For once I will have to agree with Trevvy, we don't know the length of the CD, and unless it is abnormally long it isn't all that likely to be a big issue. Unless the Ulduar bosses change in mechanics from fight to fight worse than anything we have yet seen (one fight Nature/Fire immune, then next heavy Thaddius-like buff to the handler, then yet again to something that hurts ranged immensely), and that I find to be highly unlikely as I recall Blizzard not wanting to down the 'annoyance-encounter' styled road again. And of course they have only recently said that encounters won't be balanced around dualspecs.

It is of course not terribly nice to more limited than other classes, but until we know if that limit actually does affect us negatively I think we should just wait and see. At least until they tell us our pets are on a 1 hour CD.

Blizzard has mentioned that pet talent tiers will be expanded, and BM will get more points to spend in it. Any rumors yet on what the additional talents would be?

*tumbleweed*

Nothing said on the matter. And I think I know why. They don't know themselves what it is going to be. A special ability? Flat buff? How do you preclude non BM-Hunters from 'stealing' the new talents, without artificially limiting them in the future? A lot of stuff. So in effect they have done what we have often asked for, shown us their intentions, not what they have actually got ready in the wings already.

No no, that's not what I meant.

I assume that the extended duration will increase the damage on the sting itself, which would be helpful since I would want to allow it to go fully before my next Chimera Shot.

To make a bright note on the pet switching - am really looking forward to being able to switch between raid pet and solo pet out in the field when I (again) forget to visit the stablemaster before flying off to an area that doesn't have one (Dun Niffelem springs instantly to mind)

It's the same logic as having stables in the first place. The designers want hunters to make meaningful choices about pets, which probably has very little if anything to do with exploitation. What they are trying to do is make things a bit easier without completely eviscerating the stable concept. If there wasn't a cooldown, then people would only have to visit the stable once or twice for their entire careers. At that point, why have a stable master in most towns? So the question they seem to be asking is, "how can we make hunters' lives easier, while keeping their pet mechanics sufficiently different from warlocks?"

There are other things that are in the game for "feel," too. Take trainers, for instance. There's no real gameplay reason you have to go all the way back to certain cities to learn new skills. Other games may let you do that kind of thing just by calling up the interface. They could limit abuse by preventing you from doing it in combat or in arenas, etc. The reason they make you travel somewhere and click on an NPC is so that the game feels a certain way. The reason they have more flight paths than teleporters is to make the game feel a certain way. The reason hunters can't use maces and priests can't use swords is so the game feels a certain way. There's not much more to it, really.

It's not about what people would rather have, it's about what everyone else got. If you buff everyone else (e.g. hand out $20 to everybody) except one person got a lesser buff (e.g. I only got $10) it's a fair objection to ask why that one person got left out.

In more actual terms, we can surely assume the fights in Ulduar will vary in their pet friendliness. Supposing BM comes out to be the highest dps spec for pet friendly fights, and supposing further that exotic pets will continue to be the best, the fact that our pet switching is on cooldown puts us at a relative disadvantage compared to other classes that have full flexibility in their spec switching. We can switch pets on our own on the cooldown, but beyond that we will need to hearth (also on cooldown) or portal followed by a summon.

There is no dual spec cooldown.

I have a couple thoughts: Why not just do away with the entire dual spec concept? Let's say we just don't get into remote stables and how long the CD is?

How about if you want to respec you go see the trainer and pay the fee? The more often you do it, the more it costs, to a limit.

How about if you want a different pet you go talk to a stable person? You need a pet, they got your selection, ready to go.

Clearly this post reflects my unhappiness with Blizz and the continuing trend of making everything easy and simple. The mystique is rapidly dissipating. At this rate the hardest chore I will have to handle will be remembering my logon name and password...once I'm in, I choose whatever loot I want and then hang around and look cool.

I suppose I'm violating a forum rule here, and I don't mean to. I'm just tired of how straightforward...how linear the game has become.

The Ulduar preview has been released and we know that a significant part of several fights will include having to use vehicles such as siege engines. (Personally, I despise having to use vehicles of any sort for fighting.) Obviously, we won't be able to use our pets for these fights, so I'm wondering just how many other fights there will be in Ulduar where pets are useless and/or an outright liability.

I didn't say they were a problem. I said I wonder how many other fights there will be in Ulduar where pets are useless and/or a liability. Kind of makes the whole switching pets mid-raid questionable if we aren't going to be able to use pets in many fights anyway.