A disappointing alpha and beta for Hunters

The Legion alpha and beta process has been a long one. I’ve been in for nearly 7 months, and I wasn’t even in the first wave. One would expect a good deal of iteration over such a long period of time, but for Hunters that really hasn’t been the case.

Blizzard was receptive to feedback about cosmetic “class fantasy” issues. The most notable example is Beast Mastery being a literal zoo of impersonal pets you didn’t tame yourself. Many Hunters didn’t like this. Shortly after the BM spec was unlocked, Blizzard responded to player feedback and made compromises by adding in the Glyph of the Dire Stable, Dire Frenzy, and Essence Swapper. They also listened to MM Hunters who missed having the option of a pet. On the topic of tameable pets, I think they took much of their inspiration from player feedback and suggestions. They did an amazing job with new tames this expansion.

This brings us to how the class actually plays. On this front I felt there was little iteration or developer communication at all. It was basically the complete opposite of what happened in the pre-Warlords testing. I couldn’t even keep up with all the blue posts and tweets back then. Leading up to Legion, I’ve watched the specs stay mostly the same despite overwhelming negative feedback.

I understand not bowing to the mob and designing by popular opinion, but a simple explanation for why they were sticking to their guns would have helped. Otherwise it just feels like feedback is being ignored.

I’m not going to write a wall of text on my personal issues with the class in Legion, as I’ve already done that several times on their feedback forums, in-game suggestions, and other posts. But I will summarize my main concerns with Beast Mastery (since it’s probably the spec I will play):

  • Rotation still has too much down time. I can live with some, but it’s just too much.
  • Pets are squishy. My favorite thing about the Hunter class (other than the pets) is being strong on my own. Especially as Beast Mastery, I felt like we were always supposed to have the most capable pets. This is no longer the case. Pet healing in Legion is less than half as effective overall. Plus we’ve lost Adaptation, which means we need to give up DPS to get some of that survivability back. Is it a PVP issue? Then fine, make Mend Pet stronger in PVE only. I thought this was the whole point of separating the PVP system.
  • Glyph of Misdirection. RIP.
  • Marksmanship — a spec that wasn’t even supposed to have a pet in the first place — is better in some aspects of pet tanking than Beast Mastery. This is due to the combination of a Tenacity pet tank (MM has nearly no DPS loss from speccing Tenacity), and the Black Arrow dark minion. This gives MM two pet tanks who taunt back and forth to split incoming damage.
  • Pet AI is worse than ever before. /petattack must be macroed into all abilities now. When pets are on Assist stance they don’t even respond to the Hunter getting attacked unless directly told to do so. There are pathing issues galore in the new dungeons, and even in random places in the world. Nothing like trying to use Kill Command and getting a pathing error.  Hopefully this is all just a bug that has yet to be fixed.
  • Pet abilities are inconsistent since the removal of buffs. Two dozen pet families have no special abilities at all, while other pets have powerful ones like battle rez, blood lust, shell shield, etc.
  • Hati essentially is our artifact. Most of the traits tie into Hati in some way, so why does Hati’s death have a 2 minute cooldown? Do any other classes suffer the complete de-powering of their artifact for 2 minutes at a time? Why can’t we use Revive Pet on Hati? Is it a PVP issue? Fine, then don’t allow it to work in instanced PVP. It sucks when Hati gets randomly instagibbed and then you lose a good 10-20% of your DPS output for 2 minutes. Update 6/30: Hati’s death cooldown was reduced to 30 seconds in the most recent build. It’s a big improvement, but I still wish Revive Pet worked instead.
  • I’m stopping now because I’m getting upset and will go on forever.

Those are some of my major issues that haven’t really been addressed by Blizzard. I haven’t even touched on all of the mediocre talents, artifact traits, the new Aspect of the Cheetah, removal of Camouflage from BM, etc. because that’s small compared to the core issues.

