Patch 2.4: Hunter Aggro Issues
So I’ve been hearing from a lot of you that your pet just doesn’t hold aggro like they did last week, and I’ve been seeing similar issues myself. I’ve also been hearing from others that their pet’s aggro is just fine or even better than it used to be. So let’s round-up what we know so far.
Growl in the Combat Log
According to Hortus, Growl is not showing up in the default “Self” combat log filter even though other pet abilities are. If you don’t see Growl in your combat log, turn on “Spell Casting” under “Message Types” for the Self filter.
If, like me, you spend so little time with the combat log that you aren’t sure how to configure it, here’s a tip: Right-click on the Combat tab of your chat box — not on the chat box text, not on the black bar along the top of the combat log, but on the tab itself — and choose “Settings” at the very bottom of the menu.
So no, your pet didn’t stop casting Growl completely. It’s just not in the combat log by default.
Growl Isn’t First
A number of players have noticed that Growl is no longer the first action their pet takes after it gets to the target. I set up a pet-initiated-action-only filter with the new combat log and sent Cloud off to attack a number of enemies. I found that there was often but not always a melee attack (and sometimes one or more Claws) happening before the Growl. In my (admittedly quick) test, Growl was the first attack after reaching the target slightly more than half the time.
Is this new? I have no idea — I never checked before. But I think we would have noticed.
What’s the effect? Well, I wouldn’t expect it to have a huge effect on Cloud (a cat) since I tend to let him get a Growl off before I start my pot-shotting. But it will likely have a large affect on boars, who get part of their awesome threat generation from the fact that the Charge skill adds a whole bunch of Attack Power to the next attack. Traditionally, that next attack has been Growl — which scales with AP and thus gains more threat generation. Now, however, it’s a toss-up — Charge could benefit a melee attack instead, which isn’t nearly as useful.
And More …
These two issues with Growl do not seem to explain all the behavior that I am seeing, nor other hunters as well. In particular, I’ve heard that boars and ravagers and cats feel nerfed, but that owls are doing fine and wolves and bears are doing better than ever. I’ve also heard but been unable to verify that ranks Growl 7 and below are unchanged. Seidouyumi let us know that Growl Rank 2 seems unchanged, for instance. And Palladiamors tells us that he is seeing differential threat generation changes on humanoids vs. demons, among others, so target type may have an effect.
But there’s enough going on with pet threat generation that Hortus has begun taking structured reports about this matter in this bug report thread, so if you have specific additional details please head over there and report them.
At this point, it’s unclear what’s going on. I’m going to keep poking around and I’ll update this if I find out anything else that looks important. Feel free to tell me what you’ve discovered in the comments!
85 Comments
My cat is:
a) taking more damage. While farming I used to pop a pet mend on him every now and then. Now it is like every other mob. In AV, Drek’s whirlwind attack takes over half his health. It used to be around 1/4.
b) he is hungrier than ever. It is like I am feeding him every 5 minutes.
c) it is a lot easier to pull aggro off him.
I don’t want to get another pet. I love my Hobbes. I’ve had him since he was a level 7 snow leopard in Dun Murough.
I definitely thought my cat wasn’t holding aggro as well as she used to. I kept looking down when I pulled to see Growl had just gone off, but maybe it is that Growl isn’t getting the priority it used to, and not going off soon/often enough.
I don’t know if its the pets, i seem to be rising alarmingly quickly on Omen. They may have messed with the pets but did they mess with our TPS?
I’ve been noticing some things with my cats. Both my cats; a lvl 70 lynx from netherstorm (named FreddyCougar, if you see him, that’s me!) with growl 8 and a ghost saber (Pikkadilly)I’ve leveled up to 63ish thus far with growl 7: take more damage, have a lower armor rating than before the 2.4 patch and hold less aggro.
As for my wolf, a lvl 70 ghostpaw alpha (Preypacer) with growl 8, he got a small armor increase, tanks notably better than both cats (was only a slight difference that I had noticed before patch), but still doesn’t seem to be able to hold aggro unless I restrict myself to only doing auto shoot.
All my pets have the highest rank of Growl applicable to their levels, and the highest level of Great Stamina for level, as well as dash (rk 3 for Freddy and wolf, rk 2 for ghostsaber) and cobra relexes, and highest rank of claw available for the levels of the cats and bite 9 for the wolf.
I’m pretty frustrated as can be about this. If there is any way I can help with the efforts to find out what is wrong, please let me know!
I apologize, this post isn’t an update. It’s an apology that I won’t be able to resume my testing for a few days. One of my cats, a rather unlucky little girl by the name of Silvia ((I’ve nursed this poor cat through at least two other near death experiences, a bad neck injury and intestine related disease)) came down with FIP recently. No idea when. She acted fine until about fourteen hours ago, when she began to deterorate rapidly. Thirty minutes ago she died in my hands. I am, as many people will state, a bit of a pansy, and this is affecting me badly, so I will not be able to report on this any more for the next little bit. I apologize profusely everyone.
Awww.. I’m sorry for your loss, P. =( I lost one of my beloved ginger tabbies a couple of days before Christmas last year to FIP. I had no idea he was ill until a couple of days before his death. I had rescued him from being put down at a shelter a month earlier.
Yea, I had never even heard about it before like January, when one of my sisters little ones got it. I am sorry to hear of your loss as well.
Palladiamors,
I am sorry to hear of your loss. I’m a cat owner too. My family and I have owned a large number of cats over the years (most at one time was fifteen). Over the years, we’ve lost a number of them. It’s always hard to loose a beloved pet. My condolances to you. I certainly understand.
Oh, Palladiamors, I’m so sorry to hear that! Of course we understand. I’d be a complete wreck, myself.
My carrion bird is generating as much threat as it previously were, with screech and growl on auto. However, I feel as if my threat is growing much more rapidly on Omen, with just steadyshot and autoshot.
Who knows though, until someone can test it or until blizzard confesses.
Oh well.
I decided to check the combat logs and Growl isn’t casting first. I’m not sure if this is new, but I seem to remember Growl always casting first. It’s almost instant, however.
