We need to discuss Hunter Hero Talents

Classes Hunter
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There are already Blue posts seeking feedback for the first round of Hero Talents that have been released; Mountain Thane, Lightsmith, Chronowarden, and San’layn. It’s only a matter of time before the first Hunter Hero Tree is out and the more we can reach a consensus as a community the better our feedback will be and the more likely we are to influence the direction of the designs.

We have Sentinel, Pack Leader, and Dark Ranger. There’s already been some discussion about these which I’ll reiterate as best I can, but let’s start with a few basics.

It will probably look something like this

Survival - Sentinel or Pack Leader

Marksman - Dark Ranger or Sentinel

Beast Master - Pack Leader or Dark Ranger

Pack Leader is obvious. There’s been some argument around Sentinel, but hopefully we can at least agree that Sentinels, often depicted with a glaive, have more melee association than the Dark Ranger. So, it seems safe to assume that Sentinel is the natural evolution of Survival. Feel free to place your predictions here, but let’s try to stay on track as much as we can.

How Hero Talents are being designed

We already know from Blizzard’s article and from looking at the other released talents, more or less, how these things are being designed. Warrior’s Mountain Thane tree (Fury/Protection) takes several abilities and adds a bunch of sparkles and damage to them, basically.

With that, we can start to make some predictions about what abilities our hero talents will play off of as well. Call me crazy, but I’m guessing…

Sentinel - Sentinel Owl, Death Chakram, and maybe Kill Shot
Pack Leader - Kill Command, Serpent Sting, and Cobra Shot/Mongoose Bite
Dark Ranger - Maybe Wailing Arrow, Barrage/Explosive Shot, and Barbed/Arcane Shot

The Good

  1. First off, I just want to say I love the idea of Hero Talents. If done right, these can just bring characters to life and make them even more fun to play.

  2. It’s a great opportunity to address some issues that Hunters complain about around here, like class identity. People who were here for the Dark Ranger fantasy should be pretty hype right now.

  3. Some concepts build on overlaps in abilities or flavors between the two specs that can use it, like Colossus warriors, which are as mighty as Arms warriors and as imposing as Protection warriors. Others create new themes that are appropriate for both specs, like Fatebound rogues

  • This quote from the article suggests to me that Blizzard is open to some level of adjustment when it comes to the theme and gameplay of any given class that the hero talent is available to. If so, this is HUGE. It’s possible that Sentinel could introduce Lone Wolf to Survival, Pack Leader could bring melee combat to Beast Mastery, and Marksman could be getting more mobility from Dark Ranger. I highly recommend that we push for this as hard as possible.

The Bad

  1. What if it’s the wrong class fantasy? Let’s say you’re playing a Dwarven Hunter. Thematically, it would feel bad to have to choose between Sentinel or Dark Ranger, two class themes that lean pretty far in the Elvish direction.

  • Blademasters just wouldn’t be Blademasters without abilities like Wind Walk and Mirror Image, but those abilities don’t fit in a warrior’s toolkit

  1. That’s a quote from Blizzard’s article, so basically they have already axed certain awesome character fantasies, such as the Blademaster. Safe to say the Warden also falls into this category since in Warcraft 3 the Warden is a rogue mage glaive wielding mishmash of a class as well.

  2. What if you don’t like the abilities that were chosen for your hero talent trees? This will feel bad for players who didn’t want to use Death Chakram and Sentinel Owl or Barrage, etc. By designing the hero talent trees this way, players will feel forced to spec a certain way, effectively pidgeon holing them down specific paths. Blizzard specifically stated they would avoid this, but I’m looking at those Mountain Thane talents and I really don’t see myself playing any spec without Thunder Clap and Avatar unless they can absolutely thread the needle and perfectly balance it with the other hero talent option.

My Feedback

  1. As I mentioned above, we have a glorious opportunity for Hunters here, and I’d like to suggest the following:

  • Sentinel → brings Lone Wolf to Survival.
    Dark Ranger → brings better mobility to Marksman.
    Pack Leader → brings melee combat options to Beast Mastery.

  1. Sentinel - The Sentinel isn’t a very exciting name for a hero class. In Warcraft, a Sentinel is literally just a night elf guard/soldier. Basically anything would be an improvement on this.

  2. Pack Leader - Not as egregious as Sentinel, but again, just not very exciting. To be completely honest, I have no idea what you could replace this with. Beast Master is already the name of the spec and that’s pretty much the hero class title as well, especially if you ask any Beast Master.

  • Name suggestions - Ranger, Valewalker, Nature’s Chosen, Nature’s Guardian, Falconer

  1. Hero Talents - Be more flexible with which abilities are affected by hero talents. I’ll use the Mountain Thane as an example. Instead of only giving the extra lightning components to Thunder Clap and Avatar from the baseline tree, it should be available to others as well. For Fury, shouldn’t whirlwind also be affected? That’s how you really maintain the freedom to choose.

  2. Sentinel - Please don’t make me use Sentinel Owl.

Ok, so what are you all hoping to see with Hero Talents?

