I’m writing this in our EU Hunter forum because no one reads the Alpha feedback in Europe and I can’t post in the US. Hopefully I’ll get someone in the US to cross post this on their Alpha testing forum.
This is super long. TL;DR: there are inconsistencies with between Class fantasy and design philosophy, which directly impact the design of our Class tree. There is no ‘golden thread’ that ties Hunters together. Many Class tree talents directly contradict Spec design, Capstone and other talents that are meaningless for or not usable by some Specs, and little meaningful choice in the Class Tree.
I want to support Riokaii’s US alpha feedback post and contribute to this discussion with my view on State of the Class. Much of this feedback centres on the Class itself, rather than on an individual spec or Hero talents currently in Alpha testing. I’m focusing my feedback here because I think it’s issues around the Class design and tree where many of our problems originate.
I know you must get a lot of ‘armchair’ developers telling you the one thing you need to implement to fix us, or what specific mistakes you’re making, and I know you get a lot of hostility from Hunters about your design choices and the fact we haven’t had a major rework like Demonology or Outlaw like rework. Despite this, I think I speak for all of us Hunter players when I say there is a lot the community wants to do to offer to help you improve how it feels to play this Class. We offer ideas because, honestly, maybe they’ll give you some food for thought?
Design philosophy
We have very little insight into your design philosophy for Hunter or when we do hear from the dev team it’s to say things like “we’re broadly happy”. A lot of us don’t understand this.
The first issue is your choice to maintain our animal companions as the heart of our class. Of course, loads of us our very keen that this continue, but the impact of this choice is that MM Hunters are left having to manage the loss of a key aspect of the Class and its toolkit, particularly skills and spells that relate to survivability and utility. And we’re already broadly lacking in our kit in this regard, so this is particularly hard to stomach. It’s equivalent to Enhancement Shamans not being able to Bloodlust or Astral Shift…
I’m not advocating that MM suddenly lose Lone Wolf, because I know a lot of players like that playstyle, but other classes have temporary pets and MM could too.
The other issue is the lack of a ‘golden thread’ across the specs. Enhancement and Elemental Shamans share so much of their toolkit across the Class (they’re the most obvious class to compare ourselves to), but we don’t. The specs have a lot of shared history, but we now have very little in common in our arsenal (outside of Focus, Traps and Kill Shot.) We don’t even share pets anymore.
The most obvious thing we could share is a shared focus on bleeds and poisons, but you’ve shied away from creating this as a core for our spec for a while because maybe it’s too adjacent to Rogues? Yet you did seem to return to it in Dragonflight with the addition of Master Marksman and Serrated Shots and I’d really like to see more made of this. This also might help avoid some of our specs being too bursty, which is great until your cooldowns run out.
The third issue is a lack of survivability and utility. Since the removal of the hybrid tax, Rogues, Warlocks, and Mages have obtained a considerable amount of damage avoidance, self-healing or means to survive rot damage. They also bring a lot of utility in group content. We’ve not kept up at all and its plain to see when WoW is played competitively that the only time you see Hunters are when we are imbalanced, and our damage output outstrips other classes. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be there. This filters down and leads to negativity from other players in retail; we’re too “squishy”, we soak up too much healing resource, etc. It’s not great to feel like you’re not contributing.
What utility we have had is becoming less and less impactful in group composition. Evokers took our niche of Bloodlust and dispelling Enrages and superpowered the latter so that they can remove Enrage effects from whole groups. You’re also giving this ability to Monks in TWW. And of course, MM Hunters can’t even press Bloodlust whilst BM Hunters often don’t want to use the ‘right’ kind of pet. As it stands, what is that one reason for group and raid leaders to pick a Hunter?
Another problem that has grown more acute over time is how Hunters have lost control over the battlefield, which also relates to the survivability question. As melee classes have acquired more and more ways to close space and lock down players, Hunters have not simultaneously acquired more ways to escape and create space. A way to do this is either to reorient us towards poisons and bleeds (as above) so we can damage on the run, or we need more ways to control people, or more means to retreat to a safer place (even Survival).
