Predictions for Hunters in WoD

[Wardley]

Apart from the 'currently not confirmed but sort of ideas that we're considering' talents that Blizzard announced at Blizzcon, does anyone else have any other predictions of what changes Hunters might get for Warlords?

Personally - I suspect Aspects will be removed. In terms of mobility, we've got stacks now (disengage + instant shots and being able to cobra/steady shot while moving) which means the old argument of needing the speed boost aspect for pvp isn't relevant anymore - esp. with min range removed 2 expansions.

In PvE pretty much the only time Aspect of the Pack is used or when you're running back to a boss after a wipe.

I personally preferred 'Aspect Dancing' - switching between Hawk and Fox to shoot while moving and also switching to Aspect of the Wild for the Nature Res when that was needed so I'll be sad to see them go completely - but it's time to just remove them and bake-in the DPS boost of Hawk into our abilities (the Iron Hawk talent can be kept as a passive renamed to something like 'Protection of the Iron Hawk' instead of 'Aspect of the Iron Hawk').

Anyone got any other ideas?

[ChaosWolf]

Yeah, the whole "aspects" thing no longer holds meaning. Way overdue for removal, now that there's just two of them.

[Sarthed]

aspects removed, pet survivability/damage changed, bloat removal (lol), maybe dots being modified by haste, mastery buffs, subpar damage all expac
my wod predictions in a nutshell

[timoseewho]

My guess is something to do with buffs that pets bring, unless that's been addressed.

[FobManX]

Remove aspects, give Hunters baseline increased movement speed outside of combat.

[Deleted]

I love Cheetah and use it frequently in pvp. No touching my aspects!

I agree hawk+fox was actually quite fun dancing between specs, wish they'd bring it back with a 5-10s cooldown on all aspects or something, or a 10-20% dmg penalty on Fox. It would make you think twice on aspects and plan ahead a little. That way we could make Snipe work a lot better too, as right now when it replaces steady/cobra its a matter of a) can i use iton this fight? Y/N. There is no middle-ground with locking our focus regen to stationary only without aspect of the fox (or an equivalent). I like the 'rooted' sniper concept but a 30s mobility phase with a steep dps check during a 10m+ encounter can ruin the talent.

[Tehterokkar]

Remove aspects and give us a sprint and a proper CD(No, Rapid Fire nor Stampede are good CDs)

[Ninjeff]

Promises from Blizz to make our specs feel different, fix our end game scaling, and make the petless talent work well... Reality will be specs left pretty much the same, scaling wont be addressed, and the petless talent will probably be broken and go through countless revisions during WoD. Just speculation based on the past. Let's hope for the best!

[Bullettime]

Expecting Aspects to be reworked/removed and for our pet buffs to disappear, no longer being needed with the main balancing being for 20m.

Really hope for Marks and Survival to be looked at though. Survival plays fine but thematically, it's a train wreck while Marks is just an abomination of design. Our specs lack identity in both themes and actual playstyle, doing most of the same things in the same order and having way too much skill overlap between trees. It would be like every Mage casting Fireball as their filler and Ice Lance as a proc.

Also hoping they can figure out a way to address our scaling.

[Deleted]

Hunters are currently boring as fuck because every spec is like.... The same. 1 or 2 different abilities here and there but it's pretty much the damn same. Almost as bad as rogues ATM.

[Deleted]

Hunters are currently boring as fuck because every spec is like.... The same. 1 or 2 different abilities here and there but it's pretty much the damn same. Almost as bad as rogues ATM.

If you don't like hunters you aren't forced to play them. I could personally never see myself playing another class. And to say they are the same is laughable, especially this tier. You pretty much can't get further apart than BM and SV playstyle right now.

[Bullettime]

If you don't like hunters you aren't forced to play them. I could personally never see myself playing another class. And to say they are the same is laughable, especially this tier. You pretty much can't get further apart than BM and SV playstyle right now.

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,

[SL1200]

Goodbye serpent sting. They can just buff multishot to compensate for serpent spread.

[Bullettime]

Goodbye serpent sting. They can just buff multishot to compensate for serpent spread.

Serpent Sting is fine by itself but it's something that shouldn't be a class wide generic fire and basically forget skill. It makes sense in the Survival arsenal but little sense for Marksmanship.

[Deleted]

Goodbye serpent sting. They can just buff multishot to compensate for serpent spread.

Lmao. Where did this brainiac idea come from? I'd actually seriously consider rerolling for the first time in WoW if they made that change.

[Deleted]

Markmanship could be the stable glass-cannon spec, that benefits from less movement. Survival could be the DoT spec, with serpent sting exclusively for this spec, along with snake trap which could be a powerful multi-dot trap. Lastly, beast mastery could be the more burst oriented spec.

[Argalin]

Goodbye serpent sting. They can just buff multishot to compensate for serpent spread.

This has survived every reworking of hunters forever, I really don't see them removing such a classic hunter ability when there's really nothing weird or wrong with it.

[Bullettime]

This has survived every reworking of hunters forever, I really don't see them removing such a classic hunter ability when there's really nothing weird or wrong with it.

Well, it doesn't suit the kits of Beast Mastery and Marks. It's tacked on passive damage with very little, if any, actual maintenance. Would rather see it become Survival only so damage can be put into something else for Beast and Marks. It fits the Survival theme.

[darkwarrior42]

Well, it doesn't suit the kits of Beast Mastery and Marks. It's tacked on passive damage with very little, if any, actual maintenance. Would rather see it become Survival only so damage can be put into something else for Beast and Marks. It fits the Survival theme.

Or just take the concept of "applied dot" and rework it slightly.

SV: Serpent Stine, a poisonous shot that inflicts X nature damage over 15 seconds. Can be extended by Cobra Shot.
MM: Piercing Shot, a shot that penetrates the target's armor and causes them to bleed for X damage over 15 seconds.
-----Aimed Shot: A powerful aimed shot that deals 450% ranged weapon damage. If the target is affected by Piercing Shot, Aimed Shot does an additional X% damage.
EDIT: If it's not obvious, the concept here is the aimed shot takes advantage of the opening exposed by the Piercing Shot.
BM: Maim Command: Gives the command to Maim, causing your pet to instantly inflict X damage and an additional X damage over 15 seconds.

*shrug* just random thoughts, I don't really expect serpent sting to go away but there are ways they could keep the same rough idea but make it more appropriate for the various specs.

[Argalin]

Or just take the concept of "applied dot" and rework it slightly.

SV: Serpent Stine, a poisonous shot that inflicts X nature damage over 15 seconds. Can be extended by Cobra Shot.
MM: Piercing Shot, a shot that penetrates the target's armor and causes them to bleed for X damage over 15 seconds.
-----Aimed Shot: A powerful aimed shot that deals 450% ranged weapon damage. If the target is affected by Piercing Shot, Aimed Shot does an additional X% damage.
EDIT: If it's not obvious, the concept here is the aimed shot takes advantage of the opening exposed by the Piercing Shot.
BM: Maim Command: Gives the command to Maim, causing your pet to instantly inflict X damage and an additional X damage over 15 seconds.

*shrug* just random thoughts, I don't really expect serpent sting to go away but there are ways they could keep the same rough idea but make it more appropriate for the various specs.

I particularly like your idea on Aimed Shot here, this kind of synergy between abilities and reasons to play the class appropriately for maximum damage is something we are missing.

Regarding what I said about Serpent Sting, I merely meant that I don't see Blizz taking the ability away from the class entirely.