I want to like hunters.
And I want an excuse to play di dwarves…
But something about the class fantasy throws me off.
I think its the lack of “magic”
The use to use mana as a resource, but that just did not fit. We don’t cast spells. Other than using arcane shot.
It’s about being close to nature and the natural world. We stay out of the arcane.
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As a “BM” Hunter or an SV Hunter, I don’t feel like what the specs tell me I am: BM should have full command of Azeroth’s animal kingdom and yet it doesn’t feel like it, equally I feel squishy/weak as a SV Hunter who’s whole schtick is surviving the harshest conditions, and this problem is echoed in all specs, the “master of the environment” class feels squishy…
We see such interesting things Hunters do in cutscenes and out of game promo videos but we ourselves do none of them. Spells like Stampede used to be epic but now they’re just… bleh.
"From an early age the call of the wild draws some adventurers from the comfort of their homes into the unforgiving primal world outside. Those who endure become hunters. As masters of their environment, hunters are able to slip like ghosts through the trees and lay traps in the paths of their enemies. These expert marksmen drop foes dead in their tracks with flawless shots from a bow, crossbow or rifle. With the ability to wield two weapons simultaneously, hunters can unleash a flurry of blows against anyone unfortunate enough to stumble into close combat with them.
The art of survival is central to the isolated life of a hunter. Hunters track beasts with ease and enhance their own abilities by attuning themselves to the feral aspects of various creatures. Hunters are known for the lifelong bonds they form with animals of the wild, training great hawks, cats, bears, and many other beasts to fight alongside them."
Little of 
is demonstrated in-game, which is terrible.
You felt this more in Vanilla when you tracked down a specific animal as a pet. Whether it was a skin or faster attack speed (until Blizz nerfed pets to just be skins). Also the need to tame multiple creatures just to learn an ability. Like the dogs in LBRS you needed a group for to get Rank 8 bite.
And you had to feed your pet so it stayed happy and gained loyalty.
Now pets are…. I dont even know what to call them. You can have 200 in your stable and carry 5 with you. Back then you had 2 stable slots plus 1 pet. You needed to prepare by putting your pet in the stable, grab a throw away pet you could release so you could tame the one you wanted.
It was more of a relationship between the hunter and their pet.
We also had more choices for traps, aspects, etc. Sure, some things were crap, like Rend as your 31 point talent. But it was still a good time for the RP aspect of hunters
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For sure hunter was the most rpg heavy class all the way through cata. Sure, that had some downsides… like you were very probably an engineer… but it definitely felt like you were playing a role and not just a dps sim.
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Couldn’t agree more that blizz needs to bring the RP back into the hunter class, but im sure it would upset to many players. Because, well everything seems to these days.
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It is true that the current version of Stampede is a farce that utterly misses the entire point of the original ability. Stampede was first added in MoP because being able to temporarily fight with all of your main pets simultaneously for some time was an awesome and very commonly requested idea. The current Stampede was an unnecessary replacement in Legion (like many things in that expansion) that strikes me as a developer’s misguided attempt to better fit the literal meaning of the word “stampede” while losing all of its crucial flavour. Sure, now it has AoE damage, but it’s still so much less interesting and it’s not like that makes it any good considering they have it on the same tier as Stomp since BFA.
Does it really feel that way in Classic? It doesn’t, to me. In Classic every single Hunter is using a cat 90% of the time because it’s unquestionably the best one and a Wolf the other 10% of the time if they wanted to buff their raid. Making each pet so unique only established a clear hierarchy of which pets were better or worse and people naturally stuck to the best ones. In BC everyone is using a Ravager and in WotLK everyone will be using a Wolf.
The limited stable slots makes things even worse. It means you have hardly any room to actually go out and tame new pets so most people just don’t, meaning that entire dimension of being a Hunter was actively suppressed until Blizzard figured out people like trying out new pets.
Now there’s actual choice and people aren’t screwed for picking a pet they like. I feel people are far more engaged with pet collecting and choice now than they were in Classic and BC.
RP and gameplay need to be balanced and should complement each other. The problem across Classic class design is often it’s all RP and no substance. Blizzard did a terrible job (even for the time, in my controversial opinion) at ensuring a player could actually engage in their preferred role and archetype.
