Hunters may get re-worked in 6.0

[Deleted]

Rogues are actually in a far, far worse spot. Specs are more similar compared to Hunter specs, and they are generally not very interesting to play. The amount of downtime between attacks is very boring to deal with.

Only reason why it's not such a big deal at the moment is because they are topping meters all over the place.

I still think Hunters only need some minor tweaks and a few small changes. Honestly, I'm fine the way we are now. For the most part at least.

[Fullmetal89]

I have been playing since 2005 and Hunters have been constantly "reworked" all these years. My main was a Hunter back in Vanilla.



Ever since I joined, Blizzard has been "redesigning" Hunters. They never actually knew what to do with Hunters. After so many expansions and Hunters being redesigned in each one I really don't believe that Blizzard can get Hunters right.

Current incarnation of the Hunter is the worst imo. I best liked the Vanilla model with Raptor Strike, Mongoose Bite, Counterattack, and casted aimed shot that hit for 2.5-3k crit when everyone had about 4.5k to 5k health pools.

Hunters who knew how to play were really dreaded and widely respected then. A good Hunter could wyvern sting one opponet, wing clip+trap another and kill a third opponent not to mention that the combo or Rok+Lok meant wide respect and whispers of admiration.

Then again I have no interest as I am not subbed and probably won't sub until they introduce Vanilla, TBC and WOTLK servers.

Yeah you have a serious case of Rose Tinted Goggles. I played all though Vanilla, it was really fun some of the best time I had especially in PvP. However I'm not that blinded by my nostalgia to see the god awful design decisions that where implemented for hunters. Lets start with the obvious, mana, having mana back then was awful. On long raid fights like Ragnaros for example you had to basically stand still doing auto-shots for a good minute to get enough mana to cast anything. Then there was ammo/feed pet mechanic which got annoying fast. You always had to have your bags half full, hunters where the only class in the game for a long time that could be rendered completely useless in a variety of ways. One last thing I wanted to add was the awful survivability we had if someone actually got us in melee range, like rogues. That said somethings about vanilla where really awesome, like rare pets having special stats which gave you a huge boost in dmg and pissed off casters to no end. If anything needs to be brought back from vanilla is the joy in actually taming a new pet instead of this standardized pet by species crap.

---------- Post added 2013-05-15 at 11:37 AM ----------

Rogues are actually in a far, far worse spot. Specs are more similar compared to Hunter specs, and they are generally not very interesting to play. The amount of downtime between attacks is very boring to deal with.

Only reason why it's not such a big deal at the moment is because they are topping meters all over the place.

I still think Hunters only need some minor tweaks and a few small changes. Honestly, I'm fine the way we are now. For the most part at least.

That's the point though, yes Rogues are pretty boring to play in this X-pac I agree with you. That said if you gear them they are worth it, their dps is still very competitive. Hunters on the other hand have a plethora of things to deal with and even with amazing gear you still are left in the dust by most of the other classes. I play assassination on my Rogue and its not hard at all, boring but easy and rewarding I honestly don't see anything too bad about them other than the specs feeling all exactly the same.

[Xaxina]

Just mabye. We lost almost evrything. 0 survivabulity and now we are gona lose the dmg and cc..

[Deleted]

Sadly much of the balancing and design issues in WoW (not just thinking about hunters now) is simply the fact that they always try to balance PvE and PvP at the same time, which just doesn't work out in most cases and they end up with specs that are broken in PvE but completely dominates PvP.

If Blizzard actually decided to balance PvE and PvP separetely we'd be playing a much more fun and interesting game I'm sure. There are a handful of skills that work differently against players compared to PvE monsters, but they need to go all the way and completely separate PvP and PvE as it would solve every balancing issue currently in the game.

[Itisamuh]

Maybe I'm thinking mostly from the perspective of PvP, but what's there for hunters to gripe about and want changed? With the removal of the dead zone, you're the only class that doesn't have a mechanical weakness that other classes can exploit. You can't be kited like melee, you can't be zoned like hunters of old, and you can't be interrupted like casters. I agree that the specs are a little too similar in playstyle, but for a class that doesn't have any actual power, there's only so much variation to be had, same with rogues and warriors. As for PvE, isn't it the status quo for every class to only use a few buttons over and over and have one spec per patch that's just best?

[De Lupe]

The only way the to improve the class is to further distinguish the specs.

Too many abilities available to each spec and not enough emphasis on each specs unique qualities.

Aspect of the Pack is given a wolf for an icon, and Beast is given a bear (helps distinguish them from each other and Cheetah.)

