Until they start using their actual rotation, at which point a clown car full of animals falls out of the sky every few seconds.
2 Likes
I think the simplest solution if Blizzard is to keep the spotter mechanic is to scrap the eagle and just make the spotter your animal companion stable pet. There’s absolutely nothing in the spotter mechanic that says it has to be some random eagle except that that is the spell effect an artist created.
Hunters are all about the bond you create with a pet or many pets. Blizzard already has a system in place to let hunters customize that pet. Why recreate all that customization work when the stable system already exists.
I want my spotter to be a wolf or a cat. That should fit perfectly into the lore, hell if someone chooses a frog, who the hell cares. Marksmen hunters already have to decide between a Night Elf or Undead fantasy for hero specs. Making them also pick an eagle just ruins the roleplaying fantasy further.
Barring that, maybe give MM hunters the choice to summon a passive companion version of their active call pets. That lets people retain their favorite buddy they’ve possibly had for 20 years now by their side visually at least.
13 Likes
This, all the way. The damn pet already does almost nothing other than its base functions for MM. Just let it continue to be there. I cannot believe, I genuinely cannot believe, professional career game designers let this one get out of “I had a wild idea” at a meeting.
3 Likes
This change frees up a ton of design space to actually craft a unique identity for Marksmanship
Are you kidding me? Marksmanship has always been very distinct from Beastmaster.
They’re including the eagle because they know it’s boring to have a generic archer class in the game. But the eagle is also boring, as the stable of pets is way more interesting.
The problem I’m pointing out is not hard to see unless you’re only talking to a handful of people who see everything one way and to the exclusion of every other point of view. It’s an embarrassing level of tunnel blindness.
9 Likes
BM is a zoo, MM is just you and your pet against the world, SV is melee with your pet. Worked just fine until Blizzard tried pleasing the ranged pet-haters without going all the way and giving them a spec or class of their own.
10 Likes
I am rarely at a loss for words, but I am greatly taxed to express how much I hate the idea of Marksmanship hunters having their favorite pets taken away and replaced with a generic eagle. I hate this change, and I will probably stop playing MM because of it. How this seems like a good idea to anyone is mind-boggling. Please do not do this. Find another way to implement your “an_eagle01” ingame if you must, but do not take away our pets.
18 Likes
I’m having trouble being motivated to even log in on my MM to do the Winter Veil quests. Is this gonna be the last time I get to spend with my pets I collected and had adventures with? Logging in to play WoW should not make me feel sad. I hope this decision gets rolled back quickly so I can play my character again.
9 Likes
no its not, most of the mechanics of the spec are intact…just no pet
actually just think of when you have to use a pet
raid…never
dungeons…if you’re the only lust, you call a pet to lust then dismiss, so less than 5% of the time IF you are the group’s lust
PVP…optimally FORCED to use a grievous wounds, cunning pet
Open World…idk about you, but i kill most enemies before they reach me, but I’ll give this one to you that when you are fighting the tougher rares you might need your pet, but really there are probably other people around or you will have to turn growl off so your pet doesn’t die to rares like the ones in Ringing Deeps
Delves…the only legit pain point of losing your pet EXCEPT Brann will newly have a tank spec and you can MD to him
so other than the flavor of having a pet companion, not much changes except pain points that exist will be solved for the majority of the time you are playing
the idea of playing MM for X years and now you lose your pets forever is silly, there are 2 other specs to use your pets…i swap specs all the time for various activities/fun
1 Like
no, you can change specs and use your pets
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i think the main way to fix this is let players use whatever pet they want from their stable to be the spotter
1 Like
The issue is there was a clearly a sizeable subset of players who played MM for the higher ability damage but took the dps loss to still have a pet companion for personal aesthetic reasons. Those players don’t want to be melee, nor do they want to play the BM zoo aesthetic. Those are the players that are losing the way they’ve played for a while now in favor of a soulless nameless eagle. Blizzard said they want hunters to see this eagle as a “true pet and partner,” but they’re removing the entire system hunters use to choose that partner.
I do absolutely agree the best way to solve that part at least is to make the spotter use the existing pet stable system.
It doesn’t solve the soloing situation but at least it lets you use the pets you’ve loved for years.
8 Likes
They don’t want to switch specs. They enjoy playing MM.
The reason they’re losing their pet is because:
7 Likes
except almost everyone used lone wolf so it was just you
2 Likes
That’s an excellent way to completely ignore the context of my post so you could have a silly little “gotcha” comment.
5 Likes
oh thanks I wasn’t aware I could change specs
wait, no, I and everyone else was already completely aware of that. I have a separate toon for Beastmaster, and I do not want to play Survival.
3 Likes
still can 
His gotcha doesn’t even make sense, since people following the mythic meta do not represent a majority.
6 Likes
how do you know? where are the stats of people who exclusively play with and without pets
it’s not a gotcha at all, it’s just a fact that a lot of people used lone wolf and played MM so they wouldn’t have to use a pet. if it was a “minority” as you’re implying then the talent wouldn’t have existed for as long as it did.
it the “marjority” of MM players was “you and your pet against the world” there’d be SOME sort of pet synergy on the MM tree
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Believe it or not, the game is not entirely made up of M+ players and raiders. You know? “No player left behind?” The explosive popularity of delves?
1 Like