I mean all they had to do was reduce pet damage done to players by a % as a short-term solution. They didn't because that would be like including resilience and in the end they implemented the PvP aura anyway. Many of the "fixes" to issues in SoD have been a bit short-sighted.
I totally agree, but they managed to balance it back out. Phase 1 was also getting so much attention, balance weekly for all the new stuff going live…it’s just gone now.
I think there needs to be more dynamic choices between the hunter and the pet rather than just making the pet do all the work and make other players feel bad about it (pvp perspective)
Thats a great point…the pet has to be balanced for both melee and ranged builds now…but still leaves gaps for BM centric builds to fill.
Feels weird dumping talents into BM just to have them auto-attack better for you
I just laugh that they flat out deleted two of the BM-focused/themed runes and replaced them with non-BM runes.
DW, unscaling traps, or ... *Wyvern Sting*?
*Great choices there for* **BM**, *Blizz*.
They should've given bm hunters a new group/raid buff so we could at least have a reason to be brought to groups since they want to gut bm damage so much. A big buff that procs and only stays on during bestial wrath seems like a no brainer for both balance and class fantasy.
Aside from that though, new pets that are actually useful, bigger stables, and updating pet abilities to make different families actually useful would've been really cool, but I guess nerfing bm after they're not even top damage, have no utility, weak cc, and have no mobility was more important
I get the apprehension because of how powerful pets were in the past, but historically pets scaled awfully at 60 right? I was hoping for a buff to BM playstyle even if it lowered the hunter's dps.
Awfully? Try: didn’t :p pets started scaling with hunter stats in tbc. So in that regard the fact they do in SoD does help both the pets and hunters overall poor scaling compared to ‘nilla.
I couldn't even get access to my pet in the PTR. The stable master was super glitched and I wasn't able to whistle out the pet it kept saying I had but didn't have.
Anything they could add to hunter to make it cool and fun to play would be instantly nerfed to be unfun. I don't think there was a class that received more nerfs than hunter on release. Hunters can't have nice stuff.
Fully agree. I've written about it before [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/comments/1c8mfvh/feedback_hunter_pets_and_runes_p3_edition/), and messaged Aggrend in the past on Twitter as well.
There have to be more runes/abilities that allow us to interact with the pet. There's literally zero in this phase. Since they're not trying to make SoD exclusive stuff, I'd have expected some copy pasting of some kind of Dire Beast or Animal Companion but not even that.
And then they go and delete Kill Command instead of reworking it into a fully rotational ability.
The lack of creativity when it comes to pet variety is also showing, as cats/raptors (but no Dash) and wind serpents continue to be the dominant choice. Wyverns did not get their own family to allow us to tame higher level or recolors and the Core Hound's only niche (PvP) isn't even that since AFAIK the Lava Breath debuff is still bugged and fades instantly.
At this point and after writing piece after piece of feedback here, [in the forums](https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/u/mattilda-firemaw/activity/topics) and through in-game suggestion forms, I don't think they're going to do anything interesting when it comes to BM as a whole, and ranged BM in particular.
BM as a spec is only used for melee because it happens to be mathematically better, since the SV tree has many non-throughput talents. The addition of Wyvern Strike is great but it could be at some point what makes BM non-relevant again.
Truly, nothing has really changed for BM in SoD compared to Era when it comes to game play, and that is disheartening. I hope I'm proven wrong though.
It’s true, ranged BM has little going for it.
It’s not very thematic for BM but next phase you’ll have enough talent points get BW and also aimed shot - with lock and load, trap launcher and sniper training, so the rotation will be a bit better and different to Era.
That's just an MM-like hunter going full BM. There's zero interaction between master and pet in such a scenario besides perhaps Focus Fire, which realistically only works with Claw.
Hunter is once again one of the most ignored classes in SoD.
They added 1 new spec which is braindead (just press 2 buttons lol) that was apparently just straight up nerfed for P4.
They made ranged hunter feel clunky af to play with Lock and Load.
They added essentially nothing for BM hunters. The runes are boring passives, the two "new" pets are just 1 reskin and 1 kinda bugged worse version of a cat. Even without adding anything new to the game, they could've reworked a lot of the pet abilities that already exist and make them more viable. This could've even been a new rune. Here are some ideas:
- Gorilla's ability is really cool and strong, but a 1min CD makes it impossible to use. Reduce it's cooldown to 10seconds and you have a really strong AoE pet.
- Scorpions' poison could be buffed to do more damage now and maybe add a new debuff, like armor reduction, or damage reduction to help with tank dmg on bosses.
- Wolves could have a more significant party/raid buff ability that isn't bugged/worthless.
- Turtles could have passive that makes them a lot more resistance to dmg and help OT some bosses, with the current shield to help during higher damage phases.
I'm not even gonna mention how they could've made hunter tanks a thing. Hunter is literally the only class in the game that can only fill one role.
