Hello my name is Kashil.
I am bored so I come here today to write my idea of a healing hunter specialization.
First of all from where my idea comes from: It comes basically from the heal of the spirit beast that hunter have.
The specialization will use mana as their main resource (which they already had in the old days).
You will swap to mana basically the same way as monk swaps from energy to mana when you swap specializations.
We already have spirit pets that can heal so my main idea is to use these spirit pets as your main heal tool with a little bit of druidic magic mixed in.
So the specialization will force you into using spirit beast as your pet (it will just give you one if you don’t have one).
Now I also like kill command… so lets put kill command into it by turning it into a green heal skill that works the same way as kill command but instead of attacking an enemy, your pet will charge a player and give them a small heal with a smaller cooldown than kill command. Lets call it “heal command”.(The pet follows the target as well for a short time until you are out of range or use it on someone else)
Now lets make the specialization more complex and with a rotation. How about the idea of using buffs with cast times which buff your pet and you can stack these buffs 3 times on the pet and then when you use your “heal command” it procs an extra heal depending on which buffs you gave the pet and how many you gave. (it also consumes the buffs so you have to rebuff your pet again afterwards).
The idea is basically to pump your pet up and then unleash it on a player for a big heal.
You should have 2 types of buffs at least, one of them adds a single target heal proc, the other adds an aoe heal (20-30 yards around the pet when it hits the player you target).
Now you can decide which buffs to put on the pet so you can also combine them and do like 2 singletarget buffs and 1 aoe buff, this will lead to a mediocre singletarget heal with a small aoe heal on top when you use your “heal command”.
The idea basically would be a healer that preps their heals a bit before unleashing them in a big burst.
We already have prep healers kinda like the druid who preps their hots on people before the damage comes in.
Now I think they should also get some cooldowns. One of them should be like a 1 min or 45 seconds cooldown that makes your next buff spell instant and apply 3 buffs on the pet in 1 cast. (It saves time and is meant to be used for situations where you can not prep your pet. Like burst damage that ambushes you out of nowhere)
There are 2 more ideas for big cooldowns like one where you channel a spirit beam on your pet and it pules healing to everyone around it.(you can use heal command while the channel is happening to choose on which target your pet stays)
The other idea would be an ability that calls your pet back to you but on its path back to you it unleashes a big aoe (a little bit like dreamflight)but you can make it last longer and control where it goes by using disengage in the right direction.
Maybe one of the talents should give a buff skill with 12 second cooldown that adds an absorbtion shield buff to your pet.(you can use the 1min cooldown skill mentioned above to get 3 stacks for a massive shield combo)
PvP talents should be about maybe getting the pet out of roots and CCs.(because if your pet is rooted you can’t do anything)
There should be a cooldown ofc on freeing your pet. So if someone super spams the roots he can counter you.
The main weapon should be an intellect staff and your damage skills should be basically a weaker versions of survival hunter meele skills.(weaker because you are a healer ofc)
Basically kill command , raptorstrike and a scuffed version of butchery.
You kinda already have some defensives and ccs in the base hunter tree which would complete this specialization (like exhilaration, intimidation, binding shot)
And for raid buffs you have your hunter mark. Just maybe give the specialization a revive.
Now when it comes to balancing (numbers, cast time, cooldowns) It always changes right now in retail WoW for every class so it is kinda hard to write numbers to all these ideas. I guess someone would have to test what would be good and not too op in a PTR.
Well that’s it. Its just an idea I just wrote because I was bored.
Have a nice day whoever reads this insanity.