Locked and Loaded: Your Legion Hunter questions answered

Happy New Year! Here’s to 2016 being another awesome year for the Hunter. As we wait for the Legion alpha to come back online — hopefully with a playable Marksmanship or Beast Mastery spec — I thought it would be a good idea to do another Queue-style post to get some discussion going, and answer some of your Legion questions. The following questions and comments were pulled from the last two Locked and Loaded columns.

Flanking Strike goes a long way to making the pet feel more significant, but I still have my issues with Survival pets. Basically, I’d like to see pets for Survival handled in a different manner than Beast Mastery pets. Right now it feels too much like a ranged pet tacked onto a melee class. I feel like Survival pets should stick at their master’s side at all times (which means matching your speed for everything, including Harpoon). I’d even give up the ability to make them attack a different target than me if it got me that. Not only would it look cool but I feel like it would play smoother in melee.

Yes, playing Hunters (especially if that’s all you really play) can spoil you. I’ve said previously that I think a melee spec could attract more new Hunters than it does existing Hunters. I honestly see the majority of existing Hunters going with one of the ranged specs (after all, they rolled a ranged DPS class for a reason). There’s always a chance they could try Survival and fall in love though (you’ll have plenty of time to try it out in the 7.0 patch).

I think this sounds awesome, but right now all traps share a cooldown. If you read my post about my first impressions on Survival, you saw that I raved about Dragonsfire Trap. I’m sad to report that in the next build they completely changed what I loved about that trap. It used to panic enemies and now it only slows them. Unfortunately, this sort of thing happens in beta and you have to remind yourself not to get attached to anything.

I think trap combos would be a neat mechanic for Survival, especially with tons of combos available like the ones you listed. It might be an interesting alternative to the Expert Trapper talent, which has lost some of its luster after the Dragonsfire Trap change.

Didn’t you see? Volley is a talent now! I think Whispers of the Past is more like a “smart Barrage.”

It would certainly be cool and go a long way differentiating Hunters, but there is a good chance it will just be the wolf. For starters, Hati is a wolf in Norse mythology. Secondly, you have to look at Hati from the perspective of him being the guardian of the Titanstrike weapon itself. He’s tied to the weapon, not you. You still have your bond with your other pet, but Hati is part of the Titanstrike package. If the weapon goes, he goes.

Looking at it from that perspective, it doesn’t bother me too much if it’s locked to one appearance. However, I know I don’t speak for all Hunters on that point, so perhaps there will be a way to customize him. We also have no idea if that is the final model he will use, or how he will even work. Stay tuned!

Assuming they don’t change the transmog rules in Legion, yes you can. Not only two-handed swords but staves as well. Perhaps that makes getting your gold challenge modes completed a bit more enticing? There’s some pretty ridiculous melee weapon transmogs to be had there.

Beast Mastery does seem a little bare in that respect. We’ve got Concussive Shot, and one talented crowd control. A few pets have a snare ability, but who knows what’s going on with pet abilities at this point. They are reducing overall crowd control in Legion so this may be all we get. Also, remember they’re not trying to make all specs equal in every category. Lots of crowd control is a Survival perk.

It’s funny you mention PVP because that is where I think the current Talonclaw equip bonus is even worse! At least out in the world you are killing things rapidly and it will actually reduce the cooldown of Exhilaration somewhat. How often are you killing things in an arena match for those five seconds to matter?

When compared to summoning an extra pet or having your Aimed Shot fire extra wind arrows, yeah I think it’s not nearly as cool of a bonus. Coolness factor is important to me! I think the idea it presents is useful, just not the current implementation. For that, the cooldown reduction would need to be much greater, and you’d need some other way to trigger it for situations like a boss fight or arena match when things aren’t dying regularly.

All this being said, it’s still early and will probably change. If I sound like I’m giving Survival a rough time, it’s because I want it to be good and worthy of being part of the Hunter class (and it’s also all I could play at the moment).

As cool as the Hunter zoo from the first iteration sounded, it was probably unsustainable. There’s only so many pets one character can summon before it becomes problematic for other players (especially in a raid). I will gladly exchange some random beasts being summoned during Bestial Wrath for Hati being able to Beast Cleave and Kill Command with my primary pet.

There’s nothing you can do to stop me from using this ridiculous term. I’ve wanted to dual wield pets for way too long. Dreams really do come true (in before Blizzard removes Hati).

Now I have a question for you: Are there any Warlords of Draenor Hunter topics you’d still like to see covered, or would you rather see mostly Legion content from here on out?