Melee Hunter - subtle changes to improve viability

[Azuredrak0]

Let's get it out of the way first - melee hunter is a meme. There is no talking about it being superior in DPS or utility to the ranged hunter. But I have been playing one to experiment with options and figure out if it's possible to make it work. The answer is that the potential is there, and if anyone is interested in numbers, logic or comparing notes, please send me a private message. My guild is gracious-enough to allow me to continue this experiment deep into AQ40. This meme is not a completely lost cause and the DPS is far from last on the parse.

Goal of this post is to provide some subtle recommendations that would make the spec much more viable and fun, while requiring minimal and subtle changes.

Primary issues that I see with Melee hunter
• No cooldowns
• Very little raid utility (even less than ranged hunter)
• A little bland

Key Changes recommended. Should be fairly simple to implement:
• (cooldowns) Unlock Rapid Fire to apply to Melee as well as Ranged
• (raid utility) Give Wolf Form a group aura buff, how about +2% haste or +2% hit might work too (maybe tie this to an existing talent).
• (raid utility) Make longer range (Hawk Eye) mainline for all hunters (this can be controversial, but it brings back utility for more effecting pulling to all hunters).
• (raid utility) Why not combine Clever Traps and Trap Mastery talents, and maybe tie add a trap mana cost reduction to the Improved Feign Death talent? Or maybe tie the trap-cost reduction to the Lightning Reflexes and allow traps to use in combat with Rank 5 of that talent?
• (blandness / raid utility) Allow exception for Thrown Weapons in Wolf Form. I'd just get rid of my quiver and use Axes. 150AP and stronger attack on Thrown axes makes up the gap a little bit. Additionally, it'll give +5 Thrown weapon proficiency of some races at least some use.

Concerning thrown weapons - it would allow for use of some rarely used stings, and some additional DPS on fights where melee has to move out consistently, assuming the user is ok with forfeiting the ranged-slot stat stick (which I would be). Thrown abilities include stings like Wyvern Sting, R1 of Multi-Shot and Scorpid Sting (I checked)... and people would farm Voone for axes :D

There are some additional changes that could be useful, such as allowing combat traps and some talent modifications to improve wolf form, but that's for a future post, and they're likely more involved. The goal for this post is subtle changes.

Other proposed suggestions:
• Lacerate - bring the Lacerate ability to TWoW instead of Wyvern Sting. Move Wyvern Sting elsewhere
• Traps in Melee - deep Survival talent (maybe 31 points instead of Wyvern sting) to use traps in melee - this gives hunters AOE utility in melee
• Allow stings to become strikes in Wolf Form
• Simply scale Wolf Form AP bonus to levels where it would be competitive (although that could make hunters too strong in lower tier of raiding, or too weak in higher tier as it would be a static Wolf Form buff and will not scale with gear)
• Fire traps in combat (deep survival talent + aotw requirement) and lacerate that scales with AP would fix melee hunter entirely imo.

[Steakhouse]

I really like your suggestion about thrown weapons. Does AutoShot work with thrown ?

Something important is that I don't think activating Mongoose Bite by any other means than a dodge is a good idea. Thematically it doesn't work ; Mongoose Bite is very likely a reference to how mongoose fight in real life : they bob and weave, and strike right after dodging their prey's attack. However I would be in favor of buffing Mongoose Bite's damage, it's really weak atm

I do think that Melee Hunter needs other means of dealign damage however. Perhaps bring back Lacerate as a stacking bleed, and/or the possibility of setting traps in combat, would both go a long way in improving the viability of the spec.

[Azuredrak0]

I really like your suggestion about thrown weapons. Does AutoShot work with thrown ?

Something important is that I don't think activating Mongoose Bite by any other means than a dodge is a good idea. Thematically it doesn't work ; Mongoose Bite is very likely a reference to how mongoose fight in real life : they bob and weave, and strike right after dodging their prey's attack. However I would be in favor of buffing Mongoose Bite's damage, it's really weak atm

I do think that Melee Hunter needs other means of dealign damage however. Perhaps bring back Lacerate as a stacking bleed, and/or the possibility of setting traps in combat, would both go a long way in improving the viability of the spec.

