Hunter 'revamp' and spec differentiation

[Holtzmann]

These new talents seem to go against what they said about making hunter specs feel different from each other. Snipe and Bola Shot would make more sense as spec abilities, not talents that all specs can use. Snipe should be replace steady shot for marks and Bola Shot could replace arcane shot for Survival. They way they have them as talents seems like hunters specs are going to be just like they are now.

That would completely gut Marksmanship' mobility and make Survival's AoE even more powerful, so... yeah, probably not. There are other ways to differentiate specs, so we should probably wait until we have any class information at all besides the level 100 talents to debate this.

[Laithe]

It isn't alot to go off of, but they talked about the bonuses each level from 91-100, specifically they showed assassination rogues having passive slice and dice.
Perhaps some of these bonuses will contribute to hunter specs diverging from each other.

[Jeremypwnz]

I want haste breakpoints for Serpent Sting / Black Arrow / other dots to be a thing.

[Prokne]

These new talents seem to go against what they said about making hunter specs feel different from each other. Snipe and Bola Shot would make more sense as spec abilities, not talents that all specs can use. Snipe should be replace steady shot for marks and Bola Shot could replace arcane shot for Survival. They way they have them as talents seems like hunters specs are going to be just like they are now.

What I would probably recommend is placing the no-pet talent in the pet tier (LR, AMoC, BS) and have another talent that replaces a shot in the lvl 100 tier. I say this mostly because I want to both not have a pet and use snipe plus it would remove the strangeness of being able to have a pet damage talent without a pet.

[Deleted]

Just going to add my 2c & ideas;

All Specs
Aspects removed as stance-like spells & instead become short-duration raid-wide buffs.
Aspect of the Hawk - adds physical damage to everyone else's damage for a short duration (possibly with accompanying AMoC-style animations), In essence, it's a bit like Shaman's totem that adds nature damage.
Aspect of the Cheetah - Works like Dash
Aspect of the Pack - Works like Stampeding Roar
Aspect of the Wild - Reduces all Magic damage taken for 4s by 40% (Paladin ability has same effect, I forget the name though!)

Equipping melee weapon(s) changes changes all "shot" abilities to "strike" e.g. Chimera Strike, changes range to 8yds and grants 15% movement speed buff. (This idea needs further work to make it fully viable but it allows for some fun customisation of playstyle).

Talents: As announced with the following change
With or Without You: BM: As Blizz version. SV/MM: Toggled ability: When on, all summoned pets are tiny non-combat versions of themselves. They still provide their buffs/debuffs to your current target but are otherwise unhelpful & you gain +X% damage.
I suggest this change to a toggled ability so in a pinch you can toggle it off and summon a proper pet for emergency off-tanking etc. Also, the pet will still be present which means Spirit Bond, Glyph of Animal Bond and pet buffs/debuffs can still function. Blink Strikes, Lynx Rush and Intimidation will need some minor reworks to accomodate this talent.

Rapid Fire renamed to Rapid cooldown reduced to 90s, also affects melee haste.

Kill shot damage is buffed by 50% but no longer has the double-use-if-target-not-dead feature.

Survival
Change name to Elementalist
Can tame Elementals
Auto attacks do Infused Elements: Additional elemental damage based on current pet type e.g. Fire Elemental pet = additional fire damage from Auto-Shots.
New Mastery: Infusion: Increases the elemental damage caused by Infused elements by X%. Increases all elemental damage done by X%.
Arcane Shot also changes it's damage type based on current pet.
Black Arrow has no CD & lowered cost. Chance to proc LnL increased to 30% per CRIT.
Serpent Sting has chance to proc LnL @ 30% per CRIT.
LnL ICD decreased to 5s but only grants 1 additional Explosive Shot.

Marksmanship
Aimed Shot crits have a 25% chance to grant a single use of Kill Shot and reset it's cooldown.
New Mastery: All physical damage abilities apply a bleed effect when they critically hit. The damage is over 10s and is equal to Mastery% of damage dealt. e.g. if you do a 5k Aimed Shot crit and have 20% mastery then you'll do an additional 1k damage over the next 10s. This bleed can stack up to 3 times.
Volley replaces Multi-shot, deals physical damage and drains 5 focus/s while active.
Ice trap replaced by Caltrops (same effect, different name & look)
Freezing Trap replaced by Bear Trap (same effect, different name & look)

Beast Mastery
Exotic pets can learn one additional buff/debuff, selectable on the pet spec screen. You select the buff by selecting another pet in your stable. e.g. Your Spirit Beast can learn Furious Howl from a wolf pet you have or Ancient Hysteria from a Core Hound. It always keep's it's original buff.
When your pet critically hits a target that is affected by your serpent sting, it gains a stack of Tepid Claw. When it gains 5 stacks your Kill Command CD is reset and your next Kill Command deals X% additional damage as nature damage.

