Legion Alpha: Preliminary list of Hunter talents

Datamining has been happening for the past day or so, but it’s not until now that we get to the juicy stuff: spell data. It’s great that Wowhead got it all up so fast, but it’s a huge data dump and not fully contextualized yet. I attempted to filter out the weird and questionable data, and I think I managed to interpret what is a talent and what’s not, but I could definitely be wrong on some of them. Update: Was right about most of it. List is more complete now via Wowhead database.

We’ll talk more about the baseline spec stuff in the future, but I will mention a few interesting things I noticed for each spec before I list the talents. You can read about the non-talent stuff in my previous post.

Hopefully this organized list makes it easier to take in all the talent changes from a better perspective. It really helped me see the bigger picture. Keep in mind a few talents are missing — either I missed them in the wall of text, or they aren’t there yet.

A disclaimer:

For all we know, some of this stuff is already gone. So feel free to get excited, as long as you go in realizing this fact. If something turns out not to be true, you can’t say Blizz took it away because it was never there in the first place!

Update 11/21: Added new Aspect of the Cheetah/Turtle spells.
Update 11/22: Added the few missing ones now that Wowhead database is live. Happy to say I was right about 95% of this stuff before knowing for sure 😀

bmart

Beast Mastery

A few things of note:

  • Looks like Camouflage may be gone from BM. Both SV and MM have unique versions now, and they also include the stealth glyph and draenor perk heal as a baseline.
  • Exhilaration is baseline.
  • New Baseline Cooldown!
    • Aspect of the Wild: Increases the Critical Strike chance of all skills for you and your pet by 10%, and gain 10 Focus per second for 10 sec.
  • Beast Cleave includes Draenor perk as a baseline (25% more damage). This is because old draenor perks are removed.
  • Bestial Wrath no longer reduces Focus costs or breaks pet CC. However, the damage bonus is now 20% for both hunter and pet (and there’s a talent below that makes that 40%). Cooldown is now 1.5 min, but remember that Dire Beast reduces that by 15 sec every 10 sec.
  • Aspect of the Cheetah: Increases your movement speed by 90% for 3 sec, and then for 30% for another 9 sec.
  • Aspect of the Turtle: You deflect all attacks and take 30% less damage for 8 sec, but you cannot attack. (Deterrence replacement)

Talents

  • Dire Stable (lvl 15): Dire Beast generate 4 extra focus when they attack.
  • Way of the Cobra (lvl 15): For every pet or guardian you have active, Cobra Shot deals an additional 5% damage.
  • One with the Pack (lvl 15): The chance for Wild Call to reset the cooldown of Dire Beast is increased by 10%.
  • Farstrider (lvl 30): Disengage now has 2 charges.
  • Narrow Escape (lvl 30): Disengage also activates a web trap which immobilizes all targets within 8 yards for 8 sec.
  • Posthaste (lvl 30): Disengage also frees you from all movement impairing effects and increases your movement speed by 60% for 8 sec.
  • Binding Shot (lvl 45): Fires a magical projectile, tethering the enemy and any other enemies within 5 yards for 10 sec, stunning them for 5 sec if they move more than 5 yards from the arrow.
  • Intimidation (lvl 45): Command your pet to intimidate the target, stunning it for 3 sec.
  • Wyvern Sting (level 45): A stinging shot that puts the target to sleep, incapacitating them for 30 sec. Any damage will cancel the effect. Usable while moving.
  • Stomp! (lvl 60): When your Dire Beasts charge in, they will stomp the ground, causing 400% Physical damage to all nearby enemies.
  • Chimaera Shot (lvl 60): A two-headed shot that hits your primary target and another nearby target, dealing 660% Nature or Frost damage to each target. Generates 10 Focus for every target hit.
  • Exotic Munitions (lvl 60): Allows you to modify your ranged weapon to use exotic munitions. Note: Same as it is today, just not listing the wall of text.
  • Bestial Fury (lvl 75): Increase the damage bonus of Bestial Wrath by 20%.
  • Big Game Hunter (lvl 75): Increases the critical strike chance of your Auto-Attacks and Cobra Shots by 50% on targets who are above 80% health. Note: Seems like a weird talent. Maybe intended to be a passive?
  • Blink Strikes (lvl 75): Your pet’s Basic Attacks deal 50% increased damage, can now be used from 30 yards away, and will instantly teleport them behind their target.
  • Volley (lvl 90): Continuously fire a volley of ammo at the target area, causing 50 Arcane damage to enemy targets within 8 yards every second for 6 sec.
  • A Murder of Crows (lvl 90): Summons a flock of crows to attack your target over the next 15 sec. If the target dies while under attack, A Murder of Crows’ cooldown is reset.
  • Barrage (lvl 90): Same old Barrage we know currently.
  • Aspect of the Beast (lvl 100): Kill Command is improved based on the Talent choice of your pet.
    • Ferocity: Adds a bleed for 6 sec.
    • Cunning: Slows the target.
    • Tenacity: Reduce pet damage taken by 15%.
  • Killer Cobra (lvl 100): While Bestial Wrath is active, Cobra Shot has a 25% chance to reset the cooldown of Kill Command.
  • Stampede (lvl 100): Summon forth a herd of stampeding animals from the wilds around you that deal damage to your enemies.

