Yes I’m aware.
Honeslty with all the pet pathing issues im happy MM works better without it’s pet, there are a lot of situations where the pet is a liability rather than an asset which MM does not need to worry about.
Lets not forget that in SL not only are getting tranq shot back but also revive pet is on a 6 sec cd making MM’s reliance on a pet for dispels disappear and if MM had no pet it wouldn’t have to deal with the greater dps loss than if its pet died.
I’m happy with the way it is now.
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Except this was something the talent system was designed to do: it wasn’t always about DPS, but choosing what talents would best suit the needs of your playstyle and enhance those aspects of your spec.
Tier 30 should be a good example of this: you have a single-target option that beefs up your Aimed Shot, an AOE proc, and an extra AOE ability.
Tier 90 is more of the same: you have an AOE ability, a single target passive trait with a proc, and an extra single-target on-use buff.
So all signs point towards MM having three distinct playstyles: one that sticks with its default loadout, but enhances it with passive traits, one that adds more single target abilities to our arsenals, and one that adds more AOE abilities. The intent is there, the talents just have horrible implementation and scaling: it’s a good attempt, but it’s obvious it’s been neglected.
But then you get wasted tiers like Tier 15 where you have three single-target abilities - or in this case, two single-target abilities and one multi-purpose trait. Or Tier 100 where a lackluster multi-purpose trait like Calling the Shots is superior to Lock & Load, a good talent that’s only hampered by its horribly low 5% proc rate, and Piercing Shot, a focus-spending ability on a 30 CD with inferior damage to your bread-and-butter Aimed Shot.
Like, those are just lazy.
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Having an aoe option and a st option is not the same as taking specific concepts out of the hunter class and being able to make their own separate class out of them.
Notice how nothing I listed as what would be spec for the 2 classes I had hypothetically made was dependent on aoe or st.
No, talents were not design to make 1 class into multiple classes. Talents were designed to enhance specific playstyles or aspects within each spec. a MM is still a MM whether you have aoe talents or st talents.
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Still no master’s call, lust, mortal wounds, leech, or stamina without a pet. Lone wolf has to offer these somehow before I can say i’m happy with it.
If widow venom returned baseline and you could choose which active/passive pet ability you had with lone wolf that would be perfect.
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That is basically what I said: there really isn’t a need to make multiple classes when they’re so similar when you can create talents that help define the direction a spec is supposed to go.
And that is completely missing the point of what I said in the 1st place. You could easily make 2 distinct classes if not more by separating out concepts within the class.
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The difference is only ~1% in raid, a hair higher in aoe, either way it’s very negligible. If your looking for a more substantial bump in your numbers, BM is really your best option right now unfortunately.
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It’s not even a matter of the numbers because you can always turn some knobs and tune those: it’s the way LW has been implemented. Even if all three hunter specs were equal in DPS, my original point still stands: MM has to sacrifice some DPS for the utility the pet offers.
This would be fine if Lone Wolf pushed MM ahead of the pack - sacrificing utility for DPS - but it doesn’t. For most of BFA, it seemed that the hunter specs were balanced around having a pet out except MM. It’s the only spec that doesn’t have any interaction with a pet beyond its basic commands and attacks, thus driving my point forward. Lone Wolf puts it back in line when it’s active, and when it’s not, it falls behind. For now, it seems MM was designed to be a petless spec.
You see how troublesome this is? If a hunter’s defining characteristic is the pet, then the standard setup should be hunter + pet.
MM + LW should be a calculated decision, not the default to keep their DPS up with SV and BM.
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What are the number differences between LW and no LW using pet? That’s the question. If people aren’t pushing World Firsts, I don’t see why you can’t just use your pet… It doesn’t seem that serious? But I dunno, I play BM.
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There isnt a big difference on single target, its more on the AOE because the pet doesn’t have the cleave that BM does.
But having a pet that can dispel or so in M+ as MM could be useful.
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Hey Shmexy, I love that you call this out. This morning, I was waffling in my head about how you really get the best of both.
To me, MM hunter with pet is the class fantasy in full swing. That said, MM hunter in a raid with a pet just doesn’t feel good. I despise a pet being part of my parses. That’s why as a warlock, even though it’s sub-optimal now, I always take Grimoire of Sacrifice. So when Lone Wolf came, it was a massive win for me.
The problem is how do I reconcile dropping my pet for group content? I think the idea of Lone Wolf comes around the idea of having a Hunting Party. It would be a separate passive that would be active when your pet is dismissed, increasing your damage by a fixed percent (e.g. 3%) for each party or raid member within (125% your attack range), up to a cap of 4x (e.g. 12%). Lone Wolf would instead work exclusively for your pet, in the opposite fashion, increasing its damage and threat caused by the maximum amount, and reduced for each party member within (125% of your attack range).
Playing with a pet is what makes a hunter a hunter. But being forced to have one as a master marksman really detracts from the idea of the stealth-solo sniper mission where you’re going to fill a group role instead.
Edit for summary:
- Lone Wolf should be a meaningful damage and threat pet buff when solo, decreasing in effectiveness when hunter or pet is near a party member.
- Tier 1 talents reallocated or made baseline
- New options to (1) buff the player damage passively, like current LW implementation, (2) reduce the lone wolf damage penalty, (3) ammo kits for auto-shot.
