A Proposition for Beast Mastery Pets

[Nanotrev]

BM pet abilities also used to provide vastly different functionality than normal pet family abilities. Some players did go after them for their abilities, not just their appearance.

Now that their functionality isn't so vastly different, perhaps I'd be allowed to choose one that I could level with since it's been discussed that they wouldn't have game-breaking advantages at lower levels. I both like the appearance of my exotics and would appreciate their small benefit to me as a BM hunter while I'm leveling again. I see them so great now that I don't see why Blizzard would want to exclude them from lower levels.

Edits-
With the exception that they might view it as being too much work, thus outweighing the benefit of the pets to BM hunters because of the recoding that takes place.

In case there was any confusion, I'm not against exotics becoming tamable at a lower level. I'm merely playing devil's advocate and trying to approach the situation as Blizzard might in order to refine our collective thought process.

Indeed! It's also much appreciated. =)

[Gimlion]

This is a dumb idea, giving us Exotics early on... Think about it, we start off and can't even TAME our own pets. We train with a pre-domesticated pet. Then when we reach a high enough level we can learn to train our own pets. Once again, after time we can begin to make our pets stronger with Talents. Finally, we reach level 69, the pinnacle of our training, we are skilled and learned enough to handle bigger, smarter, stronger creatures. It's all a process of building on how well you control your pet. It makes sense, if you look at it from another perspective than your own.

[Worba]

This is a dumb idea, giving us Exotics early on... Think about it, we start off and can't even TAME our own pets. We train with a pre-domesticated pet. Then when we reach a high enough level we can learn to train our own pets. Once again, after time we can begin to make our pets stronger with Talents. Finally, we reach level 69, the pinnacle of our training, we are skilled and learned enough to handle bigger, smarter, stronger creatures. It's all a process of building on how well you control your pet. It makes sense, if you look at it from another perspective than your own.

By your reasoning survival spec hunters should have to wait until 69 for explosive shot.

If you think about it for a minute, we (meaning all classes not just hunters) now get all kinds of stuff from lvl 10 on that we used to have to level up to 50-60 for (+15-25% dmg bonus w/ various types of attacks, etc, and so forth), so compared to that, tame exotics, being 95% aesthetics, makes perfect sense.

[Nanotrev]

This is a dumb idea, giving us Exotics early on...

It's simply a matter of opinion. There is no dumb or brilliant.

Finally, we reach level 69, the pinnacle of our training, we are skilled and learned enough to handle bigger, smarter, stronger creatures.

It all depends on where your view of our peak is put. Perhaps for others it's immediately after the level ten pet quests now that we start with a basic pet. Perhaps after we learn to train and command pets then we're able to tame the rest?

It's all a process of building on how well you control your pet. It makes sense, if you look at it from another perspective than your own.

If I would look at it from that point of view I would gauge that the pet quests teach us how to do all of the rest. From the RP aspect of things "raptors" are theorized to be much more intelligent than Tyrannosaurs. If you look at the World of Warcraft there are raptors that form tribes and steal silver in the Barrens. I'm not bashing on the intelligence of anyone's pet by saying this as I don't really adhere to the aspect that one pet is smarter than the other. If pets were based around intelligence Cunning pets would be at the top of the heap. We can tame Wind Serpents very early on. Also, why am I able to tame a scorpid in Tanaris that would clearly win against the Silithid Ravager in the Shimmering Flats should the two mobs be close to and act aggressively towards one another? I should be able to tame the Silithid if I'm able to tame the stronger of the two pets. At level 60 I can easily kill a Devilsaur from Un'Goro with a level 60 scorpid at my side. Because of this I'm not too keen on swinging towards that side of the argument.

Although I must say..

The debate isn't really on taming bigger and stronger pets because at lower levels they wouldn't effect gameplay too much to cause a large imbalance.

Edit-
Another thing to add is, when the RP view strikes heated arguments can go out of control. I'd appreciate it if we stayed away from this because everyone has a different idea of how their pets would behave should they step into the World of Warcraft.

By your reasoning survival spec hunters should have to wait until 69 for explosive shot.

If you think about it for a minute, we (meaning all classes not just hunters) now get all kinds of stuff from lvl 10 on that we used to have to level up to 50-60 for (+15-25% dmg bonus w/ various types of attacks, etc, and so forth), so compared to that, tame exotics, being 95% aesthetics, makes perfect sense.

