Dragonflight Retrospectives & War Within Wishlists
A Chronological Run-Down
Hello! This article aims to outline the development and evolution of Beast Mastery Hunters throughout the Dragonflight expansion: what has worked, what hasn’t worked, what still needs fixing and so on. We’ll start off by doing a rundown of events starting with the Dragonflight Alpha. After this we’ll summarize these events and finally look forward into the next expansion.
Alpha and Beta
The story of Beast Mastery Hunters in Dragonflight starts in the Alpha and Beta, with the class receiving a large amount of attention during the period. This was somewhat necessary, as the class and spec talent trees started off in a rather rough spot, which included Improved Tranquilizing Shot costing 2 points, a talent increasing dodge chance, two charges of Barbed Shot not being baseline, among several other things. The initial version of the tree broke down the spec into its most basic components and put them into the tree. These were later combined or made baseline as more interesting and new stuff was put into the tree where possible.
Despite receiving a large amount of attention, the trees still ended up in a rather rough spot on release, with there not being enough new ideas to not have a fair few very basic passives or basically-mandatory abilities in the tree. Many of the new ideas were also not entirely functional, such as the original version of Bloody Frenzy. Abilities such as Aspect of the Wild felt a bit misguided in what they wanted to accomplish, with the exact playstyle not feeling well thought-out. Sentinel Owl went through several iterations with the final version being extremely underwhelming for what it ended up providing. This spell ended up feeling like an experiment that was abandoned for the rest of the expansion.
Alpha Predator and to a lesser extent Dire Pack ended up being the saving grace for a spec, which was otherwise looking very similar to its Shadowlands version, mixing up things just enough. Even then, Alpha Predator was simply stolen from Survival, so it doesn’t necessarily represent much in terms of innovation. This also resulted in Killer Instinct being a dead talent for the rest of the expansion. The playstyle from now until Season 3 would remain pretty much the same, with only minor passives being shifted around occasionally. Defensives and suvivability was also a minor concern at this point, with the loss of Shadowlands conduits and Soulbind traits, but this would largely be patched up by Fortitude of the Bear, Nature’s Endurance, Hunter’s Avoidance and a few changes in later patches.
The level of developer attention was certainly appreciated and should be replicated, but given where the class started, it needed more.
Season 1
Season 1 Beast Mastery was somewhat of a single-target expert in raid. The spec had an unforeseen interaction where Neltharax, Enemy of the Sky was buffing the attack speed of your pets in addition to your character, resulting in a massive dps boost from a singular item. Since the bow was rare and not a lot of Hunters had it early on, the spec started off quite weak on average, warranting a few minor buffs. Once the interaction with Neltharax, Enemy of the Sky was fixed and compensated for, the spec became a fair bit stronger baseline, which lead to later nerfs. The bow and its rarity was a source of frustration for many Hunters and was generally seen as a poor way of managing a very powerful and rare item. The buffs to Rejuvenating Wind in 10.0.7 put Hunters in a generally solid spot defensively for the rest of the expansion, making us fairly tanky baseline.
The spec was capable of doing fairly good single-target damage, but couldn’t do any AoE whatsoever without sacrificing a large portion of it. This would end up being awkward on encounters such as Kurog Grimtotem or Raszageth, which generally wanted both AoE and Single-Target. It did make the spec very good at Broodkeeper Diurna instead, where you were able to focus on only one aspect. This also meant that the spec was not a top dog in Mythic+ either. Later nerfs to the spec would only hurt this further, as they hurt both Single-Target and AoE in spite of only the former being good.
Our utility pack was generally quite weak, but this did not matter as much in raid thanks to our solid single-target niche. It did mean that our Mythic+ viability took a further hit.
Season 2
Season 2 mostly played out the same as Season 1. The only difference was that our tuning was generally worse due to earlier nerfs and the lack of Neltharax, Enemy of the Sky. The encounters in Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible also did not suit Beast Mastery as much, as the difficult encounters like Neltharion and Sarkareth wanted both strong cooldowns and efficient AoE, both of which Beast Mastery lacked. Beast Mastery could do “ok” single-target but was by no means impressive anymore. We also had no useful utility to speak of that would make us desirable. The Mythic+ situation remained more or less the same as Season 1, with general tuning only being worse.
