Comments on: [Cataclysm] On being replaced by a pet

By: Kring

Kring — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 09:39:25 +0000

> I’ll be using it on myself every time it comes off cd till
> healers get the hang of triage healing 5 mans.

And especially AFTER they get the hang of triage healing. Hunters were always the last one to get healed.

By: Dyre42

Dyre42 — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 19:29:08 +0000

There’s still the question of whether or not BM Hunters are fixed yet (not doing 20% less dps than the other trees). If not then one has to wonder whether or not haveing one members pulling 3 to 4K less DPS worth having Heroism/Bloodlust available in 10 mans.

Personally I love the idea of a healing pet particularly now that triage healing will be the norm. I also have a feeling that in those first few Catalclysm dungeons I’ll be using it on myself every time it comes off cd till healers get the hang of triage healing 5 mans.

By: Dril

Dril — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 19:00:05 +0000

Well, I always had an idea in my head that the Beast Mastery would basically change the Hunter class entirely from a ranged dps to a heal/tank spec. I always envisioned there being two pet classes (turtle and owl) that would heal and tank, respectively, and essentially BM spec would give you an unlimited, far more functional Eyes of the Beast that would make the Hunter totally useless but make the pet far more advantageous, i.e. it basically would be the player. The Hunter would merely be a vessel for the pet.

But it was too much like Druids to ever really work

By: Grimmtooth

Grimmtooth — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 13:54:40 +0000

I think Nov 2 is largely based on some stores now having that date for availability as of sometime early last week. I was surprised it took as long as it did to surface on MMO-C. I was starting to worry that wow.com was gonna scoop it.

Blizz has been very clear that the hunter pet is expected to become a smaller piece of the hunter’s DPS package, as opposed to the 40% of overall DPS that a BM hunter could wring from a kitteh in BC (Hiya, Hobbes). With the first pass of pet redesign, all damage has been normalized for each pet type (i.e. all ferocity will do identical damage). Largely this was done by removing special attacks, so the stompasaurus now does a debuff instead of extra damage when he uses both jaws to bite with, I guess.

There WERE some ranged DPS pets in the game, such as Wind Serpents. These fired lightning blasts. I read, but don’t remember, whether that is now the main attack, or if it was a special attack that got turned into a buff or debuff.

To say I have mixed feelings about this would be an understatement. In many ways, hunter pets are being turned into the equivelent of Rappelz pets, and that is not meant as a compliment.

By: smakendahed

smakendahed — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 13:28:17 +0000

Hey now! No picking on Hunter pets!

Given the pick or choose between 10/25 raids, Hunters now actually bring a (potentially) worthwhile buff to the raid. In fact, they can bring in a buff that is missing, which is nice.

I somewhat agree with Kring about the healing pet, though healing is supposed to get a little tougher in Cata. We’ll see.

By: jeffo

jeffo — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 13:01:29 +0000

If the healing pet were a ‘smart’ healing pet, then maybe. As far as I’m aware, however, the healing pet will heal the ‘targeted player’, which means you need an intelligent being directing the pet. [insert gratuitous 'huntard' comment here]

By: Kring

Kring — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 12:46:03 +0000

A healing pet would be better than every human healer because healing is so incredible easy. A PC will always beat a human in whack a mole.

A tanking pet can hardly be better than a human tank. There are to much decisions to be made.

That’s probably why they don’t do it.

By: Green Armadillo

Green Armadillo — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 11:49:32 +0000

I’ve been playing with NPC hirelings in DDO, which can include healers. I think the hesitation about going this route is that automated heals require less attention than automated tanking does. If your pet is tanking, you have to be directing it to targets. If your pet is healing, your party’s damage simply disappears.

By: Syl

Syl — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 10:47:24 +0000

I have mixed feelings about this, just like I always have mixed feelings when they keep giving ‘everything to everybody’ just to make sure it won’t matter anymore what class you play or take along. if you erase all the more relevant benefits of a class, when does it stop being a class? obviously I’m exaggerating, but it’s still been small steps in that direction ever since TBC. I actually liked the time when sw-priests and shamans were raid utility and primary raid buffers for example.

however, I don’t see the hunter pets being a particular “threat” to anybody; most raidguilds can’t or do not have to pick&chose raid members in such ways, we certainly never had any 25man where we were missing relevant raidbuffs. if there’s ever such a case, the hunter pet will be able to compensate for a lack rather than replace someone per se. I could imagine this is also a bit more relevant for 5mans or 10mans.

as for why there are no healing pets / why there are tanking pets; I don’t know obviously, but I could imagine that blizzard perceived the lack of available tanks as a greater issue in the past, than the lack of healers. if you look at elite quests, the majority of them are doable with DPS and one tank or a healer and tank but not having any tank around is often the bigger issue. seeing that pets are mostly used as replacement tanks outside raids, this could be the reasoning.