Thanks for the impactful feedback. Updated my log in, btw.
You only quoted the first half. The second half specifically referenced spec synergy with bleeds.
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I just checked and you don’t really do any end game pve content?
acting like an expert to a dude who literally clears CE as sv while struggling to get aotc is it an ego thing or what but you’ve truly provided some entertainment so thanks for that
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you have 0 logs, and 2 aotcs (that aren’t even recent), no kshs, and 0 references to existing on rio/wcl
why do you act as if you have any room to talk about how a spec aught to function when you’ve never played it anywhere near the highest level
the changes for PL are fine (good actually, makes it playable), and sentinel is wholly unaffected in the long term because we were overflowing with gcds and no way to spend them efficiently
now we will, and it’s better in the long run for the whole of survival
railing against it because it harshes your vibe is selfish and short sighted, to say the least
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Could you for god’s sake show me the new lava burst animation? I can’t install PTR anymore
I believe this is somewhat hyperbole. I do miss the bombs, I miss the butchery spam too. But, I am coming around on the bleed. It packs so much punch that it will affect my ST builds.
I think we need to adjust Frezy Strikes to give more cooldown reduction since we lost our Butchery Charges. I also think Symphonic Arsenal needs to be adjusted to reflect the loss there too. Might be cool if Symphonic procced on a Sentinel stack implosion.
Honestly, I see what they were going for here, and it certainly fits well with PL, but I also wish PL would get the Dark Ranger treatment. It, like Dark Ranger did, feels half baked, I want it to cook more and I really want it to have some kind of presence. A meaty sound queue, a heavy bleed burst, something primal like a wild spirit effect, having us do what Vicious Hunt says and attack with our pet, enrage, anything. I feel like it doesn’t give me any spec fantasy at all. Where is that primal hunter fantasy of Rexxar? Not here.
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Not all of us are min/max zealots that respec for every fight and not all fights are purely single target or AoE. Besides, Deadly Duo makes Fury of the Eagle more effective against single targets and Spearhead works with Ruthless Marauder to reduce the cooldown of Flanking Strike.
And if that still isn’t enough they could simply give Fury of the Eagle increased damage to the primary target like they did with Wildfire Bomb to give it more value in single target fights.
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I didn’t say it shouldn’t exist. I simply said I’m not a fan of it. They should not have removed pre-Legion survival, and should’ve instead given them a fourth spec. You can no longer play as that, and MM is a pale imitation even with the PTR changes. I’m not here to bemoan it, and this isn’t the place. I was trying advocate, not depreciate. Cheers.
You’re completely right then. They should never had removed things like warlock demon form, warrior gladiator…Just make another spec or subspec
The entire point of the talent tree system is you give certain things up to take other things. That’s not a minmax zealot thing at all, that’s just not taking (or expecting) AoE talents to function perfectly in ST.
Yet here you are lol
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I’m well aware of the give and take of the talent trees. That’s why I don’t mind running what is perceived as a purely AoE talent (Fury of the Eagle) with what is perceived as a purely single target talent (Spearhead).
As Pack Leader, I get 33% increased crit damage from Howl of the Pack. Then Spearhead + Deadly Duo increases my crit chance against my primary target by 30% while also increasing my crit damage against the target by another 30%.
When I combine this with Fury of the Eagle + Ruthless Marauder and my character’s own crit chance, my Fury of the Eagle has a 100% chance to crit my primary target once it drops below 50% health and each of those crits deal 63% more damage.
Then also consider that every one of those crits are reducing the cooldown of Flanking Strike, which when combined with Exposed Flank strikes an additional 2 targets and causes Kill Command to do the same for the next 10 seconds. And since I’m playing Pack Leader, I have more frequent Kill Commands with which to cleave as well as to reduce the cooldown of Fury of the Eagle.
This is a great loop that is well worth saving. The live versions of Ruthless Marauder and Exposed Flank need to remain as they are, as does Fury of the Eagle’s cooldown reduction from Kill Command resets. These all play into the loop, but the PTR changes obliterate this play style.
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Survival is currently terrible in PvP. How about we get some fixes in on that? PvP damage is gutted since launch of TWW. Pretty much unplayable.
Exactly, this - many ppl complained in Beta (including me) that Butchery doesn’t feel like a strong button to press. Butchery went from a heavy hitter (thanks mostly to Hellcarver) to a mediocre AoE Ability that was purely an enabler over the years.
The Shift in its Design back to being an independent AoE Burst feels great. Sure, it will take time for ppl to adapt, esp. for those that didn’t follow optimal play and got away with it.
The rotation is currently (in current patch) still convoluted and there isn’t often a clear answer for the player (only while playing - not after reading a guide on it) as to what to press next. The new design offers a clearer path that does not require in-depth prior knowledge about the spec.
TL:DR: A Reduction in Casts available was needed to provide a clearer AoE “Rotation”.
For the Rest of the points that were disliked here: I think Leaku/Woodsy and Ghonhir did pretty good job here to spread right knowledge on it.
One thing I would have liked to see from those changes would have been a resource
bar for Tip of the Spear, as it is so centric to the Spec that it could need it.
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What in the world are they thinking. Removing charges of butchery? Whoever is doing this is absolutely clueless.
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The “ranged only” people have been trying to destroy mistweaver for years.
They can’t accept that having 5 pure-ranged healers is enough.
Exposed Flank
Live - Flanking Strike hits 2 additional targets and causes Kill Command to do the same for 10 seconds.
PTR - Flanking Strike causes your next Kill Command to deal 50% more damage and hit 3 targets. Generates a stack of Tip of the Spear for each target struck.
