BIG SURVIVAL CHANGES! | Hunter Rework Updates on the War Within Beta

[@Azortharion]

What other videos/content would you like to see? Reply to this comment and upvote the ones you agree with.

[@umronin2806]

Great video Azor! A video guide would be incredible after the surv rework is more consolidated. Thanks for the amazing job!

[@Freezetrap]

Great summary and thoughts. I'm wondering if it might be valuable to have a video where you collate all of the feedback that you agree with (and maybe some you don't if you're feeling spicy) for all 3 specs given their current state and direction on beta, and maybe even share what an ideal state for each spec looks like to you. It seemed to me like they made word-for-word changes the following week to SV after you highlighted Thyminde's comments earlier on. I know you have done a good job of providing specific feedback on some of the changes for the specs so far, but perhaps a thorough breakdown of everything in one place would be useful. Think of it as a follow up to your initial impressions videos of the changes, updated to where we're at now.

[@jean-francoismurphy293]

Guides for the war within and or the prepatch

[@JimmyTwoCoats]

It would be great to see some M+/Raid Boss gameplay footage with you providing an overview & Hunter tips and tricks per dungeon/boss.

[@l_Nightbot_l]

I still feel hero talents are lame for hunter. The spec feels and looks the same, nothing "heroic"about it.

[@Nienora]

I agree. Pack leader is passive. Black arrow is uninspired with the summoning of random ankle biters and MM relies too heavily on Sentinel in their damage profile. They just aren’t “heroic” changes.

[@dwseagle17]

Not to mention it’s just added talents = more stuff for them to balance. They forget that x buffs y and then put a rando talent to buff z.

[@theossy]

Thanks for doing great work for the hunter community Azor! It’s people like you (and the others who participate in the feedback process, no matter how Big or small) that help guide Blizzard and ultimately help us all play a (hopefully) more fun™️, brain cell stimulating and engaging class, and for that this old hunter is grateful ❤️

[@Saucemixer]

In regards to MB - I wrote following in the forums: >Having the 14 Seconds window remaining as a part of Fury but change what it does at 5 stacks. >Instead of Fury offering infinte empowered MB at 5 Stacks for the duration → create a final blow casting a MB with full benfit of tip (without consuming a stack). >Bloody Claws empowers the Final Blow by casting up to 2 additional MB (on the same GCD) while consuming Focus (those still act like a 5 Stack MB but don’t receive the tip empowerment). The Window Ends once you casted the Final Blow MB. >May have the weight of the % gain more towards the beginning of fury and then have it go down for each stack - while offering a pay-off if you reach the fifth stack. >Have WB/FS reduce the window cooldown by 0,5 - 1 seconds if MB is talented. >Have a Cooldown on the Window of 20-30 Seconds.

[@Saucemixer]

Flanking Strike revert was so important for PvP and it was a terrible uncontrolable leap

[@Riokaii]

Mentioning the removal of death chakram seems important imo

[@Azortharion]

True, that's a slip-up.

[@ourovermelho23]

@@Azortharionit’s all good great video as always hope the still put in work on MM and BM

[@ibMoose2u]

As always, we die hard huntards appreciate the work you and the others put into the hunter specs!!

[@andrewflick8013]

I attempted to bring up my thoughts on flanking strike changes to the hunter discord and was met with sooo much backlash from the people on there. I found no problem with removing the dash (or possibly only making the dash for your pet) and making it synergize with other talents and hero talents. It reduces the buttons we have to press and makes the rotation much less constrictive since hitting flanking strike is also what causes kill command to cleave. The cleave timer will also have a higher uptime since it's not locked behind a 30 second cd...

[@Ellementz]

I did enjoy planning and using Flanking Strike and the 2 tips you got from it after the 3rd KC. However like you said a lot of talents didn't apply to Flanking and more importantly imo the forced movement when Flanking is used creates a lot of problems. I personally had no issue with the MB change but that's neither here nor there now.

