Hunter Class Feedback: My Two Cents

19 thoughts on “Hunter Class Feedback: My Two Cents”

1. I haven’t read many of the ideas in the previous posts, but I think it’s really hard to find one with better than Kazador’s – ALL you said is probably right (I see that many stuff have been mentioned by others as well, so credit to them, too).
   I’d especially love to see these changes to AotCheetah and Counterattack (I always loved them altho they were never too useful), at least; I liked most of -if not all- the rest of your ideas, too.
   Also, I feel I have to mention that improvement of our melee capabilities instead of removal of the minimum range makes more sense. And those who say we need better self-heals and an ability that removes DoTs got a great point.
   Now, Wyvern Sting becoming a baseline ability sounds too good to become true, and I don’t think it’ll happen, tbh. That’s cause it’s one of the best CC abilities ever, imo. I remember how much it helped me when I was using SV in TBC <3
   But… anyone think a melee ability that causes a sleep effect + dmg, or works just like WS – let's call it Wyvern Bite (?) – could deal with both our CC and the general lack of good melee abilities issues? (new baseline SV ability: Wyvern Bite …sounds great to me right now 😐 Hope I'm not the only one :P).
   P.S.:
   I guess I should let you know that I haven't really played as a level 85 yet (not even close, I hit 80 just some months b4 Cataclysm, and haven't used my hunter for many months, being offline most of them), so I can't be 100% sure on what's the best for end game hunters right now, but I can have an opinion on this class, having played as a hunter for long enough (3 years, to be exact, b4 making the decision to level a warrior, for a change) to understand its mechanics & strong/weak spots; leveled 2 – one to 70 in TBC and one to 80 in WotLK – till now. On the other hand, I'm not a very experienced player, as I should/could be by now …but I can sure see which talents/abilities are useless and which don't even make sense. It's not that hard, anyway -..-

   Reply

   • The issue with Wyvern Sting is that it is VASTLY superior to Intimidation and Silencing Shot, due to having twice the duration in PVP. So if SV is generally brought into balance in other ways, it will far surpass MM and BM for CC unless Silencing Shot and Intimidation also have their durations doubled.

     Hunters also lack a significant targetable CC, unless they totally redesign freezing trap to be targeted, which I think is very unlikely. Hunters also can’t maintain constant CC for as long as most other classes.

     Making Wyvern Sting a baseline ability for all hunters would make our CC much more viable, and would balance the specs a bit better. SV would need something to compensate for not having a spec-specific CC, and I had proposed a short stun and/or short knockback for Explosive Shot. Knockback would be especially fun because it would help SV hunters maintain range.

     Anyway, it’s just a thought. I don’t think Freezing Trap will ever be as functional as the CC of other classes, so Wyvern Sting could be a good way to compensate.

     Reply

2. Gar, I guess I’ll post my 2 cents here too:

   Thread: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3195920214

   In January 2011, shortly after Cataclysm was released, I published a compendium of ideas on how to improve hunter abilities, which generated a broad discussion in the hunter community and got more than 500 replies. Although I no longer support ALL of the ideas presented there, most of them remain very valid, as are ideas presented by others in the thread, because hunters really haven’t changed much in recent patches. I’d encourage you to take a look at it here:

   http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1920715825

   It has been my intention to do a full update on that thread, refining the ideas presented there, but I haven’t yet had the time for that big of a project. So instead I’ll respond with a few key ideas to your primary questions in this thread.

   What type of content do you focus on? [PvE/PvP/Both]

   I do a lot of PVE and PVP, in all specs. Lately I’m most focused on PVP due to limited time and an unpredictable schedule, but I still do some PVE too.

   If PvE, what type of PvE? [Heroics/Raids/Other]

   Raids, Heroics, and Soloing older content

   If PvP, what type of PvP? [Arenas, BGs, Rated BGs]

   Extensive Arena, BGs, and Rated BGs. Pretty high rating (1900ish) in Arena and RBGs, and over 100,000 kills in BGs.

   What are your biggest quality-of-life issues?

   Honestly there are a host of clunky hunter abilities that need improved coding or design, which I outlined in my older post.

   Hunters need MUCH better abilities to resurrect pets. Ideally, allow the hunter to call a new pet when the current pet dies. Also, greatly shorten the rez time on pets, and consider making an instant pet rez available with a long cooldown (Heart of the Phoenix as a baseline hunter ability, rather than a pet ability).

