It’s still early, there have only been like 3 or 4 waves.
At any given time /who on alliance returns under 50 people. It is almost impossible to get groups to actually test dungeons.
RIP, ya, this alpha does seem surprisingly low-pop.
Also, it just occurred to me, I’d have to double-check, but I feel like Predator’s Thirst is way weaker for BM than it is for MM. I’m pretty sure pet damage does not heal the hunter (it heals the pet instead, that’s one reason clefthoof are so good for soloing, passive healing on the pet). I believe that Kill Command is classified as pet damage for that purpose (and for threat, actually), and Stomp probably is as well (the damage from it is credited to the pet rather than the hunter in logs).
That’d be somewhere around 70% of the hunter’s DPS that doesn’t translate into leech healing for that hunter, severely weakening the benefits of Ferocity for BM (and probably SV as well, since 25-30% of their damage comes from their pet). You’d probably only want to use Ferocity in group content (raids and 5-mans) for lust, and in M+ that’s only a couplefew times per instance (between which you can swap back to a spirit beast).
I thought of that as well - Predator’s Thirst for MM is me healing 10% of juicy Aimed Shots that chunk 60% of a mob’s health bar. Predator’s Thirst for BM is 10% of Auto Shot, Cobra Shot, and Chimaera Shot.
I haven’t used a Tenacity pet for the entirety of BfA as MM. I started questing with my trusty turtle, realized Scalehides are a FAR superior solo pet as MM, and never looked back.
If I want a pet, I use Ferocity for Leech and Bloodlust, or Cunning for the movespeed. I don’t care about Master’s Call since I don’t PvP. When I need the DR I get it with Lone Wolf.
Yep. Also means that leech in general is way weaker for BM than for other specs. Probably for Demo as well. RIP. Wonder if that also impacts the quasi-leech Demo gets from Soul Leech. Maybe that’s why Demo is the only one that gets Soul Link.
And ya, Tenacity has a lot less going for it for MM. We lack the insanely strong option of spirit beasts, and we get Survival of the Fittest regardless. The extra HP can have benefits, but it’s fairly minor. The only reason I’d use one, tbh, would be a crane or stag for having Survival of the Fittest + tranq, and that’s no longer an issue in SL.
Still, I think the argument for pet vs. no pet is fairly balanced for MM. Even using a Tenacity pet, you’re essentially sacrificing 10% of your damage in AoE and for quickly-dying adds (ie. ones that it isn’t worth pulling your pet for) in exchange for 5% HP and a purge. There are situations where either one would be stronger. On something like Shad, for example, I’d see little reason not to use a pet, since there’s zilch for secondary targets and 100% uptime on the boss, so it’s basically just a question of whether or not you have the 5% bonus HP.
I really do wish they’d taken my Lone Wolf suggestion in BfA beta seriously, though. I suggested they bring back an echo of WoD’s Lone Wolf, giving MM 3 Aspects they could only use while they lacked a pet. Those Aspects (I suggested Wolf, Bear, and Fox, for Ferocity, Tenacity, and Cunning, respectively) would grant both the active and passive abilities of their respective pet specs.
Changing them would incur a cooldown and/or a ~4-5s cast time, to avoid hotswapping them in combat too much (or simply hijack Dismiss Pet while you don’t have a pet out to remove the active Aspect and let you cast another or summon a pet, rather like BM or SV has to do to swap pets). Basic idea being to play into the Lone Wolf passive without short-changing MM on the utility front. You can pick, for any given fight, which of the pet spec utility benefits you want while retaining your ability to use Lone Wolf. Pets still get a small benefit on utility due to their family ability and taunt, while Lone Wolf gets a small damage benefit due to stronger target swapping and AoE. Right now, MM loses a lot of utility options when they decide to use Lone Wolf, though at least tranq isn’t one of those loses in SL.
Just tamed a Stag on alpha, seems pet purge is gone.