Exactly.

[Worba]

Splitting exotics from their exotic abilities
There is ABSOLUTELY no difference between exotic pets and regular pets, save the secondary ability and a bunch of different looks, since their non-exotic abilities are standard. Blizzard most likely wants to keep the ability to tame exotics linked with the exotic ability of the pets because they wouldn't be exotic otherwise. This is actually a fair reasoning, since earning the right to tame exotics wouldn't mean quite as much were that the case. So even though on paper, I like the idea of splitting exotic pets from their exotic ability, just to allow for them to be tamed at a lower level, I can understand why Blizzard hasn't already done that.

I could sort of agree with you if not for the fact that regular pets have to wait till 20 just to get their regular ability, so there's already a pretty clear precedent for making pets wait on receiving their spells.

Lowering the level exotics can be tamed at
So say we don't split the exotics from their exotic abilities and look to drop the level they can be tamed at. As previously mentioned, shammies (in general) are already pretty ticked that bloodlust/heroism has been given to two other classes. If our puppy lust ability drops to something reasonable, say level 60 or so, then it's likely that the shaman one would need to drop as well. This would wreck havoc on the shaman abilities and the order players receive them, since undoubtedly, something would have to move to replace hero/blust at level 70.

Classes will always be playing tug o war somewhat with their respective abilities and functions (just wait and see what happens after the next heroic class is announced...), and as others have noted I don't think this will be a huge deal if they use common sense scaling - at least in the 5 man crowd BL is kind of incidental, and larger events than that aren't going to be happening till higher levels anyway.

In other words, even a small level change would impact more than just us, just due to one exotic ability alone. This isn't even considering the other potentially overpowered abilities, even on the ones that could theoretically scale with level/gear (I'm looking at chimeras and worms here).

Again, scaling.

[Worba]

In case there was any confusion, I'm not against exotics becoming tamable at a lower level. I'm merely playing devil's advocate and trying to approach the situation as Blizzard might in order to refine our collective thought process.

That is an extremely constructive way to approach the issue, thank you.

[Kalliope]

Splitting exotics from their exotic abilities
There is ABSOLUTELY no difference between exotic pets and regular pets, save the secondary ability and a bunch of different looks, since their non-exotic abilities are standard. Blizzard most likely wants to keep the ability to tame exotics linked with the exotic ability of the pets because they wouldn't be exotic otherwise. This is actually a fair reasoning, since earning the right to tame exotics wouldn't mean quite as much were that the case. So even though on paper, I like the idea of splitting exotic pets from their exotic ability, just to allow for them to be tamed at a lower level, I can understand why Blizzard hasn't already done that.

I could sort of agree with you if not for the fact that regular pets have to wait till 20 just to get their regular ability, so there's already a pretty clear precedent for making pets wait on receiving their spells.

Nope. They get Cower at level 20, but even level 1 pets have the regular family ability.

Lowering the level exotics can be tamed at
So say we don't split the exotics from their exotic abilities and look to drop the level they can be tamed at. As previously mentioned, shammies (in general) are already pretty ticked that bloodlust/heroism has been given to two other classes. If our puppy lust ability drops to something reasonable, say level 60 or so, then it's likely that the shaman one would need to drop as well. This would wreck havoc on the shaman abilities and the order players receive them, since undoubtedly, something would have to move to replace hero/blust at level 70.

Classes will always be playing tug o war somewhat with their respective abilities and functions (just wait and see what happens after the next heroic class is announced...), and as others have noted I don't think this will be a huge deal if they use common sense scaling - at least in the 5 man crowd BL is kind of incidental, and larger events than that aren't going to be happening till higher levels anyway.

I was kinda thinking of puppy lust in BGs, especially once you get into longevity and such. That's under a 5m cd for something that can be popped as long as there are friendly players around without the debuff. Of course, Blizzard really doesn't care about balance pre-max level, so it's possible that even hero/blust aren't a big deal anymore. Still, I guarantee that shammies will complain unless theirs drops in level too, which might screw up when they learn other abilities.

