Ghostcrawler on Spirit Beasts & Pet Choice

[Makoes]

So, it seems the general consensis is that the problem could easily be solved by allowing the hunter to chose the spec of the pet. However, I can't help point out that FH has become the new TS...so even if FH gets put into the talent tree...what ability would then take its place for popularity? moths ability to heal? Ferocius bite? Tendon rip/pinch/warp??? How would this issue get solved?

@grim: thx, wish I could take credit for it, but found it off of a google search. I am not talented enough to make something this cool

[Ryai]

So, it seems the general consensis is that the problem could easily be solved by allowing the hunter to chose the spec of the pet. However, I can't help point out that FH has become the new TS...so even if FH gets put into the talent tree...what ability would then take its place for popularity? moths ability to heal? Ferocius bite? Tendon rip/pinch/warp??? How would this issue get solved?

@grim: thx, wish I could take credit for it, but found it off of a google search. I am not talented enough to make something this cool :P

Er maybe because you should realize that FH is exactly the same as TS, Thunderstomp is what made Gorillas op/ou [overpowered/overused] FH is making wolves OP/OU the same way. If you give all pets the same chance at FH it evens the playing field a bit and would give way to more diversity.

I mean if you have a moth that has FH+Dust, that's epic. Raptors, suddenly go from mediocre devilsaur non exotics, to a bit more on par with them since FH would make up when their racial doesn't crit. Spirit Beasts would probably now have a chance to be on par with non exotics better, because remember they're still doing less dps than cats I think. Devilsaurs would ofc be more imba, but alot of other pets who would never get to see any showtime, would now get it.

You seem to forget, FH was -always- popular and nothing is going to replace it. It's just going to now be a case of flavor of the month combos BUT even then, the flavor of the month combos will be more varried than 15 wolves, 5 cats, one devilsaur/spirit beast and a handful of raptors and crabs, in Dal at any given point in time.

Edit: also bats need reworking, their racial is way, way to costly for the CD/duration >.>

[Cryptography]

Remove all family skills.

Move some of the better ones into the talent trees.

Rebalance/tweak trees as needed to remove OP combinations.

Allow pets access to any of the three trees.

Result: DPS speced sporebat

[Ryai]

Remove all family skills.

Move some of the better ones into the talent trees.

Rebalance/tweak trees as needed to remove OP combinations.

Allow pets access to any of the three trees.

Result: DPS speced sporebat

Problem:

Bloat.

Second problem;

Only 20 TP atm even with BM. And even with Cata that'd only be one more point, or maybe possibly two. If the pets do get more points as they level.

Face it, if the talent trees for pets had more put into it without being reworked or other talents removed, it would actually leave pets crippled and broken if you removed all the pet abilities. And even then, why remove them? TS was obv a move that all tanking pets needed. FH is obv a move that all dps pets need. Prowl is another obv talent that all cunning pets should have access too. The rest of the family abilities are just fine as they are. We have silences, stuns, snares, slows, interupts, self buffs, major and minor debuffs...

Sure a Moth shooting out Chimera's lightning breath would be epic, and silly, but I don't want to see that happen.

[Nimizar]

At least the message that even further normalisation may not be a bad thing seems to be getting recoognised by some of the other folks here. As long as pet family choice can make a significant difference in DPS potential, there will always be a "best" raid pet. It may be feasible to balance a few different family abilities to give equivalent DPS through different mechanisms (e.g. like the way devilsaurs currently give wolves a bit of a run, and cats/spirit beasts/raptors were also within a few percent of top pet DPS at different stages of Wrath), but achieving that across *all* families is unlikely.

By allowing all pets access to all available pet talents, and by eliminating the DPS increases due to family abilities, Blizz would create a situation where pet choice was largely a matter of cosmetics, with perhaps a small element of utility thrown in (e.g. snares, roots, stuns, interrupts, non-stacking buffs and debuffs).

It's this contrast that GC was talking about in his post btw - it isn't that the devs *want* one extreme or the other to be the case, it's that they've been *trying* to allow more pet diversity for years, and nothing has really worked - raiders have always figured out which family provided the most DPS and gravitated towards it. In some ways, Wrath is even more limited in serious pet choices (get a wolf, or maybe a devilsaur if you're BM) than TBC was (when anyone could get either a cat or a ravager and be fine). I'm not surprised at all that they're thinking near total normalisation of pet families is the only way they're going to be able to provide genuine pet choice to raiding hunters.

