Iâm probably defining utility too specifically. To me, a HUGE damage CD isnât utility, itâs damage. Abilities that keep others alive, resurrect them, increase movespeed, etc., are things that feel more like utility, especially because youâre sacrificing potential damage to do them. No matter how you slice it, Lust is straight throughput and, to my knowledge, the reason MM brings a pet 99.9% of the time.
Itâs weird to me that you (Tanais) are arguing so vehemently for pets here when you have made this argument to me elsewhere:
And this:
So pets ARE iconic to Hunters but not ranged weapons? I donât know that youâve specifically made this claim word for word, but the way youâre arguing here certainly implies it.
My contention is this: If weâre going to render the two most HISTORICALLY ICONIC features of the Hunter CLASS moot, go all the way down that rabbit hole. Commit to petless MM, COMPLETE Melee SV (everything melee minus WFB and traps, no more pocket crossbow, and better mitigation), and a more heavily pet-oriented BM. Iâd rather have fully fleshed-out spec identities than this mess we have now - trying to accommodate everything by making everything sort of meh isnât really a good approach, IMHO.
ON THE OTHER HAND, if the intention is to make pet abilities interesting and pet family choices actually meaningful (hasnât been a whole lot of communication on this) absolutely let MM choose LW or pet, and balance around that choice. Hunter design possibility is a whole lot of if/then statements right now.
True enough, but the spec has evolved in many ways over the years.
No class should have three âsimilarâ specs, this is why i support melee SV and why i dont play mage.
To me petless MM is the perfect companion to BM/SV with pets.
I do not have a problem with having the option for those who like it, but honestly, if you want a pet and arent running BM youre gimping yourself, it makes no sense.
If anything, Lone wolf should be stronger.
Exactly!
Anything currently linked to the pet, should be giving to the hunter instead, not just a little dps bump and the major family skills.
Alternatively, i would love to see them give MM âExotic Munitionsâ back as a viable option over pet skills. But then i think all traps and stings should be baseline for all specs.
Unlink all the utility from the pets and put ALL amped pet damage and abilities in SV and BM spec trees
Make SV passively more resilient
Give BM the option of a menagerie or big bites/bleeds/chomps builds, with AoE blended between those two
Give exotics better utility to which only BM has access
Speccing SV turns shots/stings into strikes - Serpent Strike, Kill Strike, etc.
Limit SV ranged abilities to WFB and traps (KC if you count pet abilities)
Ditch the SV PvP net ability and replace with a pet skill that holds the target in place so thereâs actually teamwork involved rather than just Hunter and âoh yeah, sometimes this pet gives me focusâ
Give MM exotic ammunition (could be MMâs utility)
Improve damaging ability choices for MM, and have ammo choice synergize differently with your main rotational abilities
Lone Wolf as a tree passive, but you lose the option to have an active pet (still can call from stable for aid)
Picking a spec changes Arcane Shot to your respective focus dump (Cobra for BM, Raptor for SV), or in the case of MM, just lowers the cost or AS
There are many other changes that could be included to flesh this out, these are just some rando ideas. It could potentially be really quite interesting, but again, it would require a commitment to the archetypes of Pet Focus, Pet Team Melee, and Ranger (no pet). I guess part of that would open up the option for MM to explore the bouncing around and shooting rapidly fantasy vs. plant-and-shoot sniper.
Iâm all for that, but your stated solution gives up all the damage and all the utility. Leaving LoneWolf as a purely RP choice that is objectively bad for all combat scenarios.
If you want to buff AOE damage for MM with pets to be on par with LoneWolf you also need to give LoneWolf the utility of pets without having to have a pet. Otherwise you might as well delete LoneWolf.
But Lust falls under the same redundancies as would, say, Battle Shout or Mystic Touch or Arcane Intellect. Lust itself is a big CD, sure. Not having to take a Shaman because the Hunter can bring Lust, on the other hand, is typically treated as utility. Itâs a redundancy on a capacity always taken regardless, and, due to being treated as a partywide action (everyone benefitting effectively goes on CD for it via Sated), itâs not stackable.
Had Hunter always had access to Lust, instead of just offering it as a perk towards compositional freedom, then it might have been treated differently. Itâd be the original and Shaman the redundancy, after all.
