It doesn’t have to be strong… it can still be somewhat viable… the fact is, all the pet classes suck. I’m not asking for a buff, I’m just asking for a less likelihood of being mitigated out of the game because you pet go one shot, cc’d, with a rez pet timer that isn’t two hours long. Its rediculous… pet focus builds, not hybrid.
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You can easily solo more than 3 mobs at a time as BM. It is still an excellent soloing spec.
As for the main topic: I don’t think Blizzard hates BM although I do feel there’s a sense of indifference towards Hunters and there has been for a long time. Their work on the class since about 2016 strikes me as the actions of people who just aren’t very interested in Hunters and find it hard to get enthusiastic about them. Even the Legion reworks, as ambitious and sweeping as they were, seemed like they were more about undoing the Hunter identity and deconstructing the parts Hunters actually liked.
BM has been strong at times for the past 2 expansions but there definitely seems to be an aversion to making BM good in PvP and I think this stretches way back into the past. I don’t see it as Blizzard hating Hunters but rather Blizzard caving in to the complaints of a community that hates Hunters: that is the competitive PvP community. It seems to me that melee players especially get deeply upset whenever BM is doing well in PvP or even decently.
I’m reminded of a video I watched of a BM Hunter in Legion pillar-hugging the entire time and just sending the pet out. It was recorded from the perspective of a Warrior IIRC. The BM Hunter lost handily but he made it annoying and drawn out. You had a comment section full of people demanding huge nerfs for BM (right after we had already been nerfed to hell and back in 7.2.5). Remember; the BM Hunter lost. That didn’t matter. What mattered was that the BM Hunter made it a real fight and wasn’t just a pushover, and BM being anything more than a pushover is apparently too much to bear for the general WoW PvP community. To me this is the primary motivations behind the huge batch of nerfs in 7.2.5 and 8.0 as well as the increase to the pet res timer.
Speaking of the revive pet timer, you should have all seen the threads in the general forums about it. You had massively upvoted posts from Rogues and Warriors and such celebrating the Revive Pet cast time increase (which was 6 seconds at the time, by the way). Those are the people Blizzard listens to when tuning BM.
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I agree that it seems to be less about the devs “hating” BM but rather it gets neglected, or sometimes changes are made to it to satisfy complaints from certain players that…really shouldn’t voice complaints about things that aren’t problems to begin with.
As for damage/output, currently, I’m mostly concerned whether we get some improvements to for example our burst potential or cleaving capabilities, along with sustained/burst AoE. Not to mention pet survivability.
I made a topic containing a partial rework for Beast Mastery, with the intent to address these issues. I don’t expect us to see anything worth noting over the course of Shadowlands, but rather hopefully something comes with the next pre-patch. Which is also why I decided to go the full mile and focus on a partial rework rather than minor improvements/adjustments.
Here’s the topic: Beast Mastery - future improvements[Partial rework]
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I just made an account on here to tell you that you nailed it on the head with this post. Spot on. Unfortunately the community dislikes hunters and I get we are a hard class to balance, but they need to at least try. And sift who to listen to and who not to.
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I just hate bm it makes me feel like im not even playing …
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This exact feeling is why myself and others like Ghorak are trying to provide well thought out changes that could be made to make the spec/class more engaging.
My rework thread: Bush’s BM and Pet Revamp
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I personally feel that playing BM optimally is fairly engaging, I just don’t think you’re adequately rewarded for doing so with the current tuning and highly questionable AOE profile.
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It’s not really unplayable. It just requires way more gear and skill to be viable than other classes. That may be splitting hairs, but it’s probably the reason Blizzard is hesitant to fix the spec. It seems to be scaling at a half decent measure in SL. Unfortunately, by the time most BM Hunters are geared enough to survive the burst of other classes, those classes already have heaps of high item level pvp gear.
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Ive never seen that in raiding. And I raid almost 100% as BM. I think the only time my pet has died is from trash packs… like the rats after huntsman or some such. Now stuck in the floor… Ive seen that quite a bit.
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Why is it that people, when talking WoW history, almost always just remember the last raid of the last xpac and expand it to ‘That’s what it’s been like for 3 expansions!’.
No. Just stop.