Just my ideas, nothing to get upset about

[gunner_recall]

I just want to see quivers as an offhand for our weapons. There's an empty slot there, Blizzard.

I wouldn't mind seeing each spec get a secondary resource, I don't know what would fit but that seems to be the rage with classes nowadays. I guess BM could have like kinship that increases you and your pet's damage and can be used for healing/dps cooldowns/etc. MM could have like...quiver or something, I don't know. I never play MM. SV could have something that could be used to add extra nature damage to spells, kind of like a warlock's soulburn.

[Renley]

Id love a little extra differentiation. Going along with specs having their own abilities, I wouldn't mind something like this. (Names may heavily be Diablo based, Im lazy.)


Beast Mastery
Arcane Shot ==> Chum Shot/Hungering Shot/Hungering Arrow: Deals % weapon damage and causes the target to take 5% more damage from your pets and companions for 10 seconds.
Steady/Cobra Shot ==> Devouring Arrow/Shot: Deal % weapon damage. Refreshes Toxic Wounds.
Serpent Sting ==> Toxic Wounds: Your pet's Bite/Smack/Claw applies Toxic Wounds, dealing % nature damage over 7 seconds, stacking up to 3 times.
New Ability ==> Pheromones: Mark the target with intoxicating pheromones. Your next Kill Command made against the target deals 50% more damage, but increases the cooldown of Kill Command by 2 seconds. 20 second cooldown.

Survival
Arcane Shot ==> remains Arcane Shot, or switch to Elemental Arrow/Shot: Deal % Frostfire damage, slowing the targets movement speed by 50% for 3 seconds.
Cobra Shot remains the same, seems fitting for Survival.
Serpent Sting same as now for SV, also applies Widow Venom(25% healing reduction).
New Ability ==> Bait the Trap: Place a large trap at the feet of your target, increasing the damage of all elemental damages by 30% for 15 seconds. 2 minute cooldown.

Marksman
Arcane Shot ==> Brutal Shot: Deals % weapon damage and causes the target to bleed for x damage over 5 seconds. Additional Brutal Shots increase the potency and duration of the bleed up to (x*4) damage over 15 seconds.
Steady shot remains the same.
Serpent Sting ==> Penetrating Shot: 1.5 second cast time. Deals % weapon damage as a bleed over 12 seconds, and applies Bled Dry, reducing the targets attack and cast speed by x%.
New Ability ==> Strafe: For the next 15 seconds, Steady Shot fires twice on each cast, refreshing Steady Focus. Also reduces the cast time of Aimed Shot by 1 second. 1 minute cooldown.


*shrugs* If only.

[Molestron]

BM: melee spec that synergizez with the pet, same as unholy dk
Marksman: ranged petless spec.
Survival: classic hunter+pet ranged spec

[c000]

There already was a tweet from GC saying that they want to make Rogue and Hunter specs feel more different from each other in 6.0.

i wonder what, if anything, will become of this. i'm not really too optimistic to be honest

[Deleted]

New Ability ==> Pheromones: Mark the target with intoxicating pheromones. Your next Kill Command made against the target deals 50% more damage, but increases the cooldown of Kill Command by 2 seconds. 20 second cooldown.


New Ability ==> Bait the Trap: Place a large trap at the feet of your target, increasing the damage of all elemental damages by 30% for 15 seconds. 2 minute cooldown.


New Ability ==> Strafe: For the next 15 seconds, Steady Shot fires twice on each cast, refreshing Steady Focus. Also reduces the cast time of Aimed Shot by 1 second. 1 minute cooldown.

That's exactly the type of abilities they want to remove and that's good. We already have way too many "push this button every X seconds for more dps". They could just shove the damage into Arcane shot for the same result...

[saucywench]

I really hope it will come soon, know both Rouges and Hunters need it badly. At least Hunter as I know the class more. : / I mean, when I changed spec, I mostly just exchange Aimed Shot and Chimera Shot to Explosive Shot and Black Arrow, and then go one as usually. Sure there is differences, but they feel so awkward small compered to other classes, especially when they shown that they can make them different, seeing what they did with Warlocks (and seeing someone lock here wrote about they need a new overhaul made me die a bit), can they do that for Hunters.

Though seeing how Blizz work (and say), they probably never fix Hunters spec because there is so many playing Hunters compared to Warlocks and Rouges. ._.

But well, can hope for good future. :'>

Well Warlock specs really needed the overhaul they were not fun to play and had crazy rotations but now it seems everyone is playing that class. My gut feeling is WoD will focus more on Melee classes so there is some hope for rogues.

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BM: melee spec that synergizez with the pet, same as unholy dk

BM as melle?!!? Never!!! The whole point of BM is the synergy you have with your pet, more so than the other two hunter spec. You and you're a pet are a team, its large part of your dps, its not an accessory. Making the hunter a melee class removes the need to have a full time pet and pretty much turns you into a rogue.