There were a few class changes in this patch, but they ended up being almost entirely inconsequential, buffing talents related to Aspect of the Wild, which remained a criminally under-tuned ability. It also added Roar of Sacrifice to the class tree, a confusing decision as the talent does not do anything in PvE, as NPCs can generally not critically strike.
The new spec reworks for Paladins, Rogues and Mages, as well as the introduction of Augmentation Evokers in 10.1.5, meant that Hunters were significantly utility-creeped beyond this point. Hunter was already weak in terms of useful unique utility, and now the situation only worsened. Augmentation taking the role of Bloodlust-user in Mythic+ also meant that the role of Hunters became much more niche. This was a season where utility and group buffs defined Mythic+, an area where Hunter was and still is lacking.
Augmentation Evokers also brought forward several issues with combat logging due to their damage re-attribution mechanics, which still haven’t been entirely fixed. This has made assessing the performance of Beast Mastery Hunters accurately a more difficult task.
Season 3
Season 3 came with a solid talent revamp for Beast Mastery Hunters. This included a solid cooldown in an updated Call of the Wild. While AoE is still a sizable tradeoff, we now have the option to do a “partial” tradeoff thanks to Bloody Frenzy, which also serves as a great general boost to our AoE capabilities. This has given us greater flexibility on encounters such as Larodar, Keeper of the Flame or Fyrakk. Great tuning and an improved damage profile has made us a solid pick in Amirdrassil, the Dream’s Hope. The patch also featured a couple of other minor redesigns and solved issues such as node point costs. Master Handler is a great new example of innovation. Savagery is a nicely powerful trait, but somewhat removes some of the nuances of the spec. This works fine for a patch, but might have to be adjusted in the future to not dominate the playstyle.
We also got a unique raid utility spell in Hunter’s Mark. This has been largely inconsequential to our viability in raid as we’re still a solid enough spec in raid at the moment. In the event the spec is less well tuned in the future, it will still ensure the presence of at least one Hunter in most raid groups. The spell has been criticized for its low effect, non-universal application and tedious usage. Our situation in Mythic+ has been somewhat better due to the new AoE talents and better tuning, but largely runs into the same issues as previously, with utility being lacking compared to most other specs.
The new talents, as well as the new tier set, also came with the benefit of being rather cool thematically, even if they did not end up changing actual gameplay massively. Having a large swarm of pets is always something that has been popular for Beast Mastery Hunters.
Another thing that was prevalent this season was trinkets not functioning entirely for the spec, such as Accelerating Sandglass or Augury of the Primal Flame. We also often have the issue of being a ranged physical damage dealer, which means we’re locked out from both caster trinkets and melee physical damage trinkets. These factors combined can make our trinket pools quite limited in practice. This has occurred in previous seasons as well but has been especially prominent in Season 3.
Conclusions
Over the course of Dragonflight, we’ve seen the Hunter talent tree slowly develop in a mostly positive direction, as you can see described above. There is still a fair bit of work to be done on it in my opinion, but it’s a lot better than where it started in alpha. We’ve seen problems slowly get solved, from earlier survivability concerns to later concerns about AoE tradeoffs and lack of cooldowns.
Remaining concerns in the talent tree largely boil down to:
- Talents that do not play into the “Spam Kill Command” gameplay are somewhat dead. Cobra Shot has too many talents related to it for how little we use it at the moment. Talents such as Killer Cobra, Cobra Senses, Cobra Sting, Hunter’s Prey and Kindred Spirits have not been reasonable choices for the entire expansion.
- We need more talents that change up the base gameplay and add depth and/or variation. Many of the new talents are plenty flavorful but they mostly lack gameplay interaction. Savagery simplifies the rotation by a large amount.
- More innovation in general. You can count the talents that are all new, viable and interesting on one hand. Reduce the amount of boring passives.
- The bottom third of the class tree is essentially locked in as the picks are divided between the three different specs, with some being mandatory for one spec and entirely useless for another.
The class has had concerns with utility for pretty much the entire expansion as outlined in previous articles. This has been mitigated somewhat in raids by the introduction of Hunter’s Mark. This has not been massively relevant in Amirdrassil, the Dream’s Hope, but does serve as a “fallback” for future tiers. Other utility concerns remain and it feels like class reworks and Augmentation Evokers have only sent us further behind the curve. Hopefully this is on the agenda for the War Within. The spec has had good viability in raiding in seasons one and three but has lacked a well-rounded utility package which would make us meta in Mythic+. Whether you are satisfied with Beast Mastery Hunter in Dragonflight therefore largely depends on whether you’re primarily a raid or Mythic+ player.
