Hunter Tier Set Fixes

Classes Hunter
1

Hunters,

There was a discussion thread on the PTR forums regarding many issues with your set bonus and interactions with your class abilities. We wanted to continue that discussion here, and update where things are with regards to the upcoming tier sets and their bonuses:

Survival

  • Corrected an issue where a Mad Bombardier buff that refreshed an existing Mad Bombardier buff caused your next Wildfire Bomb to do less damage than intended
  • Corrected an issue where Wildfire Bomb with Guerilla Tactics talented would incorrectly restore multiple charges of Mad Bombardier if your Wildfire Bomb hit multiple targets.
  • Still investigating problems with Wildfire Bomb not working with Multiple Survival hunters at the same time. (This isn’t related to tier sets, but re-listing so you know it isn’t forgotten)

Marksmanship
There are a lot of intertwined interactions between Aimed Shot, Trick Shots, Double Tap, Lock and Load, and the upcoming tier set bonus which grants even more Trick Shots. We want this all to work together as you would expect it to, and have fixes in testing for what we believe is all of the issues that had been listed on the PTR forums.

  • Corrected an issue where if you have Unblinking Vigil, but not Trick Shots, and gain Trick shots from an Aimed Shot cast, you would not benefit from Trick Shots, and Trick Shots would be consumed.
  • Corrected an issue where if you have Unblinking Vigil, and gain Trick Shots from Aimed Shot, which grants another Unblinking Vigil buff, both Unblinking Vigil buffs would be consumed by a single Aimed Shot.
  • Corrected issues with Double Tap’s damage and the Set Bonus damage increase for Trick Shots.
  • NOTE: After several of the above changes, you can sometimes get into a lucky streak of Aimed Shot->Unblinking Vigil Proc->Aimed Shot->repeat… The threshold of Focus expenditure to gain a Trick Shots buff from the 4-piece bonus might be adjusted upwards a bit due to this, and we’re evaluating things and will be sure to post about any changes being made.

Beast Mastery
We have read your posts outlining some issues you have with your upcoming Set Bonuses with regards to AoE damage. We don’t have any specific details to share in this post of what is going to change, but are currently planning on adjusting your 4-piece Set Bonus before it becomes available in the upcoming weeks. When we have more finalized details, we’ll be sure to let you know.

6 Likes
2

Hey!

First of all, thank you very much for the effort that has been recently done on communicating this process with the community. It helps us feel like our opinions matter and that you care.

I’ll start by focusing on Marksmanship (MM).
I understand the interaction you mention and while I comprehend the issue I think the idea presented to address it is not appropriate.

A great part of the excitement of this set for MM players is how it helps with 2 target situations. By design, you can’t multishot into 2 targets in order to get a trick shots proc, so 2 target situations have always felt lackluster for MM rotationally, even when considering the introduction of Chimaera shot, especially considering how it was nerfed due to the interaction with the old version of SST that never made it to live. So, the tier set was finally the opportunity for Marksmanship players to have some fun in these types of encounters. Well, by increasing the focus cost to proc the 4p, you are effectively decreasing the amount of trick shot procs we get and therefore directly nerfing MM’s 2 target potential in relative terms (I’m not concerned with absolute balance or tuning right now).

And in general, by increase the focus to proc the 4 piece you’re making the tier set less fun, giving us less ways to optimize and less windows to play with it during a fight and just making the set less impactful in non AOE situations (which is already a concern). I think that it’s the wrong choice design wise. Also, as many have mentioned in the US forums, I feel like this mechanic is actually something that should be embraced as a “wild moment” when the stars align and you feel great about it. Since the chances of chain procs are not that high (scales as 1/2^n) it rapidly becomes very unlikely for this moments to occur so, in the great scheme of things, this won’t be that big of a deal.

If you still feel like this would not be enough of a solution, I’d like to present an alternative.

After some PTR testing with some of the bugs fixed, I noticed that when using the unblinking vigil legendary there can be situations where you simply have too much aimed shots and it feels like you can’t use them quick enough as it still takes a while to cast them. So my suggestion would be to actually lower the proc chance for the unblinking vigil legendary. I believe that with the increased trick shot procs generated by the tier set, unblinking vigil can feel like it is too impactful on specific scenarios. Now, if you are to reduce the proc, some additional chance would be welcome. And for that I suggest making the free aimed shot from the unblinking vigil legendary instant cast.