   Hunter CC is far too difficult to successfully use in PVP, and is too easily broken or avoided.

   Hunters can’t do anything useful or interesting in melee range. This needs fixed, although I actually don’t support the flat out removal of minimum range (I’ll explain more later).

   Cobra Shot and Steady Shot don’t work well in PVP. For an excellent article on this, and some good proposed solutions, see here:

   http://outdps.com/2011/08/01/why-is-focus-allegedly-broken-in-pvp/

   My preferred option is for Cobra and Steady to generate focus continually as the cast bar progresses, rather than when the ability lands. This allows focus regen even against targets who go out of line of sight, or who are missed/immune by the ability, which is a major problem in PVP. Note also that these shots should be slowed by debuffs that slow physical attack speed, but NOT by abilities that slow casting time, since hunters aren’t casters and getting both of these debuffs completely destroys the hunter’s ability to function at all.

   Aspect of the Hawk and Aspect of the Fox don’t make for a terribly interesting duo. I’d like to see Aspect of the Fox be more useful overall: perhaps add a bonus to dodge, as Aspect of the Monkey used to have?

   What makes playing your class more fun?

   Fix broken and clunky mechanics, and do whatever it takes to make hunters viable in competitive PVP. Hunters have been dead last in Arena nearly every season since WoW began.

   How do you feel about your “rotation”? (Rotation is the accepted order in which abilities are used to maximum efficiency.)

   The rotation for all 3 hunter specs are conceptually fine, but need some fixes.

   BM rotation needs a fix to Kill Command. My preferred fixes are to either:
   Have Kill Command cause the pet to instantly leap (charge) into range of the target and deliver the Kill Command. This would also help BM keep their pet on target more.
   OR
   Have Kill Command be a buff on the pet, lasting until the pet is in range to deliver it (like Intimidation currently works)

   BM also needs improvement to the talent “Killing Streak”. At the very least, extend the duration of Killing Streak to give is a bigger window of opportunity. Preferably, have Killing Streak proc an instant and free of focus Kill Command (potentially without the damage bonus if required for balance).

   MM rotation has too narrow of a window for Improved Steady Shot. Extend the duration of this buff by a few seconds to allow flexibility.

   MM also needs Master Marksman to have a 100% proc rate for a buff. The randomness here is just annoying.

   SV rotation is good, but is easily broken in PVP by dispelling Black Arrow. Make Black Arrow undispellable.

   SV also needs some more interesting offensive cooldowns that can be used on demand for burst DPS.

   What’s on your wish list for your class?

   A complete, well designed overhaul, as I outlined in January.

   To pick a few favorites:

   Melee range needs an overhaul, and should interact with Focus.

   I suggest making two abilities:
   1. Raptor Strike should generate considerable focus
   2. Counterattack should be an ability available to all hunters, and should do high damage and a stun or knockback effect, and apply the slow effect currently from Wing Clip. However, Counterattack should COST focus and have a moderate cooldown.
   Overall, melee damage should be comparable (90%?), of ranged damage, but obviously leaving the hunter exposed to melee attacks. A simple two-button rotation (raptor and counterattack) would make keep hunters from having to learn an entirely separate rotation for melee range.
   I think this melee solution would be more interesting for hunters than just removing minimum range.

   Hunters are lacking in self-heals, and are vulnerable to DOTs.

   I think a stronger healing component should be added to the signature shot of each spec. BM should heal upon each Kill Command, MM should get a stronger heal for Chimaera, and SV should get a steady life drain from Black Arrow. Bring the healing for each spec up to par with the healing abilities of other DPS classes.

   I’d like to see a DOT cleanse added to Master’s Call. Master’s call could maintain its current effect, and also transfer all harmful effects from the target to the pet. This emphasizes the critical role of the pet, and doesn’t totally eliminate DOTs but puts them where the hunter can deal with them with Mend Pet.

   Hunter Defenses are uninteresting.

   Mostly I’d like to see Deterrence gain a 100% reflect rate against all attacks, causing enemy players to be cautious to avoid attacking during Deterrence, and allowing some interesting opportunities to reflect damage against bosses in PVE.
   Disengage needs a better way to deal with uneven terrain, and needs to be fixed so hunters aren’t treated as if they were standing still until they land (currently hunters able to be hit by melee or fire on the ground even while flying through the air). Potentially make all attacks versus hunters miss while they’re in the air.