[@Freezetrap]

Going to add my reply here because I absolutely agree, the biggest issue with the flanking strike change was that it still leapt you to the target, and having it happen mid rotation if you weren't expecting it resulted in a lot of deaths / awkward situations. At least when flanking strike is its own button you can plan for that and not have your rotation come to a grinding halt.

[@hypext5854]

Huntmaster’s Call seems like it would have been the perfect thematic fit for the Pack Leader tree. I sure wish it could have found its way into both SV and BM.

[@eliasnilsson597]

I agree that reverting the changes instead of tweaking them a bit more before, was a mistake. I think the ideas are correct, mongoose fury is honestly annoying to use for AoE situations and this change would have been great. However, when I saw it I instantly thought about Mok Nathal, which might explain the harsh rejection of the changes from the community. I feel that this harsh revert to changes was made because of a lack of time rather than any other reason. I didn't have time to try flanking strike but if they removed the leap, I would be 100% for that change. I would love it if you just shot an empowered Arcane Shot with flanking strike that also counts towards the Explosive shot proc with KC.

[@faol4n654]

1:45 I think they Should change positions of Dire Beast and Dire Command and also put Hunter's Prey and Venom's Bite together in one talent... We now have such cool and interesting talents and can only pick so few cause of missing points and sometimes strange pathing. And since they not touched Basilisks collar, we still want to have as many Dots on our targets as we can. I tried to build a Single-Target Build and was missing like 4-5 Points I needed to make it really good. You "can" pick Venom's Bite, but it is useless like 80% of the time without Hunter's Prey. And Hunter's Prey isn't that strong since Kill Shot on it's own is not a really hard hitting ability for BM (outside of Cull the Herd, which at least contributes to the Dots we need). So ether you pick both or it's like playing BM with only one Pet sitting next to you and cheering you up xD I think we need some more Changes or get rid of Basilisks Collar. It's too strong to not make a BM a Pet based Affli-Lock... and with this we want as much Dots on Enemy as we can... So we want nearly 100% uptime on following (no clue which counts towards Basilisks Collar triggering): - Serpent Sting (which we can only apply via RNG proccs on Kill Shot above 20%), - Barbed Shot (okay, this is already normal ^^) - Bleed from Laceration (already normal too) - Cull the Herd Dot from Kill Shot (RNG-Based if we have Hunter's Prey) - Murder of Crows (which should be easy since 5 KCs in 15 Sec should be easy ^^) - also maybe Fenryr's Bleed.... And on top we want Bloodsheed to be used right before we use Call of the Wild, but this is already normal for us... Soooooo.... If all of them trigger Basilisk Collar we should have like 60% more damage all the time if we can make those things have 100% Uptime... BUT... don't know how to make a Specc make it work... If i Specc into Hunter's Prey and Venom's Bite and also Murder of Crows, I lack points to even get to Bloodshed, not speaking of it's Choice note, what would make it even more heavy hitting. If i want to get to Bloodshed and it's note I will loose Murder of Crow and Dire command and rely fully on Dire Beast to get Huntmaster's Call to go of, which hurts the potential Uptime of the Bleed from Fenryr... And all this is with loosing the Barbed Shoot Charges from Bestial Wrath and only putting points there in Brutal Companion... So like I said... if they want to make BM like a Pet based Affli-Lock, they need to change Things in my option like follows: 1. Change places of Dire Beast and Dire Command, so Dire Beast is only for People wanting a more Save way to trigger the Haste Buff additionally. 2. Put Hunter's Prey and Venom's Bite together in One Talent since one is nearly nothing without the other 3. Make Killer Instinct and Training Expert a One-Pointer too, since both are Gatekeepers at least on a Single Target Build to get to important "CDs" like Bestial Wrath and Call of the Wild. 4. Remove or Change Basilisk Collar to a Point where it is only a nice to have so we don't have to manage like 6 Debuffs on our Target to make good damage and then forget Point 1-3 ^^ Maybe make it, so it only triggers on different instances of our Bleeds, so Serpent Sting is not "needed"... would make it easier... or like "only Stacks 3 Times" or so, so we only have to watch out to have 3 Kinds of Dots on our Targets...

