cause i hate that ability. i miss steady shot…
barbed shot does’nt feel impactful to me, it makes me feel stupid and useless when i use it. sure, it activates stomp on my pet (which should’nt be necessary for them to keep their aggro, but for some dumb reason it is) but it does’nt feel like i’m doing any damage to my pet.
please blizzard, make it an optional talent, rather than baseline for beastmastery, and let us have steady-shot back!
Barbed shot is the centre piece of BM, you basically build around keeping 3 stacks for as long as possible to give yourself the best DPS you can, there is no way they are going to rework BM just to remove one spell, it’s literally everything to a BM.
I agree, I should be able to kill command my pet every second actually. Why does it take 6 seconds for me to yell “kill!” and my pet to do it? This ability is the sauce. Let’s raise it up.
I want to clarify that no, I am not being sarcastic. Kill command 
it did’nt used to be. it used to be about kill command and all sorts of other abilities, not some piddley dot you plunk on mobs once in a while just for your pet to keep it’s aggro.
frick i miss back before legion changed BM hunters…
It’s not ‘just for pets aggro’, it gives you a potential crit bonus if you talent it in, it gives your pets an attack bonus, it gives you more energy gains so you can use more spells and hit harder and by taking the crit bonus it means your auto attack can trigger more often to give you more barbed shots to keep all the bonus’s applied.
All in all it means you can use more kill command. So everything still comes down to how much kill command you can put out, but keeping barbed shot active means you can get more kill command off and in general you and your pet can be stronger.
it gives a bunch of minor buffs, and applies a dot to enemies. none of which i feel while playing the game. sure, it does do a bunch of good, but… i don’t feel it. the only part i feel is the stomp talent it activates, and the dot i see on mobs. just… it’s not an impactful spell.
steady shot you feel, you see the meter go up, you hear the creak of the bow (or click of the gun), you hear the sound it makes when it fires out, and you see the enemies health-bar go down a chunk!
way i see it, it’s just a dot that isn’t fun to use. it makes me feel like i’m doing nothing, while my pet does all the work… and struggles at it.
…unrelated, but i hope they shorten to cooldown for growl too, it’s annoying when i’m just trying to kill things and my pet loses aggro.
I’ve seen this sentiment against Barbed Shot come up before, and I don’t really get it. I don’t know if that character you’re posting on is the character you play the most, but you should really take the talent that gives you charges of it when you cast Bestial Wrath. It smooths things out a lot.
And I can’t remember the last time my pet had trouble holding aggro as BM. If it’s really a problem for you, just remember to misdirect your pet before you pull a lot of mobs. Also, macroing your pet’s special attacks (claw, bite, smack, etc) into your main dps buttons is a good idea. To force it to cast them more consistently.
That is honestly the smallest benefit Barbed Shot provides lol.
Violence against animals is wrong and you shouldn’t be damaging your pet anyway.
I highly doubt it, Barbed Shot is probably one of the largest contributors to BM damage overall, even if it is optional it will be a requirement as you wouldn’t be able to perform without it.
Have you tried giving MM a go if you really like Steady Shot and hate Barbed Shot?
i have tried MM, and i hate it more than i hate barbed shot. there’s no kill command, and all of MM’s abilities are so slow. like… really, REALLY slow. i have no idea why so many people play it (my only guess is cause of the damage it does) but it’s just not fun for me.
It makes kitty bite stuff faster, though.
Punch holes in wizards from 50+ yards.
So you want to play BM, but only use the shots and Kill Command?
Current bm with barbed shot is a lovely, simple, relaxed spec where the kit works together to a core game play loop.
Barbed shot gives pet 30% attack speed and 3% crit per stack (up to 90% and 9% crit) if talented, I believe.
BM pet hits harder and crit gives more barbed shot procs. So it feeds into itself providing you with more to press and the pet dmg feeds into the spec fantasy.
If what you’re after is just a steady shot that gives focus, the spec would lose what little of the flavour it has.
Though it sounds too me more like you’d be happy with just a simple visual change of giving barbed shot the same animation and sound as steady shot.
BM already doesn’t have a ton of complexity to its rotation.
Which isn’t inherently bad, but Barbed Shot is pretty much 99% of that complexity.
In my opinion, Cata thru WoD had the best class design in the game. I actually quit playing early on in Legion specifically because I main hunter and I hated the new class direction. It took all my enjoyment away from the game. For me, Legion was not even close to the best expansion for that reason alone.
My mans on the money. Although I somewhat drop WoD due to a lot of the utility purging.
wha? the heck are you talkin about? all i’m asking is for barbed shot to go back to being steady shot like back in WoD. i mean, last time i checked, shooting things and telling your pet to attack things was the entire point of playing a hunter (along with setting traps). if i wanted a class about applying dots, i’d play a rogue, or an affliction warlock, or a feral druid, not a class that uses guns/bows.
uh, no? the flavor it has, is you and your pet working together as a team to kill things, not putting a dot on foes so your pet can do all the work.
Pretty sure Cobra Shot is the alternate version of Steady Shot, not Barbed Shot.
Which is why Barbed Shot tells your pet to attack things faster, and you still shoot things with Cobra Shot.
It’s one DoT, and it’s not even about the DoT. The bleeding is just thematic to give reason to your pets Frenzy.
They don’t have to rework it. Just make “Dire Beast” like it was in legion. It replaces barbed shot and it gives you focus regen+haste buff as well as calling in beasts. I loved Legion BM hunter.
Sorry, what’s the hype of a generic shot that gives you focus Vs a bleed that sends your pet into a frenzy, gives you focus and ups your crit chance?
While pets may be 60-80% of your dps, it’s still dependent on you using all your abilities well. 60% of poor is still poor.
that’s what steady-shot converts to, but usage-wise steady-shot did what barbed shot does. it was a filler spell that you used to refill energy between uses of kill command. only difference is that barbed shot is instant, applies a dot to mobs, and a buff to your pet.
sure, it does more, but i’m not talking about usefulness, i’m talking about how it feels to use. and it feels like a hit a button, and do nothing as i wait for it and others to come-off cooldown. atleast with steady-shot i was doing something. i was constantly pouring out shots to build up focus for when kill-command came off cooldown.
heck, in all honesty, they could keep barbed shot in the game, but if they let us keep steady-shot too, then i’d be golden. i just want a button to hit while i wait for my abilities to come-off cooldown…