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This is really odd, different people will have different opinions and that’s kind of the whole point of a feedback thread.

I find this highly unlikely given how mobile mm already is

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I wish we just had a new bow only spec in the game. Its so annoying the only bow spec is MM and its tied to a pet and has been outdated for a decade.

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they should add the old rsv style gameplay to DH for its 3rd spec

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I feel like leather bow would make sense and DH or rogue would make sense.

Dark ranger to me should be a rogue hero talent anyway. To me dark rangers use shadow\death magic and have daggers\bows\leather armor. Hunters with mail armor and only bows with nature magic idk

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Most Hunter skills are already working pretty well. I won’t mind at all if skills like Death Chakram, Serpent Sting, and Arcane/Barbed Shot become the focal points for our Hero Talents. There are, however, a few skills that definitely need to be reconsidered before they ever become the types of abilities that most Hunters will want as part of their core or hero talent definitions.

  • If Sentinel Owl is going to be a core ability, it should be redesigned. No one likes ground reticle abilities when they become forced parts of a rotation rather than situationally useful. They are easily avoided by enemies, and feel bad when you move out of them and lose whatever buffs they give you. This is getting close to becoming the Hunter version of Rune of Power, Consecration, Death and Decay, etc. These skills become universally hated once you start forcing players to stand in a small zone to maintain buffs.

  • Sentinel Owl - It should be reworked to function like an Arcane Familiar, but with an activateable element. Summon a Sentinel Owl that passively increases your leech by 4% for 1 hour. On activation, grants the ability to ignore LoS for the next 6 seconds, with a medium cooldown.

  • Steel Trap - This is a cool skill, the problem is it just doesn’t have enough going on to ever feel worthy of a capstone talent. This is the kind of skill I would expect to acquire half way down a talent tree, not at the end. I would move this skill up and replace it with something like what that Overwatch hamster has, the Mine Field ability. That’s cool and would be worthy of a capstone talent, and is also quite fitting for a trapper theme.

  • Aimed Shot - Marksman Hunters complain constantly about how bad it feels when Aimed Shot locks you in place and you end up having to cancel to avoid aoe attacks. I tend to agree, I think Marksman in general is missing more fun stuff to do with their spec and this particular part of the rotation feels bad. The rest is just press button to shoot target and it’s pretty boring. It would be nice to have a skill shot somewhere in the kit, something that fires like Arcane Orb, and maybe Aimed Shot could become that ability.

All I mean is that Blizzard is less likely to respond to one screwball with a hot take. On the other hand, if we can reach some consensus about how the Hunter should be changed, then we may actually see some movement. Right now our best canary is probably the Paladin with Lightsmith, their feedback thread has been absolutely lit up with complaints and criticism towards the proposed hero talents. If they don’t see some change, then we can start to worry.

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Then they should play bm or a melee spec. Ranged dps have casts. I think removing the only 1 mm has is a terrible idea

It’s a public forum they are gonna exist but you can always just ignore them and post your own feedback.

This is ridiculous, a feedback thread is for all kinds of feedback from varying viewpoints and opinions. For example I completely disagree with your takes about marksman and would never be able to come to a consensus.

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The name of these hero trees are just that; a name. It’s not an issue to me. A tree could be called “Pointy Stickshooter Mcstabby Knife” and I’d still play it if it’s fun. If it’s a make-or-break issue for you, there are a lot of other hills to die on.

What worries me are abilities. For MM, I’d like to see more mobility and less focus on popups. Or make them more passive, like how LotWR reduces the cooldown on RF, not things like Auto-Shots randomly granting big DPS/mobility buffs, or how part of your rotation is flat out RNG (precise shots). So if Dark Ranger/Sentinel can smooth this out, that would be preferred.

For SV, I’d really like to see three things; a Lone Wolf option, more camo options, and options to tack on more ranged without replacing my melee. I’d like it if I could use disengage to recover health or resources by temporarily switching to ranged. This would make disengage more than just a Harpoon-reset tool in PvE (or a swirly avoider). I don’t want it to delete melee, I want it to be a “stand back and breathe” moment in the toolkit, where I don’t lose a ton of DPS to do it. Finally, I’d like it if I could use a bit more rogue-stealth at times, to get an ambush off every so often. It would be a fun change at the very least. For the Lone Wolf part of the toolkit, it’d be nice if I didn’t have to rely on RNG resets for a giant part of my cooldown recovery.

For BM, I’d like to see options to take back some of my pet damage and put it back into my own hands. Or maybe go melee. But if I had a choice to go melee, I’d go SV, 'cause SV is fun (if odd).

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but mm is already incredibly mobile would be insane to make it even more so

this just doesn’t feel sv hunter to me personally

Doesn’t really make sense for a BEAST master spec tho does it

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And BM is 100% mobile. I can’t ask for more? Is that illegal? Illegal opinions that I want to be able to run and gun as a class that both runs and guns? I can’t ask they combine the two?