I checked Igor (Carrion Bird), Demon (Ravager), Nibbler (Raptor), and Tonton (Boar). The only one that I didn’t check was Kazekage (Wind Serpent) since Lightning Breath always casts first.
I still wasn’t able to break aggro, though. I always had problems with the Cats before the patch, so I’m not the best to comment on that particular family of pets.
I do hope this helps. All my pets have the highest level of the active skills they can, so Screech 1, Bite 3, Claw 3, and Growl 2.
Sei, can you remember what types of mobs you were testing on?
I have to thank Xandrae for pointing out that mechanicals are immune to growl. Doh. If I’d have been paying more attention…..
Anyway, I apologize for that misinformation. That being said, it still leaves the bizzare aggro issues going around. From to much, to to little. Once I am feeling better, I will dig some more.
Does the arrange sequence (on the pet control bar) of the active skills have any influence now?
There are four empty slots on the pet control bar (default key: CTRL-4 5 6 7). If the position of the skills would have different casting priority? (For example, postition 4 is the first, then 5>6>7, if they were all castable.)
You know what I mean. Excuse me for the poor writing. I am a foreinger.
Heero (my Grovestalker Lynx) is definitely not doing anything like he used too. I have to heal him all the time, He’s taking way more damage then before. I’m pulling off him far easier as well. His growl is working fine, but overall he’s just kind of lacking lately. I’ve had him over a year though, i’m not parting with him anytime soon.
Hello all, I myself have been using one of the lovely blue wind serpents from Wailing caverns for my latest project, and based on my casual observations just now, it seems that Malandra (lvl 25)is performing her lightning breath three, her auto attack, her growl (rank 3), and then her second lightning breath as her opening combo. If the order on the bar makes any difference, she has the first open (reserved for dive), growl on 2, lightning breath on 3, and bite(rank 4) on standby in the fourth slot.
I have to wait until she has done all that before firing or else I will pretty much instantly take aggro from her, but this is also my first wind serpent, so I do not know if there were usually management issues or not. I also seem to be climbing the omen ladder much quicker than I am used to, and does anyone know how to turn the annoying warning screen flash off since 2.4? I can’t seem to find the correct menu with all the layout changes. *bashful grin*
Palladiamors, I am so sorry to hear about your loss; I have a bit of a menagerie here myself, and they are just like my children to me.
I read on the blizzard hunter forum (Europe) that those abilities are used from left to right as soon as they are available. Putting Growl on the first button helps, and not putting claw or any other zero cool-down ability with high focus drain on auto helps even more.
It looks like Growl had priority over other abilities and that there was change…
I noticed the same thing myself.. Then I ALSO noticed my pet has been eating a ton more. Today I looked at his reputation level for teh first time and hes at level 1 Rep… amazing.. So im wondering if those skills that he has learned are not working.. Everyone else you might want to also check this. well im off to farm to go and try to get him some Rep levels.
Ok, two things.
1. D= poor Palladiamors! We have had three kittys in quick succession and two of which died or had to be given away, one from Feline Leukemia and the other from a lower back problem.
2. I have not had any aggro problems that I could notice, but I have an answer for Palladiamors — the reason pets don’t “growl” onto mechanical enemies is because they are mostly resistent to growl. (From personal experience. No real studying has been done =P)
Woops. That was already answered. My bad!
Palla,
I was testing them on various mobs in and around Ghostlands and Barrens. All of them around the level of the character, so around lvl 18. Thus they were all beasts except for a couple in Ghostlands. I hit a few like level undead.
Sorry I took so long to answer, I live on the East Coast so I needed to get to sleep at some point.
I’ll keep checking though. I’m glad that we have this little forum since the threads on the WoW forum are just too full of screaming, yelling and ranting to get anything productuve done.
Palladiamors - I ache with you on losing your cat. I have had and lost several over the years (you don’t EVEN wanna know how many years). Time will dull that pain.
shibumi
I went ahead and double checked about the order in which things are cast and I’m finding it to be almost random. On Igor, growl is second on the bar, Screech is first, then claw and bite, but I sometimes get Claw then Growl, and sometimes Bite then Growl. One time I got Screech, two claws then Growl.
I have a bladespsire raptor named Jango as my pet, and i really noticed that growl isnt the the first thing that hes doing. I try’d moving the other skills like claw and dash to the right end but that doesnt seem to help.
I don’t know about the whole growl-issue seeing as I’m a Survival Hunter and thus my Mina(a Ghostsaber) doesn’t have growl. I have a Rak’Shiri(named Sarina) with growl though and I’ve only noticed an improvement to her. So now I’m thinking maybe growl gets less useful, the more “friendly” the pet is towards you? Sarina is loyality 1 and Mina 6 and I take that most of your Hunters, who have commented here, has a loyality level 6 pet.
I’m also thinking that maybe how much it eats is affected by loyality level? For example Sarina and I used to boost my boyfriend through Uldaman(only to Revelosh though) and I had to feed Sarina 3 times every time. Now after this patch it’s maybe once. But with Mina, I have to feed her like every 20th minute where I used to be able to feed her 3 times in a whole day of 6 hours playtime.
I’m not sure if this is for any help, it’s just me thinking.
Angelakane, Yes I know my pet was atleast Loyalty level 6 before the patch.. I guess he is bugged though cause He went down to level 1. Got him to 2 today, great! lol…
Regardless, Growl is not affected by there loyalty level.. But the higher the level the more points they have to customize. So on average they do more damage. Feeding them is a direct effect of loyalty level though. Thats how i noticed my pet was level 1 vice 6. I run Bgs, and when you run bgs like AV when you die it resets your pet quite often so you might not have to feed them at all, and now i had to feed him 4 times while doing routine Auction house checking.
I did some checking on the only pet I had close to any humanoids around lvl 18. Igor had no trouble grabbing aggro. Now, here’s the weird part, I turned Growl off for some of the fights and had no trouble with Igor holding aggro. I then turned off Screech. No issues at all. I then turned off Bite and tried just Claw. Still no problems. Only when I tried to do Bite on its own did I have issues with Igor holding aggro. It was weird because, before the patch, I tried this and couldn’t get it to work without Growl.
