WerebearGuy wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 7:33 pm
Honestly, BM needs an overhaul like Survival.
I don't see how this is the way to go even after reading your post. BM's design and foundation are fine. The main problems are surface-level mechanical and tuning issues such as every active talent option being tuned to be garbage. Otherwise it actually plays pretty well, it has a good core gameplay loop, its fantasy is solid. I'd say it's the Hunter spec in the least need of a rework; especially since when looking at the DF talent trees the BM one is the best by far.
WerebearGuy wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 7:33 pm
Originally, Survival was the not-Marksman spec; it did what Marksman did, but not as good. Now, despite having some questionable design choices and a few very questionable talent issues, it's got its own unique identity.
This is an extremely inaccurate and dare I say revisionist way of portraying ranged SV.
Saying it did what Marksman did but not as good is like saying Arms does what Fury does but not as good. They're different approahces to a baseline class archetype. For Hunters, MM focused on long ranged sharpshooting and hardcasted burst while SV focused on utilitarianism and resourcefulness with exotic munitions, with a more sustained damage profile. There were situations better fitting to either one so they felt like meaningful and valuable spec choices while providing good representation of ranged weapon archetypes.
I don't think SV is just a handful of superficial bad choices right now. The whole model of the spec is flawed; primarily because it has no coherent structure or direction. You're throwing grenades and shooting with a sidearm crossbow while also using a bunch of generic physical melee attacks and pet stuff lifted from BM. It feels like they had a few general ideas of what to go with for a melee Hunter and didn't know which one to pick so they just picked all of them.
WerebearGuy wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 7:33 pm
Sadly, this unique identity puts BM in a place where it's no longer that unique. Current Survival is a melee spec that needs a pet, while current Marksmanship is a ranged spec without pet resources. What is BM? A ranged spec that relies on its pets. I'm sure that everyone can see the problem here, and the far more prevalent problem regarding a Beast "Master" spec; the mastery over beasts is completely non-existent.
How does this make sense? SV apparently didn't have a unique identity before, it got a bunch of BM stuff and is now unique, but that makes BM not unique? No... that makes
Survival not unique because BM had that stuff first.
Most of what SV does with a pet is just lifted straight from BM. Kill Command is just the BM ability, but retuned as a generator instead of a spender. Coordinated Assault is a renamed and tweaked Bestial Wrath. Spirit Bond was originally an iconic part of BM before being made SV's exclusive mastery for some reason. Apart from that the rest of SV is largely not concerned with the pet (Wildfire Bomb says hello), while BM also has the Frenzy interaction, Beast Cleave, Exotic Pets, and a set of talents full of pet buffs and active abilities themed around pets. BM is still the pet spec of the Hunter class and absolutely represents the concept of beast
mastery well.
You started this post off by saying SV used to be "Marksmanship but not as good". Whether or not that's true (it's not) it seems now the truth is SV is currently BM but not as good.
WerebearGuy wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 7:33 pm
For starters, what does BM have in regards to pets?
You say this then list a whole bunch of things BM has to do with pets while trying to minimise their impact one by one. This has the unintended side-effect of demonstrating that BM actually has quite a lot of interaction with their pets.
WerebearGuy wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 7:33 pm
It's more shallow than old Survival
Both current BM and old Survival have very solid identities. I won't be gaslit to believe otherwise. SV was my main spec back then and I play BM a lot now and, since this isn't the official forums, I'll happly admit I play private servers for WotLK and MoP so I see directly and concurrently what the specs looked like back then.
WerebearGuy wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 7:33 pm
Survival, while given a very rocky start, absolutely benefits from its new identity. So much so that the parts it took from Beast Mastery make it seem like Beast Mastery copied Survival. What Beast Mastery needs is a new kit based around calling on beasts, both loyal and feral, to swarm the field and make it so that the enemy has no choice but to deal with your menagerie before they have the right to step foot in your proximity.
It's not just a rocky start. It's entire existence as a melee spec has been rocky, in contrast to years of success, stability, and broad enjoyment before that.
I don't know how you figure SV copying BM makes it look like the other way around. Again BM still has all the pet stuff. The only thing SV took that BM no longer has is Spirit Bond, which should absolutely be given back to BM. I really, really detest this PR push lately of driving a wedge in the concept of summoning lots of pets v.s. bonding with one pet. BM has historically been the latter, in fact, with the "zoo" approach being a Legion product and mostly talented rather than baseline. Even the 2nd pet is talented. They should both be variations within BM and I don't see what the point of making SV melee is if it's just going to leech off BM all the time.
On that note, I also detest how we apparently need to tread on eggshells around melee SV. SV copies BM so BM is the one that needs to change? Give me a break! Going back to the ranged SV comparison; people make a stink about it apparently copying MM but as someone who played both specs often I never felt like MM was getting copied/leeched from to provide ranged SV with a toolkit. So it strikes me as extremely hypocritical and makes me cynical and suspicious of the whole supposed "uniqueness" goal.
WerebearGuy wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 7:33 pm
BM needs to be able to pick its weapon and fight accordingly, rather than being limited to ranged.
"Limited to range" is an oxymoron. BM has no range restriction like SV (aside from pets having to reach the boss, of course) or movement restriction like MM. It's unlimited. If it had a dependence on melee in any way it would be limited.
If melee SV proved anything it's that most Hunters really don't want to have anything to do with melee so making BM even partially melee would be a huge mistake. I could understand talented melee options within BM but that would of course remove any point to melee SV existing.
WerebearGuy wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 7:33 pm
Animal Companion, one of my favorite talent picks, needs to let us control both of those pets. A second pet bar, while being more micromanagement, would make it feel so much better. Pets having abilities you can pick and choose to place on their pet bar for them to cycle through would be an amazing addition. Using Eyes of the Beast to use multiple pet abilities that aren't on your pet's bar normally would add such a sense of immersion and unity with your pets. A ranged tactics-based build with a bunch of summoned beasts, or a melee "fight as one" build where you focus on using your two closest companions; two identities, one spec.
Requiring such micromanagement of the pets would be extremely toxic. This isn't a game that fundamentally handles controlling multiple units well like an RTS. This would just push people away from BM. It's better to have the sort of toolkit it has now where it has involvement with the ranged weapon while also interaction and commanding of the pet.
For example, the Hunter uses Multi Shot, something that was once baseline to all Hunter specs, and the pet starts cleaving. I think that's pretty cool. It reinforces that BM is at heart a Hunter just like MM so it shares some things but modifies them in key ways, just like MM has Trick Shots. In the past SV was also in on that design as it used Multi-Shot to spread Serpent Sting to every target. That's the genius behind the Cata/MoP/WoD Hunter designs: there was more shared between the specs but each spec modified and added stuff in key ways to develop a unique but recognisable Hunter identity.
WerebearGuy wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 7:33 pm
Just my two cents. Also, I'm all for the removal of the "exotic" classification because it genuinely doesn't have a purpose anymore, but the class needs a new identity that fits the theme of a beast master more so than a small change like that. It does need that small change, but still.
Well you did complain about BM apparently not being enough of a beast master... being able to tame exotic pets that other Hunters can't is exactly the sort of thing that enhances the BM fantasy. So I don't see how this reconciles with the rest of the post.