It’s part of the fantasy. How often does a Hunter announce very vocally and dramatically that they’re going to shoot you, then shoot you? No, a Hunter sneaks up on their unsuspecting prey before going in for the kill. If you’re surviving, you’re not playing fair. It’s your life or theirs - and every advantage is the difference between life and death.

I don’t remember Dark Ranger using pets. And I’m pretty sure BM ~ MM is going to be the Dark Ranger Hero tree. So if you take Dark Ranger BM, it’ll probably empower your cobra shots or wailing arrow - both put more damage in your hands, which is beneficial for leech purposes, thus making you more tanky.

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yes actually it is illegal. sorry you had to find out this way.

ranged DPS in this game (besides BM much to the chagrin of the wider playerbase) is meant to have cast times and be slightly less mobile than melee. that’s the entire offset of being able to attack at 40 yard range and lose no dps to target swaping or needing to spread/soak/move/etc for mechanics

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And? If BM - arguably the better class because it’s entirely free of all casts times - can move and shoot, why can’t MM? Why can’t it? It can also fire at a 40 yard range. It can avoid all of the mechanics. It has strong cooldowns and does great damage. The pets basically have an infinite charge, too, and can swap to any other target instantly if the target is within a massive range of them.

“Muh design”, “muh raid mechanics” make the arena smaller. Other MMOs have completely solved this issue and players like you are the ones who cling to bad design because its always been this way. Why can’t we have fun? “Oh it may be situationally really powerful, it may be unbalanced, it may make playing the class easier-”

We can’t factor in a 5% DPS increase due to not dropping casts while moving? Does BM and MM not die to mechanics anyway? We can’t design the issue away? It just can’t happen because… it can’t? Why can’t we have it? We change the design, everyone gets to play on the move, all specs become more fun because you can move your feet.

“But it’s easier-” BM is 4 buttons. Frost Mage is easy, too. Devastation Evoker is easy, and they have abilities to cast freely while flying. Fury Warrior, Havoc DH, Ret Paladins - all easy, and they’re melee.

You know what spec isn’t that easy? Fire Mage and Arcane Mage. Both of them are really difficult to pick up and master, and there’s a high skillcap. And they have to turret, too, and they lose DPS when they move - even though they have a hard spec to play. If you actually look at the rotation for Arcane Mage, the raid mechanic IS playing Arcane Mage.

What makes a spec easy or hard to play is the design of the spec, not if they’re ranged or melee. Melee have just as many swirlies to deal with as ranged. And if a boss goes out of range for 2 seconds, they have several abilities to catch up and get back in melee. At most they’re losing one or two GCDs off the damage meters. And if they have to stand back to soak, that should be an RDPS task to begin with - since they can play at any range.

I’ve put in a few good days as SV, I’ve done Amirdrassil - all bosses, on normal (and I’m gearing for Heroic), and let me tell you. I lost no DPS because the boss moved. The times I lost DPS were because I was forced to soak for ranged refusing to move from their stupid turret positions.

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“Then just go play X spec” is not a valid or thoughtful response. What is your argument for it then? If you just want to have a casted shot ability like Aimed Shot for the sake of feeling like you’re “taking aim” or “charging up” I could totally understand that, and I’d even agree. I’m not saying that should be taken away entirely, but to make it a core ability doesn’t feel right to me. I see that as a capstone talent that MM Hunters can at least opt out of if desired. MM Hunters very common piece of feedback that Aimed Shot makes them feel locked in too much is completely and perfectly legitimate criticism.

I guess I don’t understand what you’re trying to say to this at all. When did I say that individuals can’t have their own opinions? I’m not trying to take away your favorite toys lol. The whole entire point of this forum is to figure out what the majority of Hunters are thinking about their class. If you’re just here to pitch your opinion into the void, that’s perfectly fine too, but does this really need to be clarified over and over and over again? I thought this was just plain simple and obvious and completely went without saying, but I guess not.

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It is a core part of the spec and has been since for ages, turning a key rotational ability into a capstone talent sounds awful.

Whats plain simple, obvious and goes without saying is that the idea of a pre feedback feedback thread so that we can “reach a consensus” is ridiculous.

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Here’s some feedback: Advocate for buffs instead of demanding nothing ever changes. Blizzard is trying to be more open about player feedback and now is our chance to actually do something with our specs.

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Well of the 3 hunter specs currently only mm needs buffs which I am very much in favour of but I tend to provide feedback on the ptr forum threads etc about what changes I’d like to see for hunter so I definitely don’t demand nothing ever changes.

I think bm is the best its been in a very long time and sv plays great but would like to see mm reverted back to the legion version instead of the bfa onwards iteration

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Again, "it should stay that way because it “always” was that way, is not a valid response. Things can and should evolve.

Discussing the Hunter class on the Hunter class forum is a ridiculous concept? Huh?

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I gagged when I read that. Get out of here, that is the worst take to ever exist on the forum, take your vulnerability windows and get out RIGHT now.

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No I’m saying that your idea that there needs to be a majority opinion for when the thread is created for hunter hero talents is ridiculous.

I feel the same way about your sv takes but at least I try to be more constructive than that lol