Need support; Exotic pet as BM signature move.

[Cyph3r]

I think you may have misread one of the abilities because it isn't just 'many' but "every single dps tree signature ability, with the exception of Beast Mastery hunters".

NEARLY all of them, I'm sure subtlety rogues would disagree with you.

It matters because this is the spell that introduces new players to the tree. MM gets a damaging shot, survival gets a damaging shot, and BM gets... a high threat stun.

Who says there needs to be equivalence? Blizzard never said they wanted it to be an ATTACK that fits the theme of the tree, just an ABILITY that does. Most of them are attacks because we're talking about dps trees here, the vast majority of our abilities as dps ARE attacks. Besides, by giving the pet a stun it's teaching new players that they should be USING their pet as a tool, not just a dot that you can ignore while you plink away at your target.

Intimidation as a spell is fine, but it doesn't do much of a job representing the BM tree. All it represents is the "my pet is a tank" mentality which is something that has never been exclusive to BM. Intimidation should be replaced as the BM signature move and made trainable for any hunter that wants to use their pet as a tank.

I completely agree with this part, and this is why all hunters should have access to Intimidation

The main part of your argument is that hunters should have Intimidation at level 10, and that I agree with. Why should this spell be exclusive to BM? MM and SV hunters who choose to use Tenacity pets would also like to have access to a spell that helps their pet to keep threat better. Intimidation is a spell that can helpful to all hunters that choose to use their pet in this way, not just BM.

This is also why Intimidation is a bad signature spell: it's based on a way of playing that all hunters have the option to use.

Ok so now you're basically saying that it's too good. Good enough that you think all hunters should have it, because it helps our pets tank. In other words, admitting that it makes our pets stronger, which IS THE THEME OF THE BM TREE. So which is it? Is it too good or not good enough? By the way, it's not just for tanking. Yes, it helps a pet hold threat, but it's put to much better use as a reactionary ability, to maintain control of a situation.

Ultimately you have to consider Blizzard's goal. They said "we want to give you an ability that makes you FEEL like your chosen spec, right off the bat." Intimidation makes you feel like a master of beasts. Your pet can do something that no one else's can. In what way is this not achieving the stated goal?

[frott]

I completely agree with this part, and this is why all hunters should have access to Intimidation

The main part of your argument is that hunters should have Intimidation at level 10, and that I agree with. Why should this spell be exclusive to BM? MM and SV hunters who choose to use Tenacity pets would also like to have access to a spell that helps their pet to keep threat better. Intimidation is a spell that can helpful to all hunters that choose to use their pet in this way, not just BM.

This is also why Intimidation is a bad signature spell: it's based on a way of playing that all hunters have the option to use.

So wait, you're unclear on why a PET TALENT is unique to beast mastery as their main spell at level 10, one that helps the quintessential hunter levelling spec level even better and more efficiently than MM/SV by allowing them to have a very efficient DPS pet instead of using a tenacity pet? Shrug, if you don't get that, there's your problem.

All hunters CAN'T use intimidate. So I'm not sure why you think BM+dps pet+stun/aggro is somehow equal to MM/SV+tankpet

[bamfrosty]

A stun is really valuable for pvp, especially now that it's off the GCD. Now if only they'd buff it to be on par with mages and pallies (although that would probably be a little OP).

[Cyph3r]

...
If Intimidation fitted the theme of the Beast Master tree I would agree with you, but it doesn't because it's a tanking spell and a utility tool, neither of which are exclusive to BM. Beast Mastery is about making your pet better no matter what it is.


It doesn't make your pet stronger. It makes your pet do better threat, and it makes your pet stun the target, but that isn't all a pet is about, is it?

[added emphasis mine]

This is really revealing. I see now that you and I have different concepts of exactly what the purpose of the signature ability really is, and I think this is the source of our disagreement.

I don't see the sig ability as something that has to reinforce a PLAYSTYLE that's EXCLUSIVE to the tree. The cause and effect is backward. The exclusive nature of these skills is a side effect of Blizzard wanting to give level 10 players something that instantly helped them understand the theme of a tree, NOT because their top priority was giving each tree something no one else could have. The exclusivity is a means to an end, not the end itself.

Furthermore you argue that intimidation doesn't fit the theme because it's reinforcing a playstyle that all 3 specs use (which is pet tanking). There's 2 fundamental problems with this argument: First, That's too broad, you're talking about the theme of the CLASS at this point, not the details of the beast master spec (which is that our pets are much BETTER at said things), and second, why not apply this argument to the other 2 specs as well? They both got unique shots, but attacking things at range with our various shots is something all 3 specs do, it's not exclusive either. What makes their shots fit their themes any more than a pet ability fits BM?

