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

[zedxrgal]

This is the part that I think bugs me the most. I don't know what possessed Blizzard to do this. To me, it makes perfect sense that BM would have the best pet tanking. I mean, at the start of development MM didn't even *get* a pet, and now they get two taunting tanks which can swap back and forth to split the damage. Plus they can put their main pet on tenacity without losing any real damage. This is the total opposite of the whole Legion Class Fantasy™ stuff that initiated these complete spec reworks in the first place.

I think the easiest band-aid is to give BM more pet healing, but I've sent in that feedback about a dozen times so far (twitter, blogs, forums, in-game suggestions, etc.) so there's not much else to do but scratch my head in bewilderment.

About the only thing I'm happy with is the new pet stuff. The class itself did not need to be torn apart and put back together.

Ditto.

Frankly ...................... the more I see people upset the more I an just thinking of not even resubbing right now. I know that sounds very of me but I've only even been BM since I started playing WoW. Yeah I said the vows. For better or worse till death do us part but I am starting to feel that this change is the death of BM. I've fulfilled my vows on sticking with this spec for my entire relationship with WoW but now Blizzard isn't holding up their end of the bargain. Maybe it's time to seek a relationship elsewhere since my beloved spec has died and gone to be with the Naaru somewhere in the mysterious beyond.

The truth of the matter is while I will keep one toon on SV ............................ none of my hunters will be touched in Legion. The spec is ruined currently.

Wow what a surprise, only PvP tweeks.

^^^

Yup. Ruined.

COME THE F ON BLIZZARD!!!

Am I the only one feeling ignored here on how broken BM is and all the complaints people are raising?

Sorry. I probably shouldn't be replying when I'm in a cranky mood.

[Valnaaros]

You would think Blizz would have done something by now. But what also needs to be remembered is that BM isn't the only spec in the game. There are about 36 specs in the game. Further, there isn't a team dedicated to each class. They are working on multiple specs/classes at once, whilst dealing with tons of feedback. Due to this and time constraints, they can't fix everything.

[Sukurachi]

...whilst dealing with tons of feedback. Due to this and time constraints, they can't fix everything.

They probably shouldn't have broken it then?

[Rawr]

They should have let it as is, no one was asking for a massive overhaul and 3 button rotation. Also they should revert the pet AI back to what it was before they gutted it, then apply it to the pets when it's fixed. *sigh* I have a feeling none of these problems are going away till the next expansion.

[Valnaaros]

I highly doubt they intended to break it. Without knowing what was going on behind-the-scenes, it is hard to say what direction they really wanted to go and why it has turned out the way it has.

[Sukurachi]

Because some of Blizzard's designers have this obsession with "renewing" the game every few year. They (mistakenly) feel that the only way to make the game "fresh" again is to change everything and force people to re-learn the classes they've been playing for years.

[Rhyela]

They probably shouldn't have broken it then?

Zing! Couldn't agree more, brother.

For whatever reason they're hell-bent on seeing this thing through, so gg I guess? As for me, I'll probably roll MM because I get the shots I like plus my pet. It's really a win-win. I'll miss my exotics, but honestly, Krush and Gondria were really the only ones I really cared about, and I suppose I can still pull them out in town or something if I miss them.

[Nachtwulf]

Yeah... they've included a lot of neat non-exotics over time, like the fel and iron wolves, and I freakin' -love- my draenor hydras and their fat pitbull run. And honestly, a lot of the exotics kind of annoy me; lots of them make obnoxious noise (Loque, devilsaurs, core hounds), or are big and always in the way of everything (chimaeras, devilsaurs, clefthoofs), their effects aren't that great (worms, chimaera frostbreath)... I always seem to be using nonexotics -anyway-, even as BM.

[zedxrgal]

and I suppose I can still pull them out in town or something if I miss them.

This is an excellent idea but for my alliance main 98% of her pets are exotics. So I'd have to add a lot of pets to her stable. Which may or may not be a bad thing.

[Rhyela]

Good excuse to try new things, I guess? I'm trying to find the silver lining in this poop sandwich. Work with me, here.

