# Midnight Expansion Class Changes for Hunter
# About
Collaborative effort by members of the [Trueshot Lodge Hunter Discord](https://discord.com/invite/trueshot). If you have feedback, suggestions, or questions, you can ask in the appropriate spec Alpha channels. If you have things you believe you can contribute, we're also open to adding more collaborators. DM Azortharion.
# Changelog
- 2nd Oct 00:18 CET: Initial draft with all info posted. Feedback is welcome on what you like/dislike about the formatting and content about this document. It's hopefully here to stay until Midnight!
# Class Changes
- Hunter's Mark is now a 3% global raid damage buff on a target.
- Talent that reduces Turtle's CD from another 30s, on top of the 30s we already have in Born to be Wild, meaning 2:00 CD Turtle.
- Talent that boosts Cheetah's initial speed duration. This also gives you a 100% chance to dodge for its duration. (This has niche uses vs certain enemies, Time Spiral also grants Cheetah currently.)
- Natural Mending is now a straightforward 30/60 second cooldown reduction to Exhilaration, but Wildnerness Medicine no longer reduces its cooldown further.
- Rejuvenating Wind no longer increases max hp by 8%, but there is a separate talent to increase max hp by 10%.
- Tar Trap is now on a choice node with Scare Beast. Entrampment is gone.
- Kill Shot is gone. Deathblow will only function with the Dark Ranger tree. Kill Shot is now in the Marksmanship tree.
- Disruptive Rounds now gives 30 focus (was 10) but only works on Counter Shot/Muzzle, not Tranquilizing Shot.
- Survival of the Fittest is now 10 seconds baseline, and Lone Survivor increases the duration by an additional 4 seconds.
- New Talent to make Intimidation cause a 1 second AoE stun.
- Territorial Instincts buffed to 20 second cooldown reduction. This is now on a choice node with the 1 second AoE stun.
- Counter Shot now locks out enemies from casting for 5 seconds.

Removed Talents:
- Lone Survivor no longer reduces the cooldown of Counter Shot.
- Keen Eyesight and Trigger Finger are half as strong.
- Explosive Shot, Blackrock Munitions and Harmony are gone.
- Ghille Suit, Scrappy, Moment of Opportunity, Roar of Sacrifice and Binding Shackles are gone.
- Bursting Shot, Scatter Shot and Quick Load are gone.
- Hi-Explosive and Implosive Trap are gone.
- There are a few unused talent slots, so there's still a chance any of the above are still in.
## Beast Mastery Changes
- Barbed Shot changes;
- Frenzy stacks removed. Now a 2 point talent node towards the bottom of the tree that gives your pet 30/60% increased attack speed.
- Thrill of the Hunt no longer stacks from Barbed Shot casts, now gives 2/4% flat crit.
- If Barbed Shot is present on the target the remaining damage is rolled into the new duration.
- Bestial Wrath changes;
- Now a fixed 30 second cooldown with the removal of Barbed Wrath and introduction of The Beast Within.
- Initial damage significantly increased, player and pet damage increase lowered to 20% from 30%.
- Kill Command damage increased by 50%.
- Training Expert now 2 points for 2/4% Pet damage. Was previously 1 talent point for 5%.
- Killer Instinct lowered to 2.5% Kill Command damage per point down from 8%.
- Scent of Blood lowered to 1 talent point cost/1 additional charge of Barbed Shot.
- Dire Frenzy's damage bonus lowered to 10/20% from 30/60%.
- War Orders chance to proc increased to 100% from 50%.
- Thundering Hooves reimagined. The 200% Stomp now triggers off Bestial Wrath, and now also gives a passive 30% damage increase to Stomp.
- Hunter's Prey redesigned. Now increases the damage of your Pets special attack (Bite/Claw/Smack) by 15%.
- Brutal Companion changed. Now has a 25% chance on casting Barbed Shot to make your Pet cast a special attack (Bite/Claw/Smack) with a 50% damage bonus. This was previously every time Frenzy stacked to 3, and included refreshing it while at 3. To be determined if Wild Instincts interacts with this.
- Wild Instincts redesigned. After your primary Pet Stomps, a Barbed Shot DoT will be fired at a target hit by that Stomp. This does not proc a Stomp. To be confirmed if this prefers a target that does not already have Barbed Shot applied to them/how it interacts in single target.
- Bloody Frenzy redesigned. Activating Bloodshed causes your Barbed Shot DoT to deal damage 100% faster for 12 seconds.
- Wildspeaker has been lowered to 10% damage for 15 seconds. This maintains the 50% of Bestial Wraths damage bonus for Dire Beasts but is a net nerf to the talent overall.
- Apex Talents are not currently implemented and are coming in a future build.

