saw with the old version that involved your stabled pets.
In short, I want the old version back. And it should be moved up to Tier 50, in the place of Bloodshed(see below).

As for filling the empty talent slot on the AoE-tier, I would argue that a version of an ability where your pet deals damage to multiple targets, similar to old Dire Frenzy, but for AoE, would do the job.

Tier 50

Aspect of the Beast - Again, a talent which is useful/practical but does not really do much for the gameplay.

I still think the talent needs something more.

Killer Cobra - Is in itself an interesting talent. I prefer how things worked with this during Legion though. Where Cobra Shot only interacted with Kill Command during Bestial Wrath, and not baseline at all times. At least it made this talent feel much better for me when picked.

Bloodshed - Due to what I suggested above with Animal Companion, I would argue that this talent should be moved to the first tier(15) in the place of AC.
With the above, this would allow us to have 2 options which focuses on our main pet, and on making that pet stronger. Meanwhile, for those of us who want to, we still have Dire Beast as an alternative focus.

And like I said above, Stampede should be changed back to it’s original form and then moved here.