All this being said, I am mostly OK with how the new BM plays and I even have some fun with it. Maybe I’ve given in? After 7 months, that’s a definite possibility. The pet issues stick with me though, because it kills my favorite thing about Hunters. My “class fantasy” for Beast Mastery is having an extremely capable pet, but maybe that isn’t Blizzard’s idea for the spec going forward.

Why have there been fewer posts here overall compared to all the posts leading up to Warlords? Because there hasn’t been much to talk about. BM hasn’t really changed at all since being introduced and I didn’t want to post my same feedback over and over. Going forward, most posts here will likely focus on BM because I don’t have the desire to maintain 3 artifacts.

So… is there still time for change? Not really. The prepatch is out in a few weeks and I expect mostly number tuning from now on. I hope I’m wrong.

Thanks for listening to my rant. Also, I don’t want to be a buzzkill. Legion as an expansion is looking really good (honest!), but Hunters are going to be hugely divided. I fear many will be sending their pets out to pasture.

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46 thoughts on “A disappointing alpha and beta for Hunters”

  1. Yeah, this is why I gave up early on and went Survival… I saw this kinda stuff a mile away. SV is fun, at least. Very little downtime.

    I’ll have Beast Mastery… for soloing. Legion DOES look good, but BM is utterly trashed (coming from someone playing it since 2005.. it’s been worse, but in this day and age, it should NOT be going backwards)

  2. Yeah, on my warlock… my voidwalker is a near unkillable taunt machine.
    Hunter? Looks like I am MM. The class hall is a bit silly filled with Hati’s. Like.. didn’t they think that, that would take away the fantasy a bit? I don’t really like the cooldown on healing, I prefer to spam it, so I don’t have one morething to think about. And I really miss spirit bond. Blah

  3. i really want them to change the artifact weapon, some models are cool like the snake crossbow but most the guns are the same model with just a lazer or a shiv attached to the end. its underwhelming. Would like something with more bells and whistles or even color or different effects in the shots. And iagree with having too much downtime. Which there was another ability or at least have cobra shot the way it was before, generating focus and always clickable. And yea i thought it was fishy when the pet attacks sometimes but not others. Also hati is unreliable. Sometimes she only comes out when i summon my pet, sometimes shes attacking when my pet is dead and sometimes shes dissapears when my pet is dead. And pets are squishy.

  4. I am personally among those Hunters who will most likely be putting their pets out to pasture as you said, sad as that is after having mained Beast Mastery for a very long time. While I personally have not played it yet, the way BM is looking right now has nothing I want, and Blizzard’s complete silence on the matter of their play style is insulting to be honest. I was over the moon when they first talked about their Class fantasy design direction, but its obvious now that Blizzard had its own ideas for that, and cared little for what we as players believed that Spec Identity should have been, at least in Beast Mastery’s case anyway. Once the pre-patch hits live servers I will try to enjoy the spec, but at the same time I am preparing my Feral druid to take over the slot of my main character while trying to milk out every ounce of enjoyment I can from my hunter before that happens.

  5. This is disappointing. I’ve mained on my hunter since I started playing back in vanilla. Hearing that BM, which historically had the strongest pets, now has the weakest, is extremely disappointing. I’ve mostly been SV, which wont be happening cause I made a hunter so I could range. When I wasn’t SV, I was BM, which looks like wont be happening with weak pets. Haven’t played MM much cause I never got in the play style of it, but looks like I’m either going to be maining MM or another class entirely.
    Seems like the dev’s had been giving less and less feed back as time goes on. Hopefully things change.

  6. I hear you. I used to eagerly prepare for every expansion, either participating in beta, reporting bugs (which seems to be pointless anyways), giving contructive feedback, or at the very least snachting every little crumb of information available. Not this time. I guess I just don’t care anymore. Maybe it reflects the impression that I get from the devs. Let’s just roll the dice and see what happens. Whatever. Doesn’t mean anything anyways, next xpac it get’s thrown out of the window for some reason or another. I even started to avoid reading dev statements cause in most cases they just make me rather angry. Might just be me, burned out by WoD. Might be Blizzard getting tired of their own game, trapped in an eternal lore-loop of reliving past expansions (more and more “BC flavored” lately) since Cata, jumping back and forth through the dark portal. Oh, look, Illidan is back. Does that mean there’s still hope for Arthas? Seriously… I loved this game. But the game doesn’t love me anymore 🙂

