WoW Petopia Community

As you may or may not have noticed, I mentioned in another thread my general idea for a hunter sanctuary and a "tutor" questline similar to the monk questline introduced in Mists of Pandaria.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, when a monk reaches level 20, he gets a quest and a spell to teleport to a special monk sanctuary in Kun-Lai Summit. Once there, (s)he fights a tough NPC and is rewarded with a blue item and XP buff. Every ten levels, monk returns to that sanctuary to take on a new NPC, learning about some of his crucial spells, like stuns, roots or interrupts. That culminates in a level 90 quest to take down a boss that combines all the dangerous abilities, while the monk uses all he learned to defeat the boss, and is rewarded with ilvl 450 blue item. Every day, he can repeat one of those intermediary quests for more XP buffs/3000 mastery.

Now, I think that questline was a brilliant way to introduce players new to the class to its abilities and also very useful due to blue items and buffs it provides. There are talks of other classes receiving similar questlines and I thought, what would hunter's "tutor" questline (and sanctuary) be like?

Here comes my general idea: the sanctuary is called "Spirit Hunting Grounds", inspired by purported Amerindian afterlife. It's a jungle island west of Stranglethorn, a domain of Goldrinn, the Great Hunter spirit, and is mostly populated by non-hostile animals and spirits of hunters from eras long passed: Tauren that don't know about the Sundering, Trolls that still think Zul'Gurub is one of the greatest cities in the world, or humans still barely different from Vrykul personality-wise. Those hunter spirits wander around and hunt, half-playfully, the beasts on the island. However, sometimes evil spirits or mortal despoilers reach the island and try to break its delicate balance for their own profit. Goldrinn feels a link to you, aspiring hunter and wants you to prove your might on the island by slaying those that defile its sanctity.

At level 20 you get a Spirit Link spell which lets you to teleport to the Grounds at will (with a cooldown, obviously) and there you perform a series of challenges from Goldrinn, meant to test your abilities (and how you use them) against the invaders. Starting from a simple goblin industrialist who wants to harvest island's natural resources, you progress through various spirits from past eras, learning how to use your abilities, culminating in an epic two-on-two fight: you and your pet against level 90 elite undead Mogu quilen-master and his pet quilen spirit beast. Using all you learned, you defeat the Mogu and release the Quilen as a tamable spirit beast wandering the island. Goldrinn rewards you with a unique ilvl 450 crossbow.

Now, what is missing in that idea, are intermediaries. I have general ideas of what the bosses for levels 30-80 are (for example, a troll with a devilsaur) but I need your consultance in what you think should be the abilities tested at different levels and how to test them. For example, one of the bosses uses Aimed Shot and you have a few seconds to cast Deterrence to deflect it.

I'm open for your suggestions for the ways hunter can be tried during that questline, as well as any criticism regarding the idea as a whole.

I love what they did for monks, and I'd love to see a simmilar thing for hunters (and all the other calsses, for that matter), but somehow it's rather hard to believe they'd actually do such thing

I like your idea, though, and very much.
For encounters mechanics, I'd like to see:
- something that forces you to use CCs (like a powerful dire-beast spell that you have a few seconds to CC or it leaps at you and tears you to pieces)
- something that forces you to kite multiple targets (stampede-user with summons that lock on you, that you have to keep on the ice and either aoe-burn down or wait till they despawn)
- pet>hunter>pet agro switching (stackable, undispellable debuff, simmilar to the mechanics of 2-tank raid bosses)
- flaring a stealthed targed (a mark-droping and camoflaging opponent that'll ambush you unless flared out quickly)

And of course some standard don't-stand-in-the-bad thing. You can never put enough stress on that

Myrrmi wrote:And of course some standard don't-stand-in-the-bad thing. You can never put enough stress on that

That's definitely the first level 20 target I'd put in, like for monks. I did consider an opponent with Stampede, but thought the hunter would be supposed to interrupt it, and as our interrupts are all optional it was rather weird. Thinking of stampede summons needing to be snared, it looks like a good idea.

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I imagine the "don't stand in the fire" fight to go as follows:

1) After your introduction to Goldrinn at level 20, you're told to report to a Tauren spirit on the western beaches of the island.
2) The Tauren spirit mentions personally remembering the mythical hunt for Malorne.
3) He gives you the quest to deal with a goblin incursion. Venture Co. have landed on the western shores and attempted to cut down trees and dig for oil, but beasts of the land attacked them and killed most of them. Only their crazed leader remains with his pet crab. You are sent to kill him.
4) On the beach there are crashed boats, dead goblins and one goblin hunter with a gun and a crab (which is called just "Crab" to show he treats his pet as just an object to serve him), walking around and babbling to himself.
Actual fight mechanics here
5) Some time into the fight he will drop Explosive Shot. The spell is instant cast, and always ignores pets, meaning it always lands under the hunter. Crab can also be damaged by that Explosive Shot, meaning the goblin will occasionally kill his own pet with it.
6) Big yellow warning appears on the screen. "You are standing in the fire! Disengage to quickly get away from it!"
7) Upon death, the goblin yells "Stupid crab! I should have... tamed a..."
Fight mechanics end here
8) The Tauren spirit congratulates you on your victory but predicts his spirit will linger on and some days it may manifest again (hinting the quest becoming a daily for the buff)
9) Upon returning to Goldrinn, you get the Blessing of Goldrinn buff which is identical to monk's Enlightment.

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Sounds cool, Slapperfish. Blizzard would probably heavily evaluate if they want to give us "more stable slots", even in this way, but I personally like it.