For example, way back in the day I always liked the idea of the utilitarian side of Hunters with traps and poisons (which is probably why I liked Survival so much back when it was a real Hunter spec). I loved the idea of things like Serpent Sting and traps and tried to use them as much as possible. I felt the weakness and it got worse and worse as I levelled up and I was extremely disappointed to learn that those things did not scale with my main stat Agility (via ranged attack power) because the RP-first design dictated that they did magical damage and therefore had to scale from spell damage. I’m sure this seemed like a sensible and immersive decision, but all it meant was that Hunters just stopped using those things at all for the most part. It took Blizzard until BC to fix that particular problem, and even then the utility of Arcane Shot, Serpent Sting, and traps were hindered due to other things like poor scaling, the existence of mana as a resource, and the fact that the entire class revolved around a swing timer.
So in chasing RP aspects they actively hindered everyone’s ability to play what they pleased and reduced all Hunters to standstill turrets spamming Aimed Shot and Multi-Shot (and later Steady Shot) with the same pet and mostly the same talents.
P.S. The design mistake of mechanics that didn’t scale or scaled with something other than our primary stats was one of the most bizarre recurring themes of classic design. In addition to the stuff above pets didn’t scale at all and neihter did Lacerate, which was just a stupid idea coupled with a bad implementation. Lots of other classes had weird scaling decisions as well. It was nonsensical, defied common sense, and it took far to long for Blizzard to address most cases of it.
I would be one of the people upset by this because I feel it wouldn’t improve the class but rather make it worse.
I don’t need forced chores like pet feeding and ammo to make me immersed. Modern WoW does a good job at representing things like pet companionship via core abilities. For example, in classic WoW you had to feed your pet but once you were in combat most of your direct gameplay didn’t invovle the pet; it was mostly just Aimed Shot and Multi-Shot spam with the pet as passive extra damage, even as BM. Now as BM you have Kill Command and Barbed Shot with its Frenzy interaction which make the pet feel like an inseparable extension of the player.
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“Does it feel that way in classic?”
Now? Probably not. 17 years ago? Absofrigginglutely!
Classic is to true vanilla as a Renn Faire/SFCA is to actual medieval times. It’s not the same.
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That doesn’t mean anything. The mechanics in question here are the same between Classic and Vanilla. I played back then and current Classic and I use the terms interchangeably because when it comes to class mechanics the 2019 Classic release is highly authentic to the original barring obscure bugs here and there.
The biggest differences between 1.12 and Classic (1.13) are that the underlying codebase is the modern engine and some in game features are updated as a result, e.g. modern graphical settings including water and ground clutter. There’s also modern server technology with layering. But Blizzard was very careful to preserve all the mechanical realities of Classic. Class mechanics are for all intents and purposes the same as it was in the real 1.12. There may be individual peculiarities and bugs that aren’t captured but only the most astute theorycrafters would even notice those.
Cats were the meta in the actual 1.12 and most Hunters used them. I was a terrible player back then that hardly knew anything and even I used a cat because everyone told everyone else that it was the best one and they were right. You could, of course, just not care and use whatever you want… but you can do that now too and the game punishes you much less for it.
P.S. The engine differences are actually an interesting conversation on their own. I noticed a few when playing classic. For example, I distinctly remember buff tooltips not being dynamic in 1.12 (2006) but they are now. If you specced into Pathfinding for BM (+8% to Cheetah and Pack aspects), the action bar tooltip would show 38% while the buff next to the minimap would still say 30%. Now in 1.13 if you check it the buff properly says 38%. Another simple example is that some things are using modern models and voice lines; I don’t know if they fixed it but for the longest time goblin NPCs were using their 4.0 (Cataclysm) voice lines. There are way more obvious differences like the aforementioned graphics stuff but there are also a ton of minor missable ones like that. I’m confident that the class design and balance is very accurate, though.
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I guess we had different experiences.
What exactly did you find different? You haven’t gone into any detail. Did you not find that the overwhelming majority of people in Vanilla used cats?
Nope. While cats were the predominant available animals, i saw bears for tanks, cats for dps (especially that fast one Broken tooth for pvp since it was great for casters.), wolves, spiders, tons of raptors and such. Even a few striders
I miss the MoP version of Stampede. 
