#1 - Feb. 15, 2016, 2:42 p.m.
To provide some perspective I've played BM hunter for a little over 10 years - casually, as a progression raider and just about everything in between. With that history in mind here's how I'm feeling about the current BM spec.
Too Few Single-Target Abilities
BM is sorely lacking in single-target spell diversity. Three abilities (four, if you count Barrage) is simply painful, and I found myself bored with the spec in just a few minutes. I've never found BM boring, not even when it underperformed - it was still fun to play mechanically, and the 'Mists of Pandaria' iteration of BM is the most I have ever enjoyed any spec in WoW. So it was disheartening that, in less than ten minutes on Alpha, I was bored with a spec that I've loved for ten years.
As much as I hate using the word 'forced' to describe a choice in a game, I felt as if there was no choice but to take all of the Active-Ability talents (e.g. Chimera Shot) because of this. Without BM getting more default single-target abilities, there is simply no way I would choose passive abilities instead.
While discussing this with another hunter on the Alpha servers, he/she remarked that the completed Artifact would add more depth to the spec - but I don't feel like "Artifacts will fix it" is a valid response. An amazing experience at level 110 doesn't justify having so little to do for the first 100-ish levels.
Entirely too much focus on Random Beasts, not enough on our actual pets
I am very, very unhappy with BM's emphasis on random creatures. My choice to play BM spec reflects my love of taming rare, exotic and powerful beasts - specific beasts, some of which I spent hours, days and weeks locating. So it bothers me to see most of my beast-related spells flood the screen with random animals I have absolutely no attachment to. I can't stress this enough - I'm not happy about that. At all.
I would much rather see Dire Beast and Stampede summon pets from our stable, instead of randoms. I get the class fantasy, that the BM hunter is a master of beasts, but I'd at least appreciate an option (glyph, for example) that allows those beasts to be the ones I've already tamed/bonded with.
Stampede 2.0 is Disappointing
There's no arguing that the new Stampede is certainly more fitting of the spell's name, but in terms of fun it is a huge downgrade (in my opinion). Having a nonstop train of random creatures ties into the 'random beasts' problem I mentioned above, and frankly it looks silly to see them all disappear as they clip through walls, into mountains, etc.
A huge part of what made the spell so much fun was that it unleashed not just one, but many of our pets on a foe: the fact that it no longer does that is probably my least-liked change, out of everything I've seen so far in Alpha.
And here's the thing - I genuinely love most of what I've seen on Alpha so far. The new melee animations are amazing, the Demon Hunter class/related content is some of the most fun I've had on WoW in years, Artifacts are simply epic (like class quests on steroids!) and I greatly enjoy most of the story that I've seen. But BM spec is just... I cannot overstate my disappointment with it.
So I apologize if any of this post seems hyperbolic or whiny/entitled. I'm just genuinely distressed to see what was once my favorite spec in all of WoW in this state, especially when I consider how much I'm enjoying other class updates. And maybe this version of BM is exactly the class fantasy that Blizzard wants, and maybe its even the BM spec that some players want too - but it definitely isn't my cup of tea. Too little depth/variety for single-target combat, a depressing over-reliance on random beasts instead of pets and a new Stampede that is so lame (for lack of a more eloquent word, my apologies) that I'd rather see the spell gone altogether.
Ugh.
