Hunter 'revamp' and spec differentiation

[Airbag888]

I'm not sure how you think what you described is fun. Just sounds to me you liked being op and taking over 50% of someone's health with 1 ability >.>

Taking into account the health pools he mentionned, he's clearly talking about Vanilla. Back when there was no resil and a lot of classes were 2-3 shotting others.

That said I'd rather they move pvp to be like in GW2, skill based and not gear based. Gear will be only cosmetic.
In fact even PVE could be like that. Oh well

[Khalkaroth]

I personally think hunters are fine. It is the only class that I managed to level 1-90 after my warlock, which was my main from vanilla. Part of the reason in my opinion is because it is a simple class to play compared to my warlock which felt like a bunch of evil looking spells glued together without much sense.

I also heard that people feels like all 3 specs feels the same, but I think its a good think. On my warlock my favorite spec was Affliction, but when I tried out demonology I felt like I was playing a whole diiferent class that didn't interest me at all. With the hunter I feel I can love all 3 specs because they feel similar, I fell like playing a hunter on all of them.

[Poppincaps]

I personally think hunters are fine. It is the only class that I managed to level 1-90 after my warlock, which was my main from vanilla. Part of the reason in my opinion is because it is a simple class to play compared to my warlock which felt like a bunch of evil looking spells glued together without much sense.

I also heard that people feels like all 3 specs feels the same, but I think its a good think. On my warlock my favorite spec was Affliction, but when I tried out demonology I felt like I was playing a whole diiferent class that didn't interest me at all. With the hunter I feel I can love all 3 specs because they feel similar, I fell like playing a hunter on all of them.

I'm not going to say your opinion is invalid because you're new to the hunter class, since you bring forth a new perspective, but as someone who's played a hunter for 8 years, I gotta say this is the first time ever that I've been feeling disappointed with the way hunters are going.

Having tested a warlock out, I feel as if they are the perfect example of a true dps class. Each spec has its own identity, each spec fulfills a certain niche where it can dominate the dps meters in, and they are topping meters on every fight (behind mages of course). Right now the 3 specs are not only very similar in playstyle, but also in the niche they fill.

BM is single Target and pretty strong AoE, SV is AoE and pretty weak multidotting, and MM is weak single target.

Then, you have warlocks which are: Demo has amazing Burst AoE and good multidotting capabilities, Destro has great single target and sustained AoE, and Affliction has strong Multidotting.

Hunters are having an identity crisis right now, and I hope Blizz can figure out what to do with us.

[TJ]

Taking into account the health pools he mentionned, he's clearly talking about Vanilla. Back when there was no resil and a lot of classes were 2-3 shotting others.

That said I'd rather they move pvp to be like in GW2, skill based and not gear based. Gear will be only cosmetic.
In fact even PVE could be like that. Oh well

Well yeah, I kind of god that from when he said "The most enjoyable PvP with a Hunter IMO was the Vanilla version." and then went on to explain it xd. But to me, it doesn't sound like fun at all.

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I'm not going to say your opinion is invalid because you're new to the hunter class, since you bring forth a new perspective, but as someone who's played a hunter for 8 years, I gotta say this is the first time ever that I've been feeling disappointed with the way hunters are going.

Having tested a warlock out, I feel as if they are the perfect example of a true dps class. Each spec has its own identity, each spec fulfills a certain niche where it can dominate the dps meters in, and they are topping meters on every fight (behind mages of course). Right now the 3 specs are not only very similar in playstyle, but also in the niche they fill.

BM is single Target and pretty strong AoE, SV is AoE and pretty weak multidotting, and MM is weak single target.

Then, you have warlocks which are: Demo has amazing Burst AoE and good multidotting capabilities, Destro has great single target and sustained AoE, and Affliction has strong Multidotting.

Hunters are having an identity crisis right now, and I hope Blizz can figure out what to do with us.

I have to agree. On a Warlock each spec feels different, for a Hunter, it seems you get a few different shots and that's it. Warlocks get a different resource for every spec which is pretty cool, it would be like each Hunter spec having something different to focus.

