These “other viewpoints” aren’t relevant to the conversation. It’s a fact that hunters are in a bad state and Blizzard are silent. The other viewpoint, what, that it’s all my own fault? 
They are not.
MM is upper half in raids, thats objectively above average.
One spec in single target scenarios only. So…no.
So, what’s happened to BM in mythic plus? Have they nerfed it or something? It was performing extremely well when I last did a key on my hunter about a week ago.
I’m glad it’s working out for you 
Glad I could help in some way. 
Also, something that was recently touched on by the devs.
I thought I might as well make a reference to it here. It’s about their reasoning for why they opt to do reworks of individual elements, or entire specs/classes. What they tend to focus on.
(There’s a short video in the link below, 1min30sec)
“Fun always comes first but the tuning of things is also very important. We found that nowadays, people care more about tuning than they did in the past, so we’re trying to make sure that this is also a priority.”
Fun always comes first
Personally, the fun is lost if I use a nonMETA class and I’m at a disadvantage compared to the META classes that have been given more attention.
I could also have fun improving my style of play but why not do it also with a more performing class like the META one? (with the Hunter that is not)
But the tuning of things is also very important.
More importantly it would be for me to balance all classes and not create a gap between META and non-META and where playability would be rewarded rather than being advantaged by using a META class
We found that nowadays, people care more about tuning
More like in a month there are “10000” changes with patches that lead to a mental breakdown 
than they did in the past
It’s normal…
In the past a class received changes after a longer period and not from week to week…
so we’re trying to make sure that this is also a priority.
But not following this line of thinking.
See META vs nonMETA classes …
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Be a meta slave, then, and class/spec hop as the meta changes. Then you’ll always have fun
Very short version : BM Hunters are still “middle of the pack” with Crowd Control options that are mostly ignored by either the mechanics of the dungeons or the population of PUGhell, but so many other classes bring the same utilities and tremendously more damge PLUS more utilities that the perception of the PUGhell population shifted towards “needs to be babysat”.
From my own experience, honestly limited, the S2 tier set is much better than the S1 tier set (because it’s always on instead of having a 30% probability of activating) despite the bonii being oriented towards CD reduction instead of pure damage boost.
The general damage output is still roughly the same, the self-defensives and self-healing are also still the same (and I’ve found them lacking since Dec 2021 when I started playing again after a 10-years break), mobility took a hit with the loss of Spirit Form but that has not changed.
Some of our crowd control capabilities (Tar Trap and Binding Arrow) lost value, simply because in BH for example, where there are a lot of “escaping mobs”, those mobs are totally immune to those forms of CC, but wierdly an Ice Trap or Concussive Shot works nicely … too bad about almost every guide out there telling us to forego Concussive Shot.
The biggest differences lies in the incoming damage from “hostiles” in M+ that is much higher with the current M+ dungeons rotation (seriously, unavoidable damage like HOI, VP and NELT were already a pain in “normal Mythic” in S1, but in M+ it rises exponentially to “nuke them from orbit” very quickly), the new affixes with only ONE that we can do anything against (Incorporeal, but then, we can neutralize those two extra adds in 2 seconds with one Ice Trap and one Intimidate), and the inescapable fact that some other specs were buffed through to roof while BM Hunters either got bug fixes or a 5% increase to pet damage.
Honestly, the number of keys listed in PUGhell with “SL priest only” is nauseating.
Most of the time, in PUGhell, I’ll get people asking if I have BL (funny because that acronym comes from the Hunter Talent while other classes have it too), but sheople will prefer Drachthyrs or Shamans because those have also a BL BUT they can heal and give numerous other boosts to the group.
It’s now really hard to convince PUGhell sheople that a BM Hunter can actually be very useful, while premade groups and players with a bit more knowledge recognize the value we can have.
