People in alpha, what's your opinion on BM?

[Shinryu Masaki]

From what I understood from that video and a few others is that without the artifact weapon maxed out BM is kind of empty. I think they tied too much of what the spec should have done game play wise to it that until we at least get the weapon, and then max it out, that people will hate it. This will especially be true when the pre-patch comes out and we'll have to tough it up until Legion comes out.

[Rikaku]

From what I understood from that video and a few others is that without the artifact weapon maxed out BM is kind of empty. I think they tied too much of what the spec should have done game play wise to it that until we at least get the weapon, and then max it out, that people will hate it. This will especially be true when the pre-patch comes out and we'll have to tough it up until Legion comes out.

This is honestly my biggest concern with BM going forward. BM is so heavily tied to the artifact, that we're hurting pretty badly since we're scaled all around Hati and Titanstrike. Though I still wish I knew why we had a 2 min debuff if 'Hati dies'. To my knowledge, no other artifact weapon is punished like that for dying. Overall, It genuinely makes me wonder how we'll be moving forward, since Blizzard has already said generally they go "all out" for one expansion so they can leave that stuff behind when a new expansion comes out (like the garrison being a big deal for WoD, but getting nerfed so people don't rely on it in Legion). Will the same be true for BM and Hati going forward?

Though personally I hope Hati ends up just being a 'test' of seeing how 2 pets for 1 spec will be, and maybe going forward it'll be incorporated different (like we'll get to choose our own 2 pets we've tamed), like how they sort of 'revamped' the garrison follower/mission idea into Legion's order halls.

[Xella]

Yeah, after both watching the Final Boss video and getting a chance to play with it a little on PTR (which doesn't mean much because choosing my main for 7.0-launch is a way different kettle of fish than choosing a main for a year+ of an expansion) I have to mostly agree—it's fine, but boring and empty and Hati is going to drive me CRAZY. A lot of it will also depend on how the various talents max out—if Dire Frenzy does indeed end up outclassing Chimaera Shot and you therefore lose another potential button, that's gonna hurt. The "rotation" WITH ChS is still super boring and repetitive. I'm one of those people who prefer not to add extra buttons but BM went from being super button-heavy to... three? Three, and a couple utility things.

Was also able to verify that things your pet kills (whether you initiate via kill command or use the attack command or put it on defensive and run into a pack of whatever the carnivorous leafy things in SMV are called) DO count as your kills now, and are lootable... for about 15-30 seconds, after which they despawn. Things I personally killed didn't last for much longer (though it WAS longer) so I'm not sure if that's a consequence of pet kills or just the PTR or what, but I reported it either way.

Things your Dire Beasts kill ALSO count as your tag, though they kill things much more slowly (7-15k melee swings for both Gara and the Dire Beasts... and my auto-shots too, looking at it, but Gara also has claw and KC was like 36k) and it seems less likely that a DB will kill anything worth killing before a shot reaches it as a result (and because casting DB also turns on autoshot by default. KC might too, it's hard to tell with the broken-but-has-been-this-way-for-years animations associated with both spells).

The 30-yard range on Stampede worries me a lot because the other two talents in the level 100 tier seem super lackluster, since Final Boss says (and I sort-of confirmed) that it's 5 yards behind you and 25 yards ahead of you, and all your other stuff has a 40-yard range (in the 180° cone in front of you). It's also dependent on YOUR facing when you cast it. But for what it's worth, killing stuff with stampede ALSO gives you loot privs (though it's also counted as YOUR damage, so that makes sense).

[Zulmalakhan]

I believe that the current state of BM and the future of it can be summarized by making 3 points:


1: The thing about the revamp for BM, in my opinion, it that it's talents don't add much to gameplay variation, it's rotation has a bestial wrath that now feels like the much hated savage roar on ferals, as in it is a buff that can have almost 100% uptime instead of a damage burst like it used to feel, the 'feel" of the class is ONLY achievable after you get the artifact AND the item to change hati's look so you can have 2 pets and even then, the focus is more on infusing your pets with power from the artifact than the actual bond a beast master should share with his companions. It feels rushed and heavily patched up.

2: Blizzard DID something awesome for a class that has a similar playstyle, namely the demonology warlock who stays true to his fantasy of having a strong demons and calling smaller minions to fight temporarily and his talents offer some awesome choices in playstyle that actually have noticeable visual impact to the character ( such as wild imps riding dreadstalkers or demon bolt growing in dmg based on your demons summoned, or summoning the Darkglare/ super beholder, or doom summoning imps ). Also the other 2 specs for the hunter, MM and survival deliver on the fantasy aspect awesomely, for MM you can be a Marksman going alone with a bow, a dwarven mountaineer who keeps his trusty bear by his side, a Dark Ranger summoning the dead to do your bidding in battle and survival is just awesome, you can see green tints in all his attacks that really give you the feeling like his blades are coated in poison, his talents have nice visual impact and add diverse playstyles like how he can choose to throw axes, summon a snake drop caltrops and such.


