Hunters without pets?

[Martyn 470]

So guys, I was just discussing with my cousin how on some soloing encounters he does as a hunter, his pet is always bugging out and causing stuff to go wrong, and it made me think.
Typically, Rangers have basically been hunters without pets, and I know from talking to other hunters that sometimes they wish they never had a pet because it's too high maintenance.

What I propose is an ability similar to the Grimoire of sacrifice, in which the hunter and the pet " Merge" souls or something, granting them the special abilities of the pet they "Merge" with, such as the armor debuff if you used it with a raptor, or the mastery buff if you merged with a cat, or even the spirit heal if they merged with a spirit beast.

Obviously, they would have to be compensated similar to the sacrifice talent, such as a flat out 20% dps boost and a 10-20% hp boost, as well as passive health regeneration similar to warlocks.

BM would also be able to use kill command themselves, similar to a ranged ability, the only problem I can see thus far is that.

-It would be hard to tune correctly so it isnt the obvious choice over other talents ( assuming it could become a talent)
-The talent trees of the pets would be a bit iffy to sort out.


Benefits

-People who wish to play as a kind of ranger rather than a hunter, can do so freely.
- It would be lower maintenance and might be better for soloing in some situations.
- It would be a cool excuse to create models similar to the Zul'aman bosses, where they take on the aspect of bear / dragonhawk / eagle etc.


We both agreed it would take a lot of work, but would be really interesting how it would pan out.

Bearing in mind the above is just something I thought up in 5 minutes and is a bit of fun, would you be interested in it?

[Vorticough]

I've thought about the concept from time to time, and I do sorta wish it was an actual thing. It'd take a fair while to work out, though. Not even entirely sure how it'd work without flat DPS increases.

[Trollragemore]

using the stereotypical ranger(D&D mold) a ranger would be a mix of ranged or melee... then u'd have the rogues and shamans bitching about having their epic weapons ninja'd

[Spiralphoenix]

It's kinda funny that you lead into this mentioning hunter soloing, because having a pet is what enables hunter soloing at it's current level, but I understand where you're coming from.

But yeah, this is something I've wanted very early into when I first started raiding. Pets have always been in general a overall disadvantage at least in PvE, with things like buggy pathing and encounter mechanics and buffs that clearly weren't designed with them in mind (and this continues to happen after 8 years of pets existing in the game with encounter design). Though I think it'd be pretty goofy to let BM have the capability as you mention, I've always imagined it as a MM/SV exclusive type thing, or at the very least MM only. Beast Master without a... beast... doesn't really make sense. Marksman, totally. Pet just gets in the way when he's concentrating, or something.

This is suggested pretty frequently actually and I've always been in support. But you'll have a majority of the hunter community come in here very soon all saying something along the lines of "hunter's don't make sense without pets!", "the lore says this and that!" while the suggestions always allow for them to keep their precious pet and for us go solo. I don't see it ever happening, unfortunately.

[Nemesis003]

It's kinda funny that you lead into this mentioning hunter soloing, because having a pet is what enables hunter soloing at it's current level, but I understand where you're coming from.

But yeah, this is something I've wanted very early into when I first started raiding. Pets have always been in general a overall disadvantage at least in PvE, with things like buggy pathing and encounter mechanics and buffs that clearly weren't designed with them in mind (and this continues to happen after 8 years of pets existing in the game with encounter design). Though I think it'd be pretty goofy to let BM have the capability as you mention, I've always imagined it as a MM/SV exclusive type thing, or at the very least MM only. Beast Master without a... beast... doesn't really make sense. Marksman, totally. Pet just gets in the way when he's concentrating, or something.

This is suggested pretty frequently actually and I've always been in support. But you'll have a majority of the hunter community come in here very soon all saying something along the lines of "hunter's don't make sense without pets!", "the lore says this and that!" while the suggestions always allow for them to keep their precious pet and for us go solo. I don't see it ever happening, unfortunately.

more and more people are wanting MM to be petless for the reasons you stated, puff not going to the pets and pathing still after 8 years is something blizzard seems to just not care about.

[Martyn 470]

It's kinda funny that you lead into this mentioning hunter soloing, because having a pet is what enables hunter soloing at it's current level, but I understand where you're coming from.

what I tried to say was, it should be more of an ability than a talent, therefore you can keep a pet with you for soloing, then if you wish, merge with it and become yourself, pressing the ability again would split you both back.

[Neolism]

oh that would be really cool!

[Deleted]

I don't think we'll be seeing it anytime soon. Apparently people who like pets can't let others who dislike them have this even if it wouldn't affect them in any way. Personally I'm up for it.

[Xiphias]

I think it would make perfect sense for Marksmanship to be petless.

[Nemesis003]

I think it would make perfect sense for Marksmanship to be petless.

all they need to do is adapt chimeria shot to apply what ever buff/debuff the pet had and that solves that problem.

[Conjor]

This has been discussed ad nauseum on every WoW hunter forum. It eventually ends up at:

[Cyph3r]

Search function is ^ that way.

It makes sense on the surface, but will never happen for balance reasons. The moment you make the AI controlled portion of the class optional, it becomes the only accepted choice for high end content, pve or pvp. Here, I'll sum it up for you with a question:

As a raid leader, why should I let you bring a pet to my raid if you can do the same dps without relying on AI that can cause problems?