And for that matter you're still focusing too much on intimidation as a tank ability. Yes, it generates extra threat, but it's most useful feature is it's stun (which is a control tool). In your second comment you're obviously referring to damage. Ok fine, so you think the BM skill should be a damage dealing pet ability. That's fair, the "damage vs utility" discussion will rage on until the end of time, and you and I are clearly on opposing sides of that fence. My point is that just because it doesn't do damage, doesn't mean it doesn't fit the theme.

[Halazz]

The idea has been tossed around for a while, but it will never make it. Blizzard puts too much emphasis on our pets now.

Thats because your pet is part of the Hunter class, we're not rangers, rangers do not wear mail armour, we don't sneak around so much like a rogue, backstabbing and shooting people in the ehad silently in the back.

The Wow Hunter is the Beast master, the Archer and the survivalist, he sets up traps to allow him to strike from range, but he doesn't sneak around, true he might camoflague himself for an advantage, but when the ruse has been played he lets his arrows and the claws of his pet do the talking.

A Hunter is Never a ranger.. he's a hunter, even when he uses his range weapon or traps more, a real hunter still has a hound or something to collect thr kill.

---------- Post added 2010-09-24 at 08:30 PM ----------

[added emphasis mine]
And for that matter you're still focusing too much on intimidation as a tank ability. Yes, it generates extra threat, but it's most useful feature is it's stun (which is a control tool). In your second comment you're obviously referring to damage. Ok fine, so you think the BM skill should be a damage dealing pet ability. That's fair, the "damage vs utility" discussion will rage on until the end of time, and you and I are clearly on opposing sides of that fence. My point is that just because it doesn't do damage, doesn't mean it doesn't fit the theme.

Look at every other specc in every over class, they get an ability that is mainly used in their rotation, is on a rather short cooldown and is a very active ability you use, Indimidation has ZERO use outside PvP or using it to gain aggro for your pet.
Indimidation should be a baseline ability anyway, because it seems every class gets an inturupt except Hunters anyway.

[Cyph3r]

Intimidation is the shot equivalent of... what?

There it is again. YOU'RE the one who's imposing this requirement of shot equivalence... Not the Devs. Besides, intimidation is the equivalent of sicking your pet on something and stopping it from whatever it's doing, and otherwise holding it's attention so you're free to shoot it.

Look at every other specc in every over class, they get an ability that is mainly used in their rotation, is on a rather short cooldown and is a very active ability you use, Indimidation has ZERO use outside PvP or using it to gain aggro for your pet.
Indimidation should be a baseline ability anyway, because it seems every class gets an inturupt except Hunters anyway.

Survival has wyvern sting, Marksman has silencing shot. And guess what, just like intimidation, there's plenty of mobs that neither of these work on. We also ALL have scatter shot now.

[Altaria]

Hmm lets see...

Do I want to be able to train exotic pets at a low lvl?
NO, because getting to tame exotic beasts at a low lvl doesn't feel right. They are kind of a reward for players who played about 70 lvls with ordinary pets. I know they are not vastly superior to ordinary ones but taming an exotic beast is something that made me feel like I'm playing at a higher lvl than i use to be(not skillwise, just lvl number). Not to mention they will confuse the new players a lot.

Do I want a real signature move (that does damage) other than Intimidation?
YES, Intimidation is like a big bad joke for BM. As a pure dps class I demand a damaging move/spell that will be a major part of my rotation.

[deadman80]

The simplest solution that would make nearly all BM hunters happy would be to add some form of damage component to Intimidation.
Doesn't have to be at the OMGWTFWASTHATGETTHELICENSEPLATEOFTHATTRUCKTHATJUSTHITME level. ^^;;
(Like what KC was like a short time ago in beta.) I don't think there are too many players who would be able to come up with valid arguements against it causing damage roughly equivalent to a single Steady/Cobra Shot for example.. Could be a single direct hit, could be a dot(probably a bleed effect), could result in a reduction in the target's armor or increase to damage taken. If the damage was only equal to a single steady/cobra, then that should not even be enough to require rebalancing of dps for the spec much less become a real issue in PVP since the dps increase overall would be rather negligible.

Regardless of what you feel should be qualified to be any spec's level10 signature ability, or what that ability should represent, you have to admit that there really aren't exactly all that many BM-only active abilities to choose from. One of Blizz's stated goals with hunters was to INCREASE the importance of the pet to MM/SV, so making KC into BM's signature would be counter-productive. Other than that, the only real option for an active ability would be BW, which could work as long as TBW maintained it's position in the talent tree, but could be scary to deal with in low level PVP..

