u checked if ur website is free of any malware? coz sql injection attack, the attacker could plant malware on ur site without u knowing, and infect ALL the pple that visit u…. o.o

Now this is a BRK I can get on board with!

That idea of yours to incorporate pets into all hunter tree got me thinking, something along these lines…

BM – Uber Pet DPS tree

MM – Pet CC Tree?

SV – Pet Tanking tree

BM would still be the obvious ultimate hunter/pet synergy tree but something like this would really make MM and SV more in touch with their pets.

# HUNTER

# Consumable ammunition has been removed from the game. Arrows and bullets no longer stack, but are not consumed. Ranged attack speed bonus gained from quivers and ammo bags will be preserved in a different capacity.
# A new tier of hunter pet talents have been added. In particular, this allows Beastmaster hunters to improve their damage per second (DPS) with their 51 point talent.
# Hunting Party – this talent has been reduced to 3 ranks and also grants a passive bonus to the hunter.
# Piercing Shots – this talent has been changed. Your Aimed, Steady and Chimera Shots cause the target to bleed for 10/20/30% of damage dealt for 8 sec.
# Sniper Training – this talent has been changed. After standing still for 6 sec, you gain a 2/4/6% damage bonus to Steady, Aimed and Explosive Shot.
# We are also looking to add additional trap functionality to Survival.

We are still of the believe that a hunter without a pet is basically a mail-wearing mage. All three hunter trees should in some form or another incorporate the pet as a building-block of the class.

BRK, I would like to humbly and respectfully disagree. A hunter without a pet is not a mail-wearing mage, but an archer/ranger. And, frankly, I don’t see why that is such a bad thing. I don’t know if your brain would agree with me when he’s no longer doped and all, or maybe not.

One may, of course, argue that our class is called “hunter” and not “archer/ranger/rifleman/etc.” and, therefore, assumes a priori that it involves a pet. But pet-hunter dynamics should not be the defining attribute of the hunter, because the tree that does it best will always do it better than the other trees. This has been, in fact, the reason why for so long the only powerful hunter tree was Beastmaster—it was simply the logical consequence of defining the entire class around a single mechanic.

In my honest opinion (and fully acknowledging that, as I am not a Blizzard developer, this will never ever come to pass), the defining attribute of all hunters that can be expressed in different ways is this: the ability to track, sense, pursue, and attack the prey. DPS parity is achieved and balanced around different aspects:

• Beastmasters will achieve DPS parity by incorporating pets (at the expense of doing less personal damage). They keep their prey at range with pet aggro.
•Marksmen will have weak or no pets, but achieves DPS parity the wide assortment of ranged options available to them, and the accuracy of their attacks (think marine rifleman), and by grouping up and stacking buffs (imagine a row of archers or gunners). They keep their prey at range with stunning shots.
•Survivalists are the masters of detecting stealth, tracking prey, setting all sorts of traps, surviving encounters, hand-to-hand combat (I have no issues against melee hunters; in fact, in history one can be a hunter with a melee weapons and traps) and shooting at point-blank range. They keep their prey at range with traps and achieve DPS parity by, basically, being physically stronger.

But that’s just my point-of-view, and though it is a distant hope, as I said, I acknowledge it won’t ever happen that way.

Still, that being said and considering the current status quo I still must say: No, BRK… a hunter without a pet is not merely a mail-wearing mage; we are, instead, a shaman with no magic, little to no melee capability, and can’t shoot at point blank range.

And yes! A hunter who is an engineer should be able to track mechanicals! Sheesh!

… a hunter who’s an engineer should be able to track mechanicals …

I love you. Get a job at Blizzard FFS.

I could not agree with you more! That is until you got to the skateboard thing….

Take DPS out of it for a minute and let’s try to figure out what would really make the three specs different from each other.

And in this case Beast mastery is the tree that will have the perma-pet, and the other 2 get to summon pets at will, like shammys ghostwolf or dk:s army of the dead.

Step 2, would be futher gearing of the pet, giving it its very own collar… for gemslot or glyphs or whatever. Giving the hunter the possibility of futher tankspeccing a tendancy-pet, or giving it more of a edge dpswise.

My main is a hunter, and i always go back to my gorilla. Freaking love it.

Step 3, of a “supposed” hunter-remake would be ridding us of the horrible ammobag and replacing ammo with a system like sigill/totem/libraim, för special buffs. And yea, everlasting ammo, why the fuck not. why not make it manabased like a casters “ammo”. (brain soar from hours of naxx atm, but this is not that farfetched thinking)

I for one part, feel the needed ammosack taking up one bagslot. Is a small, but still uncool hunternerf. this and the damn cost for ammo, is not really that awsome.