[@Martindves]

I love these videoes because often you pick on topics we all talking about, but you using your voice feels good. I hope you get the time and energy to keep this up! One "issue" i have with Hunter atm is that we are a bit underwhelming on the visual side and when I play I dont really feel exited when using skills. Also want to mention now that Shaman got a real Raid buff, it would great to voice something about that too

[@zmcnabb]

I'll miss death chakrams as a bit of a mini colossus smash window maximizer. I think I'm not entirely thrilled with multi shot becoming such a huge % of marks aoe damage. As you pointed out a bit, I think aimed and rapid fire should likely be higher % of our damage (you said aimed but I included rapid fire). Perhaps they could make small game hunter a 1 point node at 30% and add some extra oomph to aimed and rapid fire to compensate. I don't entirely hate the multi > trickshots gameplay, but I think having multi do considerable damage isn't the "right" way to go as it has been a tool to do your actual big fun abilities afterwards? I also sort of wish wailing arrow was just sort of deleted and something else put in that capstone tier. I know they spent time designing it for the sylvanas bow, and it is a cool thematic ability I suppose, but there has to be something considerably cooler they could have done with wind arrows, like make them cleave or leave a dot that explodes after a certain amount or something - not entirely sure on what to do with this.

[@Signeddudu]

I very much agree that both dire beast and flanking strike should be either removed or made passive in some way. They are not fun to press and, to me, they create unnecessary botton bloat. Let's hope they read your feedback post and rethink those.

[@Fl4shh4mm3r]

I just want mid to end Legion MM back. Shit was so fun and satisfying. I never really enjoyed MM since the complete rework in BFA.

[@krzysztofmazurek4865]

Flanking Strike was good change for PvE - talents and cut leap from it. Hunter's Mark still bad design. Its almost not worth a press on m+ :( This feel so bad.

[@gdunton1]

So much for getting back into raiding in this patch too. Blizzard has screwed MM for a while. Oh well they just don’t care.

[@juiicer]

There was more issues with that newer version of FS than just not benefiting from KC talents. Not least of all yeeting yourself to death in packs. Both version of MF are very average... but given the choice, removing any form of maintenance buff is always positive.

[@daeman13]

man looks like he just got back from the beach

[@Azortharion]

I recorded this shortly after I got home from a guild meetup in Portugal so not far off. ;D

[@Diguez]

I dont understand how they like the old moongose. You stop everything to just do mongoose. New mongoose you could pump a few to keep 3 stacks and still press bombs, kill command for tip of the spear etc. I dont understand who is so elite to min max the old mongoose fury window. The spec isn't even about mongoose fury now. Wtf?

[@MoglockE]

Its the nostalgia ig. But man s1 DF MB 240K crits 4 proc was a DOPAMINE RUSH

[@l_Nightbot_l]

My main issue is that i was waiting for a "true" rework for MM it doesnt feel as a rework if you core rotation is basically the same. You are A MARKSMAN, marksman mens: "a person skilled in shooting". If you are THAT skilled WHY you can't run/mount and shot at the same time? I mean it suppost to mean you are an expert. You guys want the "no cast while moving thing" AT LEAST make it interesting. Standing still should give you an empowered shot. Something like: Rework Steady Shot (wich is boring and make it actually do damage) it will generate stacks, when you reach 10 stacks, Steady shot will change into Aimed shot and do ALOT of damage (still while moving). BUT if you stand still for 2 secs. it wil garantee a critical strike. -Doing this will make it feel that we lost something (cuz Steady Shot and Aimed Shot are now ONE). I will personally add a new shot to the kit or maybe add a mechanic that makes Arcane shot not feel lame (lets face it, its just a boring proc). Something that works like the old Exotic Munitions: Elune's quiver (15 sec cd): Allows you to modify your bullets or arrows to use fire, nature, frost magic (imagine arcane shot icon and animation changing color depending on the magic you get, its random yeah): Every magic school will add a dot to the target. -I really dislike the spam aimed shot gameplay. Its called AIMED SHOT it sounds like something you work for and you think about, the "BIG dangerous" shot, not something you spam. -The synergy between Aimed shot and arcane shot (Precise Shots) is kinda boring. It feels weird to press it while Trueshot is up. Feels like you are wasting aimedshot charges or arcane shot procs. -Trueshot is the MOST BORING cd in the game even worse than Pillar of Frost (wich is lame). I don't like how it works and how it feels. Its like another heroism buff kinda... its strong, yeah! but its not engaging or fun to press. It doesnt affect your rotation enough in my opinion. I personally don't like explosive shot and salvo for MM. And i would like to see the currect tier set as a talent instead. Defensibily i think Disengage should get a mechanic to reset itself and Aspect of the turtle change into Deterrence

