Terrible news for boar owners! In all the investigation over pet aggro in Patch 2.4, it was determined that the great extra-aggro effect of boar’s Charge ability followed by a Growl is a bug and will be removed in a future patch.
Here is Hortus on the WoW Bug report forum:
I have confirmed with the developers that Boar’s growl ability getting such a large bonus to attack power based on charge is a bug. Growl should only benefit from the hunter’s attack power and get no benefit from buffs to the pet’s attack power.
Expect this to be changed in a future patch. If you disagree with this change please post about it in the suggestions or class forums.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?forumId=11122&sid=1
Note that the thread Hortus posted in is locked, but I do believe we should follow his suggestion and post our thoughts on this in the Suggestions and Hunter forms.
Potential silver lining: perhaps fixing this bug will help prompt them to look at threat generation across all pet families.
[edit] Incidentally, you can find a list of 2.4 Known Issues on the WoW Bug Report forum as well.
I kinda saw that one coming. I always thought it was kind of odd that growl got a buff from charge. Annoying that they are removing it. Are they trying to force people into certain pet types?
I can’t help but feeling like some of Blizzard’s development and testing process is just laughable at this point (And yes, I’m a developer, so it’s somewhat fair for me to at least mildly critique on this point).
I mean, really, this has been around for how long now? And it JUST came to light with the developers/testers? Chuck this in there with all the problems when “pet moves behind target” got patched in, where even AFTER folks posted videos and in depth explanations of how to recreate the problems, they still came back and said, “We were unable to recreate it” then totally ignored further questioning from the hunter/warlock community regarding it.
Sorry, but their testing obviously needs some work. Sadly they sit behind it when waiting to release things etc as saying they have such a high standard of quality. Evidently that high standard doesn’t apply to hunters or pets in general. It would be one thing if it was small things that got missed. Like if my Mend Pet wasn’t removing poisons as often as it should or something. But not adequately (read: superbly) testing a class-defining element (which pets are to hunters, regardless of spec) just makes their claims of testing a lie. They have to be hit over the head with a brick (read: boulder) to realize something is wrong.
I like how they call it a bug after so long and not just say “well we decided to change this.”
Oh well, I’m pretty attached to Wurst so he’s just going to stick around.
I agree with Palladiamors. Sorry to see it go, but I expected it to happen much earlier. I’m hoping that in the same way that Dash/Dive was introduced just after they normalized pet speed, this change means we’ll be getting some +threat pet skills. However, Hortus’ statement may have a clue into general agro issues.
“Growl should only benefit from the hunter’s attack power and get no benefit from buffs to the pet’s attack power.”
Pets were gaining extra threat from growl if their AP was above 734. If they changed this then that would explain why pet’s that used to generate more threat don’t. Has anyone checked that growl’s agro still scales and whether that’s from the pet or hunter’s AP?
Znodis said: “Has anyone checked that growl’s agro still scales and whether that’s from the pet or hunter’s AP?”
Not that I’ve seen. And I can’t come up with any useful way to test threat generation myself.
Ok, so this is a bug. Oh well. It reminds me of something a teacher once told me. If you have a problem with a test and it effects you negatively, always bring it to the attention of the teacher. On the other hand, if the mistake effects you positively- for the love of God do NOT bring it to the attention of the teacher!
However, now I have the answer to a stupid quesiton I asked many ages ago, and it explains why it is VERY important to have a high Attack power for your hunter.
Growl is a spell and it benifits from Spell bonuses to your pets. So, right now, my little Crocolisk produces X threat +11 (lvl 12 Hunter).
As for Mikes comment about them posting video about how to recreate the aggro bug after 2.4.0, well, a LOT of us, and I do mean a lot, could not reproduce this bug either. Someone actually has lvl 70 Hunters on two servers and could produce it on one server and not another.
One way to test this would be to see the aggro generated with improved hunters mark and compare to the aggro generated w/o improved hunters mark.