Another thing, and I’m not sure what all this means, but I went in and gathered the raw numbers on my pets and found some odd things. At least I think they’re odd.
Here’s the raw data, all pets have Greater Stamina 2 and Natural Armor 2 and this was gathered without any amor on the Hunter, and all pets are well fed-
Igor (lvl 18 Carrion Bird Pet of an Orc) Dmg- 27-34 (15.4 dps); Attack Power 83 (64+19); Armor 1082 (786+296); Stamina 79 (68+11); Health 635. [at lvl 17, Igor's Dmg was 26-33 (14.8 dps)]
Nibbler (lvl 17 Raptor, Pet of an Orc) Dmg- 28-35 (15.6); AP- 74 (60+14); Ar 1078 (753+325); Stam- 75 (64+11), H 571
Kazekage (lvl 17 Wind Serpent, Troll) Dmg- 26-33 (14.7); AP 76 (60+16); Ar 1056 (753+303); Stam 75 (64+11); H 601
Tonton (lvl 17 Boar, Blood Elf) Dmg- 22-28 (12.3); AP 76 (60+16); Ar 1074 (753+321); Stam 74(64+10); H 613
Demon (lvl 17 Ravager, Blood Elf) Dmg- 27-34 (15.1); AP 76 (60+16); Ar 1099 (753+346); Stam 74 (64+10); H 548
I hope someone can make sense of all that. Some of those numbers don’t quite make sense.
Thanks.
Eh, after much debating, I don’t think it’s mob type related. We can cross that one out. That being said, we do seem to be generating more aggro on some mobs, less on others. Before I go further into speculation, how many beast masters are having aggro issues?
As a second thought, I do seem to have to feed my pets more. My cat seems to take a bit more damage, my wolf a bit less, and the armor difference between them isn’t that great.
And finally, I have befriended and now live with….. twenty one cats? I am uh…. bit of a softy… *Coughs* But I am used to losing animals. Just not like that. I’ve lived with cats twenty three of my twenty five years, and I have never encountered something like FIP, and it seriously upsets and ticks me off. I know its seen as unrealistic or silly or what ever, but my furballs are part of my family too.
Thinking about it, my attachment to animals is probably why I am so fond of the hunter class, and probably why I am still playing this game.
I think if the pet nerf continues without being fixed into say, the first few patches of WotLK, then all hunters will role a warlock.
Also being a cat lover I hope your cat finds loads of catnip in the sky and tons of food and water and scratching posts and a self-cleaning litter box.
For reference:
- I just checked, and none of my pets have lost loyalty levels (thankfully!).
- I always but my pet skills in the same basic order on the pet bar: Growl, Claw, Bite, Special, Dash/Dive. For my main cat right now that works out to: Growl, Claw, Dash. He always opened with Dash, but either Growl or Claw or neither could be his first attack.
- I honestly was doubting the effect of mob type until Kaet took her crabs out leveling last night in Hellfire Peninsula. There was a marked difference between the threat the crabs generated on humanoids/beasts and on demons. Now I wasn’t analyzing this is depth so I’m not sure why, and it may have been there before — Kaet hasn’t fought many demons — but I did notice it.
I still have very little idea what’s going on. I fully expect that we will never find out — that Blizzard will stealth hotfix a tweak that doesn’t put everything back the way it was but that does ameliorate most of it, and that will be that. But I’m in a bad mood today and less charitable than normal.
Chesselemental-
Some Warlocks have also reported having aggro issues too. I haven’t checked it out yet, so I’d better grab ol’ blue and check it out. For that matter, I can check this one out better than I can a hunter.
Palla-
A decade ago, I lost my cat Skeeve to a brain tumor that struck out of the blue. He died withint two days of showing symptoms. So, I understand. I lost Stormy two years ago, and it was just as sudden. She had a heart attack while being treated for hyperthyroidism.
On the other hand, I ended up adopting Salacia (Sally) from the local Humaine Society. She’d been there for five and a half of her six months of life. She hates being held, and hates strangers, so no one wanted to adopt her. I took one look in her green-gold eyes and I knew that this was the cat I wanted. She hates it when I’m not here, or I’m busy. Quite often, she sits on top of my tower and watches me. So, with all passings there are always the opportunities for new joys. Take care.
Thank you, Sei. And you mean I wasn’t insane, Mania? I figured it was just my stupid slip up with the mechs, but that still didn’t explain the difference in demons and humanoids. I haven’t tracked it further yet, honestly haven’t been in much of a playing mood. Maybe the difference becomes more pronounced as you level? Maybe something percentage based between mobs? But even then, different demons on Quel’Danas produced different results for me. One type in particular reacted pretty much as normal, before the patch, while the infernals and irespeakers both seemed to gain additional aggro from my pet.
An interesting theory, one I believe was mentioned, is that hunters themselves are gaining more aggro. People mentioned shooting up through the numbers on Omen, as I recall. But does that mean pets were affected as well? I tested an initial aggro scenario, where I struck a superpetaggro mob first yesterday to see if that set off the first person who attacked it being the target of a large boost in initial aggro, but the mob, once again, never came off my pet once she, my cat, started attacking.
This also doesn’t explain the damage differences being done on pets, which I have personally witnessed. I destroyed roughly half of the Isle of Quel’Danas last night, sometimes two and three mobs at a time, and never had to heal my pet, or myself. Every other single fight, I had to heal my cat. My serpent reacted as normal on the damaged side.
I think I have said this before, forgive me if I am repeating myself, but this patch was not ready, and it was stated so many times. That being said, I have to wonder if they pet differences isn’t a shadow of whats coming. Maybe its me looking for hope in darkness, but I’d be happy to sacrfice some of my cats survivability for a bump to her DPS. That being said, my cat is definitely not showing any signs of increased damage.
As for warlocks, mine didn’t seem to have any major problems, but I haven’t sacked a wide variety of mobs yet. I need to see if mechanicals are immune to anguish, now that I think about it. But overall, if anything, warlocks are in the same department as hunters. That being said, warlock pets have more utility for different situations. If you go demonology ((Yes, yes I did. Don’t like at me like that.)) then you get access to probably the single best damage dealing pet/minion in the game. I muchly heart my felguard, and have tanked up to Shadow Labrynth with him. Lotsa fun.