mmart

Marksmanship

A few things of note:

  • Bursting Shot is a powerful CC that knocks back targets in a cone in front of you, AND it disorients them. So basically a supercharged Scatter Shot. Has a longish cooldown and high Focus cost though.
  • Exhilaration is now baseline and heals MM hunters for 50% health.
  • It looks like Rapid Fire is being replaced with something called Trueshot. Cooldown upped from 2 to 3 min.
    • Trueshot: Increases haste by 40%, and chance for targets to be Marked by 100% for 15 sec.
  • Aspect of the Cheetah: Increases your movement speed by 90% for 3 sec, and then for 30% for another 9 sec.
  • Aspect of the Turtle: You deflect all attacks and take 30% less damage for 8 sec, but you cannot attack. (Deterrence replacement)

Talents

  • Black Arrow (lvl 15): Fires a Black Arrow at the target, dealing x damage over x.
  • Momentum (lvl 15): When any of your attacks cause a critical strike there is a chance the cooldown of Disengage will be reduced by 10%.
  • True Aim (lvl 15): For every successive Arcane, Marked or Aimed Shot used to attack the same target, those Shots deal 2% more damage to the target, stacking up to 20 times. Can only affect one target at a time.
  • Farstrider (lvl 30): Disengage now has 2 charges.
  • Narrow Escape (lvl 30): Disengage also activates a web trap which immobilizes all targets within 8 yards for 8 sec.
  • Posthaste (lvl 30): Disengage also frees you from all movement impairing effects and increases your movement speed by 60% for 8 sec.
  • Binding Shot (lvl 45): Fires a magical projectile, tethering the enemy and any other enemies within 5 yards for 10 sec, stunning them for 5 sec if they move more than 5 yards from the arrow.
  • Wyvern Sting (lvl 45): A stinging shot that puts the target to sleep, incapacitating them for 30 sec. Any damage will cancel the effect. Usable while moving.
  • Camouflage (lvl 45): You blend into the surroundings and gain stealth for 1 min.  While camouflaged, you will heal for 2% every 1 secs.  The first ranged attack dealt while camouflaged will deal 10% extra damage.
  • Piercing Shots (lvl 60): Your critical strikes with Arcane Shot, Marked Shot and Aimed Shot cause the target to bleed for an additional 30% of the initial damage over 8 sec.
  • Broadside (lvl 60): Aimed Shot will now also hit all Vulnerable targets for 100% Physical damage.
  • Exotic Munitions (lvl 60): Allows you to modify your ranged weapon to use exotic munitions. Note: Same as it is today, just not listing the wall of text.
  • Steady Focus (lvl 75): Using Arcane Shot twice in a row increases your Focus Regeneration by 50% for 10 sec.
  • Head Shot (lvl 75): A powerful shot which deals 820 + (1 * ComboPoints) Physical damage to the target and 220 + (1 * ComboPoints)% Physical damage to all enemies between you and the target.
  • Light Em Up (lvl 75): Targets affected by your Flare take extra damage from all of your attacks.
  • Volley (lvl 90): Continuously fire a volley of ammo at the target area, causing 50 Arcane damage to enemy targets within 8 yards every second for 6 sec.
  • A Murder of Crows (lvl 90): Summons a flock of crows to attack your target over the next 15 sec. If the target dies while under attack, A Murder of Crows’ cooldown is reset.
  • Barrage (lvl 90): Same old Barrage we know currently.
  • Dark Ranger (lvl 100): Your ranged attacks and attacks which deal damage over time now have a chance to summon a Dark Minion. The Dark Minion will attack your current target.
  • Lock and Load (lvl 100): Attach an explosive charge to Aimed Shot, dealing [(Attack power * 0.47 * 1.1 * (1 + $versadmg) * 1)] additional Fire damage to the target and all enemies within 4 yds.  Your ranged auto attacks have a 5% chance to trigger Lock and Load, causing your next two Aimed Shots to cost no Focus and be instant.
  • Kill Flip (lvl 100): For 8 sec after Disengaging, you deal 50% more damage.