I’m planning to respec today anyway and might have to try this.
I admit, I automatically feel sad. But like many others, I’ve had my 65ish pig since he was lvl 26 – so I’m going to stick with him. Plus charge will still act as an interrupt, or so I hope.
So do ravagers with gore and bite still do more damage than boars with the same skills? Or is this info just because my hunter friends love their Ravagers and think I should switch from my pig? (Will stubbornly stick with my Rotting Agam’ar, even if I’m silly to do so. After all, I have a level 65 flamingo, so I’m being a weird hunter anyhow.)
Hi Mania! Could you link to a “Please don’t change this” thread in the Suggestion forum? I just tried stepping into that morass and felt my blood pressure rising just looking at thread titles :P
Batgirl,
Charge should work as an interupt still, and do everything else it is intended to do. This also means that a Boar will still have a slightly higher initial spike of aggro than a pet without charge. This being that there is going to still be that initial spike of damage on their first melee hit. It just pulls down the initial aggro some, but not anything we can’t handle. Since this wasn’t a damage issue, it just means you may have to adjust your initial shot to something that isn’t going to do automatic damage. A sting would be good. I usually open with Viper’s Sting so that I can get the most ticks before the mob is dead.
Ravagers do more outright damage than a Boar. The difference is 20%. That is, the 10% deficit that a Boar has AND the 10% bonus that the Ravager has. If both have Rank X Gore they do the same thing and the same amount of damage.
I have a Crocolisk on one of my hunters, so don’t worry about it.
Bobo,
I’m wondering how many Hunters are going to be banned from the forums before the week is out.
I don’t think that this is going to be a huge issue when it comes to holding aggro, over all.
Couldn’t you just make a macro casting growl right after charge?
I’m sorry, but I have to disagree about it not being a huge issue. My hunter turned 70 about a week or so before the patch, and I’ve had my trusty boar ever since level 60. He’s been an awesome tank. Prior to the patch the charge/growl combo would generate about 4k threat. Now, with a fully updated omen, my boar only generates about 700 threat initially. Unless I do nothing but auto-shot I pull aggro from him easily, even if I wait until he generates more threat before I start in. Now, I’m not decked out gear wise. Although I do have mostly quest-reward blues, they aren’t what I would need to even start Kara. I can’t imagine trying to solo with even better gear unless they fix this bug. And yes, it is a bug at this point. Claiming that it’s been bugged since release and this was an intentional fix, despite that they had to look into it for two weeks, just shows that they think their customers are stupid.
If I win the lotto, I’m going to bride my way onto the dev team and punch people in the face for this… yes it really is just that annoying to me..
*Chuckles* Eh, more pessimism from me, but all good hunter related things must come to an end. That has been proven of our class more then anyone else’s. I can’t think of a single other class that has had as many unique things taken away. The major one being pet individuality, and the rest mainly being pet nerfs or ‘normalizing’ in one form or another. We then had our agility to attack power system beaten in the face, with the promise that we’d get more utility. We got…. misdirection. And are still expected to be DPSers. *Shrugs* At this point, I don’t think they know WHAT they want to do with the hunter class, to be honest.
Hm, Mania, if you have Omen, couldn’t you just do tests naked and fully armored, to see the aggro difference from growl? No additional hunter stats would be a pets base aggro, and with would be the amount of threat generated with the addition of the hunters AP? Its just a thought, sorry for the double post!
Styfios, I think they are elminating all of the additional aggro that charge used to give growl. So even if growl did come after, it wouldn’t generate anything more.
Er, charge doesn’t work as an interupt, as far as I know. It works as a one second immobolize, and an attack boost, but its days of being a stun ended a while back, sadly. Unless thats changed again lately? I have been sort of out of it.
Wenda,
one thing that has been pointed out about Omen and all other threat meters is that they are estimates based upon player observation and not necessarily accurate. What you may have is something working off the last patch. One thing is for certain, your growl should be doing a lot more aggro than that. In fact, if that is all that growl is doing, every hunter under the sun would see a major issue with their pet holding aggro. I’ve had problems with getting a mob to stop hitting my pet, even without growl. I know that there have been some major issues regarding Growl’s highest rank generating enough threat though.
