Is there enough of a style/flavour difference between trees?

[Daniya]

Hi all (first time poster, long time browser),

I was testing out each talent spec after 4.0 hit, and it started feeling like each talent spec felt pretty similar in terms of rotation. I'm not sure, maybe its a little bit of hunter burnout on my end, but I think each spec could be more drastically different?

I am having trouble articulating what is making me feel this way. I guess its that each sort of feels like steady steady special and a proc or two.

Anyone else feeling this way? Or opposite?

Thanks!

-Daniya

P.S.- I really like your forum avatars!

[Kalliope]

Welcome to the forums!

I personally can't speak to the current survival setup, since I haven't had the chance to really mess with it, but I agree that the BM and MM rotations are currently pretty similar in terms of feel. Sure, BM has KC and arcane instead of two arcanes, but it's basically the same sort of setup. It's definitely not just you who's noticing the similarities! Whether they could/should differ more from each other is another question entirely.

[Anyia]

Disclaimer: I've only used on spec on live (BM), but I did do some Survival on the PTR earlier.

That said, I do agree with the sentiment. It feels like they're all made up of the same building blocks now:
- 1 Special Shot (KC/Chim/ES)
- 1 Proc (FF/MM/LnL)
- 1 Filler Shot
- 1 Regen Shot (Steady/Cobra)

The main difference I see is that Marks are pretty much guaranteed to have to juggle ImpSS as well, whereas that is optional for BM/SV.

[Daniya]

I guess what I am trying to determine is if I should play my hunter as a main or play one of my hybrids (I have all 4 healing hybrids at 80).

I know hunters have a lot of depth in terms of skill needed to be truly excellent (particularly pvp), which is something that would help keep me busy (and frustrated!), but I'm just not sure if there is enough of a style difference to keep me interested through another whole xpac. I don't expect any of you to be able to tell me the answer to that though

Thanks for your comments! These forums are the place I go to when I need cheering up after reading the wow forums

[Kalliope]

Well, that's a purely personal decision. Only you can really tell what constitutes "boring" to you.

All I can say is that WoW is not a static game. What classes look like now is not what they will look like at the end of the expansion. It's always changing, always being fine tuned. There's a lot to play with in terms of pets, especially as BM, but looking at healers (I too have all four healing classes at 80, so I hear ya), those look a lot more complex to figure out. Of course, healing is more complex to figure out than dps in general, IMO, so it's not really a fair comparison...

[Nimizar]

The feel of the trees is actually a bit off right now, since BM and SV are missing their automatic SrS refresh (i.e. Cobra Shot) and hence will need to refresh it manually.

The core of each of the specs has definitely been brought closer together, with all 3 now having a proc to watch for and (once we get Cobra) all having a way to keep SrS going without manually refreshing it. The differences now lie largely in the "maintenance" tasks that the spec needs to worry about. SV needs to keep BA up for LnL procs, MM needs to keep Improved Steady Shot rolling, and BM needs to pay closer attention to what their pet is doing (as errors in pet management may lead to lower uptime on Focus Fire). BM and SV both also have more variable incoming focus (through Invigoration and Thrill of the Hunt), and MM has to adjust its rotation to bring in more Arcane Shots in the final 20% (due to the Steady Shot returning more focus at that point).

BM has the most frequent cooldowns in BW and Fervor, while MM retains its 3 min Rapid Fire. SV still gets shafted from a DPS CD point of view, with just a 5 min CD Rapid Fire and any trinkets, but also still rules the roost in terms of ease of trapping things.

Of the 3, I would say SV is actually the least changed from Wrath, while BM and MM have changed fairly substantially. Overall, I think it's a lot like the changes Blizz have made to healers - the core concept is the same across the trees, but everything around that common core should give the trees a fairly different feel when doing more than simply beating on a target dummy.

Edit: Invigoration != Intimidation

[Daniya]

Thanks for the replies.

I will try and hold off judgment until I at least feel how things are with cobra shot and aspect of the fox. Those might alleviate some of my other concerns about the class. Not sure it will dispel my feelings that each tree feels too similar. I've added my thoughts to the wow forums though, perhaps it will be read!

I do wish survival was a little less contradictory, with buffing up traps through several talents then replacing traps with black arrow.