[Teriz]

You could give Marksmanship hunters a spec unique CD that does what Grimore of Sac does for Warlocks, giving the Hunter a buff that lasts an hour. You can base the buff around Tenacity, Ferocity, and Cunning depending on what you're doing. Shouldn't be that difficult honestly. Just gotta make sure the MM Hunter can keep up DPS-wise with the BM Hunter.

[Xiphias]

Search function is ^ that way.

It makes sense on the surface, but will never happen for balance reasons. The moment you make the AI controlled portion of the class optional, it becomes the only accepted choice for high end content, pve or pvp. Here, I'll sum it up for you with a question:

As a raid leader, why should I let you bring a pet to my raid if you can do the same dps without relying on AI that can cause problems?

Oh? Really?

Is this the case for Warlocks now, with Grimoire of Sacrifice?

What about the fact that a Mage can bring the same DPS as a Hunter, but doesn't have to rely on a pet (at least, as Fire spec)? They're even both ranged. As a raid leader, why should I let you bring your Hunter to my raid if you can do the same DPS without relying on AI that can cause problems?

[Osmin]

I'm actually pretty torn on the issue. I like having a pet, I think it's the quintessential part of being a hunter. However I, like many other hunters, have often been frustrated by the pet's AI costing me DPS, or mechanics failing to take a pet's contribution into account.

On the other hand, I do think that there is way too much homogenization among the 3 hunter specs. They all are functionally very similar to each other, and making MM a petless spec would go a long way towards introducing some variety of play-style for us. I wouldn't choose the petless spec personally unless it were the very best performing spec because I enjoy having a pet with me, but I can understand why people would want to play a spec that concentrates purely on the archery aspect.

That said, I think if any hunter spec were to become petless, then it almost certainly would immediately become the best performing spec. Remove that pet variable, and it will be very difficult for any serious raider to justify bringing their pet at all, whether we want to or not. Assuming all of the pet's dps and buffs were then baked into the hunter itself, it would become the most reliable way to get the most out of our class with the least down-time, not to mention never losing DPS to faulty boss buffs. I know I would find myself doing it on progression in order to contribute the most I can to my team, and then feeling like I'm not really a hunter anymore, though I freely admit that would be a matter of my own opinion.

The ability that the OP sugguests would actually be kind of interesting though, the more that I think of it, but I don't think it would work as a general way to get a petless spec, or to appease people wanting to play more af an archer-type hunter. I actually think it would be interesting to have as a DPS cooldown though (not that we don't have enough already). We could then use it during parts of the fight where pet AI may be a serious problem to circumvent a lot of the disadvantage.

Personally, though, I think they should just remove pets from MM hunters for players who want to play that way, but it would have to also come with MM being tuned below the other two specs, (kinda the way the balance is now) so that abandoning pets doesn't then become the only option for anyone trying to push the highest possible numbers. That way, min-maxers still have a compelling choice between total control of all of their DPS, and pure DPS potential.

.

[Xiphias]

Warlocks can choose to use either Grimoire of Sacrifice or not, and while it's optimal for Affliction Warlocks, I don't think it's necessarily optimal for either other spec.

MM wouldn't become the #1 spec just by having the pet incorporated. For example, what if you couldn't "pick" a pet buff? What if you just had no access to pets, but instead gain a ranged disarm (to make up for the PvP loss of the pet's utility) and one raid buff (say, automatically giving the melee & ranged haste buff). Then you would still want to go with SV if your raid already had, say, a rogue, and needed a different buff. Even if MM was slightly higher individually...

[Kelln12]

I like the idea, until it becomes "the spec". I rolled a hunter for the pet, I don't want to be forced to play a spec without one. So as long as its sub-par compared to pet hunter trees ill be happy.

Maybe a new class entirely for a pet-less hunter.

[Deleted]

I've thought about your specific way to have a petless hunter for a while, calling the talent "Beast Soul Takeover" (i joke but some will appreciate the refrence ^^ ). The modeling for every race to have a merged model with every pet type in game is more unlikely than petless hunters. Instead my thought was a Ghostly beast outline around or above the hunter, like a spirit beast aura.

To allow the talent to be taken by BM hunters the spirit above them / around them would acctually be non-targetable npc tethered to the hunter with a 40 yard range of attack to allow kill command to work. It could also allow the application of pet debuffs and buffs but it has no auto attack or claw attack as that dps would be added to the hunter's attacks instead.

As a few have mentioned, if it was equal dps it would always be the right choice so it would require a draw back which is why i imagine the talent instead as a cooldown. For me a cooldown to allow the hunter and pet to merge for a brief time would be more resonable and likely than a passive talent. For fights where theres phases where pets bug out from flying mechanics, this cool down talent could be taken to off set some of the loss and act as a bandaid fix.

Lastly With 2 other level 90 talents eually desirable with utility and slight dps buffs it would make our 90 talents more awesome packed (as i personally just feel like they're just extra buttons with mediorce extra effects that over all reduce the damage of our other shots, glaive toss just feeling like arcane shot and power shot just an upgraded aimed shot)

Any way, that's my thoughts and i probably didnt explain myself very well but thought i'd chime in with my view =3

[Nemesis003]

I like the idea, until it becomes "the spec". I rolled a hunter for the pet, I don't want to be forced to play a spec without one. So as long as its sub-par compared to pet hunter trees ill be happy.

Maybe a new class entirely for a pet-less hunter.

so you are ok with a spec not having a pet as long as that spec sucks?

[Rotted]

Tbh they wont do anything like it,

They already said in a blue post last week, that they think sacrifice is to strong and a lock without a minion doesn't "feel" right