Gameplay-wise, the spec has barely developed. Beast Mastery talents are mostly quite passive and our tier effects are generally quite simple. This has meant variation between seasons have not been massive, mostly changing up passive talent options. The changes in season 3 did bring some fresh stuff to the spec, and due to how it’s designed more secondary stats generally change the gameplay flow of the spec gradually over the course of an expansion. This has conversely meant that we haven’t missed the other borrowed power systems this expansion either, as these also rarely affected our gameplay. The spec is fundamentally “supposed to be” rather simple, but this doesn’t mean there can’t be more varied playstyles, or at least an opportunity for skill expression. A “high floor” could work just as well.
The Beast Mastery class fantasy has always been quite solid and that has contiuned in Dragonflight with new pets to tame and a playstyle which fits the spec. There are still a few avenues that could be explored, such as having “one big pet” as a possible alternative build to the “swarm” build, or summoning more specific pets that do more specific things briefly (such as the PvpP talents Dire Beast: Basilisk and Dire Beast: Hawk). Pet specialisations have always been somewhat of a controversial topic, with a lot of Hunters prefering the time where any pet could be Tenacity, Cunning or Ferocity, so that they can freely pick their favorite pets. Pet talents have also been discussed a bit in the community, but I think they are a second priority to fixing up the main talent tree further.
Going Forward
Going forward into the War Within and beyond, the new talent system has certainly given Beast Mastery something to build upon, as discussed above. If I were to make a more general wish-list, this would include:
- Allow Misdirection to transfer damage from pets.
- Give Kill Shot a purpose for Beast Mastery.
- Give a greater room for skill expression.
- Improve Hunter’s Mark in terms of usage, power or flexibility.
- Make leech from pets transfers to the player in some fashion.
- Move Killer Instinct to the Beast Mastery spec tree somewhere.
- More options to control/move your pet more easily. Make it simpler to swap between pet types for different types of utility.
- Tier Sets which change up the gameplay more.
- No rare bow.
- The level of communication we got during Dragonflight Alpha/Beta.
- Trinkets that more consistently work with pets.
- Updated utility spells for more practical applications:
- Give Tar Trap a lingering slow after enemies leave its range.
- Give High Explosive Trap the option to function as a knock-up. Alternatively, add some other form of AoE Crowd Control.
- Make Roar of Sacrifice a usable external in PvE.
- Make Wailing Arrow an instant cast and move it to the class tree.
- Do something about Sentinel Owl being woefully underpowered.
- Allow Tranquilizing Shot to remove more than one stack of a debuff on a target.
The War Within gives us some stuff to be excited for in its Hero Specializations:
- “Pack Leader” is almost certainly a Beast Mastery option just based on the name, and might play into our “pet swarm” playstyle. This most likely being the Beast Mastery + Survival option since those are the “pet” specs. Based on the other two specs this could be based on the Warcraft 3 Beastmaster, which could cover the playstyle I discussed earlier: Summoning specific to do specific things more briefly. This could also feature Stampede, which could use an update. This could basically be “Rexxar, the spec”.
- “Sentinel” could be based on on Night Elven Sentinels and maybe more specifically the Huntress from Warcraft 3. It’s therefore most likely the Marksmanship + Survival option because of the “glaive” theme.
- “Dark Ranger” could easily play into Wailing Arrow further and solve some of its issues. Checking out the Warcraft 3 Dark Ranger, this unit includes a silence ability (like Wailing Arrow), a Mind Control ability, a Life Drain ability and an ability similar to the old Hunter spell Black Arrow. Summoning minions is definitely in line with what Beast Mastery wants to do. However, this ability has been both a Marksmanship ability AND a Survival ability so it’s unclear where this specialization could land.
This is all speculative, however. Overall if the same cadance of problem solving we had during Dragonflight alpha/beta can be kept up during War Within alpha/beta, we’ll most likely end up happy with the end product.
About the Author
Hello! My name is Tarlo and I am the writer for the Beast Mastery Hunter guide here on Wowhead. I have mained Hunter since the Burning Crusade and currently do high-Level Mythic raiding. I also sometimes dabble in Mythic+. You can find me as a moderator in the Trueshot Lodge discord if you have any questions or other inquiries regarding the guide or anything else hunter-related.