   Hunter CC is FAR weaker than what is available to all other classes in PVP.

   Trap Launcher is far too difficult to use in PVP, when compared to the CC abilities of any other class. Reworking this ability so that it can be targeted somehow is key. I suggest having it land at the feet of where the targeted unit was when it was fired. The arming time of traps also needs to be removed if they are to be effective.

   Freezing Trap is too easily broken. Give it the ability to “freeze” any dots on the target so they don’t advance until the trap breaks. Consider also giving Freezing Trap a damage threshold in which it absorbs any damage done against the target up to a max of X damage.

   Honestly I think one of the best solutions to hunter CC is to make Wyvern Sting available to all specs. It’s a more functional ability, and has good hunter “flavor”. Giving hunters a functional freezing trap/launcher and wyvern sting would give us enough CC to ALMOST be on par with other classes that can chain CC forever.

   Increase the duration of Intimidation. As BMs only offensive CC, the duration is too short, and many other classes have much better stuns as a baseline. I’d also like to see a damage component added to Intimidation so that it has some use in PVE. I’d suggest having it allow the pet and hunter to bypass the target’s armor for the duration of the stun (giving BM more ability to deal with plate classes, as well). You’d need to rename the ability, which already has a name that makes no sense, to something like “Savage Rend”.

   If you make Wyvern Sting a baseline ability, come up with something else for SV. Perhaps a very short stun (1-2sec) and/or a short knockback with each Explosive Shot?

   Traps:
   Traps are mostly just not interesting. I’d increase the damage of Explosive and Snake Traps, but have them cost focus. Freezing Trap I already discussed.

   I’d love to see “Bear Trap” implemented. This was discussed by Blizz back before WotLK. Instant damage and a stun/root, with a bleed and slow effect after escaping. Functionally useful for hunters, and conceptually fitting. This should cost focus since it does damage.

   Hunter Talent Trees need some serious cleaning up. For more on this, again go to my older post.

   What spells do you use the least?

   Widow Venom: This is simply not worth using. Fold the 10% healing reducition effect into Serpent Sting, which needs some utility in addition to its fairly weak DPS. Remove Widow Venom from the game.

   Aspect of the Wild: Make this increase resistance to all “wild” elements: nature, fire, and frost. Consider adding a healing component to this so it slowly heals the hunter.

   Aspect of the Cheetah/Pack: The daze effect is simply too much here. Consider having each strike reduce the hunter’s focus by 10, and if focus hits zero THEN the daze effect kicks in. So with Aspect of the Pack, if the whole team got hit by something, the hunter would go to zero focus and a bunch of people would get dazed. I’m open to any other solution here, but do something about this. It’s too much penalty for not enough benefit, and consequently is almost never a good option. If nothing else, simply reduce the run speed bonus slightly (to 20%?) and remove the daze effect.

   Tranquilizing Shot: It IS useful, but the focus cost is too much. Reduce it to 10.

   Snake Trap: Honestly my favorite trap for hunters, conceptually. Need to dramatically increase the damage and health of snakes to make this trap matter, and have snakes have a 100% chance to apply the movement and casting speed venoms.

   Immolation Trap: This would need to do a lot more damage to be useful, but even then it’s not interesting. I’d prefer to see this removed and replace with Bear Trap, as described above.

   Ice Trap: Yes, I use this some, but I’d rather not, because it shares a cooldown with Freezing Trap. I’d love to see this trap removed, and have the AOE slow effect covered by a vastly more effective snake trap, which I think is more interesting anyway, but is currently redundant.

   Traps Summary:
   Buff Snake Trap, improve Freezing Trap, add Bear Trap, keep Explosive Trap. Remove Immolation and Ice Traps. This would make for 4 different types of traps, all useful and interesting, with no need for shared cooldowns. Apply a focus cost if necessary to compensate for generally more effective traps. Remove arming time on all traps. Improve functionality of trap launcher.

   So, this has gotten to be very long, filling several posts. I hope you find it useful. I may still try to do an updated version of my older post at some point in the future, if that seems like it would help.

