Battle for Azeroth Community Opinions: Class Changes and State of Hunters

posted 2018/05/07 at 7:43 PM by Squishei

New and replaced spells and talents

Losing artifact traits and legendaries

Feedback from Legion

The current state on Beta

Please remember that these are opinions. You may not agree with the opinions stated in this article and you are welcome to your own opinion to the state of the class and spec. Please feel free to leave any feedback regarding this type of article in the comments.

Battle for Azeroth is currently in Beta and things are subject to change at any point.comprehensive list of class changes

State of Death Knights

State of Demon Hunters

BendakI’m Bendak, author of the Wowhead Beast Mastery Guide. I also run my own Hunter blog called Eyes of the Beast, and I’m co-host of the Hunting Party Podcast.

If you enjoyed Beast Mastery in Legion, you’re probably going to like it in Battle for Azeroth. The core of the spec is the same, with a few notable changes. In terms of losses from Titanstrike, I definitely miss Titan's Thunder and Surge of the Stormgod, but the rest I can live without, especially since there’s a talent option to get a second pet.

Core Changes

The new Focus generator, Barbed Shot, works similarly to the old Dire Frenzy talent, but it looks much better as a shot rather than your character spamming awkward /yell animations. Maintaining attack speed stacks on your pet will be key to optimal performance. This change may upset those who were fans of the “zoo build” and flinging endless Dire Beasts since you’re now locked into this style of play. Cobra Shot reduces the cooldown of Kill Command by 1 second, resulting in a better balance of Kill Commands and Cobra Shots, but this also devalues the Killer Cobra talent.

Aspect of the Wild’s duration was doubled, but Focus/sec was halved. It still feels like a mediocre cooldown, especially without Thunderslash. What I’d personally like to see is a new, big 3+ minute cooldown in its place, along with some Focus cost reduction added to Bestial Wrath (like the Roar of the Seven Lions legendary). Bestial Wrath being put on the GCD is unfortunate because it hasn’t seen any changes to compensate. It feels like you’re wasting a couple of seconds of the buff whenever you use it. I think Bestial Wrath could be improved if it had an instant effect on use, such as a charging pet attack (similar to Kill Command) just so there’s a tangible impact when you press the button.

Talents

Beast Mastery’s talents remain largely the same, but some have been switched around to different rows, along with a few replaced. My main concern is that Beast Mastery may overwhelmingly favor passive talent options once tuning is complete. Adding extra buttons to the rotation such as Dire Beast, Chimaera Shot, or Barrage are problematic because they do not have a meaningful impact on Bestial Wrath windows or have any other interactions. Usually, GCDs and Focus are better spent on core abilities because they have secondary benefits like cooldown reductions and Beast Cleave.

To use the new Dire Beast as an example, it costs 35 Focus (the same as Cobra Shot) which means every 15 sec you replace a Cobra Shot with one. The difference is that Cobra Shot is buffed by Bestial Wrath (Dire Beast is not), it reduces the cooldown of Kill Command (Dire Beast has no cooldown reductions), and it benefits the Killer Cobra talent. If Dire Beast is tuned to have very high damage it could be worth using regardless, but at this point it feels like adding a button for the sake of adding a button. Gameplay doesn’t really change, and in my opinion it should for active talents.

Level 15: The new Killer Instinct adds an execute option for Beast Mastery and is a welcome improvement over the old Big Game Hunter. Animal Companion is not fully implemented as of this writing, so it’s hard to comment on that one (but I do like having the second pet option). I’ve already mentioned above why I’m not a big fan of the current iteration of Dire Beast. I only really see it being a good choice if the damage is tuned to make the passive options obsolete.

Level 30: I like to call this the One with the Pack row, because I don’t see another choice here. Scent of Blood isn’t even close to the same value as increasing your Barbed Shot resets, and Chimaera Shot will only be a competitive option if, like Dire Beast, it’s tuned to make the other options obsolete. I think One with the Pack dramatically improves the overall gameplay of Beast Mastery (more procs are fun!), and I would love to see it be made baseline.

Level 45: After being absent in Legion, Camouflage is finally back for Beast Mastery! I’m glad to have the option again. Natural Mending is likely going to be the raiding talent of choice for the extra healing cooldowns, even though it does feel a bit underwhelming (I wish it also buffed Mend Pet). Trailblazer is mostly going to be relegated to farming, transmog runs, and maybe some more niche uses such as Mythic Imonar — a pretty forgettable talent.

Level 60: A Murder of Crows is a mainstay at this point. It doesn’t suffer as much as the other active talent options because it’s a longer cooldown, it’s buffed by both Bestial Wrath and Mastery, and it has reset potential. Thrill of the Hunt gives extra reward for properly maintaining attack speed stacks on your pet (via Barbed Shot) by giving you a constant critical strike buff. Thrill of the Hunt looks good on paper (it doesn’t actually work on the beta yet). Spitting Cobra is underwhelming in its current form. The 1 sec of cooldown reduction is barely noticeable, but perhaps it’s just a tuning issue and it would feel better with more reduction. I think the Legion talent Bestial Fury could also work here.

Level 75: The new Born To Be Wild is a less effective version of the Call of the Wild bracers, but it doesn’t affect Aspect of the Wild. If you need immunities, you’re probably going to use this. In most other situations you’re probably going to use Posthaste. Binding Shot is now a root instead of a stun, which diminishes the value quite a bit. Intimidation is now a baseline ability, so there’s still a stun available to Beast Mastery.

Level 90: This row deals entirely with AoE damage. Stomp activates on your pet when you cast Barbed Shot but is otherwise the same as before and will likely end up being the go to choice (currently the Dire Beast talent also Stomps, but this may be unintentional). Barrage hasn’t changed and still suffers from the same problems that caused it to be a suboptimal talent throughout Legion (at least for dungeons and raiding). Its opportunity cost is too high for what it gives in return, though tuning could solve that (it was never tuned properly in Legion). Now that Stampede doesn’t have to compete with single target options, it could end up being a decent choice for more situations, but I think it could be a lot more versatile with a shorter cooldown or a cooldown reduction mechanic.

