Petless Hunter: Imagining a way to make it work!

[Lovestar]

I have always liked the Hunter class, especially with the awesome Cata revamp. But what has always kept me from maining it is one thing — I hate pets. Like, it's my least favorite thing in all of RPGdom: managing pets. Even simple pets. I can't stand them.

In previous RPGs the 'Ranger' type could always go petless. WoW started a trend of forcing pets down your throat if you want to be the 'Ranged Weapon' class. Much sadness. So as a thought exercise, maybe there's a way to do what MoP did for Warlocks — make playing by your lonesome self an option? This idea has been tossed around forever on WoW forums. But with the current state of Talents, Specs, and Glyphs, it seems like a really optimal time to actually make it possible.

So as a thought exercise, here's my proposed idea. I'd like feedback about it.

1. Glyph of the Lone Wolf
Requires Marksmanship, Survival
Teaches you the ability Lone Wolf. Replaces Dismiss Pet.

2. Lone Wolf
Requires Marksmanship, Survival
5.0s cast
Sends your current pet into the wilderness to hunt. While you fight alone, you gain Lone Wolf, which [BUFFS YOU IN SOME FAIR WAY THAT SOMEONE BETTER AT MATH CAN DECIDE]. You also channel your companion's spirit, granting you one of the beast's abilities.

Lone Wolf ends when you Call any of your pets back to your side, and activating Lone Wolf causes a 5 minute cooldown on your Calls.


3. Clarifications about Lone Wolf
So, for example, if you dismiss your Cat pet, you would gain a buff (similar to Grimoire of Sacrifice), and then passively apply the Roar of Courage Mastery buff to your raid.

I'm not sure about pets with active abilities; being able to gain something like Shell Shield could be way too OP and make Lone Wolf feel mandatory on some fights. So that would have to be sorted out in testing.

The cast time and cooldown are designed to try to stop "Pet Twisting" before it even starts. :p

Finally, it has to be a Glyph — not a Talent — because of BM spec. And because it's so controversial, it can't be made baseline, where people might feel obligated to do it just because it's part of the class.


4. Clarifications about other abilities:

A few Talents would need to be tweaked:
Exhilaration: Probably no change necessary. Pet section disappears from tooltip if Lone Wolf glyphed.
Spirit Bond: While your pet or Lone Wolf is active...
Fervor: Probably no change necessary. Pet section disappears from tooltip if Lone Wolf glyphed.
Lynx Rush: If you have no pet, a wild beast will attack instead.

And Blink Strike, which could have gone the Lynx Rush way but instead I think it'd be more interesting to have its purpose radically change when Lone Wolf is active:
Blink Strike: The Hunter instantly leaps to an enemy target up to 40 yards away and inflicts X% weapon damage. Reverse Disengage!

As for Glyphs, it should be pretty obvious not to Glyph things like Mend Pet or Fetch if you're running Lone Wolf. :p

Finally, a few baseline abilities:
Mend Pet: I think this should just be a useless button under Lone Wolf. If it converted to something like Mend Self, it could again pressure people to glyph Lone Wolf in situations where self-healing would be tempting.

Master's Call: I don't do enough PvP to understand the balance implications of letting this ability be used without a pet active. So, I would leave this in the hands of feedback and testing.

[Alvito]

Giving hunters the ability their pets provide without needing a pet greatly buffs them in too many cases for this to work. Being able to kill or remove the pet from fights gimps the hunter, not making this a concern for hunters will open a new can of worms on the pvp balance issues we already face. Many hunters seem to be in love with the idea of a no pet hunter but I don't get the draw to it. Luckily it matters little the chances of it happening are slim to none.

[Daos]

Giving hunters the ability their pets provide without needing a pet greatly buffs them in too many cases for this to work. Being able to kill or remove the pet from fights gimps the hunter, not making this a concern for hunters will open a new can of worms on the pvp balance issues we already face. Many hunters seem to be in love with the idea of a no pet hunter but I don't get the draw to it. Luckily it matters little the chances of it happening are slim to none.

While locks had a previous precedent in Demonic Sacrifice for Grimoire of Sacrifice, the very fact that they added it back into the game highlights the idea that Blizzard is at least receptive to the idea of allowing pet classes an option to go petless, at least at some point. Now having said that, I agree that providing a lot of the raid buffs / debuffs from the pets to the hunter in a pet-less model would probably not work, so it might be something that would only be feasible if no buffs were needed. Having said THAT, Grim Sac gives a single ability from the pet to the lock when sacrificed, so completely dismissing the idea just because it sounds imbalanced is perhaps jumping the gun. That's something that would have to be worked out.

I agree that it's unlikely to happen quite yet, and I'll grant you that the idea, thematically, of a hunter fighting without their loyal companion makes less sense than the idea of a Warlock sacrificing it's minion/slave for more power. By that same token, however, if the classes were to more closely revolve around their theme, hunters should really only have one pet with perhaps the ability to switch out the different raid buffs/debuffs like you switch out talents/glyphs/specializations. It's the Hunter + his loyal companion (my favorite example of this is the Dwarf + Bear in the original WoW cinematic). Not the Hunter + the zoo he's accumulated. So there's clear precedent of theme taking a back seat to gameplay.

[Skulljin]

Markmanship is the most suitable spec to be petless and needs some overhauling.

I have some really interesting Ideas, which involve a lot about utilizing camoflage and other crazy things out of my mind.

[Pendragon]

Very, very cool idea! This or just make MM the petless spec.

[Kantoro]

Why? Hunter is a pet class. The end. Why not give warriors a ranged spec? Cuz the are melee. Why not allow mages to tank and use melee attacks. Cuz they are a ranged caster. What you want is a mage, roll a mage.

