The problem with hunter pets is all the good ones are Cunning and/or have crappy family abilities. When we started getting info on BFA I was SO excited for the new hyena models cause hyenas are one of my favorite animals. But they were locked into Cunning. At least their mortal strikes ability is useful in PvP so even though I hardly Ever PvP when I did my adorable hyena was usable.
Fast forward to Shadowlands news and we get this gorgeous new fox model. Sadly, they are also Cunning and have the crappy dodge ability that is useless even in PvP. Dang. That’s okay cause unicorns are cool. They’re tenacity and have tranq/dispel so yay! Except today they’re being moved to their own family with the useless dodge ability. Cool. Oh what? CLOUD SERPENTS?! I’ve wanted one of those since MoP! How cool, what do they- oh. They’re serpents. Cunning AND crappy dodge ability.
Now I know everyone has different tastes and maybe all these pets are lame to someone and all the pets they like happen to be ferocity/tenacity and/or have the tranq ability. I know Hunters are also getting their own tranq shot so the family ability isn’t that important, but that doesn’t mean anything for all the useless Cunning pets that aren’t even good for PvP.
When we got the pet revamp, we were told it was to give us more choice in pets, but we actually have far less choice. When I could pick any spec, it didn’t matter too much if my pet had a lame family ability. As long as Lust, Brez and whatever buffs were covered by other classes, I could bring whatever pet I wanted and perform optimally. In BFA you’re disadvantaged in raiding if you don’t use a dispel pet that also should be ferocity for lust or tenacity for defensive utility and you’re disadvantaged solo if you don’t use a ferocity pet, more specifically a Clefthoof.
Ultimately I feel like we need to go back to choosing our pets’ specs. With the addition of tranq shot, no family ability is much more desirable than any other for raiding so as long as the pet can lust or offer tenacity’s defensive cooldown, it’s a good pet. Even though soloing with my hyena vs rhino was night and day, my cats also did a decent job because the leech is great and the dodge ability is actually useful solo. As it stands, the only way I’m going to be able to use any of the pets I really want to in PvE is to put them in my stable and use Animal Companion. I don’t think anyone would be sad to have pet spec choice back but I know there’s at least some hunters that are disappointed when they find out the cool pet they want to use is Cunning.
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I missed legion expansion pet spec.
At that season, we swap pet talent whenever we want.
(For example, ferocity turtle :D)
For my opinion, I want to choose or swap now only pet skill but also pet talent.
For instance, MM or SV chooses one pet skill and BM chooses two pet skills.
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This so hard. The ability to spec a pet to what you want NEEDS to come back. Blizz has the data that shows what specs are used most and what pets. This change was weird in the first place because it restricted customization, which is part of the fun as a hunter. Blizz I am begging you, revert this change. It is bad. I want to be able to -actually- use cloud serpents.
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I mean, personally, I find use for my cunning pets - I like them on fights with frequent target switching where I don’t need an extra survivability cooldown (I never need to use ferocity, because my group always has someone else who can hit hero). So, ultimately, I think concerns about cunning pets being “bad” are largely subjective.
But if the problem does exist, letting us choose our pet’s spec doesn’t really solve anything. All it does is let us bring whatever pet we want to each fight, like a transmog choice. That’s great and all, but it won’t be a mechanical choice that way - at least not one any different than the choice we have now. We’ll still pick the pet’s spec based on whether or not someone else can Hero, and pet family abilities will remain an afterthought only ever mentioned by people who really want to use foxes (for example) but refuse to because the family ability is “useless” (even though all pet damage is normalized now, anyway).
It has nothing to do with damage (as you said, they all do the same damage) but rather the utility the specs provide. The family ability already almost doesn’t matter. I mean you’re gimping yourself by not having the tranq option, but it’s unlikely that ability will make or break anything and in Shadowlands it won’t be a pet ability anyway so that’s mute. There are niche cases where cunning can be useful, but in group PvE the defensive cooldown is almost always going to be more beneficial than a move speed buff and a root break. And solo, lust and leech on your pet is always going to be superior.
As far as a mechanical choice, pets already are mostly a cosmetic choice. We don’t level them, we don’t feed them, we don’t train them. On a whim we walk up to any tame-able beast and make it our buddy. They all do exactly the same damage so why not let them also provide the same utility? Why do we have to choose between using a pet we think looks cool vs using an optimal pet? You certainly don’t Need to use a Spirit Beast in every raid, but why do I have to take an optimization tax just to use a fox or cloud serpent?
