[Updated] Upcoming Hunter Buffs for July 13th / 14th

[Ghorak-laughing-skull]

@Jaggles-lightbringer

What’s the average CD on that ability for BM?

7.5 sec, reduced by Haste.

@Jaggles-lightbringer

I’d rather have Multishot damage buffed, because adding passive AoE to more abilities sounds REALLY lazy to me. Unless, like trick shots, it wouldn’t cleave unless Multishot hit X number of targets first. Still seems lazy, though.

Multi-Shot hits each target, max of 5 targets, for 37.5%(43% with the new buff) of AP as Physical damage.

They will never buff MS for BM to a point where it’s useful to press it more often than now where you do it once every 4 sec just to keep Beast Cleave up. The whole gameplay loop of BM is designed so that you shouldn’t spam MS.

[Jaggles-lightbringer]

Is there not a break point where, say, pressing MS on 2-3 targets is a dps loss over another skill?

[Onostoolan-zangarmarsh (Onostoolan)]

They did not take this far enough to realy benefit BM.

Gromgarrs Idea of KC being able to cleave in beast cleave window would be excellent !

Personally I would also like to trade 5% or even 10% of the damage from Cobra shot and add it to the base 15% we get to Kill Command. Thematically better and if they would make KC cleave bonus.

Overall as was pointed out in another thread by Cognisant
[Updated] Upcoming Hunter Buffs for July 13th / 14th - #12 by Cognizant-thunderlord

The entirety of these buffs are roughly equal to a 5% overall aura buff so Meh again.

[Sylina-moon-guard]

I wish haste made rapid fire’s cooldown shorten. I feel like that would improve MM’s rotation a bit.

Will be interesting to see how the buffs affect hunter’s ST in the raid logs. I feel like BM will benefit a lot, considering the amount of movement on fights in Sanctum.

[Cognizant-thunderlord]

My opinions about BM Hunter and why I switched to Priest…

1. The entire spec is very mediocre. None of the abilities really stand out. Kill Command is supposed to be the big hitter, but barely does more damage than our filler Cobra Shot. On my Hunter, it’s 2214 KC and 2139 CS.

2. Talents aren’t diverse enough. Pretty much every BM uses the same talents. Animal Companion is the best talent in the first row by a good clip and it’s been bugged since it was introduced. On my Priest, I change talents frequently based on the content I’m doing.

(For those that don’t know, Animal Companion reduces your pet’s damage by 35% to offset having two pets. Unfortunately, it seems to be an aura debuff that applies to all pets - including Spitting Cobra and guardian pets from quests/dungeons.)

3. I don’t know if this is still the case on Live, but Domination shards give a “increases damage by x%” buff. Since it’s not a stat increase, BM pets aren’t getting the buff. This makes the entire Domination shard system half as effective for BM Hunters.

That being said, what I would like to see to fix the spec:

• Fix Animal Companion and adjust other talents to provide more variety.
• Fix the Domination shard system(if it hasn’t been already).
• Change Frenzy stacks to increase damage in other ways than just haste. Perhaps each stack provides 30% haste AND 5-10% more damage. This would reward those with more skill at keeping frenzy stacks up.
• Explosive Trap should be baseline. I’m mixed on this one, but I’ve had far more need for explosive trap in PvE than PvP. Perhaps just uncapped AoE damage in PvE, but a knockback with lower damage in PvP.

[Ghorak-laughing-skull]

@Cognizant-thunderlord

1. Talents aren’t diverse enough. Pretty much every BM uses the same talents. Animal Companion is the best talent in the first row by a good clip and it’s been bugged since it was introduced. On my Priest, I change talents frequently based on the content I’m doing.

(For those that don’t know, Animal Companion reduces your pet’s damage by 35% to offset having two pets. Unfortunately, it seems to be an aura debuff that applies to all pets - including Spitting Cobra and guardian pets from quests/dungeons.)

Yeah, I made a bug report for it just recently. Not holding my breath though as well, it has been like this since the launch of BfA(and before that really, with the Alpha/Beta).

Beast Mastery, Talent: Animal Companion - hidden aura

So, this talent was first introduced with BfA. Since then, there has been a hidden aura modifier that applies whenever you select this talent. This aura intends to reduce the damage dealt by your main pet(and by extension) the second pet as well, so that they both deal 65% of normal damage each. Talent: Animal Companion Talent Requires Hunter (Beast Mastery) | Requires level 15 Your Call Pet additionally summons the first pet from your stable. This pet will obey your Kill Command, but canno…

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@Cognizant-thunderlord

That being said, what I would like to see to fix the spec:

• Fix Animal Companion and adjust other talents to provide more variety.
• Fix the Domination shard system(if it hasn’t been already).
• Change Frenzy stacks to increase damage in other ways than just haste. Perhaps each stack provides 30% haste AND 5-10% more damage. This would reward those with more skill at keeping frenzy stacks up.
• Explosive Trap should be baseline. I’m mixed on this one, but I’ve had far more need for explosive trap in PvE than PvP. Perhaps just uncapped AoE damage in PvE, but a knockback with lower damage in PvP.