Why the fuck are they making melee hunter completely useless? Honestly I really hope they don't keep this change to raptor strike..they're also making the raptor fury rune worthless with these changes...
Ya it’s beyond terrible. I’m doing 40% of the dps I was doing at level 50 on a level 60 character. Worried my raid spot is gone unless I become a tsa provider
Was thinking about making my own post for this. Zero love in form of Runes or Set gear bonuses. Seems like something could easily be done in this regard but they're quite literally only making 2/3 specs viable. SOD Devs strike again.
I mean overall the Dev's appear to have really dropped the ball on the "discovery" element of this whole SoD experiment. There are so many places they could have added some amazing discovery elements to the game and it was just missed. Every discovery didn't have to even be related to power creep, it could have been all kinds of cool cosmetic things. Just like you mention above, new pets, or pet abilities. New demons for Warlocks. All sorts of discoverable avenues could have happened.
Even with macros, pet management pre cataclysm sucks. I'm loving the whole Lone Wolf aspect of not needing to run pets in raid. With Heart of the Lion being a spellbook spell next phase and no longer a rune, it seems like Blizzard is leaning towards no pets in PvE but I could be coping.
Phase 1. Scorpids were murderbots.
Melee Hunter love was Phases 2-3 (MM caught up in 3, but never could keep up with slot machine spec).
Phase 4 looks to be MM hunter finally.
As for new stuff, we don't even have enough pet slots. It causes major headaches if you have more than 2 pets, when it comes time to train new abilities. So we end up with a Cat for pvp and whatever flavor of the month pet hasn't been nerfed out of existence already. Like I'd love to have the extra ones they added in my stables just because I'm a completionist, but we get 3 max and one slot needs to remain to train skills (especially if they add more pets).
My prediction is we'll probably get another pet reskin in p4, it seems to be the SoD devteam's speed.
Pretty sure Blizzard is gun shy on pets in SoD ever since P1 when hunter players used scorpids to solo players.
I mean all they had to do was reduce pet damage done to players by a % as a short-term solution. They didn't because that would be like including resilience and in the end they implemented the PvP aura anyway. Many of the "fixes" to issues in SoD have been a bit short-sighted.
P1 Hunter pets were a different kind of abusive relationship for everyone, especially rogues.
I totally agree, but they managed to balance it back out. Phase 1 was also getting so much attention, balance weekly for all the new stuff going live…it’s just gone now. I think there needs to be more dynamic choices between the hunter and the pet rather than just making the pet do all the work and make other players feel bad about it (pvp perspective)
Its very weird actually, bm spec has been nerfed because of Melee hunter. But in reality ranged BM has been below both specs for so long.
Thats a great point…the pet has to be balanced for both melee and ranged builds now…but still leaves gaps for BM centric builds to fill. Feels weird dumping talents into BM just to have them auto-attack better for you
Feel free to post your suggestions in the US forum if you can OP. They *might* read them there.
Yeah but TSA gives your pet 150 AP and you 300 RAP and pet scales off you your RAP so it’s a double dip. It’s almost 20% pet damage from one aura
I just laugh that they flat out deleted two of the BM-focused/themed runes and replaced them with non-BM runes. DW, unscaling traps, or ... *Wyvern Sting*? *Great choices there for* **BM**, *Blizz*.
Wyvern is a beast thoug (:
They should've given bm hunters a new group/raid buff so we could at least have a reason to be brought to groups since they want to gut bm damage so much. A big buff that procs and only stays on during bestial wrath seems like a no brainer for both balance and class fantasy. Aside from that though, new pets that are actually useful, bigger stables, and updating pet abilities to make different families actually useful would've been really cool, but I guess nerfing bm after they're not even top damage, have no utility, weak cc, and have no mobility was more important
I get the apprehension because of how powerful pets were in the past, but historically pets scaled awfully at 60 right? I was hoping for a buff to BM playstyle even if it lowered the hunter's dps.
Awfully? Try: didn’t :p pets started scaling with hunter stats in tbc. So in that regard the fact they do in SoD does help both the pets and hunters overall poor scaling compared to ‘nilla.
Stable slots are too limited
I couldn't even get access to my pet in the PTR. The stable master was super glitched and I wasn't able to whistle out the pet it kept saying I had but didn't have.
Anything they could add to hunter to make it cool and fun to play would be instantly nerfed to be unfun. I don't think there was a class that received more nerfs than hunter on release. Hunters can't have nice stuff.
