Feedback: Hunters

In Development Undermine(d) PTR Discussion
289

So, at the top of it all, I think the new Marksman concepts make a better Hero Spec than a rebuild of the spec. It certainly is a strong theme, and some interesting mechanics - but overall having the choice of having a pet that can tank when desired versus more individual throughput is more important.

Its a great vision, and one that I think has a place in redefining where Marksman goes from here, but one I think better fits as an addon to the spec than trying to rebuild it from the ground up.

This next step for Marksmanship is, ideally, the first of many. We are interested in continuing to flesh out Marksmanship’s Eagle as a true pet and partner for you on your journeys with unique interactions, effects, and even appearances in the future, but we don’t have specifics to share yet.

Sooo… what… glyphs? This is an awfully big ask for the payoff being some promised future benefit. Take it from somebody that bought OW2 seasons thinking I was building towards some glorious PVE future: Give details now, or else there will be no buy in.
There would need to be an awful lot of customization options to make it anywhere near the RP trade-off as an actual pet.

Also, if the rumors of unlocked pet specs is true, you would literally be taking away a choice of pets the moment you unlock a restriction that has served as a stumbling block to Hunter customization for several expansions. At least give us MM a moment to enjoy our pets before you take them away and tell us its for our own good.

Suggestion to Make Pet Families Matter:

Now, what I would like to see, for both MM and Pack Leader, is an enhancement that allows us to assign our own pets within specific families via our Stable to respond to the summons.

So, for example MM gets a Stable Slot we can fill for our companion that can only be filled via a Bird of Prey/Bat/Carrion Bird/Moth/Sporebat/Wasp/etc. (for example) to serve as our flying companion.

Surv/BM get the three slots for Pack Master that allows them to assign their Bruiser as, say, a Bear/Basilisk/Beetle/Blood Beast/Carapid/Crab/Etc. Similarly, they can assign a big flyer such as a Chimaera/Dragonhawk/Feathermane/Ray as their sniper. Finally, their third slot could be used for charging beasts like Courser, Gruffhorn, Boars, Oxen, or even Mammoth for the overrun/charge mechanic.

That would allow us to use and tame our own pets, make pet families matter, give us customization for these new abilities, and make these concepts more player focused and friendly.

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290

This spec really needs a Sniper Stance and a Ranger Stance.

Sniper stance: reduce your movement speed, increase your critical chance and damage
Ranger stance: increase your movement speed and attack speed, reduce your critical chance

Would be cool if you could customize the “eagle” with different types of birds to fit different race fantasies.

After looking at the PTR talent calculator, it seems that once again Dark Ranger will be unplayable.

This might be a good chance to add Withering Fire to the Dark Ranger hero tree.

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291

I would like to not have to be Rexxar.

Can we not do this and instead keep things like having my pets from the stable brought out to fulfill the roles of “rexxars” pets instead?

Again in my opinion I’d rather use my own pets and not someone elses. Can we please just use our own pets?

I don’t really get the need here to add random animals when we could instead lean into how Hunters can tame lots and lots of animals, something you just spent a lot of time on updating with a new stable UI and expanded slots for, and are instead leaning into one character someplace in the narrative sometimes.

Removing my pets is not at all appreciated. I hate this. I will always hate this.

Why can’t you provide this concept but using my stabled pets to do the abilities of this random eagle…? Intimidation already draws our pets out of our stable if we don’t have them active to do the ability and then go back away.

I do not have many hunters that are falconers and I don’t really want this.

Like the concepts overall I don’t mind, I just want to use MY pets for it. I do not understand why you’re doing this at all.

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292

Lone wolf was always an awful mechanic. You have to take it to sim best in pve. You have to lose all of your class utility for the marginal damage benefit. Or on the other side, you had to live with summoning and dismissing pets at awkward times, or doing less than perfect damage just ignoring it. Petless has never been a pragmatic option for PvP. That’s always felt weird.

Give the marks eagle a shot (pun intended). Play the other specs if you’re that in love with your pet. It’s not that serious. Sometimes you have to let go of something to make room for something cooler. You guys are wasting so much energy and space on this one topic when there’s so much else to talk about.

Wilson, Caruthers, Derek, and Steve will stay with me forever. Hopefully there’s a way for my son to take over my wow account when I’m gone, and they can stay with him forever. I don’t summon coach any more out of respect because he’s in an urn irl. I get it. Give it a chance.

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293

Thank God. I want to play a ranger elf and not worry about pets. At least one spec of the three can be allotted to this. If you want pets, play beast master.

Just let us change the eagle and I’m good. Bout time they learn we want a non pet based Hunter/ranger class/spec. Please don’t change what you’re going for here!

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294

Hi. I mained Hunter back in Vanilla and TBC when MM had a pet and Lone Wolf didn’t exist. Having a pet was the entire CLASS fantasy of Hunter. We had pets to tank for us when we were leveling/solo questing and other pets to add to our damage in group content.

