Blizzard announces Hunter Talent Tree changes coming in Dragonflight alpha

Blizzard announced that World of Warcraft’s Hunter talent tree is getting shifted around and changed in the next alpha build for the Dragonflight expansion.

The Dragonflight expansion isn’t just bringing new classes like the Evoker to World of Warcraft, it’s also bringing some big changes to the classes players are already familar with.

Following the reveal of a rework of the Priest talent tree, it seems that Hunter is next up to get its talent system reworked for the Dragonflight expansion.

While these Hunter changes aren’t final given its still an alpha build, there are some big changes that should allow players a lot more freedom and choice when leveling up their characters.

Blizzard announces Hunter Talent Tree changes

Thanks to information from Blizzard Game Designer Nimox, players can get an easy breakdown of all the big changes coming to the Hunter Talent Tree.

First off, the Mend Pet ability is getting a pretty decent buff allowing it to restore 50% of a pet’s health over its 10 second duration instead of the preview 35%.

As for the overall Class Tree, Improved Exhilaration is now simply part of the base Exhiliaration ability and is replaced with Rejuvinating Winds.

Additionally, Viper’s Venom has been replaced with Hydra’s Bite and Binding Shackles is planned to work with any combination of Scatter Shot, Explosive Trap, Binding Shot, and Intimidation given the new tree layout.

Now for the specific branch changes starting with the Beast Mastery branch, Blizzard is changing the way Dire Pack works. Now, for every Dire Beasts summoned the cooldown of Kill Command resets and reduces the cooldown and Focus Cost of Kill Command for a duration.

For the Marksmanship branch, a lot of its abilities have been either replaced, renamed or adjusted.

For example, Bursting Shot and Quick Load are no longer a dependency for any talent node on the tree and Multi-Shot now also shoots Explosive Shot at up to 2 targets hit.

The melee DPS-focused Survival branch also recieved a fair amount of changes, with many abilities being reduced in cost from three down to one or two talent points.

Similarly many of the abilities have been reworked, redesigned and changed, so those eager for the full breakdown should checkout the full list here.

The full breakdown makes it clear that Blizzard is taking on a lot with Dragonflight, which should hopefully breathe some life back into the historic MMO.