[Keltas]

give BM two pets permanently (Remove ss from bm too, it has very little place there outside of keeping down any form of burst)

Make survival much more dot/nature damage oriented. (pet causes SS ticks on hit, multiple heavy hitting dots, Es interacts with SS, something interesting)

Make MM much more focused on heavy hitting AiS and add some mechanic that keeps MM's rotation from becoming like 2 buttons. Like maybe a snapshot ability usable after a ais crit that deals a big bleed. Also, give it a new mastery. Armor pen or crit damage. The current one is really dumb and doesn't feel like a marksman at all. Lower AiS focus cost a bunch too. It's obscenely high.


-remove arcane shot from all the specs- give BM something that helps pets in some way as a filler. Give surv something that causes poison damage, maybe even something that drains focus over time but causes attacks to deal extra nature damage as a poison? give MM the snapshot ability (since they should probably be filling with AiS anyways)

[Mistmonk]

give BM two pets permanently (Remove ss from bm too, it has very little place there outside of keeping down any form of burst)

Make survival much more dot/nature damage oriented. (pet causes SS ticks on hit, multiple heavy hitting dots, Es interacts with SS, something interesting)

Make MM much more focused on heavy hitting AiS and add some mechanic that keeps MM's rotation from becoming like 2 buttons. Like maybe a snapshot ability usable after a ais crit that deals a big bleed. Also, give it a new mastery. Armor pen or crit damage. The current one is really dumb and doesn't feel like a marksman at all. Lower AiS focus cost a bunch too. It's obscenely high.


-remove arcane shot from all the specs- give BM something that helps pets in some way as a filler. Give surv something that causes poison damage, maybe even something that drains focus over time but causes attacks to deal extra nature damage as a poison? give MM the snapshot ability (since they should probably be filling with AiS anyways)

BM already has something that helps pets (Kill Command)

[Keltas]

BM already has something that helps pets (Kill Command)

Except that's not a filler spell. Arcane shot is. They need something that benefits pets as a filler to differentiate them.

Edit: Also, they're supposed to be a beast master. As in, you do stuff with beasts involved. firing arcane shot constantly isn't really beastly...

[Airbag888]

I'm not going to say your opinion is invalid because you're new to the hunter class, since you bring forth a new perspective, but as someone who's played a hunter for 8 years, I gotta say this is the first time ever that I've been feeling disappointed with the way hunters are going.

Having tested a warlock out, I feel as if they are the perfect example of a true dps class. Each spec has its own identity, each spec fulfills a certain niche where it can dominate the dps meters in, and they are topping meters on every fight (behind mages of course). Right now the 3 specs are not only very similar in playstyle, but also in the niche they fill.

BM is single Target and pretty strong AoE, SV is AoE and pretty weak multidotting, and MM is weak single target.

Then, you have warlocks which are: Demo has amazing Burst AoE and good multidotting capabilities, Destro has great single target and sustained AoE, and Affliction has strong Multidotting.

Hunters are having an identity crisis right now, and I hope Blizz can figure out what to do with us.

Amen to that.

Hunter's been my main since vanilla. I leveled 10 classes to 85 in cata and now 11 to 90 (12 if you count my 2nd monk) and hunters definitely lack flavour compared to most classes.
Warlock is an excellent example of a nice varied gameplay according to specs.

[Mistmonk]

Amen to that.

Hunter's been my main since vanilla. I leveled 10 classes to 85 in cata and now 11 to 90 (12 if you count my 2nd monk) and hunters definitely lack flavour compared to most classes.
Warlock is an excellent example of a nice varied gameplay according to specs.

While I agree with the warlock example. You guys are forgetting one thing. They revamped them and now look at 5.4 changes for warlocks. They are getting nerfed hard in almost every aspect. Survivability, Movement, Damage.

If you are looking for the kind of revamp where it just puts all hunters at the very top, go be a FOTM junkie and reroll to mage or something.

Hunters do need "some" changes, but a complete revamp like that, all it does is unbalance everything. Which is why I believe they are hesitant to do it for another class, because it failed to an extent with warlocks and made them completely overpowered to what blizz had intended.

[Airbag888]

While I agree with the warlock example. You guys are forgetting one thing. They revamped them and now look at 5.4 changes for warlocks. They are getting nerfed hard in almost every aspect. Survivability, Movement, Damage.

If you are looking for the kind of revamp where it just puts all hunters at the very top, go be a FOTM junkie and reroll to mage or something.

