So if I can target something or someone, then that becomes my “pet” … ?
Didn’t know healers targeting people when healing were in fact turning other players into their pets. All healers should now come with complimentary leashes that attach automatically to other players whenever they use a heal on someone. Would also make it easy to tell whether someone uses mouse-over macros or not, since they wouldn’t be attaching leashes onto other people as they wouldn’t directly target players.
Or would that also count towards making other players their pets? You kinda need to figure out what kind of targeting of other things and people in-game count for pet:ification (not to be confused with petrification).
Save for the double nova + CoC on top of the constant slows, of course. No, the main reason Water Elemental existed was for the same reason Prot Pals have to stand in Consecration to tank despite it feeling off in the current gameplay of WoW where moving constantly is key: “Because it was like that for a long time”, an excuse often used by Blizzard to keep things the way they are, no matter how badly they feel sometimes.
The best possible use for WE was in PvP for ranged Nova, and even then you would still find people defaulting to Lonely Winter from time to time.
Besides, it’s not like MM hunter even needs a pet to tank, the amount of tools they have for kiting is massive: slows, stun, knockbacks, bubble, DR and healing, and this isn’t even mentioning the fact that they have burst damage, so chances are you will kill enemies before they can even touch you, unlike mages, that require a bit of ramp up.
Anyways, I can’t see any other solution for Blizzard that doesn’t messes up with the class. If LW is simply removed and the flat damage baked in, then you must play with a pet for the utility + pet AAs, which kills the archer fantasy some people crave, if LW remains, then having pull a pet in the middle of a fight is extremely punishing and will tank their damage.
The eagle keeps things clean, it’s just a spell effect, similar to A Murder of Crows but still retain the ranger fantasy, it eliminates the need for LW and it doesn’t hamper the experience of people looking for an archer spec that doesn’t deal with pet mechanics, since Hunter is the only class that kept ranged weapons.
Just a reminder folks, no, the people on the forums and discord are not the majority, no the bulk majority of MM players are not calling for pet removal, blizzard has been pushing this since WOD so no its not coming out of nowhere, and twice (Legion and WOD) they’ve had to roll back the changes because when players actually played them (The majority are not on the forums, or discord, nor do they read the PTR or patch notes) they threw a right fit about it, twice.
Lone wolf is picked not because its the “Best fantasy”, but because it is the most optimal choice for the spec, this is by blizzards design, coupled with other talents that optimize playing without pets, blizzard has been pushing this since at least WOD. Couple that with most casuals will just pull their spec off Wowhead, icyveins, or other similar sites that come preset with trees, and those all chase DPM meters, guess what ends up being the most picked talent.
Just have basic pets with growl, bite, claw, dash, whatever.
Build in a passive 5% damage reduction for having a pet out into MM spec.
Change literally nothing else about the planned changes.
If you dont want a pet then dont summon one or even tame one, it would be 100% identical to removing pets entirely for you. Damage reduction means they wont be used in dungeons or raids so nothing changes there either. People who want to keep them for nostalgia, emotional reasons, fantasy reasons, solo and world content reasons have the option to.
There are also practical reasons - jump on the PTR and go and farm some meader bees solo with no pet. Then head to one of the big silver elites (not the small 9m HP ones) and try and solo it without the pet. Then do the same on live. This is a huge nerf to certain aspects of game play. Its functionall a 40% HP reduction and a complete removal of our “self sustain” (mend pet) when running solo and open world content.
Id’ just go BM and MD onto the pet in those cases because it does way more damage and takes a beating better. Same reason I run BM in delve but used MM for zek++
This change is being made because the vast majority of MM players already don’t use pets any more than they absolutely have to.
Players who want to use pets are already playing BM or SV. Players who don’t want to use pets are playing MM. There are exceptions to every rule.
Blizzard is getting rid of abilities that involve pets with MM so they can add new flavor to the spec. They are choosing not to try to cater to the tiny minority.
Blizzard is the one telling you “well if you wanna play a pet, BM and SV have pets for you”. I’m the one telling you why they’re saying that.
So what? Things change, LW has been the standard for more than a decade. You aren’t “suffering for me”. Accommodating both is not good for developers or most players, only the small subset that want to play an alternative, worse way of playing the spec.
Choice is not always good. I work in systems design and literally snuff out choices constantly because they are detrimental to operations. Sometimes choice is good, sometimes it is a drag that needs to be put out of the equation. And every time we do it someone throws a tantrum, but it works out better overall.