New Talents:
- Jagged Wounds - Increases bleed damage by 10%.
- Frenzy - Increases active Pet attack speed by 30/60%.
- Sepentine Strikes - Increases the critical damage of Cobra Shot by 50%.
- The Beast Within - Lowers the cooldown of Bestial Wrath by 30/60 seconds.
- Wild Thrash - New Beast Cleave activator; deals significantly more damage than Multi-Shot and if it strikes 2+ targets the damage is increased by 300%.

Removed Talents:
- Barbed Wrath
- Call of the Wild
- Multi-Shot
- Poisoned Barbs
- Serpentine Rhythm
- Wild Call
## Marksmanship Changes
- Kill Shot is now an MM tree talent.
- Deathblow (10% chance of Kill Shot proc from Aimed Shot) is now an MM tree Talent.
- Streamline has been removed and Aimed Shot will now generally take much longer to cast but deal 50% increased damage. Trueshot (via the Tensile Bowstring Talent) now reduces the cast time of Aimed Shot by 40%, and its Focus cost by 60%.
- Kill Zone is removed and Salvo now sits alone beneath Volley.
- Beneath Volley, there is a new choice node. Bullet Hell, which is redesigned and reduces Volley's CD to 30s flat, and Shrapnel Shot, which causes **Volley** to grant Lock and Load. There is no more Explosive Shot button for MM.
- A few new passive filler talents such as Lethality, which increases crit damage by 5% per point.
- Aspect of the Hydra now includes Kill Shot/Black Arrow.
- On Target now grants flat Haste instead of a Haste proc when you consume Spotter's Mark.
- Two yet-to-be-implemented capstones, info on those soon:tm:.
- Removed Talents: Improved Deathblow (replaced by Deathblow itself), Razor Fragments (substantial nerf to Kill Shot/Black Arrow power), Tactical Reload, Double Tap, Streamline/Improved Streamline, Magnetic Gunpowder, Moving Target, Precision Detonation, Moving Target.
- Apex Talents TBD.
## Survival Changes
Survival is receiving a rework and has many new (and removed) talents and abilities. TL;DR:

- Coordinated Assault and Flanking Strike have been combined into a new cooldown called Takedown. This has a 1:30 baseline CD and can be reduced via talents.
- New fire AoE grenade called Flamefang Pitch. This is a ground-targeted AoE with a 30s cd.
- Fury of the Eagle has been replaced by Boomstick. This has a 1m CD.
- Raptor Strike is now the primary melee ability and benefits from Mongoose Fury, with new talents further buffing Mongoose Fury and allowing Raptor Strike to cleave.
- Tip of the Spear is no longer a buff that you play around. It is a passive talent.
- Hatchet Toss is a new baseline ranged ability.
- Survival can now dual wield one-handed axes, swords, and daggers.
- Flanking Strike, Butchery, Mongoose Bite, Explosive Shot, Kill Shot, Coordinated Assault, and Spearhead have been removed.

New Apex Talents - Raptor Swipe
- 1st point - Raptor Strike has a 25% chance to trigger a Raptor Swipe, dealing moderate physical damage to up to 5 nearby enemies and grants you 15 focus.
- 2nd/3rd points - During Takedown, your chance to trigger Raptor Swipe is increased by 50%/100%. Raptor Strike and Raptor Swipe damage increased by 10%/20%.
- 4th point (final node) - Raptor Swipes causes your pet to lash out, dealing physical damage to your main target and granting you 3% increased haste for 10s. Multiple applications may overlap.