[@betahumanx]

It used to work quite well in MOP if you ask me. You were running while casting Steady Shot and used the focus on Chimera/Arcane and an occasional LocknLoad proc. I quite liked it, you rarely hard-casted Aimed Shot. Also I feel like Trueshot is just a poorly designed burst. The spec feels blend without it active and too fucking OP with it on

[@l_Nightbot_l]

@@betahumanx This. I agree.

[@aleksavukotic1511]

is it optimal to maybe make dire beast passive like every 30sec summon beast for longer duration, and swap it with dire command. That way u remove button bloat. For bm it isnt the issue, just to remove that clunky button, it was always weird to press imo.

[@aleksavukotic1511]

Or like every 20 sec your barbed shot summons dire beast, Or remove it completely, and increase the chance that it can summon a beast from dire command. I'm just thinking out loud idk :D

[@TheFabulousEnby]

It wasn't that, they said flanking strike would inherit those benefits, people didn't like the charge being tied to it because you have to press it to generate stacks. Edit: it didn't interact with KC talents we assumed it would be fixed.

[@Azortharion]

That's fair, but also seems like a straightforward problem to solve that need not have gotten the whole idea scrapped.

[@TheFabulousEnby]

@@Azortharion I think the community liked FS being a 30s strong hit that can be used to gap close as well. Being forced to charge to generate resources would have been bad. I'm curious if they could have choice node the charge tho at the very least.

[@Azortharion]

@@TheFabulousEnby Did they really? Not disputing it or anything, but SV has never really lacked options for gap-closing and losing that in Flanking Strike would, at least for PvE, not be a huge loss with the existence of Harpoon and Disengage. A choice node for the charge would never be picked above a throughput-increasing alternative. I don't think non-numerical talents belong in the Spec Tree for the most part.

[@TheFabulousEnby]

@@Azortharion it seems that the community thought it would have been fixed, but at that time it didn't work, I was wrong there. But it was a suicide machine because I'd you needed focus but weren't in melee range it would charge you to your death. And yo quote Kivlov, and you just had a button you couldn't avoid pressing when you needed focus, or didn't want to suicide into melee with, that didn't interact with an entire hero tree

[@Azortharion]

@@TheFabulousEnby No disagreement on Flanking being a forced rotational charge being bad, I just don't think much of value would've been lost if it simply.. Didn't do that charge (just like how they changed Spearhead into a pet-only charge).

[@Nienora]

What are your thoughts on the removal of Death Chakram? I didn’t feel that THAT talent was the reason for button bloat when they could have baked in Dire Beast and Flanking Strike into BM and Survival, respectively; similar to the wailing arrow ability for MM. Death Chakram felt impactful as a starter in PvE and a kill target “prepper” in PvP arenas. Not to mention, it was the one ability we received from Shadowlands and I loved the visual updates to it and the idea of it being something that was thrown for the two range specs.

[@Azortharion]

I will not miss it, personally. It was a fire-and-forget spell in most scenarios, the Focus it generated was typically wasted because of when you used it in the rotation (early in opener when you were already capped), and its flavor really had nothing to do with the rest of any of the Hunter specs. Its 45-second cooldown basically never aligned naturally with anything. Delaying it felt bad, casting it on cooldown felt bad. It was just kinda.. there. "Button bloat" is rarely an issue about any single button, but getting rid of Chakram is a step in the right direction imo, even if there are other steps worth taking (getting rid of Dire Beast, baking in Flanking Strike as you mention). It was visually alright, I guess. I cannot speak much for PvP personally.

