World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Exotic Pet damage and PTR

Akumen

Sargeras

20. Re: Exotic Pet damage and PTR 01/02/2009 09:35:50 AM PST

Q u o t e:

The PTR did not have the nerfs to Rake and Scorpid poison. We reduced their AP coefficients. They should still be fine pets, just not head and shoulders above the others. We also fixed a bug where Spirit Strike was not playing well with Longevity (and this bug fix was also likely not on the PTR).

I can't recall off the top of my head the history of the exotic pet damage (i.e. when we made changes relative to data pushes). We increased it a couple of times, though I suspect what you are seeing on the PTR for them is what you will see in 3.0.8.

What I would really like to hear from you GC, is the answer to "Why do hunters have a 51pts talent that brings nothing but 4 non-useful pet talent points?".

That would make my day.

Atherakhia

< Vigil >

Mal'Ganis

21. Re: Exotic Pet damage and PTR 01/02/2009 09:39:03 AM PST

The whole hunter pet system needs to be changed anyway. It's stupid to put DPS oriented abilities on pets because they'll never be balanced and will always put a specific pet ahead of another. And worse still, the pets they put ahead of others are almost certain to be non-exotic pets over exotic ones.

All pets should be given a unique ability, sure. But those abilities should be oriented around utility and not damage. This way you can just change Beast Mastery to make your pets deal XX% more damage then normal pets and make Exotic Pets unique in that they can choose any of the 3 trees to invest in instead of the one. If you want to make the talent even more fun, allow Hunters to use their exotic pets as mounts.

It really doesn't matter how much you nerf these things. Unless they are significantly worse then their normal pet alternatives (which they shouldn't be if you're serious about wanting people to play any spec they want) players will always be better served using the pets that have attacks based off the most raid buffs/debuffs.

Tamsinela

< Ani Ayastigi >

Argent Dawn

22. Re: Exotic Pet damage and PTR 01/02/2009 09:46:18 AM PST

Exotics should not be much better than a regular pet. if I had my way, I'd say they should be in no way better than a regular pet, just different. Many hunters do NOT want a flavor-of-the-month Devilsaur. I certainly don't. We have a pet(s) that we've had for a while and do NOT want to be forced (or even nudged) into taking a new pet.

Unfortunately this design decision has prevailed through beta, and I'm not sure why. Blizz perhaps should have consulted with more BM hunters to see what they really wanted out of a 51 point talent, rather than assume "hey they'll want a tameable dinosaur!"

The strength of the 51 point talent should be those extra pet talent points. If they're not providing enough of a bonus, it should be re-evaluated.

Rowr.

Morwhen

< Shade >

Medivh

23. Re: Exotic Pet damage and PTR 01/02/2009 09:54:18 AM PST

Q u o t e:
I can't recall off the top of my head the history of the exotic pet damage (i.e. when we made changes relative to data pushes). We increased it a couple of times, though I suspect what you are seeing on the PTR for them is what you will see in 3.0.8.

I am extremely disappointed to hear this. Exotic pet damage has been lagging behind other pets, and the spirit beast (nominally the hardest and rarest pet in the game) does very bad damage. You said before you'd fix it, it's been reported multiple times on the PTR, and you're telling us it's going to go live as it is, i.e. still bad?

I expected better.

Juneko

< Clearly Outplayed >

Cho'gall

25. Re: Exotic Pet damage and PTR 01/02/2009 10:24:06 AM PST

exotic beast talents should give access to another tier in the pet talent trees which a meaningful end tier talent.

Talean

Cenarius

26. Re: Exotic Pet damage and PTR 01/02/2009 10:31:06 AM PST

Q u o t e:
The strength of the 51 point talent should be those extra pet talent points. If they're not providing enough of a bonus, it should be re-evaluated.

I agree with this.

The exotic pets should be a bonus, not the point behind the ability. I like the idea of exotic pets having slightly better specials, but the overall performance should be about the same. That way, you can still chose your pet based mostly on what you like, rather than what your spec tells you you're supposed to use.

Elfik

< Fallen Legends >

Blackhand

27. Re: Exotic Pet damage and PTR 01/02/2009 10:54:39 AM PST

Q u o t e:
It's pretty sad when months go by and the same bugs are still around that never get fixed.

Fixing the bugs would seem like the biggest buff we ever had.

