Let's have a discussion about petless hunter

[Raicky]

Someone tell me why a 'Marksman' needs to send his pet cat to scrath the dragons face.

[Anastacy]

Someone tell me why a 'Marksman' needs to send his pet cat to scrath the dragons back toe.

Fixed that for you.

[Braven]

In my opinion a petless hunter isn't a hunter at all. That's the whole point of the class, that's what it has been for 9 years. Mages, Warlocks, Ele Shamans and Balance Druids are all classes that are ranged and don't rely completely on pets. If you want a petless hunter, go play one of them.

[Bullettime]

In my opinion a petless hunter isn't a hunter at all. That's the whole point of the class, that's what it has been for 9 years. Mages, Warlocks, Ele Shamans and Balance Druids are all classes that are ranged and don't rely completely on pets. If you want a petless hunter, go play one of them.

Some like the archery and ranger aspects, especially for Marksmanship. Unfortunately, Blizzard made the entire class a pet class and there's no physical ranged alternative.

If we had the option of say a Dark Ranger or something, then your argument would be more sound. But as it is, they're wrapping all ranged weapon users under the Hunter banner so they're trying to give us more customization. A military sniper (Marksman) doesn't have much need for a pet and rangers in the WoW lore which are covered under the Marksmanship tree didn't use pets. Pretty sure if Hunters were recreated today, Marks would be petless to begin with.

Besides, I like the option to sac it for some encounters that are garbage for pets. Pets despawning on Durumu, getting hung up on rocks on Megaera, Blink Striking out of range on Immerseus, instakilled by ash elements on Shaman if two tanking, Blink Striking into boxes on Spoils, travel time to mobs, etc.

It will also come with a tradeoff, having to give up Focusing Shot which will inevitably be our best talent for raw output.

[shamSmash]

I think the current iteration of the talent is okay - but it has one MAJOR flaw. Firstly, I think that those who ditch their pets are betraying the essence of what a "hunter" in WoW (nobody gives a shit if the guy from Diablo didnt have a pet) is. However, to each his own I guess. The major flaw with this talent is survival. What is it about survival that screams "petless"? Why is blizzard so adamant with throwing Survival into that category? There should be a third option for survival that actually matches the theme of survival. The other two specs make sense. Beast Mastery screams strong pets. Marksmanship screams petless ranger. When did Survival become marksmanship?

[Luko]

I think the current iteration of the talent is okay - but it has one MAJOR flaw. Firstly, I think that those who ditch their pets are betraying the essence of what a "hunter" in WoW (nobody gives a shit if the guy from Diablo didnt have a pet) is. However, to each his own I guess. The major flaw with this talent is survival. What is it about survival that screams "petless"? Why is blizzard so adamant with throwing Survival into that category? There should be a third option for survival that actually matches the theme of survival. The other two specs make sense. Beast Mastery screams strong pets. Marksmanship screams petless ranger. When did Survival become marksmanship?

The only major lore character with pet affinity is a melee. Most of the ranged units in warcraft were totally petless. There's nothing about Warcraft that dictates that hunters are "PET CLASS ONLY OMG!!" other than the fact that it's taken them 9 years to get around to making this talent.

[prwraith]

Not having a pet that bugs out on every fight? Sign my ass up.

[Thamyor]

They will probably aim to make the talent the worst of the tree, the Snipe talent will probably be far better on stand still fights and the third talent will probably be better than the petless talent.
But I'm still okay with it, it doesn't need to be mandatory but it's good to have it as a option because there will always be a "Fuck your pet" fight or fights where you get %dmg buffs that doens't go to your pets (suffered a lot on first patch of pandaria when BM was the better spec but you had so many fights like that so you had to keep your SV spec ready all time.).
Also would love if you could keep a pet buff even with the talent up, I would hate to be in a "Fuck your pet" fight but my raids need a pet buff, we're already the only of the pure dps that has to change spec to bring some buffs (BM pet buffs).