On Mongoose Bite - I agree, no need to meddle with it at the moment. Thematically it does what it needs to do.
AutoShot - I believe AutoShot actually works with thrown weapons, but I'll check again later.
Lacerate - Lacerate instead of Wyvern sting would be great, but it must be weighed carefully for DPS increase and PVP impact. If it's a stacking melee dot that Druids got in retail eventually, it could be a much better ability that will be spammed instead of Wing Clip. I believe that Hawk Eye range increase can be mainline for most hunters and Wyvern Sting can replace that talent. All hunters should have utility for effective raid pulling.

The idea of this thread are small subtle changes that should be fairly easy to implement and should not impact PVP drastically, but help melee hunters obtain identity in a Raid environment.

[Drenari]

Leveling a melee hunter is good. pre feign death it is easier to use disengage since your already in melee range. Doing multiple runs of armory I had a level equivalent sword and bow. So I did one run only melee then the other only ranged. Did more damage melee and it is waaaay more mana efficient. This was survival 5/5 superior strikes and 2/2 savage strikes, the rest in BM. I was also human with a 2h sword.

It does need some additional abilities though. Rapid fire working to increase melee haste is a great idea. It would also be nice to have a melee aoe since you loose multi shot by having aspect of the wolf active. If you could lay traps in combat would also help.

[Volkyte]

That would be too op.
Make wyvern sting instead castable in melee that increase dmg taken by 5%

[Galendor]

What about melee stings under the effect of Aspect of Wolf?

[Silb]

Fire traps in combat (deep survival talent + aotw requirement) and lacerate that scales with AP would fix melee hunter entirely imo.

[Augustfenix85]

You would also make serpent sting work with 5 range while AotW is active.

Having traps work in combat as a 31 talent would help with dps and utility.

[Calli]

Make survival a tank spec. Hunter tanks together with pet. It would be a superb off-tank or dungeon tank.

[Azuredrak0]

Make survival a tank spec. Hunter tanks together with pet. It would be a superb off-tank or dungeon tank.

Interesting proposition, and on some levels, Hunters can actually tank with proper gearing already. I can hit 42% avoidance (Parry+Dodge) with fairly crappy gear scrounged from stuff that noone wanted without even trying, Monkey stance with proper Parry and Avoidance talents selected of course. Properly geared hunters can hit 50% plus, and when raid buffed it goes higher still. Deterrence gives them a total avoidance cooldown that is hard to beat too.

The issue is generating/holding threat in melee and no shield with mail gear (meaning not much armor mitigation). Also I'm not sure if it will go over very well with the "fantasy" of the hunter class.

[Azuredrak0]

One of the simplest ways to equal out the hunter class is to simply scale the AP bonus of wolf form. It's lazy, but if you give them enough AP bonus, it will work.

Shamen get 783AP with Rockbiter. That level of AP is not anywhere close enough to competing with other Melee DPS. With hunter duel wielding, I doubt it'll overwhelm their DPS to bring it anywhere on par with Rogues/Warriors, but it would help a lot. Not saying that Hunters need 700AP in Wolf Form, but 150 AP bonus is nowhere near enough to compete on any level. For reference though, 700AP is about 50 DPS increase

[Calli]

Make survival a tank spec. Hunter tanks together with pet. It would be a superb off-tank or dungeon tank.

Interesting proposition, and on some levels, Hunters can actually tank with proper gearing already. I can hit 42% avoidance (Parry+Dodge) with fairly crappy gear scrounged from stuff that noone wanted without even trying, Monkey stance with proper Parry and Avoidance talents selected of course. Properly geared hunters can hit 50% plus, and when raid buffed it goes higher still. Deterrence gives them a total avoidance cooldown that is hard to beat too.

The issue is generating/holding threat in melee and no shield with mail gear (meaning not much armor mitigation). Also I'm not sure if it will go over very well with the "fantasy" of the hunter class.

Yes, he would need a talent or spell which is similar to the paladin's blessing of sacrifice, where pet takes a portion of the damage when the hunter gets hit, a threat talent, and the hunter could do 'intimidate' like the pet. Crit immunity would not be possible but when seriously hit, the pet would taunt the attacker off. Imo people don't want another melee, we already have so many variations. hunter tank would be strong against melee and weak against spellcasters. The "fantasy" aspect is failed game-wise many times before with much worse cases.