Level 100: The popular Killer Cobra is still here, but it has lost some of its value due to Cobra Shot already reducing the Kill Command cooldown, and Bestial Wrath on the GCD eats a whole potential reset. I enjoy the gameplay of Killer Cobra so I’m hoping it can be improved. Perhaps if it had a secondary effect like extending the duration of Bestial Wrath it would recoup that value. Aspect of the Beast has been redesigned to buff pet basic attacks (Claw, Bite, or Smack) and increase the effectiveness of the new passive ability from each pet specialization. The main benefit to this change is you get the DPS buff regardless of your pet’s spec, plus those new passives are quite good. Spitting Cobra is a former Survival talent re-purposed for Beast Mastery. It’s basically a turret that happens to be a snake. It has some problems on beta like only having a 25 yard range (I hope this will be fixed) and its usefulness is going to depend on tuning. It could turn out to be a powerful single target cooldown, which would be nice to have. I personally think it would be cooler if the snake fired a Cobra Shot whenever the Hunter did, rather than simple auto attacks.

Final Thoughts

This is Legion Beast Mastery with some tweaks, so don’t expect to be too surprised if you’ve already been playing it. It’s still the only ranged spec that can cast everything on the move. It’s still great at soloing. It's the BM you know and love (or hate). It’s too early to say exactly what Beast Mastery’s strengths and weaknesses will be, but looking at its current kit I am guessing it will be fairly similar to Legion, which is solid single target damage but weaker AoE damage. I think a lot can still be improved via the talents, so I hope Blizzard continues to iterate on that before launch. I enjoy swapping talents to suit the situation (gotta keep those scribes in business), so the last thing I want to see is a cookie cutter, passives-only build used for everything. NuoHepHi, I am nuoHep, the current maintainer of simc hunter module, otherwise just a guy that mains a hunter since the middle of cata. I don’t pvp, so everything here is strictly from a mostly raiding pve perspective. I’m not really social but I do visit the hunter discord at times.

Beast Mastery does not see much core changes going to BfA. Especially if we take Dire Frenzy based live build, it plays almost the same, as Dire Frenzy is now a baseline skill with a new name - Barbed Shot.

The major change coming to the spec (mostly to how it scales) actually comes from the core change to how the damage of attack power-based abilities is calculated & what attack power really means on the low level. While we don’t have any AP based attacks in the core on live this change also affects pets which now scale with weapon dps. Mostly, as there are still some caveats (Basic Attacks are not affected, Kill Command is but seems to have a *very* strange formula) which do look like bugs tbh. Even with bugs this means that weapon ilvl will now be much more important.

The only other major change is the fact that live Dire Beast playstyle is completely gone as it no longer replaces Dire Frenzy (Barbed Shot) but is a completely separate skill on a separate cooldown.

The loss of the Artifact is not that impactful mechanically wise. We lose Titan's Thunder, and, while it makes the spec even more simple than on live, it was mostly a “press every minute” skill anyway. Damage & tuning wise losing all of the traits related to aoe does mean that aoe on beta is currently kinda weak, or at least feels so. Losing Thunderslash also means that Aspect of the Wild goes back to being a pretty mediocre cooldown.

I didn’t mention Hati, but that’s mostly because it’s pretty passive, very contentious and we do get an option to keep it anyway in the form of a new talent - Animal Companion. It’s still a bit NYI atm, but the intent is the same - a 2nd pet at all times, even with a bit better AI from the looks of it.

Legendaries wise we get Qa'pla, Eredun War Order baked into (at 1 second reduction) which does have an impact on the overall rotation and on some of the talent choices. Call of the Wild is somewhat preserved in the form of a new talent - Born To Be Wild, excluding its dps effect. Otherwise, with an exception of Roar of the Seven Lions we won’t miss much mechanically wise, especially considering how legendaries are pretty even for the spec dps wise.

The change to & Barbed Shot being baseline actually result in the core rotation being a bit more complex than live. Which is a welcome change from my pov.

Speaking about talents is a bit hard atm, as some of them are still suffering from the recent changes to Dire Beast & Barbed Shot. The highlights (good and bad) are:

We get an execute in the form of Killer Instinct
Spitting Cobra is underwhelming and completely out of place considering we already have Bestial Wrath CD reduction on Barbed Shot
Stampede is as underwhelming as ever
Killer Cobra loses a lot of value because of Kill Command cooldown reduction and currently seems very weak
We get Spitting Cobra in all it’s double dipping glory, along with a 25 yards range on a 40 yards spec

In summary, there are not a lot of changes to Beast Mastery. But that’s mostly because it did not need much tbh. It’s still almost the same easy to pick up, “simple”, ranged unlimited mobility spec as it is on live. And it looks like Blizzard is fine with that. It also makes it pretty easy to layer mechanics (Azerite etc) on top of it going forward.

Proximitynz and MoofzMoofz - MM/BM Theory Crafter, Guide Writer and moderator in Trueshot Lodge. Follow me at https://www.twitch.tv/moofzy.

Proximitynz - MM/BM Theory Crafter and admin in Trueshot Lodge. Follow me at https://www.twitch.tv/proximitynz.

General

Not much has changed for BM going into Battle for Azeroth. Most of the same abilities and play style have carried over from legion. A few quality of life changes have been added, with most changes coming via the talent tree. BM has been given many new tools to address areas that have been lacking previously, and overall seems to be in a much better spot than in Legion. Our artifact is gone which means Titans Thunder and Hati have been removed from the game. This changes the rotation slightly and the talent changes provide welcome compensation for these losses.

