Alright, I know some of you don’t give a crap about class fantasy. That’s fine, but this post probably doesn’t concern you. This post concerns the Hunters like me who camp rare pets for days on end and agonize over the naming of their pets. I’m not going to be talking about mechanics or numbers here, I’m going to talk about what I think is wrong with Beast Mastery on a more aesthetic level.
I like the gameplay direction Beast Mastery is headed from a fantasy perspective. Summoning pets as a rotational ability? Awesome. Permanent second pet? Double awesome. Here’s the problem: Summoning pets alone is not why I like playing this type of Hunter. I like summoning my own pets, the ones I spent hours, days, weeks, months, or even years acquiring. Not just random beasts from the wild.
Dire Beast
We’re all familiar with Dire Beast. It summons a beast appropriate to the zone you’re in when you cast it. I never thought much of it because it was a talent on a longer cooldown. In Legion, you are using this ability every 10 seconds or less. You see these pets constantly, especially since Dire Beasts now spawn beside you and charge into the target.
I get that Blizzard’s intention is for the Hunter to call on the aid of wild beasts wherever they are, but I have 4 extra and perfectly fine pets already on me. Why can’t there be an option for Dire Beast to randomly pick from one of my 4 other active pets? Then I can assemble a team of my favorites, and literally all 5 of them can see action.
Having one of my own pets temporarily help me is way cooler than a random cat or monkey I have no attachment to whatsoever. I’m sure some people like the random “from the wild” aspect, so that’s why all it needs is a glyph. Something like this:
Glyph of the Stable Master: Your Dire Beast ability now calls upon one of your unused active pets.
Please, Blizzard! I’m begging you here!
Update (Feb 17)
Blizzard has responded to the community’s Dire Beast feedback. They are adding a glyph in a future alpha patch to let us use our own pets for Dire Beast! Celestalon responded to a post in the forums to announce it:
Since Beast Mastery has been unlocked, this has been the strongest point of feedback, and we’ve heard you, loud and clear.
Coming soon will be a glyph that makes Dire Beast summon your stabled pets, instead of random area-themed beasts. We’re also considering a talent that replaces Dire Beast with a new shot, and are interested in feedback and ideas on that concept.
Thanks!
Great news! It doesn’t address all of the concerns but it addresses a big one for me. Thanks for listening, Blizzard.
Stampede
Stampede has changed in Legion. Now it summons random beasts that charge forward and hit anything in their path, and it only lasts about 10 seconds. I suspect part of the reason for this change is to reduce melee clutter in raids. Having 5 pets per Hunter for 40 seconds at a time (plus now more with Hati and Dire Beasts) could get out of hand.
Fine, I’ll accept that. I’ll even say I think this new Stampede looks pretty cool in action. Also, because of the way it works with spawning several waves of beasts, it probably wouldn’t make much sense to use our other active pets since that would mean our pets are teleporting back before every wave.
There is another option though: Have Stampede pull pets from our STABLE, not our active pet list. How cool would that be? Then we get to see even more of our pets in action. This is the type of thing that screams Beast Mastery to me. Being able to use all of the pets I’ve collected over the years. Finally, a reason to stable 50 pets. A new Stampede every time.
Since Stampede is a 3 minute cooldown, I am less concerned about it than I am of Dire Beast. If Stampede stays fully random, I’m not going to be too broken up over it (there’s at least other talents). But I still think pulling beasts from our stable would make this talent about 50x more awesome.
Hati
Hati is a tough one. Once you play the Titanstrike artifact quest, you’ll realize there’s a reason why it’s Hati specifically. Hati is part of the gun itself, not really a pet you’ve tamed. It’s a neat idea, but there are a few problems I see with it:
- Hati uses an 8-year-old model and texture. It looks pretty dated for a new and shiny artifact. Even a lightning version of a Draenor wolf model would be better IMO.
- Will it look weird having every single BM Hunter with the same pet?
- Some Hunters don’t like wolves, and they will be forced to use one for an entire expansion if they want to keep playing BM.
I’m one of the few who like this particular brand of wolf, my main issue being the dated visuals that really stand out against modern character models and modern pet models. We’re talking about a model that some artist made back in 2007/2008 before WOTLK was released. Back when WoW had stricter system requirements.
- Option 1: Deal with it. Hati is an important part of the Titanstrike lore and we won’t be making a new model for her.