New Talents:
- Takedown (Coordinated Assault replacement) - Deals damage to your target and increases the damage dealt by you and your pet by 20% for 8 seconds. Generates 50 focus.
- Flanked - Takedown initial damage increased and hits 4 additional targets. During Takedown, your attack speed is increased by 100%.
- Savagery - Takedown cooldown reduced by 15/30s.
- Mongoose Fury - Raptor Strike increases the damage of Raptor Strike by 10% for 8 seconds. Multiple applications may overlap.
- New choice node between Bloody Claws and Wallop:
- Bloody Claws - Each stack of Mongoose Fury also increases the damage of Strike as One by 10%.
- Wallop - Gaining a stack of Mongoose Fury has a 20% chance to increase the damage of your next Raptor Strike by 50%.
- Flamefang Pitch - New AoE fire grenade. Gives you a targeting reticle and deals damage to enemies in the reticle. Also leaves a flame patch on the ground that damages enemies inside it.
- Grenade Juggler reworked - Flamefang Pitch gains 1 additional charge. Throwing Flamefang Pitch grants 1 charge of Wildfire Bomb.
- Wildfire Imbuement - Throwing Flamefang Pitch causes you and your pet to deal additional fire damage for 10s.
- Boomstick - Fury of the Eagle but you shoot a shotgun instead.
- Shellshock - Boomstick damage is increased by 40% when striking a single target. Each additional target reduces this by 5%.
- New choice node between Mongoose Rounds and Wildfire Shells:
- Mongoose Rounds - Each time you fire your Boomstick, gain one stack of Mongoose Fury.
- Wildfire Shells - Each time you fire your Boomstick, reduce the CD of Wildfire Bomb by 4s.
- Shower of Blood - Your bleed effects deal 8%/16% increased damage.
- Sic 'Em has been redesigned. Kill Command crits now apply a bleed.
- New choice node between Shrapnel Bomb and Flamebreak:
- Shrapnel Bomb - Wildfire Bomb's periodic effect is now a bleed.
- Flamebreak - All Fire damage dealt is increased by 15%.
- Bonding - Mastery increased by 3% and gain 5% increased Mastery from all sources.
- New choice node between Vulnerability and Blackrock Munitions:
- Vulnerability - Raptor Strike and Boomstick deal 20% increased crit damage.
- Blackrock Munitions - Wildfire Bomb and Flamefang Pitch deal 20% increased crit damage.
- Strike As One - Your damaging abilities also cause your pet to attack.
- Two Against Many - Strike As One hits 2 extra enemies and does extra damage for each enemy struck.
- Lethal Calibration - Wildfire Bomb increases your crit damage by 15% for 12s.
- Wildfire Tar - Wildfire Bomb now deals its periodic damage over 6 additional seconds. Enemies affected by Wildfire Bomb take 15% extra damage from your pet.
- Sticky Bombs - Wildfire Bomb leaves behind a Sticky Bomb for more damage.

