Ghostcrawler on Dual Spec Pets
Thanks to Nimizar for pointing out this post by Ghostcrawler about how the upcoming dual spec feature (which should make an appearance in Patch 3.1, the next big content patch) will work with hunters:
Q u o t e:
Obviously they’re going to have to do something for hunters. Otherwise, they won’t be able to switch between BM and anything else on the fly.Yup. I think you’ll like it though.
I haven’t been paying much attention to the dual spec thing (although I am hoping that it will make some testing somewhat easier for me), so I don’t have much to add. What do you guys think?
[edit] Ghostcrawler also posted a bit about further hunter PTR changes in this thread on Arcane Shot and Explosive Shot buffs:
One of the concerns with nerfing Steady Shot was hurting the dps potential for Survival hunters. One of the opportunities with the nerf was to make other shots more attractive so that hunter dps wouldn’t be so much about auto + steady.
Here are two changes we are going to try on the PTR.
Explosive Shot — damage increased substantially (e.g. from 260 to 520 base at rank 4), and additional scaling added to compensate. No longer deals AE damage to other targets.
Arcane Shot — mana cost lowered to the cost of Steady Shot.
I never have anything useful to say on non-pet stuff like this, but it does seem like something I should point out.
73 Comments
Yup, it’ll hopefully convince people to pop off arcane every cooldown now, even beast masters. They are trying to move away from the ‘steady shot is all you need’ mentality that’s been around since TBC hit, which is a good thing.
We’ll…..have to see how the duel spec thing goes. I am not to thrilled about it, to be honest, but eh.
I’m interested in dual spec to be honest. Though mine would both be BM, just one would be the infamous “Glass cannon spec” for raiding and the typical PvE spec for farming and everything else.
*Chuckles* I understand the curiousity. It just feels more and more like WoW is being dumbed down. I am not hardcore, or elitist or anything, but I do think you should be rewarded for putting some actual intelligence into what you do. I suppose it’ll help out the healers and tanks, mainly, so I should be thankful, since I have both, but I just can’t seem to get past the blaugh feeling about it. I am a lot more excited about being able to change pets on the fly, to be honest.
I wrote a post about this on my blog a little while ago.
Well, on the arcane shot and explosive shot changes anyway.
As far as dual speccing goes, I will abuse that system. I Love PvE and PvP. Being able to switch from a PvE and a PvP talent spec would be great! Chances are that they will allow use to assign pets to each spec, like another slot.
You have one slot for one spec, one slot for another spec, and 5 slots in the stables. Makes the most sense, and seems easier to program than anything else.
hiya Gang, glad to see a new post on something to throw my 3 cents in on about.
Anyway, I dual wield on my lvl 70. I use 2 daggers, not for their attack (pitiful low) but because each dagger adds crit to agi and AP damage. I figured, I don’t melee (and why oh why does Blizz and others want to be able to melee is beyond me, we are a range class pure and simple.) so worrying (I could never spell that word right) about the dagger’s attack and instead concentrate on the adds they give. Maybe dual wielding should be removed. Good, just give me the equal 1 handed weapon then.
Really, if WOW is a fantasty game and LOTR’s is a fantasty movie and I see that elf who uses a bow killing in one shot and then stabbing with his arrow and killing, why can’t I? And I know he is no stinking surv hunter. It’s all about the pets. :)
Something is telling me Blizz dug a hole with hunters back in patch 1.something and can’t get hunters out of it.
Uhg, more about the nerf. I use steady shot AND arcane shot, i put time and my brain into being a BM hunter, and i can’t belive that people are supporting this and mocking us. :(
And on the dual spec note, i think this will be awesome. i will amazingly abuse this for my PVP/raiding on the fly mentality. i say agian, THIS WILL BE AWESOME!
Re: Ghostcrawler’s “I think you’ll like it”
Please, please, please a “portable” stable master? >.>
Rigne, I support on the terms that we’re given something to compensate, when I haven’t seen yet. Hunters have DPS going for them, and thats purty much it. Worst form of crowd control, a misdirection that is overshadowed by a rogues, and the inability to do our damage point blank. I can understand a nerf that brings us in line with other DPSing classes, but what I can’t understand is not being given something to assist in our survivability. We’re getting a new form of deterrence, but it makes you unable to attack for its duration. Considering our ‘strong point’ is our damage, thats bad. Soooo, we’ll see where it goes.
Im skeptical too..
If the dual spec is just a choice of different pet then its like a slap in the face when you will see a pala go from healer to tank or ret (same for druid etc).
Now if they revamp some of the BM tree a bit or tweak a talent like Aspect of the Beast to buff our pets health by 100%, give it a bit more avoidance/armour but lower our dps by 30% while active then this would actually make pets a potential tank and give hunters a different role. It would actually make the dual spec worthwhile to a hunter. I couldnt give a rats ass if we can switch pets with dual spec if the pets stay as they are. A pet cant tank currently so why have need for a different pet in heroics/raiding. If its in pve then there are enough stable masters to visit its easy to swap.
My alternate thought to making hunters viable in melee was upgrade Aspect of the Beast to increase our dodge and armour plus give us 100% (or something suitable) increase in melee damage. That solves all the problems with hunters in melee and stops the need for 700 different button press abilities to just stop from dying 5-10 seconds later than normal as currently happens in pvp!
