BfA Alpha - Hunter Changes

[Beaker]

Just thought I'd get the ball rolling. Pouring through the datamining now....Vulnerable gone for Marks?!

[andreasels]

Marksman looks very promising to me. Seems you only need to stand still for around 25% of the time with Aimed Shot getting changed to a 3 sec cast on a 12 sec cooldown and can plan, when that is, since it has 2 charges.
Seems like Hunter's Mark is still a thing if you read some abilities (with a changed mechanic though most likely) but still missing in the build. Seems to be some sort of cooldown. (edit: http://beta.wowdb.com/spells/257284-hunters-mark here it is)

BM doesn't seem to get many changes except DF baseline. Fine with me.

SV seems to get reworked to some sort of ranged/melee hybrid. Wonder how that works out in practice, but looks really interesting.

[Tehterokkar]

Talents imply Hunter's Mark is being turned into a semi-CD.

Also MM is petless without talent at least in this build.

MM is getting a massive rework, which I guess was to be expected since most people hate vuln mechanic.

[Dejiko]

Survival hunter seems promising, some of the major issues adressed with it, being fury of the eagle, way of the mok nathal and mongoose bites.
Hopeful for it`s new playstyle, been a fan of it through legion but it`s always been bogged down by a design mess.

[Corroc]

So steady shot is back and arcane is gone for mm? Tbh I dislike cast time focus builder more than vulnerable.

[andreasels]

Someone on the Hunter discord seems to have found the new Hunter's Mark:

http://beta.wowdb.com/spells/257284-hunters-mark

Seems like a really good ability for priority burst targets.

[Corroc]

Just noticed they are removing trueshot aura. Kinda shocker since that spell has been in the game since vanilla.

[Ergunk]

Hmm.. Not a fan at all with these changes.
Guess i will have to wait and see.

[Ladyoftheforest]

Sad to see the vulnerable mechanic go as I liked the challenge of the casting-timing-movement dynamic.
The changes do look interesting and to my liking so I'll likely and gladly be sticking with petless MM.

[Garfurion]

So steady shot is back and arcane is gone for mm? Tbh I dislike cast time focus builder more than vulnerable.

Black Arrow seems gone as well. Looks like Blizzard started pruning potential Dark Ranger abilities/talents.

[Dracodraco]

So steady shot is back and arcane is gone for mm? Tbh I dislike cast time focus builder more than vulnerable.

Arcane has been renamed quick shot.

For MM;

Aimed big dick hit with a charge build up, long cast time. (50 focus).
Quick shot, instant focus spender, basically arcane shot without the name (15 focus).
Steady shot focus builder, castable while moving.
Rapid fire, 3 second channel of 1 arrow every .33 seconds that also regens focus, but on a 20 second CD.

Hunters mark, burst cooldown that makes your target take a set amount of damage (20% RAP) each time they're hit for 5 seconds after being hit by aimed. (100% crit chance modifier as well? Not sure).

AOE will be weaving multishot and aimeds between each other, as multishot causes your next aimed to richochet (like the current trickshot, but capped to 5 targets and with no visible damage modifier).

So the general gist of the spec:

Steady shot/rapid fire to refill focus.
Aimed shot to never waste charges.
Quick shot to bleed focus.

During hunters mark, line up with a rapid fire to refill focus+hit 9x times for the 20% RAP damage, followed by 2x quick shots as you can't fit another aimed in.

During AOE, try to always weave multi->aimed, or multi->rapid fire for bombardment.

AOE will feel a lot more bogged down than it does ATM, where focus barely matters and everything is instant, as the AOE rotation is actually more focus draining than anything singletarget related, due to MS costing 25 focus over QS at 15.

Also worth noting that MS is 51% weapon damage per target, and QS is 37% - this means MS gives 2.04% damage per focus, and QS 2.46%, meaning on literally anything with more than a single target, you'll never cast QS.


Note that talents modify things a bit -

Streamline makes RF a 5 second duration, up from 3 - so you can hunters mark->Aimed->RFfor 15x hits of 20% RAP, along with the 15 hits regenning 45 focus and doing their own 11% wep dmg per hit (keep in mind, QS is only 37%, so it's very close to the same value you'd get from just hitting QS every global at 1 global/sec), for an absolutely massive amount of burst damage. I don't see people taking the steady focus or quickdraw talents with the current values).

I'm not sure what to think of sentinel really, but Sentinel causes hunters mark to spread to all other aoe-range targets after activating it. So here's how it'd work:

Multishot for bombardment->Aimed shot to trigger hunters mark (and then sentinel), a long with the 5 bombardment aimeds.
You now have 5 seconds of hunters mark on *everything*. You then have to aimed shot the hunters marks again to trigger them, going by the current wording, meaning you've already spent 125 focus and both aimed shots to even get started (150 if you want to bombardment both aimeds), which seems fairly excessive. You then can either get the RAP damage boost for 5 seconds on everything you multishot, or all your subsequent aimed shot targets (if it recharges quick enough for a third), or 2 targets with MS->RF... It just seems like it'd be a good talent for right NOW, but not when MS costs so much focus.