My spirit beast is currently in the bank because his damage modifyer is just flat wrong, spirit strike isn't working correctly (the one bug they fixed), spirit strike hits about 1/4 as hard as rake, and if the pet doesn't have LoS on his target he will stop and attempt to cast spirit strike continously instead of running to target and melee'ing.

I fear I will be forced into MM or SV after the patch anyway, so my spirit beast will probably occupy a permanent stable slot.

Blizzard approach to fixing the problem is to nerf BM, and force people to play as SV and MM. After majority switch to one of the above specs, no one will care about Exotic Pets and will never complain about them since the whole spec soon will be useless anyway. - Thats the fix blizzard is working on, sad, but true.

Lorelei

< Unnatural Selection >

Gilneas

28. Re: Exotic Pet damage and PTR 01/02/2009 11:16:34 AM PST

Q u o t e:
What I would really like to hear from you GC, is the answer to "Why do hunters have a 51pts talent that brings nothing but 4 non-useful pet talent points?".

That would make my day.

I can't imagine you'll get an answer to that, as among other things, it's based on the assumption that extra talent points have no use. They have less use for one spec than the others (ferocity), but even then they have value. Heart of the Phoenix makes a big difference in several situations, and you can't get heart of the phoenix and all of the dps-increasing talents without taking the 51-pointer.

But that's just one spec. Tenacity and cunning pets can find several places to put those extra points.

But that's not even the reason I wanted to post. I wanted to reiterate that there is still a BUG with a couple of ferocity pets, Spirit beasts and Wasps, where they aren't getting the 10% damage, 5% health "tree" bonus.

Kalgan, take me away!

Sabryn

< Huzzah >

Gilneas

29. Re: Exotic Pet damage and PTR 01/02/2009 11:35:01 AM PST

I don't think the exotics should have extra dmg, I think they should be a bonus, a choice, that BM hunters have vs other hunters.

If you have two hunters (identical gear, identical talents, both having the 51 pt talent) the one with the exotic dps pet should not be out preforming the other one just because they chose a different non-exotic dps pet..

The 51 point talent shouldn't force hunters into choosing one of 6-7 pets in the game in order to be the best dps they can be. It should be just a choice, a bonus. The added strength we get from that talent should apply to all pets. I also agree that the talent is very blah, but I have it and use a cat (because I like cat graphics because they are smaller than exotics...)

Ghostcrawler

Blizzard Poster

30. Re: Exotic Pet damage and PTR 01/02/2009 11:51:19 AM PST

I have said most of this before, but perhaps some of you are just joining us. :)

1) Exotic pets should be a choice. We do not want every BM (or every hunter for that matter) feeling like they have to get an exotic pet to be competitive. We spent a lot of effort to get say gorillas, crabs and spiders up to snuff so we didn't want hunters to actually enter LK with fewer pet choices. Even a 51 BM hunter should feel like a crab (especially a crab) should be a useful pet.

2) Exotic pets should be a choice, part ii. They should not be demonstrably below say cats and scorpids. That seems to be the case on live at the moment, so we adjusted it. Because of the somewhat convoluted way that pets scale, it's not always easy to predict what the average pet will look like on live -- it varies enormously depending on gear and buffs (more on this below).

3) Our target is that the exotic pets are slightly better than normal pets. The key word is "slightly." If you forego an exotic pet for whatever reason, you should not feel like you are gimping your team or group. Note that part of the value of the exotics is their unusual abilities, some of which can fill in missing debuff holes if you are lacking certain classes in your group.

4) We offered the Spirit Beast as a challenge for hunters to try and tame. It would be a big mistake if we made this pet the best one in the game. For starters, it would no longer be rare. :(

5) We disagree that the 4 extra pet talent points are useless. You can call them useless if you only care about your pet's dps and can max that out without those talent points. Not all pet talents were intended to buff dps. (More on this below too.) At the end of the day, the BM 51 is just one talent point. It shouldn't grant you a 10% dps increase. We like for the 51 point talents to be attractive but not mandatory.

6) If you think that no hunter cares about the look of their pet, you are just wrong. :) Very optimized players might be willing to tame an untextured cube if it had the highest dps. However, a great many hunters (I would argue probably even the majority) rolled their class because they wanted to tame pets. Being able to tame exotic pets is very exciting for them.