- Option 2: Use a more modern wolf model, or make a new model for Hati (this could still happen since we’re so early in development).
- Option 3: Have a different Hati beast form for every style of the artifact. This way, you could at least swap to different artifact look and have Hati take on the form of another beast. For example, have one as a cat, one as a bird, etc. Don’t like that particular artifact model? At least you can transmog over it.
- Option 4: Let Hati take on the form of one of our own pets. After all, it’s just Hati’s spirit inhabiting Titanstrike, so taking on another physical form isn’t completely out of the question. Maybe add a ghost or electrical effect to sell it better?
At the very least, I hope the dated looking graphics for Hati are addressed. Better would be customization options, even if they were limited (like option 3). Option 4 is more complicated because there are no glyphs for an artifact, only abilities. So there would have to be some kind of interface to enable this or select a pet to use in Hati’s place.
I would feel a lot better with the change to Dire Beast alone, but I hope Blizzard considers all of these points. I spent a decade building up my current pet collection. If Beast Mastery is going to be using more pets, let it be my pets.
Addendum: Just to clarify, your main pet is NOT changing. It can still be anything you want. A few people got the wrong idea from my post. The reason I am making such a big deal is because these secondary pets get nearly as much screen time as your main pet. They are huge parts of the spec in Legion. I feel like Blizzard has forgotten that we are beast tamers. We should be using the pets we have tamed and bonded with, not temporary and disposable beasts.
101% agree. As for Hati, option 4 would obviously be the best one, the pets could get some visual effect (like a bit ghostly, or with a blue tint).
Another effect that I think would look pretty cool too for option 4 is making the pet look possessed with lightning effects give the pets eye’s some cool lighting visual
The use of the same model for every BM artefact is the reason why, I suspect, all my Hunters will give up guns for good, because frankly the ‘fantasy’ for this spec is deeply and fundamentally flawed.
This has not been thought through, and it makes me sad.
That’s what happens when your view of ‘fantasy’ fundamentally diverges from the people making the game.
It always amazes me how much the developers don’t think through their ideas to the logical conclusion of where players would want to take them. I remember back to when Warlords was announced, and someone asked about the idea of bring our alts into your garrison, and the devs had a look on their face like they had never heard that idea before – and they probably hadn’t! Which is amazing, because when you start talking about garrisons, I don’t see how anyone with any serious alt wouldn’t think about bringing them together in such a shared location… It just seems that the developers get so locked into their own way of thinking about certain things that it blows them completely out of left field when someone comes up with an alternate idea and they are completely unprepared to adjust for it. I get that not every developer can think of everything, but how is there not SOMEONE on the team to think of these things. I know that someone went through and very specifically fixed the dire beast ‘summon from the wild’ code to make sure it would work in all the zones, which is cool, but to remove something as simple as “hey, I get to choose which five of my pets come out at once!” without considering that the mere fact that, for some, that choice is compelling gameplay(!) and part of the class fantasy in its own right.
I’ve seen something like this happen before (and I can’t believe I’m going here…) Star Wars Galaxies redid all their classes in the NGE, and the result was that many people quit the game, because the character they had played could no longer be the character they envisioned. I won’t go so far as to say it killed the game, but, well, I wouldn’t be talking about WoW right now if that didn’t happen. The time to develop class fantasy is at launch. To attempt such a massive rework so late in the game’s history is… risky, to say the least.
I’m afraid your thoughts may be falling on deaf ears here, Bendak. I can’t see them changing that much. I mean, I want to be wrong, but this is looking like a train wreck. “Class fantasy” has nothing to do with the actual phrase… it’s just Blizzard’s new buzzword, like “Savage” for WoD. : /
Great post, Bendak; I entirely agree, and I think these changes would go a long way to addressing my misgivings about the new BM. I seem to recall a developer tweet from way back when which suggested that the technology for Dire Beast to summon our own pets was ‘in the works’ so I’m really hopeful this will happen. It would be great to see a similar glyph for Stampede, if they really are wedded to the random wild animals aspect of the new version being baseline. On a personal level, I’m less bothered about Hati, but I support your third option to allow it to change depending on the artefact skin (it would also give me a reason to actually unlock the skins, since I’m planning on mogging the gun to a bow anyway).
