Blizzard's Cataclysm reasoning with Exotics.

[Rottingham]

Well, I know there's some discussion whether this skill change is a good thing or not, and I don't wanna get people mad with what I'm about to say. so pleas,e say nothing nice, say nothing at all... pretty please?

So I think that instead of having BM deal out DPS like the other specs, it should primarily be a raid buffer. Have talents like:

Bestial Power:
When pet is active, all party/raid members gain a 1%/2%/3% damage boost. (damage dealt is inceased by 2%/4%/6% if pet is exotic)

I said this in another thread before Blizz ever made these skill changes, and I for one love them! The idea of people asking for BM hunsters to be in a raidgroup would be exceptional, and with the new pet buffs/debuffs there could be some talents in the tree where you can increase the percentage of what your pet does, or if it stuns or roots then increase the duration.

So yes, I'm for these changes.

*Awaits the verbal beating that will surely come*

[Knobhead]

Well, I know there's some discussion whether this skill change is a good thing or not, and I don't wanna get people mad with what I'm about to say. so pleas,e say nothing nice, say nothing at all... pretty please?

So I think that instead of having BM deal out DPS like the other specs, it should primarily be a raid buffer. Have talents like:

Bestial Power:
When pet is active, all party/raid members gain a 1%/2%/3% damage boost. (damage dealt is inceased by 2%/4%/6% if pet is exotic)

I said this in another thread before Blizz ever made these skill changes, and I for one love them! The idea of people asking for BM hunsters to be in a raidgroup would be exceptional, and with the new pet buffs/debuffs there could be some talents in the tree where you can increase the percentage of what your pet does, or if it stuns or roots then increase the duration.

So yes, I'm for these changes.

*Awaits the verbal beating that will surely come*

Unfortunately, a true buffer/debuffer class has never existed in WoW and I think it's way too late to start with it now. The general populace has become too obsessed with numbers that each player does that the concept of one player whose main contribution is to the group while doing little himself will not be taken well.

[Sarayana]

I'm not going to verbally abuse you, Rottingham. I just want to point out that if your Ferocious Inspiration (the "bestial power" you described is identical to the FI buff at 1/2/3%) is boosted by having an exotic, you'd never get to run with your good ol' raptor/wolf/whatever as BM. That would make me sad.

But I said somewhere else (this thread? I don't remember now.) that I embrace the idea of being able to pull out a pet that would provide a much needed buff/debuff. I don't particularly expect others to know what pets do what, so it'll be great to just whip out the appropriate pet and say "oh hey, my pet will do that. "

[Worba]

So I think that instead of having BM deal out DPS like the other specs, it should primarily be a raid buffer. Have talents like:

Bestial Power:
When pet is active, all party/raid members gain a 1%/2%/3% damage boost. (damage dealt is inceased by 2%/4%/6% if pet is exotic)

Exotics already get the advantage of having a second buff/debuff; that by itself is not enough to prevent a BM hunter with a regular pet from being competitive in raids/PVP however if they went with your suggestion to just give exotics a flat bonus on top of everything else then no BM hunter would run with a non-exotic pet past level 69... not in any scenario where they were concerned with achieving optimal performance anyway.

While it's great having the option of taming an exotic, it needs to remain an option not a requirement.

[Rulah]

Only thing I still find remotely lame is we can't choose which tree our pet gets to spec, yet. Imagine having to bring a certain buff/debuff only provided by a non-Ferocity pet (tbh I don't know if there are any but there might be...too lazy to look). So long personal DPS!

[Worba]

Only thing I still find remotely lame is we can't choose which tree our pet gets to spec, yet. Imagine having to bring a certain buff/debuff only provided by a non-Ferocity pet (tbh I don't know if there are any but there might be...too lazy to look). So long personal DPS!

I'd like to see that someday - there's always someone who feels like pet X should be in tree Y instead of the one Blizzard put it in (e.g. why the hell are beetles in cunning and not tenacity)...

[Sharilar]

Now people HAVE to bring wolves. Soon people will HAVE to bring a certain pet to fill a buff. We still won't get to bring the pet WE want.

This will probably be true on the hardest boss of the most cutting edge content, but most of the time it shouldn't be an issue.

Yeah I can see this if you're in a super duper hardcore raiding guild.

But I'd imagine most hunters are never going to be in that situation so we will get to bring what we want. I've come to know if you got a really good raiding group, they dont care what you bring. My ICC25 has a BM hunter and an SV hunter. They have told me they'd rather bring these two that know WTF they're doing rather than a high dps MM that stands in Marrowgar's fire.

This. I got my 10m kingslayer last week(finally!) running as BM. (Though to be fair we didn't have a ret pally and our mage was fire.)

[Aylfric]

Only thing I still find remotely lame is we can't choose which tree our pet gets to spec, yet. Imagine having to bring a certain buff/debuff only provided by a non-Ferocity pet (tbh I don't know if there are any but there might be...too lazy to look). So long personal DPS!

Windserpents and dragonhawks are cunning (why???) and both bring the +magic damage debuff, and only they do.

It's a fairly powerful ability (increases damage from magic by X%), so it's possible that even our own damage might be balanced with that, I don't know.

That is, it would directly increase all serpent shot and cobra shot damage.

[Aylfric]

This. I got my 10m kingslayer last week(finally!) running as BM. (Though to be fair we didn't have a ret pally and our mage was fire.)