[@Irisishunter]

Big survival changes! -Please let it be ranged again. A few minutes later :(

[@Azortharion]

That would be a far juicier title and thumbnail..

[@Obsidianen]

Regarding the Flanking Strike controversy: The Hunter communities problem with the new Flanking Strike was, that you changed a 50yard reach insta cast focus regen into a short ranged forced dash. This would be a huge problem for kiting in PvP and during your Aspec of the Eagle windows, where you wanted to keep your distance. I for one didnt like the proc based Flanking Strike and am happy that they reverted it. If they want to bake it into an ability, then just put it into Mongoose Bite (and while they are at it, make Raptor Strike baseline).

[@Nienora]

It would have been great if they could do a choice node for flanking strike iterations similar to explosion and implosion trap.

[@JimmyTwoCoats]

What spec do you think you will be playing in the war within?

[@Azortharion]

I'm competitive about my WoW so I will simply play whatever spec is the best for given content. Hopefully that won't be the same, singular spec for all PvE Content, though. At the moment, Marksmanship and Survival have a huge advantage because Sentinel is so strong. All in all there's no way to predict the meta ahead of time. I hope all 3 specs will be "the best" for something relevant.

[@Novytech]

I think the take-away regarding the mongoose bite change reversion is that the community of survival-enjoyers *wants* the window to matter (insofar as single target). I know i personally have enjoyed the spec the most when the bite windows were the important part of the ST rotation. Bomb throwing maniac in AoE? sure. But ST (imo) should be all about that bite. I dont know how much it would matter or could be balanced, but something along the lines of "all bites casted @ 5 stacks act as though tip of the spear is active" though that may be a lazy change. As it stands, I doubt i'll be rolling a surv main this coming xpack (and didnt for DF as well for similar reasons) due to the current state. Had a ton of fun pre-DF though.

[@Azortharion]

I think the perfect Survival would be very Mongoose Bite-management focused on single-target and Bomb/Explosion-focused on AoE. But, it is difficult to have two completely different gameplay loops and flavors for ST/AoE without incurring huge numerical advantages. If all your ST is tied to a mechanic that you cannot execute alongside your AoE rotation, then your single-target in M+ builds/prio damage is going to be really poor. I don't think the solution here is super obvious. Unfortunately, most good specs in WoW are the ones that have a gameplay loop/kit that works well across both single-target and AoE scenarios, especially specs that simply do their single-target rotation on AoE with talents that make their single-target abilities do AoE damage and such, like Shadow Priest and Fire Mage.

[@TheFabulousEnby]

​@@Azortharion The problem was this was forcing MB I to AOE with this change and it became unmanageable was the big issue.

[@Jhonz0r]

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[@leanneblack754]

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[@masterwilliam01]

Regarding the Mongoose Fury discussion: You're argumenting the same way as Doolb in his Guide Writer Feedback on Wowhead. When I was reading it, there was one thing about this whole argument that I didn't understand. What you're saying is that throughout dragonflight it was more important to correctly manage Focus instead of managing Mongoose Fury. Please correct me if I'm wrong here. So the very reason why you want to manage Focus is Mongoose Bite with its Mongoose Fury windows in the first place. No correct Focus management, no good Mongoose Fury windows. Sure, from your standpoint as a theorycrafter, Focus management comes first and Mongoose Fury is second. But you're leaving out the reason WHY that is. Current Survival with its rework doesn't manage Focus at all. There's no reason for it since you're hitting KC so often and your high priority spells ES and WB don't really require a lot of Focus. Look at that damage overview from that M+ log. That guy didn't even bother taking Mongoose Bite. Raptor Strike is very low on the meter. Focus management just isn't there... I want those Mongoose Fury windows because I want Mongoose Bite (which costs higher focus than the more damage dealing ES and WB) to be THE ability in single target just like before. I want it to be a thing so Focus management stays a thing. With a maintenance buff for Mongoose Fury, Focus management won't be as important as when you have those windows. That's the difference. Maybe there's some misconception in my logic here and there's an argument why what I'm saying isn't right. Until then, I think you're completely missing the point why people think those Mongoose Fury windows are better gameplay. So the argument is less about Mongoose Fury and its exact implementation but rather its significance to the rotation of the new beta Survival spec. If RS/ MB will become a mere filler to the rotation, I won't be playing it. And the change to a maintennce buff for Mongoose Fury was as if cementing exactly that filler role...