No idea what they’ll replace it with, hopefully they don’t leave a gaping hole for a bunch of families like they did last time.
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Ya, I could easily see any of the following:
- Splitting all existing tranq pets amongst the other 5 family ability groups (though this would mean that ~60% of pets have a defensive of some flavor).
- A Tongues-like cast speed slow.
- An attack speed slow.
- A short-range charge that includes a short root effect (though that could be hilarious if the mob turns around and gibs a melee DPS as a result).
- A pet self-heal (ie. like a pet-targeted version of Spirit Mend, as an alternative to the defensives).
Obviously the the cast speed, attack speed, or root effects wouldn’t affect boss targets, and probably wouldn’t be exceptionally strong, but they could provide benefit in certain situations.
Something offensive that’s useful in PvE would be nice.
If deals damage, it’d be the only option. I’m aiming for utility, and something comparable to the existing utility. Not so strong that it becomes the only option, or that Lone Wolf feels slightest for not having a pet out, but not so weak that it is never useful.
I mean offensive utility, something you do to the enemy, rather than a defensive.
I want it to be something useful in PvE, rather than something with zero practical benefit to the Hunter outside a PvP context. Mortal Wounds is on many of my favorite pets, and since I don’t PvP, those pets are functionally useless to me for my favored content.
A snare is fine, but we have plenty. A cast speed slow or attack speed slow would be okay, but a bit niche. Damage done reduction debuff would be too powerful. Anything that increases player damage would be required for competitive content.
I think a charge with a short root would be really nice to have, but doesn’t fit for many of those pets. Maybe if you added that as a 6th family “type” and shuffled some families around it could work.
Oh, ya, ok. That’s why I included the cast speed slow and the attack speed slow, both are, imo, offensive utility. Both have pretty solid use in PvE, especially M+, and both already exist in SL as Curse of Tongues and Curse of Weakness, respectively. There’s plenty of casters in M+, and plenty of heavy-hitting melee mobs, so being able to reduce the damage funneling into the tank, and potentially increase the window for interrupts of important abilities, can be very strong.
Honestly, though, I can’t think of too many other “offensive utility” effects that aren’t substantially stronger than other pet utility (ex. knockbacks, any form of CC), and thus would effectively be roughly as mandatory as the pet purge currently is.
Incidentally, the names of the abilities could help define it. The purge is provided by the following abilities:
- Sonic Blast (Bat)
- Chi’Ji’s Tranquility (Crane)
- Serenity Dust (Moth)
- Nether Shock (Ray)
- Spirit Shock (Spirit Beast)
- Spore Cloud (Sporebat)
- Nature’s Grace (Stag)
- Soothing Water (Water Strider)
All of those, I think, fit either a cast speed slow or an attack speed slow rather well, thematically and conceptually, though I think a cast speed slow fits them better (and is also probably the stronger of the two from a utility perspective).
Actually what they need to do is to bring back being able to change pet specs. Having a fixed spec for each pet family was a monumentally dumb decision and has taken away so much hunter pet diversity…
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Been suggesting for quite a while now that they should change that effect to one that removes harmful magical effects from a friendly unit, instead of the beneficial ones on enemy targets.
Can be very handy both in PvE as well as in PvP, etc.
Example:
Spirit Shock
Intant
15 second cooldown
40 yard range
Removes all harmful magical effects from a friendly unit.
Or something like that…
Abilities are the main thing that decides a pet’s usefulness, not it’s spec. If all the pets with a 1 min cooldown damage reduction were made Ferocity then they could all be used by non-BM hunters as pet tanks. That would be the only thing you would use them for though. Same thing with Mortal Strike pets for PvP.
Pets with useless abilities, such as a cat (has increased dodge chance) can’t be used no matter what spec you make it.
Ish. It’s more that every pet family has an option for every spec. Spirit Beast, for example, wouldn’t be as popular as it is if it weren’t also Tenacity (which, incidentally, is a weird spec for Spirit Beasts, the majority of which have pet models aligned with Ferocity families, ie. predominantly cats and wolves).