   Kazador

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3. I have always liked playing the hunter for the use of pets and long range attack. However, it seems every other class has some pet, ranged spells that do more damage than any arrow that I ever had. I miss the aggressive stance that the pets once had. That was like having an extra pair of eyes and saved me from a lot of rogues. If Blizzard can’t give us any better buffs I wish they would leave our few old ones alone.

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4. What type of content do you focus on? [PvE/PvP/Both]

   Both

   If PvE, what type of PvE? [Heroics/Raids/Other]

   Heroics, raids, and looking for rare pets

   If PvP, what type of PvP? [Arenas, BGs, Rated BGs]

   Arenas, BGs, and Rated BGs

   What are your biggest quality-of-life issues? For instance, no longer requiring ammo could be considered a quality-of-life improvement for hunters.

   Minimum range is horrible. It is bad in PVE but it’s even worse in PVP. In PVE at least you are familiar with the fight mechanics and can expect when you’ll be in min range and adjust accordingly but not in PVP. Every class uses LoS in PVP as they should but when you mix LoS and min range then it’s a nightmare for hunters. For example, if I chase an enemy in PVP around an object (box, column, etc.), the only way to do damage is to find LoS but once I find LoS I still can’t do any damage because since I’m chasing around small objects then I’m in minimum range. So the enemy just has to stick to a box or a column and keep going around and I’ll either be out of LoS or within minimum range once I have LoS.

   Our traps are also a nightmare. We can’t CC anything that has Serpent Sting or anything that was recently hit with our Aimed Shot or Steady Shot since it procs Piercing Shots and will break our CC. So we have to stop damage and wait for all DoTs to wear off and then apply CC. Also our traps have very poor mechanics in PVP. Most classes can directly cast CC or the CC area of effect is huge. We can just hope that the enemy will not move from where they are (which doesn’t happen in PVP) when we launch a trap or we can hope that the enemy will be dumb enough to actually walk over it. The CC is just not reliable and has too many factors that need to be right in order to get a good CC.

   Lack of heals is also a big PVP problem since every class has the ability to heal or have some sort of shield that absorbs large amounts of damage. Mages for example don’t have heals but they have shields that absorb a lot of damage and they also have ice block. Every other class has a decent heal but hunters only have deterrence which has a really long cooldown.

   Our pets are also a pain right now because there are just too many bugs; the most annoying one being having a pet that gets one-shot. In arenas I usually don’t summon a pet until the match starts so I know what I’m up against and then quickly Call a pet but he gets one-shot many times.

   What makes playing your class more fun?

   I like the whole “catch me if you can” strategy that the hunters use. I also like having cool looking pets with me.

   What makes playing your class less fun?

   No one ever wants hunters for SERIOUS arena teams which is clear when you look at how many hunters there were at this past Battle.net WoW Invitationals (ZERO). Mostly because our CC is so unreliable.

   How do you feel about your “rotation”? (Rotation is the accepted order in which abilities are used to maximum efficiency.)

   In MM it can be extremely hard to keep up a good rotation without Improved Steady Shot dropping off since it only works for 8 seconds and steady shot has a sort of long cast time. In BM it can be annoying when trying to keep a good rotation but the pet is not within melee range of mob so it takes Kill Command out of the formula until the pet gets there.

   What’s on your wish list for your class?

   Things I really want: Minimum range gone! I don’t understand why every other ranged class can do their full dps from far away and also up-close. There’s just no good explanation as to why a ranged weapon would not fire up-close (it actually will do more damage in RL but I’ll settle for just having minimum range gone).

   Please give us freezing arrow back so that hunters can have a CC they can depend on in PVP without leaving it up to luck whether the other player will walk over trap or not.

   Implement some sort of damage cap or damage type that our trapped target can receive without braking CC such as Serpent Sting and Piercing Shots being able to do damage without braking CC but all other damage will brake it. I’ll even be happy if CC automatically removes all of our DoTs from the target when trapped.

   Give us a self-healing abilitie (spirit bond is too small a heal for PVP as it relies on super tiny heals over very long amounts of time and arenas don’t last that long and the Chimera Shot heal is very unreliable since it can be negated by minimum range, the shot being on cooldown, or not having enough focus to fire the shot.) or a reliable damage-reducing abilty (ie. mage Frost Armor) because the only thing we have is deterrence and its cooldown is too long while other classes have damage-reducing abilities PLUS immunities. I just want our survivability to be in par with others classes, not better but not worse either.

