There are a lot of MM pet threads already, so I won’t go into that here, but in a more general sense, it seems this is just the way of things. Classes or specs that had been around for a while just disappear overnight or get altered so much as to be unrecognizable.
Combat rogues and survival hunters come to mind immediately, but I am sure there are others. Combat becoming outlaw made some level of sense, but taking a range spec and making it into melee was not my cup of tea, and a lot of people agreed. People spend a lot of time building up their characters over the years, and having the rug pulled out seemingly on a whim hurts. MM was always my main, and SV was a backup plan for when they nerfed MM so much it became broken. It felt like being forced to play BM to some degree, and feels more so now.
People talk about the lore or having historical precedents for the way they handle specs. If someone has played an arms warrior for a decade, and you tell them that they are now a sword and shield single-target DPS spec focused on maiming their opponents or an augmentation warrior that uses drums to buff party members, they are not going to care that gladiators or drummer boys have historical context. Sorry balance druid, you are no longer a crit chicken, you now use poisonous herbs and psychedelics to disorient and debuff, while other players do damage.
I think Blizz should focus more on adding in new specs to existing classes if they feel a need to have a new angle on an older theme. If someone makes a character and plays it for 10+ years, let them keep what they have made.
Well said!! I have been Bm since 2005 halfway through vanilla, I have seen so many changes. I would love a awesome marksman ranger class with no pet, but people should have a choice if they want a pet, just do it like lone ranger where they hide pet, but get boost in other skills. Give people the choice <3
While I am ambivalent about the pet being removed and happy about a no pet ranged class I am not fond of the ability to take away players choice. If they wanted to leave pets in MM just simply strip them of their stats, ability to be controlled or commanded, they only do a little bit of damage and do not taunt either so all aggro is on the hunter. The difference between having them and lone wolf is that the damage they do is distributed out in a DoT instead of a flat damage that lone wolf would provide. Numbers would need to be tweaked to so the with/without pet is negligible but that could give them the end result they want and keep people who want their pets happy.
My issue is if they force the eagle/hawk on us. If I play an undead hunter why would i request help from a living eagle. If they provide us methods for changing the look or the type of bird fine but choice should be given.
Same with BM and the new Pack Leader talent. I want to use MY pets, not Rexxar’s!
Player choice is not inherently a good thing. Hunters had a choice to take the lacerate talent in vanilla. The choice of running with a pet was an overall detriment to people playing the spec as intended. So it has been removed.
People can say all they want having the choice doesn’t effect anyone else but it’s blatantly false and the devs have confirmed this. Maintaining a split paradigm has been a drag on focusing the spec on ranged physical damage. Until now.
Sorry but choice is always a good thing, and you’ll not convince me otherwise. It is fine if they want to focus the spec to be ranged but there are methods to allow pets to remain around instead of introducing a bird. Removing the ability to control the pet and just make it a constant DoT is one or slot lone wolf and make a straight DPS buff. In the end it gets you to the same place but it is a choice.
If the devs have to restrict choice because they can’t/don’t want to take the time to figure it out/balance it properly then they are doing a bad job.
Cool story. Thankfully you are not in development. Choice is most certainly not always a good thing. Let’s just let people choose to teleport across the map. Or have a delete opposing character button in pvp. All choice is good! Give me a break.
Yes they do not want to carry the development debt of something that is not in line with the design paradigm. I applaud their stance.
It was also done to help open up more Hero talent specs, like Arcane Archer. They just need to replace arcane shot with quick shot, then put it back in with the hero talent.
In isolation, I think the devs agree with Grethall on this one. They have constantly shown that adding more choice and flexibility to the game is a good thing and results in a happier player base. That’s why this change seems to hit so hard. Not only is it removing choice, it is changing the core of a class/spec that has been part of the game for 20 years.