A lot of people are hyped for it, but then people enjoy pokemon as well.
As for me, i see it as rather pointless as long as were still locked into the same pets for the same skills and families.
Why does it matter that i have 200 really cool skins in my stable if i cant actually use any of them?
There are about 5 pets we should all be running to get the requisite skills, anything beyond that is stable fodder.
The worst thing they ever did was take away the pet customization options.
Im happy for the collectors out there, but not being one of them, this for me was rather pointless.
I mean, pet purge is gone, so that should open up a lot more freedom on pet choice. We still have spec-locking, which is a pain, but that gives us a dozen or so families instead of 2-3 that align with what we’re looking for.
I cant think of a single reason to use a cunning pet in PVE.
If Posthaste wasn’t a thing, it could have uses on fights like mythic Wrathion. Might also have use on Shad. I’ve not tested it (I raid mythic on my rogue, not my hunter), but given how the snare interacts with BoF, I wouldn’t be surprised if Posthaste does not in fact remove the snare, while Master’s Call should still provide 4s of immunity to it.
But ya, not many situations where its useful.
Idk about that. Pet dodge is still useless, and active DR, while near useless, is still better than triggered DR in all situations not involving Clefthooves. Mortal Wounds might see some use in M+ as a means to make enemy heals less potent, but you are supposed to interrupt those anyway.
I expect Ferocity/Snare and Tenacity/Snare pets to be big, unless they replace pet purges with something else that’s actually useful. I’ve seen cast speed slow suggested, that might do the trick.
Maybe for PvP. I’m not big on PvP.
Sure, but none of those are nearly as absolutely mandatory as the purge is right now. A snare can be helpful, but it’s 60% uptime and one target, so it definitely isn’t going to be make-or-break. Same with the healing reduction, I seriously doubt if that’ll make a lick of difference in the vast majority of cases.
Edit: and RE the dodge one, rather than having 3 different flavors of DR CD, I wish they’d make that one like a passive increase to the pet’s dodge at all times. That would give you a controllable 50% DR, an automatic 60% DR on a longer CD (though that one needs buffed, imo), and a passive reduction to damage taken at all times at the cost of having an emergency CD.
My point is that the meta will go for always mandatory things, then sometimes mandatory, then sometimes useful, then rarely useful, then near useless, then completely useless.
Purge is always mandatory. Mortal Wounds is sometimes mandatory, Snares are sometimes useful. The defensives are near useless or worse in most group PvE.
Do I expect to be kicked from M+ because I didn’t bring the right pet? No. Do I expect the vast majority of Hunters will run with Mortal Wounds or Snare pets for M+ or raids anyway? Yes.
I will personally keep my Scalehide, unless they put in a pet respec system (in which case I’ll pull my turtle out of retirement) or some pie-in-the-sky comprehensive choose-your-family-ability mechanic, in which case I’ll have Ferocity Wolves or Feathermanes to match my mounts, and I’ll be running them with Shell Shield.
Honestly I think we can just scrap the triggered DR and Dodge entirely. Come up with something else. We don’t need 3 flavors of defensives, Shell Shield alone would be fine, and give me 5 different debuffs - Snare, Mortal Wounds, Cast Speed Slow, Attack Speed Slow, Melee Damage Reduction.
I mean, sure, but at different grades of “you really have to have this”. Right now, a purge pet is considered more or less non-optional. An MS pet in SL? Far less so, same with a snare pet. Will most hunters still lemming into a single pet type? Probably. But there will be far less reason to do so, and far more true flexibility in pet choice.
And that’s especially the case in raids. The purge pet already has relatively limited usage in raids, the likelihood that a snare or MS pet will be useful at all in raids is actually pretty low. So let hunters all lemming onto one if they want. That doesn’t mean we don’t have a choice, that just means people prefer someone else to make their choice for them.
Personally, I’d most likely be running my feathermane, since it matches my xmog.
Edit: or maybe my Rukhran.
Edit 2: side note, why the heck are Birds of Prey set as Cunning, but Carrion Birds are Ferocity? I feel like that’s backwards.
Negative.
It comes down to this, how many skill/family combination ore actually viable?
Must haves include a tranq/dispell likely in both ferecotiy and cunning for PvE/PvP, a slow and a mortal wounds for PvP, and a defensive on for tough mobs.
