Ghostcrawler: "Hunter's Eyes of the Beast was 'bloat'"

[Deleted]

It was fun in pvp, hiding your hunter deep inside the Arathi Basin mine and defending the flag as a bear.

Good times, the best times...

[Faroth]

....wat?

I use my rotation without the need for macros or hotkeys. People are so lazy!

Back on topic, I want Eyes of the Beast back. I would love Pet Happiness too if I could (it was so fun and I found use for my food).

I want Eyes of the Beast back as well. It was particularly useful for setting the pet up in a good spot for screen shots or putting them somewhere not so annoying when you were sitting around. It was totally a fun tool for RPers sitting around with others and didn't want the pet RIGHT THERE in the way too.

Eyes of the Beast wasn't bloat and I didn't interpret GC's comment to say it was; just that they didn't find it particularly useful yet they keep hearing players that want it back after removal. My understanding was it had actually been removed because of some exploits it was used for, but I dunno.

Not sure if we really need traps and trap launcher as they are. Could possibly be reworked and improved.
Agree that beast lore doesn't seem necessary but I dont see it being a hotkey tool, so not high priority to remove.
Rapid fire and readiness were mentioned by GC, but I particularly like having readiness back (though it's not quite as cool as it was when heroics required CC and a hunter could dual trap)

Silencing shot/wyvern sting could be combined to sleep out of combat/silence in combat perhaps.

Scare beast I question if anyone ever uses that anymore.

Specifically @Sanochan
You know "feed pet" is still an ability in the game despite the reomval of pet happiness? It's not exactly useful but they left that in, but feeding your pet does give them a good chunk of health back in an instant.

I'm expecting Aspects to be removed entirely any patch now. They already removed any real point to having them.

Personally, I thought aspects should have been reworked to be defensive skills.
Monkey - improved dodge/parry
Nature - improved nature resist
Have an improved arcane resist perhaps, frost or fire, etc. Make it so you swap situationally rather than just "run fast" and "more dps"

But the aspects are apparently considered bloat too, so figure they'll remove another fact of hunter identity.

In the end, players will get what they're asking for and we'll have about 4 buttons in our rotation and a handful of situational abilities. Then the hunter class will be labeled as "boring" with "not enough skills/choices in combat."

[Magpai]

You can keep it if you can think of a single decent use for it.

Hunters have way too many skills to use as it is, its a hot key nightmare.

IF that's your problem then don't hot key it. DUH.

[hyphnos]

You can keep it if you can think of a single decent use for it.

Hunters have way too many skills to use as it is, its a hot key nightmare.

Why would you keep a skill you don't deem useful and therefore don't need or use bound to a key?

Niche skills and unuseful skills don't clutter my keybinds, the ones that you do and have to use do.

[GrieverXIII]

I agree. Feed Pet for example. That could go. Beast lore. Anyone who is out to train a pet already knows what kinda of pet they are after. Eagle Eyes. Cute spell to see far away, but there are telescopes that do the same thing. The should remove the bloat and give hunters something useful, and do like they've done to every other class and make the "fun stuff" into a glyph.

Glyph of Control Beast.

I actually liked eagle eye until they removed it from the only place it could actually be usefull. RBGs. But yeah for the rest. They need to cut off the fat, even in our rotation, but definitively in the "nifty but kinda useless" skills.

Also why they haven't merged Widow's Venom with one of our shots yet?

[Zaydin]

Here's a good reason that they got rid of Eyes of the Beast: It was useless and had no practical purpose.

[GrieverXIII]

It was fun in pvp, hiding your hunter deep inside the Arathi Basin mine and defending the flag as a bear.

Good times, the best times...

JK pet dies in 3 gcds and you get capped on.

[Deleted]

I loved that spell

Please bring it back so I can roleplay as a warg xD

[kynthrus]

You can keep it if you can think of a single decent use for it.

Hunters have way too many skills to use as it is, its a hot key nightmare.

Why does it need to have some kind of decent use? Remember when games were fun, and developers gave you things that made it more fun?

[Tziva]

I definitely understand the desire to remove ability bloat. A lot of classes have too many abilities they don't use very often, or abilities that are unnecessary because they compete (in utility or purpose or resource use) for another ability that does the same thing better. Hunters have always felt particularly guilty of this; every time I pick my hunter back up after a long time of not playing them I'm kinda overwhelmed by all the stupid crap on my bars, much of it I'll never use.

It's a lot better nowadays because they have pared down abilities, but some of the things that went to the chopping block, like Eyes of the Beast, were fun or useful things I miss (also shaman water breathing). *shakes fist*

It would be nice if they could add some of those abilities back, either through glyphs or perhaps back to trainers -- make necessary spells autolearned and fun ones something you have to actually seek out, so the people that wanted them could have them, and the people that don't want their spellbook bloated with optional spells can avoid them.

[GrieverXIII]

Why does it need to have some kind of decent use? Remember when games were fun, and developers gave you things that made it more fun?

Yeah like when half of the paladin's offensive toolkit only worked agains't undeads and some mobs we're completly immune to fire spells forcing mages in the same tree?

Things evolve, sometimes gotta let go of old ideas to leave place for better ones.

[Faroth]

Yeah like when half of the paladin's offensive toolkit only worked agains't undeads and some mobs we're completly immune to fire spells forcing mages in the same tree?

