Predictions for Hunters in WoD

[Supakaiser]

> Aspects gone. Cheetah/Pack reworked into a hunter's version of Stampeding Roar
> Spec uniqueness akin to Warlocks
> "With or Without You" level 100 talent YES PLEASE

Hopefully we'll AT LEAST get these.

[Libertarian]

Hopefully aspects turn into raid buffs/debuffs if they're going with the whole petless talent.

The one thing I would like to see on the plate is modifying pet bite to deal a static amount of damage and then also apply a dot. The dot can be removed if the target is healed over 90% health similar to slave pens boss. Something that needs to change across the entire game is "Burst", and if you played a hunter since 5.0 you would know why.

I like how the 90 talents replace/modify current spells so they aren't adding anything.

I also would like to see marks turn into a "charged based spec" where you can store charges of aimed shot or chimera shot to use all at once, or on cd.

Overall I don't think they should change too much.

[Deleted]

My bigest hope is 3 unique specs. Maybe secundary resource system and complete rework of MM. Aspects indeed are irrelevant in any environment. Off course unique hunter raid buff whould bring alot of class viability in upcoming 20 men raids, so far there is no real need to bring any hunter apart from soaking that loot.

[Deleted]

> "With or Without You" level 100 talent YES PLEASE

Will get nerfed to the ground thanks to PvP.

[Wardley]

If we're moving into the idea of what we'd like to happen, then to try and bring a bit more 'uniqueness' into the specs I'd do this:

BM - take the concept of 'frenzy stacks/focus fire' but twist it into combo points (max of 5 points on a target) which are generated by Kill Command rather than pet crits. Combo points are then used on some of the 'core' abilities for BM -
Focus Fire - each combo point increases the length of Focus Fire by 15 seconds (so, max of 75 seconds)
Bestial Wrath (1 min cooldown) - each combo point increases the length of BW by 3 seconds (so max 15 seconds)
Go for the Throat - (new ability) - fierce single attack on the target with each combo point modifying the damage by 'x' amount
Shred - (new ability) - commands the pet to shred the target causing bleeding damage over (4 secs per combo point)

So, it'll take 30 seconds to build up 5 combo points and then you need to weave BW, Focus Fire and then either Go for the throat or Shred. You could also have an extra more pvp skill of 'Tendon Rip' which slows down the target for so many seconds based on number of combo points.

(Yes, I'll admit this is basically feral kittys/rogues and this will screw up the opening for BM as it'll take 30 seconds to really start hitting hard....)

For Survival - I like the idea of being able to modify your ammo. So, something like different poisons - but not sure if that should just be changing Serpent Sting (with only Survival hunters actually getting this anyway) or something more like Shaman weapon imbues or rogue poisons.

MM - this is the one that I'm least clear about. In a very broad way, I'd see the difference between Survival and Marks being that Survival is based on debuffs on the target, whereas Marks is based on buffs to the Hunter. But I'm kinda struggling with what those Marks buffs could be. With hunter being about mobility now, a 'sniper/aimed shot' buff where you have to stand still for X amount of time to get the buff seems a backwards step.

[Krommm]

Subpar damage, maybe middle pack late expansion. Potentially viable in PvP again. Might be broken at the start of expansion like it has at times.

[Trimshadow]

I'll probably get lynched for proposing some of these (mainly because many people love a spec for a reason and don't like them being played with), but if it generates discussion /shrug... so here goes...

MM should be all about the shots - no pets at all, they should be able to do stuff like camo mode which can give you access to a powerful sniper shot or some such (like rogues ambush) - while it will require you to stay in the one spot for X amount of time, you should be able to be rewarded for it by doing some hefty damage in sniper mode... movement breaks camo (this spec only and for pvp reasons)

SV should be about the DoT's and Traps and some level of self healing, have a pet like now, but they're pretty much passive damage and not a requirement to do decent dps... set and forget...

BM should be all about the pets, pet control and aspects. Aspects should dictate what the pets can do and how they play, as in Aspect of the Bear can reduce your damage output by 40% but allow your pet (you) to have access to a bunch of proper tanking abilities, shared hp pool with your pet and even a stam increase (like tanks do) so Hunters could be effective tanks in a raiding environment, agil can translate to dodge (like guardian druids) mastery can translate to damage reduction etc... Hunters could effictively completely gear to be tanks just like any other tank and it makes sense for BM.

Iron Hawk is your dps aspect like now. They need to fix certain Pet shit like out of range pet despawns, instead have them just teleport back to the hunter, or the hunters current target, give them 100 yd range or something - things like blink strikes need a fix too, if they allow blink strikes to teleport to a platform (eg: siege engineers on garrosh) then they should also be able to 'jump' off too platforms too - or just not alow the blink to go to some where the hunter can't actually get to...