Removed Talents/Abilities:
- Flanking Strike/Butchery/Merciless Blow
- Fury of the Eagle (now Boomstick)/Ruthless Marauder
- Coordinated Assault/Relentless Primal Ferocity/Symbiotic Adrenaline
- Spearhead/Deadly Duo
- Tip of the Spear
- Mongoose Bite
- Many passive talents removed, such as: Alpha Predator, Bombardier, Born to Kill, Contagious Reagents, Cull the Herd, Ranger, Sulfur-Lined Pockets, Tactical Advantage, Terms of Engagement, Viper's Venom.
# Hero Talent Changes
## Dark Ranger Changes
- Bleak Arrows no longer grant Deathblow.
- Periodic Damage Significantly Buffed.
- Souldrinker is redesigned: Now gives Kill Command a 20% chance, Barbed Shot a 50% chance, Aimed shot a +10% increased chance (so 20% total) and Rapid Fire a 100% chance to grant Deathblow.
- Dark Hounds has been replaced with a similar talent:
- New Talent to make your Dire Beasts occasionally spawn Dark Hounds.
- For Marksmanship, this will simply sometimes spawn a "Dark Minion" from ticking damage.
- New Talent to make your Bloodshed/Trueshot grant you a Wailing Arrow 15 seconds after activating the cooldown (uses the cooldown button). This silences (for 1 second) and does AoE like the old ability but also grants Deathblow.
- New Talent to make your Dark Hound/Dark Minion AoE whenever you use Kill Command/Aimed Shot.
- Phantom Pain is gone.
- Banshee's Mark is redesigned to give 10% crit damage to Bleak Powder and Black Arrow. Now a choice node with The Bell Tolls.
- Umbral Reach no longer doubles Black Arrow ticking damage.
- The Bell tolls now simply increases pet damage by 3% and dire beast damage by 10% for Beast Mastery, and Crit Chance and Dark Minion damage for Marksmanship.
- Withering Fire now works with Bloodshed rather than Call of the Wild. It now only gives a single Deathblow on activation and only for Trueshot, rather than continiously.
- New Talent to make Withering Fire fire 2 more arrows and increase the damage bonus of Aspect of the Hydra/Trick Shots/Beast Cleave and Kill Cleave.
## Pack Leader Changes
- New talent that makes Auto Shots grant 2 Focus each, to both you and your pet.
- New talent that gives 3% Mastery.
- The Boar now only does 1 charge but is 300% stronger
- The Bear has been nerfed by 40%.
- New choice node that either Makes your Wyvern stronger and last longer OR makes your Hogstrider damage bonus stronger.
- No Mercy redsigned as a simply 20% bleed damage increase.
- Envenomed Fangs gone and Ursine fury redesgined, so the choice node is now:
- You get Two Dire Beast with every Bear you summon, OR
- Your Beast Bleed is 15% more powerful.
- Shell Cover now adds another +10% DR to Survival of the Fittest's 30% baseline.
- Lead From the Front is now replaced by Stampede as the capstone.
- You now get a Stampede from Kill Command after casting Bestial Wrath only.
## Sentinel Changes
- Full redesign.
- For MM it replaces Spotter's Mark with Sentinel's Mark, increasing its proc chance from spending Precise Shots to 40%, and increasing Aimed Shot's damage by 55% and conferring the usual effects + some new ones from the tree.
- For SV it has a 20% proc chance from Raptor Strike/Mongoose Bites, and increases the damage of your next Wildfire Bomb by 130%.
- Don't Look Back's absorb shield is now 10% flat and procs whenever you consume Sentinel's Mark.
- Moon's Blessing increases the proc chance by 10% (so 20% for Raptor for SV, and 40% for Precise Shots spending for MM), and also causes Sentinel's Mark applications to reduce the cooldown of Aimed Shot by 2 sec, and Wildfire Bomb by 6 sec.
- Sanctified Armaments causes Rapid Fire and Raptor Strike to deal 25%/15% extra damage as Arcane damage over 6 sec, respectively.
- Choice Node:
1. Stargazer: Consuming Precise Shots or casting Raptor Strike increases critical strike damage by 2% for 10 sec, stacking.
1. Open Fire: Volley/Flamefang Pitch damage increased by 25%/15%.
- Can't Miss, Won't Miss increases Precise Shots' damage bonus to 40%, and increases Raptor Strike damage by 10% flat. It also increases the duration of Trueshot and Takedown by 4 and 2 sec respectively.
- Invigorating Pulse causes Steady Shot/Kill Command to grant an extra 5 Focus, and increases their damage by 20%. It also raises your overall maximum Focus to 125.
- Lunar Calling increases your chances of proccing Sentinel's Mark in Trueshot/Takedown by 10%.
- Choice Node:
1. Conditioning: Increases your movement speed by 8%, and reduces Cheetah's cooldown by 30 sec.
1. Scout's Vigil: Enemy detection range (aggro range) is reduced by 10 sec, and while in Camouflage, your stealth detection radius is increased by 25 yds.
- Moonlight Chakram gives you a new button to press during Trueshot/Takedown (slightly unclear on how this works as the tooltip feels wrong when it says that Trueshot/Takedown get replaced by this after popping them), similar to the old Death Chakram that bounces between targets and deals heavy damage.
- Choice Node:
1. Twilight Requiem: When your Chakram expires, it deals heavy AoE damage. Damage reduced beyond 8 targets. Presumably this happens somewhere in the middle of your cooldowns.
1. NYI: TBD.
- Capstone: When Sentinel's Mark is consumed, it summons a barrage of missiles that deal hefty Arcane damage to enemies within 10 yds.

# Mechanical changes and impacts
## Class
### Hunter's Mark
Hunter's is now a static 3% taken debuff on the target, regardless of Health threshold. This is much more powerful than the current live version which increases damage taken by 5%, but only against targets above 80% health.

This makes Hunter's Mark as a form of Raid Buffs much harder to ignore, and maintains its value on bosses where you frequently damage stop anywhere, as was often the case on bosses such as Fyrakk or Dimensius.

Additionally the increased relative strength makes it much more valuable to have multiple hunters on encounters with multiple beefy targets.

currently, moving off Hunter's mark to a new target doesn't quite matter, because by the time you do so the initial target tends to have dropped under 80% health, allowing you to losslessly swap to a secondary target.

If you are a lone hunter in a raid environment, this may require you to switch Hunter's Mark targets multiple times, once to a new burn add, and then back to the boss once the burn add dies.

On council style fights, having multiple hunters can be a legitimate meta play, as a full 3% damage taken on a secondary target can add up massively in some cases, For instance in a fight such as Silken Court.
## Beast Mastery
### Rotation Changes
`We’re reducing the number of conditionals, auras, and modifiers on Barbed Shot to make it more easy to spend as its available.`
The removal of the Frenzy/Thrill of the Hunt stack management is probably overdue with how little effort has been required to maintain these buffs over the course of the last two expansions. At some points the BM Action Priority List has had no considerations regarding it as pressing Barbed Shot for other mechanical reasons maintained them without any futher thought.

