Hunters were essentially the poster boys and girls for button bloat in Mists of Pandaria. It was pretty insane how many different abilities they had to juggle and just plain fit on their action bars. So Blizzard has taken a pretty big bulldozer to a lot of hunter abilities, and the streets run red with the blood of a few sacred cows.
Hunter's Mark - Gone!
Hunter's Mark was arguably the most iconic Hunter ability, but it was also, well, a bit superfluous. The main thing it did was increase ranged attack power against the target, but given that there's only one class that deals significant amounts of ranged physical damage, and that class is the one that will (often automatically) be putting the Mark up, well... it was probably first in line at the butcher's block.
Admittedly, there was some more significant tactical gameplay to it. The Hunter's Mark allowed you to single out your target on the mini-map (though that function is now available to everyone) and it also prevented stealth and invisibility. Still, much as it saddens me to see the big red arrow go (much as it saddened me when they changed the arrow in I believe Wrath,) I think this is probably for the best.
Serpent Sting - Survival Only and Passive!
Serpent Sting has been a key part of Hunter gameplay since vanilla, but in recent years it's been almost a passive. Survival and Beast Mastery maintain it indefinitely with Cobra Shot, while Marksmanship does so with Chimera Shot.
In Warlords, Survival Hunters will apply the dot with Arcane Shot and Multi Shot, while the other specs will simply rely on their other sources of damage.
Aspects - Different!
Aspect of the Hawk was basically always active on Hunters except for very specific situations. This is especially true after Mists made Cobra/Steady Shot usable while moving and nixed Aspect of the Fox.
Aspects are now going to be buffs with either durations and cool downs or simple toggle functionality. Hawk is gone, rolled into normal damage (Aspect of the Iron Hawk is now simply Iron Hawk, and is always active if you pick that talent,) while Cheetah and Pack are still there (I could be wrong but I think there's some fix to make Pack less trollish) and Fox is back as a raid wide cool down that allows casting on the move for your buddies.
Traps - Mostly Still There
Ice Trap, Freezing Trap and Explosive Trap are still around, though Snake Trap seems to be gone (or is that already the case?) And you can still launch them (I suspect most Hunters just hit the "Trap Launcher" toggle once and never un-click it.)
Spec Distinctions
Marksmanship:
Marks has been pared down significantly. Effectively, you have four rotational abilities - Chimera Shot is still your "hit on cool down" shot, and Steady Shot is still your main Focus regenerator. Aimed Shot is now your main non-Chimera Focus dump shot, as you no longer have Arcane Shot. Finally, you'll be using your level 90 talent (everyone seems to like Glaive Toss, though I sort of prefer the aesthetic and concept of Barrage.) AoE is pretty much the same, with Bombardment allowing for cheaper Multishots.
The huge change for Marksmanship is their new mastery, which is called Sniper Training (which Wrath-era hunters might recall as a Survival talent.)
Sniper Training activates after standing still for a few seconds, and it increases your crit damage, your attack power, and the range of your shots by an amount proportional to your Mastery. This will continue to persist for a few seconds after you move, but the idea is that they want you to find places to stand still for a moment. The range bonus will help with that, of course, and could play an interesting role especially as mastery gets higher. Still, it does mean that if you're the type of Hunter who loves the class because you get to jump around and pew-pew without any penalty, Marks might not be the spec for you.
Rapid Fire is also now Marksmanship only.
Survival:
Other than the class-wide changes, Survival still works mostly the same way. You'll use keep Black Arrow on your target most of the time, recover Focus with Cobra Shot, and hit Explosive Shot on cool down or Arcane Shot while you wait for it to come off cool down or for Lock and Load to trigger. You no longer really have to manage Serpent Sting since it is now passive. I'll admit I'm not super-well-versed in Survival, but I believe you'll still (you do in Mists, right) toss in an Explosive Trap as part of your AoE rotation, while using Multishot to apply Serpent Sting to your targets.
As far as I can tell, Survival does not have any real damage cool down. There was some talk of a Bear Trap that would cause bleeding damage that could only be used every three minutes or something, but I think that might have been cut.
Survival also really likes the new Multistrike stat, and your multis (new abbreviation? Can we make that a thing, like crits?) will do extra damage.
Beast Mastery:
Much like Survival, Beast Mastery still looks pretty much the same. You'll use Kill Command, Cobra Shot, Arcane Shot, and Focus Fire the same way you do now. Beastial Wrath is now really your only cool down. Multishot still causes Beast Cleave, so your pet will still be a big source of damage.
Level 100 Talents:
The first talent for all level 100s is Exotic Munitions, which functions a lot like a Rogue's poison. You can use Poisoned Ammo, which applies a DoT, Incendiary Ammo, which explodes for splash damage, or Ice Ammo, which slows targets. You can switch these out pretty quickly and the buff lasts an hour.
The second talent is Focusing Shot. This replaces Cobra/Steady Shot with a shot that takes three seconds to cast, and cannot be shot while moving, but does a bunch of damage and restores a whopping 50 Focus. Many I'm sure will chafe at the idea of having to stand in one place for three whole seconds, but this could prove quite powerful (especially for Marksmanship, who are already incentivized to stand still.)
The final talent has two variations. For Marksmanship and Survival, you get Lone Wolf. This increases your single-target damage while you don't have a pet out and also allows you to provide one of the buffs that a pet normally would. Beast Mastery obviously wouldn't make sense with that talent, so instead you get Adaptation. This raises the Combat Experience passive on your pet by 85% (so a net 35% damage buff) and also effectively lets your pet be all three pet specs at once, with all the abilities of Ferocity, Tenacity, and Cunning.
I'm curious to see how the talents wind up balancing, but I think they're all reasonably interesting. I still feel a little like the level 90 talents feel a bit formless. I guess they all have a kind of Cleave/AoE niche, but I think if they really want to be that, they shouldn't be balanced to be part of the single-target rotation. Still, at least you'll actually be able to fit them onto your action bars now.
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