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

[SpiritBinder]

There are a couple of issues with Hati, but usually he's not too bad.

The most trouble I have right now is when my pet dies and I feign death. Hati just keeps on fighting. And if there are mobs on him that weren't directly targetted (like ones I only hit with barrage) then he refuses to fight back and just drags them back to your fake corpse and waits till he dies, so you end up just wishing him dead and hoping the mobs and don't aoe you to death.

Most of the rest of the time they have him coded pretty well.

I know it's terrible, but a work around for the time being or if they don't' fix it, would be to make a macro that when you Feign Death, you also unequip your gun. That way hati would be forced to despawn a second or two after you FD. Best way I can think around it atm, not pretty, but might save Hati more often then not.

[Xota]

Both of those issues would be fixed by making his summon an on-use, instead of an on-equip. Plus any future AI glitches that only show up in certain circumstances.

[zedxrgal]

Bendak's write up gives me a bit more hope. Thank you for sharing that

[Lisaara]

I kinda figured nothing was tuned yet.

[Equeon]

The recent buffs give me hope, but even massively changing the damage numbers of abilities doesn't make up for overarching changes, like the removal of traps/camouflage and over-focus on summoning wild beasts - all things I had predicted would make BM feel less satisfying and are unfortunately still echoed by current Alpha testers.

I just hope the "stabled pet for dire beast" glyph and a few other changes before release are enough to redeem BM in my eyes. I just think it's a shame when players' "class fantasy" doesn't match with what Blizzard had in mind.

[Nachtwulf]

There's also the obnoxious fact that the pet-mirror glyph isn't even accessible until 110.

[zedxrgal]

Which almost seems to not make sense to me since I believe you get Hati when you start working on your artifact weapon yes?
Which I would think is right at level 100???

So 10 levels of hard work all to FINALLY have Hati look like your active pet.

[Nachtwulf]

Yeah, exactly. That's what peeves me about it.

[Sukurachi]

was just watching a bit of the live dev feed, and my impressions was the following:

the developers are frustrated at working on an old game and feel like writing a completely new game.

this is the only reason I can see for them making such radical changes to the game with the expansion (oh boy are raiders and dungeon aficionados going to "LOVE" the new changes to raids and dungeons.. can foresee tanks being particularly amused).

It really bugs me that I will be level 100, and entering a new zone with more difficult mobs.. and be doing so while COMPLETELY re-learning how to play my class.

I don't mind changes, but MAJOR changes of this nature are annoying as all heck.

[zedxrgal]

It really bugs me that I will be level 100, and entering a new zone with more difficult mobs.. and be doing so while COMPLETELY re-learning how to play my class.

I don't mind changes, but MAJOR changes of this nature are annoying as all heck.

Frankly this is why I am really hoping to get beta access again. I would really love to be able to play with the new to us hunter class changes before live.

[Rune]

Thanks for all the feedback and people's opinions-it's not exactly good to hear the reasons for being uneasy being confirmed, but I'm hoping they hammer something workable out. If not...well, I guess since they brought back pets to marksman, we've still got one way to kinda play like we did pre-Legion? Cold comfort, I know.

[Rikaku]

Hopefully you don't mind me using this for BM-specific feelings regarding Beta (I was using the other thread, but that felt more general beta-discussion for all classes).

Right now all I can say is the following:

BM's rotation is weird. It's not even so much of a rotation to me, so much as "hope for a proc and hit a button". If you're familiar with FFXIV's "Machinist" when it first came out/launched, it feels a LOT like that. You feel like there's a lot of auto-attacking going on, hoping for a proc so you can get focus.

But when you do get the stars to align, and you have a lot of focus, you can kind of see where it seems like our rotation/playstyle is meant to be. And I can say in those few seconds, it's a fun concept. it just needs a LOT of bug-fixing and tuning.

Regarding pets:

Hati is not as obnoxious as I thought he would be. He does respond to every command my pet does (Stay, Attack, Follow). When my pet dies, Hati stays and fights. But if I dismiss my pet, Hati will despawn about a second later. Hati will respawn when I re-summon a pet. So in a way, Hati's pretty decent at the moment from the early Alpha days.

If you want to get anywhere in the beta, do not tame a Legion-expansion pet. As cool and pretty as they are, their HP is absolutely abysmal. I cannot keep any pet I get from Broken Isles (even tenacity ones) alive. I could spam Mend Pet whenever its off cooldown, it will not be enough to save that pet. So for the time being, I'm using a classic wolf (I don't know why they gave my starting Night Elf a wolf, but ok) and it can take some hits enough to where I can progress in quests.

Pet's need major tuning, and I think that's part of the biggest problem for BM hunters, since we rely so much on our pets. Our abilities and talents don't mean much if our pets aren't scaling properly (which is honestly how it feels). Also I noticed that it seems BM pets have some abilities like "Hunting Companion" which increases stacks of Mongoose Strike.... which we don't even have (as it is a Survival Hunter ability). Which should be replaced with a BM-enhancing trait, not a SV-enhancing trait.