The primary change that BFA brings to BM is that Dire Beast has moved off of a base ability and has become a talent. “Dire Frenzy” is now baseline, baked into a new ability called Barbed Shot. Barbed Shot is essentially the same effect as Dire Frenzy with an added dynamic. Barbed Shot maintains the same effect as Dire Frenzy (The initial 5 flurry of attacks + 30% pet attack speed bonus) but now also includes a bleed applied by the hunter. Currently the bleed effect has not been implemented so we do not know whether it will stack or be affected by pandemic. Barbed Shot has maintained its 2 charges from Dire Frenzy in Legion and the attack speed buff still stacks up to 3 times onto your pet.

Cobra Shot has been slightly modified in BFA now also reducing the cooldown of Kill Command by 1 second for each cast. To compensate for this, the focus cost of Cobra Shot is now 35 focus compared to 30 focus in Legion. This new mechanic introduces a weaving style of play, casting as many Cobra Shots as focus allows to pump out as many Kill Commands as possible. This was a much needed quality of life change that gives BM another dynamic to its rotation.

Our primary cooldowns are still Bestial Wrath and Aspect of the Wild, which are largely unchanged. Both are now on the GCD as is standard across all classes as a design philosophy change in BFA, however only Aspect of the Wild has seen an increase in duration (to 20 seconds) as compensation. Bestial Wrath’s GCD is currently a flat 1.5 second cooldown that is unaffected by Haste, which appears to be a bug. Hopefully this will be changed as it makes the opener feel moderately clunky.

BM’s utility toolkit is largely unchanged, with the addition of Intimidation becoming baseline. The other main utility change is that Posthaste and Binding Shot are now in the same Talent row, forcing a choice between additional movement speed and an AoE stun. Posthaste will most likely be used in raids while Binding Shot should be the primary Talent used in dungeons.

AoE

Not much has changed in terms of AoE for BM. Our primary source of AoE damage still comes from Beast Cleave. Much like Dire Frenzy in Legion, our pet’s attack speed must stack, up to 3 times, to perform significant AoE. Unfortunately, our only other source of AoE comes from our Tier 6 talents from Barrage or Stomp. BM AoE remains fairly simple and lackluster so far.

Pets

Pet scaling has changed in BFA. Pets and guardians now scale based off Attack Power (Weapon Damage). This should prevent pet based damage from falling behind as we get more gear which was a huge hindrance for BM multiple times throughout Legion. Another great general quality of life change that had a huge impact on us.

Pet specializations have also been slightly reworked in BFA. Previously all pets had the option of being either Ferocity, Cunning or Tenacity and varied in damage/abilities based on what spec they were in. In BFA, all pet families are assigned a specific specialization and cannot be changed. For example, a Turtle will always be in Tenacity specialization and cannot be swapped to Ferocity. Damage for all 3 specializations have been distributed evenly so it does not matter which spec your pet is from a DPS perspective.
Each spec has a unique passive and active ability that can be used:

Ferocity
Predator’s Thirst: You and your pet gain 10% Leech.
Primal Rage: Gives Bloodlust/Heroism.

Tenacity

Endurance Training: You and your pet gain increased Health.
Survival of the Fittest: Decrease damage you and your pet take by 20% for 6 seconds with a 3 minute cooldown.

Cunning

Pathfinding: You and your pet gain 8% increased movement speed.
Master’s Call: Free you and your pet of all roots and snares, on a 45 second cooldown.

Animal Companion: The talent idea is great and I’m sure many people appreciate having “Hati” carry over. I would recommend also including your pet’s Basic Attacks. This would add an additional aspect to the currently low AoE damage through utilizing Beast Cleave. Whether at full power or at a reduced power similar to how Hati was, this would be a huge quality of life change.
Dire Beast - I think most people appreciate the fact that Barbed Shot (Dire Frenzy) became baseline as opposed to Dire Beast. The talent itself is fine, however it is very under tuned for its long cooldown and cost. It currently synergises with Stomp, but lacks scaling with BW (another much wanted quality of life change that would work similar to T19 set bonus).

Row 2

Scent of Blood: This talent suffers from the same problem it suffered throughout legion, providing nothing but a small amount of additional focus to a spec that rarely finds itself lacking focus outside of heavy AOE scenarios.
Chimera Shot: As its tuned currently, its slightly behind One with the Pack on pure single target and pulls ahead on 2 target cleave. However, it is a very niche ability and would only be taken on a 2 target fight where the bosses are close together. This talent would require significant tuning to be worth taking on a more regular basis.

Row 4

Spitting Cobra: The idea behind this talent is great, however at its current tuning of only one second, its impact is not strong enough to make it viable compared to other talents in its row. The total reduction to Bestial Wrath only adds up to the equivalent of a single Barbed Shot cast.

Row 6

Stampede: Stampede has a long history of importance to the class fantasy and history of the BM class, but its current tuning sees it as non viable when compared to other options in the row. Its cooldown is too high, and its damage to low to be worthwhile. Many have asked for this talent to be made baseline, providing a small amount of additional burst AOE without sacrificing existing AOE sources, which is a particular weakness of the BM AOE toolkit.

Row 7

Killer Cobra: With the added mechanic of Cobra Shot reducing Kill Commands cooldown, this talents impact is greatly reduced. Taking this talent will still net you more Kill Commands throughout a fight which is your highest damaging ability, however it now faces serious competition in a retooled Aspect of the Beast. As this talent cannot be solved with simple tuning, it would require additional effects to become attractive, or changing all together. Adding something simple such as “Kill Command also extends the duration of Bestial Wrath” would also make this talent more desirable.
Spitting Cobra: The idea is interesting but it is currently not worth taking this due to its long cooldown and lack of damage. Tuning its damage and/or cooldown could make this a strong choice. This also currently only has a range of 25 yards, making it counter-intuitive when sitting with the much larger 40 yards of the rest of the DPS toolkit.

