Hunters look like a complete mess...

[Deleted]

Yeah that doesn't sound very good.. As far as the rotation being "boring" tho I haven't really (personally) found hunter "fun and engaging" since survival with SoO-tier. BM has never really felt super fun to actually play for me, I mostly like the fantasy of it and the exotic beasts. MM was dreadful in WoD until I got the HFC tier, with instant AS it's totally doable but from the perspective of only: "how fun are my buttons to press when I'm hitting stuff" my hunter hasn't even been in my top 5 for all of WoD and I play all classes except druid and monk to at least some extent.

I will definately check more threads out. Could you give me some sort of a date from when the last changes hit? So I know what comments/complaints I should "ignore" becasue they're outdated. Remember I never played on the beta so it's not as easy for me to keep track of all the changes. Thanks again tho!

[nacixems]

not a fan, hope they work on them, but. im a hunter, playing for so long, not sure i could play anything else.. if they gave me rocks to throw, i would throw rocks.. its what i do. pew pew/bang bang. i will muddle thru it.. best I can.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

I'm not gonna pretend to know anything, since I'm not on alpha or beta, but I will say that my guild mate who's a life-long hunter is enjoying beta so much (Gnome Hunter, for something different) that we never see him on live anymore. For what that's worth.

- - - Updated - - -

I can only speak to BM since I haven't been able to test the other specs yet (second artifact quest bugged, can't be arsed to make a new toon at this point).

From the perspective of soloing difficult content, don't get your hopes up. As it stands currently on beta, our pets are not only squishier than live, we also lack the tools we once had to keep them alive. Mend Pet is on a 10s CD; Spirit Bond is an artifact trait that heals you from KC use, not your pet; no more glyphs to beef any of that up or to allow you spam MD on your pet either.

EDIT TO ADD: All of that said, we can still solo things that some other classes/specs can't.

On the topic of threat, that's also currently an issue. It's much easier to pull threat off your pet now, and without endless MD spam, that can be a problem. Hopefully that gets addressed with tuning.

The much bigger concern right now, however, is pet assist being broken when multiple mobs are involved. At least we're assuming it's broken (in the beta feedback thread), rather than intended. Basically, your pet doesn't know how to tank anymore. If you pull multiple mobs, when the mob your pet is attacking dies, he/she will not immediately pick up the next mob and keep fighting. Quite to the contrary, your pet completely drops aggro and starts moseying on back to you as if the fight is over. If you allow this to happen, all of those remaining mobs will aggro to you, and your pet will just stand there with its tail up its bum. The only way to deal with this is to sic your pet on a new target before the first target dies, rotating your pet attacks around to each target to keep them in the fight.

Although we're assuming it's a bug, I'm becoming increasingly concerned that it's intended based on silly ideas about "pet management." God, I hope I'm wrong.

As for the rest, at my current middle-of-the-road gear/artifact levels, BM opening burst feels great (with the gold trait that applies cleave and KC to Hati), but then it fizzles out. Like filling a balloon and then letting go. Sustained DPS is where you'll notice the downtime and end up sitting on your hands waiting for focus/CDs. That's when BM becomes a total snooze-fest to me.

Incidentally, I've found I much prefer Stomp to Chim for questing because Stomp does noticeably more damage now. AMoC (for questing) feels 1,000 times better to me than Barrage because 1) it's half the focus cost; 2) it hits like a truck; 3) so most things die quick enough that a well-timed AMoC gets reset; 4) which means I can use it more. Also, the last thing I need when out questing with a pet that doesn't tank properly is to have an "oh fuck" Barrage moment, which is more likely than not with how many mobs are packed into certain areas in Legion.

There are more issues involving our rotation and Wild Call procs, but this is already a book, and I've said them in the BM thread :P

Surprises me that threat would be a thing when I'm hearing that pets are doing 2/3 of our damage? So they're doing twice as much damage as we are, but we're still pulling threat?

[crmarczak]

As someone who mained a MM hunter, and never got 4 piece t18 I find this new MM even worse than hardcasting Aimed Shots. At least in WoD aimed shot hit hard and allowed movement, now it hits for dicks and remains hardcast and you can't move. In addition we lost the hard hitting insta cast Chimera and Kill Shot while being given a spammable insta cast builder (which is nice) and a moderate hitting proc shot seemingly on the same rate due to memory as Chimera. The play style is no longer bursty and you feel super weak until the stars align and you can marked shot with 2 charges of insta aimed and patient sniper. Just meh feeling and whats worse is they are op in pvp right now.

[Keyimin]

I'm not gonna pretend to know anything, since I'm not on alpha or beta, but I will say that my guild mate who's a life-long hunter is enjoying beta so much (Gnome Hunter, for something different) that we never see him on live anymore. For what that's worth.