This seems very much like a significant nerf to Pack Leader that is aimed at streamlining Sentinel. Not only will Flanking Strike no longer cleave, but only the first Kill Command will cleave.
With how often Pack Leader uses Kill Command, having those Kill Command cleaves for 10 seconds after using Flanking Strike is a great asset. When Sentinel already outperforms Pack Leader, this seems like an unnecessary punishment for preferring the wrong Hero tree. The live version needs to stay.
Fury of the Eagle
Live - Kill Command resets reduce the cooldown of Fury of the Eagle by 3 seconds.
PTR - Damage increased by 25%, channel time reduced to 3 seconds, but Kill Command resets no longer reduce cooldown.
The increased damage and reduced channel time are welcome as the ability was considered by many to have been undertuned for some time now. The loss of cooldown reduction from Kill Command resets seems like another slap in the face to Pack Leader players who prioritize Kill Command.
Keep the increased damage and reduced channel time, but also return the cooldown reduction from Kill Command resets. Let this be a buff to Fury of the Eagle instead of trying to render it as a neutral change to FotE that allows Sentinel to ignore Kill Command a little longer.
Ruthless Marauder
Live - Fury of the Eagle’s increased chance to crit now kicks in when targets reach 50% instead of 20%. Crits reduce the cooldown of Flanking Strike and Wildfire Bomb by 1 second. 2 talent points.
PTR - Has a 20% chance to generate a stack of Tip of the Spear each time it deals damage. When it ends, gain 10% Haste.
The only positives here are the drop down to a single talent point and feeling free to use the ability regardless of the target’s health.
This is yet another change that seems aimed at propping up Sentinel even more by reducing the number of times it has to press Kill Command to gain Tip of the Spear stacks. This is the sort of thing that can be done in Sentinel’s Hero tree.
I would suggest adjusting Fury of the Eagle to have increased crit chance to targets below 50% as the base talent. Then adjust Ruthless Marauder as a single talent to improve this so that Fury of the Eagle gains the increased crit chance to targets below 75% while retaining the cooldown reduction to Flanking Strike.
There is already enough cooldown reduction for Wildfire Bombs going on in the talent tree, but Ruthless Marauder was the only means to reduce the cooldown of Flanking Strike, which when combined with live Exposed Flank, creates a great play loop for Pack Leader by creating a higher frequency of 10 second windows for Kill Command to cleave.
Additional Thoughts
Rather than butchering several talents that work together to create a fun and engaging playstyle for Pack Leader for the sake of streamlining Sentinel, just adjust a couple of talents in the Sentinel Hero tree.
Sentinel Precision - Raptor Strike, Mongoose Bite, and Wildfire Bomb deal 8% increased damage and Flanking Strike generates an additional stack of Tip of the Spear.
Then consider allowing Kill Command to be cast without disrupting Fury of the Eagle.
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they are thinking people gave and are giving feedback that the aoe rotation feels very busy/bloated and you do not have free GCDs in the aoe economy to use talents like sic’em or fote because you always need to be using butchery to reduce wfb cd, using your wfb, making sure your focus isn’t overcapping too much (which is unavoidable), you’re tipping your proper abilities etc, on top of feedback from others that butchery feels like a wet noodle that only exists for wfb cd and that the spec is just bomb spam
there’s a reason with optimal play you never spend all 3 butchery charges fwiw
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This isn’t exactly the same though as mist weaver didn’t come at the cost of a spec that was around and popular for years. I don’t think the issue is that there is a melee hunter spec so much as that it came at the cost of removing 1/3rd of the physical ranged specs in the game. Had they just added it as say a 4th spec, I think it would have been accepted. There is also the issue of how the community at large seems to have rejected survival in favor of bringing other melee. There’s nothing that survival can do that bm or mm can’t and they can do it from 30+m away
While Survival is undergoing significant changes, I would like the following to be considered:
Raptor Strike should be a baseline ability that is known upon character creation and new Hunters should start with both a ranged weapon and a melee weapon.
This would greatly improve the current situation where Survival Hunters are initially better off using a ranged weapon because they don’t actually get a melee ability until level 13.
Raptor Strike’s spot on the talent tree should be replaced with Serpent Sting.
This would be an easy replacement for baseline Raptor Strike that would serve as both a quality-of-life improvement and the return of an iconic ability for the spec.
Pack Leader is fun but has a heavy emphasis on Kill Command which can result in feeling like Focus is irrelevant. This can be remedied by creating an option that dumps excess Focus. This would allow Pack Leader Kill Command to return to its role as a Focus generator while retaining the current design of being the catalyst for Vicious Hunt and Pack Coordination.
Kill or Be Killed - When you have 50 or more Focus, Raptor Strike costs 50 Focus and deals 100% more damage. Choice node with Mongoose Bite.
Adjust Bloody Claws to work with both Raptor Strike and Mongoose Bite.
Bloody Claws - Kill Command’s chance to reset is increased by an additional 2% for every 10 Focus you are missing. Kill Command extends the duration of Mongoose Fury.
Revert the placement swap of Terms of Engagement and Ranger. The swap makes no sense. The two talents are perfect where they are on live as Terms of Engagement’s bleed effect plays into Outland Venom and Ranger improves virtually everything on the left side of the tree where it’s currently located.
Both talents are currently placed in spots where they can easily be taken or ignored, but by swapping the positions you force players to waste points on talents they may not want in order to pick them up.
After playing around with survival more today, I see what you mean. Survival isn’t the spec I remember and I shouldn’t have been so brash in my comment.
Time will tell if these are the changes the spec needs. If I still get to continually blow things up then I’m in.
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