She Drina, I think thats part of whats bugging me. Duel specs are great for the hyrbid types, or the pure healer or tank types. But for the DPS types, or death knights, it doesn’t mean much. I am a beast master because thats how I like doing my damage. I am a combat rogue because thats how I like doing my damage. Unholy because I am pet focused, and enjoy tanking that way. Mages can get some benefit out of it if a boss is immune to their main form of pain, although frostfire bolt was developed for that.
It isn’t a bad thing. I guess I know that. It just feels weird.
My first comment is to someone mentioning how ‘Every hunter should pop an Arcane Shot CD’. Arcane and Explosive Shot share a CD, as does Arcane and Aimed (and no doubt Aimed and Explosive in turn). Thus, the CD is pretty easily popped, though maybe not by Arcane.
Secondly: I read this:
Explosive Shot — damage increased substantially (e.g. from 260 to 520 base at rank 4), and additional scaling added to compensate. No longer deals AE damage to other targets.
… and I literally cried out aloud ‘NOOOOO!’. One of the best things Explosive Shot has going for it is that it, well, explodes. It does AOE damage around it, and that AOE damage can crit. It’s so sweet watching a tank gather up a number of enemies, you let loose with an Explosive Shot, and boom boom boom watch the numbers just scroll. It works fantastically for crowds with smaller adds and 0one big scary thing. The thought of losing that AOE portion literally puts tears in my eyes, bigger damage or no.
Palladiamors, I think hunters and Death Knights are the 2 classes that will see the least from dual specs. I have a Resto Shammy that loves the idea. Tanks and healers will see the most benefits from it.
Some classes just won’t, and i think hunters will feel that the most..
Ah, slap in the face. Wondering how long it would take before someone brought that up :)
Seriously though, even if you never use the Dual Spec function, you haven’t LOST anything. and all it really does is save people time and possibly money when they switch between different specs. Obviously on a BM-lovers forum, there’s less need for this since no one here, presumably, can even think about what life would be like without a BM spec. Even so, you could switch between a raiding/dungeon spec with no durability talents (Endurance Training, etc…) and a PvP/soloing/whatever spec that might have them.
Just because some classes will get less benefit out of it doesn’t make it a bad idea, and its a better idea than telling healers to just deal with the fact that dailies suck for them.
On my purely PvE hunter(s), the increased dmg from Explosive shot is annoying. I already have trouble keeping aggro on my pet (am I doing something wrong?) so even more damage.. Ugh.
I think I probubly should be a BM hunter. Hrmm.
@ Pike
Portable stable master?
I hate to say it, but…
6 swappable pets? At any time?
PICKACHU! I CHOOSE YOU!
Not that there is anything WRONG with pokemon, but heck, in WoW? I’m not so sure.
well, as a bm hunter myself i can see the benefit in dual speccs. there is raid encounters when your pet is wasted pretty fast, no matter how you do it. being able to switch to a specc of choice, sv or mm, to keep the dps up and not feel gimped cause your lovely exotic beast hit the ground would be awesome.
on the nerfs… im sceptic but ill wait with flaming until ive seen what it actually does to my dps. dont think i know any good bm hunter just spamming steady shot though.. even though its used alot. gimping that will feel strange and getting use to having aimed shot messing up my multi cd again sux. if they want to make us use more shots, give them different cd:s then.
Varsar, if you’ve ever done pvp as BM you’d know that BM is now easily trumped by MM. I for one will enjoy dual-specs as long as I have functionality to swap pets around.
Kurasu, aimed and multishot share a cooldown, not arcane and aimed.
And I never said it was bad, I said it was a good thing, I just don’t know that I like the feel of it. I’ve never had any problems being a healer spec soloing, and I’ve solo’d one to pretty much eighty as a holy paladin, one of the most !@#$ed class specs in WoW currently. *Shrugs* That’s just me, though. I am happy for everyone who gets something out of it.
were folk really just relying on steady shot? that horrendous! i’ve always used every spell available to me…
@Kayb:
Uhhh I was relying pretty much on just steady shot rotation. It’s not horrendous. XD It depends on your spec.
I’m BM. Unbuffed arcane shot is just a waste of mana for me. Sure I use Serpent Sting, and the occasional random volley when needed, but generally for BM Arcane shot was just not part of the rotation in a raid. You’ll find that alot of BM hunters were still using the steady shot rotation. With Arcane shot having a mana impact similar to it, there’ll be changes to the whole “steady shot” rotation.
I think there are some misconceptions about the dual specs. I think Wizzie said it best that there are definite uses for it in PVE. In a non-pet friendly fight, you can swap to Marksman temporarily, or alternatively a marksman Hunter can swap to a BM build if an OT is needed from their pet. The benefits of switching to from PVE to PVP is obvious, of course.
Somebody mentioned that dual specs means nothing to them if it doesn’t buff the pet. What does one have anything to do with the other? They also mentioned that who cares about different pets with different specs, there’s stables everywhere. Well, for one, you’re not going to find a stable in the middle of a raid instance (or many battlegrounds, for that matter). You asked why would you need a different pet in PvE? There are many reasons why, and here are a few: It’s a range fight and your cat won’t do anything to the boss, so you swith to a ranged damage pet or a wolf that can buff you; You’re a BM hunter and have an exotic pet, and then swith to MM on the fly for a specific fight, therefore you exotic pet is no good and you need to swap to a normal one; The Boss fight is a total DPS race, and you want to bring out your more damaging-spec’d pet. Eccetera, blah, blah.