I remember that too, but I think it was actually a reddit comment. It was from a long time ago. I hope they’re still considering it, or if they read my post it at least reminds them about it!
I guess this glyph is going to be a thing after all! Really, really pleased to hear this – although I still hope they add a glyph or change Stampede too. Thanks again for helping to bring this concern shared by so many hunters to the devs’ attention 🙂
I’m a little puzzled by the comment about adding a talent to replace DB with a shot, though. I too feel like a extra ability would be great in terms of adding another level of complexity to what seems like a very bare rotation at the moment. But I can’t see that making it an option to replace DB – which will now drive the new rotation for BM – really helps here. I hope they consider making Chimaera baseline, and give us some really interesting options in that tier.
All good ideas and thoughts, Bendak. Couldn’t agree more. But since you were mentioning the stables, here’s another idea:
Isn’t maybe the whole idea of the stable itself outdated?
Why can’t the new “stable” be another tab on the collections page, just like non-combat pets and mounts. Hunters just get an extra tab here, and all of our pets are displayed in the same format (again, like mounts are today) and maybe even break from the 50 only limit (the mount tab seems to have no trouble showing hundreds of mounts, why not hunter pets?). Maybe, even have these tamed pets be… wait for it…….. ACCOUNT WIDE, so all of your hunter alts have access to the pets you tame. Really, if I already spent 6 months camping for Loque’nahak on one toon, why should I be punished to do it again on every hunter alt I make?
So, in summary… lets update the hunter pet stable to a tab on the collections page, open up the number of pets allowed there, and make them account wide.
Thoughts Bendak… anyone?
Well, some of my thoughts on this might not be popular. I don’t think a collection is necessary because the collection system for me is all about improving inventory space. Pets don’t take up any inventory.
One of the ideas I floated here was a mobile stable master you could earn somehow: http://eyesofthebeast.com/2014/03/revamping-hunter-stable-garrisons/
Keep in mind this post is 2 years old and was well before WoD came out, but some of this stuff could apply to Trueshot Lodge, or as a class-specific toy which they are doing now.
Account wide pets is… well, I dunno. It doesn’t feel right. The beasts are supposed to be bonded to a single Hunter. For convenience sake it sounds amazing, but I’m not sure if it’s the right thing to do.
I agree with not having account wide pets. Part of the fun with an alt is the training…retraining…of pets. If they were account wide then there would be no incentive to do so.
I totally want to have the bm Hunter pet tab! I mean we all collect mounts and battle pets, especially as a Hunter! I totally agree with you and would want that. I agree with the account wide pet sharing. I understand bendaks pov on the Hunter bond bound to one character, but if you have multiple hunters you don’t really create another unique character per Se. Just one class with maybe different races, but you only envision one Hunter when you play. Say you play a warlock and a Hunter, they both play differently, you envision them differently, etc. it’s not very likely you do that if you have multiple Hunter characters imo.
Indeed I wasted so much time unsuccessfully trying to tame LoqueNahak and other desirable mets on some of my hunters, while already having them on at least one.
Agree completely! I feel like them taking on the class fantasy and pushing it into this set template… It dictates me too much! I’m a bow-wielding draenei beast master. I want a quiver. I want to see my pets; my first tame from 8,5 years ago (Infected Nightstalker from Azuremyst Isle called Ratchet), my first pet camp (Humar the Pride Lord from Barrens), my old favorite Loque’nahak, and my new favorite Gara. I feel like double wolves/pets is an Enhancement Shaman flavour-thing.
I hope they listen to you at least about Dire Beast, and that Hati will be updated.
The very minimum they need to do with Hati is to give it a new, and preferably unique, model and a skin for each skin weapon, Hati is the main part of the weapon it needs to be as customizable as the weapon.
Ever get the feeling that the “class fantasy” in many cases is created by someone that has never played the class and spec being covered? Sometimes – by which I mean, THIS TIME – I get that feeling.
I 90% agree with you on the Dire Beast situation. The only difference I would make is to make your Glyphed version the default, and the “random thingy from the area” the glyphed exception.
I’m actually okay with Stampede being the way it is because the beasts in this case do not originate by your side, as they do in the case of Dire Beast. They apparently come in from somewhere else, which strongly suggests “indiginous”. Or did I not read the description right? (I’m not in the alpha, so it’s all hearsay for me).