I’m not even a min maxer. I’ve played BM hunter almost exclusively since Vanilla regardless of where it ranked on dps charts. I haven’t even seriously raided since WotLK. But in the content I do, I want to play my class and spec the best I can and even in the casual stuff I do, using a cunning pet instead of ferocity for solo or tenacity in group PvE is noticeably less effective. It’s not that I can’t do those things with a cunning pet. I can and have. But it feels really bad and I don’t see any plus side to keeping it the way it is.
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Looks like I will be using a Clefthoof again for SL. No reason not to at this point because it makes the best leveling and soloing pet.
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Then it really doesnt matter what pet you use.
Uh… Except it does? I mentioned in the OP how jazzed I was about the hyena models. I leveled halfway through BFA with it and it was awful. Even using mend pet as a rotational ability his health was constantly worn down by mobs, even fighting one at a time, to where I either had to stop and let him regen health or let him die and rez him. I’m sure that will be even more fun with a 6 second rez. I thought all pets were nerfed or something then I tried a rhino and it was a whole other ballgame. I rarely had to heal it and I don’t think I ever came cross anything I couldn’t solo the rest of my leveling experience. But I didn’t really like the rhino model so I brought in my cat part way and even though it wasn’t as amazing, it still performed adequately. I can’t think of any content more casual than leveling and even there pet choice matters.
I have never been not invited to a group because of my pet choice. No, it doesn’t matter for that. But I have used pets of all specs in all content I do and cunning is just not as good most of the time. I NOTICE the lack of a defensive cooldown. I NOTICE lack of lust and leech for my pet solo. If using a cunning pet feels worse then it absolutely does matter what pet I use. Do people even read? What you’re saying is doesn’t matter to YOU, which is fine, but it absolutely matters to me. And I have yet to see anyone give a reason why spec locking pets is in any way good.
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This is what i’ve been feeling like for Hunters and the pet system. They are Diet of DIet versions of what they used to be, now carbon-copies of eachother with only 2 choices for legitimate and practical benefit.
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I feel you. Wish all my pets were ferocity so I wouldn’t mind which one I bring with me for the day.
So your judging pet performance on how they are while leveling? Nothing about this game is balanced around leveling, nor should it.
Second, glad you want to use one single pet for everything, but personally i like pet choice mattering, at least a smidge. Having different pets with different strengths allows for more diversity in pet usage so some pets dont just sit in stables and never get used. I don’t want pets to be a choose the skin for your dps boost and that’s it. If you got your way, pets would lose any depth they still have, which is admittedly not much.
No, I just used leveling as an example of ONE way pet specs matter to counter your point that you think because I’m not a min maxer they don’t. I also gave examples of why they matter in dungeons or raids, but I don’t think you actually read these posts and just want to defend the way it is cause you like to argue. I don’t only want to use one pet. As it is, I only really use two pets. My rhino solo and my spirit beast in raids. Sometimes I pull out another pet cause I don’t need the heal or I out gear the world content to where a cunning does well enough. But for the most part most of my pets DO sit in the stables cause they’re not as good. If all pets could be all specs you STILL could use all your pets, just like you do now. The difference is you wouldn’t be punished for liking a cunning pet. What gets me is not everyone pays the tax. If Spirit Beasts, Nether Rays, and Rhinos are your favorite models, you sacrifice nothing. Only people that like cunning pets have this issue.
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Oh ok i see. You’re a “if you disagree with me you must just like to argue and troll” poster. Fun stuff, not enough of yall around the forums.
If you’re doing grp content you can have some minor utility but absolutely nothing game breaking or even close. If you’re doing solo world content it’s so flippin easy you could get by with literally any pet. If you’re leveling, who cares, again nothing is or should be balanced around this. You haven’t once mentioned pvp. So where I’m super confused is what this content of yours is that your pet family ability is making or breaking your experience here.
This is just more of the homogenization plague that has rotted away every facet of the game that allowed for variety. You’ve just extended it to pets.
I don’t even like Classic. I was actually in the boat of “you think you want it, but you don’t” but the ONE thing I absolutely loved in vanilla and even now in Classic is the entire pet system. I like having to feed the pet, go out and learn abilities then train them to my pet and oh my god I love loyalty and leveling my pets. Pet choice actually is meaningful in Classic because if you decide to change pets, it’s a huge PITA and I understand why they moved away from that. I’m sad, but I know most people like it better the way it is now and I can always hop on classic for the old school feel.