MalvoseIntroduction

Hello, I’m Malvose, a raider in vodkaz. I started this game maining Marksmanship(MM) hunter in Nighthold, and I’m currently World 6th/US 1st for Allstars. I competed in the first Mythic Dungeon Invitational (MDI) with Team Premonition, and made it to the global semi-finals. I sometimes stream high Mythic+ and raid as Marksmanship at twitch.tv/malvose.

Legion Overview

MM Hunter in Legion is undoubtedly the strongest spec for the class this expansion. In the past two raid tiers, neither Survival nor Beast Mastery have come close apart from a few fights. With strong artifact traits, high secondary and weapon item level scaling, MM has proven to be a very strong spec for most of the expansion.

MM currently revolves around Vulnerable and Patient Sniper on single target, and Marked Shot spam on AoE. Arcane and Multi-Shot are the focus generators while Aimed Shot and Marked Shot are the main focus spenders. Other spenders include any of the level 90 talents or the artifact ability, Windburst. There is only 1 cooldown: , which increases haste and critical strike damage (with a golden artifact trait). It’s a 3 minute cooldown base, but often 90-100 seconds with the legendary boots and artifact traits.

The spec currently has very strong single target, but lacks strong target switching outside of , often sacrificing heavy single target damage in favor of priority damage. It is also very strong on stacked AoE where Multi-Shot can apply Hunter's Mark to all targets, but is weak on spread AoE compared to multi-DoT classes, especially without Sidewinders. It lacks mobility, due to Aimed Shot being only castable while standing still. The spec also has high RNG, mainly with critical strike chance.

BFA Overview

Marksmanship Hunter in BFA has corrected some of these issues, and has been heavily changed compared to Legion. The Vulnerable mechanic is gone, Aimed Shot now has charges capped at 2 with a fixed recharge rate, the new generators are Steady Shot, an ability that can be cast while moving which was also present in previous expansions, and Rapid Fire, a stronger generator on a short cooldown while Arcane Shot, Aimed Shot, and Multi-Shot are now the main spenders.

Using a pet is stronger on single target at the moment, but very weak on AoE. However, switching between the two creates a ramping mechanic on the damage boost from not having a pet, creating an awkward scenario whenever there is constant switching. It is a more mobile spec, The spec is still very strong on single target, and has much better target switching but falls behind tremendously compared to Legion on AoE.

On single target, the spec revolves around casting Aimed Shots when available followed by Arcane Shots to utilize Precise Shots, while using Rapid Fire on cooldown to generate focus and Steady Shot to generate focus then Arcane Shot to dump focus where there would otherwise be downtime. On AoE, the current level 100 talent Trick Shot has been reworked to proc after Multi-Shot, a spender, hits 3 or more targets, allowing your next Aimed Shot to cleave the nearest 5 targets. This obviously is weaker on larger packs, primarily in dungeons.

Deep Gameplay Issues

Haste is a near useless stat in BFA. Aimed Shot and Rapid Fire cast time is reduced by haste, but not the recharge rate. The main cooldown of the spec, , gives haste, and less than it does on live. On live, is a very strong ability for its cooldown, and it’s synergy with the Bullseye artifact trait granting critical strike chance in execute, Rapid Killing granting critical strike damage, and haste being relevant in Legion. On Beta, feels very weak, despite granting an additional Aimed Shot charge.

AoE is very weak, as the Legion iteration of MM is very focus positive, and often focus is not an issue on a high number of targets due to marked shot using only 25 focus while Multi-Shot generates more per target. However, the AoE abilities in BFA cost focus, leaving a focus starved rotation. This is very concerning to me as someone who runs high level M+, a system that will remain in BFA. Multi-Shot only applies Trick Shot on 3 or more targets, leaving Multi-Shot into Rapid Fire as the only choice on two targets.

Other nuances include targeting the closest mob from Rapid Fire if channeling while an enemy dies, the Lone Wolf ramping mechanic causing a very awkward playstyle in dungeons or bosses swapping single target and AoE.

Talents

Currently, several talents are undertuned, such as Piercing Shot, Steady Focus, Serpent Sting, Lethal Shots, and Calling the Shots due to the nature of and Marksman in BFA. Volley is currently bugged, but similar to live. Hunter's Mark doesn’t fit the idea of MM’s new target switching capabilities and feels atrocious due to it being on the GCD. Double Tap is a fine talent, but being on the GCD creates a slower spec, and feels clunky. Careful Aim feels like a way to combine the Bullseye artifact trait and the current Careful Aim talent, while keeping the RNG element. Explosive Shot is much stronger than live and seems overtuned. The talent tree is fixed, and is similar to live, where several talents remain unchanged when swapping from single target to AoE.NuoHepHi, I am nuoHep, the current maintainer of simc hunter module, otherwise just a guy that mains a hunter since the middle of cata. I don’t pvp, so everything here is strictly from a mostly raiding pve perspective. I’m not really social but I do visit the hunter discord at times.

Marksmanship is now on its second expansion overhaul in a row getting major changes in BfA, arguably even more substantial ones than Survival.

The biggest and most anticipated change is the loss of the Vulnerable mechanic, which drives pretty much every other change, including a complete rework of the core rotation. It’s the reason why we lose Marked Shot, as there is no purpose to it anymore. And also the reason why the loss of our Artifact won’t be felt much - Windburst loses its primary purpose of the only non-rng Vulnerable applicator and most of the traits are passive damage increases not affecting the rotation in any meaningful way. The 2 traits we *will* miss are Bullseye & Rapid Killing. With Bullseye gone we are left without a baseline execute. Losing Rapid Killing is significant because it greatly increased the potency of & the value of Crit.

