Exactly. Fortitude of the Bear allows us to wait for the best moment to use it. The Tenacious bonuses are just… there. If I’m at 50% health (without the 5% max health bonus), I can use Fortitude of the Bear to get back to 70%. Meanwhile, Tenacious will just leave me at 56.5% (considering the 5% max health bonus) after taking the same amount of damage. In the long run it may even out, but a lot of times we need defense way before we reach that “long run” point, especially in PvP or Solo content, when you can take huge amounts of damage in a second.
There is a lot of coding involved to do what you are asking for. The fact that there are so many pet classes and models in wow, it would not be impossible, but it is not a simple two-line code. With players having so many different pets of the same class alone…yes, the lift would indeed be heavy.
I do not mind using Rexxar’s pets as Rexxar is the theme we are trying to emulate. Also having them do different functions is also cool. Pack Leader needs some more knobs turned and it should be fine.
Losing Den Recovery though was not good, but here we are. Hopefully within the first week and before the new raids open, some tuning can be done to level pack leader out.
Some updates today, though they feel underwhelming:
Nothing improving underperforming hero classes.
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I didn’t even think of this, but having some iconic SB would have worked just as good. Arcturis, Ban’thalos, and Loque’nahak would have been just as iconic beasts as Rexxar’s.
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So much of this right now. Give us slots in the pet stable that we can choose what gets summoned in that pet’s place.
For Bear - Any tenacity pet should be able to be slotted in.
For Boar - Any Cunning pet
For Wyvern - Any Ferocity pet.
That way it forces variance to a degree, but also allows you to theme your Packleader to your own tastes, example if someone wanted to set-up a bird death squad of Crane, Eagle, Tallstrider they could do so or if they wanted to set-up a trio of Turtle, Hound, Cat to emulate irl pets someone might have (Random example, but surely someone has a zoo at home with a cat, dog and turtle sitting somewhere around).
At least then we’d be able to provide some neat customisation in the visuals seen.
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I was mostly using Ban’thalos as an example because I’ve tamed that pet, but that works too.
I think the only wrinkle with this might be that we’re gaining (re-gaining? I forget) the ability to set each pet’s specialization at the stable master. But otherwise I agree. I feel like the Wyvern replacement needs to be able to fly, but the other two are kind of interchangeable? I dunno.
I like that idea, especially now that we can change pet specs in 11.1.
I would have a setup fitting for my hunter’s Crazy Cat Man title - a ferocity cat, a cunning cat, and a tenancity cat. Others would have a different mix of animals. Whichever combo of animals the hunter would want.
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Heh, I used to be an eagle person back in Legion. A white eagle for tenacity, a bald eagle for ferocity, a brown eagle for cunning. The fantasy is that I had an eagle as Survival but then it would fly away and follow me high above while I was Lone Wolf’ing as MM. Guess how I received the Spotter Eagle fantasy…
Due to the set bonus I guess we are stuck taking animal companion again? As if one AI wasn’t bad enough I get to suffer another season with his less bright cousin.
BfA they introduced AC, but it was weak and the majority wanted it to be viable. Blizzard made it the strongest choice, and after that two pets have been the only choice to the point single pet was just abandoned.
It’s not going to be easy to balance the two options, one going to edge the other out. The option is to have one strongest for different content. Single pet for Raid, and AC for M+. The more options that Blizzard gives the higher the difficulties to balance them.
I think the problem is not that one is better than the other. As long as there are different options, one will end up ahead no matter how much you try to balance it.
The problem is when one option is flat out unfavored by other, unrelated features. Like, Blizzard has just introduced the option to have one stronger pet. Cool. But then they kept a talent (Hunter’s Prey) that scales by number of pets (why not give it a base bonus and only scale it by how many non-permanent pets you have summoned?). And then they introduce another talent (Thundering Hooves) that also scale by number of pets. And then they make the set bonus scale with number of pets.
By doing so, Blizzard makes the new option dead on arrival.