   I would like to see the summon pet bug fixed so that they don’t get one-shot.

   I would also like to see the Aggresive stance back for pets because it seems like those of us that are careful with our pet stance were punished because of all the others that don’t pay attention to their pet’s stance. Aggresive was an extremely good ability on PVP and it was just taken away to help those that don’t pay attention to their pets.

   Give BM a better tree bonus. I don’t play BM but I feel bad for them because their “Beast Mastery” talent doesn’t really stand out there as a “powerful-last talent of tree” ability. Maybe give them the ability to summon multiple pets for a short period of time.

   I also think that Aspect of the Wild be changed so that it increases all the resistances which might make it worth dropping the damage bonus from Aspect of the Hawk.

   Things that would be nice to have: the ability to choose cunning, ferocity, or tenacity and choose the buffs for all the pet skins out there so that we can use a pet whose looks we like and not feel forced to bring a pet we don’t like or we’re sick of (looking at you Cat!).

   Disable all spells/damage against a beast being tamed other than by the hunter doing the taming unless aggro is dropped because of death or feign death or something like that.

   The ability to tame beasts as mounts (ie. horses, Rhinos, etc..).

   The ability to have temporary mind control of a beast allowing you to simply send the beast to auto attack a target until the mind control effect wears off.

   The ability to dual-wield pistols.

   The ability to sacrifice our pets and get a percentage of their health.

   Adding increased swimming speed to Aspect of Cheetah and Pack (after all, we’re all about fast moving in the outdoors while hunting down our prey.).

   What spells do you use the least?

   Pathfinding – doesn’t really have a signifacnt impact in PVE or PVP.

   Resistance is Futile – It’s in the wrong tree. Put it in BM tree.

   Counterattack – After the change to Deterrece, this ability is dead in the water.

   Feed Pet – Mend pet doesn’t cost any focus so I don’t see a real need for feeding the pet.

   Immolation Trap – what for?

   Widow Venom – 15 focus for a tiny insignificant debuff?

   Aspect of the Wild – Not worth dropping damage bonus from Hawk just for one resistance.

   Camouflage – No real advantage. Add damage bonus to first shot fired when camouflaged.

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5. @Darrwyn: exactly right. If we are to be a ranged class, why not give us more options to keep enemies at bay?

   My hunch is that Blizzard is thinking “But you already have a pet with roots and stuns and whatnot. What more could you want?” The problem is, having a pet with its own abilities, along with our own abilities, actually increases the number of things we have to keep track of.

   Now, don’t get me wrong. The reason I love the Hunter class is because of the RDPS and the pet. I find I appreciate my pet more and more each day, and I actually want a way to keep track of and utilize its abilities more efficiently.

   But not all people have that luxury of having multitasking abilities. Even my Rogue buddy who is good at multitasking (he works at a 5-star hotel kitchen, lol…) complained to me that Hunters need a huge truckload of keybinds to be able to use properly. In a heated fight I often find I lose track of where my pet is, which is why the best Hunters I know often keep them on passive so they don’t go bounding merrily on their own way.

   I actually made a couple of suggestions, at least for the Survival tree, in this thread. https://huntsmanslodge.com/forum/arena/what-changes-would-you-like-to-sv-tree-pvp/

   As for a more general wishlist, I mentioned that I wanted the Hunter class to be more focused in terms of differentiating and specializing each tree. Here’s my other two cents on the issue:

   1) Give Beast Mastery more synergy between master and pet. I loved the old BM talents that allowed me to increase the armor and HP values on both myself and my pet, as well as the Improved Revive Pet talent. Also, why not give this tree its own aspect, the original Aspect of the Beast? Not only did it make us untrackable, but it increased MDPS for both myself and my pet. Why not make it a sort of BM-only substitute for Aspect of the Hawk, where we only switch to AotH when we want to fire off that Kill Shot or unload a barrage of Arcanes? At least it would make Aspect Dancing more palatable.