This combined with the return of War Orders being a 100% chance to proc a charge of Kill Command most likely means that the rotation will return to a pure "Jackhammer"-style where you want to dump all Kill Commands before pressing Barbed Shot to not waste procs and Cobra Shot being the only available filler with the removal of Kill Shot and Explosive Shot.

Hero Talents may add some slight nuance; Deathblow could put Black Arrow above Kill Command or a potential fractional charge check when a Pack Leader Beast is ready for the Pack Mentality cooldown reduction effect, but these add very little complexity to the rotation in the grand scheme of things.

AoE rotation is following a similar trend. If Wild Thrash has an unhasted cooldown it simply means that you will be pressing it on cooldown and continuing on with the single target rotation, and if its hasted the damage it now provides for the GCD may mean you press it on CD anyway. If Wild Instincts is played, paired with the change of making Barbed Shot a rolling periodic, the difference between multidotting and not doing it is going to be lowered dramatically. The biggest change is going to be talent tree pathing and seemingly the death of "no-Multi" talent builds. The removal of Call of the Wild+Bloody Frenzy combined with Dire Cleave being locked behind Wild Thrash has resulted in a pretty one dimensional pathing to do any AoE damage.
- The latter may not be important as with the current talent tree pathing on WoWHead every build including Single Target ones are going to be forced to take Wild Thrash to gain acces to talents like Go for the Throat or the Dire Beast Package.

### Damage Sources/Damage Breakdown
With the introduction of Hero Talents and talent tree reworks throughout The War Within, main pets have progressively taken steps back in regards to how much they contribute to your overall damage breakdown. Things like Pack Leader Beasts, Black Arrow and the Dire Beast package have become dominate aspects to the point that pets make up less than 20% of a Dark Rangers damage breakdown.

Blizzard seems to want to combat this, and is doing a number of things to counter balance it;
- Pack Leader
- Bear nerfed by 40% across the board. Also impacted by the Dire Frenzy nerf below.
- Lead from the Front removed further lowering the Pack Leader Beasts damage potential.
- Choice node that makes the Wyverns damage increase stronger resulting in more pet damage.
- Dark Ranger
- The Bell Tolls no longer stacks and the player damage increase has been completely removed.
- Withering Fire bonus arrows have been drastically reduced from Season 3 values and Withering Fire no longer grants Deathblows on a timed interval lowering the number of Black Arrow casts.
- Dire Beast Package
- Dire Frenzy damage bonus nerfed by 66%.
- NOTHING ANNOUNCED - but I would not be surprised to see if Fenryr got tuned down with how it has been the far superior summon from Huntmaster's Call in Season 3 - Yanix.

## Survival
### Dual Wield VS 2H
`Survival hunters are now able to dual wield one-handed axes, swords, and daggers.`
Technically, we always could. It is safe to assume here that what this patch not *actually* means is that dual wield is officially supported now. But what does that even mean to us?

#### Loot and vault shenanigans
For starters, weapons are going to be dramatically more common for us. This is a bit of a double edged sword (no pun intended).
Effectively, most 1h weaponry is now going to be in our loot pools. You just finished a M+? 1h weapon! You just opened your vault? 2h weapon!
Some of this may incentivize you to complete M+ and open vaults on one of our ranged Lootspecs, to limit and thin down the lootpool to have a higher chance to obtain the items we actually want, but this too has some drawbacks.
Some trinkets are considered "ranged" or "melee" trinkets, and will simply not drop depending on your current loot spec. One such example is Cursed Stone Idol from Halls of Atonement.

Manipulating loot pools through loot specialization is going to be a fairly fundamental minmax in gearing going forward, especially if the tuning between 2h and dual wield is massively imbalanced.

#### WDPS and calculations.
Weapon DPS is a very important factor to your damage output, this is fairly common knowledge, but *why* is that?

The way Weapon DPS works in modern World of Warcraft is that it "converts" to an equivalent amount of Agility for the purposes of calculating damage, which is then sent through the AP coefficient of an ability.

For instance, Raptor Strike deals 286% AP damage, so why does the weapon matter so much?

A 723 polearm has a weapon damage value of 6247 per second. This 6247 number gets multiplied by 6 (or 7? i kinda forgot), and then is added into the "AP pool" of the ability, so 37482 (43729) attack power is added to the total attack power amount before calculating that 286% AP damage.