  7. Really sad to hear BM is in such a bad state considering how solid and good it felt during all of warlords, still don’t understand why they needed to make so many drastic changes to the only spec they themselves felt was in a good place.
    I had already made plans to change to MM and was ok on not having a pet, tested a little bit of it on the PTR and even if it felt a little bit empty I though it was kinda ok. I will probably bounce from MM to BM from time to time, I hope they at least give in to feedback after the pre patch and expansion launches, it will be really bad if BM get tossed in a garbage can again…

  8. Thanks for your honesty in posting this. I, too, will end up playing BM in Legion, but I am not at all excited about it. As you alluded to, it just feels slow, passive and puny to me. For a class with the fantasy of mastery over beasts, the reality is we have no direct control whatsoever over any of our many beasts except for our main pet, and again as you pointed out even that control is less than we currently have in live. I have played with nearly ever possible combo of talents to try and get some of the old hunter play style feeling back, but it is not even close.

    This does not mean I am quitting the game, and I will pre-purchase Legion this week, but I am just extremely disappointed in Blizz for nearly obliterating fun hunter play from the game. Their actions really make me believe there is no one among the devs who has ever truly played a hunter a main they loved, but only as a vehicle to test a few mechanics. I am looking forward to Legion for a lot of fun things that will be in it, but hunter play is not one of them. As far as that aspect of the game goes, I am looking forward to Legion mainly to get it over with and have some hope for the next expansion.

  9. The PTR didn’t really give me a good impression of hunters overall. I’m really going to miss being a perpetual motion machine with spirit bond and a powerful pet tank with infinite aggro redirects, and I’m going to miss exotic pets even more.

    The only saving grace here is that if MM is the strongest solo spec it means I don’t have use titanstrike. I don’t know how they managed to make a titan forged lightning powered gun so bland and uninteresting to look at.

  10. I had decided that once again I was going to have to vote with my wallet over the flying issue and not buy legion until flying was released.

    But since I also main a BM hunter (and have since Wrath) this is just more disappointment.

    Perhaps Ill just look for a different game.

    It;s been fun Blizzard but I can clearly see our ideas on what a game should be are diverging.

    1. The flying was never the issue people made it to be it’s purely a quality of life thing. Class feel however is a thing that should make people vote with their wallets

  11. I could only test the specs on PTR and i have to say that i do not feel familiar with BM anymore..it is just not really..fun. What i loved for BM was the overall survivabilty because u and your pet were a team close to a mini-5 man- group. And i loved this. But BM doesn’t feel like that any more. I might need to go for MM as it actually plays pretty fun (not going meely..i have a DK and a Warrior for that).

    One Question though..is it possible to tame the fel wolf in tanaan after 7.0? You basically lose a lot of stuff you need to defeat the mob dropping the potion.

    1. Just get a few hunters to help you take the mob down, or hopefully fully geared it would be easier to do next expansion solo.

  12. It. Ought be cool to have Hati be have able in appearance , like eagle, wolf, bear, etc. so we could have different variants and different colors or armor on them. I mean it’s a product of a Titan and magic, so why not change appearance, kind of like Druids.

    And they didn’t change titanstrike model since we first saw it, but I see other classes and specs getting revamped or different colors or addition things to their weapons, but titanstrike had stayed the same since we were introduced to it. It’s like they think they got it on the first try and are done or they are focused on other mo popular classes first (I know hunters are popular too).

  13. I have to agree.

    I finally got beta access a couple weeks ago and I’m just not feeling excited about playing my hunter in Legion. The questing and overall leveling experience is OK (it was in WoD as well), but I don’t feel like a hunter. I miss all the utility that we’ve lost and the pet issues are really annoying. I could maybe say that I feel like half a hunter.