They need to fix scaling and Hunters need some better raid utility, like being able to, say, put a freezing trap on an ally (psuedo BoP) to protect them from attackers, seeing BoP is physical, make it spell damage?... the ability to trip traps rather than having to wait for the mob to run over them, tripping ice trap would be a good QoL change. Get rid of the trap launcher thing, i mean everyone just leaves it on anyway - might as well have it passive... and use the function to trip traps instead...

[Alltat]

I'm hoping they'll redo the DPS cooldowns. Right now you have a ton of boring buttons to press, largely unaffected by your spec. Rapid Fire, Stampede, the whole level 75 tier... I could see each spec being reduced one signature cooldown. It's an easy way to reduce button bloat and differentiate the three specs at the same time, and people are unlikely to be all that upset as long as all the abilities still exist for some spec.

[Libertarian]

If we're moving into the idea of what we'd like to happen, then to try and bring a bit more 'uniqueness' into the specs I'd do this:

BM - take the concept of 'frenzy stacks/focus fire' but twist it into combo points (max of 5 points on a target) which are generated by Kill Command rather than pet crits. Combo points are then used on some of the 'core' abilities for BM -
Focus Fire - each combo point increases the length of Focus Fire by 15 seconds (so, max of 75 seconds)
Bestial Wrath (1 min cooldown) - each combo point increases the length of BW by 3 seconds (so max 15 seconds)
Go for the Throat - (new ability) - fierce single attack on the target with each combo point modifying the damage by 'x' amount
Shred - (new ability) - commands the pet to shred the target causing bleeding damage over (4 secs per combo point)

So, it'll take 30 seconds to build up 5 combo points and then you need to weave BW, Focus Fire and then either Go for the throat or Shred. You could also have an extra more pvp skill of 'Tendon Rip' which slows down the target for so many seconds based on number of combo points.

(Yes, I'll admit this is basically feral kittys/rogues and this will screw up the opening for BM as it'll take 30 seconds to really start hitting hard....)

For Survival - I like the idea of being able to modify your ammo. So, something like different poisons - but not sure if that should just be changing Serpent Sting (with only Survival hunters actually getting this anyway) or something more like Shaman weapon imbues or rogue poisons.

MM - this is the one that I'm least clear about. In a very broad way, I'd see the difference between Survival and Marks being that Survival is based on debuffs on the target, whereas Marks is based on buffs to the Hunter. But I'm kinda struggling with what those Marks buffs could be. With hunter being about mobility now, a 'sniper/aimed shot' buff where you have to stand still for X amount of time to get the buff seems a backwards step.

If they made us "ranged rogues" many people would quit their hunters and just play mage or warlock. Focus fire is exactly the type of ability bloat that needs to be removed.

[Agilent]

I recall ghostcrawler saying he wanted to make each spec feel unique (kind of like what they did to warlock at the beginning of MoP but not to that extent) been trying to find that blue post. But either way he is no longer with the company so even if he was planning on doing it i doubt we'll see much change in that regard. That is my biggest complaint with the hunter in class in general. Each spec feels exactly the same.

[petok]

Hunter gets item(s) with not-so-good tertiary stats. He waits for a couple of months, but nothing better drops.
He(she) can't reforge "bad" stats into "good" stats. He has practically no control over own equipment - many chants and gems are gone. Just "wait for something better to drop the day before next tier". Hunter gets bored as f... He quits the game

[Deleted]

Use signature every 6 seconds.
Cobra Shot for Focus and to keep up Serpent Sting
Focus Fire in place of Black Arrow. They even come up around the same general times!
Dump Arcane Shots with excess Focus
Use Rapid/Stampede
Use T6 talent
Use T4 talent

The only difference between Beast Mastery and Survival is the spam happy Bestial Wrath mode that Survival gets to partake in now with the 4pc T16 and you get exotic pets. The entire rest of the cycle is the same general thing using most of the same exact skills. There's very little that's unique to an individual spec.

Beast Mastery only has 2 active pet synergy skills; Focus Fire and Kill Command. The rest of pet interaction comes from passive modifiers you don't notice or have to manage.
Survival, the explosive, trap, and poison master, only has 1 explosive, no unique traps, and the poison it uses is shared across all specs.
Marksmanship lol. This spec is train wreck.
All 3 specs share the same Focus dump in Arcane Shot, whether it makes sense for that spec or not,

This.

Also, for those hoping in a warlock-like overhaul, that's never going to happen. And for any class, for that matter.

- - - Updated - - -

Will get nerfed to the ground thanks to PvP.

No one in their sane mind would take WoWY as MM or SV for PvP, you lose too much utility. Sure it looks godlike for BM, but I guess the op is looking forward to playing petless. And rightfully so, I might add.

Now what I'd like to see would be an aspects re-design, bring back fox, make a cleave aspect (maybe even spec-unique), bring back aspect dancing. Never going to happen though.

[Lord Pebbleton]

Additional stable slots.
Pllleeeeaaaaseeeee.

[Deleted]

No one in their sane mind would take WoWY as MM or SV for PvP, you lose too much utility. Sure it looks godlike for BM, but I guess the op is looking forward to playing petless. And rightfully so, I might add.