For 1h weapons, this WDPS value tends to be ~32% lower for weapons of equivalent item levels.. oof..

**But what about the offhand?**
Well, by *default*, abilities do not take offhand weapon dps into account in any way, abilities need to be specifically tuned to do so. Even abilities that you wouldn't think utilise your weapon still scale off of it, such as Wildfire Bomb. So, depending on which specific abilities are "offhand compatible" the tuning may vary wildly. Some abilities may even require 2h vs dual wield specific tuning such is the case for [Howling Blast](https://www.wowhead.com/spell=49184/howling-blast).

#### Weapon speeds and Lunge
Weapon speeds generally do not matter outside of some niche interaction, because WDPS is the the only "stat" that directly impacts the AP coefficient of an ability, a 5000 WDPS dagger deals the same Raptor Strike damage a 5000 WDPS 2h weapon would.

As luck would have it, we indeed have a "niche interaction" in the form of [Lunge](https://www.wowhead.com/spell=378934/lunge) (old version, but same functionality.)

As it stands, this does not appear to be tuned depending on weapon speeds, so once impacted by talents or effects such as these, a faster weapon speed becomes objectively better than a slower weapon speed; A 5000 WDPS dagger would outperform a 5000 WDPS 2h.

With all else being equal, this would make daggers the default best weapons to equip for us, which is a bit of a shame. One of the easiest ways this could be adressed is to have Lunge only function off of main hand attacks, with a multiplier based on base weapon speeds of the weapon:

**0.3 seconds base CDR per strike, multiplied by weapon speed. (a 1.8 dagger providing 0.54s CDR, a 3.6 polearm providing 1.08sec CDR)**

Aside from tuning, this is one of the main points of feedback to Blizzard to prevent 1 weapon type simply arbitrarily dominating the others, Which would be wildly annoying given the aforementioned loot pool shenanigans.

#### Enchants
One benefit of dual wield is that it allows for 2 (temporary) enchants instead of 1. 2 mana oils, 2 Oathsworn Tenacity.

#### Cantrips
Cantrips are effects such as those found on weapons like [Harverster's Interdiction](https://www.wowhead.com/item=221159/harvesters-interdiction). Having a larger pool of weapons to use means we have a larger availability of cantrips, which may or may not define the "meta" weapon type to use for any given season.

### Added and removed Spec mechanics

This is a smol summary of **fundamental** removed and added mechanics. Mechanics that had near zero impact are not included.

**Removed:**
- Tip of the Spear
- Flanker's Advantage
- Frenzy Strikes (and butchery)
- Deathblow (zero impact since S2)
- Grenade Juggler

**Added:**
- Mongoose Fury
- Strike as One
- Lethal Calibration
- Wildfire Imbuement
- Raptor Swipe

#### Mongoose Fury
Huh - Is this new?
Sort of, Mongoose fury as we have gotten used to has been a non-mechanic since around BFA S2. The dominant factor to Mongoose Bite damage has always been optimising focus regeneration ever since then, which is also true for its untalented variant today, Raptor Strike. Minmaxes surrounding Mongoose Fury beyond focus regeneration are typically sub 1% minmaxes, so it is interesting blizzard mentioned the removal of the old version being due to the cognitive load required for the current version of Mongoose Fury.

What is interesting, is that the newer version of Mongoose Fury almost certainly requires a higher cognitive load, in part thanks to the removal of the Kill Command cooldown which in itself is required to accomodate the removal of Flanker's Advantage resets.

*Cool, so where is that cognitive load coming from?*

Mongoose Fury itself is now a stacking "overlap" style mechanic, the tooltip reads: `Raptor Strike increases the damage of Raptor Strike by 10% for 8 sec. Multiple Apllications may overlap.`

Because Kill Command no longer has a cooldown, we are free to dump and spend focus whenever we like, unlike previously where doing so would simply result in us running dry on focus. This is why in the past good focus management was always key to good mongoose bite damage. Well, no more!

Because we can build to near max focus whenever we want to, and aggressively dump focus with no punishment, in a vacuum it is now better to attempt to stack these overlaps to achieve a higher average mongoose fury count per raptor strike.

**This example attempts to visualise this concept:**

In any case, although Mongoose Fury is now only 10% per stack, Mongoose Fury gameplay could reasonably increase your Raptor Strike damage by up to 9% in this example. To be clear, the impacts of this are still quite tiny - Provided Raptor Strike deals 30% of your damage (which would be a decently large amount), this would still only be a ~2.7% difference to someone completely yoloing/ignoring the gameplay, Which funnily enough is more than it has ever been in recent years.