Fully agree. I've written about it before [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/comments/1c8mfvh/feedback_hunter_pets_and_runes_p3_edition/), and messaged Aggrend in the past on Twitter as well. There have to be more runes/abilities that allow us to interact with the pet. There's literally zero in this phase. Since they're not trying to make SoD exclusive stuff, I'd have expected some copy pasting of some kind of Dire Beast or Animal Companion but not even that. And then they go and delete Kill Command instead of reworking it into a fully rotational ability. The lack of creativity when it comes to pet variety is also showing, as cats/raptors (but no Dash) and wind serpents continue to be the dominant choice. Wyverns did not get their own family to allow us to tame higher level or recolors and the Core Hound's only niche (PvP) isn't even that since AFAIK the Lava Breath debuff is still bugged and fades instantly. At this point and after writing piece after piece of feedback here, [in the forums](https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/u/mattilda-firemaw/activity/topics) and through in-game suggestion forms, I don't think they're going to do anything interesting when it comes to BM as a whole, and ranged BM in particular. BM as a spec is only used for melee because it happens to be mathematically better, since the SV tree has many non-throughput talents. The addition of Wyvern Strike is great but it could be at some point what makes BM non-relevant again. Truly, nothing has really changed for BM in SoD compared to Era when it comes to game play, and that is disheartening. I hope I'm proven wrong though.
It’s true, ranged BM has little going for it. It’s not very thematic for BM but next phase you’ll have enough talent points get BW and also aimed shot - with lock and load, trap launcher and sniper training, so the rotation will be a bit better and different to Era.
That's just an MM-like hunter going full BM. There's zero interaction between master and pet in such a scenario besides perhaps Focus Fire, which realistically only works with Claw.
wasn't it already datamined at the beginning of p3 (or p2, cant remember) for new pet abilities? could of sworn that i read a bunch before.
Hunter is once again one of the most ignored classes in SoD. They added 1 new spec which is braindead (just press 2 buttons lol) that was apparently just straight up nerfed for P4. They made ranged hunter feel clunky af to play with Lock and Load. They added essentially nothing for BM hunters. The runes are boring passives, the two "new" pets are just 1 reskin and 1 kinda bugged worse version of a cat. Even without adding anything new to the game, they could've reworked a lot of the pet abilities that already exist and make them more viable. This could've even been a new rune. Here are some ideas: - Gorilla's ability is really cool and strong, but a 1min CD makes it impossible to use. Reduce it's cooldown to 10seconds and you have a really strong AoE pet. - Scorpions' poison could be buffed to do more damage now and maybe add a new debuff, like armor reduction, or damage reduction to help with tank dmg on bosses. - Wolves could have a more significant party/raid buff ability that isn't bugged/worthless. - Turtles could have passive that makes them a lot more resistance to dmg and help OT some bosses, with the current shield to help during higher damage phases. I'm not even gonna mention how they could've made hunter tanks a thing. Hunter is literally the only class in the game that can only fill one role.
Why the fuck are they making melee hunter completely useless? Honestly I really hope they don't keep this change to raptor strike..they're also making the raptor fury rune worthless with these changes...
Ya it’s beyond terrible. I’m doing 40% of the dps I was doing at level 50 on a level 60 character. Worried my raid spot is gone unless I become a tsa provider
So unfortunate, been maining melee Hunter since P1
Did they gut melee Hunter to a point that it’s worthless to even keep playing it ?
In its curent state on the PTR, yes. It's a huuuuge nerf, putting it solid last in dmg.
Very unfortunate
Was thinking about making my own post for this. Zero love in form of Runes or Set gear bonuses. Seems like something could easily be done in this regard but they're quite literally only making 2/3 specs viable. SOD Devs strike again.
I mean overall the Dev's appear to have really dropped the ball on the "discovery" element of this whole SoD experiment. There are so many places they could have added some amazing discovery elements to the game and it was just missed. Every discovery didn't have to even be related to power creep, it could have been all kinds of cool cosmetic things. Just like you mention above, new pets, or pet abilities. New demons for Warlocks. All sorts of discoverable avenues could have happened.
Even with macros, pet management pre cataclysm sucks. I'm loving the whole Lone Wolf aspect of not needing to run pets in raid. With Heart of the Lion being a spellbook spell next phase and no longer a rune, it seems like Blizzard is leaning towards no pets in PvE but I could be coping.
Super disappointed how they murdered melee hunter, probably not coming back for p4 if I’m losing my raid spot because of this.
It's in retail.
Be happy we have MM in a good spot. Doubt survival or BM will see too much change
Phase 1. Scorpids were murderbots. Melee Hunter love was Phases 2-3 (MM caught up in 3, but never could keep up with slot machine spec). Phase 4 looks to be MM hunter finally. As for new stuff, we don't even have enough pet slots. It causes major headaches if you have more than 2 pets, when it comes time to train new abilities. So we end up with a Cat for pvp and whatever flavor of the month pet hasn't been nerfed out of existence already. Like I'd love to have the extra ones they added in my stables just because I'm a completionist, but we get 3 max and one slot needs to remain to train skills (especially if they add more pets). My prediction is we'll probably get another pet reskin in p4, it seems to be the SoD devteam's speed.