The reasoning was to fix MMs utility issues so they could still lust/freedom/roar of sac while not playing with a pet.
This was the compromise. The original plan was to take pets away from Marksmanship, and leave a non interactive npc bird as the stand in.
The Marksmanship Hunter community came together to express that even though taking the abilities from our pets was a good direction. Completely removing the pet was not, and they still had a roll to play. Either for just RP purpose or as a pocket tank our pets still had a place.
So, now Marksmanship needs to choose between spending a talent point on either going petless or not, and taking a hit to their damage. However, at least it’s still an option.
1 Like
It indeed fix it. On Season 1 M+, I am a bit choosy on Group combo. My group has to have a Lust but not me as MM. I want to have Lust but not me gimped.
But outside of Dungeons, my MM still needs a pocket tank in theory… like against some elite Rares or some multiple elites in Delves 11. Havent tried Delves 11 yet though. I think Delves 11 is doable as Petless becoz we could use Brann as pocket tank as a Real Tank. Have to see more on Season 2 next week.
It is like on Patch 11.1, Blizz wants us Petless. I am trying to be Petless. If that’s the design, I would try it. So far, so good.
It’s because they have literal decades of “muscle memory” built up that ‘call pet’ is just there and works out of the box.
I’m sorry, but I don’t think I understood what you’re saying. 
Can you please clarify what you mean by “they” (who?) and “muscle memory for call pet that’s just there and works out of the box.”
What’s working outside the box?
They are saying that Marksman has been able to just call thier pet for years without having to talent into it. That now they need to it’s like pulling an arm to play.
The “They” in this is the folks messaging you about how to summon their pet.
Muscle memory may not be the correct term here, but essentially a learned habit or behavior that can be performed with little to no thought; Nearly automatically.
Working “out of the box” is a common phrase meaning : No extra tweaks, changes, batteries, or other work is required to get something to work in the way it is expected to work.
People complaining about having to use a talent point to have the pet are proof there are some who will literally whine and complain about anything. That talent point is really make or break in your open world tier 1 delve adventures…
But why is there this weird spirit owl? Like if my abilities were still going to require a pet thats not always active, why not just make it so my pet doesn’t walk around with me but comes out just like the spirit owl for abilities only? Like this implementation is just stupid.
“Take the pet talent”
For the hunter class.
2 Likes
Wow, so all that talk by people that “I don’t care about the damage, I just want my pet back” turned out to be BS like expected. This was a conversation that was had ad nauseum in a dozen different 1000 post threads months ago. Quite literally.
The original plan was to not have a pet at all. Due to the “feedback” by the people who said the first sentence, Blizzard relented and gave back the CHOICE to have a pet or not. That was the whole point made by the pet advocates. They wanted the choice of doing extra damage or taking a pet. Which was essentially Lone Wolf. Well, you got it. This is it.
2 Likes
honestly crazy how many people don’t read their talents
1 Like
In simplr terms, Lone Wolf bad. Nu-MM that doesn’t use pet anymore, badder! Lone Wolf V.2, gud.
It’s no wonder why the non-Hunter community just 
s all over Hunters in everything, that which is both relevant and irrelevant.
Edit: By the way, I wonder if Blizz knew along they would get the manner of feedback for the Eagle system and did what they did. If MM doesn’t get their own class apart from BM spec it’ll keep just happening. I wonder if Blizzard was surveying the Hunter community that way.
“Well, they all seem to be BM mains. We’ll make a note of it and push towards the new Beastmaster class.”
Imagine MM(and SV) feedback never being the same again because they’re now in a 2-spec “Ranger” class and only Blizzard listens to Rangers for those two specs.
Obviously I’m not a Blue and can’t speak for them, but this could be an overall strategy to make the Hunter class better by making it “twain”. A divided house can’t stand is the lesson I hope the Blues are learning. Those who are maining BM are not showing solidarity for MM and SV unless that means BM gets to come out on top. Unless the exit happens this class is going nowhere important in any and all the Worldsoul saga and beyond(?).
They don’t even have to sacrifice a talent point. Lone wolf was a sacrifice, you could not use that talent point on some other good node. The pet choice is a choice, you have to spend that talent point on that node one way or another so there is no sacrifice.
5 Likes
Correct. I think that, though, it does feel like a sacrifice to some people — and I can’t begrudge them. I understand their point! All Hunter specs have come with the “Call Pet” ability automatically for 20 years! And before certain people try to argue that MM “has been a petless class” (spec. You mean spec, not class) — you had to opt out of the ability to Call Pet.
So I can see why it’s really throwing people off. It’s strange to log in one day and suddenly lose an ability that has existed for 20 years. No wonder we’ve had some people panic — shock and confusion can absolutely attribute to a person not noticing the “Unbreakable Bond” talent.
3 Likes
Regarding the eagle. Yes, they completely bollicks it up. They should never have referred to it as a pet. I works NOTHING like a pet. They should have never used the word pet. Now, anybody who has an axe to grind about “the good old days” brings it up. FFS, I don’t think I’ve ever even noticed the damn eagle when it turns up.
MM was a gimp spec. We were always a 2nd class citizen compared to others. These changes were meant to help that. But because of idiocy of perception like “the Eagle pet” we keep having all this background noise getting in the way.
Of course the problem there was that while having Call Pet existed, NOBODY doing Mythics or Raids ever had them out. Because 10% dps was just too much to give up on. They even dropped it to 5% to make it LESS attractive but people still took Lone Wolf.
LOL. I need to write this down and use this everywhere 
Minions and guardians are the other summonables and half the playable game has them. It should have been common knowledge by now. The Demolock has the pet combat market cornered, as they have pets, minions, and guardians.
Yes, this Eagle “pet” is pretty much exactly the same as the Sentinal Owl.
Which funnily enough, they have REMOVED altogether. If I was being uncharitable, i’d say they removed the Owl effect because they realized it was exactly the same as the Eagle and realized how stupid they looked by keep referring to the Eagle as a pet.