In general, I think BM could be in a decent place if we get some actual fixes to issues and some serious tuning. The changes aren't all doom and gloom, they just feel doom and gloom until we get actual number adjustment and proper pet scaling.

[Wain]

Old pets (not the Broken Isles stuff, which is bugged) have increased in survivability quite dramatically over the last couple of builds. The constant pet dying is a thing of the past. Of course your pet can still die (as it should!), but it's no longer a standard part of your rotation

This makes the class way more playable!

The actual ability rotation is still widely criticized for being dull and simple, and I think the criticisms are somewhat valid. The fixes for that (if any are forthcoming) are probably going to require more than just tweaking a few numbers, though. And even if that is changed, you're still likely to experience a huge shock going into 7.0, with the loss of camouflage, traps, etc. and the gimping of Aspect of the Cheetah. As it stands, I fear it's still going to feel like a huge loss, and (outside of new pets) no real gain. But we are way more playable than we were on the previous page of this thread

[Lisaara]

Sweet!

[Nachtwulf]

Well, that's something at least. I admit, I've been heavily considering the other specs just because with pet buffs going away, and the fact I'm honestly not crazy-enamored with any of the exotic models except Loque and maybe the mana sabers, there isn't a whole lot to really keep me BM. Still, I dunno, gotta wait and see. And also see where they land in the dps comparison. Historically, Bliz has made simple = inferior, and pet AI has always added a certain level of inherent gimp to a purely pet-focused class, but... I dunno, maybe it'll be okay.

[Inay]

I miss the spiritual link. Not only in gameplay but in roleplay, it gived me a feel of "I'm a beastmaster, I'm so deeply linked with the soul of my chosen companion that we share a spiritual and magic link."

So, totally subjective opinion :
I do like the three aspects, but playing BM feel weird now, and I didn't really liked the experience. Less sort, feel almost like nothing, I don't like the Dire Beast. It's just... Summoning a giant monkey every five seconds is not a part of my class fantasy for the BM. It's not even a beast from the region. (I admit that I never liked the pet monkey, which is not helping) I don't feel like I really.. do things, you know ? No traps, not an enormous control on my pet (it's still the same IA, after all), and only like three direct sorts.
I played BM since my beginning on WoW, but I feel like I'll go to another spe for Legion. Marksmanship, that never interested me in live game, feels funnier than the BM as it is.
I will miss my Loque'nahak and Gaara.

[Tahlian]

I've been playing BM in the beta for the last few days, and I just feel kind of...disappointed in it. I still instinctively fire off Cobra Shot, which now doesn't do anything except damage. And, yes, I tamed a lovely new cat from the Highmountain area...and I've found that even if I helicopter-parent him and spam Mend (as much as one can spam an ability that now has a cooldown - really not happy about that one), the poor thing keels over if I take my attention off his health for even half a second. For comparison, I tamed one of the basilisks from the same area, and he did quite a lot better in the survivability department. Maybe it was just that the basilisk is a Tenacity pet, who knows? Mind, I wasn't aware that the pets from the new areas were bugged, but I also think I was experiencing a bit of the same problem with a cat that I tamed in Winterspring before I took my beta hunter to the Broken Isles at all

On the whole, BM doesn't really feel all that connected with the pet anymore, at least to me. It just feels like the thing to do is send your pet(s), hit Wrath, hit Dire Frenzy, hit Kill Command, hit Barrage (and pray you don't pull anything extra with it), and hit Mend Pet, hoping it's not too late for your pet. Maybe if it had a slightly different system, I don't know. I'll have to see how it goes on as Beta progresses. I guess it's just a bit jarring to go from what we have on live to this "new" BM.

[Nazja]

While playing BM in the beta, I felt like an animal trainer/tamer instead of a hunter. Even with Chimera Shot, my hunter mostly just stands there shouting at her pets, barely using her gun... I bet that her bond with her pets has been irrevocably broken.

Admittedly, that technically still makes my hunter a beastmaster, but I never wanted her to work for a circus.
(Although... I wouldn't say no to whips as a new weapon-type. )

[Twistedklown]

Besides the BI pet bug, only thing I think should be changed is Cobra Shot and Multishot. Make them like Arcane Shot and Multishot from Marksmenship; focus generators instead of spenders. Or increase focus generation for BM. On long fights I spent a lot of time just auto shooting because there were gaps of not enough focus to do anything. Looks like in AoE situations we'll fire off 1 multishot and then rely on beast cleave for the AoE damage, and only hitting multishot to refresh the beast cleave buff. If this change would make the spec too flooded with focus, could make dire beast a little stronger damage wise and add a focus cost to it.

[Nachtwulf]

Be sure you report your feelings over on the official forums and not just here! I figure you are, but I want to really wave that flag; we can't expect Blizzard to come over here to see us gripe that our spec isn't fun anymore, you have to put it on the forums they actually read for sure.