People in alpha, what's your opinion on BM?

[Rhyela]

At least the artifact doesn't look like ass.

OMG, I know you are being serious but I laughed out loud at that. XD

[Nimrod]

I was going to keep my main, Nimrod, as BM (since she's got all the untameable/kickass pets) and switch Alleria (my second Hunter) to MM (for obvious reasons!).

Now I'll probably just go MM on both and keep my pets for showing off.

[Wain]

Today's Q&A was just a general one, and we know that next week's is Professions. I wonder how long we wait for classes, and some answers on Hunters.

The one thing I took to be relevant was the bullet point:

The team was too ambitious with their targets when planning for Legion.

That statement referred to content, but magnify it by about five and I'd say that's what happened to classes. They should have focused on fixing a few of the worst and left the rest as they were. I loved the idea of differentiating Hunter specs and was excited to see what they produced. Now I feel they didn't have the time and should have left things as they were.

[Kalliope]

Today's Q&A was just a general one, and we know that next week's is Professions. I wonder how long we wait for classes, and some answers on Hunters.

The one thing I took to be relevant was the bullet point:

The team was too ambitious with their targets when planning for Legion.

That statement referred to content, but magnify it by about five and I'd say that's what happened to classes. They should have focused on fixing a few of the worst and left the rest as they were. I loved the idea of differentiating Hunter specs and was excited to see what they produced. Now I feel they didn't have the time and should have left things as they were.

Maybe they'll fix things in the forthcoming patches? (That's incredibly optimistic...)

[Nachtwulf]

You should watch the Marks video that went up on Fatboss/MMOC today. Oof. It's described as 'meh' and 'unengaging'... and that's with Marks being even more involved than BM.

Geh. x_x

[SpiritBinder]

Maybe they'll fix things in the forthcoming patches? (That's incredibly optimistic...)

Aspect of the Hawk Buff?

Also if you like the look of the MM Artifact better, MM out performs BM rather easily regarding survivability if you spec into Black Arrow's (Dark minions). Having a disposable minion that can Tank and Taunt and a Pet the same time makes elites and the likes vastly easier with MM at the moment. Which leaves my BM self going...

[Equeon]

Ok, so is Survival currently the way to go for a "fun hunter" spec? My current plan is level to 100 with my hunter as BM, tame the nice new pets, and then shelve him indefinitely and pick up a demo lock or demon hunter until BM is actually somewhat good again.

If Survival is at least engaging to play, then maybe I could stomach doing dungeons or adventure mode quests on my hunter until the dev team finally fixes (or attempts to fix) BM.

[Nachtwulf]

Yeah, I've already warned my raid team that I'll be switching to lock or mage if they don't fix BM at some point.

[13thmaiden]

I'm just gonna go over here and cry awhile.

*curls up in the depression blanket*

[Xota]

It would take cost/damage tuning, but if chimera shot were made baseline, with a focus cost, and the talent made it a focus return, then that would make it so you'd not have to choose between 3 button boredom and annoying dire beasts. I know it's pretty late to expect overhauls, but that would be a talent tweak. Still probably kind of late for that, but I don't think it's impossible.

[Xella]

This is probably irrelevant with all the BM doom and gloom, but... does anybody who's had more experience with it (in alpha/beta, since the PTR only just opened up and hasn't been stable enough to do more than find some shirt bugs) know if they've improved pet pathing or pet tagging at all? When survival took the hit it did in 6.2 (and then they announced that it'd be melee in Legion, R I P) I switched to BM up 'til we started mythic Mannoroth progression, at which point I gave up and just went MM like everybody else (which I still HATE).