meleehunter

Survival

A few things of note:

  • Survival finally has a baseline cooldown!
    • Aspect of the Eagle: Increases the Critical Strike chance of all skills for you and your pet by 10%, and increase your chance to gain charges of Mongoose Bite by 100% for 10 sec.
  • Traps: Apparently Survival can still throw traps at range. Traps still share cooldown.
  • Survival gets Muzzle as a Counter Shot replacement. An interrupt with a 15-second cooldown, like other melee classes. 
  • Exhilaration is now baseline.
  • Carve is a sweeping melee strike that replaces Multi-Shot, also has interaction with talents (see below).
  • Has a ranged Hatchet Toss ability that currently does very low damage. Possibly for tagging/pulling? Not sure.
  • Aspect of the Cheetah: Increases your movement speed by 90% for 3 sec, and then for 30% for another 9 sec.
  • Aspect of the Turtle: You deflect all attacks and take 30% less damage for 8 sec, but you cannot attack. (Deterrence replacement)

Talents

  • Improved Traps (lvl 15): Reduce the cooldown of all traps by 15 seconds.
  • Way of the Mok’Nathal (lvl 15): Attacking with Raptor Strike grants you a stack of Mok’Nathal Tactics, increasing your attack power by 5% for 8 sec. Stacks 5 times.
  • Animal Instincts (lvl 15): When you attack with Flanking Strike, you gain the instincts of your pet, providing you with a random combat enhancement.
  • Farstrider (lvl 30): Disengage now has 2 charges.
  • Posthaste (lvl 30): Disengage also frees you from all movement impairing effects and increases your movement speed by 60% for 8 sec.
  • Dash (lvl 30):The duration of Aspect of the Cheetah is increased by 3 second. (note: I assume this means the duration of the initial burst of speed)
  • Steel Trap (lvl 45): Hurl a Steel Trap to the target location that immobilizes the first enemy that approaches for 8 sec and deals bleed damage over 20 sec. Damage from other sources may break the immobilization effect. Trap will exist for 1 min. Replaces Freezing Trap.
  • Caltrops (lvl 45): Scatter Caltrops on an area. Enemies who step on a Caltrop will take 500 Physical damage, and be slowed by 50% for 10 sec. Replaces Tar Trap.
  • Ranger’s Net (lvl 45): Hurl a net at your enemy, reducing movement speed by 50% for 15 sec. Replaces Wing Clip.
  • Sticky Bomb (lvl 60): Hurl a sticky bomb at your target which sticks to them, and explodes after 3 sec dealing 1 damage to nearby enemies and knocking them down.
  • Throwing Axes (lvl 60): Toss 3 Axes at your enemy target, dealing Physical damage for each axe.
  • Camouflage (lvl 60): You and your pet blend into the surroundings and gain stealth for 1 min.  While camouflaged, you will heal for 2% every 1 secs.  The first ranged attack dealt while camouflaged will deal 10% extra damage.
  • Dragonsfire Trap (lvl 75): Hurl a dragonsfire trap to the target location that explodes, setting the enemy aflame, inflicting Fire damage over 8 sec. and sending it into a state of panic. While the target is affected, the flames periodically scorch its nearby allies for damage as well. Trap will exist for 1 min. Replaces Explosive Trap.
  • Snake Hunter (lvl 75): Instantly grants you 3 charges of Mongoose Bite.
  • Thrill of the Hunt (lvl 75): This still has a tooltip for the old ToTH which is why I didn’t originally list it here, but Wowhead’s database claims it’s a SV talent. Probably going to be changed.
  • Butchery (lvl 90): Laceration will now spread to all targets hit by Carve.
  • Mortal Wounds (lvl 90): When your Laceration periodic deals damage, theres a chance you will gain a charge of Mongoose Bite.
  • Serpent Sting (lvl 90): Targets hit by your Raptor Strike and Carve are also afflicted by Serpent Sting, dealing nature damage over 15 sec.
  • Sentry Turret (lvl 100): Summons a Sentry Turret for 15 sec that shoots at nearby enemies, dealing Fire damage.
  • Aspect of the Beast (lvl 100): Kill Command is improved based on the Talent choice of your pet. Note: I assume this will apply to Flanking Strike for SV
    • Ferocity: Adds a bleed for 6 sec.
    • Cunning: Slows the target.
    • Tenacity: Reduce pet damage taken by 15%.
  • Expert Trapper (lvl 100): All of your traps are improved in the following ways:
    • Freezing Trap: When your Freezing Trap breaks, the victim and all neaby enemies’ movement speed is reduced by 50% for 4 sec.
    • Explosive Trap: The damage dealt by the fire left on the ground after the explosion is increased by 500 per second.
    • Tar Trap: Enemies moving through the tar have a chance to be rooted in place for 4 sec.
    • Steel Trap: When your Steel Trap is triggered, the target will also take 500 Physical Damage.
    • Dragonsfire Trap: The Dragonsfire now spreads to nearby enemies, causing them to burn and panic as well.