In other words, even a small level change would impact more than just us, just due to one exotic ability alone. This isn't even considering the other potentially overpowered abilities, even on the ones that could theoretically scale with level/gear (I'm looking at chimeras and worms here).

Again, scaling.

Scaling kinda depends on how the abilities are currently coded. If the abilities were coded sloppily originally, making them scale might not be so easy, or it might break some things, therefore becoming more effort than is worth putting into the project.

[Gimlion]

I would just like to say the Devilsaurs are far more intelligent... Any 3 ton beast that can move around like a ninja, then laugh manically at your corpse is Intelligent in my book. And The Silithid are extremely intelligent. As much so as their northern counterparts in Azjol'Nerub.

[Worba]

I could sort of agree with you if not for the fact that regular pets have to wait till 20 just to get their regular ability, so there's already a pretty clear precedent for making pets wait on receiving their spells.

Nope. They get Cower at level 20, but even level 1 pets have the regular family ability.

Wrong. Pets have to wait till 20 for their family ability. I have a turtle on my lvl 15 draenei right now who does not have shell shield anywhere in his spellbook, and furthermore the spell descriptions for pet special abilities over at wowhead all list them as lvl 20 minimum:

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=24604

Etc.

I was kinda thinking of puppy lust in BGs, especially once you get into longevity and such. That's under a 5m cd for something that can be popped as long as there are friendly players around without the debuff. Of course, Blizzard really doesn't care about balance pre-max level, so it's possible that even hero/blust aren't a big deal anymore. Still, I guarantee that shammies will complain unless theirs drops in level too, which might screw up when they learn other abilities.

As you said, that's a situation where Blizzard historically has never cared particularly about balance, so any complaining at that point would most likely be the inevitable kind that follows any change no matter how small.

Scaling kinda depends on how the abilities are currently coded. If the abilities were coded sloppily originally, making them scale might not be so easy, or it might break some things, therefore becoming more effort than is worth putting into the project.

That's all speculation; all we can do is put forth suggestions for changes we would like to see, and leave it to the devs to evaluate the difficulty, assign priority and so forth.

[Shinryu Masaki]

Scaling kinda depends on how the abilities are currently coded. If the abilities were coded sloppily originally, making them scale might not be so easy, or it might break some things, therefore becoming more effort than is worth putting into the project.

Funny thing is, for Ancient Hysteria, the skill is really broken when you're playing Alliance side. Might be too for Horde but I don't have a high enough hunter to test it, nor do I know a high level Horde shaman to help me out.

It does apply the Bloodlust version of the spell, and the pet itself isn't affected by it. Now if a shaman decides to use Heroism, the pet will receive the buff! That's not right and it should be fixed.

[Kalliope]

I could sort of agree with you if not for the fact that regular pets have to wait till 20 just to get their regular ability, so there's already a pretty clear precedent for making pets wait on receiving their spells.

Nope. They get Cower at level 20, but even level 1 pets have the regular family ability.

Wrong. Pets have to wait till 20 for their family ability. I have a turtle on my lvl 15 draenei right now who does not have shell shield anywhere in his spellbook, and furthermore the spell descriptions for pet special abilities over at wowhead all list them as lvl 20 minimum:

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=24604

Etc.

Then starter pets are bugged. I made a dwarf hunter on the PTR before and her bear had demo roar.

Scaling kinda depends on how the abilities are currently coded. If the abilities were coded sloppily originally, making them scale might not be so easy, or it might break some things, therefore becoming more effort than is worth putting into the project.

That's all speculation; all we can do is put forth suggestions for changes we would like to see, and leave it to the devs to evaluate the difficulty, assign priority and so forth.

Pretty much!

Scaling kinda depends on how the abilities are currently coded. If the abilities were coded sloppily originally, making them scale might not be so easy, or it might break some things, therefore becoming more effort than is worth putting into the project.

Funny thing is, for Ancient Hysteria, the skill is really broken when you're playing Alliance side. Might be too for Horde but I don't have a high enough hunter to test it, nor do I know a high level Horde shaman to help me out.

It does apply the Bloodlust version of the spell, and the pet itself isn't affected by it. Now if a shaman decides to use Heroism, the pet will receive the buff! That's not right and it should be fixed.