And the immediate context for my saying that not every spec has to use pets or ranged weapons was that every spec should still have the real and competitive option to use pets and to use ranged weapons. To me, ideally, Survival should be able to play as a full-fledged ranged spec. BM should be able to go (broadly or macro-rotationally) melee. Both SV and MM should be able to play without pets. Not forced; merely able.
Ideally, to me, the only hard requirements would be that Marksmanship uses a ranged weapon, BM uses pets, and that SV makes use of tools. Anything not specifically central and iconic to the spec would be left to player choice.
For this reason, Iâd prefer that pet-specific and trap-specific throughput stay clear of the class tree (utility only) and that no class tree throughput talents be specific to ranged or melee (if no ranged weapon equipped, hand crossbows go akimbo for Barrage, or the skill just turns into a melee Steel Flurry, for instance).
Comparing Lone Wolf vs Tenacity pets (you canât compare all three pet specs against Lone Wolf because you canât use all three pet specs simultaneously), the only thing you lose is 5% HP and a pet family ability. There are only 2 family abilities that donât deal directly with keeping the pet alive, a 50% Snare (which is equivalent to Wing Clip or Concussive Shot), and Mortal Wounds (which is only needed in PvP where you are using a Cunning pet anyway).
I can see wanting the 5% HP tacked on to the damage buff, but I really canât be bothered getting mad about not having a pet snare.
If we are talking in the realm of full pet reworks in general, with pet spec trees or something like that, then yes, I would absolutely want Lone Wolf to get something to compensate. But we arenât there, I donât think we are getting there before Dragonflight, and having the ability to choose pet or no pet and have it not matter to your damage would be a big step up for player choice from the status quo.
You are confused. I did not ask you how you feel I should handle pet aggro.
This is an important point made in a WoW spec guide for Hunters, specifically, MM Hunters. Itâs also a description of how the spec, at its base, was designed to play.
You will deny this. You will be wrong. The question is (your question): are pets obligatory for Hunters?
The answer: No. Pets are not obligatory for any Hunter spec.
MM has always had an ability called Aimed ShotâŚ
Hunters in general, but more recently only MM, have had the longest attack range in the gameâŚ
MM literally is short for MarksmanshipâŚ
But sure⌠the Sniper Fantasy was never hinted at ever once prior to WoD⌠/s
OK, so lemme break down the importance of language and why words mean what they do.
Marksman - like a sniper. Shoots from long distances, potentially out of range of enemy detection. Guy who shoots far.
Sniper - A marksman who ALSO engages in other types of subterfuge. âIn addition to long-range and high-grade marksmanship, military snipers are trained in a variety of special operation techniques: detection, stalking, target range estimation methods, camouflage, infiltration, special reconnaissance and observation, surveillance and target acquisition.â
MarksmanSHIP - The name of the spec. It just means the skill of shooting. Guy who shoots good.
A Marksman isnât necessarily a Sniper, but a Sniper is ALWAYS a Marksman. Both have high levels of Marksmanship, which is only a measure of their proficiency at shooting. I have pretty strong marksmanship, but Iâm certainly not a sniper. I donât lie under a pile of leaves in a ghillie suit waiting to take one shot/one kill. Also, merely aiming a shot (Aimed Shot) doesnât make you a sniper, either. Everyone aims shots when theyâre shooting.
The âSniper Fantasyâ as laid out in movies and video games is more like a Rogue than a Hunter (if compared to WoW archetypes.) Sniper Shot wasnât added until Legion. Shooting far doesnât make you a sniper. Words are important.
You complain about there being a sniper fantasy in MM, yet
you claim to want more âsubterfugeâ aspects in MM
âŚor, alternatively, suggest that we turn Rogueâs Outlaw spec into a MM/Sniper spec just to remove from MM the identity you call sniping despite others calling it simply marksmanshipâŚ,
all while noting that, to you, marksmanship is only part of being a sniper
while also noting that, at present, all parts of the sniper fantasy in marksmanship are those that are simply being a marksman, and no other parts of what you call âsnipingâ.
If MM has no âsniper fantasyâ in excess of the âmarksman fantasyâ itself, what exactly are you complaining about?
What even is the gameplay thatâs problematic to you here? Is it just Lone Wolf, since youâve insisted that pet usage is core and specifically built into to the âMarksman fantasyâ? Is it Aimed Shot? Sniper Shot? That the Mastery happens to give bonus range? What exactly?
