I won't trash the focus system at this point, cuz it's completely broken and I think after some adjustments it will work out fine.
Tranq shot should really be put back on cd and not use focus.
Chimera vs. Arcane
Chimera is still on a horribly long CD and using a venom/sting before it drains 30 focus and adds zero damage to chimera. On quest/trash mobs, using SS is pointless because even though chimera refreshes it, the mob dies too quick to matter.
While arcane shot has no CD at all and can be fired twice with a full focus bar. Rapid Recup essentially fills your focus bar when you get a killing blow, therefor, if you can kill your target with 2 arcanes and an auto, your focvus bar will be at 100% when it dies.
On any trash/quest mobs you can now spam arcane shots and do more dps than any other rotation/priority. Chimera doesn't receive any damage bonus from venoms/stings so it is now a utility shot, and only used situationally in PVP and gimmick boss fights. Arcane shot is not the premier shot of the MM tree.
Earlier in the new water zone, I literally just spun circles and spammed the arcane shot key and killed over 60 mobs in less than a minute.
Venoms/ Serpent Sting
I'm really not crazy about having a venom and a sting. It's just something else to waste a gcd on and watch the duration of. I think a better solution would be to add a damage component to one of the venoms and eliminate SS altogether.
My reasoning is that for PVE situations hunters at lvl 80 already use 3 gcd's for setting up a fight (Hunter's mark, SS, and Misdirect). The addition of venoms while keeping SS is essentially adding a 4th gcd to our setup and something additional to monitor and refresh throughout the fight.
They aren't horrible, but definately not fun. On any low-hp mob (not a boss) I find myself choosing between a venom or a sting because its less dps to waste a gcd casting both. Also, as mentioned above, because chimera receives no damage bonus from any sting/venom, I find myself reaching for the arcane shot button and ignoring chimera in PVE.
Aspects
Aspect of the Fox is pretty lackluster. Hunters have been wanting a self-heal for a long time, and I was hoping the aspect system would be used to give us one instead of just giving it to one tree.
I understand that the dev's wanted to create a second PVE aspect to switch to, but as of now it's almost exactly the same as the original viper, and we will spend the entire fight in fox, never using dragonhawk again. If we are to use focus, and the bar gets drained after 2 specials, the old goal of having us swap aspects throughout the fight just simply won't apply to this "rogue" style of playing.
My suggestion would have been to create:
Aspect of the Mongoose: granting 30% increased movement speed, and the hunter is healed for 10% of the damage caused by any special ability, but the hunter only does 50% damage.
This gives us a PVP kiting and healing aspect, a nice healing aspect for PVE, place a damage-dealing effect on widow venom, and once the focus system works better, the hunter should have to manage it rather than have a fall-back aspect.
Another note on aspects: we really need to be allowed to swap aspects while mounted, and only allow aspects to be cancelled by other aspects so we don't hit the wrong button and end up aspect-less (like stances). As of now, hunters have to use a macro slot on all aspects and place a "!" so that we aren't cancelling out our aspects constantly.
Trap Launcher
Great ability, but completely useless until it's taken off the GCD.
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Overall weve gained 2 casted spells, lost an instant cast, and have a second dot to keep refreshed. In addition we've gained several new keybinds when we were already severely overwhelmed by them.
I don't know about other hunter's but I have to use a steelseries merc keyboard just to be able to use all of my necessary spells. The class is still playable on a normal keyboard, but not to it's fullest.
Those are my thoughts so far. I could be wrong about all of this stuff, cuz these are just ramblings and grumbles after levelling to 81.