I think people just need to remember that the dual-spec concept wasn’t made with DPS in mind … the DPS players are just a benefactor and will have to find their own uses for it. This new ability to change specs on the fly in the middle of a raid is meant for healers and tanks (be it a tank that needs to switch to DPS or vice verse, a healer that needs to tank, or a dps that needs to swap to either one). It came about because in raids there fights that require a certain number of tanks and/or healers, and then on the very next boss fight you need a different number. The dual-spec change allows you to complete the same raid with the same players you started it with, without having to swap out people. The allows people to play for the duration of the raid, and have a chance on loot from bosses that they’d normally have to leave for in order to make room for somebody else. Not only does it allow the Offtank to do some decent DPS when he’s not needed, but allows the DPS players to stay in the fight instead of having to leave. It benefits absolutely everybody in the game, it’s just that some classes will see more benefit than others because it was made with those classes in mind. There is no slap in the face here.
And no, dual-spec for hunters is not just a pet change, it’s an entire talent spec change.
As to what Blizz meant by changing pets, they were referring to the BM exotic pet problem (changing to a diff spec). I highly expect Hunters will get something they’ve been crying about for years, and that’s the ability to call on any pet in your stable, or at least the ability to call on the pets in their first two slots. This would be accomplished by some sort of whistle ability or item, or something similar. There is a chance you can assign a specific pet to the build you’re swapping, but since he said “I think you’ll like it” … well, I’d bet a LOT that he’s referring to the change that has been petitioned for, well, forever.
Anyhow, those are my thoughts. I can’t wait for the changes!
Truly, I wouldn’t be surprised if they removed stable masters and did something like the vanity pets and mounts since they are all on the same tab already. allowing you to tame everything then make an icon/macro for the pet u wanted to summon at the time. Exotic pet buttons wouldn’t work while in MM or Survival so you press normal pet button. This would put pet collectors (like Mania) into a frenzy, lol. Another option is to make all pets normal and the 51 point BM talent be a pet buff to make any pet u have out “exotic” by increasing damage and armor. Maybe both would work, who knows!
I would love it if they removed the stable masters. While I would miss the “flavor” of them, they are a necessary evil only, in my opinion.
Warriors and rogues and every other class can have different sets of gear that they can swap out of their bags. Hunters, many of whom are specced so that our pets ARE our gear, should have that same flexibility. Shaman can macro a complete gear swap-out to switch from tanking to healing, where hunters have to leave combat, find a town with a stable master, swap pets, and run back.
I don’t see it happening, though, given how prominently they have built table masters and stabled pets into some of the new zones.
Gotta agree with Unpossible – the dual spec thing is great for PVE hunters as well, specifically because of those pet-unfriendly fights. Take Sartharion for example – no matter what you do, sooner or later your pet is going to die due to a combination of flame tsunamis and void fissures, unless you spend most of your time managing your pet. The toxin injecting boss in Naxx (grobbulus? can’t remember the names) is even worse. As a BM that’s going to gimp your dps considerably – so it would be fairly awesome to simply swap to MM/Surv, slap on some different gear and still do some serious dps even if your pet gets toasted.
Unpossible – you miss the point of my gripe
“I think people just need to remember that the dual-spec concept wasn’t made with DPS in mind”
With LK nothing has been made with DPS in mind. Buffs taken away or made available across a whole raid. All hybrids get a viable dps spec. Dual Specs give hybrids the chance to go switch between dps/healing/tank. Its all about hybrids now.
The Pure DPS classes dont really compete in damage with the hybrid dps specs so far from what I have seen and the only class that beats them regularly are hunters and now we are being gimped too.
So forgive me if I feel Dual Spec is just another facet of the game being used to remove the choice of playing a Pure DPS class. My other point was that I think Dual Spec is a good idea but GIVE the pure dps classes a different role and effectively make us hybrids too… its the only fair way to get playability balance across all classes.
Whilst I can see that a dual spec could switch between MM and BM and different pets for different bosses its still all just dps in a different form. If you want to be best at dps in raiding and expect to face anti pet fights then stick with MM or SV spec as normal. If you like BM then stick with it and damned be the consequences.
As analogy its like we are seeing other classes being given a big birthday cake and then someone comes along and hands us a cup cake with a solitary candle in it!
As it stands currently I would take a Ret Pala, Fury War, Enh Sham and Cat Druid over mages, locks, rogues (and possibly even hunters after the nerf) whilst raiding. Now lucky for me I am the Raid Leader so they have to take my hunter when Im leading but otherwise I would take hybrids all the way now, maybe with 1 warlock. If am playing to succeed at raiding then in my view I see hybrids have killed the game with class versatility imbalance.
They have previsously stated that you won’t be able to just switch spec where ever you are, so don’t expect to be able to switch when your pet dies in an instance.
i luv my auto steady god kill but i always loved arcane shot and now i can use it wit out losing so much mana cool
@ Idoru I never expected to be able to do so anyway – however if you’re about to zone into an instance where you know your pet is going to get insta-gibbed anyway, it would be very convenient to swap specs (by all means put a cooldown or something on it – it’d solve some of the worries people have about hybrids swapping as they go along) without having to haul my *ss back to Ironforge and spend 50g (again) and beg one of the locks for a summon because my HS is on cooldown again …
This is gonna sound silly, but steady shot wasn’t an important attack for me. I have always used arcane shot a loooot more than any other shot, so this will suit me fine. Coe to think of it, the only time I used steady shot was when I was in a group and there was only one mob left. Steady shot bosses while all my other shots were on cooldown. Like I said, this helps the way a play a ton, so i am all for it.
