Talent: Animal Companion - made into a baseline passive choice we can make rather than a talent choice. 1 pet or 2 pets, the total damage dealt is/should be the same and abilities used, also the same. Solely an aesthetic choice
Essentially, the design goal would be to make it work similar to Lone Wolf for MM, just reversed.
If you have 1 pet out, it deals 100% of normal damage.
You can now also choose to manually call out a second pet, but then they will both deal 50% of normal damage each.
Both pets perform the same damaging attacks(incl Kill Command, Stomp, Auto Attacks, Basic Attacks and Beast Cleave).
The second pet does NOT come with itâs own pet spec passive perks(like leech/health/movement speed) nor does it bring any active abilities like Primal Rage/SotF/MC. Only your main pet determines what ones you have access to. The second pet should however benefit from said perks when provided by the main pet.
Only the main pet uses Growl if activated.
You should not have acccess to any pet family abilities that are tied to the second pet.
Sounds good to me. If the damage of the second pet can be put into the first pet that would be perfect.
EDIT: Missed the second part. Lone wolf isnât a talent anymore, right? I think Animal Companion should just be a cosmetic thing, and the talent should be replaced with something else that provides DPS. Or if it remains a talent, there should be an option to get rid of the second pet and just have the first pet do double damage on Kill Command or whatever.
BM certainly doesnât need a rework. Itâs one of the most played specs in the game because people like it - no other spec in the game can be âterribleâ and still have so many players play it regardless.
Blizzard should use BM as a baseline for other specs and make other classes be more like BM because itâs so popular.
I agree with this. I love BM because everything flows so nicely. Cata Survival was also nice but thatâs long gone. Current iterations of Survival and MM are both a clunky mess and I donât understand why anyone would play them.
BM is fine as is, it just needs number adjustments and the second pet has to go. Second pet is an annoyance and should be cosmetic only so I can never use it. Kill Command has to hit a LOT harder, and beast cleave needs to be looked at because its damage is way too low. I feel like it only worked when it wasnât capped at 5 targets and the numbers havenât been looked at since the change.
Also, last thing, revive pet cast time needs to be reverted to 2 seconds.
I think it needs a bit more than that tbh. I do like the flow of the spec, but there are a ton of dead talents, many of which really do need more than just number tuning. Chimera Shot and Barrage for instance donât benefit from BM mastery and make it so even if you like those abilities, they are usually undesirable (with exception to Chimera for Huntsmen).
I also think barbed shot needs to either stack (up to 3 times like Frenzy) so youâre not wasting what little damage it already brings or rework it so we get the frenzy mechanic through a different spell.
Everything you mentioned about KC, beast cleave, and revive pet are 100% spot on.
I will be posting my Necrolord BM detail after this to review. There are 4 or more significant buffs coming to Beast Mastery + Necrolord/Venthyr. My BM hunter currently performs at acceptable elite rates in both PVE mythic and PVP rbg content and the class does not need a rework after patch 9.1 because it will already receive buffs. Please read the latter for additional detail.
Tweaking the mastery would solve a lot of the issues on its own. Kill Command too weak? Dire Beast/Command, Crows, Stampede, etc too weak? Mastery buff would fix it all (just nerf Animal Companion to compensate.)
We still have other dead talents that donât scale from mastery at all though that should really be looked into. Direbeast (especially with the buff to dire command) will likely be a dead talent unless it does massively increased damage. Right now just running AC with Dire Command gives a high up time on the 5% haste while the dire beasts do tickle damage. Even just messing with the talent itself, I think it might need more than mastery buff.
But some elements do need to be looked at again. Mostly talents but also things such as BMâs cleaving capabilities, burst dmg, along with AoE capabilities in general.
I think I agree on the broad strokes. Iâve been working on a revamp myself that mainly focuses on talents. Only major ability change would be Aspect of the Wild into something more interesting.
I changed Killer Instinct in a similar way, and it even fits the name really well.
Killer Instinct
Kill Shot also triggers a Kill Command and is usable against enemies below 35% health. If this kills the enemy, reset the cooldown of Kill Shot and you and your pet(s) gain 30% movement speed for 8 seconds.
Also brought back some awesome old talents.
Lynx Rush
1 min cooldown
Instant cast
Your pet(s) rapidly charge from target to target, attacking 9 times over 4 sec. The pets must be within 10 yards of the target to Lynx Rush.
Itâs done now, just need to transpose it into a better format.
Agreed. AotW just doesnât do enough. Itâs like half a buff. Combine AotW and BW and you basically get Avenging Wrath, but that means neither ability is that strong on its own. BW still manages to feel good by having a short CD, interacting with Barbed Shot, and having a cool visual effect. AotW on the other hand just sort of sits there doing nothing. It feels weak and boring and doesnât even sync up with BW every time.
Aspect of the Wild - 2 Minute Cooldown. You gain 20% haste and the cooldown recovery rate of your hunter abilities is increased by 100% for 20 seconds.
Rest of the rework is here in itâs draft form⌠pet revamp options in the bottoms sheets too. I need to make it more presentable before I start my own thread though.
I disagree with making Exhilaration a talent. Itâs perfect as an ability with a talent that augments it. The amount of times I rely on the heal in raids to take the stress off healers is immeasurable. Removing baseline abilities (other than Arcane Shot, that ability can die) is the opposite of things we should be focusing on right now.
Really well thought out post. Anyone who thinks BM and SV are not in a bad spot, definitely doesnât main one. It is kind of like Blood DKs and Warriors not being in a good spot tanking right now.
What really amazes me is why canât Buzzard freaking get these spots closer? You would think that it wouldnât be too hard for a company as large as Buzzard to actually sim their game to determine the standings of classes. As a person who used to work for the FAA running simulations on Air Traffic systems, it isnât that difficult. They have the tools and the resources to do it. I remember before this expansion launched and they were bragging about how many programmers they hired.
I can cherry pick content that represents what I want it to represent too. Of course people doing âdifficultâ content are going to gravitate to the higher performing spec, but if you cannot see that BM is one of the most popular âoff metaâ specs in the game - even being more represented on WCL than some classes âbest specâ like Outlaw Rogue and Ele Shaman - then thereâs nothing worth discussing with you.
Of course, M+ statistics are skewed because many BM Hunters get immediately kicked when the group finds out theyâre not MM because trickle-down meta is completely toxic and ruining the game - try it, youâll be surprised.
I definitely agree with your point in regards to Aewendil, though I still believe the spec needs a talent update at the very least. We have several dead talents and our best build outside of PVP is all passive talents. A couple of which really should just be baked into the spec from the get go at this point.