Palla,
I’m not sure if Charge is suppose to act as an interupt or even a stun, but it does. I’ve sent Tonton against some casters and had their spells interupt if they start casting before I send Tonton in.
sigh.. so I might as well forget about using a pet when farming? My boar was the only thing that could remotely hold aggro without me needing to take a nap while the pet builds threat. The bugged charge/growl seemed just about right to me. I could still pull aggro if I didn’t watch it. If they fix growl or add more threat generating abilities it would be nice, but who knows when that will happen.
Perhaps this is their solution to the problem of no beasts in Outland having charge.
I have to admit, I’ve not used a boar as a pet for a very long time. I run right now with a serpent, a raptor, and a sporebat.
Do I have aggro issues? Occasionally, yes; after about five good shots (and I mean *good* shots) I pull aggro off the pet. So what do I do?
Kite, freeze trap, Misdirect, frost trap, explosive trap, concussive shot, serpent sting, Wing Clip, Scatter Shot, Disengage, feign death…
No. Somehow, I’m not seeing many aggro issues with Hunters.
Complete Aside- Would someone please tell our Representatives that they should be accurate with what they say so they don’t look like total idiots when talking about World of Warcraft. One does not get passed Level 7 of World of Warcraft for crying out loud. There IS no level 7. That’s like looking for the Cow Level. Sorry for this totally non-Hunter related rant, I’m just too scared to go look at the WoW forums right now.
I will be honest about one thing concerning Growl. This has got to be one of the few things that is in the game that can be imbalanced without it affecting anything else. I mean, like it not, Growl only works on mobs and not players. Players just rush the Hunter, thus killing two birds with one fireball. Pets are suppose to be our shield when out in the game world, and not just a suppliment to our damage.
Kurasu: I am seing problems/aggro issues, as I don’t use MD, as it’s a waste of mana tbh and there are some reports, atleast in the europe version for some hunters, that it’s not working as intended, and why should I be forced to use MD on a pet at anyrate?
The second is kiting and FD. Try it on the island when everyone and his dog are there, fast respawns, low regen, even with AotV and FD needing a 30 sec cd? I had to kite five blood elves around two frost traps, while oom, as my pet slowly killed one after another. Throw in another addon someone lovingly gave me, and have myself at barely 2k hp while my pet is better off because hey, intimidate doesn’t seem to pull aggro off me anymore!
High threat my arse.
I’ve also had FD be resisted alot lately, and have done, pull via concussive+auto shot, sic pet in, intimidate, pop FD, wait 5 seconds for pet to get off growl + bite + Fire Breath, wait a bit more, pop up with a Kill command + auto shoot..
Oh high mob in face. Now I have 10k hp so it’s not THAT bad when it’s just one mob, but when you throw in a situation where you are BM and you expect your damn pet to hold and tank atleast 3 mobs your level, you expect it to do that and not let everything come and eat your face, because thanks to a poor mana pool, little intel gear, nerfed mana regen, there’s little I can do when oom thanks to trying to survive, and being forced to survive more.
And I can just imagine the scenarios for an orc hunter I had been making MM [then forced to respec] and her most reliable pet, untill 2.4, had been a boar. Which a scorpid has now replaced, and even then I’m forced to just use auto shoot most of the time. So thanks to 2.4 I had to respec her, and replace a pet I loved, and dump a DPS pet I also loved, for a scorpid.
I’m sorry if I’m a bit bitter and while I have only been playing hunter class for a few months, if I was to play as one now I doubt I’d very much like the class, or still try and get two of my other hunter alts up to 70 like my main. I had to work hard before, now I have to work even harder.