7) The way pets scale is convoluted. Certain stats scale while others don't. Pets double dip from buffs because the pets benefits from the buff directly and indirectly through the hunter. In short, this is something we want to clean up. We just need to figure out how to do it the right way to avoid these problems in the future. This applies to warlocks, DKs, and to a lesser extent every class with a temp pet like druids and shamans.

8) On the topic of hunter pet talent trees, obviously this was a new feature for us. We have a much better idea now of what works and doesn't. For example, I don't know that pets need many more clickable abilities as hunters have so much to manage already. It also threw a rather harsh light on the system that allows you designate abilities to be autocast or not -- that system can just be buggy and frustrating. We have some plans to look at the trees in a future patch (not expansion). We might even add another tier to make sure that 51 BM hunters can improve their pets dps (slightly) with those bonus talent points.

Talean

Cenarius

31. Re: Exotic Pet damage and PTR 01/02/2009 11:54:00 AM PST

Q u o t e:

6) If you think that no hunter cares about the look of their pet, you are just wrong. :)

If I ever feel like I can't use my Tallstrider, I'm quitting my hunter outright.

Kromidus

< Oblivion >

Tichondrius

32. Re: Exotic Pet damage and PTR 01/02/2009 12:01:11 PM PST

Q u o t e:
I have said most of this before, but perhaps some of you are just joining us. :)

1) Exotic pets should be a choice. We do not want every BM (or every hunter for that matter) feeling like they have to get an exotic pet to be competitive. We spent a lot of effort to get say gorillas, crabs and spiders up to snuff so we didn't want hunters to actually enter LK with fewer pet choices. Even a 51 BM hunter should feel like a crab (especially a crab) should be a useful pet.

2) Exotic pets should be a choice, part ii. They should not be demonstrably below say cats and scorpids. That seems to be the case on live at the moment, so we adjusted it. Because of the somewhat convoluted way that pets scale, it's not always easy to predict what the average pet will look like on live -- it varies enormously depending on gear and buffs (more on this below).

3) Our target is that the exotic pets are slightly better than normal pets. The key word is "slightly." If you forego an exotic pet for whatever reason, you should not feel like you are gimping your team or group. Note that part of the value of the exotics is their unusual abilities, some of which can fill in missing debuff holes if you are lacking certain classes in your group.

4) We offered the Spirit Beast as a challenge for hunters to try and tame. It would be a big mistake if we made this pet the best one in the game. For starters, it would no longer be rare. :(

5) We disagree that the 4 extra pet talent points are useless. You can call them useless if you only care about your pet's dps and can max that out without those talent points. Not all pet talents were intended to buff dps. (More on this below too.) At the end of the day, the BM 51 is just one talent point. It shouldn't grant you a 10% dps increase. We like for the 51 point talents to be attractive but not mandatory.

6) If you think that no hunter cares about the look of their pet, you are just wrong. :) Very optimized players might be willing to tame an untextured cube if it had the highest dps. However, a great many hunters (I would argue probably even the majority) rolled their class because they wanted to tame pets. Being able to tame exotic pets is very exciting for them.

7) The way pets scale is convoluted. Certain stats scale while others don't. Pets double dip from buffs because the pets benefits from the buff directly and indirectly through the hunter. In short, this is something we want to clean up. We just need to figure out how to do it the right way to avoid these problems in the future. This applies to warlocks, DKs, and to a lesser extent every class with a temp pet like druids and shamans.

8) On the topic of hunter pet talent trees, obviously this was a new feature for us. We have a much better idea now of what works and doesn't. For example, I don't know that pets need many more clickable abilities as hunters have so much to manage already. It also threw a rather harsh light on the system that allows you designate abilities to be autocast or not -- that system can just be buggy and frustrating. We have some plans to look at the trees in a future patch (not expansion). We might even add another tier to make sure that 51 BM hunters can improve their pets dps (slightly) with those bonus talent points.

And you claim to play a hunter with a reply like this? Since you also claim to be a Dev. how would you rate BM's 51pt talent compared to all the other classes...I'm not a dev but I can tell you that it is the worst! Thanks for FORCING me to spec into the SV tree since you've totally destroyed the BM Tree for raiding.

[ Post edited by Kromidus ]

Talean

Cenarius

33. Re: Exotic Pet damage and PTR 01/02/2009 12:05:50 PM PST

Q u o t e:

And you claim to play a hunter with a BS reply like this? Since you also claim to be a Dev. how would you rate BM's 51pt talent compared to all the other classes...I'm not a dev but I can tell you that it is the worst!

