I have been a MM Hunter since Classic. I’ve tamed and bonded with so many pets. The Duskwood Warg that took me 5 deaths to tame, the Fel Wolf challenge pet, the Borean Tundrea Oil-Soaked Wolf, and so many more.
My class fantasy has always been a hunter, his ranged weapon, and his pet.
BM essentially requires exotics, which are visually lackluster or require camping specific spawns for hours on end. Survival is melee now.
If I want to continue playing in the class fantasy we’ve had for 20 years, keeping the CORE mechanic of the class, I won’t be able to anymore.
I agree that there were issues with Lone Wolf, but those are EASILY resolved by making Lone Wolf a toggle that dismisses your pet and adds the utility spells to your spellbook, just like Warlock Sacrifice.
If we have to go to this, at LEAST add a Stable option where we can select the pet that is our Harrier. Don’t take away our customization and the YEARS we’ve had.
Marksman is the most fun Hunter spec and removing the ability to do solo content with your pet tank is terrible.
this. lone wolf should be reworked to be grimoire of sacrifice but for hunters, forcing everyone to use a bird is stupid and clashes with most hunters preferred style. i dont want my pandaren hunter, who tamed cloud serpents, to be forced into using generic hawk just because they couldnt figure out how to balance lone wolf in its current form
The mistake was ever letting players believe this class didn’t need to use pets. Lone Wolf was a mistake from the get-go. Pets are what define this class, and should have been the expectation, like Stealth for Rogues, Totems for Shaman. The Legolas archetype should have been its own class, a Warden, Dark Ranger, etc. An entire class to cater to the those players who want that gameplay, not parasitizing off of Marks.
Needs a choice node like Grimoire of Sacrifice 100%. Assuming the Eagle doesn’t require pet management there should be a choice node between using an Eagle or a pet you so choose. Also give hunters their Lust/Hero without needing a specific pet spec.
To be frank, I hate pet management because the pet AI in WoW is terrible. It’s why I always play with Grimoire of Sacrifice when I play warlock.
If, a decade ago, they introduced a Ranger class, ranged weapons, no pets, fully fleshed out, would you have jumped to play that?
Would you play such a class today, instead of Hunter?
My point was, if there were a space for players who preferred petless ranged weapon gameplay, an entire class even, they wouldn’t be militating to get rid of pets in a pet class. Win/Win.
Frankly, it’s weird we have three weapon types that only 2 specs use, anyways. They could do to expand that number.
Well originally it was 9 specs, all 3 warrior specs, rogues and hunters. Warriors and Rogues used them as stat sticks as well as Thrown weapons. But we do need another class/spec that can use them.
Not a Win/Win. MM has always been the Sniper fantasy spec and when we get a new class it takes away so much from a spec/class.
Demon Hunter gutted Demonology Warlock’s class fantasy of becoming a demon in Metamorphosis which has been in the game since WotLK. Blizzard could have done what they did before where DK’s got Death Coil and Warlocks Death Coil became Horrific Coil but nope they removed Metamorphosis from Locks.
I play with Mauler, my Auberdine Thistle bear I tamed at L10 in 2004. I have played with him for every single expansion for the last 20 years. He is as much a part of my character as my bow and my arrows.
The only problem with Lone Wolf was it wasted a talent point and utility was tied to the pet we didnt want out in raid/dungeons. Utility is no longer on the pet, just bake the penalty into MM spec and let us keep using our pet in the open world. It would have zero impact on the new changes outside of solo stuff.