You are free to have the opinion that removing the pet entirely is a good change, but that is YOUR opinion and not an absolute truth. I personally do not like the playstyle of current Beast Mastery and only find Survival okay to play. I like Marksmanship and having a pet. It should be MY choice if I run with my pet or with Lone Wolf talented. That decision should not be arbitrarily made by some dev who has the same thought process as you: that their opinion is an absolute truth and applies to everyone.

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295

its been 20 years, things change

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296

i’d definitely prefer mid-expac reworks rather than being told “no sorry wait until next expac and cross your fingers throughout alpha/beta it gets any big or meaningful changes”

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297

I hate it. I really, really hate it. I do not want the spec to only be functional in group content. I do not want to have to run around wing clipping and kiting in open world and delve content because I no longer have a pet to hold hate. And if the eagle CAN hold hate, why can’t it look like the stable of pets I already have and love? Why does my Forsaken hunter, who exclusively uses creepy pets like bats, spiders, and undead wolves/bears, suddenly have to have a shiny eagle?

I really hate this. Please do not do this.

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298

How about we dont throw the last spec that people actually like down the drain?

People like bows, people like their pets, BM has been the only way to get both for years.

Stop advocating for it to be melee, they might listen and then the entire class is made up of stuff a tiny handful of people like, designed by and for people who dont play the class at all.

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299

Nothing about lone wolf demanded it not function properly for MM

Giving hunters a lust button and a tenacity/ferocity/cunning toggle would have solved this issue ages ago but somehow it’s against devs rules. This to me doesn’t seem like a better design for the spec, it just feels like a bandaid to the artificially inflicted frustration of lone wolf.

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300

We took the dog you’ve had for 20 years out behind the woodshed and shot him. Here’s a new bird. Why don’t you like the bird? Why do you keep talking about your dog? You don’t have a dog. Here’s a bird.

How in the WORLD did this ever get out of a design scrum to full implementation? You’re taking away players’ PETS, which in many cases they have grown almost as emotionally attached to as actual real pets, and expect them to be happy?

Exciting announcement, everyone, we’re killing your pets! Here’s a bird! Why are you frowning? Doesn’t your ORC like his EAGLE?

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301

Dude chill, fluffy is still alive. This is so dramatic.

302

Heaven forfend a roleplaying game that simulates a virtual world and invites you to live in it should be dramatic or have people emotionally invest themselves in it. That sounds like the kind of horrible tragedy that inspires people to pay a monthly subscription.

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303

I mean the one listed complaint that I actually made about the situation is how much less effective marks MS effect will be in PvP given that you have to get off aimed shots to apply it, and you’d otherwise just be passively applying it with a pet.

There are obviously things that aren’t set in stone yet that probably deserve a second pass. That being said. The concept of marks having an eagle/falcon that follows it around instead of the types of pets bm and sv uses actually does make sense. The game is not difficult to play with multiple specs. Give it a shot and let a new thing play out in this old game for a change. There’s so many more cool things happening that seem to take the spec forward.

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304

I literally have 12 year old pets at this point. I get it.

305

Nobody has really complained it doesn’t make sense (although for a bunch of races, it doesn’t). They’ve complained that they HATE IT. You are addressing a problem the people you are talking to do not have.

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306

The rotation might feel like buttery smooth sex and the eagle might be the greatest triumph of 3D modeling in the history of graphics. I don’t know if that will be the case or not. I don’t care, either. These are not the things at issue. The issue is that Blizzard is taking away MM’s pet, and without a pet, I do not want to play a Hunter. Full stop. Pet collecting is a huge draw of the class and they’re looking at axing it to… make raid encounter DPS balancing easier for them.

And if I wanted to be playing Beast or Survival on my MM character, I’d already be doing that.

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307

There was an ongoing problem with lone wolf though. You had to take it to min max in pve. You lost your class utility for a marginal damage buff, and often had to summon or dismiss pets at awkward times to make your spec work. Petless mm has not ever been pragmatic in PvP. It never actually made sense.

Could they have done something other than the new eagle mechanics and just done away with lw? Sure. But also, then you’re making people who want to play Petless mm play with pets. Could you adequately incorporate non pet mechanics into marks kit in place of pet mechanics and make it work another way? Also yes.

Give this one a shot, and if you’re that emotionally invested in your pet, it sounds like they’re already fine tuning the other specs for you for that reason. Please let it go and allow more important topics to be discussed. There’s a lot of other really cool marks changes on the board that deserve more attention than yall are giving this. I’m sorry but yall spamming this thread isn’t helping anything.

308

There was an ongoing problem with lone wolf though.

I don’t care? I’ve never taken Lone Wolf. I will never take Lone Wolf. Every time Blizzard has tried to force people to take Lone Wolf, it has been a disaster. This time will be no different.

Not only do I not care, but losing access to parts of the game that spark joy in me to solve Blizzard’s design problems? Not my job.

I do not need to give this one a shot.

Also, nobody is stopping you from talking about whatever you want. There is no more important topic in this post to be discussed, as far as I and many other people are concerned.

“We’ve got an exciting talent re-flow and also we’re going to force-feed you two pounds of fire ants.” I don’t need to give that a chance. I’ll consider whether or not the talent re-flow looks good once I am no longer staring down the prospect of fire ants crawling up into my sinuses.

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