It was so much fun, AND all 3 specs could use Stampede.
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This is in fact what I said so what’s the contention?
The way pets were handled in Vanilla pressured people into a “best pet” choice far more than current WoW does so I don’t see how you view the Vanilla WoW way of implementing pets to be better for RP reasons.
Yes Stampede used to be baseline,. Many people forget this. It became a talent in WoD to replace Lynx Rush. In WoD, Legion, and BFA, Blizzard had a nasty habit of putting formerly baseline things or borrowed power mechanics on talents. I think they viewed it as killing two birds with one stone: they achieved the ability pruning they set out to do (fewer baseline buttons) and they thought it made specs more varied as people would all pick different talents, but it really didn’t work out that way.
The way talents have been handled since Legion is one of the most embarrassing failures of class design and this is coming from someone who generally prefers talent tiers over the earlier talent trees. Just look at BM’s talent choices:
Only 1 DPS row has multiple viable choices and even there it’s questionable to say Killer Cobra and Bloodshed are worth taking in many scenarios. This isn’t just people agonising over small differences, either (which is actually what Blizzard believes according to their correspondence with theorycrafters). Most of these are major DPS losses over their counterparts. Many specs have a similar situation but I think BM is one of the worst.
As much as they wanted to make each spec more unique, if they couldn’t find the time to keep these options at least moderately balanced they should have just kept the old shared tiers model from MoP and WoD which worked far better or at least have fewer unique tiers between specs.
P.S. Shout out to Spitting Cobra for still being utterly terrible in all situations despite being buffed by 260%.
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For me, it’s not just that, for so long, the BM talents have remained fairly unequal in terms of throughput. I would question certain talents and which row they are on, along with their respective design as well. Animal Companion, Spitting Cobra, and Stampede, to name a few. The current iteration of Dire Beast is another one that comes to mind. What was the point of taking away the choice we had between Dire Beast and Dire Frenzy(now: Barbed Shot)? One that, without too much work, allowed players to explore different sub-fantasies of BM.
Ofc we all have different ideas on what we want from Beast Mastery(or just the class fantasy in general(like the other specs)). Here are some of mine:
- Full post
- Make A Murder of Crows a baseline ability for BM.
- Change Animal Companion to a passive effect that has no impact on throughput, but is just for aesthetic purposes.
- And, make some adjustments/changes to our talents to further the depth of the intended fantasy behind the spec.
Talents
– Level 15 –
[Killer Instinct] - Kill Command deals 45% increased damage against enemies below 35% health.
Kill Command deals an additional 10% damage against bleeding targets.
[Bloodshed] - 50 yd range - Instant - 1 min cooldown
Command your pet(s) to tear into your target, causing your target to bleed for X damage over 18 sec, and increase all damage taken from your pet(s) by 15% for 18 sec.
[Dire Beast] - (Replaces Barbed Shot) - Instant - 12 sec recharge - 2 Charges
Summons a powerful wild beast that attacks the target for 8 sec.Generates 20 Focus over 8 sec.
– Level 25 –
[Scent of Blood] - Activating Bestial Wrath grants 2 charges of Barbed Shot/Dire Beast.
[One with the Pack] - Wild Call has a 20% increased chance to reset the cooldown of Barbed Shot/Dire Beast.
Using Barbed Shot/Dire Beast increases your Haste by 5% for 12 sec.
[Feeding Frenzy] - Damage dealt by Barbed Shot is increased by X%. When the periodic damage effect applied by Barbed Shot is refreshed, the remaining damage will be added to the new effect, and it now lasts for a total of 9 sec.
In addition, Frenzy’s duration is also increased to 9 seconds.
- Dire Frenzy(Requires talent: Dire Beast)
Each time a Dire Beast is called, the damage dealt by your main pet(s) is increased by 1%.
When you activate Bestial Wrath, this consumes all stacks of Dire Frenzy and increases the initial damage dealt by Bestial Wrath by 50% for each stack that is consumed.
– Level 30 –
[Trailblazer] - [Natural Mending]
[Bestial Dicipline] - While your pet is active, you and your pet(s) regenerate X% of total health every 3 sec. Healing done to you and your pet(s) is increased by X%.
