So Hunters are primarily DPS focused and so with most of these runes it is all about what provides the most DPS which means some runes are going to be better than other runes. If you boost the damage of Lone Wolf or Explosive Shot then people might stop complaining about pets being OP and start complaining about these.
So what if we just look at different forms of functionality for the abilities instead? An explosion could knock you out of focus of whatever you were doing. So I don’t think it is too far fetched to make it an interruption based ability. Question is, how would it work? It does 3 explosion effects and is AOE. So… 25-30% chance to AOE interrupt per explosion for each target hit? Would that make it too powerful?
The damage is pitiful as it is and it shared CD with Aimed so there isn’t much reason to use it even if we didn’t have to give up BM rune for it but if it could interrupt then that could give Hunters new functionality in all kinds of content.
I’ll refer you to a thread of mine, which got buried, because people are too lazy to read:
in particular: Add leg rune which adds mana drain effect to Arcane Shot also it does not share CD with aimed/explosive, also it acts as an interrupt (similar to Earth Shock)
My response to you would be - leave Explosive Shot functionally the same, buff the damage, allow an useful Arcane Shot in addition to ES. And if the damage is not buffed - add knockback effect to every tick of Explosive Shot, as it fits the ability thematically (the same way mana drain/interrupt fits Arcane Shot), and is going to be something fresh in the game.