Mechanical pets need diversity

Classes Hunter
1

It would make more sense if mechanical pets had properties that emulated their biological counterparts. Mechanical wolves should have the same traits as regular wolves. Mechanical spiders should be like regular spiders, etc.

Currently, with no diversity in the mechanical pet group, those hunters who like to treat the class as an “engineer” class aesthetically, have no diversity in those aesthetics. If the mechanical pet subclass was broken out such that each mechanical pet mirrored the traits of their biological counterparts, all the “engineer” hunters out there would have the same diverse options as their animal-loving counterparts.

8 Likes
2

What your asking for is for the skins of the animals to be removed from Mechanical pets and placed under the category of regular pets. So its no longer a mechanical pet, its just a spider with a mechanical skin.

3 Likes
3

Yes and no. It would make sense to make them “mechanical spiders”, because it wouldn’t make sense for a robot to be “tameable” to a hunter in the exact same way as a biological creature. But once you get the ability to tame mechanical pets, either innately as a (mecha)gnome or through the quest, the pets themselves behave more similarly to their biological counterparts than they would to any kind of unified “mechanical” pet group.

That way hunters who do exclusively mechanical pets for RP purposes would have all the same options as any other hunter.

2 Likes
4

They should give mechanical pets an extra ability and leave them non exotic. Give them a blind ability like monkeys used to have. Your mechanical pet squirts oil at your enemy blinding them for 3 seconds. Then with the shield they already have, should become a bit more useful.

5

Mechanical pets should just “skins” of their biological counterparts. A mechanical cat should function like a cat (and be Ferocity), for example.

Keep the limitations on how to tame mechanicals, but don’t lock me into using only Cunning pets with a specific ability just because I want to pursue the Artificer/Engineer aesthetic.

2 Likes
6

they need to do that with spirit beasts as well. I hate that every spirit beast is a “tank” pet when they suck for tanking… they are only useful in groups due to their defensives, for solo they cannot come close to ferocity pets

3 Likes
7

They could just let you respec your pet.

For mechanicals, Engineers could craft on-use items that change their family ability.

1 Like
8

I think mechanical pets should be amazing tanks for soloing. After all, they’re made of metal.

1 Like
9

Can we just transmog pets please so we can have any look we want with any abilities we want? If not, I’d at least like to see 1 tenacity and 1 ferocity mechanical.

10

I would really like for them to change up how each mechanical pet works. Having them reflect their biological counterpart is a good idea because they shouldn’t be expected to work the same way. A sports car, an SUV and a semi are vehicles but they all behave in different ways. I’d love for a mechanical bear. I really would. Just as long as it’s not janky looking like the dog/wolf mechanical pet.

11

A similar argument could probably be applied for spirit beasts. Spirit Beasts have models for wolves, cats, raptors, bears, foxes, moose, gryphons, porcupines, birds, and even a crab. Yet they all have the same ability set. They all have stealth, which is really weird for the flying models. They all have Claw, which is even weirder for models like the crab, porcupine, or moose.

So ya, basically the same case as mechanical pets can be made for spirit beasts as well. It’s too big, too much of a general grab-bag of pets (and also wildly overpowered compared to other pets, but at least Spirit Mend is getting nerfed. Not sure it’ll be enough to supplant spirit beasts as The Only Option for BM).

1 Like
12

I think you misspelled Clefthoof here.

1 Like
13

Wait, since when? Like, maybe for soloing, but why would anyone use anything other than a Spirit Beast in group content? Spirit Mend is incredibly strong right now, and will be even with the SL nerf.

14

Strong enough to beat the leech and Primal Rage?

Maybe I’m undervaluing the SotF DR (because being MM I have that with no pet, so I rarely if ever run Tenacity), but I thought having Primal Rage was basically required and the passive sustain from the Leech was better than the small on demand heal from SM.

15

Primal Rage is completely useless in most raids. The likelihood that you won’t have any mages or shamans is really quite low. As for the leech, no, having another DR cooldown is substantially stronger than the leech. Leech isn’t really bad, but it too often is either wasted in overhealing or simply insufficiently strong.