End ramble.
Palla,
I checked my Voidwalker and Succubus on my Warlocks. Shijoshin actually stole aggro from her VW without any problem what so ever, and from her Succubus faster than normal. It is as if the DoT spells were adding to the aggro. Up until now, I could pile on the DoT’s and not steal aggro until I hit Inferno, and this time, I got half way through them and had the mob on me. It was definately weird.
Ok, so I’ve been playing around with my lynx and wolf while doing my dailies today.
Wolf was able to hold aggro most of the time (~90%) if I’d restrict myself to serpent sting/auto shoot on beasts, humanoids, demons and undead. No amount of carefulness would keep mechanicals off me and on the wolf. I hunted mobs on Quel’Danas, Netherstorm, Shadowmoon Valley (netherwing daily area and beasts near Sanctum of Stars), Nagrand, and Terrokar Forest. As I mentioned before, wolf is tanking better than before this patch happened.
Lynx, frankly, couldn’t keep aggro for spit on ANYTHING but beasts. I also had to heal him after every single fight. He tanks significantly worse. I’m a bit sad over that, as out of all my pets, my lynx, FreddyCougar, is my favorite. On a happier note, I finally got my nether ray mount, hehe.
*Coughs* Guess changing my minion might help….. okay, Kanaan, your discovering what I did. Mechanicals can not be growled, or anguished. Trust me. Force activate it by left clicking on it, it comes up immune.
I am not having a massive amount of problems keeping aggro, for the MOST part. I do have to admit though, my fights go kind of fast, and it may just not have enough time to accumulate. My cat and serpent both are doing fine, and my wolf is doing much better then ever. Really weird.
Palla loseing kittys is horible. I would die if (when) my zuse goes to the big kitty heaven. He has a sad story one that I will not write down here (it would take for ever to read it) To make it short tho some *BEEPING BEEP BEEP* lady was gonna kill him and his siblings because she didnt want to take the time to have the humain society come and get them she had allready killed his mom and several others by gassing them under her house but my hubby saved them and I bottle raised them from tinny close eyed squerming fuzzys, he is my baby and sleeps on my face every night. So I feal your pain and wish you the best.
Thank you, Emowin. And to everyone else who has expressed condolences. I don’t think most people realize how sometimes just little words of comfort can help. Mania is going to kill me for halfway derailing this thing….
My felguard seems to be regaining mana at a better pace, but this does raise an interesting subject. I know you can just resummon your minions as a warlock, and get their mana back, but as for base mana regen, you have no way to increase your minions spirit. Another interesting thing though, at least to me, is that while this means warlock pets have a way to regen mana, the only way to effect a hunters pets focus regen is a talent. Might be sort of nice to see a stat that effected focus regen, even just a little.
NEW FLASH
Well, not really, I went ahead and grabbed a lynx in Ghostlands. I noticed something odd when I was in full armor between my lynx and my ravager. While the official damage was the same- 27 to 34- the DPS was different. The lynx’s DPS was reading as 15.4 and the Ravager’s as 15.3 Both are lvl 17.
The other oddball thing is that the Lynx has ten armor less than my Troll’s wind serpent. I don’t know if this is due to the differences in Troll and Blood Elf stats, but I don’t think it would be. Trolls and Blood Elves have the same Agility. The difference isn’t in the base armor- both are 753, but in the bonus armor. In fact, all pets have the same base armor rating, and the bonus is what changes from family to family. The Wind Serpents and the Cats are suppose to be idential in this regard.
BTW, thank you to Mania for providing this calm local whereby we can disucss this issue. I’ve tried having a discussion about this in the WoW forums and had people screaming, ranting and proclaiming doom upon Hunters. I’m starting to wonder if this is some kind of screw up in the deep code of the game as it appears to almost be random.
my raptor seems to be holding aggro better than ever and taking alot less damage than before, in TK, it lived through al’ar, and while on Quel danas killing BE mobs, I could take on 5-6 mobs non stop w/o even having to mend pet or pull aggro
Seidouyumi: I did a quick run through about half the families, including the ones you mentioned, and found no differences in family mods from before. I suspect the difference you saw between the cat and ravager DPS is due to rounding (most likely our rounding of the family mods). For the cat and wind serpent, are you certain that both characters had the same armor (and armor buffs) at the time?
hmmm haven’t tried a different pet type. in fact, on my lvl 61 orc hunter, I only have the ghost saber - guess I’ll go snag a ravager a bit early and try some testing. I have to agree, I’ve never spent so much down time drinking, nor as much time healing the pet, as I have the last couple of days. I was happily pleased that my cat had not only kept up with me, but held superior agro from day one, and I never thought about it since. On some mobs I’d let the cat get a hit or two first just in case, but never had an issue. In fact I never had to drop a trap, or do the stance dance when a mob broke agro and came at me, until this patch.
That’s aays a lot I think.
I wonder if Someone has taken to this and has dug around in it - that’s one person that knows the mechanics about as good as anyone.
agreed - thanks mania for the quiet discussion corner. Flames never resolved anything and I think the general population here on your blog are folks that care about hunting and not about the other cruft that tends to populate the other blogs and lists.
shibumi
I’m going to weigh in as just another data point. First, I’m a 70 BM with a Frostsaber. I don’t raid, but I’m geared well enough for early Kara.
I’ve noticed I am losing mana quickly–but I’ve also been doing a lot of Sunwell dailies, and there are mana-draining mobs. However, I’m also pulling aggro a LOT–and that’s primarily with just an auto/steady rotation. Had to leave Arcane out of my repertoire for the most part, because even a non-crit would pull the mob. I’m even out-aggroing a Frost Mage, Shadow Priest, and Boomkin on a regular basis. BMs should NOT be doing this!! As a plus, my polearm skill finally maxed.
I am BM specced (42/12/0)
I have a 63 NElf hunter and for leveling I usually will use my Gorilla so I can fight 3-4 mobs with ease when I need/want to, since 2.4 I’ve noticed even with thumderstomp he just doesn’t hold aggro on multiple mobs anymore. If I mend pet I get aggro period. He seems to be taking a bit more damage but not drastically so, I seem to be casting mend pet every 3 fights instead of every 4 vs single mobs.