Hunters do need "some" changes, but a complete revamp like that, all it does is unbalance everything. Which is why I believe they are hesitant to do it for another class, because it failed to an extent with warlocks and made them completely overpowered to what blizz had intended.

The way I look at it is:

5.0 = Warlock revamp = Making all 3 specs distinct experiences = Lack of balance made them overpowered
5.1
5.2
5.3
5.4 = 3 specs still distinct + nerfed down (don't know the extent yet)

5.0 = hunter nothing = mediocre pve experience = bleh specs + average to low dps
5.4 = promise of better balance/dps + bleh specs

So either way, warlocks still come out as winners for most of the expansion and towards the end their numbers are meant to go down a bit (no idea by how much). Meanwhile the whole expac hunters were left in the dust so to speak.

[Deleted]

Changes I would like to see to the Hunter class:

Beast Mastery changed into a melee spec, much like Rexxar the Hunter would engage in close battle with his/her beasts and bash the skull in on the enemy along with still having some ranged moves like traps and the like.

Marksmanship, a sniper like spec completely without a pet, focuses on nuking down the opponent from afar, weak in close combat.

Survivability, somewhere between the other two specs, have a regular pet, deals ranged damage but has a lot of different kinds of traps and the like to keep their opponent away.

Sadly this would pretty much be a massive revamp which they said they wouldn't do, but I would love it.

[Deleted]

Changes I would like to see to the Hunter class:

Beast Mastery changed into a melee spec, much like Rexxar the Hunter would engage in close battle with his/her beasts and bash the skull in on the enemy along with still having some ranged moves like traps and the like.

Marksmanship, a sniper like spec completely without a pet, focuses on nuking down the opponent from afar, weak in close combat.

Survivability, somewhere between the other two specs, have a regular pet, deals ranged damage but has a lot of different kinds of traps and the like to keep their opponent away.

Sadly this would pretty much be a massive revamp which they said they wouldn't do, but I would love it.

It's scary how much this resembles the ideas I had in my head for hunters. I'd love BM to go melee or at least make polearms ranged weapons for them. Just make them a lot more 'feral'. TBH the only version I feel the current state resembles is the Night Elf version of a hunter. I so want the option to go Rexxar style, a bit more Barbarian. Take the pet from MM and give it to BM.
Also I'd like to have Arcane Shot replaced. Again it feels like it is only fitting for 1-2 races. Also we do not use mana anymore (good riddance).

I'm in full support for the Warlock treatment, something that rogues need just as much as well.

[Libertarian]

It's funny because a lot of the people claiming we need changes now, were the same people saying hunters were fine at the start of the expansion. Especially before we got all the hot fixes, too.

[Airbag888]

It's scary how much this resembles the ideas I had in my head for hunters. I'd love BM to go melee or at least make polearms ranged weapons for them. Just make them a lot more 'feral'. TBH the only version I feel the current state resembles is the Night Elf version of a hunter. I so want the option to go Rexxar style, a bit more Barbarian. Take the pet from MM and give it to BM.
Also I'd like to have Arcane Shot replaced. Again it feels like it is only fitting for 1-2 races. Also we do not use mana anymore (good riddance).

I'm in full support for the Warlock treatment, something that rogues need just as much as well.

If you scroll up you'll see I had this Rexxar type of suggestion too.. Looks like this idea's catching up

[Fullmetal89]

I have as much faith in Blizzard fixing the hunter class as I do in their promise of a dance studio, player housing, new character models, project Titan, etc.

I highly doubt they will do anything as drastic to the class as they did to warlocks. They will either give us a ton of band aid fixes in 1 patch, or some "ground breaking" resource change like they did when we switched from mana to focus (which should have been that way since day 1). All I know is that if they fuck the class up by adding something similar to holy power for hunters I will never play this game again. I use to main a paladin since vanilla till the end of Wrath, I haven't touched him since because of the holy power change.

[Deleted]

I would love to see one of the specs without a pet... MM fx... I love the bow and ranged attackerpower style, but i hate to have a pet..(:

[Airbag888]

What sucks is blizz isn't communicating at all on possible changes.. It feels we'll see really cool changes upcoming for the next expac and once expac hits, nerfs because the cool stuff is just to get us to buy the expac.