The core of the spec is now built around the following changes:

Focus regen is changed to 3 focus per second
Aimed Shot stays almost the same, it’s still our main castable focus spender and the only cast requiring standing still. The major change is that it’s now charge based with 12 seconds recharge time (unaffected by haste) and a maximum of 2 charges. The other major change is a longer 3 seconds cast time
Arcane Shot & Multi-Shot are back to being focus spenders
Steady Shot sees a return as a castable on the move focus generator
Rapid Fire is a new channeled on the move focus generator with fairly strong damage on a 20 seconds cooldown (unaffected by haste)
Precise Shots is a new passive interaction between Aimed Shot & Arcane Shot
Trick Shots is a new proc/buff for AoE, kinda reminiscent of the live talent
Lone Wolf is no longer a talent but a passive effect that lets us have a pet out

Overall from my pov it feels pretty solid. It’s very “stable”, if not monotonic, mostly because there is basically no rng now, which is welcome. The addition of Rapid Fire is great, as it has an especially good “feel” to it. We are more mobile, even accounting for the longer AiS cast time. Target switching is also greatly improved as we are not tied to an rng debuff anymore and AiS still has a 50% damage increase on non-damaged targets.

While current itemization on beta and the fact that we are “over-geared” on live make the spec feel a bit slow, especially at 120, this is going to be “fixed” with higher item levels.

There are still some mechanical/scaling problems I’m worried about though:

Haste. As things stand currently there are going to be problems with it because the cooldowns of Aimed Shot & Rapid Fire are unaffected by it. In 60 seconds you are going to cast 5 Aimed Shots & 3 Rapid Fires and no amount of haste will ever change that. The only thing haste will give is more Steady Shots, unbuffed Arcane Shots and Auto Shots, which do very weak damage. The other potential problem is that a pretty huge chunk of our focus regen comes from Rapid Fire and is basically static. What this means in practical terms is that there *are* going to be pretty clear haste breakpoints and the value of haste is going to be pretty bad overall. While this could be ok before, new itemization “policy”, the changes to loot rules & the changes to bleeds do indicate that Blizzard cares about stats being bad for some specs.

An even bigger problem is Bloodlust and to a lesser extent , as you don’t really “feel” them. Bloodlust is especially bad as it’s supposed to be this big cooldown where every raid member feels “overpowered”, but for Marksmanship it feels very underwhelming.

AoE. The problem here is the minimum target count needed to trigger Trick Shots - 3. This means that on 2 targets we are in a very awkward situation of having to do a single target rotation. What is even more awkward is that Rapid Fire is also affected by Trick Shots, but hits only 2 targets. Being able to AoE only in a very narrow 3-6 targets range feels very strange tbh. While the maximum cap is ok, the minimum one should go I believe as it’s neither here nor there.

The other problem with aoe is related to the first issue outlined above: haste scaling. As practically all of our aoe damage comes from Aimed Shot it means that we don’t get much benefit from haste, and that with any aoe present the value of haste drops even more.

Pets. Not sure if I’m going to be alone in this, but I truly believe the current incarnation of Lone Wolf and changes to pets & gcds may turn out to be pretty problematic. There are 2 potential issues here:

Bloodlust. Hunter pets are now the best source of it as they don’t trigger the gcd on the hunter. This is a bit offset by the fact that lower focus regen makes it so that pets can’t even perform basic attacks on cooldown. But it also may mean that we’ll just be forced to pool focus on the pet to BL.
The newly introduced pet passives. 10% leech/ 8% speed/health are very strong effects, especially on progress.
Both of these put a pretty strong pressure to have a pet out. I don’t know if it’s going to really be a “problem”, nor if it should be “fixed” somehow, but I have bad feelings about it.

As far as talents are concerned, while I don’t quite like the layout nor most of the talents, objectively most issues are tuning related. The most problematic talents are:

Volley. Simply does not work atm, but may also have an issue of being too rng.
Steady Focus. As things currently stand we simply don’t ever need to cast Steady Shot 3 times in a row, or much at all.
Lethal Shots. Doubly layered rng from a skill we are not going to cast much in the first place. The potency of the buffs is also *very* different.
Serpent Sting. It feels very out of place tbh and does not interact with anything else whatsoever. And well, Marksmanship is not a dot spec.

On the topic of active talents the main issue I have with all of them is that they don’t interact with the rest of the kit, at all. They are all just buttons you press every X seconds to do Y damage. They have their own mechanics, good or bad, but they are completely disconnected from everything else.

In summary, I must say that I can see the current core of the spec surviving several expansions with minimal changes (which seems to be the “thing” at Blizzard now) as it’s really well built (haste & aoe issues notwithstanding) with good possibility of layering mechanics on top of it. So I’m looking forward to see more of the Azerite traits and how they interact with it. Talents I’m not so sure about tbh, I do believe active talents should tie into the core much more. Oh, and the pet should just go imo.Proximitynz and MoofzMoofz - MM/BM Theory Crafter, Guide Writer and moderator in Trueshot Lodge. Follow me at https://www.twitch.tv/moofzy.

Proximitynz - MM/BM Theory Crafter and admin in Trueshot Lodge. Follow me at https://www.twitch.tv/proximitynz.

General

Marksmanship has seen its DPS toolkit face a ground-up redesign in Battle for Azeroth. While some of the abilities from Legion remain, their usage and interactions with one another have changed. Both Vulnerable and Patient Sniper have been removed, which many players will appreciate. We return to a playstyle that effortlessly swaps targets and should perform well both in single target and moderate mob-pack sized cleave scenarios.

Focus regen has been redistributed for Marksman in BFA. Our focus pool has shrunk from our previous total of 130 down to 100 in BFA, and we now have a base focus regen of 3 focus per second, down from 10. This means that without actively casting focus regen abilities, we have minimal passive focus gain, which can make the spec feel sluggish compared to live. Pair these changes with Arcane Shot and Multi-Shot now costing 15 focus and you have a vastly different playstyle when compared to Legion.