   2) There is one talent in the Marksman tree that bugs me: Careful Aim. The only time it’s useful is when you’re soloing mobs and using it as an opener (I find I can one shot most mobs with it), or when you’re opening up on an unsuspecting player in PvP. It used to be that Careful Aim gave us the same amount of RAP equivalent to a percentage of our INT, up to 100%. Why not just make this ability a small overall critical % increase for Steady, Cobra and Aimed Shot instead of an insane critical % that is limited by the target’s current HP? Otherwise, I have no qualms with the Marksman tree except for things like Point of No Escape, which rightly belongs in the BM tree. It seems that this is the only tree that Blizzard gave more thought to than the rest, it being straightforward point-and-shoot.

   3) Survival needs to have more survivability. Why not balance this tree out against the Rogue class’s Subtlety tree? This tree needs to have the most counters and interrupts, which it does, but the DPS it’s currently doing isn’t enough, and it’s home to one of the most useless talents in all of the Hunter trees: Counterattack. Why not give this tree more utility options such as the ones I mentioned in the thread I posted above: better stealth detection, a talented knockback on Explosive Trap and a knockback melee move among other possible things? Heck, like my BM suggestion, this tree could benefit from having it’s own Aspect of the Monkey. For an Agility class, the Hunter’s dodge % is suspicously low, so why not give Survival that edge? This tree could also provide bonuses to Camouflage, like making it an actual Stealth and giving it a critical % bonus for the first shot fired from Camo.

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6. I suggested a knock back effect for Wing Clip, but now thinking about it, even a talent-improved chance at a knock back would be ok. If Blizz wants us to be a RANGE class, we need the ability to get range! Perhaps even granting our current Raptor Strike the same thing instead. As it is, it’s useless, and not even on my action bar! They need to decide if they want us a range, or not, and if so, let us have a way of getting it. There are other ways I suppose… Disengage given a (much) shorter cooldown, or Deterrence breaking CC, are a couple of thoughts.
   Anyhoo, fellow hunters, isn’t it lovely to be asked our thoughts?

   Cheers,
   D

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7. It makes sense to have a spammable melee ability with some punch and something extra like Garwulf mentioned re: Mongoose weapon damage X. with a short cooldown. The minor glyph would be a good idea given we have 2 useless minor glyph slots there already. Anything that would allow you to do some relatively consistent quick damage with regaining range the main goal. I don’t think anyone is advocating a massive damage close quarter ability. Just something with some punch if you’re getting swarmed etc.
   I could see this type of scenario:
   Spamming a new melee ablility, then use the proposed Mongoose Bite, pop a scattershot and disengage or whatever it takes to gain the range we need without making us pretty near helpless in close quarters.
   All new abilities would be unuseable as soon as you were out of melee range just as the current abilities are.

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8. What if it was changed so that only steady shot/cobra shot could be used inside the dead zone? That would allow us to do damage inside melee range (and the damage would be less as we could not use our full rotation), would allow us to build focus when in melee range (allowing us to get out of melee range quicker). It keeps to the “ranged damage dealer” persona and also could be fairly useful (but not OP) on PVE boss fights as well (example: Baleroc crystal soaking). Also I would think that this would be simpler to implement.

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   • The problem I see with this is the increased likelihood of casting-time interrupts due to being within melee range. It could make free-casting Steady or Cobra very difficult, i.e., frustrating.

     Also, It would be pretty useless for PvP.

     However, I do like the idea of having our close quarter ability regen focus quicker. In combination with Fox, an ability that did that could have us topped off in a jiffy.

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9. I like the changes offered. Though I think that a hunter without minumum range would be OP. I also sometimes do arena on my mage, and if hunter had no minimum range, then mage (and to a smaller extend rogue) would have no chance against a hunter at all. Maybe remove mimum range but still have damage reduced there? A few new melee ablities could do that too.

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   • Call me crazy, but I like the idea of giving us back some melee abilities. I too think that would be a good answer to our dead zone. Obviously, the abilities wouldn’t do nearly as much damage, but it’d be nice to at least have ‘something’ for fights where we’re hopelessly stuck in melee range – either in PvP or during a boss fight phase.

     I think we should have one spammable melee attack, with another having a short cooldown (e.g., 6 secs) or proc-based-use that’s not on the global cooldown, but initiates a cooldown after use – similar to how things used to be when we had Mongoose Bite.

     Another cool option (for PvP) would be to add a glyph for one of our melee attacks that adds a small % to proc a 2 sec stun. This would work similar to Counterattack, but would be more practical.

