I have never touched hunter much, the reason for that is the class is not letting me have optional pets. I really wish they would have trashed the whole spirit beast abomination down the drain and let people have the pets they want, and not be forced to only a single few.
And what on earth is the point with increasing the stable capacity to 200 if you’re still forced to have one of 1-9 pets or whatever?
Uh… pets have been optional for Marksmanship since WoD.
Refering to Beast Mastery.
Regardless, they’re not going to get rid of spirits beasts. So roll marksman if you don’t want to be “forced” to use a specific pet.
Also you can use whatever pet you want even as BM. You don’t have to be fotm.
Come with something more constructive other than being ignorant. Also i don’t know what fotm means, but not using a spirit beast is severely limiting your own capabilities. There are still lots of players who miss the old Beast Mastery out there.
If you want to have any hope in doing any content you need to. And to prevent being harassed for your build.
Spirit Beast family is getting a nerf to the heal and dispel. I’m not keeping up enough with hunter to know if it makes a difference in it being the best pet or not still, but if nothing else it could give other pet family utility a chance to shine
fotm = flavour of the month
I’ve played BM since forever, and throughout BfA, most of the time I used a ray pet for the lust and dispel/soothe, and not once has anyone ever harassed me or declined me in a pug group because of it. The only thing I’ve ever been asked before getting an invite is if I have a lust pet. 
In SL, hunters get tranquilizing shot baseline, so it’s removed from any pet that has that ability (moth, sporebat, water strider, bat, ray, crane, spirit beast, stag). And spirit mend isn’t as powerful in SL, so it won’t matter as much anyways.
Either way, unless you’re pushing world first content, it really doesn’t make a whole lot of difference what pet you’re using, even as BM.
Clefthooves are superior in solo content to Spirit Beasts. They have a tank cd, leech bonus, and the exotic ability is bonus healing recieved. In group content I swap pets based on the individual fight. Any High movement fight with target switching a Silithid with its movement buff to you as well as a 30% movement buff helps with uptime on target
Just don’t use a spirit beast.
yup I was gonna mention those same two pets. spitit beasts are good & well rounded but not the best in all situations. Clefthooves way better at tanking while also being ferocity bringing you the lust, also their leech heals almost more than spirit mend. you can argo huge mobs with ease using a clefthoove. Silithid is great with its buff to speed mixed with its slow, making it good in pve & pvp situations. Marsupials & raptors are in most comps the go too for any PVP, bringing mortal wounds & the cunning ability. Not to mention open world pets that give slow fall or water walking etc.
so if you feel you can only use one pet type, you’re doing it wrong. and calling for the removal of an entire pet class because of that is ignorant.
@Dawnspirit is a frequent contributor to these forums and has clearly shown they are knowledgeable with this class. To call them ignorant is just plain ironic considering you’ve stated that you, “never touched hunter much”. Why would I trust your observation on this matter if you don’t play hunter?
As for getting rid of Spirit Beasts … no.
Adding in more Spirit Beasts … yes.
TLDR: I don’t like it, make it go away.
Non hunters never understand our obsession with our pets. It took 10 years of heavy camping to finally get Skoll.
First off, spirit beasts are a status symbol of hunters. They’re the best looking and hardest to get pets in the game. That said, I almost always have my clefthoof out because it’s the only reliable tank we have. Thank goodness they gave us faultline, I got tired of all brown pets.
My point is, if you truly want to play hunter and aren’t complaining about needing your clefthoof out all the time because it’s the only one who isn’t squishy… You probably know nothing about being a hunter. There a lot of pets that are very useful in a lot of different situations.
Do I love spirit beast? Definitely!
But are they the best? No. In many situation a clefthoof/scalehide is better. In PvP cunning/ferocity pets are often better.
You’re never forced to use spirit beast in almost any situation.
Oh and please be less selfish next time when posting. All these post like Oh gosh I don’t like something so let’s remove it for all players are nonsense.
Alladis… like… just alluvit.
Any Ferocity pet is just plain disgusting (in a good way) in almost any content. I love soloing things that really, really should not be soloable. Yeah it’s a word.
You can tame and use whatever pet you want to.
Again, you can use whatever pet you want to. No one’s forcing you to use a Spirit Beast.
Saying this means that you yourself are ignorant towards what individual pets can provide for you.
In BfA, Spirit Beasts were good, sure. But they were by no means the “pick it or be brokenly bad”-choice.
If anyone harassed you for not using a Spirit Beast, they aren’t worth the time reading/listening to what they’re saying.
Besides, Spirit Beasts have been nerfed, going into SL so…nvm really.
This is an important point. Spirit Mend got cut by nearly 70% in SL, and the near-mandatory purge has been replaced with an almost useless pet cleanse ability. I wouldn’t be surprised if Spirit Beasts are still fairly common for BM, both because of their iconic nature and striking visuals, and because Spirit Mend is still free healing, but we aren’t in “Spirit Beast or GTFO” territory anymore. Not by a long shot.
And as other have pointed out, Clefthooves have and continue to win by a mile for soloing as a BM hunter.
That said, I do share your frustration, @Wiash, with how few pet families can really be considered useful in the current model. In any given content, it’s likely that only one of the 3 specs is going to be worth using (Cunning in PvP, Tenacity in raids, either Tenacity or Ferocity for M+ depending on whether you need Lust), cutting out 2/3rds of the pet families right from the get go. 2/3rds of the pet family abilities are functionally just pet defensives (two DR cooldowns, a dodge cooldown, and a pet-only cleanse). That leaves only 1/9th of the families, which is around 6-8, with both the spec you want for that content and one of the two not-completely-worthless pet abilities (though they’re simply sometimes useful. If you’re not in content that demands a snare or MS, pet family ability doesn’t really matter for squat, hence why Spirit Beasts aren’t just cut from the running even with the terrible pet cleanse ability).
It really is immensely frustrating that Blizzard doesn’t seem to understand, or care, that their post-Legion pet system is so fundamentally flawed in this regard. 59 pet families in the game, and 95% of hunters are using one of about 5 or 6 of them.
No thanks. Spirit Beasts are the whole reason I rolled a Hunter to being with.
My preference would be for pet choice to be up to the hunter, rather than be mandated by the mercurial hand of Blizzard’s balancing. I’d rather see your pet choice be completely independent from the utility and player power aspect, with each pet having essentially a tree of talents to select amongst the utility options.
Want to use a spirit beast? Go for it. Want to use a cloud serpent? Go to town. Want to run around with a pair of giant spiders and trigger peeps with arachnophobia? Sadist (but have at it). Want to use one of those weird little silkworms from Pandaria? Um, ok, all yours, I guess (weirdo 
).
This whole BS of entire pet families being either mandatory or complete garbage needs to go.