I'm enjoying the shit out of beta as well, also a gnome hunter hehe, but it isn't because I like what they've done to BM. I've adjusted to it, but I'm mostly enjoying beta because of the content.

Surprises me that threat would be a thing when I'm hearing that pets are doing 2/3 of our damage? So they're doing twice as much damage as we are, but we're still pulling threat?

Something about it is broken, and I suspect at least part of it is related to "assist" being broken. It rarely happens with a single target, although if you pop off a few cobra shots in a row (or with a Chim), you can watch the threat steadily increasing more often than it should, and you would likely regularly pull threat if you had the focus to continue firing.

[c000]

another patch and yet hunters only got one teeny-tiny change. meanwhile all kinds of activity for other classes =/

[Fang7986]

He's got a point about Survival. As cool as the new spec may be, it's pretty fucked up to the players who've been playing a ranged Survival Hunter for awhile

and for people who played when you could be a melee hunter it's a relief to have it back

[Sencha]

and for people who played when you could be a melee hunter it's a relief to have it back

I started WoW during vanilla but I can't remember having seen any melee hunter, even if you took all the "melee" talents from the survival tree.

[Vaud]

another patch and yet hunters only got one teeny-tiny change. meanwhile all kinds of activity for other classes =/

We got no QoL improvements or true tuning since the last 10 builds or so

[Okacz]

I've tried to play MM on PTR for like, 3rd time. No success.

I don't mind MM being a 3 button (core) spec. MM in WoD had the same at the start, Chimaera, Steady and Aimed, and felt... well, not terrible, and pretty awesome with T18 4pc.

Still, it's amazing how they managed to put only 3 buttons in the rotation, and yet made it feel so clunky. Spammable generator makes you feel like crap, because most of the time you are just looking at GCD. Aimed Shot, despite being only castable when stationary and quite slow, hits for very little. Marked Shot procs feel like a priority, so you feel like every time you Aimed Shot to dump focus you are losing a potential proc you could be fishing for. Vulnerable buff is pointless, buffing both Aimed and Marked shots, so it's basically just "do more damage". Some talents, like Explosive Shot or Piercing Shot, make the rotation more tolerable, but do not fix anything in its core.

Other two specs feel fine, SV is dynamic and requires decent timing and planning, BM is easy and relaxing. MM is poorly designed in my eyes. Marked Shot should have some better synergy with the rotation. Like doing less damage, but increasing the damage of the next Aimed Shot by a LOT.

[Thursley]

I've tried to play MM on PTR for like, 3rd time. No success.

I don't mind MM being a 3 button (core) spec. MM in WoD had the same at the start, Chimaera, Steady and Aimed, and felt... well, not terrible, and pretty awesome with T18 4pc.

Still, it's amazing how they managed to put only 3 buttons in the rotation, and yet made it feel so clunky. Spammable generator makes you feel like crap, because most of the time you are just looking at GCD. Aimed Shot, despite being only castable when stationary and quite slow, hits for very little. Marked Shot procs feel like a priority, so you feel like every time you Aimed Shot to dump focus you are losing a potential proc you could be fishing for. Vulnerable buff is pointless, buffing both Aimed and Marked shots, so it's basically just "do more damage". Some talents, like Explosive Shot or Piercing Shot, make the rotation more tolerable, but do not fix anything in its core.

Other two specs feel fine, SV is dynamic and requires decent timing and planning, BM is easy and relaxing. MM is poorly designed in my eyes. Marked Shot should have some better synergy with the rotation. Like doing less damage, but increasing the damage of the next Aimed Shot by a LOT.

A lot of what you're saying indicates you don't understand how MM works very well/haven't experimented enough. There's no fishing for Hunter's Mark procs because it's on a RPPM system, so using more Arcane Shots doesn't generate more Marked Shots. Also the two talents you named are mutually exclusive with the ones that most people cite as being the talents that improve the feel and strength of the spec the most (patient sniper instead of explosive shot, which fixes your complaint about the Vulnerable debuff being boring, and Sidewinders instead of Piercing Shot, which fixes your complaint about spamming the Arcane Shot generator).

[Frimelda]

I don't play much hunter, how is Survival right now?

[Lumineus]

On Live? It's absolutely terrible. They gutted Survival in the WoD prepatch, it never recovered.

In Legion it's... well, basically a dumbed down Feral Druid. But then, so is the Legion Feral Druid. It's all right. Probably more fun than the snoozefest the other specs have been reduced to. I fear our Hunters, who currently make up the core of our ranged contingent, will all go melee =\

[Deleted]

Hey, I'm looking for a new main in Legion, and have some questions about MM hunter.