[Mirishka]

Without meaning to be snarky, Kantoro sums it up best. Hunter is a pet class. There are plenty of options for classes if you don't like pets.

It would be like suggesting an unarmed warrior spec. Why, when they are the master of melee weapons?

I'm not trashing the idea, or the person who presented it (he clearly put some thought into this) - but I wholeheartedly disagree with the idea of a hunter spec that shuns the pet. It is core, intrinsic, to the class.

[Dengir]

Worst Idea ever.

[Lexanna]

Hunters have pets. If you like the idea of not having a pet, re-roll.

[Korinth]

Why? Hunter is a pet class. The end. Why not give warriors a ranged spec? Cuz the are melee. Why not allow mages to tank and use melee attacks. Cuz they are a ranged caster. What you want is a mage, roll a mage.

and Warlocks are a Demon class.

[ihatepeople]

I would LOVE to have an option like warlocks have to dismiss the pet and get a buff. However, Blizzard's mode of thinking with hunter is that we are a class that has a companion for life so I do not think that kind of talent/spec will come to fruition. It is a nice thought though, as I would love to be a ranger and pew pew it up.

[Beebeey]

Why? Hunter is a pet class. The end. Why not give warriors a ranged spec? Cuz the are melee. Why not allow mages to tank and use melee attacks. Cuz they are a ranged caster. What you want is a mage, roll a mage.

Hunters are not technically a "pet class." They are designed off of the typical class system most MMO's/RPG's offer.

Hunters represent the ranger class (scout, tracker, gunner), typically known as the archer: Not the archer with a permanent pet. Many games never designed a ranger class to include a permanent pet to begin with, although some included the ability to temporarily 'charm/tame' animals.

Games I can think of off the bat: Baldur's Gate & Champions of Norrath, Dungeons & Dragons, FF, Runescape, EQ, NWN, etc..

Many of us gamers, who enjoy playing the D&D style archetype tend to find the WoW Ranger a bit awkward in comparison to other games, so I can totally understand where the OP is coming from with this idea.

[Deleted]

Why can't we just have range pets? Problem solved.

[Vongimi]

The reason people want a petless hunter is because there is NO other option for a ranged physical class. You can't simply reroll to something that resembles what you want, because it doesn't exist. I personally would like a petless hunter option, but I highly doubt its gonna happen. Although now with no minimum range its definitively more plausible.

[Finick]

I really don't understand the hatred people have towards this idea. It either seems people think that their pets will be taken away, or the typical "you're a pet class, deal with it" response is pretty popular. I do not want to play a mage, what I would like is a little more variety with my hunter though... and who could possibly be against that idea?

I personally love this idea, and I think that given the choice a lot of other hunters would too. Naturally, BM would have to have it's pets... Though, I could go crazy and envision BM literally becoming a melee spec when the pet is sacrificed. That would be a little bit interesting, or just end up feeling like a feral druid. For Survival or Marksman though, I really don't see the need for the pets. Other than bringing a specific buff/debuff I could care less what my pet looks like (though I know some of you care a great deal about it.) Most the time I forget it's even there when I'm not playing BM. Obviously there's the issue of still providing buffs/debuffs for your raid, but like someone mentioned above, if we could gain the buff/debuff our pet would provide through choosing to go petless... well that would be pretty cool.

[Asrialol]

I'd rather have demon hunter or something replace MM instead of it just going pet-less.

Besides, I like having pets around. Makes it seem as if I have friends.

[Deleted]

This is a great idea. Not that I really care about it, i play the game because of the style it offers. But i can give feedback to this idea of an hunters PVP perspective.

The problem with the current state of MM and survival in PVP is that there is barely any pet uptime. I use my pet in these speccs only for their active ability, buff, masters call and roar of sacrifice. And there is where the problem lies. The active ability and buff is so good in many ways to `just` be able to apply that it would mean we have to be toned down in some way. The roar of sacrifice is a true lifesafer with the current state of the dps. I take about 30% less damage, which is huge now days. It would be almost OP to be able to choose who to share your takendamage with. But to just remove it is absolutly nonsens, i can apply it during CC now.
Besides the utility you would have to gain, but cannot gain because it is just too much in many scenarios. there is the damage. It does not seem to be much, but I can now get players down to 40% hp with 1 lock 'n load without any pet uptime. My pet does about 20% of my damage. meaning down to 20%.. (THESE ARE ROUGH ESTIMATIONS)
The damage buff we have to get to get on par in PVE and automaticly PVP is too big. Because you shoot, it means it is 100% chance to land. A pet has less uptime.

There are just too many flaws in PVP

[darkhybridx]

I wouldn't mind a petless spec, although I don't really care either way. The reason I'm posting is something else I read in this thread.

By that same token, however, if the classes were to more closely revolve around their theme, hunters should really only have one pet with perhaps the ability to switch out the different raid buffs/debuffs like you switch out talents/glyphs/specializations. It's the Hunter + his loyal companion (my favorite example of this is the Dwarf + Bear in the original WoW cinematic). Not the Hunter + the zoo he's accumulated. So there's clear precedent of theme taking a back seat to gameplay.

This. I've thought this for years. We shouldn't have to be able to use different pets for different abilities. Sure we can't just get any pet and have it start with everything, but some way to take your pet, YOUR companion, and have it learn all the abilities is what I feel the hunter class is all about. You and your best friend fighting together.

[Xeraxis]

If you choose to dismiss your pet and fight without it you should not gain the ability to provide it's buff to party/raid members.

[checking facts]

Why? Hunter is a pet class. The end. Why not give warriors a ranged spec? Cuz the are melee. Why not allow mages to tank and use melee attacks. Cuz they are a ranged caster. What you want is a mage, roll a mage.

because some people wanted to play archers instead of this generic archer/trapper/beast tamer fusion.