New Hunter talent trees

[Roland]

See I wanted to make a melee hunter, just because, always have.  That of course is not what they did with survival.  Removing counter attack, which was one of the few nice melee skills, and adding all this stuff that supliments ranged attacks isn't really the best way to go for what I want.  The final survival talent is just nuts.  Hunters now have two forms of CC that work on anything.  Sure they are 12 and 26 (trap with new talent) seconds but that is still a big deal.  The hunter was one of the best solo classes in the game already, they just got better.  They made it so that you can do even more ranged damage and basically said, yeah we don't want variant scum melee hunters, we want cookie cutter 31/20 survival marksman with a few beatmaster hunters.

See, now THIS is a significant gripe to "whine" about. And a point I was going to raise myself if it happened been brought up already. I, too, wanted to try a more melee-oriented build, or at least a more trap-oriented build. Ranged / Traps would be very fun, at least on paper IMHO. Of course, in practice it may not work out as well as I would hope (too much work for too little gain, for example, in setting up traps pre-combat), but the theory was at least plausible. Now, at first glance, it seems melee hunters, while getting several buffs, aren't quite as "available" as they were originally.

Although, I freely admit that I have NOT studied the trees closely, merely glanced over them, so I could be missing several key changes / skills that still allow the more melee-oriented hunter, or even make them better (the increased Health aside, of course). So if I'm wrong (along with GG here), please feel free to point out my errors. I don't expect to have the time to fully peruse the new trees anytime soon (g/f's been stealing all my computer time lately :P).

I like the beast mastery changes and I don't think they are out of whack.  It's still a variant build as the 31/20 survival marksman is the cookie cutter now, but it won't be as gimpy.  I have a beast master hunter at L43 and he is quite happy about these changes.  When I saw that spirit bond would only require 21 points I got exicted that a survival/beast hybrid could do the melee hunter (that pet healing you really ups your melee viability 20 health every second, because of frenzy being active pretty much all the time and the attack speed of a well chosen pet then getting to 1.0 or faster, it's even more since claw and bite make it go off as well).  But they went for what more customers do.  They upped PvP skills a lot and upped ranged and solo survivability even more.  Don't get me wrong the melee hunter variant scum is more viable now, but they didn't really help melee DPS that much.  A 6 second cooldown with 20% crit chance raptor strike and weak mongoose bite that is mainly used to get back in ranged, and some better crit chances (that look to work for ranged as well) don't really help the melee side of things that much.  But I really do understand why it didn't happen.  Hunters are designed as a ranged attacker, making them even more hybrid wasn't what they were looking for.

See, I enjoy the boosted ranged abilities. Although, that again is only "on paper". I have virtually no experience with Hunters, unfortunately, as they SEEM like a class I would love to play. I could just never get into them enough to "stick" with them like I have my Rogue, sadly. Maybe too slow of a pace compared to my Rogue? ;) I must be spoiled by the fast play. :D

I, too, loved the Spirit Bond change. That skill alone made me want to invest in the Beastmastery tree, alongside with boosting my pet. Blizzard has time and again said that the Hunter's pet is an integral part of the overall DPS (among other things) of the class, and I wanted to put that knowledge to the fullest potential use. Hence the melee- and trap-oriented build, but also focusing on your pet, as well. I could never decide whether I wanted to go deep into Survival or Beastmastery, though, for my main focus. Never really had the inclination to truly dedicate a lot of time to it like I have my Rogue. :) But the thought of a Hunter that lays down a trap, lures his prey into it, and then unleashes fist-to-face right alongside his pet... that just always seemed like a really cool way to play a Hunter, instead of like a Golem-Necromancer with a Bow. :P

I personally never thought the hunter was that broken.  Pets weren't fully implemented and survival was a pointless tree except for some PvP stuff.  They didn't really change beast mastery that much.  Moved some of the nicer pet buffs up, increased the usefulness of some (15% v 10% on the damage talent, the focus talent will acutally do something though it's deeper in now), front loaded pathfindig, gave you more dodge chance (5 points to monkey instead of just 3 now), made intimidation do something, moved a top tier talent to where it should have been with Spirit Bond.  The new top talent is very nice DPS add though.  From my experience with my L43 hunter who was beast before, the pet will under frenzy and in beastial wrath most of the time.  If people will allow hunters to have pets out in instances a beast hunter when considered with their pets should still do some damn good DPS since they can still get most of the damage adding marksman talents.

I don't know if I'd say the Hunter was broken before. I guess the phrase I'd use (it's one of my favorites) would be "The Hunter needs some lovin'". Just seemed more fitting. The class, obviously, was viable. The Lurkers has more Hunters at 60 than any other class, IIRC. But it definitely had its shortcomings, and so I'm glad Blizzard has finally addressed the class. It's been due for awhile (although not as achingly long as Paladin Talents were in beta :P), but no so long as to make me wonder if they were ever going to get some attention. Truth be told, I would have been surprised if they didn't focus on Hunters this patch. Just got that vibe I guess.

The new Beastmastery Tier 6 (that's the highest, right? I can never remember) talent seems awesome. Very fitting to what a true animal could be capable of, especially one that is not "trained" by the Hunter in a "master / slave" way but rather in a "spiritual bond" sort of way, like two halves to a greater whole (which, I think, was Blizzard's intent behind the class). And I agree that pets in instances should be MUCH more viable now, not that they were really broken to begin with. If I'm not mistaken, the problem with pets in instances is one of aggro management? Or something to that effect? I'm just trying to recall from the passing conversations I've heard and had, as I have no high-end experience in the game, and only minimal experience co-oping with a Hunter (although the time I DID spend with some was most enjoyable, even when their pet was out in the instance; I felt bad whenever it died, though :(). If that was the case, then it of course will still be, but is more an issue of better-skilled Hunters and more amiably companions for instancing, rather than an inherent problem with the pet itself. One thing I DO remember, though, is problematic pathfinding leading to increased aggro and adds, which wouldn't be fixed by a Talent makeover. Fixing that, in addition to everything else, would be make the Hunter pretty much ship-shape, much like the Warrior currently is (or so I've heard; managing a Rogue is enough micro-management for me; I'd hate to try tackling a Warrior with 3 full stances AND having to babysit the entire party ;) My work schedule doesn't allow me the time nor attention needed for such an endeavor).

All in all, I'm very excited about the changes, and look forward to seeing what actually makes it into the next patch. And, of course, I look forward even more to getting my own fledgling Hunters (12 and 6, IIRC) up to significant enough levels to reap the benefits of these changes. :)

The future looks very bold, indeed, for WoW. Even after a year, this game is still barely growing out of adolescence. On some level, I feel somewhat cheated by this fact, but it was to be expected, and on the whole I have enjoyed the game and its slow but steady progress, and look forward to much more.