Damage taken by your pet(s) is reduced by 15%
– Level 35 --
[Spitting Cobra] - Bestial Wrath also summons a Spitting Cobra to aid you in combat for 15 sec. Each Cobra Shot used during Bestial Wrath extends the remaining duration of the Spitting Cobra by 1 sec.
[Thrill of the Hunt] - Barbed Shot/Dire Beast reduces the remaining cooldown of Bestial Wrath by an additional 4 sec.
Barbed Shot/Dire Beast increases your critical strike chance by 5% for 12 seconds.
[Birds of Prey] - Kill Command extends the remaining duration of A Murder of Crows by 2 sec.
Damage of A Murder of Crows is increased by X%.
– Level 40 –
[Born to be Wild] - [Binding Shot]
[Adaptation] - (Replaces Posthaste) Getting hit with an incapacitating effect(Stun/Fear), reduces the remaining cooldown of your Aspect of the Turtle by 30%. This effect has an internal cooldown of X sec.
Aspect of the Turtle is now usable when incapacitated.
When rooted or slowed, the remaining cooldown of Aspect of the Cheetah is reduced by 15 seconds. Aspect of the Cheetah frees you from movement impairing effects and you cannot be slowed below 100% movement speed while it’s active.
– Level 45 –
[Stomp] - When you cast Barbed Shot/Dire Beast, your pet stomps the ground, dealing X Physical damage to all nearby enemies.
[Chimaera Shot] - Instant cast - 15 sec cooldown
A two-headed shot that hits your primary target and another nearby target, dealing X Nature damage to one and X Frost damage to the other.Generates 10 Focus for each target hit.
[Talon Frenzy] - While Beast Cleave is active, A Murder of Crows affects up to 8 enemies near the primary target.
– Level 50 –
[Aspect of the Beast] - Increases the damage and healing of your pet’s abilities by 30%.
Increases the effectiveness of your pet’s Predator’s Thirst, Endurance Training, and Pathfinding passives by 50%.
[Stampede] - Instant cast - 30 sec duration - 2 min cooldown
Summons 5 of your stabled pets to fight for you for 30 sec. These pets deal X% of normal damage and obey your Kill Command.Pets summoned by Stampede heal themselves for 200% of the damage they deal.
[Unleashed Fury] - Instant cast - 20 sec cooldown
Sends your pet into a rage, causing it to deal X Physical damage to the target in a flurry of 5 attacks. Damage dealt is increased by X% for every stack of Frenzy the pet currently has.When this ability is used, your pet lets out a savage roar, increasing your haste by 10% for 12 sec.
- Bestial Fury(Requires talent: Dire Beast)
Damage dealt by Dire Beasts during Bestial Wrath is increased by another X%.
Any Dire Beasts called during Bestial Wrath will have their duration increased by an additonal X sec. This also applies to Dire Beasts who have already been called to fight when Bestial Wrath is activated. Attacks made by Dire Beasts will now also benefit from Beast Cleave, if activated.
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Well, I won’t be writing a dissertation, but it goes beyond the pet’s skin. We had tank pets and dps pets. And they were all over the map. Like I said, maybe your game play was different. I felt i was investing in the pet. I still have my first pet and will always have it. Pets now do not give that feeling. They are just a disposable skin.
The change came cause of two factors that were first tanks complaints that they could not click around the mass of pets. The other was pvp players having issues with being able to attack back with all of the pets on them, they could not get out of the mob.
Pre-cata, there was definitely best pets for any given content, as well as in classic. However, I dont think that the game streamlined people into content the way it does now.
I do agree that your pet choice matters less now, thats not a boon to RP. It goes back to meaningful choice, and the current population doesnt want that. There were best pets for different types of content, and you might recall, not everyone was a raider (and raids werent even that great back then, it was just end game content for large groups.)
Even 5 mans weren’t 5 mans. They were dungeons and you got whoever you could together to do them. There were plenty of reasons a cat might not have been the best pet for what you were doing. If I was doing low level BGs, I would go for the boar, not the cat. If I was doing dungeons and could only find a healer and a melee dps, I might go with a bat or turtle or a bear. Now it doesnt matter, you can play with whtever pet, and it might as well be something you change at the barbershop. Whoopie.