Off topic: T16 hunter looks horrendous

[DeicideUH]

If I were to make a few changes to Hunters (these are just conceptual changes, numbers would need to be balanced later), this is how I'd do it. These are just some random ideas, probably would need even more differentiation, but it's a start. I'm aiming more at Quality-of-life changes and spec differenctiation than balance here.

General Changes:
- Aspects would seize to be instance-like effects;
- Aspect of the Hawk is now a passive ability;
- Aspect of the Cheetah is now a passive ability increasing your speed by 10% for every 3 seconds while you are out of combat, stacking up to 3 times (30% increased speed). Entering combat won't turn off the effect immediately (but it will stop to keep stacking), but taking damage will.
- Aspect of the Pack is now called Call of the Pack. It's now an active ability that gives you and all nearby raid members a 30% speed increase for 8 seconds. 1-minute cooldown.
- Former Dire Beast talent is now Focused Purpose: your Explosive Shot, Dire Beast or Piercing Arrows give you some focus back every time they damage an opponent.

Survival:
- Viper Sting is now a Survival-only ability.
- Widow Venom is now a Survival-only passive effect. It's automatically applied through your successful Black Arrow attacks.

Beastmastery
- Dire Beast is now a Beastmastery-only ability and the beast attacks do not give focus.
- New Passive: Festering Wounds. Your Kill Command now applies the -25% healing debuff on the target.

Marksmanship:
- Marksmanship's Piercing Arrows stack (once a new application is done, total left damage from former application is added to the newer one). Aimed Shot now always applies Piercing Arrows, even on a non-crit attack. Piercing Arrows also apply the -25% healing debuff to the target.
- Marksmanship is now a petless spec. You can summon/tame/dismiss pets, but they are always passive companions and you can't give them orders.
- Marksmanship now have raid-wide buffs for Mastery and Critical Strike called "Hunting Tactics" and "Skirmish Tactics". They each have a 4-second cast time (can't be easily swaped mid-fight). This is to off-set the lack of pet buffs.
- Mastery: now applies a chance for your shots to do extra damage, instead of a chance of firing an extra arrow.

[Bullettime]

It never made much sense for Beast Mastery to be ranged and been saying that since vanilla. They tried Survival as a melee spec which didn't work, though Survival had zero identity period until 3.0, but think of the most popular Beast Mastery in the franchise; Rexxar. He's not sitting at ranged and letting the pet do all the dirty work. He dives into the fight as a pet tag team.

But that's likely not going to happen.

I'd like to see Black Arrow be removed and replaced with a poison ability that serves the same function. It makes no sense for the explosive and poison expert to be using arcane and shadow magic. Also, removal of Rapid Fire and Arcane Shot in favor of spec specific abilities. Beast Mastery can get a pet synergistic shot that causes them to deal more damage or grant Frenzy stacks. Survival can get a stackable fire dot to maintain. Marksmanship to have more emphasis put on Aimed Shot and have Arcane Shot turn into a low damage low cost physical shot, like a sniper grabbing their sidearm.

[Prokne]

- Marksmanship now have raid-wide buffs for Mastery and Critical Strike called "Hunting Tactics" and "Skirmish Tactics". They each have a 4-second cast time (can't be easily swaped mid-fight). This is to off-set the lack of pet buffs.

Is it supposed to stack over the current mastery and crit buffs? Otherwise it is unnecessary to give it a cast time since no other class has a cast time on their buffs like arcane brilliance(int+crit) and blessing of might(mastery).

Another thing you could do is give MM trueshot aura back and have Surv and BM only give a buff through the pet they have out. Give a pet family the AP buff so they can use it if they want.

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Marksmanship to have more emphasis put on Aimed Shot and have Arcane Shot turn into a low damage low cost physical shot, like a sniper grabbing their sidearm.

I just had an idea to replace arcane for MM which kind of came from this. Aimed shot is still cast normally but often you have the space of a GCD or about before you have CS come off CD. Have marks use a filler shot called something like Quick Shot which does a low percentage of weapon damage(since its fired fast) but give it no GCD and a very small focus cost. So what you would basically do is fire off as many Quick Shots as you can inside a GCD before using CS. The damage it does has to be adjusted so that no matter how fast you smash it, it will never do as much damage as CS or AiS.