The Switching of a Main v2.0
So, just over a year after switching my main character from my Prot Pally, who had previously been my raiding main character for 6½ years, to my Hunter, it has now come time to do the same again, albeit in reverse.
And with a slight twist.
Hunter Decimation
I, along with a lot of fellow hunter players, have been just too galled at the wholesale changes that were made to the Hunter class in Legion:
- The removal of a lot of our utility.
- The crippling of our mobility.
- The negative impact of screwing with our rotations & spec abilities.
- The handicapping of our general all-roundedness.
All of that has had me considering what I'll be raiding with in Legion for quite a while now.
I knew it was likely that my Druid would be the class, but the spec would still be a choice to be made.
So, after much self-debate, I've decided to go back to tanking!
Yep, in Legion I'm going to be a Bear!
My other possible choice was Resto, but given gear changes in Legion, switching spec at any time will be relatively painless. Jewellery like trinkets, necks and rings are all going to be spec-agnostic, insofar as they will have no primary stats on them.
Yep, no Intellect, Strength or Agility, they're all gone. Of course primary stats will remain on main pieces of armor/gear, and switch between specs as they have done in WoD, but as you've no doubt encountered if you play a hybrid class, switching from an int-based spec to either a strength/agility based off-spec was hampered at times if you didn't have the trinkets/rings/neck to suit.
Bear Forms!
Of course the main aesthetic reason for going Bear?
Just look at those bear forms!
*drool*
I've already done the Claws of Ursoc quest chain on Beta (Beta post = next post, promise!), and I really enjoyed it, so hopefully that's a good sign...
Complaints
Let's bear* in mind though the list of complaints I had at the time when I switched to Hunter:
Picking up random add spawns Switch on x stacks of y tank debuff Boss positioning and facing Active mitigation usage Taunt trading with your co-tank Self recovery from big hits (at its prime in Siege, and I LOVED it)
Those are all still entirely valid, however the fact that I'll be tanking on a completely different class means that it will all be fresh to me again (hopefully), and that the above complaints will be at least somewhat ameliorated because of this.
As it turns out, I found out today that one of my work-mates is also switching mains, this time from a Blood DK to a Guardian Druid as well, so I expect the ursine-flavoured conversation in our office to increase significantly over the next year or two.
*#sorrynotsorry
Rolling with my Gnomies
I will be maining my Gnome Hunter, Mechaspark (aka Mecha), on the Alliance side as BM though.
I will be splitting my non-raid time close to 50/50 between my Horde Druid (Sarcrux) and Mecha, so there will still be plenty of Hunter related posts and tweets, but expect a lot more content related to Druids on here and my Twitter feed as well
As much as Blizzard have screwed Hunters over, as an entire class, I still find BM fun enough to play day-to-day. I just don't feel as though Hunters will have as much impact or utility in a raiding scenario as they have done previously.
Looking back on the spec changes overall to Hunters, I feel BM is ahead of MM in terms of fun, but MM is ahead of BM in terms of DPS. Perhaps a legendary or the artifact will change this and bring BM up to par with MM in raw DPS terms.
Who knows, but Blizzard generally have a very poor record of managing to balance intra-class specs properly to the point where it's an actual feasible choice.