BFA Taking a Step Back for Pets. :/ (Specializations)

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Valnaaros
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Re: BFA Taking a Step Back for Pets. :/ (Specializations)

Unread post by Valnaaros »

Nothing wrong with not liking it, so long as you understand what they're doing. I've seen plenty of posts and comments on other forums from people who don't understand what is actually going to happen. I asked Bluefire incase they didn't understand :)
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PrimalTazza
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Re: BFA Taking a Step Back for Pets. :/ (Specializations)

Unread post by PrimalTazza »

Personally, I think it's an alright change--not a great one, but it makes choosing a pet feel somewhat more significant. And these changes won't affect raiding or dungeons a super ton, since all pets will still be doing the same amount of damage regardless. A pet's spec just gives you different utilities. Bloodlust? Your raid probably already has something that can give that, and ferocity is a fairly common and broad enough spec anyway that you'll probably have a pet you like that can contribute that.

Pets have abilities back. They're... not at all what they used to be, with each and every pet being unique like during Wrath, but I think that's fine. That'd probably be TOO restrictive. Right now, to me, a lot of pets just feel like an accessory. It doesn't particularly matter which one I have, just that I have one, which... makes it a lot harder to find them interesting and grow attached to any specific one.

I hope pet trainers can perhaps forcefully change a pet's spec for a fee, somewhat like the old warlock demon trainers taking gold to re-roll your demon's name, but if not? I can live with this. I feel like this may be a bit of an overreaction, since most hunters I see nowadays just take whatever pet they feel like and keep it locked in ferocity 99.99% of the time. Now your pet has a generic ability and possibly something tasty that helps YOU, the hunter, directly.

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Shade
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Re: BFA Taking a Step Back for Pets. :/ (Specializations)

Unread post by Shade »

I have a moment of confusion/concern here.

With this new locked specs aspect, what does that do to the hunter's ability to save a dungeon group by switching to a tank-specced pet?

Right now I am leveling a LF dranei as a hunter and as she is only in her 40's at the moment I keep two pets with her-one as a dps pet for the dungeon, one as a tank pet for solo questing and then an empty slot in case I come across something I want. I've had a number of times in these now slightly more difficult leveling dungeons where the tanks pull too much-thinking it will all dies as fast as it used to-only to get overwhelmed and die. Dismissing my dps pet and pulling out my tank pet, telling my healing buddy over skype to focus the pet is what has saved the group a number of times.

Is this new locked spec going to make it to where we cannot use a tank pet to save a leveling group like that again?

Or are they upping the pull ability of growl and misdirect to compensate for us loosing what was essentially a backup, momentary tank to help keep everyone alive?

((Did that make any sense?))
Valnaaros
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Re: BFA Taking a Step Back for Pets. :/ (Specializations)

Unread post by Valnaaros »

In BfA, all pets will have the same health, damage, and armor. Further, they will all be capable of tanking, so you won't need to switch from a Ferocity to a Tenacity. Just turn Growl on. But as if right now, we don't know if they're going to making changes to Growl and Misdirect, but I don't think they would need to.
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Re: BFA Taking a Step Back for Pets. :/ (Specializations)

Unread post by Valnaaros »

I feel like this may be a bit of an overreaction, since most hunters I see nowadays just take whatever pet they feel like and keep it locked in ferocity 99.99% of the time. Now your pet has a generic ability and possibly something tasty that helps YOU, the hunter, directly.
I agree. Everyone is free to feel how they feel about this change, but I really don't think it is a big deal. I never change my pets to any other spec - they are constantly in Ferocity. Same goes for my friends and guildies. I think some people are upset that the ability to change their pet's spec was taken away, even if they seldom did so.
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Re: BFA Taking a Step Back for Pets. :/ (Specializations)

Unread post by Thwip »

You know, initially, I had that knee jerk reaction of 'WHY THE TANK SPEC', but if all specs are basically going to be fairly equal with not much room of Best Spec Overall. (Which there will always be....cause MinMaxers.) Then this change really isn't going to impact things as much as I had initially thought.

Take an example of.......I've been leveling a small Highmountain Hunter. I have two pet slots. I have one pet with me. I ended up the Crown Chemical run without time to actually flip my pet's spec. (I loaded in slow) Since my pet was a Tenacity spec at the time, the best I could do was turn growl off. While a level 25 isn't going to bust good dps on things, it still hindered me from helping to the best of my ability. In the BfA changes, that wouldn't have been an issue.

I may be one of those hunters that still uses spec flipping often, but at the same time I have a 'designated DPSer' and a 'Designated Tanker' set up. Most times it's often my SB as my Tank because I've been better off using them as my tank when soloing. So much so that I have multiple macros set so I can pop a heal on myself OR have the pet pop a heal on itself. What's more is that I've never touched Cunning, because it's such a DPS loss. If this goes in, I might finally have a reason to try out some cunning pets and it'll also have me checking out abilities OUTSIDE of exotics for a change.

As long as this doesn't circle us back around to getting bitched at for not having the Flavor Pet Of The Month, then I'm more then willing to see how it's going to play!