I went ahead and posted this on the WoW Hunter Forum. I’m insanely calm when writing it out. I’ve noticed that most of the problems seem to be high levels, though.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=5784479099&postId=57837587348&sid=1#0
To the Blizzard Developement Team,
Growl is, perhaps, one of the few spots in this game that can be, in all honesty, imbalanced. Growl is a skill that is never used in Raids unless off tanking is going on, and never in PvP or Arena since the reality is that everyone rushes the hunter and not the pet. Since that is the case, Growl does not have to be fair in any manner. Pets were, from everything I’ve gleaned, to be the shield between the Hunter or Warlock and the gaming world.
Even if Charge is just a bug, please fix aggro generation on Hunter and Warlock pets. It is unfortunate that some pets, especially the low damage tanks, suffer from the fact that their damage alone does not generate enough threat to allow for the mob to stay fixated upon them. It is rather unfair to give us Hunters twenty-three pets and not make them all viable. We in the Hunter class have asked for the unfinished Hunter pets to be finished with additional skills, and some of us have even offered suggestions which would fit well and not make them imbalanced.
Thank you for listening to me, and I hope that you will try fixing some of these issues in the next few patches before Wrath of the Lich King comes out.
Joushigun, et al.
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“And incidentally, this will kill all the animals.”
I see this as a big hit to botters who ALWAYS use boars.
I can’t help but think that all of the recent negative changes for hunters are Blizzard”s way of combating the gold sellers. But I wish Blizzard would be a little more forthcoming on their reasons for the changes
It does not surprise me when they say what we used to have with boars was a bug from the start ? ohh yes !!! it seems they want all pets the same yet at the same time make pets with different armour or health or damage bonuses ?? . they also said a long time ago that all pet types would get their own special attacks to give people more choice ?? still waiting on that one ?? , it is also possible they are trying to stop the bot gold farmers , but yet they allow stupid names that are not any language but a jumble of letters to play and spam gold sellers , Now that is against the rules and so dam easy to fix , I used to help run a biggish website of around 50,000 + members and we had a very basic filter to stop names that did not fit our rules from being registered , yes it needed setting up and yes names that made no sense or that were rude in some way did get through at times , But we did always have staff members watching for problems unlike blizzard it seems …
I can see a lot of players will either be walking away from hunters to try new classes or be giving up the game as the feelings are very strong on all this chaos that Blizzard have created , In some ways less hunters may save the hunters class as i am wondering if ” the gods ” have decided to secretly stop so many hunters being created ?? , It would make real sense as there are a lot more hunters about than other classes , And you all know how they like to tweak things to stop any real special advantages ?? we hunters may have found ( same goes for other classes that get buffed and nerfed on a seemingly regular basis ) Perhaps they will now do the pet type buffs on the families that had nothing special in attacks so we can start to use all pet families instead of boars ravagers and cats or scorpids , That is something i hope soon we will see happen , as it is many will give up boars if there is no advantage to using them and it does seem now that attack power bonus in pets is the only pets we will see used , so oops,,,,,, less variety for us hunters instead of using all pet classes as Blizzard wanted….
Hi, I am also very frustrated how Blizzard is implementing character changes. I have the same thoughts many posters before had… Blizzard hates the hunter chars and is always working to make them weaker and weaker – may be to get rid of the gold farmers. It seems to be working, because I have seen now some gold farmer Paladins – they are almost indestructable, are fairly pushed since Patch 2.0, and you need not really blue or purple gear – they need just a lot of mana but can be skilled to have it. And guess, Blizzard will *NOT* nerve Paladins because they are one of the darling character types of Blizzard – that was demonstrated since more than a year. Even when fighting in Battlegrounds it is almost impossible to get a Paladin down even with 3 hunters (!) – I am wearing *all* the PVP award gear (gladiator or veteran) and have more than 10k life, playing now Wow for more than 2 years and I am a victim even with that gear. Thank you so much Blizzard for getting more angry and angry (until that point I will quit my account – may be Blizzard has to much customers now, I don’t know).
