There already is an offensive talent with Primal Rage though. Perhaps it would be better to just replace Survival of the Fittest with Roar of Sacrifice? That’s an old Hunter pet ability, and it would be able to affect allies other than the Hunter too, just like Primal Rage and Master’s Call
Perhaps, I’m just saying when I think survival of the fittest, defense is not the 1st thing that comes to mind.
Misdirection is still off the GCD.
I prefer “Misdirection lasts until cancelled when cast on your pet” though, as that means I don’t hear the Misdirection sound on every ability I use.
There are also two Anima Powers from Torghast on the alpha that would fit -
- Your Misdirection target takes 90% reduced damage for the duration;
- Your Misdirection target deals 20% additional damage for the duration.
Both would work well as pet talents.
This would really encourage tanks to want at least 1 hunter in the group if possible and hunters to actually use MD more consistently. Maybe not a 90% reduction though. Maybe a 30% reduction in damage and 5% damage increase.
Thinking as a pet talent here, only effective on the pet. I was quoting from the Anima Power descriptions on alpha right now.
It would be super OP for a general purpose ability for any content outside Torghast (where the entire point is to be OP).
That would be a ~30% uptime 90% DR. If you had a raid with 3 Hunters, Tanks would be functionally immortal. Even at 30% that would be like having a slightly nerfed Shield Wall literally all the time.
I got that, but I was thinking as a more general use for it. Don’t want it to be so super OP that having 4 hunters in a raid become the meta, but still make it powerful enough to make it useful. As it stands in most cases I don’t even bother with MD as it’s not really needed because tanks have no issue with threat generation.
I use it as a means to ensure I can go ham right off the pull, even if the tank is tabbing around to pick up multiple targets, even if I get a few lucky crits and a Lock and Load proc.
It’s also nice to direct add spawns right to the tank, rather than the tank having to go pick them up.
Just a heads up, but I added a new section at the end of my original post for Pet Loyalty.
Good to hear. Wanted to make sure it was off the GCD First. The Anime Animus Powers are pretty good, but I hesitate to place what is essentially a defensive or DPS talent in a tier with two alternatives that grant neither, even if they would be nerfed for being general use and not in Torghast.
Watch that autocorrect lol.
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Looking at the pet talents again, what is the objective of Tier 2? Reducing the CD on Growl makes no difference unless the pet can be a legitimate tank in group PvE. Cower serves no purpose, as pets almost never generate enough threat to be a concern, and on the rare occasion they do, Play Dead solves that issue. Same for Distracting Growl - the Hunter can just Feign Death.
Instead, I would think about what a pet needs to do in order to be effective:
- Damage to the Hunter’s target
- Maintain threat on the Hunter’s target
- Provide a buff or other utility to the Hunter and/or group
- Survive
Everything is already covered by the family abilities and the other tiers. If anything, make it a QOL change (names are placeholders from old abilities):
Improved Mend Pet
Your Mend Pet will attempt to remove one Poison, Disease, Magic, or Curse effect each time your pet is healed.
Glyph of Misdirection
Misdirection lasts until cancelled when used on your pet. Misdirection can only be active on one target at any given time.
Life Debt
When an attack would kill you, your pet will rush to your side, sacrificing it’s life to save yours. 10 minute cooldown.
I altered tier two to be a bit different. Added bonus threat generation to the first option (to hold threat off of multiple DPS hopefully, potentially off-tanking with enough heals or tanking out in the world or in groups more effectively), made the second allow permanent Misdirection on the pet, and made the third allow Misdirection to also redirect threat from the pet to the Misdirect target.
Perhaps a threat based talent tier is a bit weak, but I am having trouble coming up with unique abilities/passives that could truly be pet talents (rather than just more Hunter talents) to make up another non-damage tier.
Improved Mend Pet definitely has a place somewhere, but perhaps that effect should just be baked into Mend Pet at this point?
How about the pet has a 50% chance to self-dispel any time it is healed, from any source? Take that talent on a Spirit Beast that self-mends and it also self-dispels. Get the exceptionally rare healer that will toss a HoT on your pet once in a while and it does the same.
Permanent Misdirection should allow it to function as a pocket tank for world content in a group without a proper tank, Hunters deal enough damage to hold threat on their own if there isn’t a tank.
Indeed. Perhaps the two Misdirect talents can be enough for threat, and the third can be something else. The “Healing taken has a chance to dispel the pet” idea sounds pretty good.
No thoughts on the pet sacrifice ability?
Maybe more of a pet loyalty thing.
You know thinking about this now, I’d like to go back to Frost Trap and give it a small chance while active to knock down any enemies caught within it.
I feel like something like that would be too powerful for a pet talent, and too beneficial for pet loyalty. It would depend on how much health would be healed to the Hunter, unless the pet just intercepted a killing blow. It could also be pretty annoying to handle. In raids it would be taken, but could be abused if it had no cooldown or a short cooldown. If it had a long cooldown though the Hunter would be encouraged to rez their pet, then dismiss their pet, then swap in a new pet with the same talent allowing it to happen again. You could make it debuff the Hunter to prevent it from being used again, but we would still have a problem of the effect being stronger than the pet’s existence itself. Allowing the Hunter to potentially tank fatal blows from the boss or from mechanics, sacrificing the pet, may be too strong, and if it sees a lot of use could just mean that Hunters may spend a lot of fights with their pet just being dead.
I like the idea, but I think it has too many potential problems.
Tar Trap’s Waylay effect gives a chance of knock-down, and I was thinking that a Glyph could change it back to Frost Trap. I miss Frost Trap too, but I understand why it was changed to Tap Trap. Honest here, but I still get the names of Freezing Trap and Frost Trap confused sometimes.
Someone slipping and falling on ice makes more sense and is way more entertaining to watch.
Oh definitely. The Waylay effect would carry over if it was glyphed back to Frost Trap as well.
I’m thinking a 10 minute debuff on the Hunter where they can’t be protected again. That would clear on Hunter death. I wouldn’t heal the Hunter at all - the pet just takes the fatal blow instead of the Hunter. If you were standing in fire, the pet would soak the killing tick, but then the next tick 3 seconds later would kill you anyway.
Maybe it absorbs a fatal blow up to the pet’s max health, killing the pet, and any damage beyond that goes through to the Hunter anyway? That would prevent it from being used to cheese boss mechanics, as they would deal more than enough damage to oneshot the pet.
I’d like to see a Glyph of Feathers, where we throw feathers on any targets affected by Tar Trap, that lasts for 10 minutes or until the target dies.
I dunno, like if the Hunter is at sub 1% health and takes damage from a low damage attacks, it feels kinda weak for the pet to rush in and die from such a weak attack.
Perhaps there could be a specific pet family with a similar ability, but instead of taking the blow they could prevent the Hunter’s death and heal the Hunter by sacrificing their life? The Quilen comes to mind potentially. It could replace the effect in Eternal Guardian where the Quilen gets a free self-rez. Do you think an ability like this would fit in with its current abilities?
How about this?
Glyph of Tarred and Feathered
The target that triggers your Tar Trap transforms into a chicken while they remain within Tar Trap’s effect.