That should tell you something. Every post saying not to remove pets has dozens of upvotes. Every post like yours is barren.
People came to Hunter to play with their pet. If Blizzard wants a ranged class without a pet, they should add it elsewhere. IMO, a Rogue subclass with Stealth and long cast times, focused on shadow magic, precise shots, and critical strike windows plays more into the “Ranger” archetype than the Hunter base class ever did. The issue is that Blizzard hasn’t added any other classes or specs that use Ranged weapons, so people that want to play Legolas are forced into Hunter, which is stupid. Yes there should be a ranged class without pets, no it shouldn’t be a hunter (unless it’s a NEW 4th spec).
If there is a damage reduction for having a pet out, it will be mandatory to not have a pet out. The pets damage will still be a net loss, literally EXACTLY why we dont summon pets in groups now.
So no its not mandatory, it would literally be completely 100% optional without any need to balance anything.
Why do the MAJORITY of players come back to WoW? Emotional connection to the pixels on the screen. Remove that and you remove the reason the VAST majority of subscribers spend money. Sure, there are some Mythic Raiders and PVP Elites, but that is sub 10% of the total subscriber base. Everyone else plays this game, because it makes them happy or feel good. Taking away sonething that makes people happy is actually MORE important that raw Throughput, because Blizzard can fix throughput with a couple numbers on the back-end.
I guarantee if they made Lone Wolf a DPS loss, no one would be simming it or saying they should just get rid of pets. They might ask for better Pet AI or interfaces, but if the pet simmed at 10% of your total damage, no cutging edge player would be asking for its removal. This is the issue.
They can fix the numbers problem in countless ways WITHOUT causing an emotion/investment problem. Also, a numbers problem does NOT drop players (outside of cutting edge content, which is sub-10% of playerbase). Emotion/investment does.
Especially considering that the pet itself is exactly 0 of the problems - its all the stuff tied to it thats the issue. Take that off the pet and put it on the Hunter and the problem is solved. Baking in the Lone Wolf damage reduction for having a pet out stops it being mandatory to use one.
They have an easy option that literally pleases everyone. The only argument against it is “I want other people to be mad about the changes because I get enjoyment from other peoples misery”.
Yes, it was. you want something, you pay for that something.
Like i said, we can have both ways, they can push the changes and the pet can continue, there is no need for just one
Who would have though that the people who play the PET CLASS would complain if the morons who work on the balance team took away the pets - that we had for 20 years - and shoved a lame fake pet bird as substitute and tell us to be happy about it, would cause controversy?
Maybe because they are not the minority, and the true minority are the M+ people pushing this idea on the expense of other players
I absolutely agree with you. Hunter is THE most customizable class in the game. Any race can be a hunter and make their pets match their RP theme. Every hunter is unique and every trend away from that which forces us to have random or predefined animals is a step in the wrong direction.
What worries me is that despite massive backlash, these poorly thought out changes will probably still happen because of how the development process works in a team environment.
This silly idea was someone’s baby, and they no doubt argued and fought to convince everyone to go forward with it, and to now change course would be a massive backing down that looks really bad for someone’s reputation. This is why you see so many trainwreck ideas go through all the way to disaster in corporate environments. Objective standards of success are often cast aside in favour of personal agendas, and not wanting to admit to being wrong, and it’s pretty rare to see such a backlash showing just how wrong an idea was like we have here.
It just shows how out of touch the spreadsheet devs are with the class fantasy players.
“Losing access” is not “losing your pet entirely” which is what people are saying here.
Let’s be realistic.
The pet is still there, you just need to use BM or Survival to access it.
Y’all are acting like they are pulling a Peanut The Squirrel on you.
Is it silly though? And is this something they just randomly thought up recently?
No on both counts. They been pushing this direction since Legion. They made it pretty clear back then that all three Hunter specs looked very “same-y” and they wanted to heavily differentiate them from each other.
Survival went full melee, BM got a literal BARNFUL of pets to call out, and now, Marksman is finally leaning fully into the “Legolas/Robin Hood” spec it started with Lone Wolf.
Even giving it a Pet is a bit much if you ask me, but I’m ok with seeing how that will play out.
agreed. as SV i’m not crazy about having extra beasts besides my one companion who’s my best buddy, but i would probably mind it less if we could choose what animals the extra three are
(i’m not going sentinel either way because arcane magic is very much not what i’m looking for as a hunter, and on top of that, MAN does the screeching get on my nerves)
You’re not being realistic. Let us know when you’re ready.
I play multiple hunters as well, and I dedicate them to a single spec.
If I want to play with pets, I’ll play another spec, or another character, if necessary. If I want to be Legolas, I’ll play Marks. You know, like the fantasy behind that spec in the first place, without a pet (I’ll accept a dwarf as a pet though, if Blizz offers).
How so? Your pet ain’t dead. Every post I’ve seen here acts like it is.
Or, it could be that they are finally making Marks what they said they were going to make it several years back: You’re Robin Hood. You’re Legolas. You’re SYLVANAS. A hero (or maybe a villain) with a bow.
Its realistic to have both options for MM, i can play with or without pet
Its unrealistic to rob me of my options and tell me to play another thing
That seems like a you problem
If i want to play with pets i play MM and dont pick lone wolf, if i want to play without pets i play MM and pick lone wolf.
There was no need for me to play another spec to do both the things i like, why now i should? just because of you and other M+?
Thats unrealistic.
It is, i cant summon, its essentially dead
no, im not going to play another spec just for it when i already can do both with my current spec, if you are saying bs like that, then i say for you to play another class or another game, Heard new world have exactly what you want, go there
no im not, you don’t get to decide what i am when i play
And the irony of it, none of those losers have a bird like the new MM
Sylvanus and Legolas dont use birds, they are literally refuting your statement.
They didn’t decide anything, you are making this up and its not you who decide, and you mass flagging my message with your alts its not going to change this fact
You have a lot more faith in their ability to listen than you should.
They’ve been pushing for this for years now. I don’t not believe they are going to completely go back on this now. They are looking for small tweaks, not a confirmation to scrap this entirely.
Considering the VERY small number of people complaining about his compared to the VERY large number of people that play Hunter (myself included, because I play everything) there’s not even close to enough complaints here to make them stop this.
You’d be better off finding a petition site somewhere and getting some signatures on that.
That isn’t the fantasy of Marksmanship Hunter though. It’s ONE of two possible fantasies today.
Sniper with no pet.
Sniper with a loyal companion that keeps enemies away from them.
With the changes both of these fantasies are actually going away for a new third fantasy that no one asked for: Falconer.
Honestly, if they wanted to release a Falconer spec, I’m all for that! Quick shots, medium range, with ingeresting abilities tied off a non-pet “pet”, but it’s NOT Marksmanship.
Marksmanship has been Hunter and Pet as an option for 20 years. There is NO reason to kill that class fantasy now.
I can 100% agree that a Legolas/Hawkeye/Green Arrow class/spec SHOULD exist, but I’d 100% argue it shpuld be a 4th Rogue spec.
IMO, they should hold this off for the next Expansion and release new 4th specs for a variety of classes to fill in missing archetypes, instead of removing existing class fantasy.
Examples of missing archetypes: gladiator warrior, sniper rogue, warlock tank, mage temporal healer, monk archer, falconer hunter, earth shaman tank, shockadin paladin, disease necrolyte death knight, and I’m sure so many more.