About the “Portable Stable Master”, rather than that, I think this would be a pretty easy remedy for that: You know the pet pane? along the top or bottom, put down the 5 or however many stable slots and make them selectable just like NCPs and mounts. I was surprised they didn’t do that before. Leave stable masters in game to purchase more slots, just like pet trainers now reset talents.
A way to handle the pet-switching: I don’t much care for the notion of swapping pets around around just like vanity pets, makes it feel more impersonal to me. So, in the spirit of the fairly silly nature of much of the game: A pet carrier. You know, like you carry cats in to the vet. Only this one has a Rhino in it. Or a Core Hound. Or a Wolf. Holds one pet, and you can switch your active pet for the pet in the carrier outside of combat.
^I know what you mean about the impersonal thing but it seems like bliz was trying to spare us bag space in WotLK which pet carriers would not do… And I understand that the stable thing seems more realistic, but if you think about it, you can stable a pet in swamp of sorrows and go pick the same pet up in icecrown. That’s really not all that realistic.
I think the switching spec idea is great for raid environments, especially for classes who can tank. It has its uses for everyone, but the idea of switching our fury warrior to tank spec for 1 fight instead of the entire raid is just win. Having a dps spec differently for movement fights (like ice instead of frostfire) might be an option, too. The hubby absolutely hates his raid spec for 5-mans because it casts so slow, but he uped his dps by over 1k in raids by switching.
I’m a little concerned about cooldowns, but hopefully whatever’s implemented will be fair. Needing that fury warrior to offtank in one fight (offtank something that needs a tank spec that is), but having to wait an hour for him to dps again seems… well I don’t like the idea. I’ll be happy with whatever’s implemented, though, as it’s better than what we have right now!
I’ve always thought that most of us didn’t like just spamming steady but was pigeonholed rather into using it. It’s low mana cost, no cooldown and very good damage output sort of made it our ‘shadowbolt’ skill. I’ve been tinkering around with my shots, still spamming steady, but firing off arcane and multi-shots every time they’re off cooldown. I burn through mana a lot faster though due to the horrible mana to damage ratio of said shots. Maybe I’ll spec into aimed shot and give that one a go. If it makes hunters more than a single button wonder, I’m all for it.
Sorry folks, me brained didn’t see what the eyes were seeing yesterday. I was yakking about “dual wielding” instead of “dual specc’ing”, and today it is much much worse.
Usually Palla corrects me, but I see he must be getting behind in his story. And he failed me.
Palla go back to PTR 3.0.8: Hunter Patch Notes if you want to see why I am so rattled brained. :)
Dual Spec?= Maybe a good thing, but maybe not a wise thing? I don’t have enough bag space to carry different armor and weapons around with me. Not with a pouch of some kind for my ammo, but also all my healing stuff (potions, food for my pets and myself, bandages, etc). That leaves 3 bags and unlike a lot of folks, I can’t afford more than 16 slot bags (and even those have jumped to 20 gold each).
Get rid of the cool down timers on everything for hunters, but thats a dream. Oh well, whatever comes, comes – Que Sera, Sera. Be like the frog choking the crap out of the chicken that is swallowing it. :)
WOW is starting to remind me of how Star Wars Universe went. Everything fine till they started playing around the game mechanics and nearly lost everyone.
Kurasu: Arcane, Explosive, and Chimera share a cooldown (or at least they used to) while, as pal stated, Aimed and Multi share a cooldown.
Dual Spec for hunters will come in really handy in 3 places, really.
1: You can go survival if your group lacks replenishment, giving up some dps for overall efficiency.
2: Instagib pet fights and fights like Thaddius where your pets really, really don’t matter, you can spec into something less ‘my pet is half my damage’.
3: PvP. I personally love being able to completely destroy something for 20 seconds every minute or so… but I can see why you might want to go survival for wyvern/better traps… or go marks for better burst.
I’m more interested in swapping pets easily. It’s just a nuisance to have to go trade your pets in between instances, grinding, and pvp (or gimp yourself). The changing pets thing is why I’ve just grabbed a raven. Not the best dps, not the best solo, not the best pvp… but screech is a useful debuff in all 3, reducing the damage dealt by a small (or large) margin. So, I’m just gimping myself a little in all 3 :)
Dual-spec sounds great if you’re a hunter with any kind of passing interest in PvP. I was a die hard MM guy when I was big on PvP but I had to switch out to BM when leveling became an issue again. The idea of switching back-and-forth between those two when I want to go from Raids to PvP sounds incredibly appealing.
ACK! I missed correcting Sig! *Falls over* I am sorry! Low amounts of sleep! Forgive me!
*waves at Fourty-two* Thanks for picking up the slack on good reasons for dual-speccing for hunters, as well as to anyone else who mentioned good reasons
*Yawns and stretches* Drina hit the nail on the head, really. This expansion was mainly about the tanks, with an afternod to every healer except holy paladins. ((Yes, I know, I keep bringing that up. Just, every other healer got this fair sized boost to DPS in the form of the spell power DPS, EXCEPT us. My seal damage was cut into half, and my judgement damage more. Please understand if I am a bit peeved about not just not getting buffed, but getting nerfed instead. !@#$ing retris.)) Hunters had a rework of the pet system, which was amazing, but aside from that DPS was largely ignored. In all due honesty, equally geared AND skilled classes should always see pure DPS coming out ahead of hyrbrid DPS, but with retri’s and even droods being what they are now……well, we’ll see.
