Shortly after I wrote this initial piece on what I felt was wrong with the Beast Mastery fantasy in Legion, the developers announced that they planned on adding a glyph so that Dire Beast would pull from your own stable of pets rather than use random ones from the wild. This addressed one of the primary concerns, but the other big one was Hati.
Since then, Hati has seen a model update (as seen above) and most Hunters seem to agree that it’s a heck of a lot better than the old model. In addition there are different colors of Hati to match your artifact color. After they did this, I was fairly certain that was it for Hati. Having every single BM Hunter stuck with the same wolf wasn’t ideal, but at least it was a brand new model.
However, in the most recent build a very interesting item was datamined.
Essence Swapper: Channel the Essence Swapper at your pet for 10 sec, at which point Hati’s atomic structure will instantly change to match your pet’s.
Hell yeah! I like Hati and all, but she’s going to be there ALL THE TIME. Having options to change her appearance will be great. It’s still a bit unclear to me how it will work (can’t find it in game yet to test). First of all, is it permanent? It sounds like it duplicates your main pet, but if you summon a new pet will Hati copy that one too? I hope not. I would prefer if after using the item, you could dismiss your pet and summon a new one with Hati keeping the previous appearance. That way you could have two unique pets. It’s also unclear how you revert the appearance back to original Hati.
Either way, it’s a way to customize that we didn’t have before. I feel bad nitpicking about it, but I have one more for you, Blizzard: Make Hati flank our left side instead of following behind us. A pet on either side of the Hunter looks way better, plus Hati always clips into larger mounts when following behind.
Dire Frenzy
Dire Frenzy is a new talent that is replacing Exotic Munitions. It replaces Dire Beast as a way to generate Focus.
- One of the most common points of feedback we’ve heard is that all of the specs are cool on their own, but none of them maintain the existing “Hunter + Ranged Weapon + Single Pet” archetype that people have grown attached to (Survival is now Melee, Marksmanship has lost its pet, and Beast Mastery has added a ton of additional pets).
- We’re going to try offering a talent choice that will allow you to opt back into having gameplay focus around you and your one strong pet, rather than the many Dire Beasts that it currently does.
- Exotic Munitions is being removed, and Dire Frenzy will be added in its place. Dire Frenzy triggers a flurry of attacks from your pet, grants an attack speed buff for several seconds, and immediately generates some Focus. It has a 15sec cooldown. It will work with all other talents and abilities that interact with Dire Beast, such as Wild Call (chance to reset its cooldown), One With the Pack (higher Wild Call chance), Dire Stable (more Focus generation), and Bestial Wrath (cooldown reduction on use). And if you get lucky with Wild Call procs, you will find that the attack speed buff can stack.
Keep those in mind for feedback on this build! Thanks!
So if you’re not a fan of constantly summoning temporary beasts, now you’ll have an option to empower your main pet instead. Pretty cool, can’t wait to try it in the next build.
Heck yeah that’s all cool and may i add the new Hati model look ls bad ass though like you i too am curious as to how the appearance Change will work worth Hati…it may be a spell that you click on to toggle it on/off,you pick the pet and to return back Hati to its original form you click on the spell again…maybe?…and Dire Frenzy seems interesting.
More playstyle options is always good but I think it would have been better if DireFrenzy was a Glyph option for DireBeast so we can choose DireFrenzy and Chimaera shot.
Yep. Or just baseline Chimaera Shot. The spec could use a little an extra ability or two.
Didn’t have a problem with the old model,but the new one looks a lot meaner.Also glad to see they’re listening to the feedback.
Ohhhh it’s that new model from that cool wolf boss with the arrows sticking out of it, but minus the arrows and plus a lot of glow. I like it! And I’m so pumped about possibly being able to have Hati look like one of my existing pets, and I’m sure a ton of other hunters will be as well. We didn’t all spend days/weeks/months camping unique rarespawns just to have something forced on us, after all.
It’s happening we can transmog hati <3 <3 and we can get rid of those awful random summoned pets,my life is complete, i dont need to ask anything more to the developers now:P
Nice, they re listening. The only thing left is to make Stampede at least LOOK like it does now. My worsen hunter mains Karoma, the ghost wolf from Cata, who I named after the beloved dog I lost a few years ago, Beta. I use the glyph that makes Stampede duplicate current summoned pet, so when I Stampede I get an entire pack of ghost wolves. I get a wonderful feeling every single time. I don’t want to lose that for someone else notion of class fantasy.
Again, will dire beast glyph summon pets from stables or from your 5 pet slots?
i.e in arena and it gets my oil stain wolf from my stables and it loses that i am going to be irate.
Don’t quote me on this, but as I understand it, when Dire Beasts from your stables (or active stable, I don’t know which it is) are summoned, they won’t actually *be* your pets, just summoned creatures that use the appearance of your pets. Again, I could be wrong, but if this is how it’s going to work you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.
Hunters are getting some love!
I’ve been a fan of Beast Mastery from day one. To this day I still keep the pet I got when I travelled all the way from Durotar do Dun Morogh to tame. She’s always on my 5-box. It will be awesome to have her out at the same time with Natasha (my Gondria), whom I spent DAYS camping for.
It’s a wonderful feeling to know that they will still be around me, instead of random beasts from the area. As beast masters we feel a connection to all of them, but our pets are part of us, and being without them would be like losing a limb. That’s what BM is all about for me.
I’ve always felt that the spec should focus a LOT on pet management. We are ranged DPS but not because we use bows, guns or crossbows, but because we send our pets in!
That being said, I would love an option between gun and bow (at least) for Titanstrike…
If this new Glyph needs to be crafted then Scribes are gonna make bank. Almost every Hunter is going to want this.
Like you I also hope that this Essence Swapper doesn’t copy whatever pet you have out at any given time & instead stays on whatever one you had out when you used it.
I have two pets I consider canon for my character, Loque & the Draenor Saddled wolf. So having them both out at the same time would be awesome.
Anyone have anything new to report in terms of changes?Thanks.
I used the new Dire Frenzy HOWEVER I notice some talents on the gun increases your/Hati’s dmg the more pets you have summoned. Since Dire Frenzy replaces Dire Beast – arent I losing out on DPS b/c its one less pet that boosts Hati? Hope there’s a way around this as I’m really enjoying Dire Frenzy. TY
I have mixed feeling about Hati. I unlike other hunters loved her model before the change and after, yet I do feel that loss of connection may be there compared to other pets like Loquie who took me two years to get. I feel like I’m not sure to use that or not because I do love the model yet I adore the pets I have.
So I am currently on beta and i have the essence swapper 🙂 Hati keeps the appearance when your first pet is dismissed. it is permanent. I am currently trying to find a way to remove the appearance and make it look like hati again.
Any luck on finding a way to remove the effect of Essence Swapper on Hati?
any word yet on being able to rename Hati to finally have full control of our pets, I’m pleased with all that’s transpired thus far, but Hati does not fit my toon…nor any of my age old pets that have been with me for years…. she’ll still stick out like a sore thumb =o(