[Sukurachi]

sadly, even with home-made organic mustard and artisanal heritage-grain stone-oven baked bread, remains the fact that it's still a poop sandwich. dress up the outside however they want it, the insides are still garbage.

[Zulmalakhan]

sadly, there is one simple truth we must face, there are only 2 ways to deal with a poop sandwich , throw it away or complain and eat it when you starve, fortunately for me I have demo warlock cake and unholy DK desert and demon hunter soda to keep me filled for legion

[Nachtwulf]

Yeah, I'm looking forward to mage kinda... I've never been fire but hodamn some of those new changes and effects are neat, so maybe I'll give it another try. Also outlaw rogue! I'm... kinda glad I finally went and leveled up all my non hunter alts tbh. And my raid leader originally wanted me to be a warlock anyway, I just was really bad at it. Perhaps New!Lock will change matters.

[Xella]

I actually have beta access now (hooray! Won one of Fatboss' keys for babbling about Threads of Fate which I immediately learned has been BULLDOZED TO MAKE A PICTURE GALLERY WHERE IS MY GLORIOUS SHIRT LADY KARANDONNA? NOWHERE TO BE FOUND! D: D: D: ) so I can actually play with Hati and the artifact and... I still don't know what I'm going to be playing in Legion.

I had five? problems with Beast Mastery in its incarnation for the last two expansions (or more):

1) Pets did not grant you a tag even if their damage was done by a direct button press. This has been fixed in Legion.
2) Frenzy/Focus Fire felt really odd to me, and was not the best. It also added a little bit of button bloat for a spec that had more buttons than any other hunter at the time (especially when MM lost almost all of theirs in WoD and survival lost a couple c/o not having kill shot anymore). You COULD argue that this has been fixed in Legion :P
3) Dire Beast (and the stupid Felboar from t18 4pc) were Guardians, which meant that if you had either out when you needed to feign death for wipe prevention/saving durability, they would not be dismissable nor would they despawn (at least the felboar you could click off focus fire to despawn, though). A lot of the time, that meant that when all the rest of the raid was done being slaughtered, the boss would still be active because it had to swat down your guardians first, which usually meant that rogue vanish or mage invis would wear off, and then the boss would chase THEM down and it was generally just a mess all around. This has not only not been fixed in Legion, but has been exacerbated by making Dire Beast baseline (unless you take Frenzy, which has its own set of problems) and connecting the t18 4pc to Dire Beast/Frenzy. Hati is now classified as a pet in the most recent build but it doesn't respond to Play Dead so it may as well still be a guardian. There isn't always time to cast Dismiss Pet before you have to feign, either (though I sure got into the habit of doing so fast).
4) Pet Pathing is absolute garbage and has been for forever. Blink Strikes didn't cover it (and still doesn't) because it's got a cooldown. I mean, it was/is better than nothing but ugh. Ugh. Uuuuugh. Megara. Gorefiend.
5) Damage output is generally not the best. I mean there was a time there in BRF where almost all of us were BM for certain fights (we were running four or five hunters at the time just because that's all we were getting by way of recruits, which is generally how our class stacking ends up happening lol :T) but I couldn't honestly tell you how much pet pathing and the bizarre melee/ranged hybrid falls into that.
6) Bestial Wrath, especially with the ridiculous uptimes it had with t17 and t18 sets, made me feel like I could only use armor sets and pets that didn't look stupid when turned red. I'm not counting this as one of my five cos let's be honest a) it occasionally didn't stop me and b) the orange outline thing from Legion has the same problem.

If BM had lost Focus Fire/Frenzy (or kept Frenzy but dropped FF so that it was just a passive rng-based stacking pet damage buff) and the change to tagging had gone in, BM would have been perfectly fine for me. Dire Beast was an option and not a necessity, I was able to use the pets I enjoyed, Stampede didn't stink, and so on. If pet pathing got fixed and it was tuned properly (which was not the case in this tier, though at least it wasn't as bad as survival, rest in pepperonis my preferred spec ;_;), it would probably be my default choice for Legion.

Instead, we have... this. And I still have no idea what I'm going to play in Legion, and I have nine and a half weeks or less to figure it out.