    I’ve been playing since ICC, but I haven’t had a strong group to play with since early MoP, but I stuck it out because I still enjoyed playing my hunter. But with the mess in WoD (no content, no flying…) and now with these hunter changes in Legion (and no flying again…), I feel like it might be time for me to move on.

    I’ve had a lot more fun this past year playing single player RPGs like Fallout 4, Witcher 3, Dragon Age: Inquisition, etc. I think I may just focus on those kinds of games instead of WoW, which just feels weird after playing WoW for 6 years…

  14. The weak pet thing bothers me the most. Oh well. My main hunter will still be BM, because Loque’nahak, but the others will pick Survive or MM. I do enjoy them all, which is nice, because with so many hunters, variety is fun, and we used to all be BM. Yes, maybe I am a little schizophrenic.

  15. I’ll see how I feel on prepatch, before I decide on buying Legion.

    I’ve been MM or SV my entire time since Vanilla, yeah I’m the odd guy who
    hates BM. To each his own has always been my attitude, but it’s not for me.

    I was pissed off immensely when originally MM was not even going to have
    a pet. When you’ve still got your first tamed pet that’s been at your side over
    ten years, you’d expect me to be a touch sore eh.

    If it still feels fun, I’ll stick around and go forward. If it doesn’t I’ll retire, and
    think back on years of fun and challenges overcome.

  16. Not thrilled to see this being a primarily BM-focused blog going forward, but it is what it is.

    Anyone know of other Hunter blogs maintaining all 3 specs? Or at least including MM? While I respect your choice to play what you like, I will be playing what I like, and that isn’t BM, hasn’t been for 11 years now.

    1. Well from what I gather from other hunters on beta, be has most dps but isn’t as fun. Mm is ok and sv is hard to play and is more complicated with less dps. So this kind of affects every type of hunter. I do like that mm now though and am super jelly. I even like sv pole but the be gun sucks.

      1. I think the DPS is one of the main reasons that we’re not hearing much….since the DPS is good and it is strong especially if call of the wild procs a few times and you get 2 BW very fast (which will happen more often as gear gives crit etc)….if the DPS was bad then a lot more people would be crying out which is sad. I play for the fun, I’m not looking to get my name on warcraft logs anymore and haven’t since back in cata

    2. I believe I have most of the active hunter blogs in the bookmarks on the side bar. Sadly WoW blogging has been slowly dying off (at least class blogging). I don’t want to ignore MM completely, but if I’m not actively playing it I can’t write much about it. I guess it’s not much different than in the past when one spec was clearly better for a particular patch and most of the content focused on that, only now it’s because of artifacts instead of a small DPS increase.

      MM will be my secondary spec on the main, and one of my alts will probably main MM. Depending on how busy the game keeps me on my primary character and spec determines how much I’d be playing the other really. Obviously once the BM artifact is maxed out, the MM artifact will be filled out (and should go faster with artifact knowledge). And I can at least collect extra relics along the way for that as well. Who knows, maybe I will be playing it in 7.1? Blizz got pretty crazy with the hotfixes in WoD and balance often changed completely.

  17. Been a passionate hunter since BC. Love huntering in pretty much all its forms in one way or another over the years. I have played the two remaining hunter specs, (Sorry melee is not a hunter spec, and I rather resent it being changed and the inevitable balance where its top notch because it has to be because its the “new hotness”) on the PTR and absolutely loathe them.

    It puts me in a rather awkward position. I love(d?) wow and the communities i’m a part of, but i’m faced with a decision. For the first time ever main something other than a hunter or quit playing. I’m really torn and angry, and upset. I feel like Blizzard didn’t make even the slightest attempt to give a space to the old school hunters who mastered their large toolkit. They just said, we are doing a redesign. LIke it or leave because in the end, its better for us.

    Just look at the legendary items for hunters. Half of them are just abilities we already had either active or baked in which were removed and now handed back to us on a legendary less effective or powerful than before. Feels like a thumb in the eye to be honest. Taking things away and then slowly/randomly giving them back in weaker versions is supposed to be fun gameplay?

