Pets right now are far worse, as they can destroy people from 100yd away if so desired.
By comparison 40yd 3s cast with 25% damage buff that may or may not crit is far from even close to above ESPECIALLY when Hunter gives pet up for it.
No pet has 100 yard range?. They have to physically attack you and get closer. And pets fight in range of other players i.e ccable. Hunters can outrange everyone.
Also im kinda hoping pets get nerfed. Not just more added to the problem
Broiski, you know VERY well that there is a BIG difference between PLAYER having to be in range… and some throwaway pet having to be in range.
Yes, Hunter can nilly willy send pet from 100yd+ away with 0 danger for themselves and pop someone. By comparison Aimed Show is nothing to write about.
Yes and we can CC a pet and run.
Maybe no risk, but it wont kill us. Lol,
IF your class has the CC for it and it does not crash on their resists…
Pets do have ~40% movement speed buff by default and next phase with Bestial Wrath - you can’t even CC them when it’s up and they will have a stun on top of that cuz why not right?
Comparing that to Aimed Shot +25%? LUL
I agree. Lone Wolf instead of getting a direct damage buff needs a complete rework. My suggestion would be to make the Lone Wolf rune give hunters a new buff: Heart of the Wolf. (A buff rather than an aspect so they can still aspect weave)
Instead of being a flat buff, Heart of the Wolf would just change some abilities a bit. For example:
Wind shots passive: All hunter spells and attacks have a 20% chance of firing a second shot, dealing weapon damage and consuming no ammo.
Barbed shot: Replaces serpent sting. Does the exact same thing, but scales with attack power and deals ‘bleed’ damage. Essentially, physical damage instead of nature, and bleeds are harder to dispell.
Quick shot: Replaces Arcane Shot. A quick shot dealing weapon damage +x. Basically the same as arcane shot, but deals physical instead of arcane and scales with attack power instead of arcane damage.
Those things would buff the damage of Lone Wolf without making it insanely bursty. Now we just need to work a little on the utility requirements, since hunters would lose out on the pet utility. Simple solution:
Increase the range of the hunters attacks. They’re now a solo ranger, give them the longest range in the game; no more getting outranged by those stinky druids. 45 yards should suffice instead of 40.
Give Wing Clip a 10 yd range too.
You know we could just nerf pets?.
Lone wolf shares its slot with AoTL, at no time even buffed to +25% this rune will be really interesting. The only way to make Lone Wolf interesting would be to buff it to +25%, add other bonuses and change the armor slot. Or when we remove AoTL which is more of a curse than anything else, this rune will make each rune that shares its location obsolete.
Lets be real… how much will they nerf them?
Lets say they go hard and slash scaling and BM rune by half - that will still be WAY more than 15% Lone Wolf rune gives and likely even 25%, judging by standard Classic raid parses.
So, the end result is EVEN if BM rune did not exist AND pets would not scale - Lone Wolf rune would still be dog at 15%.
That’s just reality.
Then hunters overall DPS suffers and no one wants them in raid content because that’s all we’re good for, maybe 1 token hunter just for Lion that can sit there and look pretty.
If pets are to be nerfed for PvP then it explicitly needs to be only for PvP, meaning pets get a debuff when player combat has been engaged. And it seems like their resistance bonuses should be nerfed against player attacks as it seems like they resist CC too often.
3.00+ weapon allows raptor strike every cooldown, would pair beautifully with Flanking strike.
It feels like Lion is so universally useful for Hunters that it shouldn’t even be an option as a rune. Maybe just change it to be a part of a Hunter’s overall tool set by leveling up. Cause like, there’s mage right. And Mage has Frost, Fire and Arcane specs. Some runes are better for Arcane spec and some are better for Fire or Frost spec. While you ‘can’ mix and match you get the most benefit out of getting the appropriate runes for your spec. The problem with Hunters and their specs is that they are so… Universal? Every Hunter spec will use a pet. Every Hunter spec will use ranged weapons to a degree unless Survival is fully changed into a melee spec and the melee runes boosted significantly. Every Hunter spec’s focus is primarily DPS for PVE as that’s all we got. So there isn’t any point where Lion is more useful for one spec than another. ALL specs benefit far too much by Lion to not take it. Same with BM.