The MM character needs power-ups, not the pet. But the pet should be part of the fantasy.
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I honestly will never understand how you people come to this conclusion. As someone who plays both and prefers BM because MM is much simpler than BM. What aspect of MM is more complex than BM?
Don’t let Aimed Shot cap, keep Rapid Fire on CD, don’t waste Precise Shot charges, use Multi-Shot to maintain your cleave buff. Sounds very similar to BM without the buff management: don’t let Barbed Shot cap, keep Kill Command on CD, don’t waste focus by using Cobra Shot, use Multi-Shot to maintain your cleave buff.
Fact is if you want a pet MM can have one for a tiny DPS loss; you are chosing petless for about 2% AE damage loss and a negligible single target loss. If you want to have the pet you have the option to have it. Most people wouldn’t even notice a 2% damage loss.
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To all the people saying that Lone Wolf and No LW With Pet Out are equal DPS - they’re wrong. My ferocity pet only does about 8% consistent damage, whereas LW goes a 10% increase - meaning you’re still being punished if you want to use a pet as MM. For a spec that is already below BM, being an MM hunter WITH your pet out is about a 2-4% dps loss, depending on how much target switching occurs in the fight. Admittedly, this does seem fair because pets can provide utility, but just personally here, as an MM hunter, I don’t care about that utility and I believe pet useful pet functions should really only be for BM.
2-4% may not seem like much, especially to the majority of players and I AM, admittedly, a “casual” but it’s still feels too high and it still feels like I’m playing the spec wrong just because I want to use my pet. You know like… my pets are important to me, I want them to get their exercise and to stay combat sharp and all of that.
The fantasy that I want for MM is the ranger fantasy who has an animal companion as his best friend, who helps him when necessary, etc. Their bond is inseparable but not nearly as deep as would be possible if the hunter was instead BM. And that means that being able to just switch specs to BM and just have your MM pet do more damage and provide more utility doesn’t make any sense - it would only make sense for pets that the hunter had raised and trained up as a BM hunter… But now I’m getting sidetracked.
@Strippendell, Pet pathing issues aren’t really a problem anymore.
@Dawnspirit, the problem with “splitting” Hunter into 2 classes is current hunters wouldn’t get to decide which one they’d want to be. So if they decided to make all hunters the “BM” hunter, and I play hunter for the MM fantasy, then I’m screwed. Vis versa the other way around for other players. I do like the idea though and I agree that there are, and always have been, way too many POWERFUL fantasies of the hunter class and it’s always just felt so… confused.
One idea for BM that I’ve always had is to take Eyes of the Beast and turn it up to 11 - make the spec centered around melding with your pet and using it to actually become a tank or dps (depending on which pet you meld with). Just an idea.
@Spinnerdh - yes, yes. So much this. All of this.
@Deos, thankyou. It’s easy to combine your pet damage with your own in parses and damage meters. I’m the complete opposite - I prefer to have my pet in raid with me.
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Yeah, I was just making a hypothetical and I know what you mean. I am the opposite of you. I’d rather be a simple archer with no pet attached, so I have always liked Lone Wolf since it was introduced. I do think the original implementation of it as a talent was the smarter choice given how the class has always had a pet.
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I’m sorry but i must disagree.
We need three unique specs, pet focused, weapon focused, melee.
I like the idea of each being unique in that regard personally.
If anything i would like to see MM get more weapon and ammo based traits… such as giving back exotic ammo and such and removing all pet related talents or traits completely.
But thats me.
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Logically speakings pet will always matter less for MM dps wise because your pet doesn’t do anything for you outside its basic attacks and maybe utility. BM relies on its pet for most of its DPS and SV now relies on its pet for Focus regen and they even need their pet to be in LOS and alive to use their top Damage CD. MM holds no such reliance on their pet and honestly they really shouldn’t.
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Imagine instead saying:
MM hunter holds no such reliance on their pet.
In which case, they’re a hunter. And honestly (we’re still being honest?) they really should. It doesn’t feel right unless the argument is intentionally structured as a spec fantasy over a class fantasy.
I wholly share in your mindset, “Buff the player, not the pet.” But options probably should exist. That’s the big argument going for RSV right now…
Personally, I feel the LW implementation is TOO generous to people that opt to have a pet out. The numbers are fairly well-turned, and the choice still exists right now. There is a significant difference in AoE (and should be), but for a single-target dummy chase, I don’t know that an inversion is a worthwhile expense… I’d rather see a class rework where the fantasy is tied together, and the specs are differentiated within that framework at the onset. Right now, as a class, hunter seems cobbled together.
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Exotic Munitions was a SV talent, and doesn’t fit in with MM. MM is about physical shots. BM is about the pet. SV has historically been about magic damage based shots and traps. They’ve been plenty unique for years. They don’t need to abandon the two core aspects of the class (ranged weapons and pets) just to make the specs ‘different’.
If you want to continue to make claims about the pet and petless marksman you need to compare them to the other hunter specs at the same time. Personally I believe if we didn’t I guess in some of your words “punish” the mm for having their pet out they’d effectively just be a better bm hunter, so then you’d just create a situation where the bm hunters can then ask you in turn why they’re being punished.
I’m not trying to say things shouldn’t be changed if people really are passionate about it, but I really think you should be considering the hunter class as a whole when you suggest these kind of changes and not just the mm spec alone.