Good news about Stampede!!!

[Taeliana]

A recent quote from Ghostcrawler form the Beta Class Balance Analysis thread in the Beta forums:

"Anyways, the main theorycraft question I have is in regards to stampede mechanics and intent as it relates to the extra pet's abilities. Obviously there are two styles of abilities of note that I would love to see addressed, those are the party buffs and the target debuffs."

"The pets will indeed use their special abilities, using whatever autocast settings they had last. The buffs/debuffs they apply will persist as long as they normally would.
Based on feedback, we are going to try an implementation of Stampede where the pets have more uptime (some combo of lower duration and shorter cooldown) but are weaker than they would be individually."

If this is implemented properly, this could make A LOT of very happy hunters!

[Kalliope]

Wowwwwwww. That's really REALLY cool. That explains the growl thing....

[Shinryu Masaki]

"Based on feedback, we are going to try an implementation of Stampede where the pets have more uptime (some combo of lower duration and shorter cooldown) but are weaker than they would be individually."

I'm really worried now about him saying a lower duration, since most people are already complaining that 10 secs is way too short.

[Kalliope]

"Based on feedback, we are going to try an implementation of Stampede where the pets have more uptime (some combo of lower duration and shorter cooldown) but are weaker than they would be individually."

I'm really worried now about him saying a lower duration, since most people are already complaining that 10 secs is way too short.

Mmm, true, that would be kind of crappy. Missed that part. :/

[Kurasu]

I compare Stampede to a badass Army Of The Dead. It doesn't seem t ome as if the damage would be *that* much more horrid, just done with five bigger hits rather than umpteen squillion fast, weaker hits. To that end, why not tweak it to have a similar uptime?

I know, hunters would like to summon them *more* often, but to me, that seems as if it would be a good balance.

[Acherontia]

That sounds insanely overpowered. Five Spirit Mends? O.o

[Taeliana]

Oh damn...I didn't even catch the part about "lower" duration. My brain saw the letters L and O at the beginning and automatically filled in the word "longer"

Maybe GC made a typo? *fingers crossed*

[Kalliope]

That sounds insanely overpowered. Five Spirit Mends? O.o

Yeah, I was thinking about that and other crazy stuff. You could bring an army of buff bots for bgs, 5ms, soloing....pretty nuts. And, dear god, if the cooldown drops enough, it could be used in arena. Now there's something that would piss everyone else off.

[Makoes]

I wonder if these stampeeding pets will be affected by Beastial wrath...Has anyone tried that yet?

I can understand making the called pets a bit weaker since there are a lot of them, but I dont mind the shorted CD, even with a shorter duration because I'd be able to summon them more.

The pets having thier abilities also makes stable line-up that much more important now...to have the buffs/debuffs/skills to cause havok in the different scenarieos, will be interesting to see what people come up with for max effects.

[SylviaDragon]

I’m hoping this will work out more like a shaman’s ghost wolves and less like an army of the dead- then I can take my babies to the arena >:3
Makes pet line ups really interesting. Do I want to go tame more spirit beasts for a spirit mend spam for soloing or pvp? Do I want a pack of buff pets for 5 mans? I could see this possibly being a problem with my core hound though if he can use hero, since I always bring him along for emergencies during raids and having it go off randomly would well.. not be good.

[Acherontia]

I could see this possibly being a problem with my core hound though if he can use hero, since I always bring him along for emergencies during raids and having it go off randomly would well.. not be good.

If they do give Ancient Hysteria an auto-cast in MoP, you should be able to just toggle it off. By the looks of the quoted text they won't use stuff that's toggled off, assuming it doesn't bug out horrendously like everything else, lol.

[Taeliana]

I got an update from Ghostcrawler in the Beta Class Balance Analysis thread about the duration:

"I am praying that the "lower" duration was a typo and what you meant was "longer" duration.
Yes, I meant longer duration on Stampede. Sorry."

Good news indeed!

[Kalliope]

I got an update from Ghostcrawler in the Beta Class Balance Analysis thread about the duration:

"I am praying that the "lower" duration was a typo and what you meant was "longer" duration.
Yes, I meant longer duration on Stampede. Sorry."

Good news indeed!

Eeee!