I think that the main complaint/issue that BM hunters see with Intimidation being our signature is that it has nearly zero use/utility in group PVE activities, which covers the MAJORITY of the content of the entire game. I personally hate PVP, but understand there are many who enjoy it, but if everyone took a step back from what they like/hate about the game, they would have to admit that is a fact. Most of the game's contents are group-based PVE activities. Even if all bosses lost their stun immunity come Cata, Intimidation would not be able to see much PVE use due to the threat mod potentially taking threat from the tank, which most guilds/raids would correctly see as potential for a wipe.

tl;dr: Blizz should tack a damage component onto Intimidation that is roughly equal to the amount of damage from a single steady/cobra shot to solve the near total lack of group PVE usefulness without causing major waves in PVP venues AND would give those hunters not happy about this issue a good reason to accept the choice (reducing the amount of QQ that Blizz has to deal with.)

[grimkiller]

I would be all for this if you just tame the pet.
They wouldn't have their raid buff abilities until you learn the 31-pt talent in BM (along with 4 more talent points).
They would have their base 'racial' ability though, like the core hound's breath that reduces casting speed.
This would make a ton more sense than Intimidation and not be 'overpowered' in the least bit since the pets are relative in damage output without their raid buff abilities (which aren't attained until level 70 via the 31-pt talent).

[Altaria]

This makes sense to me, but I have a question: why does it need to be so many levels? I agree that making it a passive of the tree would make it feel less special for being BM and more like a downside of not being BM but waiting 60 levels into gaining points for one of the main highlighted features of your tree?

In the cataclysm talent tree the milestone talents have been moved to level 29, 49 and 69 as opposed to now where we have them at 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60. I think it would be fine to move Exotic pets down to 29 or 49 as both of those are far enough to give players time to tame other pets if they so choose.

P.S. Glad to have another person who doesn't think BM is well represented by Intimidation.

Well blizzard reduced the riding skill requirement to make players level faster. It was a good change imho because runinng around with +%30 buff(which i'm lucky to have a hunter ) was sloooow and boring as hell. Those kind of lvl requirement reductions were needed.

However I doubt that we can say the same things for exotic pets. As mentioned before by other posters they add a flavour to the gaming experience and they are slightly superior than other pets. They don't make lvling faster or play a major role in dps/survivability. I see them as a trophy for being a high-level hunter who camped some of them for long hours.

[Firebyrd]

Intimidation, even if it did damage, would still not be good enough because it isn't an iconic BM ability. It's "that thing we had to put a point into to get Bestial Wrath".


The majority of people complaining about Intimidation are doing so because it does a bad job of representing the tree. It isn't solely about tanking pets, or locking down a target, or even damage, but everything that we use our pets for.


Intimidation, even with a damage component, would still be a bad representation of the tree because it not doing damage isn't the only problem with the spell being our signature ability. It still pushes the "this is the tree where your pet tanks stuff" mentality into players minds and that isn't something exclusive to BM (if it ever was).

In addition: This is not QQ, this is Feeback, and there is a difference.

Aside from the problems you have with Intimidation being altered, there's the fact of the one minute cooldown. For those who have issues with the lack of PVE use, a one minute cd doing the same amount of damage as a SS/CoS and risking taking threat from the tank (which our pets are already doing on the PTR at least) is a joke. That is not a reasonable PVE usage.

Once again, I say BM needs one more unique dps ability. It can be a shot, it can be pet related like KC, it can require a proc like AiS, whatever. We just need some ability unique to the spec other than our cooldowns (BW, FF, and Fervor) and Intimidation. It's ridiculous that we don't have a regular pve ability that's just ours. I'm not up on all other classes, but is there any other damage spec that has not a single unique dps ability? Fire mages have Pyroblast (and a couple other that are more pvp abilities), enh shamans have stormstrike and lava lash, ele shamans have earthquake (maybe more? Never played it), MM has chimera and aimed, SV has BA and ES, balance and feral druids have a bunch, ret pallies have divine storm, and so on and so forth. I'm not familiar enough with the other dps specs to say if there's anybody else, but I've listed off a good chunk here that all have direct dps moves that they can use regularly without a super long cd. I don't see why BM shouldn't get the same treatment. If we are in fact unique in this respect, this is not a good unique.

[Hyde]

Intimidation should be a baseline skill, and bm should get a new signature move at 10.

[Wyrmrider]

So a marksman hunter hits level 10, gets aimed shot, can start using it immediately. A survival hunter hits level 10, gets explosive shot, gets to start using it immediately. A level 10 beast master hunter hits level 10, gets the ability to tame exotic pets... and then has to go level a bit, then go hunting all over the world to find an exotic pet within the level range.