The weapon, and Hati … oh my, I don’t know how to start enumerating how wrong it feels to me for the BM spec. The weapon – the forced weapon type, the way it links this beasty to you, heck, even the fact that there’s a beasty hiding in there in the first place – all that sits not well at all with me. (And let us pause for a moment of silence for the Draenai wandering around without crossbows now).
At any rate, I think we could fill books with the ways that the weapon feels all wrong for our class, of any spec. You’re just hitting the surface of this issue.
I will continue to play as BM in the upcoming expansion, but I may retire as my team’s “main” DPS contributor in favor of a mage or warlock (depending on which they screw up least).
Cheers for a cracking good post once again.
I am glad you are addressing this. I signed on for BM for a single beast to be my best buddy, to share a bond that was unbreakable. To live and die for each other, not to be a Disney princess calling woodland critters to come to my aid. With a few changes to aesthetics like you pointed out above these issues could be better but BM is looking unappealing to me now. I never thought Blizzard could fuck up the idea of more pets but they have done it.
I am seriously considering swapping to Survival in Legion because technical issues with pets aside, it seems they now have better pet lore than Beast Mastery.
Just let that sink in.
personally i hope that the hati model is just a filler and we get a newer wolf. im hoping that with each upgrade hati will change as well.
the new stampede i think is fine with random pets but i agree i would like the dire beast to come from our pets.
i would like to get rid of the 5 active pets think & just let us pull directly from out stables. i dont see a reason to be limited to just 5 active pets anymore.
from what i have seen so far i am liking the new look BM. i look forward to always having a pile of pets smashing the target. cant wait to see what pvp come out. weeeeee!!!!!!!
What about the “stomp” ability when dire beast I think it was comes in. But an owl or bird uses stomp. Makes no sense! It was on bellulars bm Hunter video if you want a visual. For legion, I agree with everything you say. I also wAnt a tab where we can collect bm Hunter pets. We collect mounts, we collect battle pets, etc. why not have an option to “collect them all” for bm Hunter pets!
Maybe a “hurricane” instead of a “stomp” for flying pets?
As for a stable collection tab, It would be nice to have an updated interface, but right now it’s way at the bottom of my list! I can deal with the current stables (wouldn’t mind a few more slots though).
How about a “tornado” or instead of stomp, maybe something general for all pets like “attack or claw”.
We need more posts and feedback like this. Most people are too busy focusing on numbers and mechanics. Fun, flavorful things like this are just as, if not more important, for some people. Fun should come first. This is a game, after all.
did you submit this on forums? or let the ppl on blizz know about your thoughts?
Tweeted it to @WarcraftDevs so hopefully someone reads it 🙂
I’m hearing you on pretty much all of this B.
Dire Beast really needs to be customizable. As a core mechanic now for BM, I don’t think this is something they should really be looking past. If anything it should have been set to your active pets line up, or your 2nd active pet as a default, and called something like Ardent Beast? Then if they wanted as an option for diversity, they could have a glyph to make it Dire Beast, making them random per zone.
I also agree with Hati also being made customizable in some fashion. It would be great if we could pick any look of our choosing, having every BM hunter running around with the same 2nd pet will really ruin the beauty and customization our class has always had. I would really detract from the fantasy and appeal of being able to tame/customize you companions. Ideas suggested like “Electrifying” or adding “Effects” would be my personal preference too rather than a forced change, but still any options would be appreciated at this point in time.
Regarding Hati’s current Model however, I have a bad feeling that we may be stuck with it to a certain degree. With the addition to the files of the 4 new Spectral Saber Worgs, it’s looking very likely that these are going to be colour variants for Hati, and they are not just reskins, they are technically new models (due to colour changes in the special effects).
http://forums.wow-petopia.com/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=23645#saberworgs-newskins
Now I’m not saying that other customization options won’t or can’t be available, but I unfortunately don’t think they will be changing the current Hati to a new model simply due to the fact that these new version they have just made will then become redundant. And blizzard does not like remaking anything once they have done it, unless they really really have to.
Also from my testing on the Alpha the 1st thing (and although minor) that really left me wishing it was not so, is while your current pet stands by your side, Hati is set to default to stand behind you. If they could set Hati to stand on your right with your current on your left, it would look so much grander, being flanked by your trusty companions. It would just add a much better fantasy to it imo.