*LAUGHS* Did you just say paladins are a darling class of Blizzard? No. Just no. Trus’a me, on dis one. Though I will give you that Blizzard did listen to the retri’s for some stupid reason. Three tree’s, one absolutely FILLED with whiners and morons, and they go with the whiner and moron tree to listen to. Good job, Blizzard!
No, the current baby class is the warrior, though I have no idea why, followed by the warlock. The sheer amount of scaling warriors do from 60-70 is insane.
Alright Peter, quick lesson. Paladins are an absolute joke in PvP unless they just have you geared down. Beyond their initial burst, you have nothing to worry about. Initial burst is hammer of justice, judgement of justice, holy shock/Crusader Strike, followed by lots of auto attacking. Consecration should never be a problem for a hunter, because hunters should NEVER stand still for more then a moment or two when fighting anything in melee. Sic the pet, frost or freezing, and prepare to waste a little time. Paladin DPS is admittedly gotten a little better, but its still a joke, and beyond one blessing of freedom and one hammer of justice, you should be fine. The key is to keep moving, and don’t forget to feign off their targeting. Arcane if they are to close to stop and shoot, arcane, multi, and MAYBE steady if you get breathing room. Leech hit points or mana, depending on preference, though if it is a retri, definitely eat their mana. If its a holy, aimed shot’em if you got’em. The important thing is to keep them healing, and at reduced effectiveness if you can manage. Intimidation and silencing shot are both wonderful here, scatter shot if your feeling brave. And of course, key in fighting anything melee, wing clip and run away screaming. Or strafe, I tend to run straight through people to confuse them though. But seriously, I’ve had my pet alone eat paladins in arenas before, and typically in BGs they are a total joke. Having a seventy holy paladin, and knowing the classes potential, this makes me sad and sick at the same time.
Huh, half expected this, I refuse to believe that blizzard didn’t know what was happening with charge and growl for a long time though. I’m not surprised when they accidentally mess up with the aggro for pets suddenly it becomes a bug rather than something they need to fix.
The good news? I’ll stop seeing every other hunter with a giant pig, though boars will still be relatively good solo pets, I feel the title will now move onto the birds (owl/bat/carrion)
I just got up. Pardon the delay on the answer to Ryai above:
I’ve not had a problem with Misdirect not working as intended. Now, I haven’t tried to use it in a raid situation against level 70+ elites, so I can’t speak for that, but I’ve yet to find a world mob that resists it. Getting into trouble? MD + Distracting Shot and the mob is usually happy to chew on my pet. A lot of mana gets used, yes, but I haven’t had as much trouble with the ‘instant OOM’, and I tend to be at a high enough mana pool to be able to afford it if something goes whacked.
FD is another that I don’t often have trouble with. I’ve had it resisted twice n the last month. Once in a QD multi-mob situation, and once against a level 70 elite mob (stupid Maggoc). I’m not saying *everyone* will have this, but I know in PVE, it seems to be effective. Cooldown? Yes, there is definitely a problem there. It’s a long one. And with this ability, I’m a fan of that because it can be very important in PVE.
Kiting in QD? Lots of mobs, high spawn rate, and the exact same problems that every other group in the place is having. I’ve watched mages get gang-banged by a group of three that spawned from behind them, I’ve seen warriors in mid-battle get jumped by a patrol, and I’ve seen a paladin taken down by two marksman while he was trying to burn the blood knight that he needed for that ‘one last quest kill’. It’s not just us who’s getting the issues in the place. So why should we have a huge advantage over the others who are getting their butt kicked? Group up, I say! A lot of the quests, if one does the quest, the group gets credit. Makes it a lot easier when searching for those elusive overcamped enemies (like the mechanical sentries).
If you are a BM, and expecting your pet to tank three mobs and let you shoot them all without you having to worry about aggro? I commend you. However, maybe the better expectation would be for your pet to be able to hold one and pray it can hold the other two, while you burn one down and run from the other. Maybe it’s because I’m a MM that I really don’t think in that direction. Multiple mobs have always been a worry for me. *As they should be*. That’s what they were intended to be.