[Azuredrak0]

Fire traps in combat (deep survival talent + aotw requirement) and lacerate that scales with AP would fix melee hunter entirely imo.

I actually like this one. But I still contend that a DPS cooldown would be great in addition to this. Simply allow Rapid Shots to work when in Wolf Form on melee hits, problem solved.

[Dyco]

I would suggest these changes to survival talent tree:

FIRST TALENT ROW:

Improved Slaying (0/3):
Increases all damage against Beast, Giants, Dragonkin and Humanoid targets by an additional 1/2/3%.

Superior Strikes (0/5):
Reduces the cooldown of your Raptor Strike and Mongoose Bitte 0.2/0.4/0.6/0.8/1 sec.

Deflection (0/5):
Increases your parry chance by 1/2/3/4/5%.

SECOND TALENT ROW:

Trap Mastery (0/3):
Increases The duration of freezing and frost trap by 10/20/30% and gives your traps a 8/16/25% chance to entrap the target preventing them to move for 5 sec.
Also decreases the chance enemies will resist trap effects by 5/10/15%.

Savage Strikes (0/2) (linked to Superior Strikes):
Increases the critical strike chance of Raptor Strike and Mongoose Bite by 10/20%.

Improved Wing Clip (0/5):
Gives your Wing Clip ability a 4/8/12/16/20% chance to immobilize the target for 5 sec.

THIRD TALENT ROW:

Survivalist (0/5):
Increases total health by 2/4/6/8/10%.

Deterrence (0/1):
When active increases your dodge and parry chance by 25% for 10 sec.

Counterattack (0/1) (linked to Deterrence):
A strike that becomes active after parrying an opponent’s attack. This attack deals 40 damage and immobilizes the target for 5 sec. Counterattack annot be blocked, dodged or parried.


FOURTH TALENT ROW:

Wyvern Sting (0/1):
A stinging shot that puts the target to sleep for 12 sec. Any damage will cancel the effect. When the target wakes up, the sting causes 300 nature damage over 12 sec. Only usable out of combat. Only one sting per hunter can be active on the target at a time.

Surefooted (0/5):
Increases hit chance by 1/2/3/4/5% and increases the chance movement impairing effects will be resisted by an additional 3/6/9/12/15%.

Improved feign death + Improved Disengange (0/2):
Reduces the chance your feign death ability will be resisted by 2/4%. Also Increases the amount of threat reduced by your disengange ability by 10/20%.

FIFTH TALENT ROW:

Killer Instinct (0/3):
Increases your critical strike chance with all attacks by 1/2/3%.

Bleeding Strikes (0/1) (linked to Killer Instinct):
Your critical melee strikes cause your target to bleed dealing 133 damage over 21 sec.

Melee Specialization (0/5):
Increases the damage you deal with melee weapons by 1/2/3/4/5%.



SIXTH TALENT ROW:

Lacerate (0/1):
A Instant strike that deals X damage increased by 45% of your attack power.

Lighting Reflexes (0/5):
Increases your agility by 3/6/9/12/15%.

SEVENTH TALENT ROW:

Windwalk (0/1) (linked to Lighting Reflexes):
Grants you and your party (lesser) invisibility and 40% increased movement speed for 5 seconds. Any attack while in invisibility will break the effect, but will increase you and your party critical strike chance by 10% for 20 sec.

Dispels movement impairing effects.

Invisibility effect will only apply when out of combat.

3 min cooldown.
------
Mixed some of the 1.1 talents and the actual ones, merged all trap talents into one (maybe add that fire traps can be used in combat).
- Lacerate bleeding effect will now work as warrior's deep wounds -> Bleeding Strikes.
- Lacerate will work as a pseudo warrior's bloodthirst. (I really think melee hunter needs a strike that doesn't depend of dodge/parry chance)
- Surefooted will now grant a max of 5% hit chance as the precision talent in 1.1.
- Merged Feign death actual talent and Disengange 1.1 talent into one.
- Added Melee Specialization talent from 1.1
- Final talent is now windwalk, I think the invisibility component should be applied only out of combat. Instead of guaranteed critical strike for just the hunter I think it could be better to add a critical chance increased buff to the hunter and his party to give this spec a bit support role (MM got Trueshot Aura). If the 20 sec 10% crit buff is too powerful maybe downgrade it to 5% idk.