As many of you may have seen, Blizzard is currently looking for hunter class feedback.

In an effort to stir up some discussion on the matter, I’ve posted a few of my thoughts and suggestions below, following the Q&A format of the official blue post.

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

Apart from some miscellaneous questing here and there, along with the occasional rare pet taming mission, these days I am almost strictly PvP.

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

Daily quests, rare pet hunting, …

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

I mostly queue for BGs, but I have spent a good amount of time in arena and would like to do some 2v2 in future. I enjoy arena, but being that it’s another component of the game that requires scheduling and some degree of commitment, it’s tough for me to stay regular with it. Rated BGs are definitely something I would like to get into, but haven’t messed with yet.

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

• I hate that my pet is able to be one-shotted after I dismount or leave a vehicle. That makes me sad and affects my quality of life in Azeroth.

What makes playing your class more fun?

• The ability to tame pets.
• Being a ranged attacker that’s not a ‘caster’ — utilizing guns and bows to deal damage from afar, as well as being a not-as-squishy, mail wearing class.
• The ability to ‘track’ different mob types.
• Being able to turn my pet into a big-red-ass-kicking-machine-of-death.

What makes playing your class less fun?

• The ‘dead zone’.
• Lack of options for melee range. I would actually enjoy having 3-4 viable melee abilities.

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

• I’m fine with it for the most part. The focus system and new shot mechanics make the new hunter rotations more interesting than ever, but I feel aspect switching could be a little less ‘clunky’. I mean, I deal with it, but I can’t say that I really ‘like’ the toggle between Hawk and Fox. As far as how the various specs rate…
• Survival feels good to me – much the same way it did in WotLK, but with the added AoE benefits.
• BM is finally an interesting spec to play, but I find it to be a bit less ‘smooth’ than SV. It’s a bummer that the spec’s signature ‘shot’ requires the pet to be in melee range.
• I have yet to PvE as MM in Cataclysm, so I can’t comment on it too much. However… based upon the little time I have used it on target dummies and in PvP, the rotation seems like it could be the most enjoyable of the three – albeit the most complex. MM has a lot going on, but it’s a pretty fun spec to play with probably the highest skill cap of the three trees.

What’s on your wish list for your class?

• General Changes & Fixes
• I’d like to see minimum range done away with.
• I’d like it if our pets were summoned at full health.
• I think the focus cost of Tranq Shot could be reduced to 15 to make it more inline with the resource costs of other similar class spells — especially for one that ‘attempts’ to remove an effect.
• Camouflage could be a bit better. I like the idea of adding a damage bonus to the first shot cast while under the effect — kinda like a sniper. A bonus to crit chance could work there as well. I also think that it should reduce the distance that mobs and players can detect us, further buffed by Shadowmeld, of course. 😉 The trade-off could be 20% slower movement speed perhaps.
• Beast Mastery
• I’d like to see Intimidation made into a baseline ability – reduced to a 2 second duration – with BM receiving a DPS talent in its place. This could either be a pet-based ability similar to Kill Command (with a longer CD), or a shot of some sort.
• Pathfinding can get the boot. In its place, Beast Masters could get something like Improved Intimidation… 1 point would add 1 second to the duration, with a 50% chance to daze the affected target for 2 seconds afterward. 2/2 would add 2 seconds to the stun (for a total of 4 seconds), with a 100% chance to daze the target for 2 secs afterward.
• I’d like to see the passive run speed bonus added back into Kindred Spirits. Beast Masters are a more ‘animalistic’ type of hunter, so it would stand to reason that they would travel a bit faster than the other specs.
• Marksmanship
• Resistance is Futile is a pretty lame talent for the MM tree and really lends itself more to BM. Something totally different needs to go in its place as well. RiF could be an interesting talent in the BM tree, say in place of Pathfinding, but I’d like to see it reworked somewhat — maybe a 25%/50% chance to refund the cost…

I had made previous mention of Rapid Killing being a ‘worthless’ talent now that the reduced Rapid Fire cooldown portion had been removed, but I’m backing off on that stance now. My opinion was based upon a whole lot of BM PvP in battlegrounds and not much else. 😉

• Survival
• The glaring problem in the SV tree is Counterattack. Given that it only procs after we’ve successfully parried an attack with our laughable 5% chance, this talent is insanely bad. What could be interesting in its place is an Evasion-like talent that increases dodge chance for 10 seconds, provides a greater chance for ranged attacks to be missed, while also removing the 6 second cooldown on Raptor Strike. In essence… hunters could have a 10 second period where their dodge chance is buffed up by say 40%, and Raptor Strike becomes an insta-cast – apart from the 1.5 sec GCD. That’s one idea that comes to mind, with the focus being on a ‘melee’ talent for Survival. If Intimidation were made baseline, then losing a stun right there wouldn’t be a big deal — especially since no one talents it anyway.

What spells do you use the least?

• Aspect of the Wild – A very situational talent that often times isn’t worth the DPS sacrifice. It has its uses, but it could be more worthwhile, IMO.
• Beast Lore – Why is this still in our spellbook? Anyone..?
• Immolation Trap – I can’t remember the last time I used this in place of Explosive Trap.

Well those are some of my initial thoughts concerning the subject of Hunter class feedback…

What sort of ideas and suggestions do you have that could help to make hunters even better in the future? Post your comments below.