Movement philosophy for the Class is difficult to understand, particularly the discrepancy between BM and MM mobility. It might be BM’s niche to be the mobile ranged spec, but it means it’s hard to balance against MM and other ranged specs when it comes to encounter design.
And the last issue is the longstanding question of simplicity vs complexity. I’m sure there are lots of players out there who want a Hunter spec that is easy to execute. Yet your design philosophy for other specs, most recently your comments on Arcane Mages in Alpha, is that you want to reward complex execution by a few percentage points. Yet for some Hunter specs it’s not just that the simplicity tax doesn’t exist, it’s that there is literally no option to make it more complex that is any way rewarding. You can have the greatest damage output in the game with the simplest rotation. This creates a lot of ill feeling toward Hunters from our fellow players (and from those Hunter specs that are more challenging to play).
Design ideas
Again, I’ll focus all my feedback on the Class tree because its here where all the problems in the emerge. These are just some ideas that you might spark off. Lots of players won’t like them. But hey, don’t ask, don’t get right?
To address the lack of reliable AOE stops:
- Concussive Shot baseline.
- Bursting Shot redesigned and available to all Hunters – Fires an explosion of bolts at all enemies in front of you, knocking them down and snaring them by 50% for 6 sec, and dealing Physical damage.
- New Talent: Mine Warfare – High Explosive Trap knocks enemies up instead of away.
To address survivability:
- Aspect of the Beast redesigned and available to all hunters: Increases the effectiveness of your pet’s Predator’s Thirst, Endurance Training, and Pathfinding passives by 50%. When choosing to be a Lone Wolf, you commune with your most recently dismissed pet, adopting their passive and special ability effects. (Make this talent useful for MM Hunters).
- Natural Mending redesigned: When your health is brought below 35%, you instantly cast Exhilaration if it is not on cooldown. Every 12 Focus you spend reduces the cooldown of Exhilaration by 1.0 sec. 1-point talent. (Create options for non-reactive healing).
- Nature’s Endurance baselined into Survival of the Fittest.
- Rejuvenating Wind redesigned: Field Medic: Maximum health increased by 4%, and Exhilaration now also heals you for an additional 10.0% of your maximum health over 8 sec, and has a 50% chance to dispel a bleed or poison effect each time it heals you. 2-point talent. (A tool to survive Rot damage).
- Hunter’s Avoidance redesigned: Damage taken is reduced by 6% for 6 seconds after casting Feign Death.
To address utility:
- Hunter’s Mark damage amplification removed or redesigned. (No one wants current design.)
- Intimidation redesigned: Commands your pet to intimidate the target, stunning it for 5 sec. When choosing to be a Lone Wolf, a Dire Beast pounces from the shadows to intimidate the target instead. (Make this talent useful for MM Hunters).
- Binding Shot removed. New Talent: Frag Grenade: Hurls a grenade at the enemy, stunning them and any other enemies within 5 yds for 3 sec. (Address frustration with Binding Shot mechanic and Stun DR).
- New Talent: Frost Arrow: Replaces Freezing Trap. Fires a Frost Arrow at the target and incapacitates them in a Trap for 1 min. Damage will break the effect. Limit 1. Trap will exist for 1 min. (Provide a choice to remove the randomness of Traps).
- New Talent: Aspect of the Fox: Your connection to Lord Renard grants you and your group 3% mastery.
- New Talent: Aspect of the Eagle: Your connection to Ohn’ahra grants your party 5% leech.
- Aspect of the Fox and Eagle are choice nodes.
- New Talent: Wild God Communion: Your connection to the Wild Gods allows your Raid group to benefit from Aspects of the Fox and Eagle.
Changes to Tier3 talents to improve playstyle, rotational anomalies, offer choice and open up talent choices to all specs:
- Serpent Sting moved down. (Make it a Class-defining spell lower in the tree).