[SetsunaChan]

I only have access to the PTR but this is how I feel about the changes to BM. It's ok.. I'll say its not in the greatest of places, I know for a lot of the specs they heavily rely on their artifact weapon. And from what I gather BM is one of those specs, least the impression from the Final boss video.

As for talents and feel from my time of the PTR the rotation feels a bit hallow when you take Dire Frenzy, I know it has a good return on focus but after switching it to Chimaera Shot the rotation felt a little bit better and less hollow. In any case I'll be sticking with BM on my main hunter, I've stuck with it in WotLK when it was considered low performing, I've stuck with it when Cata "fixed" it with the removal of Mana and implemented focus, I've stuck with it when BM got a bit of a overhaul in Mists, and I stuck with it in WoD because I still even after so much changed over the years I still enjoyed the spec and the pets it brings.

Though I DO have a concern for the spec though it's also a concern for Surv as well. The pets are far too squishy, during the PTR I was testing how well Surv handles in Tanaan.. Normal mobs die fairly quickly, Elites and the rares on the other hand pets die far too fast and multiple times during the fight. I was using a Turtle tenacity spec'd and it could not handle tanking, even when mend pet was kept up for most of the fight. The 10 second cool-down is unnecessary, and for the amount healed each tic is far too low. I really wished they had baked in the glyph of mending into mend pet.

TL;DR
For me BM is in an ok place, was dreading far worse. Pet healing needs a buff though.

[13thmaiden]

I only have access to the PTR but this is how I feel about the changes to BM. It's ok.. I'll say its not in the greatest of places, I know for a lot of the specs they heavily rely on their artifact weapon. And from what I gather BM is one of those specs, least the impression from the Final boss video.

As for talents and feel from my time of the PTR the rotation feels a bit hallow when you take Dire Frenzy, I know it has a good return on focus but after switching it to Chimaera Shot the rotation felt a little bit better and less hollow. In any case I'll be sticking with BM on my main hunter, I've stuck with it in WotLK when it was considered low performing, I've stuck with it when Cata "fixed" it with the removal of Mana and implemented focus, I've stuck with it when BM got a bit of a overhaul in Mists, and I stuck with it in WoD because I still even after so much changed over the years I still enjoyed the spec and the pets it brings.

Though I DO have a concern for the spec though it's also a concern for Surv as well. The pets are far too squishy, during the PTR I was testing how well Surv handles in Tanaan.. Normal mobs die fairly quickly, Elites and the rares on the other hand pets die far too fast and multiple times during the fight. I was using a Turtle tenacity spec'd and it could not handle tanking, even when mend pet was kept up for most of the fight. The 10 second cool-down is unnecessary, and for the amount healed each tic is far too low. I really wished they had baked in the glyph of mending into mend pet.

TL;DR
For me BM is in an ok place, was dreading far worse. Pet healing needs a buff though.

I brought up this same review over in Pre-Patching legion in PTR, along with an SV review. But yes, the pets can be pretty squishy.

[magepower13]

I'm so sad about the changes to BM....for the first time I don't want to play my Hunter. Sure SV looks neat and MM has a really cool artifact, but I've been a BM Hunter for years and these changes are extremely disappointing to me. I'm definitely going to try the spec out once the pre-patch hits, just in case, but I'm hesitant to get my hopes up. At least I'm excited about Outlaw/Assassination Rogue, Frost Mage, and Druids in general.

Sorry for the pity party here, just feeling very disheartened after seeing how they gutted one of my favorite specs.

[Nachtwulf]

It looks like Chimera Shot has been nerfed in this latest build. Making it... even less desirable than before. RIP anything resembling an interesting rotation...

[Valnaaros]

It looks like Chimera Shot has been nerfed in this latest build. Making it... even less desirable than before. RIP anything resembling an interesting rotation...

Aye... It's damage has almost been cut in half :/

[Magnakilro]

Nerfed Chimaera shot...buffed Dire Stable, Killer Cobra, One With The Pack and Kill Command.

Guess they REALLY want us to be pet with barely any gun/bow...