Glad that one of the classes feels like it’s in a good place.
Hunter’s in an awkward position though.
Dark Ranger has a very narrow fantasy, but has clearly received more attention than the two and seems to be designed well from a mechanical perspective.
Sentinel also has a narrow fantasy and only really works for elves (especially night elves but I imagine a lot of high elven rangers will imagine the lunar stuff as arcane instead) and seems to be mechanically underwhelming and in need of a few buffs.
Pack Leader is utterly generic with no fantasy attached to it at all, plus it’s rather boringly designed with nothing but passive bonuses. However, it also looks like it might be the strongest of the three hero specs.
I hope that Pack Leader remains stronger than Sentinel for Survival, because the mere thought of an orcish wolfrider summoning moonbeams is enough to wound my immersion.
First - thanks for reminding me to check out Hunter hero talents, I had only seen Dark Ranger thus far.
Sentinel looks really weird, in that it’s not exactly evoking the Night Elf Sentinel feel, the Sentinel Owl is used by Huntresses if we’re trying to harken back to WC3… but I guess they couldn’t name the spec ‘Huntress’. Lunar Storm is also similarly awkward, as I always viewed Sentinels to be more martial artists than magical (arguably Huntresses could use minor lunar magic or something, not sure if headcanon or whatever though).
I guess this is the damned if you do - damned if you don’t with Hero Talents. To have the broadest appeal, it has to be as generic as possible so that non-elf Hunters would be able to project some of their own racial identity onto the spec as well.
I have similar concerns with Druid. Personally, I loathe the Balance spec’s obnoxious cosmic niche. I’d have liked at least Keeper of the Grove to do something far more interesting with more plant-nature based attacks, rather than just turn a clunky boring awful spell into… clunky boring awful spell, but now it’s your Hero Talent niche.
If you want the cosmic , Elune’s Chosen is there for you with a very narrow niche. I guess Feral is at least generic and Wildstalker might vibe with Trolls/Tauren a bit more, but both Druid of the Claw and Wildstalker are also super boring. In general, I feel like they’ve yet again cornered themselves with Druids. Having four specs, it’ll be very hard to do something actually (and visually) interesting, so each spec is just bland and basic. I see other classes/specs get almost a massive rework and whatnot, and Druid is… meh.
Funnily enough, Wildstalker does more what I wanted from Keeper of the Grove than an offensive caster spec. lol+lmao
I find it very frustrating that EU-side has no feedback either, to my knowledge. I feel like I’m just shouting into the void with this.
Ah yes, the Hero who in RP gets played as Hunter, Priest, and Balance Druid. I suppose Sentinel can fit there that way…
Given how Death Knights got sort-of mounted combat, I did wish Pack Leader would also do that. Hunters being able to mount their pets has been something people have been asking forever.
Honestly, hero talents could have been done a lot worse.
Walking the tightrope between too generic and too specific isn’t easy and in some cases, they have hit the mark. Some people are very happy with Dark Ranger, Sunfury, Diabolist, Templar, Rider of the Apocalypse and more. It’s just a lot of hit and miss, in terms of flavour, balance and mechanical design.
This is a daily reminder that the majority of the playerbase probably does not mind the fact that a hunter just gets a magical owl that does things. Be it on an Orc, Tauren etc.
The majority of the player base cares more about a combination of how fun it is to play, how much it changes the class and how flashy it looks.
So stuff like Rider of the Apocalypse and Voidweaver are seen as absolute wins, while there’s a lot of hate for stuff like Pack Leader because all it does is provide a few passives with very few visual changes.
I don’t personally understand the hype around voidweaver.
Currently its all the rage because of the cool visuals, and more importantly, the numbers. Latter of which will 100% get adjusted.
It doesn’t really add anything to the gameplay loop. It doesn’t address any of the problems with either the class or spec tree.
Compared to a tree like the slayer and packmaster which might be boring and not so exciting, actually add to their respective specs abilities signigicantly.
It turns Void Torrent into a ten second DPS window, which might lead to shadow priests shuffling around their priority queue a bit. Plus, it does look good, with all of the cosmic nonsense going on with it.
Slayer and Pack Leader, on the other hand, don’t alter their respective styles of gameplay at all. At most, Slayer grants more Sudden Death procs for free Executes, while Pack Leader introduces a similar proc for Kill Command. So, they’ll just be Executing and Kill Commanding more often and that’s it, not nearly as transformative as Voidweaver’s rift.
The prio will still be the same as before. The only difference is that now at the end of your void torrent you’ll have a window where you will want to release as many DP’s as possible.
… Which, you are doing anyway. Same with mind blasts, though now mind blast actually deals some damage. Unlike the current version where it hits like a wet noodle. That, and you also have to go really deep into the spec talent tree to get void torrent (though this may yet change, I will believe it when I see it).
There’s nothing to give us burst mobility. There’s nothing to give us a proper dispel protection. Things I would actually find useful, much like Slayer’s ability to just flat our remove snares and roots whenever you charge.
But hey, woah-wee, we have an aoe circle that moves about as fast as a steam locomotive in the 1800’s off rails that follows the target. Great.I’m sure it will find use in a game where everybody (except us, funnily enough) has on-demand burst mobility.
The combination of the Voidheart and Collapsing Void talents do make it seem like it’s a burst window that might lead to some rethinking about when Devouring Plague is used (even if it’s just “save up your insanity if you’ve got a void torrent coming off cooldown in the next three seconds”) but I’ll concede that you know Shadow Priest better than I do, so I won’t argue with you on that.
Arlissia is right though. Some builds are better than others for different things. Voidweaver doesn’t look like something that is meant for PvP, just like how I suspect that Dark Ranger will be awful for PvP, depending on how easy it is to remove Black Arrow.
PvP players will probably want to stick to the hero specs with the least gimmicks and frills attached, that just provide a lot of passive bonuses instead.
You can tell this entire idea was doomed to fail from the start because when you apply a good 50% of the Hero Talents to PvP at the moment the result is: this is a neglible benefit or this is so bad it will actually be a DPS loss overall.
I simply choose my hero spec based on what feels like it fits the aesthetic and vibe of the character from an RP persepctive and no amount of oocels and content bros crying will make me change what I think is fun
“aughh but you’re not going to parse optimally” how about i parse your mom did you think about that
, Elune’s Chosen is there for you with a very narrow niche. I guess Feral is at least generic and Wildstalker might vibe with Trolls/Tauren a bit more, but both Druid of the Claw and Wildstalker are also super boring. In general, I feel like they’ve yet again cornered themselves with Druids. Having four specs, it’ll be very hard to do something actually (and visually) interesting, so each spec is just bland and basic. I see other classes/specs get almost a massive rework and whatnot, and Druid is… meh.