    I want to know what they realistically expect someone’s experience to be. Did they not factor in that removing so much is going to ruffle feathers, and then slowly handing weaker versions of what they removed isn’t fun? Do they understand, that players are not going to feel good getting those things? That its just a reminder of how screwed they were to begin with?

    The original idea as presented was epic new class fantasy that really takes the theme and makes it fun. Thats not what we have. We have drastically weaker characters, with much less adaptability, flexibility, less tools, and slowly boring gameplay. Hunters: A class that has something to do every moment to work towards their goal is now Hunters: A class that has a couple tools that don’t help and a lot of waiting and wanting to be able to do something. Overly punishing for rotational mistakes with no recovery mechanism.

    Yeah I can see why you stopped typing. I am not even remotely close to finding this acceptable. If I could i’d give back my prepurchase.

    1. Yes the legendary situation does not thrill me one bit. It’s hard to get excited about them when they’re just a way to get back things that Blizz took away (same with artifact traits in some cases), like the ring that grants a (slightly gimped) Adaptation. Obviously I want that ring more than any other legendary, but I’ll probably get those stupid healing leggings first or something. 😛

  18. i have been making these comments since before I even saw the PTR, im not on the beta sadly I wish I was as im very on the fence on this xpac, I knew WoD would be garbage and this one looks like its just as bad, lore wise I hate the idea that players are getting iconic weapons given to them rather something where we forge our own weapon with OUR story tied to it, something where when we see 2000 copies of it there isnt a feeling like the game is bending into some paradox for it to happen.

    now as far as abilities go yes im extremely upset over the changes to hunters, we had abilities pruned this xpac and it just seemed fine we had enough GCD’s to manage that made the spec feel fluid to me in both MM and BM. now its downtime and more downtime, I cant tank with my pets and thats disappointing because i like to solo content , they made the class fantasy of BM into this safari master who pulls out all these random animals we have no connection too which id understand if i was a warlock , however im not the class fantasy for hunters has always been you have a deep bond with your pet, its not a pet its your companion, your friend, your so disconnected from your pet these days its horrible, I loved the fantasy that me and my friend could go in and hold our own and clean out whatever threat we found,, exploring the world together and thats just lost.

    Marksman I feel the same about, Lone wolf im kinda eh on because I feel like the pet is part of the class, though a spec that focuses just on the players ranged attacks is nice I wish it wasnt locked into casted shots that kept you stationary, i would much rather love to see aimed shot be retooled into a shot that does x damage to a target castable while moving HOWEVER if you remain stationary either the cast is reduced OR the damage is increased so that yes you can get those shots off but if you move while casting it the shot does less, like your not perfectly aiming.

    SV and melee, yes I get it Legion is the fan service expac and just like ashbringers, doomhammers and demon hunters Blizzard is pulling out all stops to get subs back up after they vommited all over its player base with WoD HOWEVER im going to say this. if i wanted to play a melee I would have played a melee goodness knows Ive had many changes to do so in the 11 years ive played this game.

    im also going to say this,, raid spots are very stringent on melee dps vs ranged dps such is the life of WoW, we also have now a PURE melee class coming into the raid and unless SV hunters are ungodly good vs other melee classes and BETTER then the ranged specs that they could be instead finding yourself raiding as SV is going to be very unlikely because there are now Demon Hunters + every other pure melee class in the game. Add in the fact that Survival has very little surviveability and suffers from the same problem of taking high damage like hunters already do, your going to find yourself sitting back shooting your gun or bow. WoW has always messed with hunters over the various expansions, we end up broken our specs end up garbage this expac will be another.

  19. I’m saddened, but not surprised to read this. I haven’t played the beta, but I did try importing my main (BM) to the PTR and I was bitterly disappointed by how the spec plays now. I wanted to hope the reams and reams of negative feedback I’d read from so many hunters was wrong, but sadly my own limited experience just seems to confirm it. Since I can’t imagine maining any other class, I’m now considering whether I even want to buy Legion in time for launch, or whether it might make sense to wait until some tweaks have been implemented in patches.