Stampede is the least I’m worried about personalizing as its up time is minimal compared to the others and the new version of them dashing into and through. It seems much wilder to me compared to the previous version where they would attack by your side for a period of time. This version makes me think of Tarzan or the likes, calling to the wilds and the beasts around coming to assist in in a time of need. Due to that I’m less fussy about it being customizable. If it was, sure that would be cool, but if it was to the detriment of the others not being made customizable, no thanks.
Breaking off a little from a purely fantasy feel, but still related, the fact that Hati is just a companion and does not follow any orders nor seems not particularly cohesive, also breaks the fantasy feel of commanding two beasts. It feels more like controlling one and babysitting another and hoping it does get killed or kills you in the process. Hopefully they’ll look into this as well.
Ah yes, I think I may have to do another post at some point focusing more on mechanical issues. 🙂
I agree 100% about Hati not standing at your opposite side. I don’t like her standing behind like that. Also, I think the easiest solution for controlling Hati is to just have Hati mirror all of the commands given to the primary pet (including stance). That would solve most of it.
I agree Stampede is the least concerning, but thinking of the stable idea I thought it was too fun not to mention.
“If they could set Hati to stand on your right with your current on your left, it would look so much grander, being flanked by your trusty companions. It would just add a much better fantasy to it imo.”
Absolutely agree.
Let’s face it, if they didn’t care about forcing a weapon appearance choice on us they sure as hell won’t care about forcing pet appearance choice on us. No other class ( I play many ) is as uniquely tied to choice of weapon ( the actual mechanical weapon as well as the pet ) as the hunter. We essentially define ourselves by that choice/choice combo. With the change to “class fantasy” they completely ignore all of that. Completely. They simply do not care. Wow has reached a point where it’s only about what’s easiest to maintain. The money for activis is with twitch/pretty/fast games like Overwatch and slow/predictable/carrot games like Hearthstone. Thoughtful pay is not encouraged. The thoughtful audience has grown up and has to deal with real life. Bliz knows this, has to maintain a profit margin, and has made the tough choice to homogenize WoW to make it maintainable. WoW is their legacy core, not their future, and they know it. The question for each of us is “How long can I stick around?”
I have rolled a third hunter (dwarf) to see if I could get used to gun as a main weapon ( I hate guns, the gun culture that enables so much harm ) and the answer, I’m sorry and confused to say is that I have accepted it. If it’s not 100 by legion ( currently 7) I’ll likely boost it so I can main each variation. That’s an odd choice for me. I’ve been BM since day one. Im staying with the game one more time. Not sure that’s a wise choice.
I just will flat out not use the artifact weapon except in dungeons or LFR when required (assuming weapons will drop in Legion), terrible choice by Blizz on using a wolf. Uhk’loc will not run with a wolf, he is the king of the apes. While im here where is my gorilla mount Blizz?? We know you can do it after seeing the gronlings…
Great post Bendak, as always the voice of reason for all things hunter related, keep up the good work.
ps where can I get a high rez version of the header image?
there are no weapon drops in legion so you must use your artifact weapon. this has already been stated by blizzard
Fantastic Feedback Bendak. I agree with everything beside your order of priority.
(1) It is going to be one boring world of warcraft if BM is top DPS spec and every one is running around with Hati and Skoll.
(2) Direbeast….this one is a must too and it should not be hard considering the current Stampede glyph already does something like that (all pets use the same skin)
(3) Stampede ..meh…..all that work for a 10 sec ability? That got to be some serious coding to grab pet skins from the stables. There is nothing like that now. Awesome idea, but there probably a lot of better things the developers can be working on…like
(4) Makign Surv a tank spec….i only play the hunter class and after all these years want another roll!
I totally agree with your post. Ideally, for me, the first 4 active DireBeasts should be taken from your unused active pets and Hati’s appearance should be tied to the Artifact appearance.
For Stampede I’d like either a Glyph of Thunder Lizards, which summons Thunder Lizards (like Rexxar in WC3) or selects pets from my stable, although I can see some issues with the last option if someone has a lot of really big pets 😉
Great post Bendak!
Agree with it all and I think because of the Lore they are going to be sticking with Hati as the bound pet to Titanstrike. But I do remember a datamined blue lightning draenor wolf. So maybe he will be replaced with that? Or maybe it will be a glyph to slightly change the wolf version.
