It’s funny you say that, since people seem to enjoy pretending that a hunter who wants a pet to tank for them in solo/casual can’t just swap to Surv or BM. My main’s a Holy Priest. Sometimes I quest as Holy…sometimes as Shadow. Depends entirely on what I’m doing and how much I trust my survivability. Sometimes I do M+ as Holy…sometimes as Disc. Depends on how either spec feels in that environment at any given time. Because the class is more than just a single spec.
2 Likes
That is the other thing.
You play a class, not a spec. If you want a permanent combat pet (even after these changes), you still have 5 options.
Sure, but not everyone is interested in every spec.
For example, I only play Shadow when I play Priest. I do enjoy Disc enough to play it, but I don’t like healing enough for that to matter.
7 Likes
I dont come at everyone like that, i come at people who talk crap.
Dude just said everyone else who use pet is unskilled, and didnt stop to think about any other content, he get no benefit of the doubt
9 Likes
Just as some who suggest such seem to pretend that hunters that want a pet to tank for them, also what the other aspects that come with the other specs: Survival is the melee spec, BM is all about managing the pet to max damage. The only micro managing I want to do with mt pet is having to hard cast growl or tell it to move, or pulling it back to me.
1 Like
This?
It’s fine to embrace that this is a reason for some talents to exist. Icy-Veins has an entire section dedicated to it for each spec, they’re just more tactfully named.
https://www.icy-veins.com/wow/unholy-death-knight-pve-dps-easy-mode
Wowhead may have a section like this, too, but if so I’ve looked over it.
1 Like
Wowheads version
2 Likes
And just to out myself as unskilled; I don’t play Keep It Rolling on Outlaw because I dislike it.
Maybe ‘unskilled’ is not the nicest term for it, but I don’t think Caps is trying to be rude with it.
4 Likes
i think they should keep going:
remove stealth from outlaw
remove healing from shadow priest
remove healing from ret palys
remove demons from aff/dest
remove shouting from prot/arms war
remove all the other forms from druids except 1 for each spec
1 Like
And there’s two specializations that still have pets, whereas MM’s identity for the past ten years have been that of a sniper. One where you don’t use pets, because…
… Lone Wolf hasn’t just “been there” but it has been the default option for MM hunters for the past ten years. If a specialization’s identity is that reliable in players making an active and purposeful choice to be petless, yeah… at that point it makes sense to replace it with something that makes sense.
So what they opted for is a spotter. MM isn’t losing pets, because they for all intents and purposes haven’t had them for longer than specializations even existed in the game. They are gaining an ability that makes sense for their kit and playstyle, and it is replacing an irrelevant ability that people have been actively excluding for the past decade.
That’s all there is to it.
Sure. Name one other ability or mechanic that players voluntarily have been excluding themselves from using for the past ten years.
Hilariously, you have already listed one such candidate on your list and it has something to do with Grimoire of Sacrifice. Think you can be an honest interlocutor and see why there’s an argument for this, but also why it is unlikely to happen because of the immediate counter argument that I have already spelled out?
2 Likes
You exaggerate but not as much as you’d think.
Well, there are also things like
The central dichotomy of the spec comes between these two talents. Hidden Opportunity is a more accessible build to pick up and play, while Keep It Rolling is much more challenging to play perfectly. Keep it rolling builds theoretically deal more damage than Hidden Opportunity builds; however, since the builds have higher variance, have a much steeper gear requirement, are more reliant on uptime, and have more punishing mistakes, I generally suggest against playing it when the margins between the two builds are so slim. In total the differences between the two build are around 4-6%.
To keep in mind, even the most skilled players might have issues playing “perfect” enough to make keep it rolling worthwhile
Three, actually
Except, that isnt going to be their identity anymore, you will be falconeer, but with a eagle, and will thematically use a bird, you like or not
You said good, it was an OPTION, for some MM hunter
You said it right, but missed the actuall meaniing.
They literally always had then.
Irrelevant for you**
By you*** and others who mostly, do m+ and raids.
Stop thinking M+ are the only wow players, lmao, they are the ones who do that
3 Likes
Default option that, for solo content, quite a few decided to eat the lesser damage for that pocket tank. Lone wolf did not take away our ability to have a pet out, it just punished us when we did, which made it a hassle in group content when we need it for lust.
