Hunter Rework

Classes Hunter
1

This is just a general rework idea for the Hunter class for all specs:

Beastmaster:
I would like to bring more focus to the pets. To do this I think we should bring more control of the pets and its abilities, and give the hunter itself a more supporting role.

All pet families should have their own set of skills. I would opt for 2 skills, one being damage related and the other either damage or utility (knock up, stun, silence, etc).

Also to show more of the giant pet collection we have make pets more rotatable, and not fix on one pet at a time.
To do this I would introduce an instant switch mechanic (for beast masters only) when all skills of the pet are on cooldown you are able to switch to another pet that doesn’t have its skills on cooldown. This should be on a cooldown so you don’t spam switch your pets though.

Pets that are switched out can linger a couple of seconds to give the hunter multiple pets up for a short duration instead of 2 pets all the time. Pets give buffs like they currently do, and lingering pets give buffs by combination of pet classes (ferocity/cunning/tenacity) maybe a couple of seconds of extra movement speed, leech or stamina (this should be shorter then the cooldown of the instant switch).

Marskman:
For marksman I would like to bring more focus to the drawing of the bow. As marksman is more of a sniper and a long bow has a big string to draw.

To implement this I was thinking about introducing a “charge system” similar to the Dracthyr breath weapons. Being able to charge their attacks different things could happen.

Some examples are:

  • Short draw for aim shot would reduce the damage but increase mobility
  • Long draw for aim shot would increase the damage but decrease of mobility
  • Depending on how long the draw is, more arrows fired for rapid fire
  • Short draw for steady shot would be a reckless shot giving it a chance to miss but give it slightly more damage but wouldn’t restore focus
  • Long draw for steady shot would increase the amount of focus restored

Survival:
For survival I was thinking of reintroducing the aspects skills. Surviving within the wilderness taught the spec to adapt the capabilities of the animals. This is a semi replacement of pets, as the aspects would dismiss the pets to gain their capabilities. Possibility as talent to keep pet but reduce effectiveness of stances.

Some examples of aspects:

  • Monkey, increase dodge chance (in a random thought this might be worked out to a hunter tank spec to give the class a little more possibilities)
  • Gorilla, would stagger damage (in a random thought this might be worked out to a hunter tank spec to give the class a little more possibilities)
  • Eagle, increase the attack range
  • Cheeta, increase movement speed (with talent of the pack would increase party speed, near the player)
  • Rhino, chance to interrupt or knock back on attack
  • Tiger, Damage increase (lone wolf like stance, to make up for damage loss of pet)

Add replace “Arcane shot” with “Mongoose shot” for survival (should deal a less damage to keep focus on close range for survival), which has a mid range which also scales on the mongoose buff. This will keep the hunter out of harms way a little bit during mechanics, increasing survivability.

Adding more traps with some examples:

  • Poison trap, scales on same stats as serpent sting
  • Trip wire, knocks down target, triggering skill again while target is knocked down gains shadow step to the target (mid range to avoid craziness)
  • Smoke charge, enabling to blind the target giving him limited vision range 10 yards of targets

To help survival be a little more viable during AOE situation we should reintroduce cluster bomb as a talent to get more AOE damage without being too cooldown dependent.

Would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions

2

As a melee survival hunter enjoyer, I would rather like to see MORE pet interaction and skills and not see pet interaction reduced. However, I agree that Survival’s identity needs to be streamlined and aspects would be a unique and fun way to do that.

Survival’ current identity is all over the place, IMO.

  • bombs
  • pet bond
  • ranged/melee hybrid
  • dots

Personally, I would like to see the ranged capabilities of survival reduced in exchange for more melee capabilities and possibly 1-2 aspects that go in line with the wilderness & pet bond fantasy. Abilities like Kill Shot, Death Chakram and Explosive Shot feel like they have been forced on the spec even though they do not fit the survival theme anymore.

Whatever they decide to do with the spec. Firstly, the identity needs to be fleshed out and changes should be made according to that fleshed out identity.

2 Likes
3

I got a guildy, that also mentioned that he would survival to fit more to a Rexxar scheme. Would that be the melee focus you would also like to see? I can think of some things giving it more of its own identity.

I don’t want to head too far into BM terrain though. But maybe I can make it so that BM is focused on Pet damage, MM on hunter damage and Survival on bond of the two?

4

Ironically, Blizzard chose art of Rexxar to represent the spec in the talent tree. One would assume the spec fantasy would therefor include a heavy focus on melee and pet interactions (and dual wielding weapons!). And something that adresses the wilderness/survival fantasy (possibly traps, aspects, poisons). While the spec talent tree meets some of those expectations, some are only touched upon shallowly.

Sadly, the class talent tree (not spec talent tree) does its worst and muddles up the confusing relationship between Survival’s expected gameplay and its actual gameplay even more.

tldr: Yes, I would appreciate if Blizzard would focus on getting player expectations (fueled by Blizzards own art) and Survival gameplay in line.