I think they are going to have variety with Hati with as you change the color or the style of Titanstrike.
Either way I know that I’m going to probably stick with BM (perhaps reluctantly) but still BM nonetheless.
>> Dire Beast from pocket pets, Stampede from stable pets
These are amazing ideas. Where do I go to scream at Blizzard “make it so”?
Agreed 110%.
I spent hours upon hours finding the most perfect models for my pets that closely resemble old pets I had growing up. I would absolutely love to be able to use them with Direbeast; and bonus points if I can still have them in stampede in someway!!
Great write up; I hope Blizz takes notice.
Terrific post!
Having read this and the comments; it seems to me that a decent investment in minor glyphs would help a lot. A lot of my wishes are cosmetic and building a list of minor glyphs would make us feel more in control of our look and play-style.
Legion is all about the “class fantasy” yet BM seems to be overlapping with demonology. I have been watching various class previews, your description about BM is very close to how warlock demonology is playing at the moment. Locks summon an army of demons and hunter summon an army of animals, not much difference beyond names and character models.
My idea of BM is about the union of the hunter and their pet, they bring out each other’s full strength. having a cadre of minions at your side reduces the importance of your pet. Why not change Dire Beast to a buff mechanic for your main pet? Hati shouldnt be effected by “Dire Rage” to maintain your main pet’s prominence.
Lets call it “Dire Rage” for discussion; instead of an additional pet, your main pet will enrage and will perform a “Dire Strike” on every auto attack. “Dire Strike” will do the same amount of damage as a dire beast and and provide the same amount of focus to the hunter.
The cool-down reduction mechanic for beast wrath would also make more sense, you and your pet build to the rage needed to trigger beast wrath together. honestly, i think your main pet would grow angry at the hunter for calling upon other animals for aid instead of standing together as one.
The reset mechanic for Dire Beast can also be used. “Dire Rage” can have a stacking mechanic that will cause your pet to perform X amount of “Dire Strikes” for every X stack of “Dire Rage”, with each stack having an individual timer.
Then the Stomp talent can be added too, If taken, your main pet will perform the stomp when you cast “Dire Rage”
Bit of a long winded way to say that Dire Beast mechanics should be integrated into your main pet. And I agree that BM needs to be more about the pets that you took your time to find and tame, i.e. stampeded pulling randomly from your stabled and active pets.
To me, the idea of BM is about the union with your main pet. Why not bake the mechanics of Dire Beast into your main pet?
Lets call it “Dire Rage” for discussion. “Dire Rage” will work exactly the same as Dire Beast yet will be a buff on your main pet so it performs a “Dire Strike” upon an auto attack for each stack of “Dire Rage”, which each stack having an individual timer. Damages can be identical and be made so it wont participate in beast cleave. The talent Stomp can be made part of it as well if taken.
Having an army of minions is the same direction that demonology warlocks are heading, do we want to be the animal variant? Why not have something that is more focused on our main pet since we will be getting a permanent second pet, whom of which will become identical to our main pet with one of the later artifact traits.
BM should be about the pets that we take time and effort to find and tame.
In regards to stampede and Dire beast, There are a lot of rare and unique pet options for us, is it such a terrible thing to allow us to customize the pets summoned by stampede and dire beast.
To be clear, i never liked Dire beast from the day it was introduced. Sounds cool, but found it clunky and annoying, especially at the start of MoP where BM hunters had many cool-downs to use at that start of an encounter, arguably more than other classes.
Hrm – I like this – Demo lock seems to find nicer with a ‘swarm’ effect of demons – buffing, and re-buffing, and enraging, and powering up our companion seems to fit BM more, IMHO….
well, whoops
first time posting her and it seems i double posted.
thought my first one didn’t go through and got lost. sorry about that
feel free to delete / ignore the posting you like the least
I agree with most of your thoughts, but I take issue with Hati in regards to the model used. Speaking as a shaman, it grates on me every time when I need to use Ghost Wolf because I don’t like the Draenor wolf model. At all. I tried every patch PTR to get Blizzard to add a glyph so GW would use the original model for the ability, to no avail.
That Hati you show in your image header for that section? I love it. Please don’t encourage Blizzard to take it away.
Looks like the Glyph of the Stablemaster will be added according tot a blue post by Celestalon:
“Since Beast Mastery has been unlocked, this has been the strongest point of feedback, and we’ve heard you, loud and clear.