If they do decide on normalisation of families, there are still plenty of things they can do to allow customisation by individual players. Currently, players ask "what kind of pet should I get and how should I spec it in order to do <x>?". In a normalised world, the question would simplify to "How should I spec my pet for <x>?", with each hunter then free to choose the specific pet they liked best.

[Bulletdance]

At least we are getting the option to have more pets it seems so even if there are cookie cutter pets/specs we can afford to have them and the ones we really like.

[Ryai]

By allowing all pets access to all available pet talents, and by eliminating the DPS increases due to family abilities, Blizz would create a situation where pet choice was largely a matter of cosmetics, with perhaps a small element of utility thrown in (e.g. snares, roots, stuns, interrupts, non-stacking buffs and debuffs).

I'm sorry but I don't want to return to the days of Bite, Claw, Rake. Do you?

There's nothing wrong with pets keeping their family skills, as I've said before, FH would actually be a boon to several pets and would make a lot more viable for endgame and even instances than wolves, cats and devilsaurs. But if we return to the day of before family skills, that will just see a return/increase of cats again.

[Mania]

It's this contrast that GC was talking about in his post btw - it isn't that the devs *want* one extreme or the other to be the case, it's that they've been *trying* to allow more pet diversity for years, and nothing has really worked - raiders have always figured out which family provided the most DPS and gravitated towards it.

*nods at Nimizar* If I were their producer, I would have put my foot down about this long past, entirely on the basis of resource prioritization. But I'm not ... and they probably have enough resources that it's almost impossible to tell their team to just do it the easy way anyway.

[Cryptography]

Raiders seem to want only one thing from their pets: The biggest DPS possible. They will edge towards this no matter what mechanisms are put in place. The issue is that not all hunters are raiders, nor do they raid all the time.

Removing all family skills while moving some of the better ones into the talent trees allows hunters to select pet skin purely for cosmetics. Customisation of a pet would be entirely through talent choices.
A rebalance would definitely be needed. Some existing talents could be dropped, some family skills moved in as talents. Quite possibly pets would need more talent points available and the 51-BM talent would need reworking too. Opening up multiple trees per pet might be possible too.

Under this scheme, a raid pet would spec deep into ferocity for max DPS. Someone looking for extreme pet tanking would choose all the mitigation talents available in tenacity. PvPers would likely select deep cunning, or perhaps a cunning/tenacity mix.

the really cool, tree-defining talents should be placed deep down. eg: Snares might be available fairly early on, but would be enhanced a lot deeper into cunning.


Yes, this idea does mean losing some of the uniqueness from each family but it should increase the diversity of pets in active use.

[Ryai]

Removing all family skills while moving some of the better ones into the talent trees allows hunters to select pet skin purely for cosmetics. Customisation of a pet would be entirely through talent choices.

There are Alot of better skills though. http://www.wow-petopia.com/html/skills/skills.html is an example. Then what about the fact that Exotics are supposed to have buffed up versions of their non exotic cousins? IE Raptors have an attack that can buff their attack- Devilsaurs have an attack that for sure, buffs their attack aslong as it hits.

Cats have rake- SB have SS. Spiders have Web, Sithilids have their Web DOT.

And even some non exotics have good talents. Turtles have Shell Shield, which works wonders. Bears have ToS and Swipe available, giving them two AoEs.

And even if talent trees for pets were reworked and only the 'best of the best' talents were put into there, we'd still miss out on alot of skills :| and that's not a solution.

All I want is for more pets to be viable. Cause honestly I am tired of seeing MM and SV hunters with wolves. I mean I was just in WG on Yas. All the hunters there, ALL of the ones I saw? They all had wolves! Every last single one of them! Sure Skoll is a wolf too but he;'s still a spirit beast! He was the only 'non wolf' beast there D:

I don't care about the hard core raiders, it's just, I'm tired of for like the last 6+ months or so, the flavor of the month pet has been wolves wolves wolves. I mean even cats and raptors are going the way of the dodo atm.

