[BEAST MASTERY]Legion Alpha Discussion

[Firebyrd]

only dumb people would worry about damage numbers in beta. the spec is just gutted and boring.

BM was fine as it is on live and the fact celestalon defended the downtime of the new "class fantasy" version of the spec just goes to show the current devs are incompetent and shouldn't be redesigning anything.

This. Very much this. I don't give a crap about the numbers. They're going to be changed up to and even after release. I'm concerned about the playstyle and it has been gutted.

[Deleted]

Dunno, it's not THAT bad. The same discussion was going on every freaking expansion and in the end the sky didn't fall after all. The spec feels just fine with enough haste and some artifact points invested. A little tweak here and there, like baseline ChS and we're golden.

[Bladeweaver]

Does anyone on the Beta know if the pet buff from the Separation Anxiety PvP Talent gets interrupted when casting Dire Frenzy or Kill Command on your pets target even if you're not directly attacking it's target with autoshots/cobra etc?

[DarkAviator]

Dunno, it's not THAT bad. The same discussion was going on every freaking expansion and in the end the sky didn't fall after all. The spec feels just fine with enough haste and some artifact points invested. A little tweak here and there, like baseline ChS and we're golden.

Imagine if it stays as it is.

[DeiVias]

Just picked up the "hidden" artifact appearance, BM is almost worth rolling just for that skin.

[kaid]

Dunno, it's not THAT bad. The same discussion was going on every freaking expansion and in the end the sky didn't fall after all. The spec feels just fine with enough haste and some artifact points invested. A little tweak here and there, like baseline ChS and we're golden.

I was testing this out in beta I would pretty much agree. Chimera shot should likely be standard because it makes the flow of abilities pretty smooth so you pretty much always have something to do but its not frantic smashing of buttons which is fine. Without chimera shot there were some lulls in the rotation which felt awkward. I do think their main poison shot needs its damage buffed a bit. It is the "filler" spender and right now it does not seem to have a lot of synergy so it should do a bit better damage than what I was seeing.

Still stuff was dying pretty rapidly as is so overall I think they are probably in a reasonable place for the start of an expansion. The pets probably need some buffs HP wise as they seemed squishier than live and maybe a few other tweaks but most of the remainders would be reasonably small changes and number balancing.

[Sencha]

Just picked up the "hidden" artifact appearance, BM is almost worth rolling just for that skin.

I think Blizzard is now trying to please people like you in Legion. A casual player that chooses a spec for the look and skin, with a simple gameplay. Please don't see any offense in this, just noticing a switch in the targeted playerbase. There is also a long thread about casualization of the game in the general section.

I now realize this game is no longer for me.

[Galaar]

I've been testing BM from 100-108 on beta and I have a few thoughts about the spec.

1. It needs one more ability. At the current state it feels like something is missing. There are times where all abilities (ChS, BW, KC, DB) are all on CD and I'm forced to spam Cobra. That wouldn't be so bad if the focus cost wasn't so high. To be honest though Cobra is hitting kinda hard when you have the artifact trait + tier 15 talent. Making ChS baseline would be a nice touch as I could then do Dire Frenzy and never again worry about running out of focus. Not that I do now...

2. Amount of guardians - this was one of the worries I had when the first introduced the thoughts on the spec. Having 2 pets + dire beasts gets crowded. Also, pet pathing issues still exist in their full glory. I was in Stormheim doing the quests with the use of the grappling hooks and my pets did just fine. However, when doing a quest to kill 15 adult dragons the ones up on the rocks would evade bug when my pet would growl. I had to dismiss pet, get agro, then resummon pet once the mob made it down. Kinda annoying but that stuff has been in game forever. Just makes it annoying.

3. Hati - I like the lore behind the gun and actually don't mind the gun being the BM weapon (never had an issue really). Would love to see some transmog options for Hati though (think feral/guardian druids) that come with transmoging the gun. Kinda sucks having every BM hunter with the exact same "pet". One thought - just got the trait on the artifact where Hati benefits from BW, KC, etc. Really nice trait but the line to it is less then desirable.

4. Artifact Traits - There are 3 traits that are the "special" ones. Master of Beasts (Hati also benefits from...) is by far awesome. The other two kinda seem lacking, though the 1min CD Titan's Thunder (discharge jolt of electricity to all pets/guardians causing them to deal damage over 8 sec) is kinda a nice filler CD. Surge of the Stormgod though seems meh.

5. Aspect of Cheetah and Aspect of Turtle - both not a BM specific issue. Why is it that hunters have only on defensive CD but we cannot attack in it + it's not an immunity? I've always had an issue with this in Live. Why couldn't they have made it Aspect of the Monkey and had it dodge all attacks for 6 sec? That to me would have been way more interesting then a turtle shell over my head and me just sitting there doing nothing. Cheetah - I'm sure we've all seen the multiple threads about the long CD (though BM gun does have a trait to reduce the CD by 1 min). It's made it to where I don't really use cheetah much on beta unless I specifically remember to use it. On Live - it's on at all times.