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Vephriel
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Re: BFA Taking a Step Back for Pets. :/ (Specializations)

Unread post by Vephriel »

Yeah, right now my main concern is the possible loss of thunderstomp which is a rather important ability for my tanking pets, I want them to have a way to gain AoE threat. I hope it returns or something else similar takes its place, otherwise I'm not sure how effective they'll be.
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Re: BFA Taking a Step Back for Pets. :/ (Specializations)

Unread post by Maizou »

I'd be less annoyed with this change if they made Heroism a hunter ability (like I previously said, something like "Aspect of the Raptor") because as it stands, we'll still be shoehorned into a ferocity pet if our group needs heroism.
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Re: BFA Taking a Step Back for Pets. :/ (Specializations)

Unread post by Valnaaros »

Any decent group will have a Hero either with a Mage, Shaman, or Drums.
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Re: BFA Taking a Step Back for Pets. :/ (Specializations)

Unread post by Xella »

Mage or shaman; unless they're buffing it, Drums give 5% less haste (intentionally); a group that doesn't have one of those two classes AND cares enough to bring drums will prefer you to have a ferocity pet.
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Valnaaros
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Re: BFA Taking a Step Back for Pets. :/ (Specializations)

Unread post by Valnaaros »

Aye, that's true, but that is expected if you're participating in content that would have such a group. If you're going to be running Keystones or progression, then you'll do whatever is necessary to maximize your results.
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Re: BFA Taking a Step Back for Pets. :/ (Specializations)

Unread post by Rikaku »

That's true, but to be fair, there are people on the other side of the coin who need Brez, so the argument does work both ways. Most of my M+ or raid groups tend to have more than enough shaman or mages to have heroism, I rarely need to bring a Hero pet anymore, and generally need either a Brez pet or being whatever I want if all our druids and DKs decide to raid at the same time.

Though, I also had the experience where I was the only one who had Brez AND Heroism, and on some fights would get called out to swap pets b/c someone died and OMG BREZ NAO. :| Which def hurts the deeps and isn't fun to switch mid-combat lol
Valnaaros wrote:Nothing wrong with not liking it, so long as you understand what they're doing. I've seen plenty of posts and comments on other forums from people who don't understand what is actually going to happen. I asked Bluefire incase they didn't understand :)
And no worries, I was really just quoting/responding because it was ontopic and since I was one of the initial OMGWTFBBQ reactors in the initial stages and wanted to comment as well :D

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Re: BFA Taking a Step Back for Pets. :/ (Specializations)

Unread post by Valnaaros »

I just remembered something that Ion brought up in a recent interview. Basically, in BfA they want every class to bring something unique to the table. Some classes may share similar utilities, like Hero, but not all of them. It could be that they are cutting out the Hunter's brez in order to make the brez of Druids, Warlocks, and DKs more valuable. A Hunter's brez is the clunkiest out of the four to use, so that could be why they chose to take it away from us and not one of the others.

@Rikaku Figured as much :D
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Re: BFA Taking a Step Back for Pets. :/ (Specializations)

Unread post by pop »

Valnaaros wrote:I just remembered something that Ion brought up in a recent interview. Basically, in BfA they want every class to bring something unique to the table. Some classes may share similar utilities, like Hero, but not all of them. It could be that they are cutting out the Hunter's brez in order to make the brez of Druids, Warlocks, and DKs more valuable. A Hunter's brez is the clunkiest out of the four to use, so that could be why they chose to take it away from us and not one of the others.

@Rikaku Figured as much :D

We get aspect of the pack; 3 secs of 90% speed increase for all raid members.
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Re: BFA Taking a Step Back for Pets. :/ (Specializations)

Unread post by Valnaaros »

Exactly. Outside of Hunters, I believe the only other class that provides a group speed boost are Druids.
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Re: BFA Taking a Step Back for Pets. :/ (Specializations)

Unread post by Jadein92 »

Valnaaros wrote:Exactly. Outside of Hunters, I believe the only other class that provides a group speed boost are Druids.
Shamans with Windwalk Totem

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Valnaaros
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Re: BFA Taking a Step Back for Pets. :/ (Specializations)

Unread post by Valnaaros »

Jadein92 wrote:
Valnaaros wrote:Exactly. Outside of Hunters, I believe the only other class that provides a group speed boost are Druids.
Shamans with Windwalk Totem
Ah yes, that's right. :)
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Re: BFA Taking a Step Back for Pets. :/ (Specializations)

Unread post by Rozzana »

Tbh, I don't mind the changes bc with certain legendary artifacts, I found tenacity to be more appealing than feriocity. My pets were able to keep up the damage, while also keeping their buffs and it was amazing. Seeing that in Bfa without the need for careful gearing and leggos would be great--so imo not making us have to sacrifice damage for these changes is at least one saving grace.

Overall, it doesn't seem so extreme that it will be a real damper. Inconvenient maybe, but something I could easily get used to.

Plus on an ability end rather than a pet one, I feel like this approach forces players to improve their class diversity in raids. Tbh a hunter having to be used for lust or etc is a sign of poor diversity--since our abilities are like goodwill knock-offs at best. Blizzard made it a point that they wanted to decrease those habits and give more to under utilized classes, so I don't mind. Hunters being a cure-all just gives other players an excuse to be sloppy/bad, same with other classes who suffer from ability bloat. And I'm not saying that hunters shouldn't use brez or lust and that it's not useful, I'm making the point that if you have to, either your group comp is questionable or your tank/or healers are unskilled.
Hunters and other utility classes shouldn't have to amass so much responsibility, when other players neglect theirs. :?
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Re: BFA Taking a Step Back for Pets. :/ (Specializations)

Unread post by jna3773 »

aw :( I was cheering that any pet could be any spec. I don't like it me being forced to use a pet I don't like the looks of.
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Re: BFA Taking a Step Back for Pets. :/ (Specializations)

Unread post by Valnaaros »

You aren't going to be forced to use any pet. Tenacity, Ferocity, and Cunning will all have equal damage, health, and armor. The difference is spec abilities, which aren't major game changer.
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