Steady Shot has been brought back as our standard focus generating ability. It’s a weak shot that generates 10 Focus with a 2 second cast time, which is castable while moving. Steady Shot currently acts as a filler when no other abilities are available, and sees very little use in the rotation currently.

BFA also introduces a new Focus generating ability called Rapid Fire. Rapid Fire fires a flurry of attacks over 3 seconds, each generating 2 Focus per shot and is castable while moving. Rapid Fire makes up the bulk of your Focus regen in the rotation however it is limited by a 20 second cooldown. Currently, Rapid Fire’s total shots fired, cooldown and total Focus regen do not scale with haste; only the cast time is affected.

Our base rotation still revolves around the concept of Aimed Shot as the primary damaging ability, though this is now behind a limited 2 charge mechanic, with a slower cast time of 3 seconds. Arcane Shot now does respectable damage and operates as the focus dump ability. The interaction between these abilities is that each time you cast Aimed Shot, you receive a buff called Precise Shots, which buffs your next 1-2 Arcane Shots by 100% damage. When these are all pulled together, your primary goal is to not overcap your Aimed Shot charges, dump your Precise Shots stacks, generate focus with Steady Shot/Rapid Fire and dump any excess focus using Arcane Shot.

remains as the only DPS cooldown, and ontop of the 30% haste for 15 seconds that it gave previously, it now grants an additional stack of Aimed Shot. The lack of Legion Artifact traits sees this lose its bonus damage component and return to a full 3 minute cooldown, whilst the wider BFA changes see it go onto the GCD without any duration increase as compensation.

The primary gameplay issue here is that both Aimed Shot and Rapid Fire cooldowns are unaffected by haste, which also limits the amount of Precise Shots buffed Arcane Shots you receive. These three abilities make up the vast majority of a Marksmanship Hunters DPS and renders haste as a virtually dead stat. This also makes both and Lust/Heroism extremely underwhelming, having almost no impact. There are a multitude of different methods that could resolve this issue, and this is currently the most pressing issue that requires attention before BFA goes live.

Lone Wolf and Pets

Lone Wolf has been made baseline in BFA, and has been toned down to compensate. This is now a 10% damage increase when you do not have a pet out, and is instantly removed when you summon a pet. When dismissing a pet, the Lone Wolf buff will have a gradual ramp up mechanic to discourage swapping back quickly, with almost a full minute required to get back to the full 10%. Many players have voiced concerns over the time this currently takes, and could do with some tweaking.

Pet scaling has changed in BFA. Pets and guardians now scale based off Attack Power (Weapon Damage). This should help prevent pet based damage from falling behind as we get better gear.

Pet specializations have also been slightly reworked in BFA. Previously all pets had the option of being either Ferocity, Cunning or Tenacity and varied in damage/abilities based on what spec they were in. In BFA, all pet families are assigned a specific specialization and cannot be changed. For example, a Turtle will always be in Tenacity specialization and cannot be swapped to Ferocity. Damage for all 3 specializations have been distributed evenly so it does not matter which spec your pet is from a DPS perspective.
Each spec has a unique passive and active ability that can be used:

Ferocity
Predator’s Thirst: You and your pet gain 10% Leech.
Primal Rage: Gives Bloodlust/Heroism.

Tenacity

Endurance Training: You and your pet gain increased Health.
Survival of the Fittest: Decrease damage you and your pet take by 20% for 6 seconds with a 3 minute cooldown.

Cunning

Pathfinding: You and your pet gain 8% increased movement speed.
Master’s Call: Free you and your pet of all roots and snares, on a 45 second cooldown.

Currently, the go to pet of choice for most raid and dungeon content will be a Tenacity pet. The extra health and on use defensive is too good to pass up, and provides a real solution to a defensive toolkit that had previously been significantly lacking. Ferocity will also see some use depending on the type of damage being taken. Obviously if Bloodlust/Herosim is required from you, Ferocity pet will be needed. Interestingly, Ferocity pets are currently more tanky than Tenacity pets while questing, due to its large amount of Leech. Cunning pets will most likely only be used in PvP content due Master’s Call.

AoE

Marksman AoE in BFA is very different compared to its current iteration in Legion. Trick Shots (Legion Talent) has been become a baseline talent, and now appears as a buff you receive if your Multi-Shot hits 3 or more targets, and will cause Aimed Shot to hit at full strength on up to 5 additional targets, capping out the AOE/Cleave at 6 targets maximum. With Mythic+ continuing to be a big thing going into BFA, the cleave limitation of 6 targets will likely limit Marksman’s usefulness in big AOE pulls.

Trick Shots also work with Rapid Fire. When Multi-Shot is used prior to Rapid Fire, Rapid Fire will fire an additional flurry of shots at one other nearby target. It does not give you additional focus for hitting another target, just additional damage.

As a result of this implementation, two target cleave situations are highly frustrating affairs, where you find yourself desperately wishing for a third mob to enable you to do more than just single target damage. This is especially noticeable in the case of Rapid Fire, which only cleaves 2 targets but needs a 3rd before cleaving is possible.

Between the long cast and recharge times on Aimed Shot, and the high focus cost being impacted further with Multi-Shot also costing focus, Marksman’s AoE currently feels like it is lacking synergy as you alternate back and forth between aoe abilities and slow unsatisfying Steady Shots. This is further compounded by an issue on Beta where if you Multi-Shot too quickly after an Aimed Shot, the Trick Shots buff is consumed and you must Multi-Shot again before you can get your next Aimed Shot to cleave. There are a number of talents which augment our AOE toolkit (Barrage and Explosive Shot), however these exacerbate the focus concerns and act as more of a bandaid than a solution to the current AOE rotation.

Underperforming Talents and Suggestions

Row 1

Serpent Sting: This talent provides a Dot that costs 10 focus and must be reapplied every 12 seconds. In previous iterations of this ability we have seen abilities that would extend the duration or spread the dot to other targets. Without something additional, this ability requires too much focus and needs to be cast too regularly to be impactful to the rotation. The damage of this ability is also grossly under-tuned.