Without mana, Arcane Shot makes no sense. Arcane shot is converted to physical damage, re-named Simple Shot, and is only used <L10. At L10, Simple Shot is converted to a spec specific ability.

MM - Sniper spec. Focus on bleeds, physical damage, and the ranged aspect of the class.
Mastery - Barbed Ammo: attacks can cause extra damage as bleeds.
Petless
Level 10 - Simple Shot converts to Barbed Shot, bleeding dot.
Aspect of the Hawk, Concussive Shot, Eagle Eye, Rapid Fire, & Deterrence become MM exclusive.
Loses all traps. Ice Arrow brought back.
New (and only) trap - Bear Trap, root + Bleed, can be shot at range
Passive ability that grants +5% haste (or whatever) when at 20+ yards, +5 yards max range, encourages "sniper" playstyle.
*Never used MM, so don't hold that against me if I'm a bit limited on the MM knowledge.

Surv - Trapper spec. Focus on elemental damage, toxins, and resourcefulness.
Mastery - Toxin Specialist: +nature damage.
Aspect of the Viper brought back and re-tooled, +Nature damage
Scatter Shot, Readiness, SS, & Trap Launcher become Surv exclusive.
WV rolled into SS.
Black Arrow dies...in a fire...literally. It becomes a Fire dot instead of a Shadow.
Level 10 - Simple Shot converts into Toxic Shot, nature dot.
All traps remain in tact except Snake trap is removed.
New trap - Toxic Cloud Trap, single explosion of a poison cloud that lasts a few seconds, mobs dotted with nature poison.

BM - Beast spec. Focus on physical melee damage and pet interaction.
Would have to be re-designed to be a melee spec.
Dual-Weild axes, maces, fist weapons. Not swords.
Aspect of the Monkey brought back, +dodge +damage
Snake Trap, Scare Beast, & Stampede become exclusives.
Level 10 - Simple Shot converts to Kill Command
Snake Trap re-tooled as a root + physical damage, BM only trap, snake damage is no longer a joke.
Several beast/hunter tag team abilities created.

*Melee hunter has been brought up to death, I get it, and mostly, I agree, but it is the best way to distinguish a normally ranged class. Plus, the new troll mobs (Beastcallers, I believe they're called) kinda help sell the idea a bit.
**I loathe the idea of my precious BM (the spec I've had for 7 years) being turned into a melee spec, but, realistically, it's the best candidate for this role. Nature-damage, dual-weilding, mail wearing spec is way too similar to a Shammy to be acceptable, so no to Surv.

Not to be taken too seriously. There are numbers that would need to be tweaked, other abilities that would need to be moved around (just named the ones that came to mind), new abilities created, and something to replace Stampede.

Obviously, it's not perfect, mostly off the top of my head when I posted it originally.

[clevin]

The problem really is this - there aren't three distinct specs that come to mind for a hunter. There are two.

One is the archer - no pet, ranged dps, focused around doing direct damage with their weapon. Second is the beastmaster - strongly connected with their pet, using the pet to help them accomplish their goals, whether that's tanking mobs, adding dps or even healing the hunter.

There really isn't a clear archetype for a third spec. Melee hunters are a poor idea for a ranged class. Traps fit naturally into either of the two above but aren't really good to base a spec around (talk to any hunter who's laid down a trap only to see the tank move mobs away from it for some reason or consider a fight where the boss has to be kited due to mechanics).

Rogues are the same - you have the brawler/streetfighter archetype and the stealthy assassin type. There's no good third archetype. Is it any wonder that both classes suffer from poor spec differentiation?

[Xeveri]

I don't mind how hunters are right now, but the specs have a very similar feel to them, With none of them having a discernable unique ability beyond a "shot" of some kind. But they are hunters after all.

Beast Mastery, (what I currently play as) seems to have the most unique feature of the specs (Taming Exotics) while surv. and MM just have different shots and rotations. Don't get me wrong...I am actually more fond of Surv. and have dabbled in MM before. It would be interesting to see more unique abilities for the other two specs.

I have always found it odd that the survival tree offers the least amount of survivability...

[Exeris]

I think a re-work on the warlock level would fit well for hunters. I'd like to see what they could do.

Careful what you wish for, you might not like it.

[Viradiance]

I think all the specs need to be redesigned at a warlock level. Disappointed that he doesn't feel the same. Hunters have the most homogenized specs in the game with Rogues right behind them.