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If you go back and look at Legion and BFA BM was the go to spec for PvE. Sure MM was around and so was SV. The majority of people where BM because of how easy it was to have consistent damage.
Why does Blizz hate BM?
There’s always the “fun detected, fun nerfed” argument. I don’t think that tells the true story. The truth is that in the 90’s both Blizz and BM lived in the same subdivision under the same Homeowner’s Association. There were complaints made to the HOA by both parties about the other’s parties, an inground pool BM was building (lots of costly hoa fines and rework), and eventually it escalated to a pack of corehounds “accidentally” getting loose and taking a massive dump on Blizz’s prize winning rosebushes, nearly killing them (rosebushes are almost indestructible), allowing Square Enix’s rose bushes to win the HoA’s Best in Community trophy for the next 4 years!
They made peace through their lawyers, but Blizz never forgave BM for the rosebushes.
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They refuse to buff the spec, the worst spec in the game and they won’t buff it?
To be fair I think they just hate Hunters in General, they screwed over all the people that used to play SV just so people that don’t normally play hunters might play it some (which looking at stat’s people have posted didn’t seem to work too well go figure), screwed over MM by shoehorning some of the spells (mostly in name only) into it and watering down their choices and spec.
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I don’t think they hate BM or hunters in general but feel that we can be last to fix, because we don’t give up.
I am very loyal to my hunter. I feel responsible for my pet (I know its just pixels, don’t come at me). I have played a hunter since vanilla. I have been BM, MM and SV (range) I even tried lone wolf for a season but could not get into.
I don’t feel alone with my pet and much more daring. When things get boring, I go explore with my pet. I can always find things to do. I do raid and M+ casual.
I also spend time working on my rotation and reading ways to increase my dps, because I will always main a hunter with a pet by my side.
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Come on in, have a seat, Survival would like to have a word with you.
Hot take. Beast Mastery should have been a dual wield melee spec - not Survival.
Personally I’ve never really taken to BM. Feels too much like auto-pilot. I don’t feel engaged at all. Normally I’d say they need to give it a modernization pass, but last time they did that, one of the specs became a less effective Outlaw Rogue, so whatever you do Blizz do not make a modernization pass I beg of you. It’s fine. Really. I’m sure there is melee you could be buffing that’s way more worth your time.
BM could use improvement, but it’s not THAT bad.
Me: 4/10M, 1400io, 2000 2’s, 1900k 3’s, 2400 RBG.
It’s definitely the only spec I can play well while raid leading.
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BM is the bottom of the dps atm. It needs really high ilvl just to be ok with lets say a ret pallly, nvm about going against a fire mage or a boomie.
I personally really hate arguments like it’s an easy class and therefore low dps. It’s a bad argument and it’s exactly the type of thing that creates a huge divide in the community. I wonder what will be like if the design team were to switch focus from the numbers game to raid mechanics instead. Atm the game is all about getting that high level item and doing as much dps as possible whereas I really wanted the game to get away from that.
Hunters is a three damage spec class. The choice of specs should be close but as of right now, it’s mm or nothing. Bm can sort of do mythic+ up to maybe 12key but anything above is hard af to keep up. SV is … well … like I said, mm or nothing.
Imo, Blizzard needs to take a hard look at their class designs because their raid mechanics are not designed around that. All the roles are expected to do the same job no matter their difference in skills and damages charts.
I think I suggested at least divide classes into three categories; Burst, aoe and Maintain. Burst is obvious, so is aoe and Maintain is just classes that is responsible for consistent damage to push bosses to certain burst phases. Same can be said for healing. Tanking can be divided into Physical and Magic and a medium. Also give specs a sliding bar so classes can be varied.
Talents should augment the individual’s ability to switch between categories (with a bit of a penalty for switching to other category and a slight bonus for sticking to their own category). This way, parties can be as flexible as they can be but mostly with this system, specific class/spec problems can be more focused because everyone is not expected to do everything in every fight.
Like a mm would be Burst and bm would be Maintain; bms will push the boss to a burst phase and mm will burst them down.
Thoughts?
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You parse even better than I do, so I have some questions, 28 percent verse, is that your pvp setup or you raid like that? You like the dire beast leggo for raiding too or just pvp?