[Vaud]

I really like the new spells for all the specs tbh they sound alot more fitting
- like Spitting Cobra for BM
- and Arcane Shot and Sidewinders gone for MM - also alot more "gunner"-like talents for MM
- the Poison/Fire interaction with SV sounds fun

lets see so how it all plays out in the first Beta but when im looking at these changes i get a good feeling

cheers

[Eapoe]

From what I've seen, MB and FS are gone. KC is in. FS is now a talent that gets baked into KC. SS is now an ability. ExT replaced with Wildfire Grenade (something like that).
They are taking a spec with too many abilities as it is and leaving the same amount of abilities, with the same option of having MORE abilities. Instead of helping the spec become less convoluted, they are keeping it the same mess. Might be too hasty, but unless synergy exists now, it will still be an ability clustered spec with little synergy.
BM doesn't seem to different.
MM looks to be the most changed, trying to give players some mobility they have been pining for but still a big hitting spec.
Interesting changes, but depending on how things develop, BfA might be the first xpac since I started in Wrath that I won't be playing a Hunter.

[Mahmeya]

Talents imply Hunter's Mark is being turned into a semi-CD.

Also MM is petless without talent at least in this build.

MM is getting a massive rework, which I guess was to be expected since most people hate vuln mechanic.

We'll need to see how long baseline Lone Wolf stays. It was the same and later reverted in later Legion beta cycle.
EDIT: pointing out that tame/call/mend pet is still not removed from MM in this build.

I honestly have no clue why people hate vulnerable mechanic or unpredictability in general, it's what makes me pay attention more.
Hunter's mark in BfA seems a bit like ranged Colossus smash or Ret's 7.0 Judgment with the 8.0 take on vulnerability window.

For MM;

Aimed big dick hit with a charge build up, long cast time. (50 focus).
Quick shot, instant focus spender, basically arcane shot without the name (15 focus).
Steady shot focus builder, castable while moving.
Rapid fire, 3 second channel of 1 arrow every .33 seconds that also regens focus, but on a 20 second CD.

Hunters mark, burst cooldown that makes your target take a set amount of damage (20% RAP) each time they're hit for 5 seconds after being hit by aimed. (100% crit chance modifier as well? Not sure).

AOE will be weaving multishot and aimeds between each other, as multishot causes your next aimed to richochet (like the current trickshot, but capped to 5 targets and with no visible damage modifier).

I like that Arcane goes and we go physical damage, as MM should. Part of me feels like they want to take the best parts of 6.x and 7.x hunters by keeping changed vulnerability window with new Mark, while going back to hit-and-run Quick shot spender and Aimed nuke

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I also hope we finally get well deserved new icons. Having W3 ones sucks hard. I will make sure to remind Blizz of that when 8.0 goes to PTR (because I doubt I'D get into beta)
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http://bfa.wowhead.com/spell=257284/hunters-mark
Copying spell ID from the post above, seems that the 8.0 mark starts at L25. What seems interesting (unless it's leftover from some other test version) is the "Cooldown starts after aura fades" flag. Since it starts counting down on first Aimed hit, you can use it, pool focus, then start the nuke window, if I get it correctly.

[khair]

I was really hoping for something more done with BM. Hopefully it will see some changes, maybe its not too late.

[Gasparde]

SV without Moknathal and spam Mongoose, ignore everything else seems like it could finally be an enjoying spec.

MM without Vulnerable seems like it could finally be an interesting spec.

BM seems like it's actually lost something.

[Ilir]

The MM and SV changes are amazing.

Bm looks dull as always (plus no more hati)

[Toxuvox]

So...early days for BM, but on paper, it looks like there is still going to be a lot of downtime where our only DPS stream is from self/pet auto attacks. For the changes we can see, It's good to see Surge of the Stormgod and Titans Thunder remaining from the Artifact weapon. Binding shot changing from a stun effect to a mass root effect is a welcome one from a PvE stand point (not sure how this pans out for PvP). Tranq Shot back in the fold is good, as long as mobs and bosses will actually have abilities that TS counters. What is interesting is that some of the stated pet abilities have the same effect as TS...does that mean we get 2 bites at the cherry in this case. If so, that could prove to be quite powerful in both PvE and PvP. Speaking of PvP...there's no mention of new PvP abilities for BM...perhaps more to come in future builds.

One last point. I'm not sure if I'm interpreting the information correctly, but to me, it appears that Aspect of the Wild is a permanent aspect, sort of like the old Aspect of the Hawk set up. Maybe we'll see the return of aspect dancing for BM, but there's no mention of other combat Aspects to swap into, so perhaps I'm barking up the wrong tree here.

All in all....it doesn't look particularly exciting for BM. I was hoping for some TLC being paid to the spec. I really do hope there's more being done.

[Deleted]

SV as ranged/melee hybrid as it should've been.

Many abilities missing yet, but they do have my attention. Let's see

[Tanis119]

Im really liking these new MM/SV changes. Looks like we will have a lot more control of MM and not so reliant on Procs.