3: Blizzard, very much so in recent times, is considerate of its player base, we have seen such even now with certain tames and pet looks being preserved and adding a pet back to MM, but they don't have time to fix BM, in my opinion it is VERY CERTAIN, that BM will get another revamp following legion, because let's face it, once the artifact goes away and we don't even have 2 pets, BM will suck ( I used to play only BM every expansion ) I think, in all honesty that blizzard will fix BM in the next expansion and most likely it will be based on heroes of the storm Rexxar's playstyle :

- it will get throwing weapons and change to a melee animation with said weapon ( they will be dual wielded throwing weapons most likely, 1 in each hand, 2 spears, 2 axes, 2 daggers, 2 glaives like all the iconic throwing units have )


-it will have the talented option of having 1 powerful beast or more less powerful ones that act in unison ( 3 would be ideal ), meaning they all bite together all swipe together basically like having your pet use mirror image


- your pets will have special attacks ( kill command or intimidate for example ) that give it a special visual buff to make them feel special, for example they have a charge and they leave a trail behind them as they charge ahead, they have a fiery read aura around their paws ( around their eyes would be awesome but too hard to implement ) when they use kill command, they have some kind of thunder and lightning effect when they stun with intimidate or some poison, you get the idea, make it a visual buff because that way you can implement it to every pet family without problem ( a new animation for each family is too much to ask for ).


but as far as legion goes, survival is the new spec for my hunter, just for the fun and the order hall story line but as for my main class I must quote the main timeline counterpart of a very prominent orc in legion who said thus : "Behold those how have power and are not afraid to wield it, BEHOLD THE WARLOCKS"

[Nachtwulf]

I really don't think they'll make BM melee. Rexxar's playstyle -is- represented now by Survival so there's no need to duplicate it in BM.

And honestly... I really expect them to do -something- to BM by the first big patch. By then, people will have just inundated them with complaints from live about how absolutely rotten and underperforming it is. Yeah, they'll probably just shoehorn something in to liven things up, but eh, it could use some shoehorning. But drop date is rapidly approaching and the numbers (just the raw numbers) on BM are at least passable, so they have no reason to mess with it with other things like quests breaking being more critical. I also expect there'll be -ANOTHER- revision with the next expac because of the aforementioned 'no more artifact'... although I have to wonder what they're going to do for a followup.

Specs have been in crappy places in the past, and they usually repair them at least functionally during that expac. Take retadins in early BC. Good god they were bad. I did appreciably more dps AND had more survivability with prot sword and board than I could make under the best of circumstances with ret. They called them 'retardins' for a reason! But it was good by the end of BC (and ridiculously OP in Wrath) so... I expect -eventually- they'll do something about it. I just resent having to switch until they do.

[Valnaaros]

That is true, Nachtwulf. Every single spec has beem crap at some point, and it looks like it is BM's turn. And witb July 19th being a month away, the chances they will actually do anything with BM at this point is quite slim

[zedxrgal]

Slim. But. A slim chance is better than no chance. Right?
At this point.
I'll be running SV on my ladies unless Blizzard changes or adds ................ something before launch.

But like Nacht said. Once the mass of complaints start piling in (and they will) Blizz will patch something.

[Zulmalakhan]

my apologies, I was not explicit enough when I wrote
- it will get throwing weapons and change to a melee animation with said weapon ( they will be dual wielded throwing weapons most likely, 1 in each hand, 2 spears, 2 axes, 2 daggers, 2 glaives like all the iconic throwing units have )
It means they are still ranged, not melee, the class will use dual wielded throwing weapons and when the target gets in melee range the attack animation will have a cosmetic change from throwing to normal melee hits, it is just for cosmetic realism though, make no mistake it is very much a ranged dps class

Also I meant to fit Rexxar's playstyle from Hots that is using throwing weapons and goes from throwing them at range to fighting with them in melee (animation-wise) depending on how close or far his target is, not his traditional melee only style from WC3/WoW, wich ( aside from only using 2 handed weapons and not dual wield ) is indeed represented in survival

[Sukurachi]

my apologies, I was not explicit enough when I wrote
- it will get throwing weapons and change to a melee animation with said weapon ( they will be dual wielded throwing weapons most likely, 1 in each hand, 2 spears, 2 axes, 2 daggers, 2 glaives like all the iconic throwing units have )
It means they are still ranged, not melee, the class will use dual wielded throwing weapons and when the target gets in melee range the attack animation will have a cosmetic change from throwing to normal melee hits, it is just for cosmetic realism though, make no mistake it is very much a ranged dps class