The reason for this is that since the tier set from the Hellfire Citadel raid, instant cast aimed shots have been considered one of the coolest interactions ever had. While I still believe having aimed shots being hard cast has value thematically, I think it is also interesting to embrace this duality of having both casted and instant aimed shots, as it has happened in legion with a legendary and whenever the player chooses the lock and load talent.

Of course balance issues may rise from here, but I’d like to remind that you can easily balance the proc chance around it and that Marksmanship right now is quite undertuned when compared to specs from other classes, so there still potential to introduce interesting mechanics that have been proven to work and that the players love rather than having another X% buff to some abilities in heroic week.

Then again, this is just one big suggestion. The main idea I want you to take from this post (if it is ever read) is to please not touch the focus to proc the 4 piece as it would change too many things that aren’t a problem just due to a exotic interaction with a legendary.

Thanks again for your work and I hope this increased communication trend keeps going forward. The community has much to gain from these interactions.

3

Why is it that the tier set is potentially taking the hit for this interaction? Why not either change how unblinking vigil works (A legendary that has not been used this entire expansion in any situation), or just remove the fact that ‘free’ shots counts towards the 4p. Nerfing the tier set for a ‘problem’ resulting from one legendary is completely stupid.

1 Like
4

Cuz Vigil isnt optional bro, didnt you know?

its a must with the tier set duhhhhh :stuck_out_tongue:

5

Hey Kaivax. As a BM main, I’m happy about the potential changes to the tier set. Personally I’d like to see the free Cobra Shots from KC crits, hit 5 targets around your primary target, or 8 with a soft cap. Still same tier set, just with a AOE modifier. Any ideas anyone?

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6

BM hunter T-set:
what about pvp players? aoe abilities are usually garbage in pvp since they break and interrupt cc chains and setups.

7

“(4) Set Bonus: The set bonus now reads as – Kill Command critical hits empower your next Cobra Shot or Multi-Shot, increasing the damage and cooldown reduction of Cobra Shot by 40% or causing Multi-Shot to grant an additional 6 seconds of Beast Cleave.”

This is awful! You said you would be addressing the tier set with regards to AOE damage and this change does not affect AOE damage at all! In fact it doesn’t affect anything, when you spend the proc on Multi-Shot, you’re losing out on damage by not spending it on a buffed Cobra Shot, so you have to make up for that lost damage with the extra globals offered by the longer Beast Cleave, it’s literally not even a buff!

8

It is very sad that no one from the blizzard dev team has any idea how the hunter works.
Easy BM hunter rotation (exists hardtest):

Multi Shot, Another Spell, Another Spell, Multi Shot, Another Spell, Another Spell, Multi Shot
Another Spell is :

  • Bestial Wrath if is on CD and you have 0 Barbed Shot (and new stack Barbed Shot is not in 2-3 sec)
  • Barbed Shot - dont lost 100% Frenzy 100% pet auto attack and 9% crit from KotH, or if you have 2 stack Barbed Shot (from proc) or second stack is very cloce to fill (2-3 sec)
  • Kill command
  • another ability that Binding Shot, Kill Shot, Tar Trap, Intimidation, Freezing Trap, covenant ability that Flayed shot, switch hunter mark,…
  • and if you go to over focus Cobra Shot

Your change dont increase BM hunter AOE , because you only dont shot Multi Shot but Cobra Shot (for 6 target its to same dmg)

If you rly try help BM hunters with his low AOE dmg increase Beast Cleave from melee range to 8-10 yards (this is range for all other AOE class).
4 pc set : … and this KC crit hit all FOE in 8 yards, by 30% (40, 50 , 60 ? ) dmg.

9

This is very disappointing. This doesn’t fix anything - at all. Just gives us more time to do ST damage. IMO. Make it so the buffed cobra shots hit 5 targets. Beast cleave doesn’t do nearly enough damage. It’s honestly pitiful!

10

Pls kaivax… fix BM. Once all tier sets are out, BM in M+ will be F tier… dead :frowning:

11

Could we please get a developer note on why they think this change is useful in anyway whatsoever, would love to get an insight into their “logic” on this one!

Edit: Oh sorry I missed the dev note explaining this:

“We are adding additional functionality to the 4-piece bonus for Beast Mastery Hunters. When your Kill Command critically strikes, it now empowers either your next Cobra Shot with the existing functionality, or causes your next Multi-Shot to cause your next Beast Cleave to last 6 seconds longer. This should allow you to focus more on Barbed Shot, Cobra Shot, and Kill Command in AoE situations and worry less about using a Multi-Shot every 4 seconds to keep the Beast Cleave buff active.”

