Cataclysm Class Preview: Hunter

[cowmuflage]

i wouldnt want us non bm hunters to get told to go bm just for the pets and i hope that does not happen. I dont find the exotics that nice to look at.

[Rhyela]

DON'T PANIC!

Exotic pets are still likely to come out ahead in the end. Just because they're standardizing regular dps pets, it doesn't mean that exotics will be standardized to regular dps pets.

IN OTHER WORDS: All pets are equal, but some pets are more equal than others.

*bow*

I didn't think of it that way.....thank you! I feel a little better now. I wouldn't mind if a devilsaur and spirit beast were the same, or a silithid and chimaera, etc. But turtle = devilsaur? No way.

[Kalliope]

Meh, rethinking my last post.....

In the end, my theory is that BM hunter pets will be getting their biggest boosts from the exotic talents. Being able to have "cooler-looking" pets is likely going to be an option rather than a requirement. Once Blizzard decides on that, BM hunters will truly be able to use whatever pet they want without penalty. No, you might not get a bonus for using a devilsaur over a cat, but you can't have it both ways, and this solution gives BM hunters the widest range.

That said, Blizz wasn't specific; they didn't say that exotics would definitely be included or not in the standardization. They can play it either way, but honestly, since they can't please everyone, expect them to be standardized as well - that's the solution that doesn't force BM hunters to use exotics.

A turtle would never equal a devilsaur, since turtles are tenacity! But at least if your deep BM cat was the only kind of cat that could equal your devilsaur, you're looking at a tougher cat than your average yarn-puller.

[cowmuflage]

I hope they do what you said there. It would not be fair to Bm players to be forced to use exotics if they dont want to

[Palladiamorsdeus]

Eh, I think I see a lot of homogenization happening very shortly. I am hoping they'll use this opportunity to make Beast Mastery a into a juicer talent.

[Kalliope]

I think Blizz is starting to get into the mentality of exotic pets being a perk rather than a necessity of the spec.

[cowmuflage]

I think that would be a good thing to do. But hey alot of people are going to complain no matter what they do.

[Rhyela]

But, but........*slumps* You guys are probably right, and in the end it would be for the best for everyone. After all, I still loved my hunter back in the day when some pets didn't even have abilities besides bite and growl. I'm just spoiled by Apollyon's sweet, sweet damage.

But I would be willing to give some of that up if it meant I could use one of my other beloved pets without feeling like I'm gimping myself or my group. It would be nice if I could use something neat like a carrion bird (you shall be mine again, Rhytil!) and not catch flak for it. (*soothes Apollyon* There there, you're still my big wuvable baby!)

(You'll find I'm not very thick-skulled like some people on the forums, I don't mind change if it's for the greater good )

[cowmuflage]

Im sure the exotics would still be better than the normal ones but im sure it wont be such a huge dps gap that it forces us to use them only.

[Palladiamorsdeus]

I'm not sure what I think. Blizzard didn't really go into pet's all that much. When they say pet's applying debuffs, it immediately makes me think of Rhino's, and that is not a good thing. The current stampede is awful. Now if rhino's had an ability named, say "Deep Lunge" That increased bleed damage, and THEN an ability named "Stampede" that dealt damage in a line front of the rhino, that'd be fine. But if like, Rake just gets changed to increase the amount of bleed damage that a target takes, then I'd be angry.

[Kalliope]

*coos over Apollyon* Don't worry, he knows he's your baby. And that trumps any changes to damage.

[Mania]

We should start seeing a lot more detail when beta starts. Even just having someone like MMO Champion or Wowhead have access to the client will illuminate a lot of the numbers we're actually dealing with.

I'm pretty much jittering in my seat with anticipation. (My husband keeps asking me if I need to pee.)

[Nimizar]

Exotic pets are still likely to come out ahead in the end. Just because they're standardizing regular dps pets, it doesn't mean that exotics will be standardized to regular dps pets.

No. No, no, no, no, NO.

BM hunters CANNOT have a more limited selection of pets than MM and SV hunters, and if exotics inherently do more damage than non-exotic pets, then a BM hunter not using an exotic is "doing it wrong".

Blizzard tried this in the Wrath beta, realised what it would mean for BM hunters (i.e. limiting their pet selection to solely exotics instead of expanding it to any exotic or non-exotic pet they wanted) and threw the idea away never to be considered again. The extra pet damage for Beast Mastery has to come from the extra pet talent points, not the fact that you choose to use an exotic pet.

EDIT: Heh, I should finish reading the thread before posting...

[Nimizar]

I think Blizz is starting to get into the mentality of exotic pets being a perk rather than a necessity of the spec.

They actually acquired that mentality during the Wrath beta. That's just long enough ago now that not all players realise they think that way

[Nimizar]

A turtle would never equal a devilsaur, since turtles are tenacity!

If they mean what they said about damage normalisation, then we're either going to be able to choose our pets' talent trees, or else they'll be merging the pet talents into a single consolidated tree.

[Nimizar]

I do have one complaint though....the name of the Hunter vs Wild feature. Seems like a nod to that Man vs Wild show, which is annoying. I was never quite enthralled with him, but after watching the episode he did in the Black Hills (we lived there a while back) I realized that man is a charlatan.

Hunter vs Wild is an existing SV talent. You're probably right about the reference though.

[Nimizar]

Provided pets still have talent trees, will the "stabled" pets have to be retalented each time they are made an active pet, or will they retain their previous settings (hope it's the latter)

I expect you'll need to retalent them. The most obvious reason for making a distinction between active and stabled pets is to save on database storage, and the talent tree is one of the easiest things to drop. I would expect the action bar button and autocast settings to need to be reconfigured when you make a pet active again as well.

[Mania]

Nimizar: Think they'll store the name and level for inactive pets?

[Nick]

Big... Stables... DO WANT.

CATA, COME FASTER! ;-;

[Rhyela]

A turtle would never equal a devilsaur, since turtles are tenacity!

If they mean what they said about damage normalisation, then we're either going to be able to choose our pets' talent trees, or else they'll be merging the pet talents into a single consolidated tree.

Maybe I'm too much into uniqueness, but I'd rather that ferocity pets stay ferocity, cunning stay cunning and tenacity stay tenacity. Having each pet within that group do equal dps is fine with me, but I would really rather that each pet type still existed. The only way I would be ok with them making one big tree is if I could still spec my pet with damage-only talents for raids, survivability for soloing, etc. I don't want to have to spec my pet into junk I don't want just to unlock the next tier.

Even then, for now I prefer to keep them seperate to that extent. Standardization within each tree is ok though.