Row 2

Careful Aim: The concept of having increased damage on pull and having an execute is amazing and I think most Hunters agree this is a great talent. However, the additional damage portion just adds more RNG to the mix. The general consensus is that most hunters would prefer this to be a flat increase with its bonus damage lowered to compensate, avoiding the random element.
Explosive Shot: Currently this ability is competitive with Careful Aim in single target situations, provides additional cleave damage when multiple targets are introduced, and fills and compliments some of the single target rotational gaps that presently exists, making it much more attractive than other talents on its row in almost every situation. It is a bit over tuned for being an AoE centric ability.

Row 4

Steady Focus: In the current rotation, Steady Shot is rarely used, let alone used consecutively three times in a row which is required in order to get the most out of this talent.
Hunter's Mark: This talent is heavily impacted by being on the GCD, and only really should see usage in pure single target scenarios. In particular, burning a GCD on any priority target add swapping would compete with making the most of Careful Aim.

Row 6

Lethal Shots: Steady Shot is required to trigger this buff, and sees minimal total casts. With the proc being a flat 10% rather than RPPM, the total number of times this talent procs in a fight is very minimal. Furthermore, when it does proc, there are two different buffs, randomly choosing between buffing your next Aimed Shot or your next Rapid Fire, rather than letting you choose.

Row 7

Calling the Shots: The concept of this talent is fine, however the current state of haste makes a very underwhelming cooldown and renders this talent non-viable. Changes to and/or haste in general could make this talent strong without any direct modification to the talent itself.
Piercing Shot: This ability went from a very hard hitting ability that could cost up to 100 focus, to a low hitting ability that costs 30 focus. As it is currently tuned to hit for less than an Aimed Shot, it offers little in terms of viability when sharing a row with (an all be it nerfed) Lock and Load. Tuning could change the viability of this talent.

Kuro

Hey, I’m Kuro. I’m a regular in the Trueshot Lodge discord server, and I’ve been an active Survival player since Emerald Nightmare. While I’m nothing special, I’m active in the Survival community and have helped work on Survival guides such as IcyVeins and Wowhead, and Wowhead’s Survival challenge guide. You can often find me in discord (KuroTheCrazy#1917), and I occasionally stream on Twitch.

General Changes
While the spec is staying as melee, Blizzard has made many changes from Legion to try and correct design issues with the previous iteration of Survival; some things have carried over from Legion, the design is very different. Rather than focusing on a ramp-up damage mechanic with Mongoose Bite charges, the toolkit is much more basic and front-facing.

Losing Talonclaw does not have many major changes with the new design. Given how much has changed with the spec and how weak the traits generally were, you will miss certain traits like Hellcarver and Terms of Engagement (which is now a talent) but not much else. Leaving behind the Legion legendaries also does not affect the spec, as most of our preferred ones were general shared legendaries anyways.

Initial Thoughts
If you are one of the many players that decided you did not like Legion’s Survival due to most of the common issues then you will likely look forward to these changes. The new design is easier to pick up and grasp the initial concepts of, and it has an easier time of following the different mechanics of the spec. The design seems more thematic and focused, and while there are certainly upsides to the new design, it has lost most of the attraction that many players had to the diversity of the toolkit, the complexity of the rotation, and the satisfying feeling of building up to that climax of Mongoose Bite damage.

The most glaring issue with the base kit is a lack of constant aoe damage. In Legion, we had Carve as an option for spending focus for a constant aoe output, mixed with Explosive Trap and some talents. In 8.0, our only baseline aoe ability is Wildfire Bomb, and while it has decent aoe damage, it has a long cooldown, it is very hard to aim well (as Blizzard decided to make it a cone rather than a circle from the target), and it will not scale with our mastery like the rest of the kit. What we lack in aoe, we seem to make up for with decent single target damage.

Talents
There are many different ways to approach the new talents, and this is where the spec really opens up.

Each level 15 talent provides an interesting change to the playstyle of the spec, and each one has its ups and downs - overall, this row feels like a hit for design.

The level 30 talents provide any potential for aoe damage. This row seems nice on paper, but in reality has turned out to be disappointing. The bonuses from Guerrilla Tactics are barely impactful, and having a second charge does not make a large difference; the talent would likely be much better if it instead reduced the cooldown of Bomb. Butchery was a powerful favorite in Legion, but has been reduced to a version of Carve that does not live up without the artifact trait Hellcarver. Butchery would feel much better if it was designed like Brutal Slash, where it does as much or more damage than our main spender, Raptor Strike. Hydra's Bite works well for its design and has strong synergy with Viper's Venom from 15; currently it’s the best here and in a good spot.

The level 45 and 75 talents are mostly utility, and all serve a good purpose so far.

At 60, you have a few versions of adding another DoT ability to the kit, and each can be good for different situations. Steel Trap can work with being able to pre-lay on multiple targets (think Kin’Garoth), and Crows works with resets and has the bonus of scaling with our mastery. As of the current state of the beta, though, all melee autoattacks scale higher than they likely should, so you will most often take Bloodseeker. I imagine once 8.0 goes live this will change.

The 90 talents give a nod to Legion’s Survival, but not much more than that. Tip of the Spear is a solid passive bonus that does not require much work to use, and Flanking Strike works as an additional builder, an engage, and a strong damaging ability. Unfortunately, Mongoose Bite seems to be undertuned to the point of being weaker than taking no talent currently; if this is changed, this has a strong possibility to be a good single target talent, but until then it is not worth noting.

