Beast Mastery
Beast Mastery Hunters have a fantasy of consistent, reliable, and powerful pet-sourced attacks, and that’s something we’re looking to lean into as we move into Midnight. We’re reducing the number of conditionals, auras, and modifiers on Barbed Shot to make it more easy to spend as its available. We’ve grown fond of Bestial Wrath’s shorter cooldown, and as such are removing Barbed Wrath’s dynamic cooldown reduction effect to instead give Bestial Wrath a flat cooldown of 30 seconds when fully talented. Multi-Shot has had an odd place in Beast Mastery’s kit, so we’re giving it an update, causing it to be replaced in the Beast Mastery spec tree with a new pet-sourced attack that deals substantial damage in AOE while also activating effects like Beast Cleave and Kill Cleave. We hope this new spell will feel powerful and contribute meaningfully to your area damage. Bloodshed and Call of the Wild felt like they were both competing for a similar role of a cooldown that summoned a few more units to fight for you. As such, we removed Call of the Wild and are focusing on Bloodshed as a cooldown to get a few extra beasts to attack your enemies. With the change to make Kill Shot a Marksmanship only ability, Dark Rangers will now learn Black Arrow as a separate ability if they choose that Hero Talent tree.
Marksmanship
We are generally pleased with the state of Marksmanship after their Undermine(d) and Ghosts of K’aresh updates, but there were a few bigger things we’d like to address as we move into Midnight. Most notably, the introduction of Streamline as a core mechanic for Marksmanship inflated the amount of cast time reduction Marksmanship Hunters have access to while also contributing an extra aura to track. Aimed Shot is meant to be a long cast that is worth the wait. As its cast time reduces, so too must its damage, and we feel that flies in the face of what Aimed Shot should be about– as such we’ll be removing Streamline and increasing Aimed Shot’s damage. While Explosive Shot found a home as a guaranteed way to gain Lock and Load in Ghosts of K’aresh, we feel that it’s healthier for the spec as a whole to distance itself from Explosive Shot and instead focus on the more fantasy-forward spells like Volley and Kill Shot– spells that more often than not are competing with it in your rotational priorities. Speaking of Kill Shot, we are removing it from the Hunter class tree and letting Marksmanship fully own the execute niche it provides. Trueshot is gaining some cooldown reduction, cast time reduction, and focus cost reduction to compensate for the removal of Streamline.
Survival
As we head into Midnight, we’re continuing to refine and focus Survival Hunter’s fantasy, giving clearer playstyle, gameplay, and visual direction. Over the course of Alpha, we’ll be reintroducing one-handers into Survival Hunter’s pool of available weapons, which means we’ll also be looking to distance Survival from its spear-only identity that it’s had since Legion. We’ll be doubling down on Survival’s relationship with its pet with new talents that create an interdependency between the Hunter’s damage and their pet’s damage. Additionally, we’re leaning into the rugged, crafty, and bomb-centric fantasy we explored in The War Within with a new Fire grenade called Flamefang Pitch, a new visual and fantasy identity for Fury of the Eagle called Boomstick, and a host of new Wildfire Bomb talents and synergies.
Survival Hunter had a substantial number of abilities that were competing for your attention at any given time. Coordinated Assault and Flanking Strike have been combined into a new burst cooldown called Takedown that strives to take the best parts of both spells and blend them into one moment. We also made the tough decision to redesign Mongoose Bite. We feel confident that simplifying Mongoose Bite will allow us to carve out more interesting design space for Survival both now and in the future.
Lastly, in Midnight, we’d like Survival Hunter’s area damage to come from their explosives: Wildfire Bomb, Boomstick, and Flamefang Pitch, and as such we’re removing Butchery and its associated effects. We expect Raptor Swipe (Survival Hunter’s Apex Talent) to provide meaningful and exciting moments of AOE in between your chunky explosive spells.
Dark Ranger Hero Talents
Black Arrow provides an unusually high amount of damage relative to the rest of Marksmanship and Beast Mastery’s kits. In Midnight, we’re making some adjustments to ensure that Dark Ranger’s effects don’t completely overshadow the core abilities of Marksmanship and Beast Mastery.
Sentinel Hero Talents
Sentinel has been rebuilt and redesigned for Midnight. Our goals with this update were targeting the Keystone and Capstone, since that was where a majority of the tree’s complexity stemmed. This updated version of Sentinel should provide more active and directed gameplay, require substantially less tracking, be more deeply ingrained into the playstyles of Marksmanship and Survival, all while being less visually and audibly noisy.