I would like Growl to hold aggro better, yes. I would love for attacks to be able to hold mass amounts of enemies while I burn them down. But realistically, I look at my hunter as a long-distance fighter. One that has a pet to be able to help get some shots in, or to help me with DPS while they’re there. I’m not made to be a god at massive damage while most enemies can’t touch me, because they’re busy with my pet. It’d be cool, yes, but unreasonable in the big balance of the world.
Yes. This is coming from someone who doesn’t own a boar, and who hasn’t since level 40-something (other than to obsessively obtain all the moves in the game). So feel free to disregard it as I wouldn’t know what it’s like to have a pet nerfed in quite that way. :) I’m just offering up other things that we can do to avoid the wrath of aggro.
I have an idea for a new animated movie – “Hortus Hates a Hunter”
I agree with Kurasu, I have never had a boar, and I have not noticed huge changes in pet’s threat. I do use a mariad of hunter talents; FD, concussive shot, every kind of trap, sometime MD, frequently disengage. Oh, and I don’t do full raid-style damage right out of the box. Boar owners are probably pulling off because they don’t get a free threat bomb from their pets anymore, and they pass the -10% dps of the boar too quickly.
In response to Ryai: “pull via concussive+auto shot, sic pet in”… there’s the problem. Pet goes in first, like a tank. That way you’d have to get past its threat + buffer, not the other way aroud. Always send your pet in first, especially if you’re too good for MD.
/salute Kurasu… was waiting for that “what’s the big problem?” response. I have been jumped by many mobs on QD as well but often I have used FD and let my pet die rather than me. A sneaky MB and ress pet spell has always seemed preferable to a big repair bill so I am glad that hunters have the ability to disengage from combat, unlike almost every other class. On a side note, after 2.4 I noticed the problems with pet threat (as in they didn’t have any), but since 2.4.1 everything has been boshty again. :)
Charge nerf does annoy me, but for all the complaining people have been doing about being forced to pick one pet or another I am surprised noone has celebrated their newfound freedom to pick another pet that will tank as well as their old boar. Boars still have a nice mix of armour and health, so they still make great tanks. My 2 pence at least.
Kurasu,
Oh my, someone else who’s being totally reasonable and rational. I was beginning to think I was the only one out there.
This does, btw, mean that there may be more bears tanking. BTW, Carrion Birds, Owls and Bats do have some multi-mob threat abilities; however, Gorillas have the best multi-mob threat ability and I’ve seen a Gorilla take on three or four mobs at one time and still be standing.
Small notice, I have seen Lethon not work right with Misdirection… unless the range was too far? Tried kiting him with another hunter, didn’t work out so well, hehe…
Sorry, y’all who are saying “boar nerf means more pet diversity!” Make the other pets better, imho, don’t mess with Sarge :P
/cry
/pout
/tantrum
They nerfed my piggy the bastards! GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
Oh well, I’ll still love him for his PvP prowess!
Bobo, if you love SgtPork then you don’t have to get rid of him. I mean, come on, I love Tonton and I’m not going to get rid of her any time soon. Tonton is still a great pet to have.
I remember a while ago someone posting on the WoW forums about how Ravagers were THE best pet in the game to someone who wanted to know what the best pet in the game was. Someone else came back that it was the Cat or the Raptor. Others said Boars or Bears for tanking. I said something that earned me a large number of flames. It doesn’t matter what pet you choose so long as you choose the best pet for YOU. If you don’t mind sacrificing damage or abilities for a pet you just love to have, then so be it. I have six hunters and six pets and I love them all.
Calling a feature ab bug, after 3 years!
That’s even beating the low end of customer care that was at Verant/SOE.
My guess is, an error the same severity, benefitting the rogue class, would be declared a feature :(.
Mana regen for someone not completely in epic items is far too low, for the same person the aggro generation of the pet is too low.