Basically a bat, a moth, a clefthoof or bear, a raptor and a dog, or thier BM exotic options/replacements.
Not one of these is anything i want to run or enjoy using.
Of course you have options within the skills, the list isnt limited to what i listed, but you more or less must be running those skills in some form.
Tranq is gone in SL, it’s a baseline ability, so that’s out. Defensive is likely more required for soloing, with the longer rez, but that really just means a Scalehide for MM/SV, and Clefthoof for BM. Effectively, that means 1 or maybe 2 slots mandatory (but really, you only need one of the two, if we’re being honest, and then only really for truly difficult solo PvE, since open-world mobs rarely challenge any pet).
A snare and an MS for PvP is arguable, and also only applies if you PvP. That leaves 4 slots completely free, and your PvE group pet has a ton of flexibility without purge forcing that choice.
Fair point on tranq, i dont have access to alpha although i thought i had read that was changed?
IF you PvP the other slots are requisite for mortal wounds and slows as noted so not really options, but even if they were does it matter?
What are you going to use outside of those specific required skills? You show up to a raid with a cat youll get kicked.
Not that I’ve heard, and it’s still in the spell list on Wowhead for the alpha. I figure there’s probably be a pretty big uproar if they added it and then removed it again, considering it’s one of the more annoying and BS things about BfA hunter.
…why? It’s not like the snare or MS is going to do jack in that raid either. Peeps don’t even really look at pet types right now in raids, why on earth would they kick you in SL because you brought a cat over, say, a wolf?
I propose a trade, those that want it can have their stable but in return they have to take back the 6 second pet rez and hunters mark.
Edit: Ok, I think I misread your comment the first time, are you saying that the devs have to undo the pet rez and Hunter’s Mark changes?
I doubt that’ll make headway, but hey, wishful thinking or something.
You are focused only on raid/PvE, im talking about if you play both PvE AND PvP. Those loose spots get taken by those pets needed for that side of the house.
Realistically you don’t need many pets to fill your stable. You need a couple of key pets. Maybe 10 max to really fit all needs. I don’t mind getting rid of the pets not necessary as those left in my stable just get overlooked anyway.
Ok, but you can swap those around whenever you want, you know.
Anyway, even if that were required for PVP and you wanted them on hand, that’s a clefthoof for soloing (or a scalehide, if you want to solo as MM or SV), and then a snare and MS pet for whichever spec is most useful in PvP (cunning? I honestly don’t know). That still leaves 2 slots free for whatever you want, and realistically anything can likely be used in a raid. You’ll probably want one of those to be tenacity and the other ferocity, because both can be handy in raids and M+, but otherwise it’s basically free reign.
You’ve still not specified, however, why I would get kicked if I showed up to raid with a cat. I could show up to a raid with a cat right now and I doubt my RL would even notice, much less care (and while my hunter is not my primary raiding main (that’d be my rogue), he’s my primary alt, and I’m bringing him on the first few bosses in mythic for gear upgrades, so we’re not talking just slumming it in normal mode here).
Sure, from a mechanical perspective, all you really need if the 5 slots you have on you. There’s little demand for more than that.
But some people, myself included, enjoy collecting neat-looking or rare pets. We enjoy the hunt, and enjoy having the option to swap them out as fancy takes us. Again, just because a feature doesn’t benefit you doesn’t mean it is worthless.
I think at times when we have lacked a blue post for so long regarding changes that we personally find meaningful we may look the other way at other folk’s enjoyment.
It is a fun fantasy i’m glad people can play out.
Ya, I get it. People are just flat out frustrated that Blizzard hasn’t made any real significant changes to hunter yet. I’m hoping that that’s still on the table, because they’ve been trickling out a couple classes every couple weeks, and hunters haven’t been seen in that yet. I’ve been trying to counsel patience on those grounds.
But I get why people would be frustrated and a bit angry that one of the only real changes we’ve seen is just a QOL thing, and just for those hunters that enjoy collecting. However, I’d like to remind you (and everyone) that increasing the stable size likely required essentially zilch for developer input, it’s mostly just a backend thing. They can do that without interfering with their snail’s pace development workflow. I think our set of true changes is still on the horizon.