I've reported this before, but it hasn't gone anywhere. It *is* on both factions. This seems to be an oversight regarding hero/blust, since all other buffs (kings, might, horn of winter, etc.) don't apply to pets anymore.

[rackornar]

Well guys. Let me put it this way.

If they should ever give us exotics at level 10.....

10 bucks says they will take away their second ability. PERMANENTLY. Blizzard is known for this sort of thing to pull.

So is that really worth it to you then? Ask yourself that cause that's exactly what would happen because it would cause an uproar.

Or, in a nerfy huff they could restrict bows/guns proficiency to 40, thus requiring new hunters to first learn the ropes as melee hunters - are we all prepared for THAT??

20 bucks say they won't, and that any pet abilities pre-69 would be handled by simple scaling logic.

They just got rid of scaling spells, meaning they arent going to put it back just for exotics.

While that would suck, I'd deal with it. Not the end of the world, as you put it in a previous topic.

No they didn't get rid of scaling spells, they removed ranks. If you look at your spells they scale automatically every time you level. All your shots/spells/skills have their damage amounts automatically increased, it is perhaps one of the largest changes to leveling especially in regards to casters since you no longer have to wait for a new rank of your main spell and instead it automatically gets better each time you level. So in reality they aren't putting back something they have taken out... instead they would be making pets go along with the standard they just introduced to every class. If they nerf the exotics for being level 10 I expect a nerf to every other ability handed to classes at level 10 now because they all were allowed to stay strong...

[Worba]

Then starter pets are bugged. I made a dwarf hunter on the PTR before and her bear had demo roar.

Live > PTR (plus, if it truly was a bug, wouldn't wowhead have them listed as lvl 1?).

[Worba]

They just got rid of scaling spells, meaning they arent going to put it back just for exotics.

While that would suck, I'd deal with it. Not the end of the world, as you put it in a previous topic.

No they didn't get rid of scaling spells, they removed ranks. If you look at your spells they scale automatically every time you level. All your shots/spells/skills have their damage amounts automatically increased, it is perhaps one of the largest changes to leveling especially in regards to casters since you no longer have to wait for a new rank of your main spell and instead it automatically gets better each time you level. So in reality they aren't putting back something they have taken out... instead they would be making pets go along with the standard they just introduced to every class. If they nerf the exotics for being level 10 I expect a nerf to every other ability handed to classes at level 10 now because they all were allowed to stay strong...

This ^

I don't know why people have such a hard time differentiating between "ranks" (which concept was largely superficial/cosmetic even before they removed it outright), and "scaling" (something that always has and will be at the core of any leveling system).

[ummeiko]

Then starter pets are bugged. I made a dwarf hunter on the PTR before and her bear had demo roar.

This is partly true on live even. I made a new night elf last night, and the kitty came with roar of courage and I think cower (I don't know if it's bartender that let me see the pet bar even though nothing on it works yet, or if that's a bug and everyone sees that anyway). However, neither of them actually ever cast, and at about level 5 they suddenly disappeared. So check to make sure your bear is actually CASTING demo roar. Either way, they're not supposed to have the family skills until later.

I originally wasn't going to throw in my opinion here, though I've been lurking it for days. I'm in the middle on the issue to be honest. I think Intimidation is a terrible level 10 ability, and I think level 69 for exotics IS too long to wait. A lot of the reasons people have given for why it needs to stay honestly don't sit well with me.

1."We leveled just fine before without them. So you can too."

Yeah, we did. However, we leveled with a lot of god-awful things in vanilla and beyond. Remember traveling across the continents to tame a totally new cat, shooting a few things with it until "you have learned a new skill: Claw (Rank 4)" then abandoning it, running back to a stable master and pulling out your old faithful pet and training it claw rank 4? Remember Training Points? Pet Loyalty? Trying to level a pet from 30 to 70 by having to attack level 65+ mobs, which your pet could hardly hit let alone hold aggro on, so you ended up kiting or meleeing down mobs for hours (days) just to level your pet?