So you said “We have read your posts outlining some issues you have with your upcoming Set Bonuses with regards to AoE damage.” And then you proceed to make a change and explain that it would allow us to focus more on our single target abilities.

“We hear you about AoE, here’s a single target change” :rofl::joy::slightly_smiling_face::face_with_raised_eyebrow::persevere::disappointed_relieved:

12

Well if you play NF BM like more than 90% players in m+ you play Dreamweaver last Soulbind Ability is Dream Delver

Dealing damage or healing a target grants you 1% increased damage or healing to that target for 4 sec, up to 3%.

If you are in the middle of pack only spell that refresh this stacks is Multi-shot

So if you useing any other spell that is not multi-shot every 3 sec when doing AOE damage and you useing kill command that dont refresh Dream Delver you loseing dps

Thay change Beast Cleave duration in order to use kill command and cobra shot on main target but at same time this dont bring anything when you wasting 3% damage on all targets

To keep 3% damage on any target you need to use barbed shot multi-shot or cobra shot every 3sec anyway

13

4-p : why not critical kill command increases barbed shot damage by x % and spreads to x targets

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15

Holy Cheeseburger. The new 4 pc set bonus for BM hunter just makes me wanna cry. I expected more than THAT… Blizzard I’m begging you rethink this decision and give us something better. There are like a million better ways to do this even in this comment section! :frowning:

16

…So? You don’t multi shot just for dream delver. There are lots of things wrong with this bonus, something as irrelevant as dream delver isn’t really one of the major ones.

17

When I saw the set I was like “Yep I’m not pushing beyond 18 this season”, got hopes when the buff to AoE got announced, but damn it does nothing.

Really excited to play it in raid but it’s still a bummer in m+. I really hoped either KC or the empowered CS would cleave up to 4 or 5 targets, or that an empowered Multishot would make an empowered beast cleave.

I already feel like my class weights down a group due to the healing I usually require and the overall soft cap of damage but with tier sets it’s gonna be even worse.

18

3% Damage on all targets is irrelevant for you???

19

Not relevant enough to cast multi shot when you already have beast cleave up from the 4p.

20

Looks like we are stack with this useless bm hunter 4set for next 6-9months
Cobra Shot dont hit more than 1 target
Kill Command dont hit more than 1 target
Pet ability Claw on 5 targets do more to main target than multi-shot to 5 targets at same time you can test this in sinfal where there is 5 dummy very close to each other and you will hit all with multi-shot and after 3 min of spaming multi-shot Claw on 1 dummy did more and multi-shot on 5 and overall damage from multi-shot was 5.9% that how $%^& you spells are for last 460days or even more and did even less in the past becouse at some point was buff be 10% just imagine you have 250ilvl and your main skill that hit all target hit for 500 when at same times aimed-shot from MM hunter can crit everything for over 15k just go and watch or play anduin where MM hunter can finish this fight with 30k overall dps

warcraftlogs. com/zone/rankings/29#boss=2546&class=Hunter&spec=BeastMastery
Rank 1 Parse 23,749.8
Rank 2 Parse 20,950.4
Rank 3 Parse 19,321.5
warcraftlogs. com/zone/rankings/29#boss=2546&class=Hunter&spec=Marksmanship
Rank 1 Parse 32,175.9
Rank 2 Parse 28,156.6
Rank 3 Parse 26,826.2

This logs above are just from 1 heavy aoe fight

This is so stupid that at this point i am 100% sure no one in blizzard play bm and no one know about website like raider. io or warcraft logs when you can just check any player which talents covanent and soulbinds that is play the most

If i dont press multi-shot every 3sec you will lose 3% overall damage on all targets becosue kill command and cobra shot dont refresh this on all targets

After checking how much damage Multi-Shot did on rank 1 parse heroic anduin where there is alot of adds i saw BM hunter in 254ilvl did just 1.72% with multi-shot
imgur. com/a/jcjyBlF

So when playing 4set i should press Kill command and cobra shot when i see 20 mobs at same time ???

I am ok with this idea where 2set and 4set do only help in ST damage you can keep this llike that and everyone will be happy
I JUST WANT TO PRESS SPELLS FROM MY SPELL BOOK THAT DO AOE DAMAGE LIKE I DID IN PAST 16 YEARS I DONT WANT TO PRESS ST ABILITY WHEN I SEE 10 MOBS FFS

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21

The legendary should be changed for making the tierset work incorrectly, not the other way around… Because you will hurt hunters that don’t even use or intend to use Unblinking Virgil.

1 Like