I am a beast mastery hunter, I always will be. If they give us the ability to swap pets on the fly, then I can see a use for dual specs. Having a secondary spec for maximum pet tankability and the ability to swap from my ever faithful kitty to my gorilla or worm on the fly then hunters will have a raid utility equal (but not equivalent) to warriors, and death knights. Switch spec, swap gear, and we have an extra OT.
And honestly, I can’t see why blizzard hasn’t given us a pet switching ability. Out of combat only, long cast, requires our current pet to be alive and out of combat. Pretty hard to exploit that.
Ralowae and Blacktooth (and RedStripe and Jim), Zangarmarsh
A brief rant. I was hoping that after the overwhelming feedback on the beta that Blizzard would wise the crud up about making PvP gear require arena points. I realize we can still get a good deal of gear from just PvPing, but now the full armor sets, and probably weapons as well are requiring arena points to aquire. MAYBE that will change before the 18th, but I doubt it. That just annoys me to no end. I dislike the arena with a green and purple tinted passion. All it does is expand upon the over powered class and spec idea, and leave anyone unwilling to go with the current ‘best’ spec or configuration in the dust. I realize ((Ye GOD I hope)) they’ll do what they did with the previous season one, and eventually make it buyable JUST through arena points, but it isn’t feeling that way yet. Again, we’ll just have to wait and see.
This is more just my musing here, but why is it that I only like PvP in WoW, but I can’t seem to get enough of it in WAR?
@ Palla:
I agree. I hate arena, I absolutely do. Especially due to the fact that weapons will be arena points. WAR had fun PvP, yes it did. It was just everything else that sucked when I played it XD
I think Dual specs is being continuously misconstrued. When I was at Blizzcon, and Ghostcrawler first mentioned Dual specs, he said, “This isn’t something you can change like say, being a Fury warrior and switch to Protection in the middle of arena.” The dual spec isn’t meant to optimize DPS. It was originally meant to be something easier for those who play solo during the week and need to change spec for the raiding-weekend. That’s what originally came to mind.
Of course now, with the possibility of hybridity, I do see some people saying “now I won’t need this class”. That’s not true entirely. If you want all the attack power and damages bonuses you can get, you’ll still need a variety of classes, and not just a variety of specs. I think we need to just sit and wait and see how this thing launches before we make any large assumptions about it. For better or for worse.
On another note, they (at Blizzcon) said the first patch (after release) would also allow our mounts to swim, I better see that in the patch notes soon XD
Possible ‘dual specs’ for hunters:
1. Max dps (inc pet)
2. Max dps (not inc pet – looking at MM probably) for fights which can’t use close in melee.
3. Max tanking
4. Balanced for solo / grinding / dailies.
5. PVP (whatever this means to you).
I’ll probably have 2 out of 1, 3 and 4. Not sure which yet. But I’m looking forward to it. Ideally I’ve love the option to pick any pet with any spec, but I’d settle with just having a different pet associated with each spec. You could even to two identical specs (max dps maybe?) but with different pets (one ranged and one melee?).
“Obviously on a BM-lovers forum, there’s less need for this since no one here, presumably, can even think about what life would be like without a BM spec.”
o.O
/cry! Am I the *only* Dedicated Marksman here? Am I?! The only time I’ve ever been BM was to tame a corehound…I couldn’t stand it in Pvp or raiding. The duel spec thing is nice to me because it means I can try out exotics and such without shelling out 50 gold all the time. The only time I can stand being BM is while grinding, and that’s only because I don’t pull aggro off my wolf as much. I also play a Shaman, so the duel spec thing for her is amazing. I’ve already thought up two separate resto specs that I want to try, one with the awesome MP5 talent out of elemental. It’s really not a slap to the face, they could have said, well, since you pure dps classes don’t really need it, we won’t give you access to it. Then how slighted would you feel? Just because it doesn’t directly affect you, doesn’t mean it’s not good for the rest of the community, especially if it increases the number of people who play tanks and healers. It just seems that some of you are thinking along the lines of “Well, it doesn’t affect hunters hardly at all, so it’s stupid. We should get something neat too.” That’s a terrible mindset to be in. You’re getting access to the same exact mechanic the other classes are. If it benefits them a little more, then oh well. Revamping our pets to make our lives easier didn’t do anything good for the other classes. At lest Blizzard is taking the time and effort to make sure that the new change actually gives you a little bit of benefit by including our pets. Just remember, you could have been ignored. It’s good for other people, and you haven’t lost anything.
…And yes…I did say I have two resto specs on my shaman. A lot of healers, my boyfriend’s priest included, have more than one healing spec they switch between. It won’t just be “Oh, I’m switching to dps now!” It’ll be “Raid healer time!” and “Single target healer time!” for both him and I. I can’t stand dpsing as a shaman…ugh…
@Kitairra – I hope you aren’t trolling. Where’s your 2 cents? It is sorely needed and missed.
@Palla – Thank you. Now I feel better :)
to all But seriously, does one really need to have two specs? I know there are diehard raiders and their are diehard non-raiders, it seems that if one dual specs, then the two halves never equal the whole.