[Goron24]

Well Warlock specs really needed the overhaul they were not fun to play and had crazy rotations but now it seems everyone is playing that class. My gut feeling is WoD will focus more on Melee classes so there is some hope for rogues.

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BM as melle?!!? Never!!! The whole point of BM is the synergy you have with your pet, more so than the other two hunter spec. You and you're a pet are a team, its large part of your dps, its not an accessory. Making the hunter a melee class removes the need to have a full time pet and pretty much turns you into a rogue.

Fun fact.. in 1.0 BM WAS melee. The original last talent was a bleeding strike.

[Prokne]

BM as melle?!!? Never!!! The whole point of BM is the synergy you have with your pet, more so than the other two hunter spec. You and you're a pet are a team, its large part of your dps, its not an accessory. Making the hunter a melee class removes the need to have a full time pet and pretty much turns you into a rogue.

Being melee instead of ranged doesnt change your relationship to the pet. Except now youre closer to it while fighting which actually makes it more personal and synergistic than having your pet far away and telling it to do stuff.

[c000]

I wouldn't mind seeing BM play more like rexxar

[Deleted]

Being melee instead of ranged doesnt change your relationship to the pet. Except now youre closer to it while fighting which actually makes it more personal and synergistic than having your pet far away and telling it to do stuff.

The whole point of a petclass is that they don't have to take punches.
We arent druids.

[Akuda23]

I posted this in another thread, but it's just as relevant here. These are my ideas to achieve spec differentiation.

BM: BM is pretty good, but to further enforce the theme of BEAST damage (and give a new interesting WoD signature move) reintroduce Eyes of the Beast as a BM-only cool-down, with a duration and CD length similar to Stampede. You gain temporary manual control over your pet, and your hunter operates as a ranged pet for the duration. This would be the pinnacle of synergy between you and your pet. Pet abilities replace your own (with a few new ones for complexity) and deal increased damaged. I get that most hunters wouldn't want a melee spec, but we're talking maybe 40 seconds of the fight, for a cool-down that's much more interesting than Stampede or Crows or anything we currently have, AND helps make BM feel different than SV/MM (as well as feeling more beast-oriented in general).

SV: SV seems to be about dots and AoE, so I think the idea I've read about Bola shot replacing arcane for SV would be perfect. That and make Serpent Sting a SV-only ability. Cleave and strong AoE (without sacrificing single-target) focusing on venom and poisons, with some traps alongside.

MM: To me, at least, pets are just another dot for SV and MM. Since MM is already all about the shots and the weapon (and dots fit SV more) ditch the petless talent and make MM petless baseline. That would already set it apart, and I think it would be easier to balance one spec's overall output than a complex talent that needs to be balance between 3 specs and against two other talents. Furthermore, MM AoE needs love. To set it apart, give MM volley instead of multi-shot. I know channeled AoE isn't super compelling, but if it's a 1/100 on the compelling gameplay scale, spamming one button for AoE is maybe a 2 so... no great loss there, and it would differentiate the spec a bit more. W/e. I'm not married to that idea. The last thing is just a pet topic (pun intended) of mine: Armor Penetration as marksman's mastery.

[Deleted]

I would really love to have the "feed pet to keep it happy or it will run away" thing back and also taming certain pets to gain new abilities, it would make having a pet feel more realistic again. Used to love going on petopia and looking for pets to tame to get their abilities and teach them to your own pets. Also to see hunter pets leave their owners because they where not fed and taken care off was quite funny.

[Fang7986]

BM: melee spec that synergizez with the pet, same as unholy dk
Marksman: ranged petless spec.
Survival: classic hunter+pet ranged spec

Make Survival petless since trying to survival without a pet would more of a challenge. In actual hunting with a pet you use the pet to mark the location of whatever you are hunting.

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To all the people saying MM should be petless. No spec should be FORCED to go petless. A hunter without a pet is like a warlock that can't summon a demon. Sure I'm fine with making some crap talent that will allow you function without it but you shouldn't be forced to run without a pet no matter what spec you want to play. You wanna differentiate MM bring back armor penetration. Make that MM's mastery. I love MM and I love using my pet.

If you want a spec to go petless make it BM. A BM hunter is such a master of beast's that he can merge with them becoming a half-man half-beast hunter that shreds his enemies. Bring back "Eyes of the Beast" make it a cd that merges you with your pet and turns you into some rampaging melee monster. That's a way better idea than petless MM imo

[Kissthebaby]

Bm: tank spec. because we dont have enough tanks. also melee

Surv: healer spec because survive get it? Shoots friendly players with heal arrows.

MM: dps spec no pet.

[c000]

so far the only 'differentiation' seems to be from that petless hunter talent. color me unimpressed. hope there is more change as time progresses