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Its been a while since I have been MM. I have been SV since it came in Legion. From a perspective a SV hunter, I tried MM in some delves on the PTR, and I noticed that it did do good damage as Sentinel. As I said, I am no MM expert, but this is what I noticed from live to the PTR.
Trueshot. On live it makes Aim Shot fire off faster, and you can get them in. So pressing it feels like you just turbo boosted AS. On the PRT, it doe not have the turbo boost effect, but it does boost your damage…through turbo boosting your crit % multiplier. I have D8 unlocked, and using Bram as an Tank, I sat back and used trueshot and AS and wow…the damage I was able to put out was impressive. I was knocking down mobs in the window and it was truly insane the way it was being done.
As I said, I am no MM guru, but it seems to me that with some haste added to the mix, along with the crit/mastery build, MM may do pretty well. It seems Sentinel will be the go to for both MM and SV this season, or at least the start, so some adjustment to the playstyle and I think MM will be ok.
It will be interesting to see how it all pans out, I’m still sure some adjustments will come once the patch goes live, but MM may not be in this dark hole as most thinks. But then again, I could be wrong…I am a Survivalist, so when I do jump on my Hunter, that is what I will be going with. For now, I need to figure out my Shaman build as I will be using my Shaman as my main again for season 2.
It’s the same as when they made AC the only option. They made its AoE potential extremely strong, so everyone was forced into the talent. Everyone had to use it, so Blizzard, by their definition, meant that no one wanted a single pet option.
Blizzard looks for circumstances that make it possible for them to have fewer balancing issues. It’s part of the reasoning for taking pets away from MM. Only one option means they only need to adjust damage for that play style.
I understand, and don’t mind, them having a favored option. But people like things like MM with pet, dual-wield Frost DK, 1-pet BM, 2 1-handers Fury Warrior… It’s fine to have an option that is not that good. A little less DPS is fine.
But it makes no sense to add other stuff in the kit that only works properly with one option. There’s zero reason to add things like Hunter’s Prey or Thundering Hooves that keep stacking against 1-pet BM. And it’s not hard to code those talents to consider one extra “ghost” pet when you take Solitary Companion.
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that was always the intention, they even said in the bluepost that AC was always supposed to be the winning choice. if you want one pet like how mm players wanted a pet, then you have to eat the big dps loss
this is some “give a pig a pancake” type 
That’s not true, what Blizzard said, and it’s still written in the patch notes was that Solitary Companion should have “only a marginal throughput loss”.
Keeping and then adding talents that scale with number of pets, and, worst, having a tier set that also scales with number of pets, is not a “marginal” throughput loss.
marginal for blizzard basically means “you can use it in open world content without issue”
basically anything under a 20-15% loss is acceptable. frankly thats fine.
The thing is, with MM eating a DPS loss to use a pet and BM eating a DPS loss to use a single pet, where does that leave the fans of the original ranged and one-pet Hunter? (And don’t forget, SV cannot equip a ranged weapon without eating a hidden aura that halves their auto attack DPS.)
You know, the Hunter that existed prior Legion?
Every other class still has the option to, at least, play the original archetype of their classes without a penalty the last I checked. (The only exception, to an extent, would be DKs — they got a big revamp in Cata when Unholy and Frost lost their tanking capacities — and Combat/Outlaw Rogue. But Assassination and Subtlety haven’t been massively changed like the Hunters were.)
Hunters literally can no longer play the original Hunter without eating a DPS loss.
And that’s just downright insane, in my opinion.
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Look, I love when there are multiple options and people can choose what they like over what’s best, which is why I like that MM with pet exists (but isn’t for me) or that there’s an option for 1-pet BM (even though I don’t play the spec). But just because something started one way doesn’t mean it’s bound to remain the same for all eternity. You agree or disagree with the direction Hunters took, but you also need to face it that it was a natural evolution of the original specialization system and concepts.
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I addressed this, indirectly, in my paragraph where I talked about the other classes. They haven’t “lost” their original versions (aside from DK, in a way) like Hunters have.