There are indeed a huge number of horrendously bad BM Hunters in the game, it looks very easy to play due to the reputation of “LOL only 3 buttons rotation” while in actual gameplay it’s much harder than that with CDs being longer than the effects, reactions to mechanics often breaking that “perfect rotation cycle”, positionning being absolutely vital and also hard to learn, and all the very small details that make of break the spec.
I consider myself somewhere between “decent” and “slightly below average” (and my parses and logs comfirm that), I know my mistakes and I’m working on them, but it looks like my attittude of “owning my mistakes, learning from them, blaming myself rather than others and trying to improve” is the exception, leading to a general perception of BM = bad.
I cannot restrain myself from an anecdote : I was in PUGhell in a BH +14, with a Demolock that had a whole tribe of pets following him around, and I saw the behaviour of his(her/its) pets meaning there were set on “defend master mode”.
Those pets roamed around and body-pulled the numerous hidden ambushers and slimes, but it was me that was kicked from the group with the justification “pets aggroes” while my pets were either in passive mode, or unsummoned outside of combat, and I know where those hidden ambushers are PLUS I can reveal them safely with Flares, but nope, “blame the hunter and kick him”.
Last words : BM hunters are still the same, with decades-old problems, it’s other specs that were overboosted and the perception of the PUGhell population that changed.
Edited several times for readabiliity and typos.
I’d say that this is a perfect example of how the perception of the community hasn’t fully caught up to reality. Obviously, this particular scenario isn’t as common as the ones that involve the topic of meta/non-meta classes and specs, what is “viable” or not.
This is especially the case as they significantly reduced the aggro range of hunter pets in…I think BfA, but it could’ve been early in SL as well. Essentially, you will more or less have to be very careless when moving past packs of mobs in dungeons etc. to manage to bodypull with your pets nowadays.
Since you decided to reply to me (and wrote a long, detailed reply), I’ll do you the courtesy of explaining what my question was about. There was a conversation that went like this:
Sausage: “It’s a fact that hunters are in a bad state.”
Deja: “MM is upper half in raids, that’s objectively above average.”
Sausage: “One spec in single target scenarios only.”
Me: “So, what’s happened to BM in mythic plus?”
As you can see from that, the conversation was entirely about damage output. And my question was based on my experience that, when I pug as BM, I more often than not carry the group in terms of damage. I also keep up well in guild groups with my GM, who plays a ret paladin currently 5 ilvls higher than my hunter.
That was what my question was about. It wasn’t a question that needed an answer because both I and the person I directed it to know the answer is “nothing”.
This isn’t actually what you think it is. The reason people ask this question is because BM hunters benefit from not playing with a bloodlust pet because a tenacity pet gives 5% increased HP and also an extra defensive CD in fortitude of the bear. I’m happy if I’m playing with another BL class because I can have the spirit beast out instead of the cat. I’ve occasionally found myself grouped with BM hunters who don’t even have a BL pet available to use. Yes, really.
Again this shows your lack of experience and understanding of various classes. I’m not saying the lock didn’t do anything wrong, but the “whole tribe of pets” was one controllable felguard and a whole bunch of others that are not controllable. They just attack whatever the lock attacks. In addition to that, one of the best talents for demo locks gives them 2 permanent uncontrollable imps. The only “pet” a demo lock has that can be compared in any way to a hunter’s pet is the felguard.
But you said Brackenhide, which is a dungeon where you can mount throughout. Did you know that your pets are “invisible” to mobs even if they run straight through them while you are mounted? If you’re going to take the skip over the bank after Stinkbreath, all you need to do is mount up and your pets can run through the stealthed mobs without pulling them. You don’t need to dismiss them if you can mount. I’ve also never felt the need to set my pets to passive in a dungeon. I’m not sure why anyone would want to do that.
I can add that if you’re mounted (as is most often the case in BH), Beast Master pets cannot body-pull at all, they are completely passive and “invisible” to dungeon mobs, that was stated in the patch notes of the start of Shadowlands Season 3.