 

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27 thoughts on “Legion Alpha: Preliminary list of Hunter talents”

  1. Momentum + Farstrider + Kill Flip = the exact opposite of Sniper Training.

    I really dont want to use Flare in PvE. Just no.

    1. It is a bit weird, isn’t it? Like you can choose to play as some kind of hyped up acrobatic hunter. Some of it could be wrong too. We’re soooooo early in the beta process.

      The flare thing does seem a bit annoying to me too. It’s almost a guarantee the tank moves the boss out of your flare once you throw it down, right? 😉

    2. if I remember right, the mastery no longer requires being stationary but Aimed Shot now has a stationary requirement

      1. That’s correct. It seems Blizz doesn’t envision MM as a sniper who carefully sets up and hides in wait, but more of a (sorry to use the analogy) Legolas type archer.

  2. This is may be made for pvp? Flare around you and all ppl that will come close to you, will pay for it. I like the new changes, seems a way better than now.

  3. Thanks for the detailed list, must have been tons of work!

    Talents such as Bestial Fury are problematic because they make balancing so hard: either Bestial wrath becomes totally OP and will be nerfed in a patch, or it is so underwhelming that you must take Bestial fury to have a decent cool down.

    I do not like the designs at all. First they removed talent trees because talents such as +5% crit were supposed to be uninteresting. Now they bring back these talents without bringing back the trees.

    By segregating so extremely per spec, we don’t have classes with 3 specs any more. We have effectively about 40 classes, which is utter sh.t.

    And again and again and again the contradictions, such as we spend too much time in pvp being cued, so why not give the hunt a new AOE cc in Legion?

    The class gameplay has been decimated since Wotlk, the fun was already incredibly low in Draenor with classes such as warlocks, and it seems Blizzard is intent on removing any subtlety still in classes, such as focus fire management. It’s probably time I quit the game.

  4. biggest thing i saw was we lost tranq shot so im guessing enrages are gone but now we cant dispel hots in arena or warrior enrages? fingers crossed we get another way of doing it 🙁

  5. Not that I expect we’ll know an answer, but are the two charges of deterrence now baseline or has that been removed? Much rather that than double disengage, but that does kinda give us double jump.

    Also, Stampede pulls beasts “from the wilds around you?” That’s a major loss of flavor if it doesn’t pull your five active pets.

    Curious about the missing talents now.

    Thanks for compiling this!

  6. Thanks for the detailed list. Any idea what the combo points involved with Head Shot are all about? I’d prefer to not be a ranged rogue or WW monk.