#### Strike as One
`Your damaging abilities provoke your pet to attack, dealing 860 physical damage.`

has some talents to modify it, such as **Two Against Many**:
`Strike as one damages 2 additional enemies and its damage is increased by 15% for each enemy it strikes.`

While it doesn't neccesarily require you to actively build your rotation around it, it is somewhat likely that your pet will be unable to strike targets if it isn't in range of its current target, as so many similar effects before have been subject to.

Its raw damage value is a little under half of Raptor Strike's raw damage, but given that it will proc from any damaging ability it will likely be a decent chunk of your damage output. ~~Managing your pet's uptime is something we'd probably care more about than we do now.~~ *As it stands, on Alpha, the damage is dealt regardless of whether the pet is in range or not.*

#### Lethal Calibration & Wildfire Imbuement
**Lethal Calibration**
`Throwing a Wildfire Bomb increases you critical strike damage by 15% for 12 sec.`
**Wildfire Imbuement**
`Throwing your Flamefang Pitch imbues your weapon with flame, causing you and your pet's damaging attacks and abilities to deal an additional 197 fire damage for 10 sec.`

These are both similar in nature in that they are mostly maintenance buffs.

In general you'll want to maximise the buff uptime on both of these, Base Wildfire Bomb cooldown is going to be too high to maintain **Lethal Calibration**, but it can likely be CDRd enough through many of Survival's Cooldown reduction mechanics to ensure you always have at least one Bomb available to reapply this self buff.

Wildfire Imbuement is interesting, it mentions "attacks and abilities", presumably including auto attacks. Since we will be able to dual wield and have some access to auto attack talents, stacking Wildfire Imbuement with our cooldowns could make it go wild!


Additionally, our Apex Talents create a bunch of additional damage instances during our cooldowns:

Giving each Raptor Strike at least 3 damage instances to further proc imbuements.

#### Raptor Swipe
Raptor Swipe (images above) is part of our Apex Talents, and causes Raptor Strike to have a 25% chance to trigger a Raptor Swipe in addition to the strike, cleaving up to 5 targets.

It is currently unknown whether this is a proximity based cleave or a cone. However, if it is the latter it may incentivize us to "aim" our Raptor Strikes in AoE situations, Kind of like the old Carve ability.

# Rotational Abilities

## Survival
A ranged poke/pull ability that does not serve any rotational purpose outside of **Pack Leader**. Aspect of the Eagle still exists, which is the preferred tool to use when facing melee downtime.

Our standard filler ability. The cost has been increased to 40, but is lowered back to 35 by a mandatory talent.

Our basic focus generator, restoring 20 focus after picking one of the mandatory talents within the first part of the talent tree. Despite its tooltip suggesting it has a "charge" it no longer has a cooldown, meaning focus mismanagement is no longer a thing. However, it does mean we have full freedom over *when* we dump and generate focus which can help us control our rotation to a stronger degree. This also effectively enables us to squeeze some extra damage out of Mongoose Fury.

**Random tangent:**
||It is interesting to note that this explicitly goes against the design goals, as Mongoose Fury was reworked due to "high cognitive load" but at the same time, where do you draw the line?
In our current War Within [APLs](https://github.com/simulationcraft/simc/blob/thewarwithin/engine/class_modules/apl/hunter/sv.txt)/[Rotation](https://www.wowhead.com/guide/classes/hunter/survival/rotation-cooldowns-pve-dps), Mongoose Fury is referenced twice (2 times). These references only exists for Sentinel single target purposes and are a sub 1% damage minmax combined - Mongoose Fury is simply a non-factor and it has been for years, so where does the cognitive load come from?
Frankly, Thinking about how to minmax Mongoose Fury has been a bit of a so called "noob-trap" (i can see how it is tempting to play around it) But the reality is, the best Mongoose Bite damage comes from proper focus management, not Mongoose Fury management. And this is **not** meaningfully different for Raptor Strike builds today.
So with that in mind: A sub 1% **Sentinel** Mfury minmax and a 0% **Pack Leader** Mfury minmax, is that were the line is drawn? apparently not. Funnily enough, the new Mongoose Fury has a far greater Minmax potential, albeit still in the mid 2% to low 3% - Still not very high, but ironically perhaps worth thinking about if you want to master the spec.
To be clear, i don't mind the way mongoose fury is *now* or how it is proposed to be on Alpha. But i do not believe either version will convince people to not overthink it too much.||

Our new cooldown, Sort of a mix between Flanking Strike and Coordinated Assault.
Talents can lower the CD to 1 minute, and enhance it in various ways (100% attack speed, 5 target aoe). It only lasts 8 seconds, but this isn't neccesarily a bad thing which i will get to in the rotation section.