*happydances*

[Gimlion]

Hmmm, this + BW + Dire Beast may make BM a much better burst DPS spec, if not THE burst dps spec... 6 pets, with 5 enraged? Yuss Plox

[Shinryu Masaki]

I got an update from Ghostcrawler in the Beta Class Balance Analysis thread about the duration:

"I am praying that the "lower" duration was a typo and what you meant was "longer" duration.
Yes, I meant longer duration on Stampede. Sorry."

Good news indeed!

Awesome!

[Ziarre]

"The pets will indeed use their special abilities, using whatever autocast settings they had last. The buffs/debuffs they apply will persist as long as they normally would."

I have to say it...I don't like this. It means no matter who I WANT to bring, I'm going to feel obligated to fill all of my slots with pets that bring buffs to fill gaps in the raid--but wait, how the heck is this going to affect people using the glyph? If this happens as stated, then people using the minor glyph that's supposed to only be a cosmetic change...could well be gimping themselves. And I was really wanting to use that glyph...

With that in mind, I don't like this part of the statement at all. Take the pet-casted buffs out of the equation, and make using the glyph or not truly a cosmetic choice.

[Taeliana]

"The pets will indeed use their special abilities, using whatever autocast settings they had last. The buffs/debuffs they apply will persist as long as they normally would."

I have to say it...I don't like this. It means no matter who I WANT to bring, I'm going to feel obligated to fill all of my slots with pets that bring buffs to fill gaps in the raid--but wait, how the heck is this going to affect people using the glyph? If this happens as stated, then people using the minor glyph that's supposed to only be a cosmetic change...could well be gimping themselves. And I was really wanting to use that glyph...

With that in mind, I don't like this part of the statement at all. Take the pet-casted buffs out of the equation, and make using the glyph or not truly a cosmetic choice.

Well, idk. Generally speaking, whatever pet I had out during my raid was the only pet we needed the buff/debuff of at any given time, except for a few times when we needed both the crit buff AND the 8% spell power debuff. I don't think it will make that much of a difference outside of PvP (where it seems people bring specific pets with different buffs/debuffs/cc's and swap them in and out according to what they need).

I mean, I don't foresee the developers making the duration last so long that the pets could get off their special abilities more than once, and I'm sure the CD will still be fairly lengthy (i'm guessing 6 minutes so it can't be reset with readiness or used in arena). There might be an encounter where getting in a clutch spell casting slow or something would be helpful, but the extra buffs (even if they're ones your raid is missing) will only be up for a minute or two at most.

What I'm saying (in a long-winded, roundabout, pre-caffeinated way) is that you shouldn't feel obligated to run a certain stable other than whatever you usually have for raiding, and therefore the glyph won't really make a difference at all.

I think that the ability to have all the pets unleash their special abilities at once was more of a way to sweeten the ability for PvP hunters who were complaining that Stampede was utterly useless to them.

[Gimlion]

The only thing I could see, is that as a BM, if you're going raiding, to maximize dps you'll need to bring 5 ferocity pets. With the talenting system for pets atm, that's not that huge of a deal anyways.

[Nachtwulf]

I don't think the buff-spread thing is a big deal because at least in my experience, every buff I could bring in a raid environment is usually covered by someone already except maybe the +phys/+mag boost. Wolf? Covered. Cat? Covered. (Well currently. I don't know if a class is getting the mastery boost in MoP.) Sunder? Covered. I usually end up just pulling out whatever feroc pet I happen to feel like.

Also, since I usually have +phys/+mag pets both in my active list (because I switch between BM and Surv)... all this means is that for a time there'll be both buffs. It might make a SLIGHT bit of difference in 5mans, but I'm usually covering for all of one buff anyway because again, usually most of them are covered.

Also, it addresses their abilities but not their spec. It's quite possible they'll have some normalized 'stampede spec' instead of being feroc/tenac/cunning for the duration of the spell.

[Ziarre]

The question as to whether or not they keep their spec worries me as well, as I'm in the habit of keeping a tenacity pet on me at all times--several times it's saved a pull or boss fight gone wrong. It would be annoying at best to have to spec-swap all of the time...and then I'd lose that in-the-clutch ability to save the group.

My guild's raid makeup, and thus buffs brought, can be unpredictable. We're all generally pretty familiar with each other, so it's on a signup basis--and those that went to the previous week's raid have to wait out a 'cooldown' so that those that didn't go have a shot at getting in. So I generally feel obligated to bring a decent spread of buffs as it is, especially since I'm held in high esteem for what I can do with my BM spec. I want to keep the one or two slots I have for a tenacity or just-for-looks pet, y'know?