  7. I am wary of that marksmanship and beast mastery lose traps. Freezing trap is such a staple to the class and putting only in survival feels wrong. At the same time, I am not sure we have a complete picture with this datamining of the MM snares and maybe we will get pet cc abilities back for BM.

  8. Thanks for sorting it all out. It’s interesting to see we still have a tier of talents for disengage. I thought talents would all be DPS increasing.

    I’m not convinced kill flip is a good idea for raiding but perhaps it’s meant as a PvP talent.

    I’m looking forward to seeing/experiencing how things work out in beta.

  9. Don’t forget that some of these talents may actually come from PvP/Artifact. Makes a lot of sense for trap talents (which you probably won’t use in PvE) or Kill Flip (OP? Uncomfortable to use in PvE?). Unless Steel Trap’s DoT is kinda powerful then whole 45lvl row is about soft CC which is useless in most PvE situations.

    1. It’s possible some are PvP talents, though I’d expect them to be marked in some way in the tooltip. We know there are 50 PvP “ranks” so you’d think they would say like “Requires PVP Rank 45” or something. In general, the talents all fall under specific level categories (15, 30, 45, etc.) which is how it was easier to tell them apart from baseline stuff which is odd numbers like 19, 22, 36, etc.

      Won’t know for sure til we get a proper database and/or beta client though.

      1. 22 and 36 are not odd numbers, but I know what you mean 😛

        Are we sure PvP talents have no level req or that the tooltips are all correct? If 45 tier for Survival is not PvP then it sucks A LOT.

        1. We’re not sure of anything yet. Just using my best guess with what we’ve got. Also, the 45 tier is CC stuff for the other specs too. Out of the 7 tiers, 5 are DPS focused. Seems in line with what the devs explained at BlizzCon.

  10. Putting Camouflage on the same tier as Binding Shot and Wyvern Sting seems at least a bit odd. First it’s not a CC option, since it’s what level 45 talents seems to be. Secondly, it’s both a health regen and a damage increase.

    Also, Dark Ranger seems too underwhelming compared to the other 2 options. If not for flavor, I’d not even care to have it.

  11. This obviously cant be the final tree setup. MM alone has talents that are all over the place. Like why would you ever take Momentum when you have Black Arrow or True Shot as other options. The same thing with the lvl 75 talents for MM you have a focus booster, damaging shot and damage buff. Talent trees have always had a theme for each level since they swapped to the new system, this just seems a mish mash right now. At least in MM some of the new abilities look interesting though, but there doesnt seem to be much to help with survivability right now, to make up for the lack of a pet tank in questing/farming.

    1. Momentum would result in a DPS increase if you also took Kill Flip.

      As for the 75 tier, that kind of setup is exactly what Blizzard laid out at BlizzCon! They said they want to shake up the talent trees and not have them be 3 options that essentially do the same thing, but one ends up being better 90% of the time (see our current level 90 tier).

      1. I can see that working however it could be highly situational as to how often you can disengage. i can think of a few boss fights in HFC where Disengaging at the wrong moment could get you shot right out of the battle area and dead till the end of the fight. As a life long SV player (till the Legion travesty), I would probably go after the old SV abilities like BA, L&L, and Exotic Ammo (what should have been SVs go to talent in WoD). Hopefully they do a much better job of making all the talents more viable than the pathetic job they did in WoD.

  12. Looking at SV and BM. I am not a fan of having to throw traps at a target location if i am in combat, so hopefully once you are engaged you will be dropping the traps at your feet and not having to still worry about putting a marker on the ground. My biggest worry with BM is that in raids/dungeons pets have had numerous bugs associated with them (vanishing on zone transition such as on Gorefiend, or buggy pathing) which could kill BM dps since it looks like pets will be doing an even higher percentage of the damage in Legion. Hopefully the bugs are kept to a minimum and the ones that do appear Blizzard fixes faster than they have in the past.

  13. Noooooooooooo my Aspect of the Cheetah! My Camouflage! Why doesn’t BM get even the option for Camouflage? It’s so useful, I use it all the time in Tanaan, and before that used it everywhere else while leveling. ;o;

  14. This is all garbage the fact u lose a pet is so hard. While images and shadow priest los. Y don’t they ever think of los I use my carrion bird as survival ranged. It’s time to put my hunter dowb

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