Feedback: Hunters

Just posting here to say I’m in support of the changes. Hopefully they don’t bend to the vocal minority.

3 Likes

Oh damn, not conflicting themes. The horror.

You mistake excitement for a change with selfishness.

That’s my point. Nothing about Markmanship has anything to do with your pet. i.e. no talents, no gameplay hooks, nothing

Nothing about Marksman, sure, no talents on the Marksman tree, but a great number of the talents on the Hunter class tree have had plenty to do with our pets, and utility, and survivability. And that is where there appears to be a disconnect with removing the pet completely, because the new options are not sufficient in allowing the same Utility as before the change, everything is in service to a change in the Marksman damage profile at the expense of the underlying Hunter skill sets and fantasy.

I thought the original concepts behind the split trees was so that the underlying class tree didn’t have to be changed every five minutes and provides a good baseplate on which the spec can be advanced? I’m not entirely sure why we have to lose a key component of the underlying class for an admittedly interesting additional set of buttons, particularly if the core complaint about having a specific pet out for Bloodlust has an alternate resolution coming through at the same time.

Just balance it with Lone Wolf in mind and give us the new buttons and fixes on top of the option of having our pet out to tank. And/Or, give us a way to use the customization options already in game (see stable suggestion from prior post). Literally everyone can get what they want here, new tools and an expansion of the systems and fantasy that already exist. it just requires more work on Blizzard’s part. There is no need to attack each other when there is an actual everybody wins solution we can ask for.

5 Likes

This is an awful choice all around for Marksman.
Everything about the spec from its inception in Vanilla has been about hard-hitting bow attacks.

[Your] idea to deal with the “clunkiness” of Lone-Wolf is to add an RNG pet that prevents the spec from having access to it’s normal pets, that we have tamed over the years, and that we have 0 control over. This not only removes utility but increases the clunkiness of the spec dramatically.

As you stated:

The flow of Marksmanship’s rotation is smooth and iconic.

This Eagle will greatly modify that Iconic rotation, and works completely counter to your stated goals.

As a very long time Marks player please do not go through with this.

11 Likes

There are eagles in the game right now! Go tame one.

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I started playing wow because of my husband. He was invited to the beta and it was unlike anything he had ever played before so he kept trying to get me to play. I kept saying no, I don’t play video games. He was persistent and lured me “if you play a hunter, you get to have a pet…” so I tried it on his beta access and was instantly hooked. When the game was released, he was up in Irvine at the midnight release, got a speeding ticket on his way home (true story) and at 4am the games were loaded and we made our characters. I started a hunter that morning which has been my main ever since, 12,798 hours of playtime and counting. I have other toons, of course. I actually have one of each of the 39 specs in the game (hours not included in the above total- I don’t want to know that number). At the end of Panda Remix, all were level 70. I can choose to play any of them at any time. I STILL play my MM hunter 90% of the time because it’s what I love, and my pet is by my side most of the time. Hunters have ALWAYS had pets. Whether you chose to use them or not, whether you like them or not, they have always been a part of the class. When you go to make a new character, the pet is shown right there, by your side. I think it’s incredibly unfair for Blizzard to have even gotten this far with the idea of taking our pets away and I really hope they don’t go through with it. That’s what makes the hunter class different. Mages don’t train their water elementals, Warlocks don’t tame their demons. Hunters have always had a bond with their pets, and many took us going to great lengths to obtain. I say anyone who doesn’t want to ever use pets, you should not be playing a hunter. There are plenty of other DPS specs to choose from in that case.

18 Likes

There is a huge fantasy difference considering I don’t like having a pet out. Having one that can mark targets for me as part of my rotation is cool. Current pets don’t do that, and Lone Wolf means I have to summon and dismiss a pet for lust. It’s horrible gameplay. This fixes it.

Those of us who don’t want a pet exist and are numerous, and our takes are valid. I’m not going to apologize for my taste in gameplay, and it’s not selfish to advocate for that. Just because it’s not want you personally want, does not mean it’s in bad faith.

So you shouldn’t be told to go play a different spec or class, but I should because your experience is somehow more valid than mine? The eagle preserves a bond with a companion without the jank of pet management that I dislike.

Everyone needs to stop telling others that they should go play a different class. It’s entirely unhelpful.