Congrats!

It's nice to have a solid use for Intimidate, isn't it?

[Sharilar]

This. I got my 10m kingslayer last week(finally!) running as BM. (Though to be fair we didn't have a ret pally and our mage was fire.)

Congrats!

It's nice to have a solid use for Intimidate, isn't it?

Yep, and it was a damn good thing too, since there were a couple valks where they would have gotten away if I hadn't had it. Defiles and Valks at the same time suck. Would have been useful if I'd gotten sucked in too, but he didn't choose me on any of the attempts before we downed him that night.

[Kalliope]

The only issue with that idea, Rotty, is that Blizzard is trying to move away from classes who are ONLY brought for utility and buffing (like shamans for so long).

And BM hunters already bring that buff without the pet being exotic; getting up to 6% seems like overkill.

(I won't get into the whole "we don't want to be FORCED to bring exotics" thing...even though, really, the biggest perk of going BM is getting to use said shiny pets....)

[Worba]

(I won't get into the whole "we don't want to be FORCED to bring exotics" thing...even though, really, the biggest perk of going BM is getting to use said shiny pets....)

Honestly I'm not sure what there is to discuss in the first place; Blizzard has repeatedly stated they don't intend for exotics to ever become so powerful that a similarly geared BM hunter with a wolf, moth or etc would be considered "inferior" (for purpose of raids, PVP etc). :shrug:

[Kalliope]

(I won't get into the whole "we don't want to be FORCED to bring exotics" thing...even though, really, the biggest perk of going BM is getting to use said shiny pets....)

Honestly I'm not sure what there is to discuss in the first place; Blizzard has repeatedly stated they don't intend for exotics to ever become so powerful that a similarly geared BM hunter with a wolf, moth or etc would be considered "inferior" (for purpose of raids, PVP etc). :shrug:

Exactly!

[Shinryu Masaki]

Oh, and on the soloing subject:Tenacity pets will only have mainly Thunderstomp for the damaging aggro AOE. Unless they buff that up a bit it'll be a little hard to keep them all on the pet unless they change the CD of Misdirect.

If I remember correctly, there is a Major or Prime Glyph for Misdirection that makes it so that if you use MD on your pet, its cooldown is instantly reset.

The only thing that's concerned me so far is that it doesn't seem as if any tenacity pets have AoE attacks beside their thunder stomp ability now. On a soloing standpoint, even in BM it seems as if this will make it a lot harder for our pets to keep aggro on groups of mobs :/

The bear's Demo Roar is an AoE. While it doesn't do damage, seeing as it makes all mobs in a certain yard range do 10% less damage, I see the bear remain one of the best tank for groups of mobs. The turtle should still be the best for single target tanking.

[Nimizar]

I was going to chime in as to why the buff/debuff model for family pet abilities was a good one, but Ellaran beat me to it. So chalk me up as another one agreeing with that post

For Exotics, the approach of providing both a raid buff and a target debuff (i.e. crit+reduced healing for Devilsaur, burst haste+casting speed slow for Corehound, stat buff+ranged root for Silithid), while ordinary pets provide only one or the other strikes me as an excellent model that allows exotics to be better than normal pets, while still allowing BM hunters to use non-exotic pets without feeling particularly guilty about it.

[Rottingham]

I wasn't beaten on! I'm so happy! lol

Well yes, I guess, But I haven't been BM before except to tame a devilsaur real quick just to have one, so I had no idea that the talent already existed
and yes, Kalliope, I guess that BLizz wants to stay away from the "Must haves"...

and yes, Knobhead, I know a true buffer class/spec has ever been made... but isn't that all the mroe reason to switch some talents around in some classes' specs and allow them to be? say an arcane mage could be a buffer, increasing intellect and possible a few "Auras" to increase spell damage done or spell critical chance. But hey, it's all just a hought, nothing saying Blizz will do this or that it's the right thing to do

[Nimizar]

The only thing that's concerned me so far is that it doesn't seem as if any tenacity pets have AoE attacks beside their thunder stomp ability now. On a soloing standpoint, even in BM it seems as if this will make it a lot harder for our pets to keep aggro on groups of mobs :/

Having used a gorilla and a worm as my soloing pets for all of Wrath, MD and Thunderstomp can do the job just fine.

In Cata, with Kill Command threat credited to the pet and BM using that as their main nuke, BM hunters really shouldn't have any threat concerns when soloing

[Nimizar]

and yes, Knobhead, I know a true buffer class/spec has ever been made... but isn't that all the mroe reason to switch some talents around in some classes' specs and allow them to be? say an arcane mage could be a buffer, increasing intellect and possible a few "Auras" to increase spell damage done or spell critical chance. But hey, it's all just a hought, nothing saying Blizz will do this or that it's the right thing to do

It may work in a different game, but Blizzard have explicitly stated that they want every spec to be usable for soloing and to have a role in PvP. A pure support class doesn't really work in that model.

That said, Blizz actually ran WoW with the "support class" model for years (the hybrid DPS classes used to be brought to raids primarily to buff the damage of the 4 pure DPS classes, rather than for their own personal DPS contributions). They decided they didn't really like the way that worked out in practice, and subsequently started sharing the raid buffs and debuffs around, cranked hybrid DPS up to within a few percent of the pure DPS classes and began really pushing the "bring the player, not the class" mantra.

[Lisaara]

I never had threat concerns when soloing as a BM anyway.