Dragonflight Hunter Talents and Abilities Update - July 22

[Lumy]

Dragonflight Hunter Talents and Abilities Update - July 22

The next build to alpha will have some pretty substantial changes for the hunter talent trees. Many talent nodes have had their position shuffled around, as well as connections, so this won’t be an exact list of what specific talent node moved to what new position and what it connects to. Some of this may be redundant information with previous posts:

Baseline Changes:

• Mend Pet has been bumped up from 35% of Pet’s HP over its duration, to 50% of pet’s HP.

Class Tree:

• The placeholder Agility % node has been replaced with an Avoidance node.
• Improved Exhilaration (the pet healing) is now part of the baseline Exhilaration ability. This has been replaced with Rejuvenating Winds.
• Viper’s Venom in the choice node after Serpent Sting has been replaced with Hydra’s Bite.
• Binding Shackles is planned to work with any combination of Scatter Shot, Explosive Trap, Binding Shot, and Intimidation. This should make sense with the new tree layout.

Beast Mastery

• Dire Pack has been redesigned. Every X Dire Beasts summoned now resets the cooldown of Kill Command, and reduces the cooldown and Focus Cost of Kill Command for a duration.
• New talent added that increases the duration and damage of any Dire Beast summon.

Marksmanship:

• Steady Focus values lowered to 4/8%, rather than 7/15%.
• Hunter’s Knowledge and Focused Aim now boost Rapid Fire damage and crit chance in addition to Aimed Shot.
• Salvo has been renamed to Bombardment and redesigned - Arcane Shots increases the damage of your next Multi-Shot by X%, stacking up to 4 times.
• Explosive Ricochet renamed to Salvo, and design adjusted. Multi-Shot now also shoots Explosive Shot at up to 2 targets hit. This can only occur once every 45 sec.
• Killer Ricochet renamed and redesigned, is now Razor Fragments - When Trick Shots fades or is consumed, your next Kill Shot does X% more damage, and causes up to 5 targets to bleed for Y% of the damage dealt over 6 sec. This node comes right after Deathblow , which may be in a different position in the tree now.
• Bursting Shot and Quick Load are no longer a dependency for any talent node on the tree.

Survival

• Terms of Engagement and Improved Harpoon talents have been combined and now only requires 1 talent point total.
• Several abilities reduced to 1 or 2 total points, down from 2 or 3 total points.
• Precision Removed
• Frenzy Strikes now also applies its cooldown reduction to Flanking Strike.
  
  • Note: there’s an issue where this talent will incorrectly be able to be obtained by a prior node without the Butchery/Carve node, this connection will be removed in a future update.
• Wildfire Infusions - Volatile Bomb has been adjusted because Serpent Sting is no longer a baseline, guaranteed to have ability. This bomb will continue to deal bonus damage to a target affected by Serpent Sting, and will also apply Serpent Sting to some number of targets it hits.
• Viper’s Venom is now in the survival talent tree with a redesign. Raptor Strike and Mongoose Bite have a chance to apply Serpent Sting to your target.
• New Talent - Ranger - Increases the damage of Steady Shot, Kill Shot, Explosive Shot, and Serpent Sting.
• New Talent - Intense Focus - increases focus generated by Kill Command
• New Talent - Ruthless Marauder - Fury of the Eagle has a 15% increased critical strike chance against targets below 20% health, and Fury of the Eagle critical strikes reduce the cooldown of Wildfire Bomb and Flanking Strike by 0.5 sec.
  
  • The critical strike chance and cooldown reduction values go up per rank, the 20% HP threshold does not change.

This is a lot to parse, and things above are not final. Thanks for the discussions so far, we appreciate it.

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we’re trying to give the option of a more ranged focused or melee focused Survival.

Before expectations might get out of hand, we don’t have any intention of making a ranged Survival “subspec” of the sorts. The Ranger talent is not intended to divert your gameplay into using Steady Shot instead of Raptor Strike/Mongoose Bite. Hunters as a whole have some ranged attacks, and Survival hunters, while primarily melee, do still shoot things.

The intent of the Ranger talent is to bump your ranged damage up a bit for encounters or PvP or whatever gameplay where that is important, not turn Survival into a full ranged DPS spec. We still intend Survival to be in melee, with a melee weapon, doing melee things. Sometimes they also shoot.

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higher Steady Focus values

The 7/15% that is on the alpha right now is just a data error on our end, there was not a goal of doubling the value of the talent from Shadowlands to Dragonflight.

Steady Focus also should hopefully feel less mandatory as a path towards Trueshot with the upcoming layout changes.

[cocomen2]

Are they making Rexxar new warchief or something, since so much attention goes to this melee beast mastery spear spec - without allowing dual axe wielding to it.

Just make Surv spec ranged again - to be trap master, Beast Master spec melee with bigger take on animal aspects - to be animal master. FFS unnatural

[Eosia]

Just make Surv spec ranged again

They already said it's staying melee. Time to accept it. If you want to be pure ranged, MM is for you. Otherwise you don't want to play a hunter.