Our trusty bomb, It no longer costs any focus and its direct base damage has been increased by 75%. However, [Guerrilla Tactics](https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=264332/guerrilla-tactics) has been lowered from 50% to 15%. Additionally, the primary damage amp has been reduced from 80% to 40%.

This results in a direct primary target damage of 254% AP (was 243), and a secondary target damage of 182% AP (was 135).

A non mandatory talent. Essentially Fury of the Eagle. Can be enhanced in various ways (more ST damage, Mfury stacks per hit).

A non mandatory talent. Essentially a ground targetable omegawildfirebomb on a 30 second cooldown, reasonably similar in function to what Flanking Strike used to be (big damage, set up for cooldowns).

A Sentinel only ability that becomes available on the same keybind as Takedown after pressing Takedown.

# Rotation
## Survival
Rough priority system based on best guesses with the information we currently have.

1. [**Pack Leader**] Cast Kill Command regardless of focus if any of the [Howl of the Pack Leader](https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=471876/howl-of-the-pack-leader) animals are available to summon.
1. Cast Wildfire Bomb If you have 2 charges of Wildfire Bomb, if Takedown is off cooldown, or if [Lethal Calibration](https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=1262409/lethal-calibration) is inactive.
1. [**Sentinel**] Cast Wildfire Bomb if your target is affected by [Seninel's Mark](https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=1253601/sentinels-mark).
3. Cast Flamefang Pitch on cooldown (if talented). Cast it before Takedown to apply [Wildfire Imbuement](https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=1252947/wildfire-imbuement).
4. Cast Boomstick on cooldown (if talented). Cast it before Takedown to apply [Mongoose Fury](https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=259388/mongoose-fury).
5. Cast Takedown on cooldown.
6. Cast Raptor Strike at >72.5 (97.5 [Sentinel]) Focus.
7. If Raptor Strike was was first used at >72.5 Focus (97.5 [Sentinel]), continue pressing Raptor Strike to drain all remaining focus to build [Mongoose Fury](https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=259388/mongoose-fury) overlaps.
8. [Sentinel] Cast [Moonlight Chakram](https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=1264902/moonlight-chakram).
9. Cast Kill Command If you do not have enough focus to Raptor Strike.
10. Cast Raptor Stike for as long as you can maintain the initial buildup of [Mongoose Fury](https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=259388/mongoose-fury) overlaps (3+ Mfury stacks).
11. [**Pack Leader**] Cast Hatchet Toss to spend [Hogstrider](https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=472639/hogstrider) stacks.
12. Cast Kill Command to build back to >72.5 (97.5 [Sentinel]) Focus.

### Cooldown Usage
Our main cooldown will enable our Raptor Strike massively by always activating our **Apex Talents**.

This is the main "driver" of this synergy, 2 points can be spent into this talent for a 100% activation chance.

The first Apex node will repeatedly restore a big chunk of focus (and repeatedly deals damage) thanks to the 100% proc chance. Given that we naturally restore 7.5 focus/GCD, this reduces the effective cost of Raptor Strike to 12.5, Although we still need at least 35 Focus to press it.
The Swipe is slightly delayed, causing a combo-like animation to play.

Your pet joins in on that fun, giving you a bunch of haste allowing you to do all of this a bit faster.

#### Preparation

*Before we go into cooldowns, we want to make sure we do at least a few things, Takedown lasts only 8 sec (10sec for Sentinel) So there is no time to waste:*
We want to make sure this is active, so we don't have to be interrupted during cooldowns. For [Sentinel] this may be inevitable. **Sentinel's Mark** has a higher chance to proc during **Takedown** and massively buffs **Wildfire Bomb**.

If we are talented into Boomstick, we want to use it first before using Takedown, [Mongoose Rounds](https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=1253945/mongoose-rounds) sets us up nicely for the actual Takedown cooldown window.

If we are talented into Flamefang Pitch instead, We also want to use it before using Takedown, Its 30 sec CD naturally lines up with that of Takedown, and allows us to carry the [Wildfire Imbuement](https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=1252943/wildfire-imbuement) buff into our Cooldown Window, which has extra synergies with the 100% attack speed buff of Takedown.

**TLDR: WFB>pitch/Boomstick>Takedown>RS>RS>RS>RS>RS>KC>RS for some BONKING.**