  20. I never really cared for the BM live rotation with managing Focus Fire stacks, although I could get used to it after a little while. It just didn’t seem engaging or interactive (from a ~class fantasy~ perspective) like it should. I suspect I’ll be able to get used to BM in Legion in much the same way I did when I needed to respec and learn BM during WoD.

    At this point, I’ve kept the same main for over 10 years, and I don’t WANT to switch what I’ve invested so much time into. I don’t really see re-rolling for raiding as an option – I’d probably rather just play another game.

    To put it in game theoretic terminology, it’s choosing the best of a bad situation.

    I LOVED Survival. Managing dots, playing whack-a-mole, and maintaining my full DPS while on the move put me (and hunters in general) in a spot where my group could rely on me to handle many of the raid mechanics that other classes couldn’t. That in itself was one of the biggest benefits for me. (Yes, I know BM is mobile as well.)

    I might give MM a try during raiding in Legion, since it looks like I could get a pseudo-Surv feel with talents, but if they aren’t competitive, competitive raiders will be “forced” out of them. I WANT to try SV, just to be that one obstinate hunter that switches, but let’s be real about that. Veteran hunters play ranged. Yeah, I’ve got melee alts that I enjoy rolling around with, but for those of us that tie an identity to a character, I don’t suspect we’ll be happy with the switch.

    I’ll try BM too. One thing I like is that we’re not hard-gated by a dual-spec system, even if artifact power will be a soft-limit of sorts. The simplicity of live-SV made me happy, and I think BM will be like that in Legion. Easy to be acceptable, hard to be outstanding. =) I know Blizz is preaching ~class fantasy~ until our ears bleed, and also that everybody has their own idea of what a hunter should be. MY ~class fantasy~ is a completely mobile ranged DPS with a battle-companion we rely on to some degree.

    I assume the pet pathing/attacking/whatever issues will be fixed before live. Buffs do need to be addressed. (Option #2)

    TLDR: I’ll be staying a hunter in Legion because it’s how I play WoW. We’ll see how much I enjoy it.

    Dear Blizzard, you may appease my for this expansion by making Gulp Frogs tameable. =)

  21. Couldn’t have said it better myself. I’ve tweeted the devs, used in the in-game feedback and bug reporting tool and wrote feedback on the forum regarding BM since I got beta access months ago. I haven’t logged into the beta for weeks now, simply because I don’t feel my feedback matters.

    When legion was announced I was planning to level two more hunters to 100 just so I could have 1 hunter for each spec. Currently, I still have only 1 hunter and I don’t know yet if he will be BM or MM.

    As I concluded in my feedback post:

    “To me the hunter class is more than a class which uses hairy pets and/or ranged weapons. It’s a class that is in control of it’s surrounding whether it’s controlling threat (feign death, distracting shot, misdirection, pet growl), enemies (traps and other CC) or DPS (e.g. on demand burst like Rapid Fire).

    Crucial to being the hunter and not the prey is to be in control of your character. However, when looking at a focus bar slowly refilling I’m not in control. I’m a passenger in the shell of my former Hunter.

    The lack of control is made even worse by the inability to keep the pet alive as BM. Leaving and endless string of pet-corpses behind me isn’t really appealing.”

    1. My feedback on MM (from PTR, as I sadly don’t have beta) was mostly along the same lines.

      Since MM needs to wait for an auto shot proc, to trigger an arcane shot proc, to trigger a marked shot proc, which needs to happen three times before aimed shot does any real damage, it feels as though you lack agency in when and how to deal damage. From a class fantasy standpoint, Marksmanship should be about putting your arrows where it counts to deal the maximum damage to your opponent. On PTR, it feels like you are waiting for the arrow to decide where it goes, rather than making the decision yourself.