Also ThumpThump(my gorilla) doesn’t have any problem holding aggro off a single mob just multiple.
The day after 2.4 I ran ZF with a level 70 warrior to help a guildie and I was pulling aggro off the warrior with just SS/auto rotation.
But the most noticeable of all has been that thunderstomp just doesn’t hold aggro any more. I used to be able to pull multiple mobs, thunderstomp, and then Volley and he would hold agro, now by the 2nd volley pulse I have agro.
Thanks to this and the mana issues I am now having, I have been playing other classes unless someone needs my hunter. It’s sucking the joy out of him.
My hunter wasn’t having aggro issues today, but I was using him to help my fiance through some quests six levels below me… so I don’t know if that’s representative. I did have to drink a LOT more than usual.
My level 15 warlock, on the other hand, has had major aggro issues with pulling mobs off his voidwalker much too easily. Not happy about that - he died three times yesterday and I’m used to managing aggro etc so that he never gets hit! Also, I hope it was just that I didn’t have the latest Omen (had the really buggy post-patch one) but mobs would turn around and come at him when Omen said he only had about 70% of the voidie’s threat. Weird. I’ll be playing him again later and see if things are different now.
My cat, Moonlight(Rak’Shiri) isn’t holding like he used to. I don’t to heal as much, but drinking tenfold. It seems mobs are resisting his growls more and more. I use Intimidate a whole lot more.Also am a BM hunter.
-Palla;
I had a cat named Morgan who was very old, and couldn’t stomach dry food. When we gave her soft, she didn’t eat alot, and it became profits for our other cat.She was put to sleep. I had three others, two we had to give away, one who died. I understand your loss.
i forgot several times to mention my orc hunter is completely BM spec’d.
have to agree with Varsar - this is certainly changing the experience my hunters have. I have been trying other classes, but (still) don’t much like em. leads to more frustration.
I will try a different critter. I also haven’t looked at the affect/effect armor might have on this whole mess. not that I have a lot to juggle with, and have no armor from instances, as I don’t do instances.
(NE Hunter, 70, Spec: 48/13/0)
Cat needs more food (Frostsaber Hunter, 70), does take slightly more damage, has problems with holding aggro when using more than auto/steady (no healing involved).
Cat needs a good 10% damage on the mob before I can start auto/steady.
Carrion Bird (Trachela, 66; no screech), looks fine for the lower level.
Need to get out my Wind Serpent (Felsworn Scalewing, 70) and test some.
Ghanur
PS: I need more stable space!
I have a 70 BM hunter, and as I was leveling him, I noticed that demons take WAY more damage than the other mobs in Hellfire Penisula, this may be because of low armor/health I don’t know and because these guys take more damage might explain why people are seeing an increase of aggro breaking off demons, I don’t know though. btw I have a 70 raptor(Zekul, Means Thorn in Draenish) who is my Raiding/solo pet, and he holds aggro beautiffully, barely ever pull aggro off him.
Mania-
I triple checked my findings and found that I had missed something between hunters. However, when I compensated for it, everything was normal. I checked both hunter pets without wearing armor or having any buffs at all, so I had no issues there.
I did notice something odd though with the Lynx. It seemed to be having more trouble holding aggro against the mobs than did the Savanna Matriarch that I tamed on my Troll. I tamed the Lynx on my Blood Elf. I lost aggro a few times when using the Lynx. It may just be due to slight differences in gear, but I’m not sure. I did notice that I had to feed both Cats more often in the short period of time that I had them then I did for other pets during that initial ‘getting to know you’ period after taming. I had to feed the Lynx five times and the Matriarch four in the same span of time that I normally have to feed a like loyalty pet three times.
Just to pass this on, Patch 2.4.2 is under developement right now and is going to fix a few things, including growl showing up in the combat log properly. Of course, it made me wonder why it wasn’t going to be Patch 2.4.1.
Looking over all of this, though, I’ve noticed a pattern. The only pet family which seems to be having major issues is the Cat. While it does appear that they may have reduced or illiminated the aggro generation from Charge, that does not seem to be making a huge difference in the overall play of the pet.
Wow, and here I thought my pet was just suddenly a bit less powerful than I’d thought previously, but it was odd because my pig usually holds aggro well. The tallstrider was never able to compete with my pig, but he seemed even less able to hold aggro - will go pay more attention to this now. I know part of my problem is that I just got a major ranged weapon upgrade and simply am just more easily able to out threat my pets - but it seemed much worse to me. I also notice I seem to be feeding both of em a bit more since patch. Will definitely try to see if there are any patterns going on and check back here - thanks for the heads up, folks!
I use a Boar for normal tanking, before the the patch i would charge/growl/bite(normal attack) and that would give the boar 4-4.5k threat on omen reguardless of the mob type. now it only gets 1.5k threat which i wipe out in 2-3 shots, this is makeing grinding a lot slower cos of having to use slower shot rotation.
I wish I could add in to this, but I dinged 70 not long before the patch was put in, and got a massive new gun to go on with it. So I’m utterly unable to contribute genuinely valid info.
I will say, though, that I agree with the mana issues. I have been drinking like an alkie on my poor Dorf, and while some of that might be because of bigger attacks, not all of it is, that’s for certain. I wish I’d checked my mana numbers before the patch, so I could see if it’s a matter of numbers. I have definitely been pulling aggro off my pets with alarming swiftness (Raptor and Serpent both) but without being able to compare my old stats, I can’t be sure if it’s just because of the gun (like I assumed it was) or the same problem here.
I also notice that when I’m in Viper, I do notice a regen, but when I’m not, it’s as if I’m not regenerating at all. I think the ‘Intelligence lends itself to regeneration’ has really ended up nerfing those hunters who don’t have high Intellect scores by *slowing* it in some cases… if not a lot of cases.
I’ve made a post on the hunter forums, stating our problem. Please go elaborate on it as much as you can, but keep your comments constructive and helpful, so maybe it’ll get their attention and look into it. Also, while I’m sure this problem affects lower level characters as well, they will mostly be interested in hearing from people using pets at the same level as they are, and preferably people at level 70, as that is what they tune the game around.
