SL pre-patch notes

[Nythiz]

Hunters thoughts?

Personally glad to see Kill Shot & arcane shot coming back for all specs, as well as hunters mark (should not be on GCD though).

However, thee are some massive rape nerfs in there:

Revive Pet doubled cast time
Multi-Shot and Beast Cleave now capped at 5 targets.
Spirit Mend (Spirit Beast pet ability) healing reduced by 66%.
Barrage now capped at 8 targets (WHAT THE FUCK?)

AoE & survivability is gone now, hunters will be literal shit come the 13th of october.

- - - Updated - - -

Yes, I read about the AoE cap on all targets. Doenst make it any less shitty.

Most classes are target capped; so that's not a huge deal.

Revive pet and Spirit mend changes will hurt big time, but we're getting some good things in return as well.

I don't think hunters will be shit; but I think MM will be the go to spec as it was already target capped and still quite competetive. So relatively it got a huge buff.

- - - Updated - - -

As for many talking about Revive Pet. That seems like it is only an issue if you cast it during combat. However, I believe it is longer because killing your pet should be worthwhile to do in PvP. Especially considering how much time you might need to spend to attack the pet so that it does die.

But was this really an issue in PvP ?

Killing a hunter pet for SV / BM is practically a silence/disarm. Having to spend 4 seconds to "dispel" your disarm is silly.
A good opponent can kill the pet and basically eliminate the hunter from the fight by just interrupting a 4 second cast. And a 4 second cast is insanely long in PvP.

I think the reason for this change was mostly based around PvE.
In PvE your pets could tank a target and if you were at max range, you could revive the pet before the target reached you and with FD instantly bring aggro back to the pet.

I'm not entirely against the change. IMO pet management and proper control is part of the hunter skill set. Mismanaging the pet or just not caring shouldn't go unpunished. But IMO we should have the tools to actually manage the pet then.

Because with the low 100% base run speed (especially since dash autocast went shit); the nerfed mend pet since Legion and dodgy pet AI they are putting us in a situation where we simply can't always manage this even if we want to.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I don't remember how it was prior to Legion, but both in Legion and BFA (early, stopped playing later) it was a significant heal.
I'm not going to look it up (CD/%values) but it was like... I don't know...
a 50% HP heal every 20 seconds or something?

I even remember how my party members I play the game with for years kept adressing it early BFA because it was so noticeable in mythic/mythic+, even though I've basically always used a spirit-pet since WotLK

I didn’t use a spirit beast at the start of legion so if it was that strong it must have been insanely nerfed. When I was doing the mage tower on my undergeared Bm it wasn’t nearly that strong And didn’t make or break me clearing it.

I can’t actually remember if I used it during bfa at all though.

[ReleaseDay]

Ive been using spirit best since early mop. Spirit mend has saved my life more times than i can count.

[Fattysnaxx]

The change to spirit mend is unnecessary. The change to revive pet is unnecessary. All of these changes that hurt the hunter as a class are unnecessary. I feel like whoever is doing these changes must like long walks at night on the coast with the occasional nerf bat to hunters.

[derekmmorgan94]

So I heard MM is best in the SL beta but is it gonna be better than BM in the prepatch? Anyone have any idea?

[aceperson]

basically nothing changed for us beyond getting kill shot back. i expect actual changes next alpha/beta cycle.

[ReleaseDay]

basically nothing changed for us beyond getting kill shot back. i expect actual changes next alpha/beta cycle.

So you read neither the patch notes or this thread. Ok.

[Dch48]

I think the Spirit Mend was nerfed because of the level squish. We'll have less health so the heal amount has to be reduced too or we would be invincible. I don't like the doubled revive pet thing. I personally am not a fan of the unpruning. I'm happy as I am. Kill shot is okay but I play BM so probably will not use Arcane. I think it gets replaced by Cobra though anyway. I was in the beta but left it after gaining a couple of levels. I didn't want to see too much.

[Shedaar]

MM is one of the top 5 specs on the beta right now.

[Lodvampire]

IMO this changes to spirit mend and revive only hurts PvP or if you are soloing (Torghast for example);
I pernoally prefer they did something with Blood of the Rhino; It's gonna be basically mandatory to run Torghast with a Clefthoff at least in the start of Shadowlands

[MatthewOU2015]

Im gonna miss the 30k spirit mend ticks in pvp

[derekmmorgan94]

MM is one of the top 5 specs on the beta right now.

Are they better than BM at lvl 50 too, or just at max lvl?