Also I meant to fit Rexxar's playstyle from Hots that is using throwing weapons and goes from throwing them at range to fighting with them in melee (animation-wise) depending on how close or far his target is, not his traditional melee only style from WC3/WoW, wich ( aside from only using 2 handed weapons and not dual wield ) is indeed represented in survival

yeah, you know... I don't think so.
If that were the direction Blizz went with BM hunters, they'd probably lose a hell of a lot of subscribers.
I have three accounts, all have BM hunters, and I can guarantee you that if I lost my bow-mog and got stuck with melée weapons, I'd immediately cancel my three subscriptions.

[Chaix]

unfortunately they won't make BM melee or melee weapon users, for another very notable reason: that would leave MM as the only spec in the game that uses bows/buns/xbow. they hate that. it makes a ton of loot useless even for xmog.

i'm kinda hoping BM gets a nice rework in 7.1. preferably with a few more "active" talents, a bigger focus on kill command, and reduced focus on dire beast

[SpiritBinder]

unfortunately they won't make BM melee or melee weapon users, for another very notable reason: that would leave MM as the only spec in the game that uses bows/buns/xbow. they hate that. it makes a ton of loot useless even for xmog.t

Agreed. I was still thinking that maybe, just maybe they would add a Tinker Class a little while back, it could easily have been a mail user, have a Tank, Healbot, Ranged (Guns/Bows) spec. Have mech's in involved in their specs. Mech Suits for Tanks, Medic Bots for Healing and Mecha Guardians for The Ranged.

Potentially Gnome/Goblin only at the start, etc..

Anyways it would have been a really easy clean way to incorporate another user for bows/guns and Mail. I doubt this is EVER going to happen now with hunters taming machines ( ) and gnomes being added to the hunter fold.

So unless they add another class that takes advantage of ranged weapons, I very much doubt they'll have only one spec of one class using guns, bows and crossbows, no matter how much sense it makes.

[Sukurachi]

"unfortunately"?

well, we definitely see things differently.
if Blizz remains steadfast in keeping hunters generally ranged, then they will have made the right decision as far as I'm concerned.

[SpiritBinder]

Sorry I was agreeing more so to the

that would leave MM as the only spec in the game that uses bows/buns/xbow. they hate that. it makes a ton of loot useless even for xmog

.. Bad quoting on my behalf. I'm not hoping for BM to be Melee, and 100% not now that survival is.

That said, For me personally, if you asked me (Prior to legion) what spec would have thematically suited being Melee, and I would have had to have said BM. Simply due to Rexxar and the being more at one with beasts/in the fray with them. Being your right hand and literally having your back. Survival I guess could have gone either way I suppose.

Now if you asked me what class I wanted to go Melee, I would have told you to go stick it up your jackson, I rolled a hunter to NOT be melee tyvm. But if we had to, make a new spec for the class and don't be so dang lazy with spec design.

There are SO many hunter archetypes they could pull from to have fleshed out SV as Ranged if they were struggling with a theme. What about Shadow hunters or Dark Rangers? Either of these could have made a super interesting dark/poison DOT style spec. Instead they chopped it all up and tossed the scraps into MM.

MM now has LnL, Undead minions via Black arrow, Side winding snakes?!? etc. All attached to a High elven artifact and ranger concept. It's a thematic hodge podge mess of all these quite clearly different hunter types, smushed in just because.

For me it just comes across as they still don't really know what they want hunters to be, even when they are shooting for the "Fantasy" of it.

[Nachtwulf]

I can kinda see where they wanted BM to go, thematically, and -in concept- I think it's fine. BM's damage has always been mostly beast related, so that's not what bugs me.

Dire beast bugs me because a) the physical mechanics are bugged and don't perform with the reliability of other classes' spells. And b) because it's just Some Random Beast that at least from what I've seen doesn't even have a connection to the zone anymore. You're not a MASTER of that beast, it's just...coming out of nowhere and going back to it when done.

How to fix? Make dire beast summon a pet from your stable. Oh, and fix whatever the hell is broken in the code that's making it not work right.

Stampede: Used to be fine. Now it has the same flaw as above (random things appearing out of nowhere and vanishing back into nowhere). No connection to being a 'master' of anything. You're not a Beast Summoner. Warlocks can pull their pets out of the nether directly. It makes no sense for 'real animals'.

Solution: Give us back our old stampede.