The post:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=5640885113&sid=1
Ok, this is probably the last post I make on this. I hope some of what I’ve said will help pin things down.
I did think of something while I was avoiding playing my Paladin (yuck, I have five hunters, a warrior, a mage, a shaman, and a warlock- I may end up with another Hunter until Wrath comes out). I wonder if they adjusted the threat/aggro generation of Charge to refect that the last rank of it is found around level 60.
Im 70 BM hunter and have used boars for the last 20 lvls cause they can typically keep agro. After the patch i was noticing his threat lvl after charge had reduced by 2k threat. I read a little about the growl after the charge issue. Im sad that they nerfed some of the great agro keepers, when thats what we need to survive.
It seems they have yet again been playing with the basics of the way things work for hunters or it is a by-product of some other changes they have made? , From what i have read Warlocks have pet problems as well , and along with the thirst problem which i have seen a little of i am wondering if blizzards apparently total lack of real interest in the problems hunters are getting means it was intended ???
By playing my non hunter alts i have not noticed any benefit either from the manna regen changes ,my mage are still always thirsty even though i have tried to boost manna above any stamina gains , my priests still seem to just about survive with little drinking needed except on multiple mobs , so it has me puzzled .
I am now playing my other classes until something gets sorted as i am bored of being nerfed / messed around as a hunter , i have no wish to be a god among all the different classes but hey i do like the idea of send pet , pet holds aggro and i shoot , fair enough i always stand to darn close to mobs so do gain aggro unless being careful with shots , but now , well i guess i could become the classic Melee hunter ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
IN NERF WE TRUST is the new hunters motto ……
Tkc, your pet may have a seperate problem I have noticed recently with a lot of pets that are kept for a long term period. I call it pregger syndrome since their constantly hungry, slowed down in movement and attacks, and often are less able to do the things they were once able to do. I coined this pretty much from my “Rake” cat which I started with right around the time that my sister got pregnent. By the 6th month, both she and my pet tended to be a lot hungrier, slower in movement, and unable to do the things they were previously able to do. As a result, I decided to dump by my cat in exchange for another pet. Several months later, I had to dump that pet too. So far Im keeping a close eye on my latest boar pets “JLo” cause it seems to be showing an increasing appetite.
As for growl, I think it partly has to do with the fact that pet/hunter damage ratios are slightly now tipping closer to hunters generating a lot more damage than their pets can thus the agro drops eventually on the pet and instead focuses on you. In essense this is bad for marks and survival players unlike bm which can just as easily press intimidate to instantly push agro back to its highest levels for pet. The only way I have found to avoid the need to use intimidate is to instead focus on lower damage but a high rate of fire ie precisely calibrated boomstick and hurricane bow. My agro levels seem to stay moderately low since my damaging shots as a whole are lower than the pets but since I have a high rate of fire i still deliver more damage without gaining additional agro. Granted this doesnt do any favors when it comes time to reload on ammo but it manages to keep most targets focused solely on pet. I have noticed this with all my pets though the before mentioned pregger syndrome has some times forced me to start with pets that have less than stellar stats but still they tend to hold agro rather well.
just did a little test, manually casting growl on my boar i didnt turn any other abbilitys off-charge, gore & bite so focus was low all the time but manually casting growl makes sure it’s the next spell to be cast, i got up to 3.5k threat this way. to manully cast growl right click the tooltip so it’s off then left click it to activate it. hope this help’s a bit.
would like an official blue post on this still though.
To those talking about Growl- I suspect that we’re going to have a fix for this shortly. There was a blue response about Growl being properly cast/logged on one of the forums. It showed up in WoWiki’s 2.4.2 page.
So, you may think i am using my pets incorrectly, but i have a 70 WS( a lament for another post that they get nerfed more every patch) a 69 owl(gutripper), I use them to 1 run my friends thruogh pre bc instances to lvl them ans 2 to gank horde… After the patch i logged on and my WS which just b4 the patch could gank 58s solo in gadget with me waiting safely outside, nmow could only kill 45s if i used a trinket and my CDs… And my owl which i use for instance runs because of screech now drags on the ground instead of flying and only sometimes defends me when i am attacked, also bothe pets used to have no issue keeping agro without growl now can barely keep it off my auto shot, with or wothout growl !!!!! I hate the WS nerf… lightning breath used to be 2x the dps it is now…
I have been seeing alot of posts about problems with the cats so I dicided to try mine out. I had no problems what so ever with him, he even seamed to be a bit better than he had been and he is still a few lvs lower than me….huh go figure.
From my personal testing this is not occuring on some realms but it is on others.
The realm that I play on that was delayed on patch day(Gnomeregan),has no aggro issues.I can thwap away with arcane,serpent and auto shots until arcane’s CD is up and if the thing is still standng arcane again and using mend pet without pulling over 50% aggro on a boar.I pull a little higher aggro on a crab,cat,or carrion bird but I still don’t go over 75%.
On Antonidas and The Scryers,I can’t get off more than three non-crit auto shots before I steal aggro.Tested on boars,bats,bears,scorpids ect.Nothing on these realms hold aggro.Their dps alone should have generated more threat than a few auto shots,or in one case ONE non-crit auto shot.
And Hortus’s snide little comment still pisses me off.
“Crying about your class and bickering about semantics does not help us get bugs fixed. If you are not providing useful information do not bother to post in this thread.”
That is one sorry way to handle customer service,especially since there was none of what was mentioned going on in the thread.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=5591269680&sid=1&pageNo=1
Cotytto,
Ok, I’m going to probably anger you a little here by taking Hortus’ side. Not that the thread really had a lot of whining going on (and none from you), but he did ask for some information in his first posting and he never really got it from anyone. A few people did whine about this issue though, and a lot of other threads have been whining so heavily that they need some cheese. Even those in Customer Service are human and can get frustrated over the sheer volume of screaming going on. It’s worse when they can’t find the bug, or they aren’t even being told what’s wrong and everyone expects them to fix it right away.