By this I mean to be effective in your 2nd spec, then don’t you have to have that “right pet”, that “right armor” with it’s specs and the “right weapons”(bow or rifle) for range and melee and the “right ammo” for said range weapon? Arent some weapons better for BM versus MM or am I confused? It just seems that there is certain gear needed whether you are raider or non-raider, solo’er or non, pve vs pvp. So I understand it was meant for the warrior classes and the healers, so why not just leave it to those classes, why make it universal? Just give Hunters no global timers on shots :)
Life is complicated enough without WOW going there too.
PS -Palla – how was your birthday? Do anything special? Congrats on it last week. Remember he/she with the most birthdays – WINS!
It was great! But now I’ve found out ANOTHER of our cats, my dark multicolored fluffy calico has FIP, soooo….yea. Sometimes its hard to focus when so many things are going on, ya know?
Oh, and Casdia, this isn’t just a beast master site, so your not alone. This is a pet lover site, there is a difference. SO no worries!
Rikaku, I think they meant the first major patch, 3.1, wherein they introduce new raid material.
wouldnt it just be easier for hunter survivability to just get rid of the ranged req for bows/crossbows/guns? so you can just keep using your abilities even when the enemy is within melee range. I mean, Spellcasters have ranged attacks that arent affected by enemy range…my druid can still use Wrath whether the enemy is on top of me or several yards away. Why cant hunters…when it come to melee we have…3 melee abilities, then our traps (if they’re not on CD) deterence and disingage (provided theres no cliff, tree, mountain, lava, mob etc behind us) and fiegh death…when it works. but most of those abilities dont cause damage or enough damage to save us if out pet is dead.
The greatest gift blizz could give us, is to get rid of the ranged limitations of our abilities. ESPECIALLY if Arena points will be req. for pvp gear…Hunter in Arena as we stand…Dead.
As for duel spec…I dont know much about it…never tried it.
And all these changes and nerfs, are being done before the main glich issues are being fixed, so double nerfed there. Our inability to switch pets like locks switch theres is irksome…I think we should be able to have atleast 2pets available to choose from at any given time.
thats just me say…
I don’t mind the range thing. In PVP, the Wingclip/Disengage trick works marvels to keep people at range. Hell, I remember the Days of the Deadzone! You think it’s sucky NOW…. Try it when some lock or mage decides to stand where you can’t even TOUCH them and burn you down like a birthday candle?
But I digress. What -I- want is to be able to shoot and move. People have running gunfights in RL all the time, no other class has their autoattack broken by movement… it’s such a simple simple thing. Will it happen? Heh, probably not. But I can hope.
*Laughs* Nactwulf, do you remember the cry of outrage and anguish that went up from the casters when the deadzone was fixed? Very rare is it to see so many tears flowing…they flooded the forums. So sweet.
*Coughs* Sorry. At the moment we can use arcane, our stings, and aimed shot on the move. Oh, and concussive, thats important. You can drop a trap, but with the arming time thats hit or miss, not to mention people often avoid it.
Nacht & Palla:
OMG Deadzone D= Don’t remind me of those horrible days. But I did love those sweet sweet tears when it was fixed.
Heh, I absolutely loved it when some uninformed mage or warlock would run up to the dead zone….and promptly die anyway, that lock of shock on their faces.
Dual specs means F*%$ All to a hunter. Currently we can do almost anything. Casdia you are not the only Marksman. I love all the hunter specs and have played them thoroughly from the entertaining BM exotic pets to max AP & Crit hybrid MM/SV.
Whatever your spec you can solo grind/quest, you can OT non heroics with a tenacity pet, take on elite mobs, do good dps in raids with or without pet.
Those who think a pet can OT in a raid or heroic are deluding themselves and even a dedicated pet tanking specced BM hunter’s pet wont last 5 seconds without strong healing. The plain fact is pet health is too low and they also dont have anywhere near the mitigation a full tank does. With chain healing on a pet then yes it probably might survive but at 12-15k pet health you are looking at 1/2 – 3/5 the health of a decent warrior tank.
We can already do what we need to with 1 spec. The dual spec for us would be a bit of fun to do our dps differently but really shouldnt make or break your ability to play in all capacities that you already can.
A tank swithcing to healer or dps between boss fights is a whole other world of versatility!
Wow, lots of opinions about the dual specs. Didn’t read through all of them either, especially the long posts. Anyways it’ll be nice to play around with 2 specs. I’m looking forward to it.
Were this vanilla WoW, Drina, I’d have disagreed with you. But I’ve run some instances at this point, and mobs, even on non-heroics, really hit to hard. Even if a gorilla could hold aggro on multiple targets, those multiple target’d tear the pet apart in a hurry. Its a very painful truth for some one like me to admit, but its the truth just the same. You’d have to over gear the instance to have any real chance at it on heroic.
@Palla & Drina:
I think the notion of pet offtanking has only come because GC and other blues keep mentioning they want that kind of capability for Hunter’s pets (presumeably BM hunter pets) to be a goal of the future.
However, as it stands, there’s no way my pet can off tank in a serious manner. Sure, he can offtank those non-elites that get burned down in a matter of seconds, but I don’t see my Gorilla being the serious OT anytime soon.
At the dual specs, I never changed specs anyways between raiding and soloing, but I would consider making a “glass cannon spec” (as some know BRK pointed out) for raiding, and keeping a basic BM 51/20 for soling content. But it’s not my biggest deal.
However, my druid? Yeah, she’ll love the dual specs.