Yes, they are directly affecting those millions of farm bots – and alienating their paying customers.
Ok, I don’t complain anymore – no service, no money! Was nice while it lasted, account canceled.
I think the poster who cited bot concerns is on to something. A bot can’t react if the mob gets in its face — and the only thing more or less guaranteed to keep things out of said autoshotting face is a boar. Hmmm.
This is a copy/paste of the post I made in the hunter forums. It will only take a second to do and it may change Blizzard’s mind, as warlocks did with the intended lifetap nerf.
“Hunters, i’m sure you’ve all heard by now of the change they are making to boar charge. While this will only affects some of us, I personally feel that whether you use a boar or not, it’s an unnecessary change.
Please help me in rallying support to keep things the way they are. A thread has been made on the suggestions forum. Here is the link: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=5784268512&sid=1
Please take 5 minutes to make a post offering positive support on the side of keeping the skill the way it is. It will be greatly appreciated by those of us that will be affected. We saw them take back the intended change to lifetap when warlocks were loud enough, so let’s make some noise too :).
P.S. and tell your friends too :) “
Taihai,
What we don’t want to do is make noise. In fact, making noise is what got us into the conundrum. If people had not been pushing the panic button over aggro generation and using Charge/Growl as an example, Blizzard would not have investigated it. When people have yelled, screamed, and ranted about this, they have tended to remove the problem by removing the aggitators. If we politely tell them of our conserns, and do not threaten them with canceling our accounts or anything of the like, they may change their minds. Either that, or they may actually fix things since it seems like there might be a problem at the high end of the class.
Guys, what ever you do to protest this, do not make an angry, threatening attack on them.
At this point making some noise is all that will help (if that’s what you want, I’m not that upset). Hunter noise and Hortus looking into it did not cause this, it was already there. All he did is confirm that it was intended.
A second point I’d like to make, the only _stat_ (not ability) that matters to pets is DPS. Consider this, my crab has a DPS of 127 without CR and 12,040 (53.3%) armor which is the highest of any family. My cat has 143.4 DPS and 11,000 armor (51.5%). Translate that into talent points 1% increase in damage equals 1% reduction to damage equals one talent point. Crab would need 15 talent points to reach the cat’s DPS, and the cat would need 2 to reach crabs armor.
Is 20DPS worth 2% damage reduction? No. For the most part we can treat all pets as having the same HP and armor. If you are going to argue for or against a pet, do it through DPS+skills vs DPS+skills. Is the boars lesser DPS + charge vs say, a cat’s DPS + claw, + dash + prowl? Maybe? situationally?
On the other hand, if your going to argue what you like the best… you win automatically! Personally, my crab is my favorite.
I hate it when something takes ages to get my attention.
Hortus said something very important in that posting. “Growl should only benefit from the hunter’s attack power and get no benefit from buffs to the pet’s attack power. Expect this to be changed in ‘A FUTURE PATCH’.”
The ‘a future patch’ is very important here. That means that they haven’t decided to remove this, or that this is still being debated as one of the benifits of Charge.
It also confirmed something that I had trouble finding a lot of in the past. Attack Power for the Hunter determins the threat generated by the pet.
Znodis,
I may have worded what I said badly. Huge protests and lots of swearing and threatening are just guarentees of getting banned. If you do want to make yourself heard whisper, don’t shout. Too many people have been banned for posting legitimate greivences in a horribly nasty manner.
And I like my Gretchen (Mwindaji), she’s a Crocolisk. In the end, the best pet is the one you love.
Thanks for the boar vs ravager info Seidouyumi, that does make sense.
I don’t actually know if this change is a huge problem or not – until they actually patch/change the way my boar reacts, that’s the only point when I’ll have a clue what the change will entail. Not to mention that there are still hunters that tell me they saw no differences at all in their mana or pet aggro from the last patch – and others who tell me just as quickly that they saw both, and some dramatic problems – but that some went away in the patch of the patch. So, seems a typical “some gameplay may vary” situation. I do think that the last patch had more unintended tweaks going on than any I’d ever experienced – especially for hunters and the battlegrounds. (Anyone else have any mass kickouts last night or was that just us on Windrunner?)