The 100 tier has the most possibility for design, but with tuning has become a large disappointment. Birds of Prey has a good design and works well for certain fights, and reminds me of the playstyle with maximising an Aspect of the Eagle window in Legion. Wildfire Infusion adds a lot of interesting changes to the spec, for both aoe and single target, but the design lets it down. The random bombs means you likely won’t get the best value bomb for each situation, and would work much better if you could pick which bombs to use, like the old Exotic Munitions ability. Along with this, the damage output from this talent is vastly weaker than the other two options. Your third talent with this row is Chakrams, which adds a much-needed aoe ability to the spec that the base kit is lacking in.

Final Thoughts

The largest issue that many people, myself included, had with Legion’s Survival is that the spec lacked synergy and felt too spread-out with the toolkit. While Blizzard seems to have taken note of that and tried to reign it in, the base kit has even less interaction with itself than the previous iteration, and most of the spec’s potential synergy lies within underperforming talents like Wildfire Infusion. The spec would feel much better with some base filler aoe, such as giving Carve back like in Legion, or something similar. While there is much potential for the spec to feel great, it feels like Blizzard needs to give some more attention to it first.

Comments

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Comment by 68docNothing Blizz can do to stop Hunters from being blamed for pulling the whole dungeon.Comment by ElanduraAsk Azortharion how he feels about hunters, he's yoda hunter.Comment by MintizimoI mained a SV hunter for all of Legion (mostly because I felt MM and BM were incredibly boring) and I was excited to see how they would improve the spec in BFA.

Unfortunately, it seems like they still don't know what to do with it. I was hoping for some more innovation in terms of utility which would allow for a more versatile playstyle. Perhaps a trap that deathgrips a certain amount of non-boss and non-player enemies to the center and then explodes, stunning them?

I also thought it would be cool to have our Aspect of the Eagle be something similar to a shadow priest's Void Eruption? When used, the ability becomes Void Bolt and you can use it while you maintain the buff. Something like that for hunters, but instead of shooting Void Bolts you throw harpoons? That would be much better than "shooting ghostly eagles out of the tip of my spear!". Seriously, don't do this. Harpoons, throwing axes, grenades. Any of those would be a better fit for a rugged tracker than "flinging ghost birds like you would hurl piles of snow with a shovel." Sorry, I just really want them to change this.

I want to feel like an actual survival hunter in BFA, with abilities that fit the class.

At least it appears they discarded the talent that turned disengage into a dps cooldown. That was a bad idea and I'm glad they removed it.Comment by kogaSagaraim gonna keep it short, read this link https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20762076060Comment by angeleyedThey should remove marksmanship Aimed shot charges, make stampede baseline for beast mastery and make survival a slower spec (right now in beta your generator’s cd is off before you manage to spend your focus).Comment by XinthoThe primary change that BFA brings to BM is that Stomp has moved off of a base ability and has become a talent.Comment by SilverDragon234$%^&ing finally. I'm getting tired of seeing mm hunters with no pets.Comment by Freerunz Perhaps a trap that deathgrips a certain amount of non-boss and non-player enemies to the center and then explodes, stunning them?Comment by MoofzyThe primary change that BFA brings to BM is that Stomp has moved off of a base ability and has become a talent.Comment by SilverDragon234I mained a SV hunter for all of Legion (mostly because I felt MM and BM were incredibly boring) and I was excited to see how they would improve the spec in BFA.

Unfortunately, it seems like they still don't know what to do with it. I was hoping for some more innovation in terms of utility which would allow for a more versatile playstyle. Perhaps a trap that deathgrips a certain amount of non-boss and non-player enemies to the center and then explodes, stunning them?

I also thought it would be cool to have our Aspect of the Eagle be something similar to a shadow priest's Void Eruption? When used, the ability becomes Void Bolt and you can use it while you maintain the buff. Something like that for hunters, but instead of shooting Void Bolts you throw harpoons? That would be much better than "shooting ghostly eagles out of the tip of my spear!". Seriously, don't do this. Harpoons, throwing axes, grenades. Any of those would be a better fit for a rugged tracker than "flinging ghost birds like you would hurl piles of snow with a shovel." Sorry, I just really want them to change this.

I want to feel like an actual survival hunter in BFA, with abilities that fit the class.

At least it appears they discarded the talent that turned disengage into a dps cooldown. That was a bad idea and I'm glad they removed it.Comment by Redemption86After playing with bloodseeker on the alpha and later the beta, I can't stand that talent, sure it might be the best but it's not the most fun, rabidly tab targeting to keep up a buff that doesn't last long is too similar to mark of the crane I've had to deal with all expansion as a windwalker, I'll simply skip the talent and tank the DPS loss.Comment by Bloodnickel$%^&ing finally. I'm getting tired of seeing mm hunters with no pets.Comment by SilverDragon234$%^&ing finally. I'm getting tired of seeing mm hunters with no pets.Comment by BergelmirI'd like to hear the reasoning behind the Wildfire Bomb for the survivalist. Why a cone? That just sounds like an engineer put extra effort into making it less effective... I really did enjoy the use of traps and explosives though, so I hope there's still a chance to have fun with that.Comment by CyberiumDoes anyone know if Aspect of the Beast affects the basic attack of Animal Companion, assuming it actually attacks?Comment by Cyberium$%^&ing finally. I'm getting tired of seeing mm hunters with no pets.Comment by CastrumRIP MM. Blizz ruining what was working pretty much perfectly.

As for No Pets, I liked the idea of being the lone ranger without some bird squawking in my ear. Hopefully pets aren’t OP in BFA.Comment by DeihjanAs long as they let me keep my Hati's appearance, I don't care..

I'll probably retire my hunter, by the looks of the state of the class.Comment by nuOHEPDoes anyone know if Aspect of the Beast affects the basic attack of Animal Companion, assuming it actually attacks?Comment by PovarroGlad to see that MM mechanic gone, wasn't into "proc one debuff to get another debuff" thing anyways. Pet specs change is also nice.
But both MM and SV look pretty boring from what I've read here -.- Hope more tuning and talent work will fix that.

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