Things evolve, sometimes gotta let go of old ideas to leave place for better ones.

Neither example you gave had any "just for fun" use whatsoever. Not really comparable.

[Solzan Nemesis]

I want my ***king Eyes of the Beast back >_<.

[GrieverXIII]

Not back in classic as BM. My BM pet was stronger than a feral druid.

Thats not saying much considering feral back then . But yeah i guess. PvP wasn't competitive either tough.

---------- Post added 2013-04-11 at 05:33 PM ----------

Neither example you gave had any "just for fun" use whatsoever. Not really comparable.

It was added "flavor". Much like eye of the beast. Sorry if running around as my pet that can only auto-attack doesn't really equal as fun to me.

[Luuth]

I dont know if it has any use now, but I do remember that our hunter used it in the original ZA to pull some trash to a specific place in a certain situation (heading up to the Bird boss). I dont know if it can still be used like this or not, or if there is even any place other than that one pull in ZA that would warrant a use like this. Im not even sure why we used it this way. But obviously it does have a use, if not an extremely specific use.

[Fullmetal89]

Thats not saying much considering feral back then . But yeah i guess. PvP wasn't competitive either tough.

---------- Post added 2013-04-11 at 05:33 PM ----------



It was added "flavor". Much like eye of the beast. Sorry if running around as my pet that can only auto-attack doesn't really equal as fun to me.

Just because it wasn't fun for you doesn't mean they should remove the ability all together. Lots of people found it fun, some people would even say useful in certain circumstances. The point is that its an ability that didn't do anything for Hunters but it also didn't hurt us. You could use it or not. It didn't have to sit in your UI and could be completely ignored like Feed Pet is ignored by most people today. Its like Mind Vision on a priest or Far Sight, or any of those useless glyph abilities like Confession.

They should bring it back as a minor glyph; hopefully exactly like it use to be and not a gimped version where you have to be at a certain range from your pet to use it. If they plan on bringing it back with a Mind Control nerf in range, then I wont care.

[rav1410]

The skill was fun during boring times like pretending as npc and ganking people on Stranglethorn Vale

[rhandric]

Eh? Holy wrath is only good as a stun and it doesn't come up that frequently this xpac. It's damage is pathetic and at high enough haste you barely have to use it anyway since something else is always up.

Holy Wrath scales at 0.91 SP (according to WoWhead), or 0.455 AP -> meaning if you've got 100k Vengeance, it'll hit for over 45k (unfortunately WoWhead's not showing base damage). It's the second hardest hitting ability on a protadin's bar, behind Avenger's Shield.

[OGXanos]

Holy Wrath scales at 0.91 SP (according to WoWhead), or 0.455 AP -> meaning if you've got 100k Vengeance, it'll hit for over 45k (unfortunately WoWhead's not showing base damage). It's the second hardest hitting ability on a protadin's bar, behind Avenger's Shield.

Beat me to it, Thank you though.

[xanzul]

I have a lot of respect for GC, but his comments on Eyes of the Beast on Twitter were simply ridiculous.

Eyes of the Beast, a skill that allowed hunters to channel a spell which gave them direct control of their pet, was a fun spell that many people enjoyed messing around with. You could play around with it in cities, you could use it for RP, and it was good fun running around as your favourite pet Yes it wasn't a DPS skill, or one you would even use in your rotation, but it was still a fun skill that thematically fitted the Hunter's kit of spells. Many classes have these type of spells, such as Mind Vision (Priests), Far Sight (Shaman), Water breathing (Warlock; used to be Shaman as well but that too got removed as 'bloat'). Spells that are just 'fun stuff' that sit on page 3 or 4 of your quickbar and are messed around with every now and again.

I think GC seriously needs to examine exactly what he means by 'bloat' and be more precise in its definition, because his and my definition are very different. For me, Hunter bloat does not come from skills like Eyes of the Beast, which are almost out of combat fun stuff, but rather from in combat cooldowns like Bestial Wrath, Focus Fire, Rapid Fire, Dire Beast, Readiness etc. Especially ones with short to medium cooldowns of 30-120 seconds. This is why my hunter alt has taken some passive talents just to reduce the clutter - and whether I had Eyes of the Beast or not would make no difference. Bloat is not the total number of spells a class has but how many buttons and cooldowns we have to manage while fighting.

Ultimately it effects us all, because from the sounding off which GC has given, I expect them to try and cut out more 'bloat'. I would be happy for them to merge my Druid's Swipe and Thrash abilities, but please lets not delete Aquatic Form because apparently it has no DPS gain in raids, and somehow 'overwhelms' the player with clutter. We don't need nannying, we can figure out what is and isn't useful in a competitive combat situation. :P

Different opinions are different. Imagine that. While you may disagree with GC's reasoning his opinion is just as valid as yours.

---------- Post added 2013-04-11 at 02:16 PM ----------

You had Eyes of the Beast keybound?

Since the answer is obviously no, your argument is invalid. The OP is right. They should not remove skills that are aesthetic or not to be used in combat. There's no justification for it.

There is plenty of justification for it and let's not pretend there aren't significantly more fun abilities like this than there are that have been removed. Hunters were not defined by this ability and I seriously don't even understand what the big deal is when the class already has more than enough fun abilities and plays distinctly differently from the other classes. Seems as though people are scraping the bottom of the barrel to find something to complain about.