[ydraw]

With the recent buff to Cobra Shot, Arcane shot can thankfully come off the bar, as well as Hunter's Mark in most PvE scenarios.
Chim shot is worthless, and even Crows isn't looking good, and since no one used Barrage anyway I don't see the doom and gloom.
My predictions, BM will play about the same in SL as BFA. Dance of Death was basically a passive you didn't proactively manage, and by the end most players were running VoP major, or Blood of the enemy.

Being target capped is fine, from the M+ testing I've done on Beta it's really not a big deal, like at all. Ever.
Early SL BM will play a lot like Uldir or maybe BoD era BM, just fine.

The real problem for BM in SL M+ is that BM is losing rapid reload and primal instincts, which defined the class in M+.

[Aurosh]

The real problem for BM in SL M+ is that BM is losing rapid reload and primal instincts, which defined the class in M+.

Well in the end it's all up to tuning. Those things were overtuned in BFA, but MM being better isn't an Azrite Trait thing, it's a "higher numbers" thing.

And noone knows yet what it will be after tuning yet.

[ulululu]

Woot?

The spirit heal was extremely strong and basically a part time healer.

You're overexaggerating this a little bit, spirit mend wasn't worth considering over many other "useful pet abilities", it healed for like 12k every tick, having hp partially far above 500k life weakens the overall effect in relation.


Btw: Survival hunter is so painful to look at. Look how incredibly much design effort was invested in every other specc in the game except for survival hunter. So business as usual in a way.

[Bisque]

You're overexaggerating this a little bit, spirit mend wasn't worth considering over many other "useful pet abilities", it healed for like 12k every tick, having hp partially far above 500k life weakens the overall effect in relation.


Btw: Survival hunter is so painful to look at. Look how incredibly much design effort was invested in every other specc in the game except for survival hunter. So business as usual in a way.

Well I think you could look at it 2 ways:

1) Blizz is overall happy with how SV plays and thus there have been little changes.

2) Blizz is planning on gutting/reworking SV for the next expansion so they see no point in putting in work into a spec that will end being changed for the next expansion.

That being said if it was Point 1, at least even 1 blue post would be nice to you acknowledge that Survival exists....

[Kaver]

Hunters thoughts?

Personally glad to see Kill Shot & arcane shot coming back for all specs, as well as hunters mark (should not be on GCD though).

However, thee are some massive rape nerfs in there:

Revive Pet doubled cast time
Multi-Shot and Beast Cleave now capped at 5 targets.
Spirit Mend (Spirit Beast pet ability) healing reduced by 66%.
Barrage now capped at 8 targets (WHAT THE FUCK?)

AoE & survivability is gone now, hunters will be literal shit come the 13th of october.

- - - Updated - - -

Yes, I read about the AoE cap on all targets. Doenst make it any less shitty.

Seriously mate.. your post just shows that you have no idea about whats going on in Shadowlands in general. Classes have had AOE and defensives reduced in general. People like you just see something getting worse and then complain straight away without having any idea of the context of those changes.

Do some research before you talk or keep quiet.

[worgie]

Well in the end it's all up to tuning. Those things were overtuned in BFA, but MM being better isn't an Azrite Trait thing, it's a "higher numbers" thing.

And noone knows yet what it will be after tuning yet.

well.. it wasnt really overtuned considering almost every other class could do just as much AOE. and also considering now on beta those same other classes now do double if not nearly triple the aoe damage BM can push out. it IS a tuning issue as you say but BM has lost more AOE than any other class apart from maybe fire which is completely dicked now.

[KrayZ33]

You're overexaggerating this a little bit, spirit mend wasn't worth considering over many other "useful pet abilities", it healed for like 12k every tick, having hp partially far above 500k life weakens the overall effect in relation.


Btw: Survival hunter is so painful to look at. Look how incredibly much design effort was invested in every other specc in the game except for survival hunter. So business as usual in a way.

It's pretty accurate actually, I just checked
You had around 150k HP in Uldir in average gear, one cast did heal for 67k on average if I look at the old logs
So just short of 50% every 30 seconds or whatever the CD was.
It would easily top you up and deny M+ abilities completely. Or add significant additional heal on tanks or players on which the healer couldn't concentrate.

[ReleaseDay]

Seriously mate.. your post just shows that you have no idea about whats going on in Shadowlands in general. Classes have had AOE and defensives reduced in general. People like you just see something getting worse and then complain straight away without having any idea of the context of those changes.

Do some research before you talk or keep quiet.

Wrong. Patch notes arrived now, and as I wrote, AOE cap is retarded. Doesnt matter whats been going on in SL alpha or beta. This is now going live. The rest is irrelevant. There is no context where AOE cap is a good idea. Hush now.