The only choice for me for dual-specs is choosing whether to have a marksman PvP build or a survival PvE build to go with my beast mastery build. I may be wrong but I believe GC has stated that dual-specs are meant more for hybrids, as in they’ll obviously get the most benefit from it. Need a healer? Throw on your resto set and swap specs. Need a tank? Throw on your sword and board and swap to tanking. Want to pewpew? Don your glass cannon gear and swap to pewpew.
Shagrat – no “glass cannon” wear for me! I don’t want to wear anything that is “see-thru”. Scare everyone to death :)
*looks thoughtfully at Sig* *COUGHS* Anyway, yea, no, glass cannon doesn’t suit me. Clothadin never did either, even though I had half a guild urging me for it at one point in time. I LIKE my ability to survive, danke. As far as I am concerned, my hunter should never take enough damage to be a healer alert on fights where I can avoid it, and in those rare times I DO take damage, I’d rather take as reduced an amount as possible. Same with my paladin, only more so….I tend to forget to heal myself, so its kinda important that I not take ooo-goolies of damage when I do take damage. I have a once every five minutes divine shield as my ‘fade’, so….yea.
Yerse, I realize I sort of countered myself there. But accidents do happen, and I don’t like being totally destroyed in two seconds when they do.
Uh, wait, what? They’re letting us BM hunters have our exotic pets and then respec MM?
A: What happens to our exotic pets?
B: What happens to our pet’s 4 extra talent points?
The only reason I’m still BM is because I have Loque’nahak and the rare Silithid from Thousand Needles. I tried MM for a while, didn’t like it, tried SV, loved it, BM is just how I’ve always been, and I like the exotics. Frankly, that’s the only reason I bother with the tree. :/
Oh, and massive DPS, too, but… I’d enjoy being utility more than DPS, frankly. But the lust for utility is outshadowed by the lazerkitty.
Oh Palla, I was making a joke! :) Glass – see thru, lol. Trust me on this….
Drakara – good questions!!! Same thing I asked (in another form) up at post 47. I would bet we can’t use the pet then. Now, if Blizz maybe thinks on this and realizes that if someone has their primary spec as BM, then it would just carry over when using the secondary or maybe we will get our wish and out pets are like warlock pets – carried on our petbar, like the mounts/cuddlely pets (as mentioned up in post 22). We can change out and that would be nice.
*Laughs* I know Sig, I was just picking at you since you tend to down yourself. And yea, switching out of beast mastery unsummons your pet and prevents you from resummoning it. You can take it out of the stable master and put it in, which means that our new form of pet switching will allow something similar, in my best guess.
Correction, you can’t take it out of the stable master, sorry!
wow, lots on whining. so I think ill try to just comment.
swapable pets on the fly would be great, seeing as warlocks can and it would solve dual spec and 51 point BM.
BM damage needed a nerf. I do a significantly larger amount of damage as bm than any other class, using a spirit beast,helps to be well geared.
Blizz needs to make up its mid on hunter shots for this expansion, Aimed shot is not very useful raiding, and multi isn’t always useful so if you are nerfing steady, a bm hunter without aimed shot specced is severly nerfed on siblge target or using a lot of mana doing multi’s to one target.)
I say ride out the nerfs and hope that what ever aspect of hunters they mess up this time, will be quickly addressed.
Balance
1. Balance can only be achieved if every class can beat every other class.
2. Blizzard has repeatedly stated they are against making the classes equal.
3. Blizzard talks about team composition as way to balance, but this clearly in never the case.
4. You must pick the season’s OP classes and forget trying to get Blizzard to be fair or balanced in class ability.
5. Favorite OP classes last season were: druid, warrior, loc.
6. Current OP classes are: RET pally (shield, stun, dps dead before you can even fight back), loc (fear and dot to death before you can fight back), DK (more dps than any other class), rogues (stun to death). See the pattern? Kill without fighting. Kill without a fair fight. Kill without the other player having a chance. If you don’t think they are OP, then check current arena rating statistics.
7. Expect DK to get even more OP despite everyone’s complaints. DK is current Blizzard pet class.
8. Favorite classes to nerf and keep down: hunters, shaman, priests.
9. Arena will continue to be a joke: not about skill as it is about OP classes.
10. Arena will continue to be about how to combine the current OP classes.
11. Case in point: hunters were statistically last in all 4 arena seasons. Nothing was done to change that because Blizzard is in no way about balance. Hunters will make it 5 for 5 this season.
12. Case in point: arena for money was played by only 3 classes at the top anywhere in the world (druid, warrior, warlock). Any fix come for the other classes at any time during the entire season? NO! Any nerfs come for those 3 OP classes anytime during the entire season? NO!
13. Every time I post this, Blizzard deletes it quickly. I tried to spam it to get it out there, so Blizzard banned me from the forums.
14. I waited an entire week and posted a rewritten version once. I got banned for a week.
15. Blizzard cannot stand the truth.
Blizzard can’t nerf Death Knights yet because not everyone has Wrath of the Lich King. It makes good marketing sense.
Hey peeps! Uhm, I don’t know too much about the nerfing, but I also feel kinda weird that a lot of people JUST rely on Steady Shot. I mean as a BM/Survival hunter(I switch :] a lot) I spam arcane, steady, multi shot, serpent sting(The one that does damage over time, not sure if it was serpent sting though), and lets not forget Explosion shot :D. I believe that nerfing steady shot though will make survival hunters EXTREMELY rare, cause I think survival should mainly rely on steady(not that much :D), as should every specced hunter. Oh, and on the portal stable master… Bring it in please! I’ll go on my knees and kiss the floor that you stand on if you do :]. And duel specc is nice.. :D
the thing with steady shot is it’s the most efficient skill to use. so in a raid the damage vs mana usage kept it on top. solo/5 mans are a different story.