I'll bet Warlocks would disagree with you.

Kromidus

< Oblivion >

Tichondrius

34. Re: Exotic Pet damage and PTR 01/02/2009 12:09:41 PM PST

Q u o t e:

I'll bet Warlocks would disagree with you.

I have a lock and i assure you their 51pt talents are far better than the 4extra PET Talents that the BM hunter gets for his pet which doesn't increase pet dps at all.

Stimpy

< Acorn Retribution >

Zul'jin

35. Re: Exotic Pet damage and PTR 01/02/2009 12:12:48 PM PST

Q u o t e:
7) The way pets scale is convoluted. Certain stats scale while others don't. Pets double dip from buffs because the pets benefits from the buff directly and indirectly through the hunter. In short, this is something we want to clean up. We just need to figure out how to do it the right way to avoid these problems in the future. This applies to warlocks, DKs, and to a lesser extent every class with a temp pet like druids and shamans.

I am sure you will do the right thing and buff other areas of the demonology tree to bring it back up to "sucky dps" when you fix this and drop them to "very sucky dps". Please don't let them suffer more than they already are for playing a class the devs overcompensated in nerfing due to their inability to balance them in BC. At present it is one of the only specs people without OCD can enjoy.

Tabrius

< Knights of the Runes >

Azjol-Nerub

36. Re: Exotic Pet damage and PTR 01/02/2009 12:17:09 PM PST

Q u o t e:

8) On the topic of hunter pet talent trees, obviously this was a new feature for us. We have a much better idea now of what works and doesn't. For example, I don't know that pets need many more clickable abilities as hunters have so much to manage already. It also threw a rather harsh light on the system that allows you designate abilities to be autocast or not -- that system can just be buggy and frustrating. We have some plans to look at the trees in a future patch (not expansion). We might even add another tier to make sure that 51 BM hunters can improve their pets dps (slightly) with those bonus talent points.

Thank you GC for acknowledging this.

The pet auto cast abilities have been bugged since Wrath was released, with many things on auto cast not casting and other things...such as growl, casting even if you have them on the pet bar and set to not auto cast. As you said, it is very frustrating. Also, only having four spots to place abilities on the pet bar, and having to waste at least 1 or 2 making sure things like growl are not casting, I have to constantly look in my pet book during fights to make sure he is using his damage abilities. All in all, very annoying
: /

Steady as she goes

Hastati

< The Scenites >

Hakkar

37. Re: Exotic Pet damage and PTR 01/02/2009 12:27:15 PM PST

Q u o t e:
Are you aware of the second spirit beast bug where it does not get the 10% damage it should from being a ferocity pet? wasps also suffer from this bug.

Q u o t e:
"I didn't vote for him, but he's my president, and I hope he does a good job."

-John Wayne

Tamsinela

< Ani Ayastigi >

Argent Dawn

38. Re: Exotic Pet damage and PTR 01/02/2009 12:35:32 PM PST

I'm glad that exotics not being by-and-large the "best" pet choice is still part of the design decision. To me, and many hunters, making an exotic a "no brainer" BM pet choice is right up there with making the untextured cube the best DPS choice. If we tamed a crab at level 20 and have used it all through Classic and TBC, likely we'll want to keep using it in Wrath and also not feel like we're gimped for DPS/functionality.

However GC's comment about the BM 51 pointer being "attractive not mandatory" and comparing it to the other talent trees... well, how do you explain the "big damage" buff for Explosive Shot? It's pretty much a no brainer for that tree. Heck, Chimera is a no brainer for MM. Easily they're mandatory.

I do like that the extra pet points from the BM 51pointer allow me to quickly heal or insta-res my pet, though. That's a great part of the talent.

Rowr.

Jagg

< Exile >

Whisperwind

39. Re: Exotic Pet damage and PTR 01/02/2009 12:36:48 PM PST

Q u o t e:
We spent a lot of effort to get say ... crabs ....up to snuff... Even a 51 BM hunter should feel like a crab (especially a crab) should be a useful pet.

I KNEW IT! GC favors crabs.

Next patch. Dual wield crabs!

[ Post edited by Jagg ]

f/k/a Gaj, with a twist.

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