      This is compounded by the terrible balancing of talents – talents are so wildly different within the same tier that they are impossible to balance from a damage standpoint, leading to a scenario in which competitive raiders are forced into a cookie cutter spec, whether they like the gameplay or not. Patient Sniper is a perfect example. Without it, you need to stack Marked Shot 3 times, and the debuff lasts 30 seconds. Longer ramp up time, but once it is up, it stays up. Patient Sniper removes the stacking mechanic, makes the single stack debuff twice as powerful as the 3 stack untalented version, shortens the duration to 6 seconds, and increases your maximum Focus by 30.

      First, tying the max Focus increase to this talent is disingenuous – increased resource pool is completely unrelated to debuff management. Second, the much shorter debuff window means it is exceedingly difficult to make maximum use of the damage bonus – if I have Lock and Load up, I can cast the two instants, but the debuff falls off before the hardcasted Aimed Shot. Third, the vastly increased damage essentially forces players into this talent even if they otherwise despise the changes – I for one hate the shorter duration debuff.

      In short, BM lacks control over your rotation because you are waiting for focus, MM lacks control over your rotation because you are waiting for procs, both lost control over enemies with the loss of traps, removal of Misdirection glyph makes it difficult to control pet threat in either spec, particularly MM, and SV is melee so nobody cares.

  22. Ugh. I’ve been BM for ages and ages, so it’s really disappointing to hear all this. I’d probably adjust to a new spec, but I shouldn’t have to just to be able to keep playing my favorite class without dying all the time. Hunter is what I’m best at, what I’ve been playing the longest, and what I have the most personal attachment to. I don’t RP anymore, but my main still absolutely has her own personality and backstory, which feeds into her transmog and pet choices. She’s been all about the tamed animals since day one, and it’s unfortunate that BM has crashed and burned so hard. A less sentimental person might easily quit the game over this, but I have too much time and good memories and personal investment in this hunter, I can’t just stop playing (which I’m sure is why Blizzard keeps getting away with stuff like this). I think what’s most unfortunate about this is that while Blizzard listened to the problems people had with the random animals and lack of pets for MM, that’s all cosmetic in the end, and the things that are real problems like waiting for a focus bar to refill aren’t being dealt with at all. That’s not good. If they’re trying to drive people towards playing the new demon hunter class, it looks like it’s kind of working.

  23. Seems like to me the most glaring issue,pet squishiness,would be fixed during the numbers pass.Yes/No?Or is that pretty much set in stone?

  24. I remember Blizz saying they were nerfing pets because back in WoD you could have em tank 3-4 elites and not ever use mend pet and they would live forever.. in ferocity stance.. Keep in mind they dont want pet classes soloing end game world content this would really be unfair for the other non. I almost facedesked when you were complaining your pet wasent a DPS AND a TANK anymore. Having to choose between the two aint a new thing blizzard made in fact I feel they should went back to it alot sooner. Now I will say from what I have seen indeed BM and MM seen to have taken a big hit fun wise. Im half suspecting Blizz trying to pull people away from hunter for a bit specially since in WoD pretty muc 6-10 dps I was grouping with was a Hunter heck I even had 3 Hunter in the group several times. I used my level boost for a lvl 100 Hunter cause I wanted to play Survival in Legion and I was just feeling dirty playing that class. No casting interrupt on kock back/up? Why? Just Why? You already got shoot on the move and channel on the move why make caster even more obsolete by giving them this On another note yeah I would be very much pissed if that happened to my Class… fortunatly for me I main warrior we always have been in the middle of everything.. Never the best never the weakest and our gameplay remained mostly the same over the years and never had any huge nerf or buffs. On this tho I wish you good luck for legion despite all of those drawbacks.

    1. The reason pet survivability is important for BM is because most of our damage comes from the pet (even if it’s us hitting buttons, the damage comes from our pet’s jaw rather than our gun). Marksmanship doesn’t have to take a meaningful DPS hit to solo better, while BM does. That is just wrong to me, as is MM having better single target pet tanking.

