The last six months I've spent my time in WoW as a hunter again. Or actually, five-six hunters. I have five level 100 beast master hunters running around with a Gara of their own now. ;) As a blogger I seem to have lost my way a bit, in that I don't have much interest in making "happy posts" at the moment, and it's not until I get a negative reaction to something that I need to air it. So today's post is about the state of the Beast Mastery-hunters in the alpha, although I have no access to this alpha myself. As soon as I hit "post" on the forum, I realized I had forgotten to plead for Misdirect-glyph, but I will try to add it in later. This is what I posted:
Like many others I've been following the class changes in the alpha here on the forum and on Wowhead and MMO Champion. Since I'm not in the alpha myself, I'm not able to post in the testing forums, and it's strongly suggested that we "try it before we comment". I'm also not a theorycrafter, more a "feelcrafter" looking for fun! And I'm finding it impossible to keep my mouth shut any longer; the same issues with our beloved spec have been brought up again and again in the alpha-forum without being addressed, and now some developers have stated that the specs are mostly done, and only tuning is left. So am I already too late?
I’ve played this draenei hunter for 9 years now. She was my first character, and my main for the biggest part of those years. (I mained a monk in MOP and the first year of WOD.)
There were two big reasons I started to play a hunter back when:
1) The pet. I was entirely new to the game and the MMO-genre, and it felt safer to have a companion with me. That, and I love animals.
2) Aspect of the Cheetah. Since it took a long time to get to the level at where I could learn to ride back then (which was level 40), I was given the advice to take a hunter or a druid for the increased run speed.
Over the years I've gained several more reasons to why I appreciate this class so much; I love being the ranger with a longbow and shooting arrows on the move.
I've been through a lot with this hunter. I remember the pet happiness system, ammo, quivers, stutter-stepping between autoshots (autoshot wouldn't go off if you were moving), serpent/scorpid/viper sting, mana and actually having armor with intellect and mp5 (mana per 5 secs), volley, the MM armor pen-stacking days, old talent trees, etc. There's been so many changes over the years, and I'm happy to say that most have been good! I think the change to our resource system from mana to focus is my favorite change of them all.
I understand the reasoning behind “the prune”. After recently having leveled yet another hunter, this time as SV, I could clearly see how similar BM and SV are. And yes, even too similar. What stuck out to me the most, was how incredibly much I missed Kill Shot as SV! Other than that I've always enjoyed Explosive Shot, but all in all I could see that the two specs' development over the years had made them so alike that there is really no longer room for both of them. (I'm sure this goes for MM as well, but I haven't played that spec since ICC.)
For every hunter out there you will have a different view or opinion on everything. While I loved the change that gave us focus, someone else hated it. And while I think Hati seems like a cool idea, someone else will hate him. I hope that with the different improvements he gets with every alpha build, he will truely be a great companion in the end. While I think the artifact-gun is a bad idea that provides me with a forced class fantasy where I would have preferred to use my own imagination, others love it!
Me mentioning I have played a hunter for 9 years doesn't really mean anything. There's always someone else that played longer than me, and neither of our opinions are more important than the opinion of the girl or boy that has played a hunter for 1 year. Sifting through all these different opinions can't be easy.
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Summary so far: I've played hunter for a long time, I'm not scared of change, I understand that pruning needs to happen, and I realize that there's a vast sea of differing feedback.
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I sure stayed calm for a good while. But that stops now. I FEEL SO FRUSTRATED!
Beast Master hunters list of pruning:
We lose the 30 % increased movement speed that we had in common with shamans and druids, while they both keep theirs.
We lose our traps, while Survival keeps them.
We lose our Kill Shot. Monks also lose their execute, while warriors and shadow priests keep theirs.
Camouflage. SV and MM keep it.
Tranquilizing Shot. Druids lose Soothe too, Shamans keep Purge.
Arcane Shot. MM keeps the name. Cobra Shot is the new Arcane Shot for BM.
Cobra Shot AKA our entire playstyle rotation-wise! Now we do Kill Command + other stuff that has a CD, and weave Arcane Shot and Cobra Shot in, depending on if we need Focus or want to get rid of it. Then at boss <20 a="" and="" around.="" be="" bit="" br="" cd="" changes="" cobra="" either="" get="" hit="" it="" kill="" new="" on="" or="" our="" rotation="" shot.="" shot="" stuff="" then="" to="" use="" wait="" we="" will="">
All hunters and shamans lose many of the < lvl 40 transmog sets we’ve had available to us since the transmog system was introduced in Cataclysm. I feel it’s fair that the platewearers get access to these sets, but I hate that they’re being taken away from us.
Why do this spec need to lose so much!?! Why the movement speed, the traps, Kill Shot, Tranq Shot, Arcane Shot, OUR ENTIRE VERY AWSOME CURRENT ROTATION and a whole bunch of transmog??! Is it really necessary? What are we supposed to be happy about keeping, our pets? Do we keep anything at all that another class looses, or were BM-hunters just so awsome and loved by everyone that they needed to lose it all?
What bugs me the most by far is the rotation. We've already lost Hunter's Mark and Serpent Sting, and now with Cobra Shot being reworked and Kill Shot being removed, our rotation is changing into something completely different all together. I trust Blizzard initially, but when one of the class designers state that Focus isn’t working as it “should” currently, and then I see the comparisons to rogues and feral druids in the alpha-thread, I feel like a non-hunter has decided that rogue/feral druid is the golden standard, and that hunter play needs to change from what current hunters like into something that a feral druid or rogue would like. And then my trust diminishes! How am I supposed to feel about this, when my two least favorite classes are rogue and druid? How can the way that focus has worked for 5,5 years suddenly be wrong?
I want to quote someone on the US forum: "The feel of the hunter (Cata-WoD) is you're always doing an action, with the recent incarnation feeling very Diablo-esque where you are always building or spending your resource. Marksman has retained this design but BM hasn't for some reason and it needs it back."
PLEASE don't be done with BM, please read the feedback on the alpha-forum that so many hunters have worked hard for to provide, and please take it to heart!
I’m not sure what to do if this truly becomes new-BM. Should I try to get used to this new spec? Or will I have to reluctantly go MM and stable my dear Spirit Beasts, just so I can get a good rotation and a bow-artifact? Or should I change my class again, and try to not become so invested and involved this time around?
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Build 21655 (the newest one): http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/20743794497
Build 21570: http://us.battle.net/wow/en-us/forum/topic/20743654415
Build 21531: http://us.battle.net/wow/en-us/forum/topic/20743404341
Build 21466: http://us.battle.net/wow/en-us/forum/topic/20743164174
Build 21414: http://us.battle.net/wow/en-us/forum/topic/20742916582
Build 21287: http://us.battle.net/wow/en-us/forum/topic/20742814730
Build 21249: http://us.battle.net/wow/en-us/forum/topic/20742625219
Build 21232: http://us.battle.net/wow/en-us/forum/topic/20742734803
All hunter changes from WoD to Legion: http://www.wowhead.com/guides/classes/legion/hunter
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How do you feel about these changes? Do you like the idea of Hati, like me? Would you prefer if BM got a bow and a quiver like MM, like me? Do you think I really need to try it out before complaining? Let me know. :)
