Znodis at the Mystic Hunter has written several very good posts about pet normalization. His latest, Inevitable Normalization, is another well-written and interesting read on the topic. But while I agree with much of what Znodis says, I think he misses the mark in some (admittedly small) ways.
You may remember from my scattered and annoyed comments that I was not satisfied with the data I was getting last week testing Growl on the Public Test Realm. My method of testing was indeed faulty and was causing me to gather inconsistent and unreliable data, which was driving me nuts.
But now I seem to have settled on a method of Growl testing that works much better, and I wanted to share it with you. (You know, just in case you have a sudden urge to investigate pet threat or something.)
Final Name: HalfVisible
Halfdragon, a young Blood Elf hunter from Ysondre, sent in this request:
So I recently rerolled a BE hunter. I did the taming quest, got a dragonhawk and hated it. After realising it had caster stats (thanks to the handy Petopia website) I read the Choosing Your First Pet: Eversong Woods guide. I got an Elder Springpaw and have leveled it all the way to 26 or so.
Hortus is looking for our help on the Public Test Realm!
We would like to request some focused testing on a bug that we believe to be fixed in 2.4.2
Using a macro with several instant cast spells can break targeting and the Escape key.
This is most often reported as happening with hunter kill command macros.
Please test your macros and report here if you encounter any of these UI lock-ups.
I mentioned in my Petopia update this weekend that I’ve added warning color to pets that are too low-level for the skills they know. But what is that all about?
When you tame a pet, it may already know certain pet skills. But each pet skill also has a required level — and in some cases the required level is actually higher than the level of the pet that knows the skill.
Hortus has posted several interesting replies on the WoW Public Test Realm forum today about Growl threat in Patch 2.4.2. Before we look at those responses, though, let’s sum up what’s been said so far.
First, the 2.4.2 Test Realm Patch Notes were posted, and included the note that “The pet ability Growl will no longer scale with pet Attack Power.”
I’ve added the new dragonhawks from the Isle of Quel’Danas to Petopia. None of them can be tamed, but at least they are pretty to look at! I also went ahead and added the Dire Raven, with a note that it will apparently be tameable in 2.4.2. The Dire Raven hadn’t even appeared on Petopia before because without being able to tame it, we didn’t know which family it might be part of.
Final Name: Beanpole
Today we have a letter from Aaranay of Uldaman:
Dear Mania & Fellow Mania’s Arcania Readers:
I really enjoy reading the ‘Name That Pet’ segment because I am so terrible at coming up with names for my pets. I usually have to rely on my friends to suggest names for me, which I think they are probably getting tired of doing (I am picky, so it’s rare I hear a pet name that I like within the first try or two). A bit about me …
The Test Realm Patch Notes for Patch 2.4.2 have been updated, although I have not seen an update to the PTR itself. The previous hunter items are still listed, and additions include:
Hunters
In addition, this little note has been moved from Bug Fixes to Hunter, although — alas! — it has not been further clarified in the notes:
As the title implies, my little dwarf hunter Kaet has just hit level 66. I’ve been playing her lackadaisically — an hour here, two hours there — but rested XP plus the tight quest design in Outland has really made the levels fly. I’m out of rested XP now, though, so I figure it’s time for a report and then a short vacation.