     Example:

     Mongoose Bite – 6 sec cooldown – An attack that instantly deals your normal weapon damage plus X. Only usable after an enemy dodges.

     Glyph of Mongoose Bite – Your Mongoose Bite also has a 20% chance to stun the target for 2 seconds.

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10. Given I lack the ambition to play anything other than Beast Mastery most but not all are pretty much directed towards that spec.
    1. Undo the ‘new and improved’ pet stances. There was nothing wrong with the old stances. I want my defensive back. Plus on occasion when I’m going from zone to zone it’s be nice if my pet bar stayed around.
    2. Give BM a ranged interrupt.
    3. While I don’t have a problem with Kill Command per se, the melee range is an issue. Either substitute it with an equal shot or make the pet be able to spit major damage from afar.
    4. Give us pistols or something, anything for in close fighting. Something that does real damage. You could marginalize the use so it can’t be abused or take away the ranged aspect of huntering but at this point we’re pretty much screwed if something or someone gets in our face or pulls us to em. We’re a ranged class but so are casters and they can heal and do damage while in your face.
    5. If they won’t do the above, let us heal more often, faster, greater amounts and on the fly without a cooldown between.
    6. I’d like to see the Aspect switch cooldown shortened though it is fairly fast now. While not a big deal in a group, solo the switch from hawk to fox is not only a tad awkward it’s too slow and will only become more difficult as they add harder content. Even the current mobs have some fast interrupts.
    7. Stupidly hard solo quests with applicable rewards if you can pull them off.
    8. Playing a dwarf, introduce more high end guns into the game or do away with the racial bonus. Persoanly I put guns in with choppers n such-they don’t make sense in the game but if you don’t have a good gun, change the bonus. Not everyone digs playing a worgen.
    9. Make tameable rare pets which supposedly are for the hunter class immune from griefers. Blizzard purposely made the reward and loot drops worthless. I guess they were relying on everyones ‘better nature’
    10. Let me cook on Terrorpene.

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11. Rapid Killing talent actually works well with MM AOE scenarios as you get Rapid Killing which combines with Rapid Recuperation to give you 25 focus every kill – this is great for spamming down crappy adds or things like Spiderlings in Beth’tilac.

    Probably not all that useful in PVP though 😉

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    • I see what you’re saying. Here’s the response I left Eidotrope on WHH:

      Eidotrope: I don’t think Rapid Killing is worthless. When combined with Rapid Recuperation it generates a LOT of extra Focus in dungeons and while soloing. That doesn’t make it great for boss fights or arenas, but it’s definitely not worthless.

      Garwulf: “Yep, I agree. I hadn’t really thought about it in terms of 5 mans or when dealing with loads of AoE adds. I was mainly looking at it as a Tier 1 talent in a secondary tree, being that I haven’t played much as MM in Cata. When you consider the added instant focus regen it offers MM, then it’s a decent value.

      I have seen the light! :D”

      I’ve edited the post to reflect my new perspective. 😉

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12. I’m just throwing this suggestion out there…what if we had a melee ability that restored focus at an accelerated rate (2x or 3x for example) to alleviate the possibility of being focus starved and in melee range. That would force the melee to make a decision about always keeping us in melee as they are also adding to our resources (and our ability to disengage). Thoughts?

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13. Some where in there is my post as well. I unfortunately didn’t keep track of where it is. Anyways, the stuff Garwulf and Darrwyn had to say is pretty good and sums up pretty well my thoughts as well. Substance has a really excellent response.

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14. So this is my kind of first-hand thoughts as i am only just leveled 85 and still haven’t been in a raid situation as a hunter. I am loving the hunter, and i had gone around doing a bad rotation for MM and i still topped the meters unless people vastly outgeared me so while it is very forgiving when just doing dps, then i can understand that it is not forgiving when maxing dps and using 3 seconds casting time to maintain a 8 second buff giving us just about 5 seconds of casting what we want.

    First of all, the leveling was extremely easy one shotting mobs with Aimed shot most of the time, and after that i could add kill shot, when stuff got some more health i had to chuck in a chimera shot as well, but it still goes down within 3gdc’s. Now the Rapid Killing and Rapic Recuperation worth a lot for the leveling Marksmanship hunter.

