Obviously, if we get rid of the pet we lose a huge chunk of our damage and that’s obviously bad. 15% increased damage just isn’t enough to compete with it. However… Who says that the ability ‘only’ has to affect the damage? Maybe Lone Wolf should come with a heap of benefits for getting rid of the pet?
In pvp you don’t want others to be in the deadzone and the pet can help keep them at a distance.
In general world based pve content you don’t want enemies in the deadzone either as if you are ranged you lose a lot of DPS being forced into melee but now your pet is gone which means even less DPS.
In group based content such as dungeons and raids the main reason to bring a hunter is because of their meaty DPS, get rid of the pet and BM rune and… What purpose is there to bring a hunter at all?
So let’s spitball. 20% increased damage (damage ‘has’ to be increased a little bit) 20% increased movement speed(additive with cheetha for 50% movement speed, not additive with BFD boon) (maybe even remove cheetahs stun when hit or lower the chance dramatically) After replies the idea in italics no longed seems like a good implementation and I retract my support behind it. Concussive Shot’s CD is lowered (maybe even no CD at all).
And finally, maaaaaybe… Either remove deadzone or limit it to 2-4 yards instead of 8 minimum.
Would that make Lone Wolf more useful?
In tight dungeons and raids the LOS can be annoying for a hunter to deal with, this would make Lone Wolf a lot more appealing in those tighter places.
In general leveling content (26-40 whenever new cap drops) the concussive change and movement speed increase would allow for you to actually kite enemies properly without it feeling like a total slog.
In PVP you trade in some of your damage and homing torpedo pet for movement functionality for increased survivability.
Not saying this is ‘the’ solution, it’s just an idea I’m throwing out there. The damage loss from not having a pet isn’t the only problem with going with the Lone Wolf rune, there’s lot of other issues with not having a pet that the LW rune does not address at all.
What changes would you like to see to the rune to make it more useful? Instead of cackling about the dps this, dps that, think outside the box of other ways to make it more useful.
Cause if Lone Wolf turns into THE dps meta then… Well people are just gonna start complaining about it instead of the pets and now a bunch of other runes are just useless as well.
How would it be OP to have more running speed to distance yourselves from targets so that they are not in your deadzone when you lose a huge amount of damage from the loss of pets?
There was outrage when ferals had 30% ms and could spam one spell, luckily that made them go oom very quickly , but in 1v1 they could beat and outrange everything .
Now imagine hunter doing AAs at you from 40+ yards and moving 50% faster than you .
Having 90 more gold isnt gamebreaking , having 50% more speed in combat kinda is .
Yea u get dazed , when u get hit , tell me , what is gona hit you from 40+ yards while u zoom at 50% ms .
Also, cheetach daze is 30% iirc, that combined with OPs idea and another 20%ms to lonewolf, cheetach will slow you only by 10% compared to rest of classes , which is nothing realy .
So yea, im fully aware of all aspects and its gona be OP
Didn’t think about that, that’s true. Movement speed additive with Cheetha probably isn’t the right way to go then.
@Lommatik
Well ok, it being additive with Cheetha is a no go, what about Lone Wolf just being 20% movement speed along with the other benefits then?
Obviously the daze would reduce ALL movement speed bonuses and give you the full daze movement speed reduction. I shouldn’t even have to mention that, it should be a given. But as I said, the Cheetah additive movement idea is probably not good anyway in retrospect so I’m not supporting it anymore anyway.
I mean, rabble rabble OP rabble rabble, ok, then what ‘is’ the correct way to fix Lone Wolf to make up for the lack of a pet then? What would YOU, Lommatik, do?
Not enough. Pet on BM is like 60% of your dmg. Lone Wolf needs like 30% extra dmg and lower mana costs. Then at lvl 60 maybe it will actually be worth it.
As long as Lone Wolf shares its place with AoTL no matter its improvements it will never be enough. AoTL is as much a blessing as a curse, it renders everything in the same equipment slot useless.
On the other hand, Lone Wolf must be able to benefit both distance and melee hunters. It would be regrettable to transform the hunter into a sniper who only runs and kites to hope to survive in pvp.
If the problem with increasing the damage for Lone Wolf is that it can make an ability like Aimed Shot 1 shot players through crits then increasing damage might not be a valid option to buff the ability. But if that means that the DPS will automatically go down and make it less useful than other runes then there’s something I was just thinking about when it comes to Lone Wolf.
See, Classic was designed from the ground up for Hunters to have pets. It was never intended for us ‘not’ to have pets as far as I can see. So is it even possible to make Lone Wolf work in the first place? I mean, if the toolset and abilities and cooldowns and autoattack speed and arrow damage and everything about a hunter is designed around the idea of you having a pet then does a flat % boost in damage really work?
My idea for it was more along the lines of changing its functionality so that it truly offers a different playstyle for Hunters instead of just being, well, Hunters but worse because no pet…
Maybe Blizzard should just remove Lone Wolf outright and replace it with something else? But I dunno if that even matters as unless they boost every other chest rune to a ridonculous degree I’m not switching from Lion anyway so
Pet is already practically destroying everything with almost double cumulative damage and Hunter getting another instant shot is okay, but we should be worried about Aimed Shot?
Everything is already thrown out of the window here. In my opinion Lone Wolf needs to be +25% damage the least and it will be far from the most broken thing ever even then.
Hot take. Make Lone Wolf into the Hunter PVP rune.
Keep the 15% Damage
Give it Retail Disengage (So when you use it, you actually leap back from an enemy to gain distance to use bow again)
Give it Camouflage ( 60 second stealth while moving - once you leave stealth, 60 second CD before using again)
Then id actually enjoy Hunter PVP without having a pet
