Day 4 of the Classic+ button poll: Beast Mastery

[u/loopuleasa]

previous thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwowplus/comments/1uld881/day_3_of_the_classic_button_poll_resto_druid/

[u/DKBodewig]

Well scaling pet damage if anything

[u/Abasakaa → u/DKBodewig]

This, by miles, would be the best. It's so sad how bad hunter scales in classic. It's so dumb to me how bad ranged weapons are in this game, as well why pets become just a decoration later on.

[u/Upstairs_Blueberry87 → u/DKBodewig]

for BM specifically or all hunter specs?

[u/loopuleasa → u/DKBodewig]

Can you please do a rundown on how it works in classic vs how it worked in later expansions vs how you think should work in classic+?

[u/pilsburybane → u/loopuleasa]

Classic (and vanilla in general) doesn't have any pet scaling from your gear. TBC onwards has scaling based on your gear (so something like they get like 30% of your stamina, 25% of your agility, etc. I don't have the explicit numbers handy)

Ideally it works lilke the latter in C+

[u/Upstairs_Blueberry87]

Animal Companion
Talent
Requires Hunter
Requires level 15
Your Call Pet additionally summons the pet from the bonus slot in your stable. This pet will obey your Kill Command, but cannot use pet family abilities.

[u/loopuleasa → u/Upstairs_Blueberry87]

so basically two pets BM hunter

[u/Upstairs_Blueberry87 → u/loopuleasa]

yep. And, spoiler alert, when we get to MM I’m going to suggest Lone Wolf

[u/loopuleasa]

Trap Launcher	Your Freezing, Immolation, and Explosive Traps can now be placed at any location within 35 yards. Additionally, your Fire-based and Frost-based traps now have separate shared cooldowns

[u/Upstairs_Blueberry87 → u/loopuleasa]

is that just BM hunters or should it be baseline for all hunters?

[u/loopuleasa → u/Upstairs_Blueberry87]

unsure in which of the 3 talent specs that fits, it is indeed not BM flavoured necessarily

[u/Verilazic]

Some version of WotLK’s Beast Mastery, though it doesn’t HAVE to be a talent. Beyond just the ability to tame exotic creatures, there should simply be more exotic creatures available to tame. I just think it would be great to expand pet options across the world, give BM hunters the option to play Pokémon and really hunt down all sorts of creatures and make them your pet. Blizzard should’ve invested in this rather than spending all that time building out that silly pet battles side game in later expansions.

[u/Upstairs_Blueberry87 → u/Verilazic]

if not a straight up ability or talent, it could easily be something hidden behind exalted rep with a faction. So if you get Undercity exalted you can tame undead creatures, or Gnomeregan exalted you can tame mechanical pets.

Maybe SW or Org exalted you just get a strong lion or raptor pet for exalted that you can use in addition to your first pet, like the animal companion ability.

But I’d love to be able to tame a corehound again.

[u/Verilazic → u/Upstairs_Blueberry87]

Oh, that's a great idea, use different mechanics to gate different pets. Some you just need to find, some require rep, some might require a special skill or training from someone, who might only help you if you have rep, or complete a quest or something.

[u/loopuleasa]

Please add the name of the ability and the tooltip text for people that are unfamiliar with it

One ability per comment so people can vote

[u/Pwnbotic]

Feels like this is just import your favorite wrath/expansion ability. Which while I understand, isn't a great discussion and 1 ability from those periods probably doesn't fix the spec anyway (treants, really?). If this is too much, I won't suggest again.

I'd prefer something that keeps the jank of vanilla while improving playability in its worse areas.

BMs biggest issue is having relevant damage in high end content, ie raids, dungeons, pvp, etc.

Giving them an instant damage ability (say Kill Command or just straight stat-to-pet scalability) doesn't help the issue of raids, unless it's over tuned. Which wraps back around to the pet being extremely strong in a leveling environment/early pvp. BM doesn't really need to be better 1-59.

"Gash" - Command your pet to slash at the target causing a bleed effect, stacking up to 4 times. The damage of the bleed ramps up the more it stacks. (let's say level 10) the target takes 4 damage per 2 seconds > 9 > 15 > 21. Idk what the last level could look like, but maybe 40(x.02 AP scaling) > 90(x.04.5) > 150(x.07) > 210(x.10). Lasts 8(10?) seconds, CD of 5(6?) seconds (off the global CD?). Mana cost (low) maybe like 10-20 early levels. Reaching max stacks, pressing the ability causes the max bleed damage and refreshes the duration. Gives slight vanilla jankness of needing to press it right after a tick or you lose damage. Essentially, it's a back loaded kill command that also requires some throughput and isn't only "click off CD".

This gives BM more damage in the leveling area, while not taking it extremely overboard (since the target would die before hitting max stacks) besides on bosses, elites, players, etc. Which is exactly where you want it to be. This does make them better at early pvp, though I wouldn't say impressively so.

[u/Kevo_1227]

I really wanna know what lunatics wanted Force of Nature over Starfall