I am looking for a DPS class (melee or ranged doesnt matter) which game style is more on the "relaxed" side. I mean not a completely afk but Im not a huge fan of an overly hectic playstyle, which seemed to be the case for fury warrior as far as I could tell. I also prefer to have a lot of passives and not that many long cd cooldowns, since I am that type of player that always thinks "Well MAYBE it will be more usefull later on! Better not use it.". And of course a lot of DPS would be nice, but its probably too early to tell.

Do you think MM hunter would fit into that category? Or do you think there are other classes/specs that would be a better for me?

Thanks

[Smog]

Hey, I'm looking for a new main in Legion, and have some questions about MM hunter.

I am looking for a DPS class (melee or ranged doesnt matter) which game style is more on the "relaxed" side. I mean not a completely afk but Im not a huge fan of an overly hectic playstyle, which seemed to be the case for fury warrior as far as I could tell. I also prefer to have a lot of passives and not that many long cd cooldowns, since I am that type of player that always thinks "Well MAYBE it will be more usefull later on! Better not use it.". And of course a lot of DPS would be nice, but its probably too early to tell.

Do you think MM hunter would fit into that category? Or do you think there are other classes/specs that would be a better for me?

Thanks

So you want an easy ranged class with few cds and low APM? Play Marks or Arcane. Avoid Shadow, Balance, Demo.

[Deleted]

So you want an easy ranged class with few cds and low APM? Play Marks or Arcane. Avoid Shadow, Balance, Demo.

Basically yes. Mage was actually my other choice, and i dont really like the other ranged classes, so thats good to know . Thank you.

[Smog]

Basically yes. Mage was actually my other choice, and i dont really like the other ranged classes, so thats good to know . Thank you.

You're welcome. There's nothing wrong with wanting to play a simpler and less micro intensive class/spec.

[Deleted]

We got no QoL improvements or true tuning since the last 10 builds or so

MM needs a complete redo at this point.

[Deleted]

MM needs a complete redo at this point.

Yeah good luck with that. They haven't touched MM in months, its as shit as it always has been.

[Deleted]

I have been positively surprised with all the new hunter specs, at least after the initial shock. I was prepared for something way worse after reading the hunter forums since alpha, but now that I got a beta invite the specs felt fine and different from each other.

Survival seems to be hands down the best designed spec of all the three, it has many tools and the rotation is interesting. I agree that it feels like the spec is missing a "get-away" tool, maybe disengage? This will maybe be a problem in pvp, you can get in but can't get out. Other than that I really enjoyed the spec and it feels like you are fighting with and alongside your pet and should have probably been the BM spec.

BM was initially my least favourite of the three hunter specs but it has grown on me. Super mobile, pretty easy and spammy spec. With Chimera Shot there shouldn't be any downtime during the rotation, which appears to be one of the main complaints about BM here. I agree that there aren't maybe any impactful and difficult decisions to be made concerning the rotation. Main concern is Hati's 2 minute rez time when she dies, and as with survival, mainly a pvp problem. Other than that, there's not much to be said about BM. It's kind of a cool spec, nothing special.

MM was cool, but maybe the least favourite hunter spec after playing it a while. I find that stationary Aimed Shot is a great idea, I do not understand why all the hunter specs should be completely mobile instant shot - specs. With a proc, Aimed Shot becomes instant anyway, and it feels gratifying. Personally I have usually liked specs with a lot of procs and MM is definitely the most proc-based hunter spec. Basically uit plays very flimsy-elfy and on top of that has some weird talents that do not seem to belong there, like one of my favourite new talents explosive shot.. My main concerns are that Lone Wolf is completely OP and will probably stay so (as it is in live) and so the whole talent tier is completely unnecessary and poorly designed. I was against having a whole spec without a hunter pet, especially when there doesn't seem to be any normal hunter spec with a pet anymore, but this decision is even worse. Lone wolf shouldn't be a talent, but the opposite, pet should be a talent on the same row than Dark Arrow.


As I said earlier, I strongly think BM should have been the melee spec and Survival the classic hunter+pet ranged spec. It's pretty clear there has been some confusion while designing the hunter specs, and this would have been a more logical approach for both the gameplay and the "fantasy"

Survival talents: Survivalist, Traps, Sticky Bomb, Explosive Shot, Bursting Shot - the classic hunter+pet ranged spec with a engineery touch.
MM talents: Chimera Shot and Scatter Shot. should have stayed a stationary lone wolf spec with procs to have instant shots.
BM talents: Flanking Strike, Raptor Strike, Kill Command etc. - the easy and spammy melee/semi-ranged spec with several pets assisting (see Rexxar in HotS) This way it would have been a win-win for everyone without these weird colliding talents and half the hunter population completely lost with which of the spec retains the original hunter feel (none atm).

I see where Blizzard is heading with the hunter specs but it seems to me they got sidetracked and didn't quite think it through. They could have done better, but I welcome the changes. Personally I will probably stay BM, but may change my mind if there are yet changes to come.