Arc and Chimera do not share a cd either. in BC, as Surv or BM i used a combination of arc and steady, we had some nice pallies for JoW alot =)
Bring on the dual specs. be interesting to see for sure. looking forward to swaping them around. wonder what they’ll do with the pets though. they’re talent points reset when you swap out of BM to marks so i found out.
Again, I see more anti-dual spec posts.
This is NOT a slap in the face. Those saying so are quoting the current fad of “it’s all about hybrids, Blizzard doesn’t do anything for DPS classes,” blah, blah.
I see the complaining, but I see no proposals on what YOU would do to benefit a pure DPS class. Oh, I’ve seen comments about give the DPS classes a hybrid tree as well, “make us all hybrids!” Does that even make sense? At all? Should a Rogue have a healing tree? A tanking tree? What then is your true proposal? If your only real reason on disliking dual specs is because it doesn’t buff the crap out of your hunter class and it’s not AS MUCH of a big change for your personal choice of class … well, I don’t know what to say.
Not everybody reaps the benefit of every change from every patch. But you know what, now you don’t have to step out of the raid when your guild needs an extra healer for Saph in Naxx … the Pally off tank just swaps gear and specs and you can still be in for the kill. Who do you take out of the raid when you’re in a healing intensive fight? The Off-tank that does crap DPS and is not needed and you replace him with a healer. Who do you take out of a DPS-intensive fight? The Off-tank that does crap-DPS, or the Healer that isn’t needed. In a raid that is organized even with only half a brain, your pure DPS classes should never have to be kicked … it’s the healers and tanks that always “take one for the team.” So, yeah, you’re not a hybrid. But, now your BM exotic pet won’t die 15 seconds into the fight and totally gimp you. There are many benefits to this, more so for Hunters than the other DPS classes, in my own humble opinion. Dual specs are not being placed into the game to screw you over, they are coming to fix a problem that has always been around, including when DPS saw all the situational upgrades in previous years.
I don’t see a reason to cry here.
Besides, in a raid environment, you’re generally only allowed to roll on your main spec gear items. So when that Epic-geared Off-tank is asked to swap to DPS spec, he’s going to don his crappy ilevel 174 items and he’ll be doing 1.5k DPS, a whole 200 more than his prot spec. And if the raid wipes because it’s still not enough, who do you think they’re gonna call? The Ghostbusters? Heck no … they’ll call on the Hunters, Rogues, and Mages, that are all at the top of the DPS charts with 2-3k damage per second and are geared for it, and can dual-spec swap to slightly more advantageous roles or situations that we’ve already discussed to make sure they aren’t DPS-gimped and/or can provide something a little extra that a tank turned crappily-geared DPS or DPS turned healer could not ever possibly provide.
If you still refuse to at least wait instead of throwing curses at Blizzard for finally fixing a problem that has existed since the game went live years ago, and can think of nothing but your own class … well, not gonna say it. Just see if you can’t find it in you to wait.
BTW:
“Buffs taken away or made available across a whole raid” this applies to all classes.
“Dual Specs give hybrids the chance to go switch between dps/healing/tank.” This was always the case. A hybrid class could always hearth, respec, and get summoned back into the raid. Dual-specs does not change the ability to do so, just makes it easier and saves a ton of gold. And, how many times have you needed a tank or healer and somebody went and respecc’d just for your party, spending their own gold? I’m sure you’ve seen it as much as the rest of us.
“The Pure DPS classes dont really compete in damage with the hybrid dps specs so far from what I have seen” I have yet to see any class out-perform a Hunter in equal ilevel item gear in regards to DPS. I also don’t think the nerfs will put us back into the dark ages, either, just even it all out. The mages will likely now be the top-DPS, and they’re not a hybrid class. Rogues continually are in the top tier of DPS, varying by fight to fight. The only times I have seen a hybrid class at the top of the charts is because they outgeared the pure DPS. Your milage may very in your raids, but I doubt by very much.
Somebody is always going to cry during every change. Either it’s the tanks get no love, the healers get no love, the DPS gets no love, or the hybrids get no love. And failing all that, everybody falls back on complaining about Warlocks.
So, I’ll say it again. This isn’t a nerf for anybody. This isn’t a change that couldn’t be done before with a hearth/portal and 50 gold. This isn’t a buff. It just makes it so that people don’t have to sit out, and can have a 100% complete ont he raid they started with, or do some PvP afterwards, and without having to respec 7 times a week.
That’s it, that’s all it is. How you use it is up to you, but you will benefit from it if you choose to.
/endrant
@ Rikaku … I totally agree! Arena stinks! I hate it soo much.
Lvl 70 PvP gear didnt require arena points yth should Lvl 80 PvP gear cost arena points??? There is no one in my guild that does Arena, but we do tackle Wintergrasp and have fun with that, quite crazy out there sometimes.
As a casual player with lots of RL responsibilities (including kids)j I would love to be able to get some purple gear without having to plan to be part of a 2 hour raid (where I may not get anything anyway) just like we did at lvl 70.
/sigh
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