And here's a better Beast Master...

[thunderdragon2]

Are they making Rexxar new warchief or something, since so much attention goes to this melee beast mastery spear spec - without allowing dual axe wielding to it.

Just make Surv spec ranged again - to be trap master, Beast Master spec melee with bigger take on animal aspects - to be animal master. FFS unnatural

that happening will make me abandon my hunter. bm and surv dont need that sort of redesign imo..bm has way more pressing issues like dire beast like we need to waste talents on core abilities as we dont really have many

[Lucetia]

They already said it's staying melee. Time to accept it. If you want to be pure ranged, MM is for you. Otherwise you don't want to play a hunter.

Until they see so many people stop playing hunter. I get that people like MM but it's just meh to me. I liked pre-Legion Survival and played BM now because MM isn't for me. Guess myself, and many others, will be hanging up the mantle.

[threads]

so they add a "ranger" talent but are not intending for a ranged sub-spec? wasn't the point of these trees to bring back hybrid specs or something?

from what i've seen the melee SV was a dead spec until they added an OP tier set that basically changed it into a bomber spec. guess it will be dead for another xpac.

[Eosia]

Until they see so many people stop playing hunter. I get that people like MM but it's just meh to me. I liked pre-Legion Survival and played BM now because MM isn't for me. Guess myself, and many others, will be hanging up the mantle.

And Survival boiled down to MM but with Magic Damage instead. Hence why when they decided to make a melee spec and bring back abilities. Hell, half the survival abilities are now in the MM Tree like Explosive Shot.

And really, I doubt we're going to see a mass exodus of hunters like you're betting on. As a class, we've had much worse done. You probably weren't around for the Great Hunter Castration of Patch 2.0.3.

so they add a "ranger" talent but are not intending for a ranged sub-spec? wasn't the point of these trees to bring back hybrid specs or something?

No. Because we only have access to a Class tree and 1 Spec Tree. Not all 2-4 depending on the class.

[lazypeon100]

Are they making Rexxar new warchief or something, since so much attention goes to this melee beast mastery spear spec - without allowing dual axe wielding to it.

Just make Surv spec ranged again - to be trap master, Beast Master spec melee with bigger take on animal aspects - to be animal master. FFS unnatural

The sad thing is, it doesn't have a trapper theme even any more. The spec has never had a weaker identity and it's obvious changing it to melee is the root cause. With how they are doing talents in DF, all of the class talents give emphasis on ranged game play and SV has like, two melee abilities while actively stealing abilities and theme from BM.

They need to either add a 4th spec and pick an actual design space that makes sense for current SV, or make RSV again and be done with it. It's confused and makes zero sense as it currently stands.

[Accendor]

Now just please give us Mad Bombadier again

- - - Updated - - -

Now just give us mad Bombadier again please

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Absolutely loving what they Are doing with hunters moving the explosive shot from trick shots to mulishot so it’s useable in PvP.

[Djaye]

people be cray. i absolutely love that Surv will be a melee with a full ranged kit at their disposal. its epic. even if they are behind the other specs in dps, they will without a doubt be the most fun to play.
it looks as thought they are REALLY listening to feedback from alpha.

it has me quite pumped and eagerly awaiting of the monk trees

[Kallisto]

And Survival boiled down to MM but with Magic Damage instead. Hence why when they decided to make a melee spec and bring back abilities. Hell, half the survival abilities are now in the MM Tree like Explosive Shot.

Explosive shot MM and Explosive shot SV have basically only two things in common, the name and the icon. That's it.

SV wasn't MM but Magic. It was a dot spec. Explosive shot was the heaviest hitter but it was a hit then a few seconds of DoT on a single target (Compared to it being fire and then explode AoE spell). Dark arrow and Serpent sting kept the dots up.

MM was bursty in its build. SV was sustained damage. They were very different specs. If they were as close as you claim to be then Frost, fire, arcane, shadow, Ele, Destro, and Affliction were all the same spec.

[Lucetia]

And Survival boiled down to MM but with Magic Damage instead.

It really wasn't at all. They may have some of the ability names, but its nothing like MM. That's like saying each class that has multiple dps is all the same just different names / damage types.

Hence why when they decided to make a melee spec and bring back abilities. Hell, half the survival abilities are now in the MM Tree like Explosive Shot.

No one knows why they decided to make it a melee spec. There have been melee aspects to it since Classic but was never intended as that until Legion when for some reason someone was like "We need a melee spec and will never revert back as we are dying on this hill!"

You probably weren't around for the Great Hunter Castration of Patch 2.0.3.

I mean I've played a hunter since Classic, but ok.

[Bisque]

They already said it's staying melee. Time to accept it. If you want to be pure ranged, MM is for you. Otherwise you don't want to play a hunter.

And here's a better Beast Master...

A little blunt but I think that is really it. At least up until this post (and I assume going forward) Blizzard's view, iteration of SV is melee, with quite a bit of ranged thrown in but still melee. Whether that is the "right" choice or "wrong" choice I don't think matters as much as Blizzard's choice of SV (for the time being) is to be melee.