In a raid in particular, the pet spec abilities are typically substantially more meaningful than the family abilities. Purges, snares, mortal strike effects, and pet defensives have essentially zilch for impact on basically any raid fight. Having a lust or another defensive, on the other hand, can be quite critical, and Master’s Call even has its occasional uses (can be used to remove stacks on others on Wrathion (with Posthaste removing them for self), for example).
In M+, the purge is currently more or less mandatory, but beyond that, the pet choice is largely driven by spec, since there are options for all 3 specs within the purge category. With the purge moved back to the hunter, none of the abilities are (currently) terribly impactful even in M+. Arguments can be made for the snare, the MS, and pet defensives in certain situations, but none of them are as overriding as the purge currently is.
So basically, your core assertion that, for example, a cat isn’t really going to be useful regardless of spec is largely accurate. Family abilities currently play a larger role than they should, imo, in simply disqualifying entire families of pets. But within a specific family ability group, pet spec is largely what determines which pet you actually use.
Edit: Went back and tabulated it for Spirit Beasts. There are:
- 16 Ferocity models (7 cats, 9 wolves)
- 6 Cunning models (1 raptor, 1 fox, 3 rodents (porcupines), 1 bird of prey)
- 4 Tenacity models (1 stag (moose), 1 feathermane (gryphon), 1 bear, 1 crab)
So graphically, Spirit Beasts actually make the least sense as Tenacity pets. Go figure.
Yea I misspoke. I know that a pet’s spec also plays a part in it’s use. That being said, if pets are put into their proper specs based on their abilities then switching specs would be useless. Back in Legion when we had the ability to switch pet specs, there were still only a handful of usable pets. Of course, most families having no abilities was also a problem.
As for Spirit Beasts, it doesn’t matter what animal they resemble. What matters is the nature of Spirit Beasts. Same thing for Mechanicals. Of course, Spirit Beasts used to be Ferocity so there is that. I am glad they switched them to Tenacity though so they can be used in dungeons and raids.
I dunno about that. I felt a lot more free to use my Grimtotem ghost wolf in Legion than BfA. But then again, Spirit Beasts was still obscenely strong for BM in Legion, so they were still largely the only option for BM, and MM was really Lone Wolf or bust (and I pretend SV was removed from the game at the end of Wod). So that may have contributed.
Personally, if all pets had settable spec, it would at least open up the options a bit. Right now, any given family group has 1-3 options for any given spec. For the purge, for example, you have bats or rays for Ferocity and cranes or stags for Tenacity. In practice, you are locked to one of two families of pets for a purge and a given spec.
If spec were unlocked, you’d have 6 options for the purge (if it were staying, this is based on a hypothetical of a family ability being required for something), those 4 plus sporebats and moths (the cunning options for the purge currently). That at least better than only having 2.
Also, with the purge moving baseline, as long as the replacement ability isn’t terribly strong, pet choice for non-BM opens up considerably, since the family ability largely stops mattering.
BM, of course, is still largely locked to Spirit Beasts (even more so if they can be swapped to Ferocity for lust if needed), but that’s an issue with Spirit Mend, not BM specifically. It’s also a bit worrying and annoying that both of the “pet specs” (BM and Demo) are the specs for their respective classes with the least number of viable pet options.
I agree that mechanical pets need to resemble their abilities to the pet they were made after. I want my mechanical wolf to have a lust option so I can keep with my themee of only using mechanical pets as a Mechagnome Hunter. I also think another option would be the specialization of pets for the entire pet category. I think having a pet and giving them the option to be one of the 3 specializations would be a great idea as well. I’m in favor of either option, but something needs to change with pets as a whole and giving players back the choice for both PVE/PVP and RP customizations.
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This comment didn’t age well.
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I would not be surprised if this eventually becomes reality, looking at undead pets.