But then, I was often one that felt Lone Wolf should be baseline with a talent to reduce/remove the damage decrease if one wanted it.
1 Like
In my defense, it’s laziness.
But to anyone on here that’s essentially indistinguishable from unskilled.
Especially when I play Enhancement.
1 Like
You don’t know what a spotter is, do you?
For the past ten years, folks have actively taken steps to NOT use pets as a MM hunter. So no, they have for all intents and purposes been a petless specialization for the last decade.
Literally no one but you are thinking that M+ is the only activity for WoW players.
Yes, people drop Lone Wolf for PvP. Why? Because when MM outperforms BM you still want a pet in order to keep the enemy in combat. You aren’t choosing to have a pet, you are choosing whatever you can to have a tactical advantage. If the talent was replaced with “A Very, Very, Very Slow Snail Coming to Murder you” then you’d pick that as an option as a PvP player.
So no, PvP players choosing whatever is a strategic advantage doesn’t reflect upon the class or specialization identity. Which is what this is about.
MM hasn’t had pets be part of its identity since at least Warlords of Draenor and when MM players overwhelmingly choose to exclude pets when MM and have done so for years, including when it was nonoptimal, then yes. That makes it clear that the ability is irrelevant, unwanted, and should be replaced for something that actually fits with the identity of the specialization.
Such as a spotter. You might wanna look what a spotter is considering you don’t seem to know what that is.
Which, again, doesn’t change why the change is happening. If folks want a pocket tank that badly there’s an entire specialization dedicated towards pets for hunters, as well as one that merely uses it as part of its kit.
MM is neither of these.
What Lone Wolf did was enable what has been MM’s default playstyle for the past ten years. But the downsides of Lone Wolf was that it was also limiting design space. Sure, they could’ve fixed one aspect of it by making it so you get access to lust whilst using it - similarly to how Grimoire of Sacrifice does it.
But if players have been actively taken steps, and a huge reason to play MM was to not play with pets… Why fix an ability that should be reconsidered for the specialization’s identity? There’s two other hunter specializations that care about “pets that can tank”, why can’t MM have a “pet” that actually serves the role and identity of the specialization and making it a passive-spotter instead?
Why keep an ability that no one is using as anything other than the default, as opposed to doing what they are doing now and replacing it with something which should fit the specialization’s identity by several magnitudes more? Doesn’t make much sense to keep it as the first option in that case if one can replace it with something which works much better, and one should note - we haven’t seen how they are implementing it yet either.
1 Like
Kinda silly to have a pet when you’re attacking targets from 60 yards out and the pet can’t dash to their target every 10 seconds like BM
Make Outlaw a tank spec.
I dont give a crap about a spotter and the bird mate, im playing marksmanship.
SOME***** folks, dont leave information behind to boost your argument like its more meaningful that what already is
Some people, arguably the minority of the playerbase actively didn’t use pet as MM hunter.
For the majority, who do all the rest of content, it was still a pet specialization, so much that when they removed TWICED, they went back and added back TWICE.
Thats because they are the only ones.
Because is useful, go check the leaderbords, top 5 of high ranked players in shuffle, blitz, 3x and 2x all of then use pet except two people, that is 18 of 20 player using pet and 2 not using, which might be just that they switched for one BG and one comp in 2x where burst might have being better.
so, this alone already break down your argument that people “actively chose to avoid” or dont use it because isnt the default.
Dont bs me with this kind of crap, we know M+ players are only choosing lone wolf because its optimal in DPS, if the pet was better people would be using.
Funny thing to mention WoD, when they straight up REMOVED MM pets, and the OVERWHELMINGLY playerbase wanted back, so they put it back 
for you*
for you**
The pet already fits, in fact, the option to chose or not is what fit it.
Again, i know what that crap is, and that is not part of the “sniper/ranger” identity, it never was, they are trying to force here.
2 Likes
What you and so many others are ignoring is there is a group of hunters that went petless for group content but used the pet in solo content.
What ones like you are ignoring is there are those hunters that don’t want the pet to be REQUIRED but still there as a OPTION.
Even if it was, why coudl they not make our current pets function as such instead of trying to push the spotter eagle on us?
1 Like