Hunter Overhaul

Xinterp

It's no secret that Hunters are in desperate need of an overhaul.
That's what this post aims to do. To get solid, serious, non-overpowered ideas down on paper, in a format that makes sense and is easy to read. Everything here should be self explanatory.
I really don't understand where all the Hunter nerfs keep coming from, especially from a PVE player's perspective. I understand knocking a build down a peg when it's at the top, but... Hunters aren't. They need some help. A serious look.

As of now, they're still severely underperforming in PVE, and current builds that exist still do not perform where they should competitively when compared to other non-Hunter builds. This was initially written on 7/4/2022 @ 11:15pm (-5CDT) after a few silent patches came out and testing was done.

If this is not your jam, by all means, keep scrolling.
If you think these changes would be great, please give this an upvote.
If you think something on this list should be different, please let me know below.

Hunter Talents: Reworks

Beast Mastery Tree

Unleashed Fury - Increase value from 5% -> 8% per point.
Ferocity - Increase value from 4% -> 5% per point.
Frenzy - Increase the secondary value from 30% -> 50%
Animal Handler - Increase value from 5% -> 10% per point.
Ferocious Inspiration - Increase primary value from 3% -> 5% per point.
The Beast Within - Increase secondary value from 15% -> 25%

Marksmanship Tree

Improved Arcane Shot - Add Capstone: When you critically hit with Arcane Shot, you apply Spellfire Vulnerability, increasing Arcane and Fire damage taken by 5% for 12 seconds. (Application similar to Hunter's Mark - Being only one Hunter can apply per target at any given time)
Marked for Death - Add Explosive Shot to the secondary part of this.
Master Marksman - Add Explosive Shot to the secondary part of this.
Improved Steady Shot - Add Explosive Shot to the primary part of this.
Mortal Shots - Increase this value from 7% -> 10% per point.

Survival Tree

Trap Mastery - Increase periodic damage of secondary portion from 10% -> 15%
Trap Mastery - Increase number of snakes summoned from 2 -> 4 per point.
T.N.T. - Increase the primary value from 3% -> 5%.
Hunter vs. Wild - Change value from Stamina -> Intellect
Noxious Stings - Increase the primary value from 1% -> 2% per point.
Sniper Training (Complete rewrite) - For each second you stand still, you gain a stack of Sniper Training. While you have Sniper Training, the damage of your Hunter shots increases by 1% for 15 sec. This effect stacks up to 10 times. Moving during combat removes one stack per second.

Hunter LRE's: Alterations

Arcane Gunslinger (Change)

Arcane Shot applies a buff to you that increases the damage of your Arcane Barrage by 10% and Arcane Bullet by 50%. This effect stacks up to 5 times and lasts for 12 seconds.
- This application is meant to make transitioning to new targets feel smoother and less bad. The build is in a similar situation as Pure Shadow was with dropping stacks. The goal is to make them apply to the player so the loss isn't as noticeable.

Seething Flames (Change)

Your damaging abilities have a chance to ignite enemies, dealing Fire damage to your target and his nearby allies over time. This effect scales with your Explosive Shot ability and is tripled on targets with Hunters Mark.
- This application is meant to allow Seething Flames to have a little bit more kick when it comes to single target fights. While it massively underperforms, there should be no reason that this LRE's damage sits below an ERE's, let alone multiple ERE's.

Unrelenting Wrath (Rework)

Your Hunter ability critical strikes have a 30% chance to cause you and your tamed pet to enrage, increasing damage by 15% for 5 seconds and reducing the cooldown of Bestial Wrath by 2 seconds. This effect stacks up to 3 times.
- This overhaul is meant to bring this LRE in line with the changes to Beast Mastery and make it competitive with other Hunter based LRE's. This LRE is one of the lowest parsing currently and needs serious help, hence the drastic change.

Aimed Explosive Shot (Rework)

Your Explosive Shot is transformed into Aimed Explosive Shot, and deals a greater explosion which sends shrapnel into nearby targets causing immediate Physical damage and a bleed that slows movement speed by 20%. This ability has a 10 second cooldown. The area explosive effect still applies, but at a 20% reduced value.
- This overhaul is meant to revitalize this LRE and give Hunters some new spice by allowing them to utilize bleeds and bleed effects. Additional bleed effects may need to be added to this LRE after rework.

Fire Watch (Change)

Your Explosive Shot is transformed into Explosive Charge. While active, this toggled ability causes your Lava Lash to leave behind an Explosive Charge on your target, detonating after 3 seconds and dealing Fire damage to the target and nearby enemies. This damage is increased by 75%/150% if the target is affected by either Immolation Trap, Explosive Trap, or both traps.
- This overhaul is meant to breathe some extra life into this underperforming LRE by providing it some additional chunky single target and AoE DPS and add complexity to the rotation by making people focus more around the trap timing.

Locust Ranger (Unchanged)

This used to be a meme build, but honestly, multiple versions of it have come to fruition over time. This build has the ability to do multiple things, Utility, Single Target, and AoE. Because of this and how it currently functions, and the results it can push, no change is needed at this time assuming the talent changes above go into effect.

Forbidden Technique (Unchanged)

Build is one of the three top performers when comparing across Hunter builds. While that's not saying much, it does say that the build was previously viable and only class based changes should be applied to this LRE. Maybe fixing the Shadowstep underground glitch if anything when testing on dummies so we can get a decent parse in Shatt? Honestly, no beefs with this build.

Paratrooper (Unchanged)

Honestly I never bothered to mess around with this LRE. At face value, there are just more impactful LRE's that exist for PVE. I'm sure this has value in niche situations, but I can't see a solid application where this would fulfill any requirement outside of PVP that can't be fulfilled by a spell that exists in-game without using a precious LRE slot.

Compound Power (Untested)

Adding some AoE to the LRE was the right move. Assuming the above changes happen with talents, this should still be a top contender when it comes to performance. A damage amp wouldn't hurt to Compound Shot though, last I played it, it still felt underpowered compared to the bulk of my abilities.