I could pull out a lot of non-hunter related things too. Healing gear had no damage, so have fun doing quests if you're a holy priest. Wands didn't auto-shoot. Traveling to a dungeon took 30 minutes or more sometimes. Mages had to spend an hour before raid making water for all the casters. There was a difference between "Ram Riding" and "Nightsaber Riding" and "Raptor Riding" etc. The old PVP honor system, and dishonorable points. Paladin blessings lasted 5 minutes. Getting max level skills from boss drops in AQ 20. The inability to have multiple hots on one target (No, you can't cast renew on the tank, you only have rank 8, my rank 9 - from AQ of course - is better so let me put it up). The Ironforge AH and the Stormwind AH and the Darnassus AH were not connected... once all of cities actually GOT auction houses. Flight paths didn't auto-connect, so if you wanted to fly from Org to Gadget, you flew to Crossroads, got dismounted, flew from Crossroads to Camp T, dimsount, Camp T to Freewind, dismount, Freewind to Gadget (and that's assuming you knew what connected to where, which wasn't always obvious - think of some of the crazy flightpaths we've had over the years).

I mean, there's a long list of things we "levelled just fine" with, but I for one wouldn't want to go back to entirely. Sometimes changes are actually for the better.

2. "Cata is supposed to be a challenge. It's not a challenge if they just hand it to you."

Leveling is not supposed to be the challenge they are talking about. Over the years they have taken many strides to make leveling LESS of a chore, by making quests easier, travel time shorter, increased xp gains, etc. 80+ levels is a lot to go through if every 3 minutes you are running back from the graveyard because every regular mob hits you for 20% of your hp. THAT's a "challenge".

Beyond that, waiting is not a challenge. It's a chore. One of the things I disliked about some of the raids is gating... because it artificially lengthens the instance. I'm not talking about "you must beat W, X, and Y bosses to try Z", I'm talking about, "you can only do boss A and B, and four weeks later, we'll open up C." All it does is artificially lengthen the instance. "See, no beat boss Z until six months after the instance came out". The point is, waiting for the sake of waiting isn't hard, it's just arbitrary.

3. "BM is not all about exotics."

No, it's not. And I'll give you that. BUT, it has been a major defining aspect of the spec for the past two years. You don't have to use an exotic pet by any means, but believe it or not, there is a major connection. In fact, given the times and the population of WoW these days, you could probably make just as much connection between BM and exotics as BM and bestial wrath, if not more. It IS spec defining, espeically to outside classes. It's not the only thing, but it plays more of a role than I think some people are giving it credit for. Probably because wolves have been kings of the expansion. Had all pets been on more of an even footing, I would guess exotics would be a bit more prominent in distinguishing BM hunters."

Exotics are not the be all, end all of the spec. But neither is Bestial Wrath. And intimidation is DEFINITELY not what I think of when I think of BM.

4. "The exotic buffs are too OP while leveling".

The only one that most people (hunters and non) tend to think is OP at low levels is Ancient Hysteria. Everything else already scales, if people even think of them at all. Calling a Silithid stam buff at 35 OP is like calling a priest's Fort at 35 OP, or a warlock's Blood Pact - good luck finding someone who thinks this. All three are the same amount of health... the difference, I think, is that the Silithid buff is NEW, whereas Fort and Pact have been around for a long, long time. The Silithid's stam buff is different at 69 than it is at 85 (and would be different on a level 35 Silithid from Shimmering Flats if you could tame one right now). The spirit beast's Spirit Heal heals for a different amount at 74 and 85. Froststorm Breath and Burrow do different amounts of damage at different levels. And anything that's a %-base (Devilsaurs and Shales) already scale based on the players they're affecting.

I'm not a developer, but it seems reasonable that Ancient Hysteria could scale as well. 1 or 2% speed increase if you tame the Kurken at level 12... up to the full 30% at 70 or 85 or even 60 (MC tameable corehounds are 61... not sure what level the Beast is being made to, but I'm sure it's somewhere around there). Whether it would max out earlier, after, or at the same time as Shamans I don't think is a big deal to developers (probably mostly to Shamans). Not every class has to get the same buff at the same time, as long as end game they are the same. Blizzard has said this many times. And shamans can cry about not being special Bloodlust snowflakes anymore, but the Devs have said for a long time that there wasn't going to be a buff that only one class brought and that they were looking at spreading Bloodlust around, so everyone who's paid attention knew it was coming.

[Kalliope]

Then starter pets are bugged. I made a dwarf hunter on the PTR before and her bear had demo roar.