I would argue vice versa, but for the sake of fidelity, let's just agree that hunters and rogues are really, really, really badly fucked for homogenization.

[eschatological]

Rogues are awful. I fall asleep playing rogues. My alt rogue literally stands there doing nothing but white swinging. Hunters are a close second though. The sad part is, my rogue can almost outDPS my main hunter in only alt-run gear.

[habitsbreaker]

well the next class will probably be a ranged that use bow/guns, trying to rework the class might take some of their awesome ideas away from that class.

[mistahwilshire]

I just want a raid cooldown. I can live with ass tier damage and all the specs being practically the same if I can just have a raid cooldown. Ret pallys are even worse than us but they get raid slots because of BoP and other great cheesing buttons. We need that.

[Deleted]

I agree that MM should be a petless spec.

I'd love to see hunters have an ability on their mount.
BM : while mounted you and your pet can attack your target for 5sec , then you get dismounted.
MM : you can fire while mounted for 5sec. If you fire after the 5sec you will get dismounted.
SV : you can camouflage and lay traps while mounted.

Aspects are bad now and need a change : aspect of the hawk = 15% agility increase , aspect of the bear = tanking (25% damage reduction) , aspect of the cheetah = kiting : you run 20% faster (cancels when attacked) and for 10sec all party/raid members run 20% faster. 60sec CD for aspect of the cheetah, 4sec CD for switching aspects.

Also i would like to see pets (or yourself in case of MM) change depending on the aspect. Aspect of the hawk : your pet/you get an extra attack , aspect of the bear : more armor/health, aspect of the cheetah : the ability to dodge 1 cc (90sec cooldown)
The extra attack in aspect of the hawk would depend on spec :
BM : your pet makes the target bleed for x damage.
MM : an arrow that makes the target turn 180°.
SV : a trap with bees that sting the target making it do 10% less healing/damage.

This would be awesome

[khalamo]

Well there can be 3 hunter archetypes:

Sniper - long range hunter, slower attacks but high dmg
Survival - fast moving, utility hunter with fast attacks and traps
Beastmaster - Hunter focused on his pets

[Hunterforlife]

The problem really is this - there aren't three distinct specs that come to mind for a hunter. There are two.

One is the archer - no pet, ranged dps, focused around doing direct damage with their weapon. Second is the beastmaster - strongly connected with their pet, using the pet to help them accomplish their goals, whether that's tanking mobs, adding dps or even healing the hunter.

There really isn't a clear archetype for a third spec. Melee hunters are a poor idea for a ranged class. Traps fit naturally into either of the two above but aren't really good to base a spec around (talk to any hunter who's laid down a trap only to see the tank move mobs away from it for some reason or consider a fight where the boss has to be kited due to mechanics).

Rogues are the same - you have the brawler/streetfighter archetype and the stealthy assassin type. There's no good third archetype. Is it any wonder that both classes suffer from poor spec differentiation?

Hunter: 1. Archer, ranged dps, accurate, long-range, etc., 2. Beastmaster, strong pet, exotic pets, pet related abilities, 3. Ranger, mix of ranged and melee abilities, pet is an asset, has traps, stealth, poisons and some melee abilities. That's what MM, BM, SV were supposed to be.

Rogue: 1. Brawler/Streetfighter, 2. Assassin, 3. Skilled swordsman. It's really not hard to come up with three fairly distinct models.

Removing hunter melee abilities was a mistake. Change to focus was good, removing the min range for ranged attacks was awesome, but removing all melee abilities and our ability to equip melee weapons was stupid. It makes no sense and no "hunter" no matter how good with a bow or gun, would rely on just a ranged weapon. Adding melee abilities to SV hunters, so they are a combo of melee/ranged dps like enhancement shaman, would be ideal for making the three specs different.

[Deleted]

I just want a raid cooldown. I can live with ass tier damage and all the specs being practically the same if I can just have a raid cooldown. Ret pallys are even worse than us but they get raid slots because of BoP and other great cheesing buttons. We need that.

How about a raid wide Deterrence that deflects the next incoming attack and then fades away? That's not at all OP, is it? o.O

[Lethey Alexandros]

The only thing I would like to see for my hunter is A petless option for marksman. Something kinda like warlocks have with GoS.

[Deleted]

I only do PVP. They could do something with the tenacity spec so people would choose it for pvp.
Maybe an extra stun/root/slow but at the cost of damage.

We should also get more healing. If we cant burst or cc at least we should be able to heal ourselves.

[Wishblade]

I sure hope Hunters at least get some work for 6.0, specs really do feel too much alike.