Hati: Problematic because a) only accessible in endgame content, useless/inapplicable for 100 levels of the game. b) also its code is badly broken too, making it less effective than it should be.

Solution: don't include expectations of gear in the design of the spec. 'Worthless until you have 'x item'' is bad design.

Control: We used to have lots (arguably more than our share, fair enough). Currently? we don't have ANY except for a mid-game talent... that's unreliable. Binding shot only works if things try to leave the circle (which they rarely seem to), Intimidation is too short and doesn't work on a lot of things, the sleep shot (I forget its name) is also too short in its duration and too easy to screw up with an errant auto-shot going off before you can detarget.

Solution: Make Intim last slightly longer and remove immunities from all non-boss mobs. Make binding shot snare instead of requiring 'leaving the perimeter' to trigger. Make whatsit-shot work like Repentance. (same duration etc., possibly different valid targets like 'beast, humanoid, demon')

Overall rotation: overly simplistic and what's worse, UTTERLY RELIANT on having the artifact. That Lv35 hunter is reduced to...uh. I don't even know what. Two buttons? Maybe? I know they want us to cough up $60 an alt instead of messing with leveling but making it 'mash one button until Wrath content' is a really shitty way to do it.

[Valnaaros]

How to fix? [/b]Make dire beast summon a pet from your stable. Oh, and fix whatever the hell is broken in the code that's making it not work right.

There is a glyph that summons a pet from your stables. I plan on using it Live

[SpiritBinder]

One thing that I've yet to make my decision on is Dire beast Vs Dire Frenzy.

Dire beast Vs Dire Frenzy.

Personally I would prefer to use Dire frenzy at this point in time for my play style and preference, however from testing/playing it, DF has a "Range" restriction in order for you to use it. I'm finding it rather frustrating when I switch target and wish to use my focus regen, and find I can't.

If I choose Dire Frenzy and my pet is not at the target, I have to wait for it to run across to it, which can be some time before I can use it. Generally I'm low/near out of focus when I'm needing to use, so I can't even use another ability. I'm left just spammin Dire Frenzy waiting for my pet to get close enough to use.

If I choose Dire Beast, I can summon a beast straight away, whether or not my pet is at the target. There is never a time I have to wait to use it unless it's on cooldown. The focus starts coming in and I can start to use/KC/Barrage/CS or what have you straight away. It flows much nicer and feels less, I hate to say, less clunky >.<

How to fix?

They could potentially add a charge element to it (Similar to KC) so if your pet's dash is down and is limping along with a long way to go to get to the target, it would make feel more like an active ability.

The other solution which I think would be better is it could be used prior and placed on a "On the next attack and lasts 10 seconds", akin to what Intimidation currently does. So you can use the ability and put it on cooldown, gain your 25 focus for using the ability and you can continue with your rotation/DPS, but the actual attack with commence as soon as it can get withing range.

[Wain]

Agreed with the above ^^

I always use Frenzy now. I've been burned so much with any kind of guardian that I would never spec for Dire Beast again. At this point, the fewer unpredictable and uncontrollable guardians I have to deal with, the better.

Having said that I find the Dire Frenzy issue to be less of a problem than Dire Beast's, in that most of the time your pet will already be at the mob when you pop Frenzy (except at the start of combat), so you won't be wasting that much time, while every time you summon a Dire Beast it will have to run in (unless they fixed that recently and I'm not aware). I'm also curious if Dire Beast still, nonsensically, performs its stomp at the summon point before it runs in.

[Kalliope]

Having said that I find the Dire Frenzy issue to be less of a problem than Dire Beast's, in that most of the time your pet will already be at the mob when you pop Frenzy (except at the start of combat), so you won't be wasting that much time, while every time you summon a Dire Beast it will have to run in (unless they fixed that recently and I'm not aware). I'm also curious if Dire Beast still, nonsensically, performs its stomp at the summon point before it runs in.

I think this may have been fixed, since when I've been summoning dire beasts on the PTR, they've been appearing on top of my target, not by me.

[Wain]

I think this may have been fixed, since when I've been summoning dire beasts on the PTR, they've been appearing on top of my target, not by me.

Oh, that's good then! Wow, they actually fixed it!

[Kalliope]

I think this may have been fixed, since when I've been summoning dire beasts on the PTR, they've been appearing on top of my target, not by me.

Oh, that's good then! Wow, they actually fixed it!

I have zero doubt that pet pathing mechanics bug Blizzard too.

They might still need to correct the size of the pets, since they're huuuuuge! Though because they're huge, I can actually find them in the mess. xD Otherwise, I'd be having trouble spotting them in very crowded melee. Maybe we need some sort of buff on us to signal that we've got a dire beast out?