The trouble with the other options is they aren't useful in PvP either, so at least with WoWY, if they manage to get a pet kill, you can Shannox enrage mode on them.
Though it's all likely to change.

Personally I'd like to see as it's been mentioned the specs being made less similar, (BM being a melee spec as it should be) and I'd like to see some more stealth capabilities, like lasting until cancelled etc.

[Deleted]

Was there any explanation given as to why hunters won't have the same revamp warlocks did? I played both of these classes, and I'd say hunter revamp would be more justified than warlock's.
Imo, MM should have a minimal penalty if you wanted to play with a pet, BM same thing but reversed, and survival more interaction with traps.

[petok]

Was there any explanation given as to why hunters won't have the same revamp warlocks did?

No it wasn't

[PuppetShowJustice]

Considering how much they keep pushing this statement of "We don't want to give you guys new buttons." I don't think it's realistic to expect Pack Aspect or Cheetah to morph into new CDs. I see our Aspects being stripped away without apology like Readiness was. The fact that our level 100 talents currently replace old buttons reinforces this idea.

I expect With Or Without You to be a trash tier talent that goes through many, many revisions like the Warlock Sacrifice talent has.

[Bullettime]

Considering how much they keep pushing this statement of "We don't want to give you guys new buttons." I don't think it's realistic to expect Pack Aspect or Cheetah to morph into new CDs. I see our Aspects being stripped away without apology like Readiness was. The fact that our level 100 talents currently replace old buttons reinforces this idea.

I expect With Or Without You to be a trash tier talent that goes through many, many revisions like the Warlock Sacrifice talent has.

The reason why GoSac was so hard to balance is because of how it's designed. With or Without You is a flat modifier which makes it far easier to balance. They simply have to look at how much damage pets do, how much damage the other talents do, then give the modifier that value. If pets do 25% of our damage, then they simply need to make it a 25% damage buff to compensate. Or say 27% to make it a slight gain, but less than Snipe and Bola.

GoSac on the other hand modified specific skills and mechanics to extreme values, which then drastically increased the value of secondary stats, They had to gut the talent to keep it where they wanted (good but not the best) because of how much bonus scaling it gave the specs. It would be like if when we sacrificed our pet we gained, 20% damage, +50% critical strike damage, and Cobra Shot generated more Focus. Instead of just getting the flat buff, we would be getting a flat buff and more value to Haste and Crit.

With or Without You is a neat talent and, provided they balance the talents appropriately, should come out to be the best on heavy mobility/target swap encounters. Snipe for stationary single target, Bola for AoE/cleave, With or Without You for pet unfriendly encounters (terrain bugs, constant swapping, constantly moving.)

[Deleted]

The trouble with the other options is they aren't useful in PvP either, so at least with WoWY, if they manage to get a pet kill, you can Shannox enrage mode on them.
Though it's all likely to change.

True, I'm pretty sure that Bola Shot won't break CC but it will still be a risky talent to take in arena. The will all be tweaked for sure.

Was there any explanation given as to why hunters won't have the same revamp warlocks did? I played both of these classes, and I'd say hunter revamp would be more justified than warlock's.

I'll copy/paste myself from another thread, since it's relevant here too.

I think I read some blue (GC maybe) admitting the warlock dev was too in love with the class at the time and was eventually led to leave the role, and that no class will benefit of such redesign in the future - because that's admittedly not fair for all classes that don't.
Anyone confirms?

If that's true I wonder how it was even possible they let it come to the actual game in the end.

[Yuyn]

What I want to see for Survival...

• Explosive Shot cooldown removed (focus cost/damage tweaked as needed).
• Arcane Shot removed. All abilities modifying Arcane Shot (ex. Bola Shot) modify Explosive Shot instead.
• Black Arrow cooldown removed. Boomkin-like LnL proc chance reduction on multiple targets may be needed.
• Cobra Shot no longer refreshes Serpent Sting.
• Serpent Sting given a Pandemic-style stacking duration.
• Impact (i.e., initial non-tick) damage on Serpent Sting removed.
• Multi-Shot no longer applies Serpent Sting, instead spreading Black Arrow and Serpent Sting from your primary target to nearby targets (like Pestilence).

Two basic goals of my 'ideal' changes: (1) build upon the changes to the playstyle caused by T16 tier bonuses and trinkets, and (2) focus more heavily on DoT damage to better differentiate from BM/MM. Removing Arcane Shot alone would make the rotation way too boring, so turning Serpent Sting into something you actually need to manage (rather than just set-and-forget) essentially takes Arcane's place as far as complexity goes. Changing Multi-Shot to spread (rather than apply) DoTs would shift away from burst AoE, but the additional spread of Black Arrow should more than make up for it in sustained AoE.

Ideally the single-target damage balance should end up with ~40-50% Explosive Shot, and ~15-25% each Serpent Sting and Black Arrow. Other damage sources should be comparatively minor.