Blue Reactions To Alpha Feedback: Hunters, Evokers and Dragonriding

Hello Hunters,

We wanted to discuss some plans we had coming in the next few builds and address a few points of feedback.

Class Tree Changes:

• Improved Mend pet reduced to 2 points for +25/50%. Also now has a chance per tick of Mend Pet to also dispel a magic effect from your pet.
• Scare Beast is no longer on a path that connects to other nodes below it, it’s a one-off thing to the side of the tree.
• There is potentially a placeholder +Agility node where scare beast was. This will be changed if it shows up in your build to something that isn’t direct throughput.
• Chimaera Shot removed from the class tree.
• Master Marksman will likely be changed to also work with melee critical hits.
• Death Chakram will likely be changed to increase all damage taken, rather than just Physical. This should make it more competitive to Survival Hunters, who do a fair bit of non-physical damage.

Beast Mastery

• Dire Pack needs to be reworked.

Marksmanship

• Double Tap is being moved near the middle of the tree.
• New bottom left talent as a selection node:
  • Kill Shot now works with Trick Shots
  • Some number of targets hit by your Trick Shot ricochets also have Explosive Shot applied to them.
• Legacy of the Windrunners has moved, and is consolidated down to 3 points instead of 5.
• Chimaera shot added near the top of the tree. It will once again replace Arcane Shot, and things that modify Arcane Shot will modify Chimaera Shot
• Quick Shot removed.
• Rapid Fire’s Focus generation will just be part of the baseline ability and no longer an upgrade.

Survival

• A bunch of 3-point talents adjusted to fewer points.
• A dependency problem with Frenzy Strikes needs to be resolved where you can get this talent without either Wildfire Bombs.

This is not a complete list of what will change in the next build, or even the next few builds. As more decisions are made, we’ll try to post here. As always, things are subject to change and what is there now, or in the builds to come, may not be final.

Bug fixing is also an ongoing process.

One other quick note:

Serpent Sting is intentionally low on the class side of the talent tree. If it’s up higher, it starts competing in space we have designated for utility options and starts to feel like a mandatory throughput choice. We want to put most of the actual throughput stuff past the second gate, so you have adequate points to get the utility you feel is important while playing. Moving it up higher means you would likely be getting less utility options.

edit: The note about Serpent Sting is specific to the Hunter class tree layout. Different classes have different tree layouts and where utility and throughput is scattered about.
edit2: note about Rapid Fire Focus generation in the MM tree area.
edit3: Death Chakram note in class tree area.
edit4: Frenzy Strikes note was wrong, you have to take Butchery/Carve, but not Wildfire Bombs.

There are no plans to change the 3+ target requirement for Trick Shots.

While I don’t want to comment for every single tree directly, comparing a class that has been around for 17+ years to a brand new class is very difficult. Evokers don’t have years of precedent and mechanics to build off of. It is a very different experience to design a talent tree for a totally new class with basically zero core ideas that players are accustomed to, compared to designing talents for a class that has years of expectations and styles of play around it.

I’m not saying don’t look at the Evoker tree or whatever other class and see cool ideas and try to relate it to your class or spec or express frustrations where you feel them. That’s always a fun experiment and something we often do with our internal peer reviews. I’m just trying to say, Evokers are very new, and currently have these core interactions created for them within the tree.

Hi all! I wanted to Soar over and touch on some of the great feedback that’s been posted thus far.

Talents & Talent Builds
There has been so much wonderful discussion about the talent trees, and we’re still digging through all of it. No firm plans to share just yet, but please continue sharing your feedback as we iterate on the trees. We’ll let you know specifics as soon as we have them!

Visage
In the next build, Dracthyr will no longer switch to Visage when getting on a mount, flight path, etc. Additionally, they will have a new racial ability called Chosen Identity that you can “Activate to automatically assume your Visage when you leave combat or after Soaring.” Chosen Identity will stay toggled on until manually deactivated. As a note, existing Alpha characters may not have Chosen Identity learned.

Azure Strike
In a future build, Azure Strike’s targeting will behave more consistently. Currently it is built similarly to Chain Lightning, but it will be updated to be more of a circular AoE, and pick N targets within 6 yards of your selected target.

Empower Spells
It is intended that casting a different spell while Empowering (eg, casting Disintegrate while empowering a Fire Breath) cancels the Empower spell, refunds the resource cost(s) and cooldown, and begins casting the other spell. Empowers have a global cooldown when they finish casting, meaning Fire Breath and Disintegrate can’t be cast at the same moment. Therefore, we have to interpret what a user is trying to do when they cast a different spell while empowering – Some may be trying to use the second spell as a shortcut for finishing their Fire Breath, while others may be trying to react to a situation and change what spell they’re casting as soon as possible. The current version is opting to treat the new spell input as a change in intention.

Thanks for the ongoing feedback and discussion!

This is a very good call-out. We’re working on improving the dragonriding gap detection to fix issues like this. We’ve noticed that dragonriding won’t kick in with some slope types, so we’ll be addressing those in a future build.

This is a great call-out of a few distinctions between “flying” and “dragonriding.” We’d like to slot dragonriding into its own unique space without crowding out flying, so it feeling like an investment is in the desired ballpark. How much of an investment is definitely something we’d love to hear continued feedback on, especially as progression comes online and as players get more used to the feature.

We’ve found that this is a big part of the appeal of WoW’s flying, so pulling that into dragonriding would encroach on that space too much.

Oh I think you might like the progression then! (And good note about that balance.)

Also, we’ve also seen a request or two from testers to drop the cooldown on Soar for testing purposes, and we don’t think that will be necessary to get the whole system well-tested. We’re getting great bug reports, and we thank you very much for them.