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

[Wain]

Hati's dismissal seems to be different every time because I think they're just checking if Hati should be active every 5 seconds or so. Sometimes Hati will vanish almost immediately, sometimes it will take the full 5 sec depending where the timer is. It's kind of a sloppy way to do it.

I think you may be right there, that his dismissal check is just part of a generic global ticker rather than a direct call to him. :/

[zedxrgal]

I finally got some beta time in yesterday. Spent several hours on my gnome hunter trying to give BM a fair shake. Between the disconnects (leveling realm 3) and CONSTANT pet deaths, lag etc BM was ..................... blah. Just really really boring. Same two or three buttons over and over.
To me, the quest line for the artifact weapon was very very boring. Haven't tried SV, MM yet but I intend to. Sadly (again this is me personally) everything about BM seems to be very lackluster including just getting Titanstrike. I actually became so frustrated and bored (don't want to post spoilers) I didn't even bother logging back in after being disconnected again.

BM, as of yesterday, to me still seems very very broken. Am I the only one?

[Valnaaros]

I myself really like the questline to obtain Titanstrike. I have seen the same opinion on other forums. But, of course, everyome has different tastes

Personally, I don't mind BM that much. It isn't as good as it is in WoD, but it isn't terrible.

[zedxrgal]

Part of my poor experience quite possibly could have also been just how unstable the beta was yesterday & my pet constantly dying. I am not swearing off it yet. But it's certainly not looking good. Things seems VERY buggy yesterday. So much lag.

[Valnaaros]

Yeah, Blizz has made a post about how laggy it has been in the Beta and PTR. Said they are working on it

[Nachtwulf]

I can't help feeling that the pet nerfs are because Bliz has taken this opportunity to bring hunters more 'in line' with other classes. In WoD, for example, there's that elekk outside the Alliance fort that there's a quest to kill. I never blinked doing it at 90/91 as a hunter, I soloed it easy. I tried it on some other classes and got stomped. The pet tanking thing is really powerful when it comes to soloing PVE content. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they've been getting lots of reports whining that 'so and so hunter solos everything and I have to get help' so they nerfed the hell out of pets so we're as squishy as rogues and mages. Or close to it.

[Sukurachi]

as mail wearers, we SHOULDN'T be as squishy as rogues or mages.

[Rikaku]

I can't help feeling that the pet nerfs are because Bliz has taken this opportunity to bring hunters more 'in line' with other classes. In WoD, for example, there's that elekk outside the Alliance fort that there's a quest to kill. I never blinked doing it at 90/91 as a hunter, I soloed it easy. I tried it on some other classes and got stomped. The pet tanking thing is really powerful when it comes to soloing PVE content. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they've been getting lots of reports whining that 'so and so hunter solos everything and I have to get help' so they nerfed the hell out of pets so we're as squishy as rogues and mages. Or close to it.

I was actually just thinking this the other day. I had bumped into a rare spawn that dropped a mount in Nagrand (Nakk). I was MM at the time cause I came fresh out of a raid, and it did kill me despite my best efforts and my gear. I switched to BM, pet tank (in ferocity adaptation). Not even close to a problem solo.

In beta yesterday, I was hanging around elites that it seemed it took a group to kill (group of 110's) because I watched a group of about 1 mage and 3 demon hunters wait for one more person and begin to attack this elite. I had forgotten about the elite, was questing nearby, and got jumped by the elite. I sent my Tenacity pet out and had no problem whatsoever tanking the elite or even my pet taking damage, even when other adds jumped in the fight.

All lag and instability issues aside, I really don't think BM pets are in a "terrible" place other than number adjusting like Spirit Mend being really low, or sometimes pets not coming out of play dead/feign death. And its possible to play as ferocity and still have your pet tank, I just think it takes more work now than it did in the past. I leveled one of my beta hunters to 110 with purely ferocity pets (spirit beasts). It wasn't impossible, but they are definitely more "glass cannon" then they are Live. But switching pet to tenacity, my pets don't even flinch from the mobs really. But as BM, I have no problem tanking groups and elites and having a cleave party.

When the servers aren't actively trying to murder me with lag. And the lag will murder you regardless of spec/class. IT HAS NO MERCY.

I myself really like the questline to obtain Titanstrike. I have seen the same opinion on other forums. But, of course, everyome has different tastes

Personally, I don't mind BM that much. It isn't as good as it is in WoD, but it isn't terrible.

I agree, the "feel" of the artifact is going to depend on your tastes. Personally, I've done the questline for all 3 artifacts for Hunter several times over now. I've leveled each spec, played around with it... BM is by far my favorite. In terms of artifact and playstyle and even animations (now that the yelling has been severely reduced). I love the speed at which I play and move. Even if the spec has been hit with the "dumbed-down stick" in terms of abilities, I'm still having way more fun as BM then I am any other spec (or class even since... really I don't like how half my alts play currently).

[zedxrgal]

Ok so at this point I am wondering if I was having so many problems keeping my mech bunny & fresh tamed bear alive not because of their low health but because of the severe bugs /lag the game was having??

I noticed when I changed between specs even the lag was severe. Poor Grouch (bear) just couldn't stay alive no matter how much I healed.

Everything just seemed to take forever. Cut scenes didn't really work or would cut off prematurely and in part of the quest for Titanstrike I almost had to abandon it since I couldn't target the lightning orbs. I submitted bug reports like crazy because I wasn't what exactly was meant to function like that or what.

Hopefully tonight will provide a little bit of happiness. The whole Titanstrike quest line was very buggy & laggy so I am praying that's why I wasn't happy.

Can you abandon the artifact quests and easily get them again or should I just try and pick up where I left off?

[Rikaku]

Ok so at this point I am wondering if I was having so many problems keeping my mech bunny & fresh tamed bear alive not because of their low health but because of the severe bugs /lag the game was having??

I noticed when I changed between specs even the lag was severe. Poor Grouch (bear) just couldn't stay alive no matter how much I healed.

Everything just seemed to take forever. Cut scenes didn't really work or would cut off prematurely and in part of the quest for Titanstrike I almost had to abandon it since I couldn't target the lightning orbs. I submitted bug reports like crazy because I wasn't what exactly was meant to function like that or what.

Hopefully tonight will provide a little bit of happiness. The whole Titanstrike quest line was very buggy & laggy so I am praying that's why I wasn't happy.

Can you abandon the artifact quests and easily get them again or should I just try and pick up where I left off?

My bet would be on the server lag. The beta servers this past weekend were terrible, even for beta. Like... that was the worst lag and overall instability I've seen the beta have since beta first began. When I tried to play, there were times that I would be getting hit by something that I had passed by nearly 30 seconds ago, and I couldn't do anything but just die because none of my skills would land. There would be big spikes where my pets wouldn't attack anything just due to lag, so things would proceed to eat my face.

It was just really. Awful. Lag. I think blues even commented that something was wrong due to how severe the instability was. So I would definitely give the beta a go again and see if your experience improves.

Yeah with lag like that, the BM artifact quest would be nearly impossible and/or just plain annoying just because of the mechanics actually in the acquisition quest. If you're lagging, you'll miss clicks/jumps/balls of death that will be coming for you. It's definitely not supposed to act like that. I've done the acquisition quest with and without lag a few times, and without lag its actually an interesting/fun chain (depending on how you feel about raid-esque mechanics).

Yeah, you can abandon the quests and it will just show up again on the last NPC you picked it up from. But I wouldn't always recommend that, only because sometimes the beta bugs out (and especially when there's instability issues) and it could end up where you abandon the quest and the quest doesn't go back to the last quest giver NPC like its supposed to.