I don’t understand Blizzard’s philosophy around the Hunter specializations.
- Marksmanship is a traditional archer, nowadays leaning into the whole Wildrunner and Dark Ranger theme a little bit. Use your bow or rifle to aim at things, and shoot. Okay, checks out. Probably the strongest among the three specializations in terms of identity and theme.
- Beastmastery is sort of like Rexxar and Hemet Nesingwary combined. You’re kind of a traditional hunter with a rifle and a trusty pet at your side, but you’ve dipped your whole foot into the mastery of beasts. I think it emphasises the “beast” part too much and the “mastery” bit not enough, in the sense of empowering your beast rather than controlling it like an IRL Hunter would. Hunters control the natural environment, which includes culling the wildlife. That’s probably where the name of the spec originally came from. But these days you’re pretty much a puppetteer sending your own stable into battle, while flinging some odd projectiles at your enemy from a distance. You spend more time and energy empowering your pets, rather than controlling them and the local wildlife.
- Survival is basically a mad Goblin Tinker mixed with Highmountain Tauren, because Huln Highmountain’s spear was a thing in Legion? This specialization is just a mess in my view, and misses so many marks.
So what to do about it?
Basically, I think we need to make three major changes: (1) swap talents between specs for more thematic consistency, (2) give Survival a proper identity, and (3) tweak Beastmastery’s identity a bit.
Survival 2.0
Turn Survival into a Ranger of the Wilds. A cloaked hunter, stalking its prey among the trees. Difficult to detect, deadly once it gets close, and master of using its surroundings to its advantage.
Draw little bits of inspiration from different famous “survivors” of Azeroth, such as Rexxar, and races you could easily imagine hunting this way. Trolls, Orcs, perhaps savage Night Elves, or Worgen? Tauren can still be a source of inspiration, but for the love of Elune throw away all Goblin influences.
Give them the option to dual-wield one-handed weapons. I don’t know how, but make it work. Be clever about abilities and animations.
Think of this spec as the “Outlaw” for Rogues. A bit of a wildcard, quite different from the rest. The concept of “hunt” taken to the extreme.
Heck, let’s rename it to Ranger for good measure. Survival was always a bit of an odd name. Marksman, Beastmaster, and Ranger roll of the tounge nicely.
Beastmastery 1.5
This spec is in a better state than Survival, but could use some tweaks.
Introduce more talents (and thematically change a few more using new art and text) which focus on mastery over animals. Not just beefing up your pets.
Some traps, some “calls” and whistles in the form of buffs and debuffs, and perhaps a bit more technology-oriented than the other two specs. Would benefit from having more talents related to using your bow or gun.
I’m not sure exactly what the spec needs, just that the animal needs to be leashed and the Hunter needs to come forth.
Talent Swapping
So this has already been touched on a little bit. But essentially, if we just move some talents around the four trees (including the general Hunter tree), then the specs will have stronger thematic identities as a result.
- Move explosives and gadgets from Survival to Beastmastery and the general Hunter tree.
- Move poisons and bleeds from Beastmastery to Survival.
- Move invisibility and “hard to detect” stuff from the general Hunter tree to Survival.
- Talents relating to movement, whether boosting your own or crippling your opponent’s, should stay in the general Hunter tree. Alongside traps and stuff, they’re a sensible optional branch for when you want to slightly customise your Hunter in a different direction from what your spec permits.
There are likely a few additional changes you could sensibly make, but I’ll stop there so as to not make the post too long.
What are your thoughts?