1 Like

While I am more of the solo, no-pet, Marksmanship Hunter, I don’t agree with removing choice. If you want to continue with the full remodel of MM Hunter, please simply tie choice with whether we blow that whistle or not. If a player wants to play without pet, the should choose to and Lone Wolf be the passive it once was. If there is no pet, we get the utility outlined in the notes. If there is a pet, no change other than that which improves upon our current toolkit.

Tie the changes to it so that the players in group content can benefit from the pet utility without the sacrifice. We currently have an etheral owl with Lunar Storm. An etheral eagle doesn’t really matter. It shows up for a time to activate a utility and disapears. It doesn’t exist outside of that utility so no pet-targeted macro will function with it. No reason to name it but, by all means, add glyphs so that players can alter the look or even the color.

If the player wants to have their pet out for solo content, they should be allowed to under the current pet system. This also saves the group in case the tank gets a freak one-shot or is out of healer range and takes on more than they can handle. I run Delves with family and the tank has gone down before through whatever they didn’t expect (it happens). I immediately calll my pet to hold combat until the tank can return.

For Beast Mastery, which I was forced to use for BfA dungeons (ran all three specs durning Legion), revise the stable to allow the Hunter to choose their Pack. Give three slots at the top of the window, similar to choosing pets for pet battles, that promote choice in a hunter’s esthetic. They can choose the Cunning, Ferocity, and Tenacity pets they want (not tied to pet type as it once was). No matter the pet species in that slot, it acts as the pet class. This way the player has freedom to build their pack to fit their theme. To fit their view on roleplay. It gives them options.

For Survival, allow them to equip different types of weapons. Why can’t a Survival Hunter use a sword? Allow some talents that are built around ranged Survival without sacrifice based on the limited amount of talent points available for those that want to play more of a hybrid of ranged/melee.

7 Likes

You already have what you want and nobody is looking to take it away. Nobody is saying this to you. Nobody was seriously advocating for Lone Wolf to get removed, until Blizzard suddenly declared it an irreconcilable problem.

7 Likes

Many people were advocating for a change in utility for Lone Wolf MM for years. The current system sucks.

Also, that poster literally said I should go find another class.

The problem is that you’re getting what you want by taking away what other players want.

8 Likes

You’re valid in saying you don’t want a pet, except that is not the path Blizzard has chosen.

So there’s a pet. I don’t care what anyone says about it being a spell effect, Blizzard is calling the Eagle a pet and it’s part of Marksmanship’s identity from going forward.

Starting from that base we can absolutely have a discussion about what that pet should be.

There’s a few options I think would work best.

  1. Keep the spotter gameplay exactly as detailed, but swap it from the Eagle to a pet of the hunter’s choosing. Sure a frog being your spotter looking for openings on the field may look silly, but maybe you trained your frog to be really good at that. This still removes the pet from “the battlespace” outside of when it swoops in to apply Spotter’s Mark. At least it brings back the choice of pet to the hunters themselves.

  2. Rework the concept to make Spotter’s Mark utilize a pet inside the battlespace. This option likely would make the Lone Wolfers most upset because it reintroduces pet AI and pathing back to the equation.

  3. Drop the spotter game play entirely or not call it a pet and say no customization is coming to rip that bandaid off immediately. This I feel goes against the stated Class Fantasy goals from the Blue Post.

I don’t know how Blizzard can reconcile the two camps who want very different things from MM, but I think telling people who play Hunter for pets to go play BM or Survival is a bad faith argument at best given Blizzard’s stated goal for Hunter fantasy.

13 Likes

Which, if you look at my post history, is why I have said that there should be a compromise so choice isn’t taken away. But there are so many people advocating loudly that I need to speak up now to voice that I think the changes are good.

Then the fix which they already have is to make the Hunter Bloodlust baseline to the spec or the class rather than pet-dependent. That fix does not require eliminating pets from those who want to keep using them.

I feel it is selfish to insist that your taste in gameplay needs to override others’ taste in gameplay, when your tastes in gameplay can be solved for without requiring others’ preferences being removed.

7 Likes

I have brought up some other ideas, like a new hero talent track, or even a new spec since they seem willing to completely redo MM mid-expansion anyway.

3 Likes

Again - I have already said as much. Choice doesn’t need to be taken away. But there are voices saying anyone who doesn’t want a pet should move on from Hunter.

You replied before I made my edit.

Your post still says anyone who doesn’t want a pet shouldn’t play Hunter.