Feedback on the rune changes from the perspective of a melee hunter.
i will only address melee related issues, thread may be added to over time
This may be a bit of a read, therefor i’ve formatted it to be a little more readable.
PREFACE
Raid spot
i would like to start that there is currently 0 reason to bring a melee hunter to raid.
- Rogues now contribute a spell damage buff and Sunder
- Ferals contribute wind fury and a unique crit rate buff
- Paladins contribute a plethora of buffs and effects
- Shamans contribute Agi/Str totems, wind fury & mana recovery
- Warriors contribute Battle shout ( and now have their own worldbuff )
- Ranged hunters contribute True shot aura, and can freely deploy aspect of the lion
There’s no room in any melee parties within raids for a class that doesn’t provide a meaningful buff to that selected party, Cant kick and now provides no dps.
We have the least utility out of all classes in wow classic.
Suggestion: make the old TSA a book that melee can use at level 60, ranged can still spec in to their new and improved TSA
Alternative Suggestion: make TSA and Lion exclusive, this way ranged will provide TSA and Melee can provide Lion
( This is less ideal since you now need a lot more hunters, should perhaps be paired with making TSA raid wide )
RUNE TESTING
Phase 3 Variant
Raptor strike:
Possible on 31/0/20
runes: Catlike reflexes, cobra slayer, raptor fury, beast mastery, melee specialist, flanking strike, DW specialization, Cloak irrelevant
The CD change from 3>6 seconds on raptor strike removes roughly 30-40% of our dmg output. while i understand raptor strike did a significant amount of our damage, and needed an adjustment.
this isn’t the way.
Mongoose bite:
in return we get a “functional” mongoose bite that has a 6% chance to activate, it does GOOD damage per cast. but its activation frequency is FAR to low to be considered useful.
Additionally with our current runes this means the effect of it refreshing raptor strike is also negligible per swing 0.06X0.3 a whopping 1.8% percent of any swings can refresh raptor strike.
( Mongoose bite should have a much higher chance to either proc, or should have a fixed chance to reset raptor strike )
Suggestion: “After a [number] of critical strikes, mongoose bite becomes castable”
( This effect cannot occur more than every x seconds )
Raptor fury
On top of that the reduced frequency of raptor strikes has made it seemingly impossible to get more than 1 stack of Raptor fury “could possible be a bug”
functionally a dead rune at the moment
TRAP LAUNCHER VARIATIONS:
Kill shot:
Possible on 31/0/20 - 0/31/20
runes: Lock and Load, Cobra slayer, T.N.T, Beast mastery, Melee specialist, Kill shot, Trap launcher, Resourcefulness
using this rune basically turns us in to Ranged in melee, as it becomes necessary to both use Trap launcher/T.N.T/Lock and load to make it work at a level similar to the good old raptor strike melee build. (At which point i just feel like a ranged hunter.)
it’s slot competes with Flanking strike, making using it as simply an execute not an option. (*)
it forces you in to traps and thus trap launcher, blocking the Dual wield rune forcing this build in to a two handed spec.
This however means, your even less likely to proc mongoose, swing time is lower, and no offhand strikes.
*Kill shot execute variant can be “Cheesed” by Feigning and swapping legs to one with the rune. meaning you could theoretically stay mostly melee, and swap at 20%.
this isn’t the kind of gameplay i want from Melee hunter.
Trap only version:
runes: Catlike reflexes, Cobra slayer, T.N.T, Beast mastery, Melee specialist, Flanking strike, Trap launcher, Resourcefulness
forced two handed due to dual wield spec being disabled, same problems with cobra slayer/mongoose interaction as earlier builds.
SURVIVAL VARIANT:
Wyvern strike:
Possible on 20/0/31
runes: Catlike reflexes, cobra slayer, raptor fury, beast mastery, melee specialist, flanking strike, DW specialization, Hit and run
i don’t even know where to start here.
31 point investment in to a mostly tank/trap tree to get a mediocre dot, that CAN be refreshed by Chimera shot, but shouldn’t be (it lasts 10 seconds with a 12 second cd.)
Wyvern strike itself is on Feet, which blocks dual wield spec.
this again conflicts with mongoose bite.
it also blocks trap launcher, making it impossible to use ANY of the traps you have invested in to in combat.
in short, its just a worse version of the melee BM build, that forces you in to taking Wyvern strike.
Suggestion : Make traps default usable in combat.
SIDENOTES
Expose weakness
usable by melee, functionally unusable because it prevents melee specialist
Melee specialist provides instant raptors and a 30% chance to refresh raptor strike.
Suggestion: should be on the cloak for melee or raptor strike should be normalized and instant by default
Carve
Cannot compete with the damage gained on pets from focus generation, needs a buff
Flanking strike
Does no damage on its own, button is literally only pressed to reduce Raptor strike cd, needs a buff and should feel like it does deals damage by itself.
Provides a damage stacking buff, which requires a flanking reset to stack properly, reduced raptors also reduced flanking stacking penalizing us twice
Wing clip
Filler for proccing wind fury, i do not see why it should do no damage if i have to press this 3-4x for each raptor strike, make it worth pressing.
Lone wolf
Lone wolf functionally only works in a 31 + marksman build, in a 31 SV build you are forced to choose between 2 DEAD tree’s to put your last 20 talents in. this makes the rune functionally useless for a SV/BM build.
(i should not need to explain why lone wolf on a 31 BM build is a terrible idea.)
Suggestion: make wyvern strike enable you to benefit from ranged talents “melee abilities are considered a shot”
This would make 0/20/31 viable
Hit and run
This rune is rather useless outside of PVP situations.
melee hunters never had problems staying engaged in PVE (bosses barely move faster then the tank pulling them)
we had problems closing the gap to the boss/mob on engagement.
Suggestion: Make arcane shot proc this instead
( needs some requirements for you have melee runes assigned otherwise your buffing ranged hunters kiting ability too much )
Resourcefulness / TNT (Excluding trap launcher)
Potentially a great addition, but without the ability to have combat traps unusable
Any rune you take that enhances your traps should allow for combat deployment of traps.
As a melee, trap launcher functionally does nothing for me but enable combat traps.
If i pick any of the other runes, it should enable combat traps too.
Melee specialist/Dual wield specialization
Both these runes modify Raptor strike specifically.
Currently provides for instant raptor strikes, making it impossible to replace.
Dual wield specialization should cover the same benefit, allowing you to swap out Melee specialist for expose weakness if you choose.
Suggestion: perhaps they should be condensed to one rune, like how shaman/warrior tanks work one rune to enable their baseline spec.
Beast mastery
Functionally our only rune for the gloves slot, the damage gain from focus generation makes it so using carve is almost always an inferior choice .
( This is because lone wolf, described above is useless, thus making using pets the only choice )
To use baseline carve it needs to do significant single target damage.
Catlike reflexes
Buffs kill command, which doesn’t exist anymore could buff trap damage in some form
reducing other cooldowns such as mongoose bite seems irrelevant ATM, since we cant proc it often enough to max out the cd were getting about 20 cast out of the 60 possible casts in a 5min parse, there is enough room to grow. even at twice the proc’s we would not hit the cd consistently