1 Like
5

I’ll try to flesh out Survival a bit more soon, to see if I can make some more bond related stuff. As Rexxar is set as a beast master, making a bond play style more interesting and related to the art :slight_smile:

6

No thanks!

7

Your MM idea is pretty interesting!

1 Like
8

Remember the old Legion abilities like Caltrops, Lacerate, Explosive Trap, Raptor Strike and Mongoose beeing separate abilities, Way of Mok’natal, Old Flanking Strike, Old Fury of the Eagle and Aspect of the Eagle CD.

Legion survival had its issues, the rotation was complex and busy but rewarded accordingly. Would love to see some of those abilites return, could make the talent tree more exciting.

Wildfire Bombs and Wildifre Infusion has been our staple since BfA, but its currently tuning is so weak. Red bombs really doesn’t do much, the bleed effect from blue bombs is tuned so low and green bombs is a gamble if dependent on as a Serpent Sting applicator. Add another talent to compete against WI, as my eyes still blinking blue, red and green after the horrendous tier set bonus in the end of Shadowlands.

9

Honestly, I would say make beast cleave base line and have us live through unavoidable mechanics like a normal class before we talk about reworks.

10

It doesn’t matter what you think would be good, blizzard doesn’t care. You can be sure that the hunter will not receive any innovations, only minor and major % buffs. They simply dont care about hunters and mages.

11

Do you mean beast cleave should not be tied to multi shot? Is the 3 button aoe rotation too much for you? Which you can press while moving because everything is instant? Tipic bm hunter, even that is not simple enough.

12

Multi shot should still proc beast cleave and be base line. However, have the kill command cleave as a skill. Basically, all our aoe is baked into multi shot and its really badly placed in the tree. So, it’s a binary choice.

Talent trees should be a way to improve your class in a given area. Not make it functional.

13

I am opting for a more general rework of the class. With that fixing existing issues and focussing more on their fantasy.

Sadly what I see most people responding is about BM and their AOE damage.

14

The idea of a hunter melee spec has always been something i personally wanted and Legion delivered on it…sort off. Right now we’re more mid range with the occassional melee hits. Speaking for pvp here btw, can’t say anything about pve.

If sv became an actualy melee spec, their defense needs to be better than what it is now. Most of their current traps won’t work well since they are used to help you gain distance from players.

Using Rexxar as the staple of sv and not have the spec based around him is an odd choice and i hope for the people that don’t know who Rexxar is will never look him up cause that will lead to some disappointment. Right now you’re more of a Goblin esque bombadier type of player.

I do enjoy sv as a spec and don’t want to sound to complainy here. The spec just needs a bit of rework.

1 Like
15

Totally agree with you Aggorn. Love the spec, play it PVP and PVE and I can say that PVE it is mongoose bite al the way. I feel sadly that is the only way to put up any decent numbers. You lose DPS the moment you stop pressing the skill :expressionless:. While it has so many cool skills to choose from, they just don’t feel impactful enough.

Had another idea regarding the survival spec, rework it to an “axe thrower” where you throw your weapons.

“Berserker” (by lack of better namespiration) - based on Zul’jin from hearts of the storm

General idea is that you either throw your weapons from a distance or use them to hit your opponents when you are close.

Would also mean to rework the weapons you use to
2handed: Polearm/Staff
1handed: Axe/Sword/Mace/Dagger (dual wielding)

To avoid a total chaos from buttons I’d suggest you get a secondary effects on the skills based on the distance you are from your target.

Random shot in the dark, bleeding damage if you are ranged and more direct damage when close.

Think to keep in mind is getting close doubles down on what Aggorn said earlier that it needs to be survivable when you get into someones face.

16

Am i the only one that doesn’t like focus? I’ve never enjoyed stuff like this, it stresses me out.

But I’m forced to play with it since Hunter is the only with a Archer fantasy…

17

You got any suggestions of what to change focus to? All classes need some kind of resource so what would it be :thinking: ?

18

You don’t necessarily need a resource to play around with.

Stuff could just be on cooldown, steady shot could buff aimed shots DMG and aimed shot will work same with buffing arcane shot.

Survival could be a dot class.

BM already places like it doesnt really need focus, remove focus from it and it would almost be played the same.

19

Similar to how Enhancement shaman is played. I agree for BM specially with my rework idea it wouldn’t be an issue to move to cooldowns as a “restriction”

For MM with my rework the draw system would already delay the spamming of skills

For Survival (original rework) no focus or any resource might bite it in the behind

If you would take the other idea of Berserker, you could go into a “rage” building resource or make it really like ZulJin and enable “blood” as a resource which sacrifices survivability for damage :thinking:

20

Most of the characters in game are not bound by class (priest with bow; dw hunter…). It is cool and good, makes characters unique and different than players. People still can’t get it? Class is just a gameplay requirement. Therefore you should not look at class representatives in that way so much.

Anyway, I dislike the author idea of bm. I prefer the weight to stay on the hunter, rather than on pets on that scale. Especially if it requires playing around choices so much.

1 Like