On the other hand, I don’t really know the Warlock class and specs, but I noticed the “Defend Master” behaviour of the pets of that particular 'lock, and he wasn’t on his mount at that moment.
With the incredible amounts of Imps and such they can have after a fight, they take a lot of space, and the Imps specifically “run everywhere causing mischief” (it’s even in the tooltip of that summon on my own Warlock character), NOT setting them to “Passive” and NOT mounting up was the critical mistake that aggroed way too much.
I still got blamed, because 'locks = META DPS powerhouses.
Irrationnal, illogical, uniformed, it’s the reality of PUGhell life, to my great despair.
I actually know most of your first paragraphs, and I indeed agree with you.
In the first two of those I quoted, I learned something, namely that only ONE of the “tribe of pets” responds to the “Help, Defend, Passive” pet orders for a Warlock, so THANK YOU AGAIN, every bit of knowledge helps.
If you read my other reply, I’m very much aware of the “if you’re mounted, your pets are invisible” mechanics, I could even take a couple of hours to dig out the patch notes where that was stated, and I use (and even abuse) that mechanic as often as possible.
But as I wrote in the other reply, that particular Warlock never mounted up through the whole instance, prefering to use his Demonic portal instead.
I’ve had to set my pets to Passive instead of Help because of Vortex Pinacle : there are some storm elementals in there that “hide” in the ground after some trash packs or miniboss are defeated, and since I’m asked to Multishot and Cleave against those packs, they take some damage before hiding, and my pets stay fixated on them unless I unsummmon/resummon them, recall them by setting them to Passive, or use a stop attack macro (that I just learned about and will incorporate in my shortcuts).
Tanks shouldn’t be tanking mobs on top of those. But honestly, if my pets are still attacking something from the last pull that couldn’t die (like the target dummies by the shark boss in FH, for example) I just start attacking my next target and the pets come and join me.
Ah but I cannot dictate what the Tanks in PUGhell do, and when everyone rushes to the next pack but my pets stay behind, if I’m a bit late to stop them from munching the ground, they will come late to the next fight, waste Stomps etc.
I really should look into binding a macro somewhere to stop myself and them from attacking for those rare cases.
It’s the exception though, most of the time I don’t encouter that problem.
But the distance to the next pack is small each time. If you’ve done the sensible thing (in that dungeon) and moved in front of the current pull, you’re ready to just turn and multishot/barbed shot (if it’s needed more urgently to maintain frenzy stacks) as the tank is running to the pack… with misdirect active, of course. By the time the rest of the group gets there, your pets are already dashing to attack the new mobs.
Like I said, I’ve never had a problem with my pets not keeping up in that dungeon (aside from the last pack of orbs where we jump down and pets run down the ramp, but it’s still quicker to let them run than to dismiss and re-summon), and I’ve never dismissed my pets or set them to passive. I think you’re just making extra and unnecessary work for yourself.
It’s not always like this.
Several times it happens that when the tank moves from the first pack to the second pack, the pets stay behind and do not have the dash available.
Result?
You have to wait for them to move forward from behind and that wastes time.
THIS was never explained to me … so, again, thank you !
But I don’t use misdirect anymore, I’ve played in PUGs with 2 other Hunters, and they told me that only one misdirect was counted, the last one “in the stack”, is that wrong too ?
I’ll have to try that myself, I should be able to find a Talent point to put back into misdirect.
I haven’t had this experience. Especially not with the first pack in VP, which is 3 (or 5, depending on what the tank pulls) that all die.
No idea, tbh. I don’t tend to play in groups that stack hunters (unless we’re just farming low keys for crests, in which case everyone is overgeared and no-one cares).
MD stacks just fine, it’s more that the threat produced by BM hunter MD is practically non existent, since it’s only damage by the player and not the pet.
Make sure to have /petattack in a macro with each of your main abilities (multi shot being the most important) so that your pet always switches to your current target instantly.