I think it is time to remove the exotic pet restriction for hunters. There are some really cool unique pet looks that are restricted to one hunter spec now which feels bad. Not sure how other hunters feel but I rarely play BM but have collected a lot of the exotic pet looks anyways. Would like to be able to use them without being forced to play BM.
I am interested to hear what others have to say about this.
Thanks friends!
I disagree. I feel like that’s one of the two things that makes BM fun, the other is being ranged melee.
I saw someone suggest if Blizz lets Surv and MM use the exotic appearance but without the special abilities, with BM being the one that gets the special abilities. I would be okay with that.
Nothing wrong with this IMHO but BM would need something major to compensate their loss of unique cool factor. Mechanically exotic pets are already lacking as a feature so something is needed to prop that up for the niche anyway. Maybe only BM can customize Pet abilities/families? Or BM gets 2 fully functional pets via animal companion or 1 “Alpha” (2 ability sets) pet?
I think this is reasonable.
I mean I get what your saying. But the only exotic pet that has a unique ability is the spirt beast. I don’t think any of the others do. But like I said in my post I am more taking about the unique looks, so if BM keeps the spirt beast heal then that’s fine.
I mean why do they need to be compensated? They are the pet/range spec of the the 3 specs. Not sure why they need to be compensated heavily for something that you already pointed out was lacking. What would compensated heavily even look like/mean?
Ok like how? Without making it broken.
Managing 2 pets sounds like a nightmare. Also you have to make sure this doesn’t becomes pets playing the spec for you. Have two pets doing full abilities means those abilities will have to be toned down quite a bit imo.
Each of the exotic pets has an exotic ability. If BM were the only ones that got to have their pets use the exotic ability, then that’s fine.
All Hunters were able to pick their Pet Specialization previously- maybe that is something that could return for BM to reflect their ability to train beasts to take on unconventional roles for their type.
Right now all Exotics do have an extra skill, there’s a good table on Petopia:
Can’t link but search “wow-petopia exotic ability table”
But even so, as they exist now most of the abilities are reallyyyy lackluster. (I think the fact you couldn’t even think of one besides Spirit Heal sorta reflects that, and in SL it is pretty much useless now too)
Making the animal companion pet a “full” pet would mean allowing it to have it’s own action bar and abilities, benefit from frenzy etc which is a whole tuning ordeal…
It’s probably far easier to simply allow a second Pet ability (ie, Spirit Heal) to be used according to the type of pet in a specific position in the Stable or Call Pet queue; similar to the way the appearance of the 2nd animal companion is currently selected.
I think at minimum what Anadisong suggested is an easy compromise.
And as to why compensate? Well… it’s one of the only unique passives for the spec… would BM just not have anything in place of that? Although I would be happy with Spirit Bond back too if we’re going to share concepts across specs- it was a BM ability before anyway
This is an exciting new idea that nobody has ever mentioned on these boards before… Oh. No, wait. It’s a tired, cliche’d idea that somebody comes up with every month or two and just won’t go away.
They each have their own particular exotic ability, I’m pretty sure.
That said, we really should get back a basic level of Beast Training regardless—enough to pick the pet’s specialization ourselves and to choose between a generic ability such as MS and another more pet-specific action—and BM should get Exotic Training—from which to choose from among at least a few strong further pet abilities, akin to a sort of “pick 4 nodes (with 3 active nodes, 2 further augmenting nodes for each, 2 general utility nodes)” mini talent tree for that pet. Exotic pets would have an extra option but no greater number of points, and even the effects of things like Spirit Pulse or Spirit Mend would still be available on at least a couple other exotic pets.
With that, exotic pets could actually have cool skills without their options being so unique/exclusive that certain conditions remove our choice of pet.
I agree. Let me use devilsaurs, pterodactyls, and carapids on my zandalari sv hunter.
It would also be nice to use worms and shalebeasts, and the niche stuff like stone beasts. Quilen deserve some melee love!