I like those ideas. Not sure on Explosive Trap though.

Long term, I would like to see something more for BM. Posted this earlier in this topic but anyway, looking past Shadowlands really, this is more or less where I want BM to be:

Beast Mastery - future improvements[Partial rework]

I know this is a big overkill in terms of suggestions for a 0.5 patch(any mid-expansion patch really). But I though I’d take another look at what I would like to see from Beast Mastery in the future, based on it’s current design. Some things, such as a lack of potential single-target burst, cleave, or burst AoE/AoE in general, have been mentioned by others in regards to the spec several times both recently and further back in time. Along with the “squishy” nature of Hunters. Hopefully, some of …

[Nippyss-barthilas (Nippyss)]

I’ll be making that legendary the second the patch drops

I’ve gone from like 18% haste to 30% haste this week on my hunter, my kill shot damage has gotten pretty wild

I think it’s actually going to be really strong and the whole ability just scales so well with stats there might actually be a point where it gets kinda OP, kill shot damage on ST might actually take over my goose bite damage with enough procs

Interested to see how it will perform in AoE

Going to be a very fun week

[Badsneakerz-stormrage]

So you are getting a lot more procs on Kill Shot with that much haste? I have been focusing crit>verse=haste even though it’s not ideal because i like those massive numbers.

[Nippyss-barthilas (Nippyss)]

I need to use haste because I’m survival spec

And yeah I get boat loads of procs with more haste

I’d love to get the conduit upgraded for it

[Badsneakerz-stormrage]

I’m survival also. I know haste sims super high for us, but I have two hunters. My night fae hunter is haste/verse and my Venthyr hunter is at 40% base crit. I ended up focusing on the venthyr one for this patch.

I took two different approaches just for some variety I guess.

The Venthyr one is so far behind on M+ damage compared to the night fae that it’s really making me start to regret going venthyr.

[Bullëtproof-zuljin]

Wild Spirits is almost 20% of my M+ damage.

[Nippyss-barthilas (Nippyss)]

Good lord that’s a lot of crit rating, you’d get some big slaps from the kill shots ahaha

I’d like to try a crit mastery build just to see how high the kill shots could go

[Badsneakerz-stormrage]

That was my original intent also, but i’m not finding much crit/mastery gear. it’s mostly crit/vers so far.

[Ghorak-laughing-skull]

@Kaivax

Updated July 12 at 16:30 with PvP notes.

Player versus Player

Hunter

• Beast Mastery
  • Kill Command damage decreased by 15% in PvP situations.

[Gromgarr-azgalor]

Could this be the point where you dont press KC at all anymore?

[Coromu-bleeding-hollow]

I’m super excited to feel the power.

I’m personally doing well with dps in pugs so far in normal amd heroic.
I cant wait to see the growth after reset. Its been a while waiting.

[Oukiidouki-nemesis]

@Nippyss-barthilas

I’d like to try a crit mastery build just to see how high the kill shots could go

Just to remember: our SV mastery only affect skill who have a focus cost. So, KS procs dont get value of mastery of SV (bombs too)

[Àvey-area-52]

I don’t necessarily think this is negative. They are putting a bandaid on an issue that is ongoing which they knew about. Before 9.1 they could have addressed the issues with the class which they decided not to do. EVERY hunter on this forum has a right to be pissed at blizzard. The love to hunters is nice but as people have already pointed out it does not address BM’s behind on AOE and the mediocre pet damage. They should have addressed this before 9.1 but they decided to buff survival (which is our least played spec) and ignore the needs of the other two specs. The hybrids are doing better than the pure damage specs and that’s pretty sad. Blizzard has lost their sense of vision for classes and you can see by the way they band aid classes.

[Nippyss-barthilas (Nippyss)]

Still counts as a focus ability even if you get it for free

[Jaggles-lightbringer]

• Beast Mastery

  • [With regional restarts] Cobra Shot, Barbed Shot, Multi-Shot, and Kill Shot damage increased by 15%.

  • [With regional restarts] Kill Command damage increased by 15% in non-PvP situations.

• Marksmanship

  • [With regional restarts] Aimed Shot, Arcane Shot, Multi-Shot, and Rapid Fire damage increased by 10%.

  • [With regional restarts] Kill Shot damage increased by 15%.

• Survival

  • [With regional restarts] Serpent Sting, Wildfire Bomb, Raptor Strike, Mongoose Bite, Flanking Strike, and Kill Shot damage increased by 10%.’

Is the implication that all of these buffs apply to both PvE AND PvP? I ask because the KC buff is specified as only applying to PvE. That would suggest all the rest of these are PvP, too? Or at the very least, the BM changes are? If this is the case, I’m excited, but suggest everyone prepare for the potential backlash.