And the problem is FH, if FH, like TS is moved to the talent tree for Ferocity, suddenly there will be alot more pets available and viable and used. I mean remember when everyone was using Gorillas for TS? And if you didn't have one you were laughed at- or atleast looked down upon/told to get a gorilla? Even tho I loved my Crocolisk & worm and Warper, they were still lacking as much as I -hated- to admit that.

But when Blizzard moved TS to the tenacity tree? Suddenly there were so many options. Pre bowling nerf, you could have bowling Rhinos. Knockback + Aoe! You could pvp and farm at the same time! Bears became decent farm and instance pets, no need to worry about CSP. And etc etc etc. It didn't make tenacity pets more or less used. People who were forced to use gorillas were suddenly able to use other things. And i can't tell you how wonderful it is for a lowbie hunter of mine to have a Turtle, with two damage reductions -and- an AoE to keep mobs off me.

Anyways tl;dr version: Getting rid of family skills is like saying getting rid of racials for all playable classes. Yes there's always going to be the occasional one that makes a pet more perfered for a time before the next bit of candy is found, but furious howl is op because not only does it stack with your trinkets and Call, but it stacks with other ap+dmg buffs, buffs YOU and in turn buffs the pet more! And if FH doesn't get moved to the ferocity tree eventually, and you know it will happen, FH will most likely be nerfed.

[Nimizar]

There's nothing wrong with pets keeping their family skills, as I've said before, FH would actually be a boon to several pets and would make a lot more viable for endgame and even instances than wolves, cats and devilsaurs. But if we return to the day of before family skills, that will just see a return/increase of cats again.

Read what I wrote again: I'm in favour of keeping pet family skills. I'm merely in favour of eliminating/marginalising their effects on DPS.

If a pet ability significantly impacts DPS or aggro-holding ability, then it would be moved into the BM or pet talent trees and made available regardless of pet family choice. Pet family abilities would then be redesigned as necessary to fit into a limited number of roles:
- raid buffs (do not stack with other class equivalents, hence not mandatory in a well-structured raid, but still useful to fill gaps in raiding rosters)
- target debuffs (do not stack with other class equivalents, hence not mandatory in a well-structured raid, but still useful to fill gaps in raiding rosters)
- interrupts
- silence
- snares
- roots
- disarm
- defensive abilities (self-heals, damage reduction, damage reflection)

Family abilities that did damage might still exist , but they would be implemented in such a way as to cause a corresponding reduction in pet DPS from other means (e.g. replacing a usage of the focus dump skill without having significantly bettter damage-per-focus).

All that said, I'm not clear on why you think completely removing pet family abilities would suddenly lead to a resurgence in cats. They originally dominated due to their fast attack speeds, then for a long time in TBC they were the only ones with both Claw and Bite (ravagers only became viable once they were given the TBC version of Gore as a focus dump to complement the better damage-per-focus of the CD limited Bite).

[Kalliope]

All that said, I'm not clear on why you think completely removing pet family abilities would suddenly lead to a resurgence in cats. They originally dominated due to their fast attack speeds, then for a long time in TBC they were the only ones with both Claw and Bite (ravagers only became viable once they were given the TBC version of Gore as a focus dump to complement the better damage-per-focus of the CD limited Bite).

Rake is still pretty damned good, which is why cats are still up there in terms of viable dps pets. Making FH baseline for dps pets would give cats that AND Rake, which puts us back in BC with cats dominating.

[Ryai]

My brain must have ****ed and not everything I read was absorbed then. Sorry just been one of those days, no excuse for my stupidity.

But Kall summed it up, cause of Rake, cause of Rake. Cause of Rake. But even with/if FH being made available for all pets, Cats still wouldn't be that dominate in the numbers as there are still oodles of pets that would be just as good. Moths, raptors, carrion birds. Etc. I have seen a rise in pugs that don't mind bringing debuff pets into an instance. And if they are making it where you can make your pets be in any of the talent trees, then that just opens up a whole new can of worms- no pun intended, on what would also be decent.

But yeah sorry for not reading your post fully or some crap not registering, didn't mean to come off as an ass or make you sound like one.

where's the humble pie I want a slice

[Kalliope]

It's just raw number crunching, really. As long as different pets have different ways of dealing the "same" amount of damage, there will be players saying that one pet is "better" than another. For example, certain classes/specs do better on short burst fights and others are geared more for longevity. The same is of course true of pets.