Funnily enough, even though most pets provide similar utility but different DPS, I use “suboptimal” pets a lot more often in Classic, especially hyenas, cause you can throw a bunch of health and armor on anything and solo just fine and then have a second pet optimized for groups. TBC was even better. I miss the talent trees.
Actually, I have 4 120 Hunters and a few other 120s, 23 100+ classes which are half hunter and half mix of everything else and I’m sitting pretty much right at the 50 character limit. Of those ten or so 120s, only 3 have their legendary cloaks and have done any raid content outside LFR at any point in BFA. The majority of what I do IS leveling. I like leveling. It’s fun. So I’m sure you can see where I’m impacted.
I do participate in other stuff like PUGing a normal or heroic raid here and there, though. As you can imagine, with the bulk of my time spent leveling characters, I tend to not be very well geared in those raids, so the extra survivability, even in the mortal realms of normal and heroic, is Really beneficial to me. I have been saved by spirit mend and SotF Many times in those environments.
So where I’m super confused is what this content of yours is that your pet family ability is making or breaking your experience here.
This just proves you aren’t reading. I don’t care about family ability, as I have said multiple times. It’s the pet SPECS that matter and should be selectable. Try to keep up.
Yes i can, it’s an area that’s in an extreme minority. But hey let’s just shoehorn everyone to the way YOU decide to play the game. Next we should balance and design around pet battles. I guess Azeroth revolves around you.
Wow, it’s almost like you glance through posts just to find one thing you can make a snarky comment about and then don’t read anything else. Par for the course. The only minority is you as everyone else in this thread (and many people in other threads as I’ve seen it mentioned a lot around here) agree that locked specs are not good. I’ve spent enough time on you.
Wow it’s almost as if you think what you said was worth commenting on.
Ditto
I said ferocity pets because to me is what brings most utility (Lust + Leech) and with leech you get a tankier pet then the tenacity ones, which is dumb imo.
I would love to being able to reuse my scarab or turtle to solo elites at apropriate level without them dying every 2minutes. It feels underwhelming.
About spirit beasts, while I like that the pets have dispel I really prefer tranquilizing shot. It feels more satisfying when you are the one actually making things happening and not some kind of “piloting your pet” gameplay.
I prefer tranquilizing shot as a hunter ability too, but not because I don’t like controlling my pets abilities directly. Kill Command is great. I prefer tranq shot as a hunter ability because that ability was the only family ability that had any impact on group content whatsoever and therefor made those pets the only practical choice of an already limited selection of tenacity and sometimes ferocity pets.
If swapping pet specs isn’t an option, I had another suggestion that was part of a three step process. 1.) Eliminate the Exotic distinction, remove exotic abilities and let all hunters tame all pets. 2.) Dissolve the Spirit Beast family and make them unique skins of their respective families. 3.) Replace Beast Master’s Exotic Taming with the ability to make any of their pets into a “Spirit Beast.” They could make the pet have a spirity-ghosty effect or maybe they could add lots of different effects you could collect through hidden quests, raid drops, whatever. The pets you make into a spirit beast get the spirit mend ability and a set second spec ability. Cunning gets lust or defense cooldown. Tenacity gets lust or Root break and Ferocity gets whatever’s leftover.
You still wouldn’t have a one hit wonder. A Lust/Defense pet only benefits from both abilities if no one else can provide lust and doesn’t have the root break or move speed in PvP. A lust/root or defense/root is only a buff to PvP which I honestly think Cunning needs because I’m not entirely convinced it’s actually even good for PvP. Like move speed is nice and a root break is neat, but if you need to use the root break, it’s probably too late and you’re already going to die and a tenacity or even ferocity pet is more durable than Cunning. And you can bet people are going to be killing pets with a 6 second rez time keeping the hunter from doing any meaningful damage. What are Cunning pets supposed to be good for anyway?
They also could not give a second spec ability but instead give an entirely new ability, but preferably spec specific still so that Cunning can offer something in group PvE besides an 8% move speed buff. Really, Ferocity and Tenacity don’t need anything. Cunning is just really weak comparatively and needs to bring more to the table.
Anyway, I know the spirit beast thing has flaws. For starters, it leaves Survival cunning pets out in the cold, but hey, at least Survival could tame more pets. Just giving us the ability to swap specs or at least giving Cunning something on par with Lust and a Defense cooldown are simpler and probably better solutions.
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