The big reasons that BM didn't feel like it was viable for me wasn't because of numbers (since I typically don't pay attention to them, though I know there's some issues there as well) but because BM's a weird hybrid of ranged and melee since so much of your damage comes from your pet and if you're doing a lot of add switching (Assault, Council, Kilrogg, Gorefiend, Socrethar, Xhul'horac...) you lose SO much DPS just from your pet waddling from one side of the room to another nevermind if it got stuck on a rock or something (Gorefiend's room was SO bad for that), unless you put it on passive and tell it to exclusively attack the boss (at which point you're not killing adds fast enough and then you get put in the stomach and forget it's on passive and ugh). Even Blink Strikes wasn't enough cos it was usually on CD (as was dash/charge). I feel like that issue will just be even WORSE in Legion because there are so many MORE pets.

The other thing was that I was constantly forgetting that Kill Command doesn't give YOU a tag, just your PET, meaning if I accidentally killed something with KC before my auto/arcane landed I was basically hosed. That seems like it'll ALSO be more of a problem because again, more pets and more biased towards pets in the player:pet damage ratio.

(Hati is going to drive me bonkers. I could barely stand the stupid felboar or the fey dragons or the mage summons. I HATE guardians.)

I don't know what I'm going to do when 7.0 hits. I haven't known since BlizzCon when they announced my favourite spec was dying (hyperbole, but playing melee in raids makes me feel super claustrophobic so it's not really an option), and I didn't get into alpha/beta, and the PTR hasn't been stable enough for me to test anything classwise (and there's not nearly enough time before 7.0's due to drop for me to test out all 30-something specs to find one I DO actually like—it took me a year and a half after I gave up on my shaman to settle on my hunter!) :(

[Nachtwulf]

I don't know, I'd be interested in hearing how pet handling is going (low health, pathing, slow response, bad aggro retention etc.) These were all still problems in the alpha/early beta but I don't know if they've been resolved. They were bollixing locks too though, so that gives it a slightly better chance to be addressed. (We all know they like locks better than us!)

And yeah, I'm stuck Marks too and haaaAAAaaate it. But what can you do really.

[Vephriel]

I'm not sure if it's intended or not, but currently in the PTR it seems that when your pet kills something all by itself you can still loot it, like how you used to be able to in the old days. If your pet tags something it's *your* tag and you don't have to lift a finger.

[Wain]

I'm not sure if it's intended or not, but currently in the PTR it seems that when your pet kills something all by itself you can still loot it, like how you used to be able to in the old days. If your pet tags something it's *your* tag and you don't have to lift a finger.

I thought I noticed this in the Beta too!

[Vephriel]

I'm not sure if it's intended or not, but currently in the PTR it seems that when your pet kills something all by itself you can still loot it, like how you used to be able to in the old days. If your pet tags something it's *your* tag and you don't have to lift a finger.

I thought I noticed this in the Beta too!

I wonder if the removal of the 'aggressive' pet stance finally made them revert that change? If it's intentional, I'm still not sure if it's just a bug. I just remember back in the day a lot of hunters would AFK grind mobs by sitting in the middle of a populated area and letting their pet run around and kill them all, then loot everything after.

I would love to have it back though because it's always a pain when your pet accidentally one shots something before you can get a hit on them and earn your tag.

[Quiv]

Kill Command should always award loot to the hunter even if it one shots since the player is initiating it. Thats irked me forever.

[Nachtwulf]

That's something at least. I don't see it much at endgame but at low levels, your pet will just murderface things before you can even get a shot in, and then *sad trombone* no loot or credit. Frustrating!

[Kalliope]

I'm not sure if it's intended or not, but currently in the PTR it seems that when your pet kills something all by itself you can still loot it, like how you used to be able to in the old days. If your pet tags something it's *your* tag and you don't have to lift a finger.

If this is intentional, it's the happiest quality of life change. <3

[Nachtwulf]

Well that's -something- at least.

[Nachtwulf]

Fatboss go through for BM.

https://youtu.be/EA1xwKKt9dw

It ... actually seems kind of okay. Yeah, it's still really simple but there's some ways to ameliorate it. Aspect of the Wild at least gives you SOME kind of cooldown. (For all that it used to be Marks' cooldown, I think...)

I think it'd be decent for leveling... IF they fix the bugs. Hopefully since there's now a video harping about the bugs they'll at least fix those.