Coming soon will be a glyph that makes Dire Beast summon your stabled pets, instead of random area-themed beasts. We’re also considering a talent that replaces Dire Beast with a new shot, and are interested in feedback and ideas on that concept”
Source:http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/20742444486#9
“I’m making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS.”
Good!
The issues you mention do not fit under class fantasy, the new mantra Blizzard uses to justify whatever changes they want to make to classes, most of whom are awful imo.
They fit into the core identity of the class. Taming pets, for most hunters, is a labor of passion, an investment of days, months or even years. That’s why I do not consider the changes you ask for simply cosmetics.
We are asking to use our pets, not generic pets. The pets we tamed, nourished, healed and fought wars with. Pets that sometimes did heroic deeds such as sacrificed themselves for another player or taunted to give a desperate group a chance of survival.
.Therefore, I would go even farther than you: I would like to see the name of my pets used in dire wolf, stampede and other such abilities. Of course, I wouldn’t mind if other players could choose not to see them to minimize the raiding graphical clutter.
Still want more changes to Hati, as a lot of people do. Blizz doesn’t seem to understand how people who play hunters really work, in that a lot of us get really attached to the individual creatures we’ve tamed over the months or years, and in fact our active pets often go along with our entire transmog set. My main hunter is actually VERY into wolves, but I drifted away from using Skoll with her because while it’s still a tame that I personally love, it’s a little on the flashy side for her (plus a lot of people have Skoll these days). Hati has the same problem currently, plus the fact that every BM hunter will have Hati (and probably Skoll as well, considering how many people like to coordinate pets and mounts and transmog). I’m gonna get tired of seeing Hati everywhere really quickly, I feel like.
The fact that Blizz actually responded to community feedback is amazing, also. This upcoming glyph to change Dire Beast sounds fantastic and perfect, and much more in line with MY hunter “fantasy”. I’m already sick of hearing that word in this context. I’d be happier if they made this glyph the default appearance and instead made a glyph to summon random animals, but whatever. I wanted that with druids, too, to make the orca the default aquatic form and have a glyph for the stupid sea lion whatever appearance if people really wanted it. Ugh.
Option 4 is by far my favorite. To imbue a pet with the spirit of Hati, it could be done at a particular location, tied either to the Titanstrike quest chain or the class hall. The hunter could go to that special location, wielding Titanstrike, walk their pet on to some magic rock, a little special effects, and Hati’s model (and name?) would be changed.
I’m hoping for a way to dismiss Hati independently from dismissing my real pet. Like change the “on equip: summon” on Titanstrike to an “on use: summon/dismiss”.
Question: what beasts are currently used for stampede? Are they drawn from that zone’s dire beasts? And how many are there? There’s some stabled pets I wouldn’t want out, but if sticking them on the last page would keep them from stampeding that’d be appealing.
As for a pet tab, I don’t like the idea. If I have multiple pets with the same skin, then that kind of fouls that up. The only problem I have with stable masters is that it’s a PitA to find them most of the time. It would not surprise me at all if Blizzard overlooked putting a stable master in the Hunter Hall. They should just bring back “Call Stabled Pet”, which I think was around in Cataclysm.
Nice update…but stables? not active pets (our 5 slots)…if it stables then I have some pets that are getting the boot.
omgomgomgogmogmogmogmogmogmogmogmogmogmogmogmogmg
AND WAIT OMG…MY OIL STAIN WOLF? HE BEEN IN ME STABLES FOR YEARS (to scared to use em beside hanging out in town)…USE DIRE BEAST IN ARENA/RBG and THERE GOES MY OIL STAINED WOLF.
TELL ME IT AIN’T SO!
Bendak… I am pretty sure I saw some updated Wolf Models that looked like they were (or would) be tied to Hati on MMo-Champion (Link: http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/5447-Legion-Alpha-Build-20979 – that Blue Wolf towards the bottom). I recall also not just seeing the Blue but also a Red, Green and Purple (? I think it was Purple(ish)?).
I was really thinking those would be color variants for Hati related to our color selection for Titanstrike. So, from what you have seen thus far there is nothing other than the older wolf model for Hati, correct? Not even a color selection/choice for Hati that you have seen at this point?