As for “the small on demand heal”, Spirit Mend currently heals me for over 30% of my hunter’s HP over the duration (~7.5% initial, plus a smidge under 5% per tick for 5 ticks). On a 30s cooldown, and it being able to be targeted on other raid members, it’s exceptionally strong right now.

Now, the AP coefficients are a bit difficult to read atm, but it does look like it’s being nerfed by 67%, which would put it around a 10-11% heal. That puts it more in check, I think, but still probably quite strong.

Looking at my hunter (currently ~450, he’s definitely an alt), he has ~450k HP raid-buffed, and deals roughly 40k HP on a straight single-target fight. Predator’s Thirst thus is ~4k HPS, provided I’m always under max HP, or about 0.85% max HP per second. Currently, that’s at most about 25% HP per 30s. It falls far short of Spirit Mend right now, especially since Spirit Mend is burst healing and happens when you need it (and can be cast on others). Yes, Aspect of the Beast can affect that balance, but the burst healing, on-demand, and targeted benefits of SM still place it considerably ahead, imo. Add in Survival of the Fittest for on-demand DR and bonus HP for helping keep you alive, and it’s pretty clear, at least to me, that spirit beasts win by a mile in raiding content right now (unless you’re in that rare situation where you don’t have another source of lust).

Now, in SL, SM is down to a ~11% heal. It’s still on-demand, burst, and targeted, and you still get Survival of the Fittest, which in my mind still makes SM likely better than a Ferocity pet. Lust being highly redundant in a raid setting really hampers Ferocity pets there. I can definitely see arguments for it in 5-man settings, especially with the significant nerf to drums, but in a raid spirit beasts are likely to still be the most logical option for BM.

16

To be fair, you said group, not raid. No Bloodlust in a 25m is rare. No Bloodlust in M+ is FAR more common.

I didn’t realize SM was that strong. That’s nuts. That’s like having another better Exhilaration on a 30s CD.

1 Like
17

Ya, it’s shockingly strong for a pet ability. It absolutely deserves the 2/3rds nerf it is getting, and I’m still not sure it’s enough >.<.

18

That said, in 5-man content, if you’re using a ferocity pet, right now that would be a bat or nether ray for the purge. Clefthoof is really just a soloing pet, due to it having the leech plus Blood of the Rhino plus the 60% DR cooldown. The purge is far stronger in M+. In SL, that purge is being moved to Tranq Shot, so it’d depend on what replaces it for the pet ability. There aren’t really any other noteworthy exotic abilities on the Ferocity side, Devilsaurs are really the closest with Feast (20% heal and 20 focus over 6s on a 60s CD, instacast).

So aside from exotic abilities, that leaves really just the pet family ability. Half of those are just pet defensives, which can be exceptionally strong in certain M+ situations (ex. the usage of turtles, beetles, or krolusk to taunt a target and eat a high-damage attack with their 50% DR instead of the tank, or to let a debuff expire on the tank), but those are rarely used as your continuous pet during M+, instead being brought out for those specific situations (lust is also like that, incidentally). Aside from the defensives, we have a 60% uptime 50% snare and a 100% uptime 25% mortal strike effect, both of which are highly situational, and then whatever replaces the tranq ability (or they may divvy the tranq pets amongst the other 5 family abilities). Unless the tranq replacement is similarly strong/useful, I suspect that pet choice in 5-mans is going to be rather more flexible and open.

I see little reason to doubt that spirit beasts will dominate in raids, though. And clefthoof still look like they’ll be the kings of the hill for soloing.

At least our purge utility isn’t locked behind a pet anymore, though. That’s a huge buff, especially to MM.

19

Fair enough.

I haven’t gone and tamed a ray or bag, but I believe we just get double Purge with those pets.

20

Well, Spirit Shock (the spirit beast version of the purge) no longer exists in the spell data in SL, according to Wowhead (damn, I wish I’d gotten the alpha, got it the last two expansions but not this one). I have no idea what’s in its place, however, or if anything is currently in its place.