[threads]

And Survival boiled down to MM but with Magic Damage instead. Hence why when they decided to make a melee spec and bring back abilities. Hell, half the survival abilities are now in the MM Tree like Explosive Shot.

And really, I doubt we're going to see a mass exodus of hunters like you're betting on. As a class, we've had much worse done. You probably weren't around for the Great Hunter Castration of Patch 2.0.3.



No. Because we only have access to a Class tree and 1 Spec Tree. Not all 2-4 depending on the class.

yea now survival is BM with a melee weapon. the spec is shit.

[Xorzor]

The change to Mend Pet should especially help any pet that isn't a Clefthoof.

[Qnubi]

Explosive shot MM and Explosive shot SV have basically only two things in common, the name and the icon. That's it.

SV wasn't MM but Magic. It was a dot spec. Explosive shot was the heaviest hitter but it was a hit then a few seconds of DoT on a single target (Compared to it being fire and then explode AoE spell). Dark arrow and Serpent sting kept the dots up.

MM was bursty in its build. SV was sustained damage. They were very different specs. If they were as close as you claim to be then Frost, fire, arcane, shadow, Ele, Destro, and Affliction were all the same spec.

I think a good comparison is Hunter vs Warlock.

Demonology = Beast Master
MM = Destruction
SV Pre-Legion = Affliction

Imagine they gutted Affliction for some melee demon spec and tell people Affliction was basically Destruction hence there was no purpose for Affliction...

SV was the ranged dot spec, MM was the bursty one and Beast Master the pet build.

[Nyel]

I hate how much they talk about Hunter and how little about all the other classes they've released their talents as of yet. Sorry, Hunter isn't that much more broken than several other specs and needs this excessive special treatment.

Glad that Survival stays melee, it's a melee spec and people should get over it. It's the most fun Hunter spec by far anyway.

[Eosia]

Explosive shot MM and Explosive shot SV have basically only two things in common, the name and the icon. That's it.

In Dragonflight, it will be the same as it was back in Wrath when it was introduced. Only this time it's in the Class tree as opposed to just one of the spec trees. It was Survival's 41pt talent so it was impossible to get it as BM or MM back then. The only question will be will it be broken again like it was originally or if it will stack as intended. And I never said they were identical; just that Survival had boiled down MM but with Magic Damage. There is a difference.

Survival wasn't just "DOT-based". Both specs had Serpent Sting and had to maintain the effect. Survival just had one DOT extra, Black Arrow. Both had Kill Command and Aimed Shot too. The only difference was MM had Chimera Shot instead of Explosive Shot and had Readiness too. That's why when I switch to Survival in Cataclysm, I barely had to change my timing and it was literally a 1:1 swap with abilities so the order I pressed keys did not change either.

A little blunt but I think that is really it. At least up until this post (and I assume going forward) Blizzard's view, iteration of SV is melee, with quite a bit of ranged thrown in but still melee. Whether that is the "right" choice or "wrong" choice I don't think matters as much as Blizzard's choice of SV (for the time being) is to be melee.

It gives the spec some uniqueness from the other two, plus it also creates another class besides Druids and Shaman that can switch between ranged and melee since certain fights are designed with mechanics specific to each. This is why healers now have either Ranged or Melee designation like Priests are Ranged and Paladins are Melee. If you do not have enough for the mechanic to hit the minimum number of targets of ranged, it will hit melee. Like if you did the Dreadlords fight in Spulcher with only melee DPS/Healer with the lone exception of a priest, that priest is always going to get the Green circle mechanic and the rest of the minimum number will hit melee which will cause a lot of raid unnecessary raid damage because of the potential for it to get back on someone with Biting Wounds before it gets pulled out of melee. And then there's the DPS loss since melee will be out of range until it is cleared.

yea now survival is BM with a melee weapon. the spec is shit.

If you think Melee and Ranged are identical play styles, you're either a fool or literally just started playing. And if you don't like Survival, then don't play it. There are plenty of Paladins who only play Ret because they just want to DPS and they really like Paladin. Same for Warriors who only play Prot because they enjoy tanking and don't want to DPS. Plenty of Shaman who don't play Resto because they don't want to Heal.

I mean I've played a hunter since Classic, but ok.

Then you should have known that Hunters have been stomped into the ground multiple times much worse before to the point we had specs that were unplayable. Even well into TBC when you saw hunters do very good on the DPS meters, it wasn't "OMG! That Hunter is great!" it was "OMG! WTF is wrong with your mages and warlocks?!?!"

[LordVargK]

I hate how much they talk about Hunter and how little about all the other classes they've released their talents as of yet. Sorry, Hunter isn't that much more broken than several other specs and needs this excessive special treatment.

Glad that Survival stays melee, it's a melee spec and people should get over it. It's the most fun Hunter spec by far anyway.

I agree. There are some specs already available that need WAY more love than hunters and have historically released in an incomplete state.