This is partly true on live even. I made a new night elf last night, and the kitty came with roar of courage and I think cower (I don't know if it's bartender that let me see the pet bar even though nothing on it works yet, or if that's a bug and everyone sees that anyway). However, neither of them actually ever cast, and at about level 5 they suddenly disappeared. So check to make sure your bear is actually CASTING demo roar. Either way, they're not supposed to have the family skills until later.

Ahhhh, so it IS a bug, or was when I last tested. My little bear had been aggroing all sorts of mobs that I wasn't actively attacking with it.

[Worba]

At any rate, as pet family abilities are not intended to be available prior to 20, it does appear Blizzard is comfortable with separating young pets from their skills.

That being said, like you, I was speaking mostly as the devil's advocate here - I don't have a really strong opinion about whether special abilities should be held back, or not.

To me, any reasonably acceptable way to free tame exotics from the 31 pt slot and make it a core passive, is fine.

My personal preference is on a somewhat larger scope -

1) Change worm / chimmy AOE to debuff instead of dmg (ok ok hear me out, yes i love my worm pet too!!)

2) Replace the 31 pt talent with Kill Them All; shares CD w/ kill command, does 50% dmg to all enemies in melee range of pet, usable with any pet

3) Make the newly available Tame Exotics a lvl 10 core passive - intimidate remains the core active

This way, no one feels forced to take worms or chimera over the rest of their trees, BM still gets the AOE boost that worm/chimmy direct dmg aoe was seemingly intended to fix, and new BM hunters get to actually make use of the various Azerothian exotics they come across in their adventures.

But again - whatever works; trying to expand the focus more than one step beyond tame exotics may be too much / too soon.

[Calomel]

Great big post of insightful stuff that makes sense.

YES. I've been trying to think of a way to add my two cents, but that sums it up pretty well.

[Shinryu Masaki]

At any rate, as pet family abilities are not intended to be available prior to 20, it does appear Blizzard is comfortable with separating young pets from their skills.

That being said, like you, I was speaking mostly as the devil's advocate here - I don't have a really strong opinion about whether special abilities should be held back, or not.

To me, any reasonably acceptable way to free tame exotics from the 31 pt slot and make it a core passive, is fine.

My personal preference is on a somewhat larger scope -

1) Change worm / chimmy AOE to debuff instead of dmg (ok ok hear me out, yes i love my worm pet too!!)

2) Replace the 31 pt talent with Kill Them All; shares CD w/ kill command, does 50% dmg to all enemies in melee range of pet, usable with any pet

3) Make the newly available Tame Exotics a lvl 10 core passive - intimidate remains the core active

This way, no one feels forced to take worms or chimera over the rest of their trees, BM still gets the AOE boost that worm/chimmy direct dmg aoe was seemingly intended to fix, and new BM hunters get to actually make use of the various Azerothian exotics they come across in their adventures.

But again - whatever works; trying to expand the focus more than one step beyond tame exotics may be too much / too soon.

I honestly REALLY like number 2! Good way to not pigeon hole us to only using a worm and chimaera for AoE.

[Worba]

At any rate, as pet family abilities are not intended to be available prior to 20, it does appear Blizzard is comfortable with separating young pets from their skills.

That being said, like you, I was speaking mostly as the devil's advocate here - I don't have a really strong opinion about whether special abilities should be held back, or not.

To me, any reasonably acceptable way to free tame exotics from the 31 pt slot and make it a core passive, is fine.

My personal preference is on a somewhat larger scope -

1) Change worm / chimmy AOE to debuff instead of dmg (ok ok hear me out, yes i love my worm pet too!!)

2) Replace the 31 pt talent with Kill Them All; shares CD w/ kill command, does 50% dmg to all enemies in melee range of pet, usable with any pet

3) Make the newly available Tame Exotics a lvl 10 core passive - intimidate remains the core active

This way, no one feels forced to take worms or chimera over the rest of their trees, BM still gets the AOE boost that worm/chimmy direct dmg aoe was seemingly intended to fix, and new BM hunters get to actually make use of the various Azerothian exotics they come across in their adventures.

But again - whatever works; trying to expand the focus more than one step beyond tame exotics may be too much / too soon.

I honestly REALLY like number 2! Good way to not pigeon hole us to only using a worm and chimaera for AoE.

Thanks