Just be a bit understanding about it. I know that they’re working hard to track it down. Unfortunately, those of us who behave and are nice often get drowned out by those who scream, rant, and whine.
This is from Hortus:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=5591269680&postId=56402597922&sid=1#164
“I’ve spent most of the day today testing hunter pet aggro.
First let me say that Growl and Charge interaction is not the same as it was in 2.3.3, this is being looked at separately by the developers. I’m specifically looking at the reports that other pets are not not holding aggro as well in 2.4 as they did in 2.3.3.
Second let me remind you all that threat meter add-ons are not an accurate tool for testing threat. We have internal tools that can display exact threat numbers but those functions are not available to mods in any way.
Third Growl does not appear in the combat log on the “self” filter by default. You must turn it on by selecting Spell Casting message types in the settings for that filter. You can always see Growl in the combat log if you use the “everything” filter.
—–
I have been able to verify by side by side comparison that Growl auto-casts consistently when turned on and that it is doing the exact same amount of threat in 2.4 as it did in 2.3.3.
I also did side by side testing of two identically geared and talented hunters (using a copy of a retail character that reported this problem) with identical fully skilled pets and compared threat.
I sent the pets to attack an unkillable target.
After the opening growl I turned on Auto-shot, and hit Arcane Shot.
I then chain cast arcane shot 9 more times as soon as it was off cooldown.
I then compared the threat of the pet and the hunter. Both were within 10% of each other.
I repeated this on 2.3.3 and 2.4 and the results were nearly identical.
I also repeated this test using Improved Hunters Mark (as I notice all the hunters reporting it have that talent) and the threat for both the pet and the hunter were higher but still within acceptable margins and aggro was not lost by the pet by the 10th arcane shot on 2.3.3 or 2.4.
There may be a bug with hunter pet aggro, but it is not caused by Growl. If anyone has more information or observations about threat they can post here and I’ll try to take a look at them. “
Horitus posted a reply here. Basically he hasn’t been able to duplicate the problem. Idiot.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=5591269680&postId=56402096337&sid=1#160
Rob,
I haven’t been able to duplicate the results either. Someone mentioned that it was on random servers. I posted that to the thread.
Damn it, “cats” better not be “nerfed”. Blizzard better change that. Geez louis.
I should add that Hortus said that the problem does not seem to be in Growl. He’s going to continue checking until he can find it though, and wants more information.
Regarding the feeding issues, it seems like with the 2.4 patch that movement or activity disrupts the loyalty boost, whereas in previous versions, loyalty would continue to increase no matter what was happening. Basically, in 2.4, your pet needs to sit and eat to get the full benefits of food, just like you do.
I go to Epcot for the day for my anniversary and look what I miss! :> Thanks for the link to Hortus’ comment, Seidouyumi and Rob. I’m going to give that billing in it’s own post as soon as I catch up with the comments.
Brustal: That’s odd — I’m not seeing that behavior when feeding. I just tested on my cat (who happened to be hungry) and I was able to run around normally (with him following me) nd he’s still get full happiness.
Mania’s Arcania » Patch 2.4: Hortus on Aggro - March 31st, 2008 @ 11:39 pm EDT
[...] goes on to remind us of something I mentioned on Friday: Third Growl does not appear in the combat log on the “self” filter by default. You [...]
“Ok, I’m going to probably anger you a little here by taking Hortus’ side. Not that the thread really had a lot of whining going on (and none from you), but he did ask for some information in his first posting and he never really got it from anyone.”
Posts say specifically that pets are not generating the threat they did pre-2.4. Then many hunters replied to his specific requests for information, including gear/macros/pets etc. So, there really is no ambiguity in the bug report.
“It’s worse when they can’t find the bug, or they aren’t even being told what’s wrong and everyone expects them to fix it right away.”
Hortus works for Blizzard. All he has to do is call up the programmers and say, ‘Was anything changed?’ without giving us this run-around.
“I know that they’re working hard to track it down.”
How Do you know they’re working hard to track it down?
I still believe that they don’t care about the issue. If they are looking to nerf the hunters, fine just come out and say it. But don’t give us these lame excuses about ‘acceptable margins’ and 3rd party threat meters / combat log crap. The fact remains: Pre-2.4, it was hard to pull aggro from a charging boar. Threat meters & combat logs aside, the boar could charge and a lone hunter could not pull the mob away, even with a couple crits. Now, the boar can charge, and the hunter can wait….and with two shots pull aggro from the pet.
TheCow,
Please read what Hortus posted. And I know, you hate hearing that I’m taking his side.
The reason why I know that they didn’t nerf Hunters and didn’t do this intentionally is simple- IT ISN’T HAPPENING TO EVERY SINGLE HUNTER IN THE GAME. I have yet to be able to pull aggro off the bulk of my Hunter pets, but my Warlock Voidwalker did loose aggro. The only pet I’ve pulled aggro off of was a Ghostlands Lynx, lvl 17, against a lvl 17 Troll. I tested it a few times to verify, and found that it was erratic.
We’ve had tons of reports from Hunters saying that they’ve actually had a harder time pulling aggro off their pets than before. So, there’s a bug in the system which they are, according to Hortus, busy trying to track down and fix. The first thing he probably did do is call up the code writers and ask if they intentionally changed something. Then he probably reported to them that there was an unintentional change to the structure of the game. Tracking that down can take a lot of time. I just posted on another thread that the WoW environment is spread across at minimum seven servers, and has a ton of code to sift through in order to find where an accidental change may have occurred.
Believe it or not, Blizzard wouldn’t have to change pet aggro in order to nerf Hunters. In fact, Pet aggro is only useful in PvE, where no one really cares if Hunters are a tad over powered. In Arena or PvP, Hunter Pet aggro is useless. I remember facing a Hunter, many moons ago, in a BG. I ignored the pet and ran right in and slaughtered the Hunter. If Blizzard wanted to nerf Hunters, they’d do something like reduce attack power bonuses, or the ability to crowd control since both of those effect PvP and Arena.
The whole aggro issue reeks of an accidental rather than an intentional nerf.