      There’s nothing “unfair” about certain specs or classes being better at certain things. The game would be boring if every spec was the same. I’m just upset because they’re taking one of my favorite things about BM Hunters and throwing it away. Legion was supposed to be about reinforcing class fantasies. For me, they sort of failed there. BM should have a pet like no other, not some poor beast who can barely handle 2-3 mobs at a time. Blizzard disagrees unfortunately.

  25. Good news is that hunters are still one of the top dps,I heard,in raids. This is based on other streams, beta tester opinions from the raid I was in, and other members the guild I’m with that is in beta. Not sure if it’s mm or bm, I just know it isn’t survival.

  26. I was going to buy the expansion last month. As of now, I’m not even sure I’ll be keeping my subscription alive. It’s not only the fact that the devs have completely ruined the class I’ve played ever since I started playing so many years ago, but also their attitude, as if the playerbase is completely irrelevant. Their silence is equivalent to calling us “little stupid brats who don’t know what they’re talking about”.

    It’s the same attitude they showed in Blizzcon about Vanilla servers: “we know what’s best for you and you are going to accept it and give us money”.

    I get the impression that they’re so full of theirselves that no one else’s opinion is worth a penny. So screw them. I’ll be focusing on other games for the time being.

  27. I do not understand WHY they keep making a hunter everything a hunter actually is NOT. Hunters are stealthy, quiet, extremely efficient killers, swift, can also use melee when needed for close contact. In reality. Apparently in games they are reknowned for being slow, weak, easy targets, not at all stealthy or efficient in dps unless with a beast (exception being MM in WoD which is what I play atm)
    As for cool downs it has always been an issue I have with them. Standing around waiting so flipping long for aimed shot to cool down is nuts while you are taking damage. I have played my hunter for a few years and she is my favorite char. I do not want to have all these terrible changes ruining game play and making it miserable. Why the hell did they make so many idiotic useless changes?

  28. I’m a very upset BM Hunter.
    We’re losing so much utility with traps & Camouflage gone.
    Kill shot is gone for no apparent reason & Aspect Of The Cheetah has been crippled to put it lightly.
    Honestly feels like making the Druid’s travel form a 3 min cooldown 10-13 sec speed buff.
    Thank the light I’m a Worgen & have that racial speed cooldown; though part of me feels like they’ll take that away also just to spite us.

    I like range so it’s not like I can switch to Survival.
    I can’t change to Marksman either as you pretty need to have Lone Wolf to be viable & screw playing a Hunter without a pet.
    Plus neither spec will allow me to use my prise companion Loque.
    So I’m stuck unless I give up on my favourite class altogether & play another.

    I’m also curious to see how many BM Hunters will be mogging their gun artefact as soon as possible.
    Maybe if the vast majority of us do that they’ll realise that many of us don’t like the idea of blowing our pet’s eardrums.
    I still stand by the class identity of MM being snipers, BMs being stealthy prowlers that rely heavily on their animal companions & SV being skilled trappers & trackers.

    *long sigh* I could honestly rant about this all day. I’m not giving up on BM after maining that tree ever since I started playing WoW late TBC. But man does it feel like we’re getting screwed over just to make Survival look better.
    It legitimatly feels the same to me as the idea of them taking away Druid travel form or making cat Feral exclusive & bear Guardian exclusive.
    It does nothing but limit the player’s options.

  29. I am very disappointed with BM right now. I jumped on the PTR over the weekend and played a bit. I was so hoping BM would come back strong. I’m playing MM for my raid but am a BM hunter at heart. It’s why I play a hunter.

    I was bored with so few buttons to actual use and my pets…well…sucks. He’s practically mage squishy. And nothing we can do about it.

    I may end up maining my Druid. But my hunters been my main since Wrath.

  30. I feel you Bendak! It is really sad that I enjoy playing on my alts more than my main which I’ve been having since WotLK. I really hope the artifact helps, but all rotations feel a bit clunky. I gave SV a shot, it is cool and all, but I really wish I could still DE along with the harpoon, really fucks up my forward DE habbits 😛

    Have a feeling I will play my fury warrior more than my hunter, those sweeeet animations yo *_*

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