I don’t think this can be fixed for Hunters unless you revamp the entire rune set we’ve been given so that not a single one of them has anything to do with DPS and are all about utility or revamp the entire specs to define them as greatly as a mage or a paladin’s specs are defined. No matter what is done with Lone Wolf; Lion is still going to be better than it for every spec so what’s the point?
I don’t want Lion removed from SoD but honestly, it can’t be a rune slot for chest runes as it invalidates every other rune as an option once you get it.
What NEW rune for chest (if we remove all others but Lion) could even come close to competing with Lion? Not in terms of stats or dps, but other functionality?
Pack Bond, any healing done to the Hunter or its pet will heal the pack. (all party members healed by 50% of all of the Hunter’s or its pets healing) (group heals will therefor hit all party members and then after it hits the hunter and its pet all party members get 50% of that healing from both the hunter and its pet meaning that it is 100% more healing. A Hunter with pack Bond basically augmentation evoker’s party heals to be twice as effective.
Cheetah’s Recoup - Aspect Of The Cheetah is changed to a 10 sec buff with a 60 sec CD that gives you 50% movement speed, gives you and your pet stealth, makes you and your pet drop combat and removes the daze from being hit. Stealth remains active for 10 additional seconds after the movement speed bonus drops so you can continue to remain in stealth for a while.
Wild OP ideas but do these come close to competing with Lion? Genuine question. I’m not backing these ideas as the go to ideas just trying to figure out what could be comparable to Lion.
[edit]
Actually, now that I think about it let’s be real here. Most of these abilities are from alter expansions that they just copy pasted into Classic and the more I think about the Hunter runes the more convinced I am that none of the classic devs really play as Hunters or know what to do with Hunter runes so expecting them to create all new runes that can compete with Lion is probably not going to happen, might have to look at all expansions and see what other abilities Hunters get and see which could be sloppily copy pasted over instead.
[edit2]
So going over some Wrath abilitites here’s a few that could be copy pasted in to maybe compete with Lion:
Pet talent trees - I dunno, the rune unlocks pet talents and you can now buff your pet even more to make the pvp crowd angrier I guess. (however, these could allow for tenacity pets to become more full fledged tank options, maybe giving hunter’s the ability to spec into being tanks)
Trap launcher - All traps can be used in combat, can be launched at a 15-20 yard distance and have decreased CD and their CD are only shared between similar types of traps, meaning fire and explosive shares CD as an example. (can’t use traps in combat, can only place one trap at a time, long CD’s as well, this could give all new functionality to how you play)
Aspect Of The Viper - All attacks gives mana back, 4% mana per 3 sec, 50% reduced damage. (allowing for mana intensive builds to actually be viable by giving the hunter a means of regaining mana back)
[edit]
Cata removed ammunition so, Magic Arrows, you get 12% increased ranged attack speed (does not stack with quiver or bullet bag) and you get arcane and nature arrows (arcane shot, volley and the stings) as new Lion esque aspects that are not shared with other aspects. So you click Arcane Arrows and all your physical attacks, be they auto or ability based; Turn into arcane damaging arrows. Same for Nature Arrows. This rune allows you to get rid of the quiver for more storage space. This could also make Hunters want to go for spellpower gear as it can completely modify our characters to be magic oriented by turning all attacks into magic oriented attacks.
Not if lone wolf is reworked and done properly. I.e my suggestion as above, where the hunter gets new abilities based on the pet activated while lone wolf is on.
What kind of abilities did you have in mind?
Could be based around the pets concept.
I.e spider, DoT based damage abilities.
Bear could be sustain, Defensive buffs for the group?
Cat, some form of stealth, Single target bleeds.
Etc etc.
They could input a ton of utility / damafe options into hunter. Which would make lone wolf have advantages.