You nailed two of my huge problems with the spec in Legion, though I’m not quite as accepting of them as you are 😛
Frankly, I’m really upset that I’m being forced to use a pet that I don’t like or want. Your suggestion about having the weapon “imbue” one of your current pets is a good one, and one that I also made.
However, I do NOT want a swarm of random wild pets. I have a close bond with MY pets, not random animals that happened to be wandering past me in the wild. I would prefer they boosted the special abilities of BM hunter pets, or make them work in tandem with the hunter, sort of what Survival is doing.
It’s just super frustrating because if I want to play a ranged hunter with a pet, BM is my only option, and right now? I will not play this class. I saw something on the forums about adding a pet option to Marksman. It would at least be a compromise I might be able to live with.
I’m more for an Option 5: Hati imbues your current pet with fancy Titan power giving it extra damage or other boosts, rather than a second pet. Hati could appear as a ghostly version of the pet when it attacks.
I would like to see the 2nd pet completely decoupled from the Gun.
Give us a fancy quest chain for Hati, but give us the ability to summon a 2nd pet of our own choosing.
Hati just feels bad all the way around.
Great post as usual <3 i can accept random beasts that despawn,but not an ugly permanent wolf following me.They must hear our feedback and let change hati appereance based on our current pet or at least give us different pet options tied to Titanstrike
Absolutely LOVE that Blizz listened! Like you, I spend time collecting my pets. I spend more time finding names for them. Take the exotic Loque. I spent about 3 weeks trying to find the perfect name for him. The result? Jakuta, named for the Nigerian God of Lightning. With the old druid-style attack he had, it was perfect.
Yeah, I wonder how many of us actually think this way anymore…
I think this is going to be the new hati:
http://www.wow-petopia.com/images/skin_pix/wolfdraenorlightning.jpg
Similar lightning effects but new wolf skin.
I hope you are right!
We have same feeling about this new BM hunter. Please blizzard, hear us out! :'(
It’s good they made the specs different. On the other side, blizzard sometimes exaggerate with changes and it takes one expansion to smooth them out, which is precisely what they are doing with the hunter class. Now on live we have 3 specs that have been very similar for a long time, in Legion however they are overdoing it and trying way too much. I think many hunters are disappointed and lost because they want to play the classical WoW hunter (see vanilla intro) playing as a ranged dps with a pet assisting. In Legion the nearest we can get to that is BM, with all kind of weird electrical pets, multiple dire beasts and what not, when one pet would have been enough. Or at least one spec with the classical ranged+1 pet.
I agree 100% with the possibility of being able to customise that blue wolf. That damn wolf and its visuals makes me wanna re-roll hunter but hey! I get some people like it.
Maybe add a minor glyph or artifact customisation like…
Glyph of the Mirrored Beast
Has your companion Haiti mirror the form of you’re current pet.
It’s possible! 🙂
No time to read all the replies here, but I agree with this article. It addresses the heart of the hunter. We want to use our own pets more!
Absolutely! I have seen updates since this post and I Like that they listened if only just a little. I would Like to see MY pets and not just some random beast. Same for the Hati Concept. Same for the rest of that, though I am still pretty upset about stampede, I would love if it pulled from my Stable. that would make me do back flips, I would be over the moon for that. please Blizz PLEASE!!! as for the gun, I am going to transmog, because even though they brought in a bow, it still looks like a Gun and I did not enjoy any of the models except the rare hard to find one they have not explained how to get yet. so until that appears or I figure that out, transmog it is! Hati was updated Thank you Blizz! please let this Dire beast Glyph be a thing! PLEASE!!! I am a bit disturbed by the lack of traps, since they took out hunters mark, and now the panda land pets will be improbable if not impossible to get. Since most of them are considered Exotic pets such as the red water strider, which I have on my main, but that’s it because hunter’s mark was removed and 90% of this pet’s path is phased! maybe they can fix this? Bring back hunter’s mark? what about Stuns for PvP and ways to get out of stuns, because, Since WoD, they took away the ability of Bestial Wrath to remove stuns and slows, and have not given us any way to get out of them since. I have taken to running around the world with pvp trinkets just so that I have ONE stun removing ability. Also! I would like to ask if anyone knows about Fluxfire Felines, and if we can tame them now with our gnomes and Goblins as I would really like a cat rather than the rabbit, or perhaps a bear? just a thought.