Ryai, your claim that "oodles" of pets will be viable might be true, but these are the same pets that are already viable now. However, since wolves still SLIGHTLY surpass them, they're the flavor of the expansion pet. It'll be the same pets rotating in and out of the coveted "top spot" unless Blizzard tinkers with the system again or slips in a new zomgOP pet family skill.

[FlightofthePhoenix]

Pet gear. What? I know it's ridiculous, but could you imagine someone saying "Your pet's not geared properly"? Or seeing your pet in shiny armor?

Fine, on a more serious note, what I'd like to see is:
Talents designed to relatively equalize pets, and make them so you can spec for soloing, PVP or raiding
More pets skins
Spirit beasts more viable (usually the game rewards you for working your butt off)
Exotic beasts more viable (because why spec BeastMaster and go to the trouble of taming an exotic if they don't have some sort of edge?)
Less wolves
More sporebats and other unloved beasties
Keep pet family abilities
More pet animations
More hunters to have more creativity with their pets. If you don't enjoy your pet, why be a hunter?

Thank you. That is all.

[Ryai]

It's just raw number crunching, really. As long as different pets have different ways of dealing the "same" amount of damage, there will be players saying that one pet is "better" than another. For example, certain classes/specs do better on short burst fights and others are geared more for longevity. The same is of course true of pets.

Ryai, your claim that "oodles" of pets will be viable might be true, but these are the same pets that are already viable now. However, since wolves still SLIGHTLY surpass them, they're the flavor of the expansion pet. It'll be the same pets rotating in and out of the coveted "top spot" unless Blizzard tinkers with the system again or slips in a new zomgOP pet family skill.

Bleeding bloody blorp I had a post ready to reply to this but accidently closed FF :|

Anyways as I was saying I know that there will still be those that want to min/max and go hard core. Fair enough. But my point is I am guessing there are going to be Weekly raid quests, for bosses meant to be pugable, there will be raids that are designed to be pugable- IE like VoA. And easy normal modes. If they do change FH and the talent trees, as I said a lot of pets become viable and you wouldn't get slack for not having a wolf.

IE; wasps, worms, carrion birds, raptors, spirit beasts, devilsaurs, [wolves if they get a decent family skill], cats, Moths, Chimeras etc.

I mean sure some pets would get left in the wayside but there are always skins and models that do. Not whole entire pet families tho, like it is in Wrath atm.

[Kalliope]

It's just raw number crunching, really. As long as different pets have different ways of dealing the "same" amount of damage, there will be players saying that one pet is "better" than another. For example, certain classes/specs do better on short burst fights and others are geared more for longevity. The same is of course true of pets.

Ryai, your claim that "oodles" of pets will be viable might be true, but these are the same pets that are already viable now. However, since wolves still SLIGHTLY surpass them, they're the flavor of the expansion pet. It'll be the same pets rotating in and out of the coveted "top spot" unless Blizzard tinkers with the system again or slips in a new zomgOP pet family skill.

Bleeding bloody blorp I had a post ready to reply to this but accidently closed FF

Anyways as I was saying I know that there will still be those that want to min/max and go hard core. Fair enough. But my point is I am guessing there are going to be Weekly raid quests, for bosses meant to be pugable, there will be raids that are designed to be pugable- IE like VoA. And easy normal modes. If they do change FH and the talent trees, as I said a lot of pets become viable and you wouldn't get slack for not having a wolf.

That's how things are now. People don't care what you bring to vault and the other easy raids. If they do, then these raids are still hard for them, which is a different problem entirely.

[Ryai]

That's how things are now. People don't care what you bring to vault and the other easy raids. If they do, then these raids are still hard for them, which is a different problem entirely.

Tell that to like 80% of hellscreams population >_>

mean they're still insulting people about GS :|

[cowmuflage]

well then hellscream people are silly. I have raided vualt with other hunters who use sporebats and other non used offten pets.

[Chrizesu]

So I'm guessing the best benefit would be:
A - Buff CotW and give Furious Howl an effect only on the wolf. Maybe like the moth and raptor abilities. (i luff them)
B - Give pets access to all 3 trees. If a cow man can have three trees, why not pets?