NorthAI the Hand wrote:
Actually, I'm not talking about End Game DPS all the time.
Sorry North, that post wasn't for you, it was in response to Synntastic who WAS quoting nothing but end-game strategy.
I don't disagree with any of your positions regarding the pet, or technically any of Synn's. What I disagree with is the judgemental attitude of:
"No pet" = /kick
or
"No pet = fail as a hunter"
That accomplishes nothing, helps nobody, as well as creates and reinforces a negative stereotype.
I gave a "for instance" when a pet is actually detrimental to an instance. Nobody seems to have disagreed with it.
If you and your pet WAAAAY outlevel an instance, and you're there for kicks or to power level someone, your pet can cause problems. Another thing I failed to mention is that if your pet solo kills something, you can't loot it and in way low level instances, it'll kill a lot: fast. So even if you keep it by your side on passive, you're just costing yourself food. That alone logically invalidates the black/white line being espoused.
Perhaps this is the only 'time' it's reasonable to put away the pet. I don't know. The one time I ran Gnomer without my pet, I couldn't decern any impact, had I, I would've whistled the pet up. It's really not that hard. The group didn't fail. The point was, I didn't need it and we didn't wipe once. I can't say that the pet would've caused wipes, the first time in Gnomer with the pet, I was far less experienced with handling the pet and being a hunter, but it seems like between 25 and 35 is when my learning the class picked up. Probably not uncommon. The no pet time was like the 4th or 5th time I'd run it and I was trying a suggestion from a friend. It was a guild run and my friend was in the group, no harm no foul. Nobody cared.
You guys can draw these lines in the sand all you want, but I'll always side with the human element of asking why and if someone needs to learn, even as you agreed with me, offer to help.
There's no right or wrong here. I agree that a hunter should have their pet out all the time unless they have a good reason. If I run into a hunter who's just goofin' off and doesn't have a pet out, I can't call them a failure, they are just goofin' off, they could by god's gift to hunters for all I know. If I let them into a group, I'd ask them to use the pet, if they didn't want to, I'd ask them why. If they had a good reason and I didn't care, and it wouldn't likely affect the outcome of the group goal, 'whatever'. If the reason sucked or I felt it would affect the goal, then I'd thank them for offering to participate and ask them to find a group that could support their current 'need' as ours couldn't.
Never hurts to be polite.