I usually don’t hit the forums unless there’s something that is in such a state of emergency that it absolutely needs to be adressed with the utmost acuteness, so usually once every five to six years or so. This is one of those times.
The matter at hand is the current state of Beast Mastery spec for Hunter. Ever since they introduced the new talent trees in the DF pre-patch, Beast Mastery has been in a dilapidated condition, to put it mildly. Not only that, but it has gotten progressively worse for every iteration and with the hero talents introduced, things are worse than ever. Beast Mastery used to be my favorite dps spec and I personally believe it was in it’s best way during Shadowlands.
I will break it down step by step in order to provide the developers with what the issues really are.
The first issue is perhaps of minor importance to most players, but none the less something that a great deal of players care about. It’s about the class fantasy, which has now been bungled to a point where it’s almost unrecognizable. I feel like Blizzard is having a hard time identifying what, exactly, it is that makes people feel that Beast Mastery is a fun spec to play and what makes us identify with this branch of the class.
Personally I believe this started when they made Animal Companion a staple and then later a prerequisite for Multi-Shot, making it impossible to dodge it. Not all hunters wants to play with two pets, although I can see the appeal and that it differentiates BM hunters from Survival Hunters, it’s in the name after all. But this is a very minor issue compared to what they did very recently.
Most of the hero talent specs are general enough that you can still argue, roleplaying wise, for your character being this or that, fitting it with your unique vision of the character. The Sunfury spec for Mage is basically “You are kael’thas”, but most of them are general enough. This is unfortunately not the case for Dark Ranger. It makes no sense to me how BM + MM = Dark Ranger. It makes even less sense to me why they had to shoehorn a class fantasy that only applies to something like 5% of the hunter population - specifically the undead blood elf. Now with the next updates that are coming it’s going to be even more specific, as the class fantasy of the spec basically will be “You are Sylvanas”. For those that care about such things, if you did not intend for your character to have anything to do with this direction, this is a hard pill to swallow. It’s extremely niche, narrow and personally I don’t find it all that interesting. I also find it to have absolutely nothing to do with Beast Mastery. The design choice here is poorly argued, very poorly executed and frankly, I’m unable to surmise why they went for this direction. It would have been more than sufficient to simply call the hero spec “Ranger” or even “Outdoorsman”. Something broader, more general with some interesting new abilities, instead of doing a rehash of the Black Arrow.
Now, for the 2nd issue, the spec itself. Let’s get technical.
Beast Mastery did not get it’s most favorable Shadowlands ability adopted into the tree during the Dragonflight Pre-patch. I am of course talking about Wild Spirits, which made the spec very fun and reliable. Instead, we got Death Chakram, which was it’s second best option. Now even that has been removed. They’ve removed plenty of other Shadowlands abilities from other specs as well, like Bonedust Brew for Monks and the Kyrian ability from Arcane Mage, so it’s become a little harder to argue why this specifically needs to stay, but I believe it was an important part of the rotation. There is also the aspect of “are you having fun?” here. Most classes feels fun because pushing your big buttons makes you feel good. Let’s take a look at what Beast Mastery actually has acces to at the moment.
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Dire Beast - This is a very boring ability and unfortunately, there’s been entire tier sets designed around this. Beast Mastery hunters often have a close and very personal relationship with their chosen pet(s) and having this “stranger beast” appear out of nowhere has always felt a little weird to me. It’s too random and doesn’t make you feel like you used YOUR pet(s).
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Bloodshed - This is not a bad ability per se, it feels ok to press it as you imagine your crocolist, tiger or whatever you’re using just tore an enormous rift the target. It seems in the current patch, it’s competing hard with other talent points and we’re not able to double dip into this without sacrificing other, important passives.
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Call of the Wild - They redesigned this a while back with lower cooldown, but I still feel like it’s a little clunky. It’s definately better than Dire Beast, since it uses your own stable. The unique combination of ranged damage (and animation) with your pets doing melee damage is what you have to juggle when making Beast Mastery feeling worth the investment and right now that balance is way, way off.
I believe the reason they removed Death Chakram was because they wanted Explosive Shot to fill in where it used to be, since it does something very similar. Overlapping the rotation and whatnot. That’s fine, but that should open the door for something else. I still believe we should have a conversation about Wild Spirits being reintroduced in some way, or perhaps redesigning Dire Beast. Personally I would like to see Dire Beast gone forever with some completely new abilities created instead.
Multi-Shot has never felt weaker than it does right now and frankly, I never liked it that much. Beast Cleave is a good idea from both a class fantasy and design perspective, but unfortunately it’s not very visual.
It is hard to watch what you once considered the staple of the 3 Hunter specs sink like some overburdened royal yacht, but I hope my words will be taken seriously and that Blizzard will understand that this spec is no longer fun, it doesn’t feel effective and it doesn’t play well. The entire spec is in DIRE need of a complete overhaul, we’re talking a complete rework from the foundation and up. I don’t say this lightly, as I believe there are too many people who initiate that kind of consensus on too low a threshold. But the current state of Beast Mastery is an unrecognizble mess. I did not use Beast Mastery for any serious content in Dragonflight and I believe it is even less likely that I will do so now. I’ve been playing Survival instead, which is in a pretty decent state.
They will most likely not change the direction of Dark Ranger, although they’ve done it in the past (Combat became Outlaw), but hopefully they can give us some glyph options to not make it so dark. Personally I’m deeply disappointed in their thought process around this.
I hope that people will read and support this post, as it is the only way to make it meaningful and primed for Blizzards attention. Beast Mastery needs emergency care in almost all areas.