- Beast Master removed. New Talent: Hunter Proficiency: You and your pet’s physical damage are increased by 3%. 1-point talent. (Make it useful to all Specs).
- Improved Kill Command removed. New Talent: Spiritual Connection: You can command Spirit Beasts, your pet’s leech now affects you, and your pet damage is increased by 10%. (Address BM leech design inconsistencies and open up Spirit Beasts.)
- Arctic Bola redesigned: Carve, Butchery and Multi Shot have a chance to fling an Arctic Bola at your target, dealing Frost damage and snaring the target by 20% for 3 sec. The Arctic Bola strikes up to 4 targets. 1-point talent. (Address inconsistency of ST skills proccing AOE abilities.)
- Arctic Bola moved to parent of Explosive Shot.
- Hydra’s Bite redesigned: Each time Serpent Sting does damage it has a 20% chance to react violently with its targets’ blood, spreading to 2 additional enemies, and its damage over time is increased by 20%. (Create a reason to choose this talent.)
- Serrated Shots moved to parent of Poison Injection / Hydra’s Bite.
- Barrage baselined for BM and MM. (Address the issue of having a capstone that Survival can’t even use).
- New Talent: Bloodseeker: You and your pet gain 10% attack speed for every bleeding enemy within 40 yds. (Create Bleeds as a playstyle choice for all Specs.)
- New Talent: Flayed Shot: Each time you deal Bleed damage, you have a small chance to gain Flayer’s Mark, causing your next Kill Shot to be free, usable on any target regardless of their current health, and deal 25% increased damage. (Bring back this popular talent and create incentive for all Specs to cast Kill Shot).
To reduce the number of 2 point talents:
- Pathfinding a 1-point talent.
- Wilderness Medicine a 1-point talent.
- Lone Survivor a 1-point talent.
- Keen Eyesight a 1-point talent.
- Master Marksman a 1-point talent.
- Serrated Shots a 1-point talent.
To reduce the talent choices:
- Scare Beast moved to Row 2.
- Tranquilizing Shot and Improved Tranquilizing Shot moved to children of Improved Kill Shot.
- Entrapment removed.
- Sentinel Owl, Perception and Protection removed.
- Steel Trap removed.
Class fantasy
I’ve left this till last because I think for a lot of people, this won’t matter all that much to them.
All classes in the game have iterated over time and that’s healthy for the game. Yet Hunter is the one class that it’s very hard to pin down. What are we? What is our unique spec fantasy? Are we the Ranger Generals or Masters of the Wilds? Maybe we’re Lancers, Machinists, Snipers? In game, are we represented by the Windrunners? Rexxar? Hemet Nesingwary? It feels like you’re trying to shoehorn all these Hunter archetypes into the Class, but the result is we don’t feel like we have a story – like DKs or Mages, Warlocks or Demon Hunters, etc.
The above isn’t just a question of roleplaying, it feels like its impeding your design choices? I can think of no better examples of this than in the design of our Tier sets or our Legion class hall. I’m sure there are thousands of Hunters who will disagree with this Post (if they bother to read it), but one thing we can probably all agree on is that our Tier sets have been… well, let’s just say we’re jealous of our fellow players. Is this evidence you don’t quite know what to do with us? We can help!
Maybe we’re too proximate to Druids or Shamans and you don’t want to blur the distinctions between classes too much, but there is so much Hunter lore and fantasy in the world you’ve created, but very little of it is visible in Hunter class design.
With just one idea for hunter fantasy, Master of the Wilds, empowered by Freya or the Wild Gods (as with Ohn’ahra in the Talonclaw lore), there is so much scope there for spell, skill and class and spec design. Think of all the cool visual effects that could come with this! Or the other end, the Ranger General fantasy, empowered by control of the air and the wind (like we saw when we used Thas’dorah).
And one last thing, please reconsider how pet families work. Hunters are supposed to be able to use any pet they want, but in fact, we are severely restricted, and I very rarely play without a Scalehide (in open world content) or a Slow or Mortal Wounds pet in group content.