Donât talk down to me, please. Your posts are 98% word diarrhea, 1.7% actual meaningful content and .3% other. Did I not say the inklings of the sniper were creeping in as long ago as WoD?
When I write posts I assume people are able to follow my implied line of thinking. It seems like others are capable of doing that. You? Not so much. Iâve worked with many, many engineers and developers in my day, and you are EXACTLY like them - argue micro when you want to feel seen and make it seem like you know things; argue macro when you want to feel right but ignore the details of the topic at hand despite their importance. Itâs really exhausting to be honest.
Iâm not going to sum up everything Iâve written in this thread for you to understand my thoughts. I think others are following. Reread and then ask me a question if you truly want an answer. I donât think thatâs what youâre after, though.
Then which is it? Is picking a suitable position and firing a lethal shot from enhanced range âsniperâ or merely âmarksmanâ?
Is WoW MM âspecifically built around the use of petsâ as claimed before or, as per your more recent posts, solely the act/capacity of âshooting with precisionâ?
You consistently misconstrue othersâ use of either term but canât seem to decide on one for yourself that would make sense of your complaints.
Has Marksmanship been encroached on by themes beyond its domain, or not? And if what few aspects of sniping are therefore ill-fit, how narrowly must Marksmanship be constrained as a theme for you to be satisfied?
You ask others to look not at what youâve said but instead at the sort of spirit of where youâre going, but you appear to be going multiple ways at once. So why not just speak plainly? What do you want from MM? No âback in the day,â no ârevamp Outlaw,â just what you want from MM.
Jaggles, there has been/is/would be nothing wrong with MM having access to sniping. There is nothing wrong with MM having access both to playing with or without a pet. No twisting the meaning of sniper to be a rogue or marksman to necessarily be a pet-user will change that.
The single shade of meaning you ascribe to a word of multiple meanings and multiple shades each will not mandate that everyone else must follow it.
A sniper has any of three meanings, each taken from extensions of a metaphor from the British-Indian term âsnipe,â a type of marshland bird.
The first is one who acts like said bird, in being an elusive pilferer.
The second is one who quite literally shoots snipes, a task which tends to require patience and precision.
The third is a metaphor taken from the second, to refer to a shooter who takes advantage of relatively long sight-lines to fire without giving immediate or obvious clue of their position.
Note that suppressors are not nearly so effective as movies make out; unless shooting from some distance, even with rounds shaped and at low enough speed as not to create supersonic clap, you will be heard and detected, making a concealed position far less useful. As such, that âsubterfuge,â as you put it, tends to be conditional upon range; they come hand-in-hand in even your view of sniping.
Now consider the actual gameplay implications. You say you want any sniping to be instead on a class that could better realize the other (Rambo-esque) aspects you bandy under âsnipingâ. But what does Rogue actually offer to sniping that would not simply be redundant with what Marksmanship can already do? We are constrained to the existing aggro systemâand, to a degree, its implications on stealth. Is this Outlaw Sniper to Vanish mid-combat just to, per WoW gameplay, reveal themselves fully again with the next shot? Should they be required to reposition by X feet just to âblindsideâ the enemy despite no enemy having speed enough to dodge or deflect any projectiles no matter how well they see it coming?
You insist that thereâs this place for a spec that could simultaneously sneak about, slit throats, set explosive traps, and fire from long distances (but not really, because apparently thatâs irrelevant to sniping), but how tf would that work in PvE? And when three out of four parts are already available to MM, why would you instead place this on a spec with only half (let alone an existing spec with its own playstyle that has nothing to do with sniping and, yes, is already sufficiently distinct from Subtlety and Assassination)?
Again, Iâd find it pretty cool to see something like that on a 4th spec of Rogue, but âsnipingâ as a theme would scarcely be any more exploitable there, even in a spec devoted to that, than it would be via optional elements within MM. There has been/is/would be nothing wrong with MM having access to sniping.
Certainly do not, however, ask that an existing spec (Outlaw) be utterly changed to support a theme (sniping) you find incongruous to something it tends to literally be dependent upon (marksmanship, range), and excuse removing that spec from its mains just because âitâs too similar to Assassination and Subtlety anyways.â