[@Azortharion]

I'll do my best to address every point of your comment. 1) The reason you want to manage Focus is not to Mongoose Bite with Mongoose Fury windows specifically. We want to manage Focus to maximize our total Mongoose Bite casts over an entire encounter. Strong Mongoose Fury windows are a side effect of this, but not the goal in itself. A higher quantity of Mongoose Bites total is more important than higher-quality Mongoose Bites packed into the 5-stack window. 2) I agree that Focus management is not a big part of Survival's gameplay loop in The War Within, but I don't think Mongoose Bite/Fury has anything to do with that one way or the other. They tied a powerful damage buff (Tip of the Spear) to our generator and this is partly the result. You never managed Focus around your Mongoose Fury windows previously. You just managed your Focus at all times to maximize your total Mongoose Bite count. This will stay the exact same gameplay-wise even if they change Mongoose Fury to the new implementation. Looking at modern Survival, the new proposed Mongoose Bite will have more of a gameplay impact (very little) than the old one (none). The rules of Focus management remain the same in The War Within, it's simply a lower priority than maximizing Tip of the Spear coverage on all your spells. I do not have strong feelings about whether Mongoose Bite should or should not be a big part of Survival's rotation. You can have a good rotation with or without. Your opinion is valid and I neither strongly agree nor disagree ---- BUT, Mongoose Fury has no weight on it.

[@masterwilliam01]

@@Azortharion Thanks for your detailed answer. In this case, there's a misconception clarified I had with Mongoose Fury in Dragonflight. However, this misconception in how I thought to play Survival led me to having fun playing the spec. "Task failed succesfully" basically. Maybe it's hard to understand but you need to take into account that probably most of the players are not that deep into the theorycrafting. I for myself am looking at logs to see how I can play optimally. Then I see Mongoose Fury pretty much always fully played out to max stacks by top players. And really, having played out your focus correctly and hitting that Mongoose Bite with 5 Mongoose Fury stacks is so satisfying. It creates this gameplay loop that is just so essential for a spec to feel fun to play (at least for me). On the contrary, if Mongoose Fury where a maintenance buff, you'd see just a straight line in the logs with optimal play. And that's how it also feels to play. There's just that huge difference between: Pressing a button to accumulate to a climax (and then repeat) and pressing a button so that the timer on a buff refreshes/ doesn't run out. One is building excitement, the other won't be of an impact except you fail which is only frustrating. If you're someone looking at Mongoose Bite just having Focus management in mind, then I can see why you won't see a difference between the Mongoose Fury windows and the maintenance buffs. In the end, TWW Survival is missing this satisfying loop for me. I'm too busy throwing bombs and explosives that there's not much time for a MB. I even found that not speccing into Mongoose Bite was getting me less frustration with Survival on the beta. I think the best solution for this issue is that we just need talents interacting with Mongoose Fury. E.g. if Merciless Blows would allow to help stack up Mongoose Fury stacks would be really nice (for each enemy hit). Or if we had a talent that makes Kill Shot benefit from Mongoose Fury stacks. Imagine going into a Mongoose Fury window and your last GCD is a omega beefed up Kill Shot... At the moment, it's basically TotS and bombs taking all the space in the Survival rotation. If that change with Mongoose Fury had made it through, we wouldn't have seen even the slightest possibility for Blizzard to give us some talents enhancing a more MB centric playstyle. And I think there are a lot of opportunities there...

[@Dumbmelee]

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