Just some thoughts. I'm sure I've missed some but wanted to share.

[DeiVias]

I think Blizzard is now trying to please people like you in Legion. A casual player that chooses a spec for the look and skin, with a simple gameplay.

Oh no i like the look of the artefact skin, i must be a casual who loves simple gameplay.

I haven't chosen any spec for legion yet, of course i'd love BM to not be as simple as it is but i'm realistic enough to know at this point it isn't going to get any big changes.

Don't pretend like you know me man, i've been around since Hunters had focus the first time around.

I now realize this game is no longer for me.

See you in 3 months, if you're looking at afflic and balance you aren't going to find the complicated gameplay you are after, nearly every spec is dumbed down in legion.

[7seti]

Hati - I like the lore behind the gun and actually don't mind the gun being the BM weapon (never had an issue really). Would love to see some transmog options for Hati though (think feral/guardian druids) that come with transmoging the gun. Kinda sucks having every BM hunter with the exact same "pet".

There seems to be a way to fix that: http://legion.wowhead.com/item=138393

It would be nice to know if this lets you permanently change Hati's appearence, or if it just makes it a mirror of your current pet. But either way, no more derp wolf.

[Firebyrd]

There seems to be a way to fix that: http://legion.wowhead.com/item=138393

It would be nice to know if this lets you permanently change Hati's appearence, or if it just makes it a mirror of your current pet. But either way, no more derp wolf.

Yeah, if nothing else, I hope you can change her to match a pet, then swap out to a different pet and keep the first pet's appearance. I'd love to make more use of my spirit hydra from Sholazar that can't be tamed even after hydras became real pets.

[Unholyground]

This. Very much this. I don't give a crap about the numbers. They're going to be changed up to and even after release. I'm concerned about the playstyle and it has been gutted.

Honestly all they need to do is put in a fun/maintain mechanic in, maybe another shot [Feral Shot] that stacks a debuff few times that increases the damage your pets do to the target and makes your pets generate focus for you as well, 10%/20%/30% and 1/2/3 focus per attack, numbers tuning would take place somewhere but you get the idea, this way there would be no sitting around waiting.

[Firebyrd]

Honestly all they need to do is put in a fun/maintain mechanic in, maybe another shot [Feral Shot] that stacks a debuff few times that increases the damage your pets do to the target and makes your pets generate focus for you as well, 10%/20%/30% and 1/2/3 focus per attack, numbers tuning would take place somewhere but you get the idea, this way there would be no sitting around waiting.

'

There's obviously all sorts of things they could do to improve the gameplay, but the question is, will they do it?

[Deleted]

There seems to be a way to fix that: http://legion.wowhead.com/item=138393

It would be nice to know if this lets you permanently change Hati's appearence, or if it just makes it a mirror of your current pet. But either way, no more derp wolf.

Thats a relief, i don't dislike the Hati model and will certainly use it sometimes but I am looking forward to my Yak army.

Will it still be better to use a spirit beast for BM? I wasn't sure now the pet buffs are going.

[Unholyground]

'

There's obviously all sorts of things they could do to improve the gameplay, but the question is, will they do it?

I would like to think so lol.

[7seti]

Will it still be better to use a spirit beast for BM? I wasn't sure now the pet buffs are going.

Seems like most pets have no buff now, but Spirit beasts still have their heal, Corehounds/Netherrays still have Heroism and Quilen/Moths/Cranes still have battle rez. Which means those 6 pets are blatantly superior to all others. I'd prefer to go back to something like the old pet training system so we could choose one of those three abilities to put on any pet, but at this point I don't see it happening.

[Firebyrd]

Seems like most pets have no buff now, but Spirit beasts still have their heal, Corehounds/Netherrays still have Heroism and Quilen/Moths/Cranes still have battle rez. Which means those 6 pets are blatantly superior to all others. I'd prefer to go back to something like the old pet training system so we could choose one of those three abilities to put on any pet, but at this point I don't see it happening.

Of those, only the spirit beast heal is worth anything. Most raids will have a shaman and/or mage and their hero is better since it resets with wipes and the pet one doesn't. The brez is pretty terrible with the positioning requirements too. Far better to have one of the classes who can do it be responsible for it, especially if the hunter is BM and having to pull the pet off the target is especially bad. Honestly, there's no blatant superiority here, just use what you want. In most circumstances in groups, you won't even notice the difference between having the spirit beast heal and not (obviously that has a lot more impact solo).

[Deleted]

thanks for that pretty sure i'm going to end up using Yaks and a Mechanical Chicken all the time anyway

[Sencha]

nearly every spec is dumbed down in legion.

Right, but not as much as BM.

[Deleted]

The only good thing about BM right now is that you get a cool additional pet, that's it.

The rotation is non existant, it's just pressing whatever is up and swapping cobra with multishot if you need to aoe.

They wanted to add class fantasy, well maybe they did, the second pet is cool, but they added boring gameplay aswell.