    I only have experience enough for Marksmanship to comment on, survival i tried dungeoning in wotlk but it wasn’t as fun tbh.
    As far as dungeon abilities goes then we have nice cc, we can do a mediocre aoe while being able to fire some extremely powerful shots off on the mobs with full hp, though the problem comes down to the fact that if i dont precast my Aimed shot then i wont get the hit before the mobs get below 90% hp, which means no crit buff for me. This is not the problem for bosses so it is not that much of a biggie, basicly and overall the hunters have just about everything.

    But buffing the only melee ability might be pretty cool since the deadzone is often getting a problem when dealing with situations of stacking up as a hunter. I suggest making a trade off for no minimum range, lets say we do x’% less damage with some of our shots while being within y’ yards range of the target. Unfortunately then most raid bosses have such a huge hitbox that both melee and hunters can attack the boss while stacking up.

    For damage mitigation we are a bit in trouble though since the only thing we have is a glyph for Raptor strike making us take 20% less damage for 5 seconds after we use raptor strike, which means we need to be in melee range.

    As far as PvP goes i only did some world PvP and hunter have a lot of abilities to use against any class, and my concussive shot is always close at hand. I haven’t come across all the different classes on a 1on1 combat but right now i have nothing more to say than what been said above.

    Coming from an Elemental shaman who only had damage reduction from our dps cooldown, and that was also through a glyph, then hunters have many more utilities than any other class except of course mages ^^

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15. Darrwyn and I have already posted our own responses as well.

    My response: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3123039290?page=48#947
    Darrwyn’s response: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3123039290?page=48#952

    Here’s what I seem to be seeing so far: most hunters are agreeing on getting rid of Counterattack, Pathfinding and Immolation Trap, plus the need for more efficient ability distribution so we don’t have to rely on excessive amounts of keybinds and complex macros just to maximize our skills. Lack of Melee and distance-creating moves (whether knockback or otherwise) is also an issue, especially after Blizzard announced that they wanted to reinforce the Hunter class as a ranged class (see http://www.wowwiki.com/Hunter#Cataclysm_changes). And the new Focus resource bar needs to be worked on a bit more.

    My personal beef which can’t be expressed in a simple list (hence the existence of paragraphs in my own feedback…lol) is that Blizzard’s recent “Game Balancing” spree has unintentionally left us in the dust. I understand the need to balance a game in which millions of players across the globe are openly interacting with one another in real time, whether it be in PvE and PvP, and their own personal choices are going to reflect on the way the game is made. But after a certain point, developer meddling becomes too much and things start getting watered down.

    My biggest wish for the Hunter is for the dev team and the player community to sit down and talk about where they want the class to go. Make the class more focused in terms of raiding and PvP roles instead of merely talking about the specifics like “get rid of such-and-such an ability, condense so-and-so abilities into a single one, get rid of deadzone”, etc. Hunters need a distinct identity. Their decision to enforce the class as a ranged class is a start, but what does that mean for all Hunter specs in general? It’s not just how we can get in range, but how can we stay there? And what use do each of the trees have anyway? What makes BM different from MM? MM from SV? SV from BM and so on?

    Back then it used to be that BM was THE solo leveling spec and a decent sustained DPS in raids, MM was the fast burst damage sniping build and SV was the utility build focusing on crowd control, threat mitigation and sustained yellow damage that isn’t totally gear dependent. Now it’s somewhat muddled up. Everybody is going MM for both PvE and PvP, SV is seen only as a raid-viable AoE spec, and nobody seems to have any idea what BM is for (I PvP with it…lol)–obviously Blizz is trying to give it more raid utility by giving exotic pets unique and powerful raid-wide buffs, but BM damage and utility in group PvE is considered nil. And to make matters worse, every Hunter’s best bet in a dungeon or raid is to open up with Trap Launcher -> Explosive Trap and start spamming Multi-Shot on a large pull just to try and be useful before the Mages, Warlocks and Elemental Shammys destroy everything in sight–especially after the threat nerf.

    It all boils down to proper focus (no, not the resource). What is the Hunter for? What can each spec contribute personally and to the group as a whole that other classes can’t merely duplicate and even outdo, which seems to be the case most of the time? If this question is answered, I guarantee most problems will be solved for the Hunter community.

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