And as others have said – if you want people (especially ones at Blizzard who can hopefully change things) to pay attention to you on the forums then rudeness toward Blizzard, threats and dramatic tantrums aren’t going to help your case because it’s usually those things that cause people to stop listening. Convince them that you’re a reasonable adult with concerns about a game that you enjoy and have played loyally for some time – you’ll have a much better chance of being listened to. Customer service at any large company is always tricky in that it may take a very long long time for communication to go from the customer to someone who can actually effect a change. The reason that there aren’t any visible results from you communication doesn’t automatically mean Blizzard is evil/hates class X/loves class Y/doesn’t care – it often means there’s a lack or organization, that there are so many people working on one problem that results are going to be all over the map, or even that what the way they’re trying to fix the problem just isn’t working. There’s probably a lot more chaos behind the scenes than we realize.
Seidouyumi SAID:
“This does, btw, mean that there may be more bears tanking. BTW, Carrion Birds, Owls and Bats do have some multi-mob threat abilities; however, Gorillas have the best multi-mob threat ability and I’ve seen a Gorilla take on three or four mobs at one time and still be standing.”
Heck Yeah, I love my cat but for leveling I have been using a gorilla for oh.. 30 lvls now and just grinding my cat up at points here ant there. Before 2.4 My gorilla made it possible with some effort to take on 6-7 mobs. After 2.4 I was back to 1 mob at a time even with gorilla. Now after 2.4 I also basically shelved my hunter until everything settles down.I tested right after 2.4.1 and saw aggro was better but still didn’t try multiple mobs. I was sure more was coming of the whole aggro issue and i bet even more than this charge+growl bit is going to change.
Now after 2.4 I really only had a big issue holding more than 1 mob, 1 mob was mostly okay but then i am a BM hunter wearing almost all “of the Bandit” gear so I have a high AP for my level, I often choose AP over more agility or stamina as long as the lose isn’t too large.
Meanwhile my hunter is still sitting and waiting to see what happens.
@Seidouyumi – Get rid of Sarge? No wai! I have some friends who also have hunters, they are pretty nightelves with pretty kitties. I loaf being da ubgly dorf wif da ubgly piggy! Especially ’cause I’m the only BM and they love it when I pop “Big Red Piggy” ;) Nope, I’ma keep da Sarge!
Batgirl- I’m always glad to help. I try to tell people to be reasonable and nice towards Blizzard, and I’m glad to see others agreeing :) I have one hunter with a Ravager and one with a Boar. Over all, they’re both good pets.
Varsar- I’m glad to see someone agree with me about Gorillas. I’ve gotten a lot of flack about them in the past. The previous incarnation of my hunter Seidouyumi soloed WC a large number of times with a Gorilla and had no problems staying alive. I’m not too worried about the issues concerning Hunters right now since most of them seem to be concentrated at the higher levels and all my hunters have yet to break lvl 20. So, I’ll worry about it when I get up there in level :)
Bobo- I have six pets, including a boar. I’m not getting rid of Tonton or Gretchen (Boar and Crocolisk) any time soon. Though, Gretchen might be replaced at lvl 32 with a Gorilla, I’m still loving each of my pets. I have only one Cat- Rukia- on one of my Orcs.
To everyone- I decided to turn off Growl on Rukia, my Cat, and found her able to keep aggro pretty well without it. I just started using the same tactics I used on my Warlock with her Succubus. It’s been working very well. Actually, a bit better since I can slow the mob down before they get to me. :D
My boar is deleted. Back in the wild. Perhaps I’ll release my Drenai soon as well.
First the ghost wolf, then the ptr reports of pet death in SW25, then the aggro issue, (and the mana issue), and now this?..