This. The point of the new system is to provide players with a signature ability immediately upon choosing their spec. You could force the issue by populating every starting zone with level 10 exotic pets, but then they wouldn't be very exotic would they?

There's also the issue of power. Switching from a bear to a rhino (or whatever) may make the lowbie hunter more unique, but it isn't a significant "upgrade," and that throws another wrench into balance.

Intimidation has the opposite problem -- it's an immediate power boost, but it doesn't inspire. +1 for Kill Command!

[Cyph3r]

The "shot equivalent" doesn't have to be an actual shot. It can be, as I've already said I agree with, something that your pet does. It does, however, need to be on par with Aimed Shot and Explosive Shot with it's representation of the theme of the tree. As I keep stating, the theme of the BM Tree is not exclusively Pet Tanking and it is not exclusively Pet Control but The Enhancement Of The Pet No Matter What You Are Using It For. I'm sure all hunters that can think of at least 2 spells which could be the shot equivalent for BM but I'm not going to be pulled into arguing what should replace it.

I feel that it is equivalent to the shots in theme representation. Cearly we disagree on this, and that's fine. And no, the theme of the tree is not just pet tanking or pet control, it's much broader than that. The theme is simply "stronger pets". A Beast master hunter uses their pet more as a damage dealer and a tool. Not every ability will fall under both of those categories obviously, and I don't see a problem with the signature ability falling under the tool category. The complaint seems not to be "not good enough", but rather "not good enough compared to the others". I think it is good enough compared to the others, because it makes our pet better than theirs. Just like aimed shot makes you better at killing stuff with your weapon, and explosive shot makes survival feel like it has a bag of tricks.

I ask again: What about that is exclusive to BM? Answer: Nothing.

Exactly my point. You first stated that explosive shot was like firing a trap at your target, but traps aren't exclusive to survival, nor is what the self explanatory Aimed Shot represents exclusive to marksman. These abilities don't represent something that ONLY that spec can do, they represent the things that each spec does BETTER, what each specializes in. As a beast master, your pet is BETTER at holding down prey, or stopping it from doing whatever it's doing.

Silencing Shot Wyvern Sting were left as an talentable abilities. Why wasn't Intimidation?

To be completely honest I suspect it's a case of the devs not wanting to create unnecessary work for themselves, which given the scale of this expansion is no surprise whatsoever. When it came down to it there's 3 things in the BM tree that most of us agree are the prime candidates for the signature ability: Bestial wrath, intimidation, and beast mastery. BW and intimidation are the only active spells in the tree in fact (on live). BW would just be stupidly powerful at that level (lets not forget pvp implications, because it's something the devs ALWAYS take into consideration), even without beast within, and beast mastery isn't actually an active ability. Not only that, those 4 points would again, make pets too powerful at that level. It's either intimidation or create a new ability. And honestly, intimidation fits the bill, so why spend time designing, implementing, then balancing a new ability when you don't really need to?

The other 2 specs' abilities you mentioned were left in the tree because they had better alternatives to use as the signature. For BM, intimidation was the best option. Plain and simple.

-edit-

The simplest solution that would make nearly all BM hunters happy would be to add some form of damage component to Intimidation.
Doesn't have to be at the OMGWTFWASTHATGETTHELICENSEPLATEOFTHATTRUCKTHATJUSTHITME level. ^^;;
(Like what KC was like a short time ago in beta.) I don't think there are too many players who would be able to come up with valid arguements against it causing damage roughly equivalent to a single Steady/Cobra Shot for example.. Could be a single direct hit, could be a dot(probably a bleed effect), could result in a reduction in the target's armor or increase to damage taken. If the damage was only equal to a single steady/cobra, then that should not even be enough to require rebalancing of dps for the spec much less become a real issue in PVP since the dps increase overall would be rather negligible.

Currently on beta/ptr, intimidation is off the GCD. This would just turn it into another silencing shot situation where me macro'd it into all of our other shots to maximize dps in a raid environment. Blizz disliked this enough to take the damage OFF silencing shot for Cataclysm, don't expect to see them turn around and add it to intimidation.

Regardless of what you feel should be qualified to be any spec's level10 signature ability, or what that ability should represent, you have to admit that there really aren't exactly all that many BM-only active abilities to choose from. One of Blizz's stated goals with hunters was to INCREASE the importance of the pet to MM/SV, so making KC into BM's signature would be counter-productive. Other than that, the only real option for an active ability would be BW, which could work as long as TBW maintained it's position in the talent tree, but could be scary to deal with in low level PVP..

This pretty much hits the nail on the head. There's also the consideration that if you pull bestial wrath out of the tree, what goes in it's place, intimidation?