Seidouyumi,
When we were asked to give specific data we did.There was no reason for him to be a jerk when no one had been “crying” or “bickering about semantics”,simply reporting there was a problem.Just because he can’t replicate this on a seperate server,does not mean there isn’t an issue on other realms.
When told by myself that I had this problem on two servers but I didn’t on one server that was delayed on patch day,it was ignored.
There IS a problem.It DOES NOT effect all hunters.It SEEMS to be situational to the realm from my own testing.And lastly,I was not USING an addon to moniter aggro.If I had been I would have said so.Omen2 was too glitchy for me to bother with when it first came out,so I judged aggro by whether or not something came running at me!And one to three non-crit auto shots should NEVER pull aggro from a boar!
I have spent all my time since the patch came out testing this issue,going as far as to level up new hunters to see if maybe the old hunters data was just corrupted.And being told that I’m “crying” and “bickering about semantics” about the class I love,when it is having serious problems,and I’m working my butt off at trying to come up with hard data WILL JUST PISS ME OFF!
I am beginning to wonder.. with Mania’s post about stat changes if this is all somehow effecting aggro. they somehow changed pets as stats changed and therefore there is room for a bug. I never pay much attention to my pets stats (mine either really) so I can’t check my pets stats change. later today I’m going to log in my hunter and see about pet damage, has that changed? anyone noticed? I did notice that I was getting ferocious Inspiration less which means my pet is critting less. If he is doing less damage, critting less, he’s doing less DPS and therefore gets less Aggro. It’s something worth looking at at least. Granted growl should factor in there but still gonna look at it as I know what my pets were doing for damage before 2.4
Varsar: Except the stat changes that I noticed heppened before Patch 2.4, not with it. If those changes had anything to do with this, I would have expected it to affect us in Patch 2.3.
Cotytto,
Your anger still doesn’t help the situation. Insulting people like Hortus doesn’t help either. Nor does lashing out at the rest of us. I’ve posted a few times on the Bug and PTR forums and not been responded to by a blue. It does not mean that they are ignoring us. In fact, one of the bugs I reported was fixed even though I was the only person to post a thread about it. No blue ever responded to that bug.
I spent quite some time trying to duplicate this too. I posted several times here about what I found. Just chill out, ok. Stop screaming about them nerfing us, and about them trying to hurt the class. At least in this instance, this is not the case. Like it or hate it, this is a bug in the system and they really are working to fix it.
bugger it was an idea. oh well guess I don’t need to test it later!
I’m seeing the issue too. Pre-patch, I’d send in my boar and, assuming charge and/or growl weren’t resisted, he’d 4.5K ahead of me in threat before I even fired a shot; I’ve been looking at it this afternoon and he’s generating about 1k threat. Now I know that Omen isn’t 100% reliable but the difference is very noticeable. I feigned death more times this afternoon than I have in the last month! I found an interesting post that suggests that a major part of the problem may be that pre-patch autocast growl was given priority over every other ability providing there was enough focus to cast it, this appears to have changed. It may be that different hunters are seeing different effects because they have different abilities on autocast?
Anyway, the post I read is at http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=5720272859&sid=1
I told my tank before I did this, but while we were in raid over the weekend I left growl on. (Sapphire 70 Cat). What was interesting is sapphire can no longer hold my agro while solo, but she sure pulled agro right off the tank. I admit there is something going on, but what it is and if blizzard will fix it I am not sure. I do know however that it is not fun to solo with my hunter at this point, if I want to melee I will play my rogue or druid. We are seriously gimped by whatever is going on.
Not to add to it, but just had a co-worker point something out to me. Both of my cats are from the old world, and neither of them are from outland. Sapphire is Shi Rotam and Shadow is Humar. I am going to go and tame an outland pet and see if that makes any difference. The problem may simply be age of pet and where they came from?
Looks like Hortus stated that the original behavior of Charge + Growl has been a bug and it has been “fixed”, so I don’t expect that boars will be fixed any time soon.
This is the link to the blue post:
http://www.wowblues.com/us/bug-boar-charge-and-all-pet-aggro-broken-5591269594.html
Both my cat and I are level 62, and we’re having issues. I’m a beastmaster spec.
I’ve noticed since the patch that my pet just wasn’t functioning right. I was yanking things off him at an alarming rate. I tried different bow and guns, getting away from burst damage and going for a smaller sustained amount but no matter what I do, within five hits the mob goes for me and ignore growls (intimidate will still peel something off me, though). My omen bars have gone insane.
He’s doing a touch less damage than he used to do, too, and taking way more. I thought for a while it was an outlands thing, but my friends who’ve had pets in outlands for a while say this is entirely new.
This isn’t a help, but I thought it might be useful to have someone else pop up to say that there are still big issues.
Here are my observations from my lvl 50 MM hunter Tirahna (Balegund):
CATS:
My cat (and ONLY my cat) seems to be acting differently. He takes more damage for no apparent reason (stats are the same as before the patch). He also doesn’t seem to growl as often left to his own devices. In fact, in 50 test fights, he chose to growl once early on (not always as the first thing upon engaging either) and then did not growl again - at all - unless he lost agro to me for a moment. For what it’s worth the cat I have is the white lion spawned in the Barrens - He’s lvl 49 now.
By contrast my snake (from WC, also level 49) seems to be doing fantastic. He holds agro better than he ever did and it takes me only a little bit of measuring my shots to keep from pulling agro off him.
My boar also was doing well enough though he did seem to be 50/50 about leading an engage with charge/growl or charge/gore.
With the single exceptions of the cat behavior and the cat seeming to take more damage this hasn’t really affected my gameplay. I always have my pets on “manual” unless I am farming grays because as an MM hunter I *need* to be able to force my pet to “hold back” a wee bit of focus for an ordered growl if I crit a few too many times in a row. Usually though “go for the throat” keeps the pet more than topped off to chain whatever he wants.
The Troll Hunter » Looks Like Some Our Pets Aggro Problems are Fixed, Well…… - January 6th, 2009 @ 6:27 pm EST
[...] some not so very polite, about this aggro situation, and posts about this are overflowing over to Petopia’s board along with quite a few other noteworthy sites. But again, playing a hunter I can see the overall [...]
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