I would like to see something done to make other pet families viable for the things that count. There is so much more that should be done with pets that is not being done so hopefully blizzard will listen to wonderful people like Mania who have taken the time to come up with intelligent suggestions and someday we will see something besides scorpids in arenas and one of 3 pets on raids.

And for the love of god, Znodis, fifteen to twenty damage difference isn’t that big of a deal later on, and thats pretty much what it comes down to on a per swing basis. It’ll make a bigger deal for beastmasters, whose pets attack at insane speeds, but even then its not a this huge deal so many people make it out to be. Just bah.

I still disagree that damage is everything. That extra ten percent isn’t huge enough to make a difference either.

HOWEVER, I do agree with Growl’s issues. I think the problem may not be that Growl is ‘broken’, but that we’re rapidly outstripping it’s ability to generate aggro. Somewhere between how damage is calculated, and how much damage we do each time we crit, Growl just cannot keep up. If it is gaining only a fraction of the spell bonus, then the simple solution is to hike it’s contribution up a lot more.

The arguement that a pet without high damage and a focus dump can’t hold aggro is actually rather erronious. I’ve run a few of my hunters without Growl even on and found myself pulling aggro off a Cat just as fast as off a Bear or a Boar. The baseline damage just does not generate enough damage per hit to keep aggro. Furthermore, I’ve pulled aggro off pets with high, medium and low damage just as easily as one another. The two pets without Growl that have kept aggro the longest, so far, are a Carrion Bird with Screech and a Wind Serpent because Lightning Breath does so much initial threat and damage that it holds aggro pretty well. Everything else I end up pulling off my pet somewhere around half health. Those two hold aggro long enough that I can usually burn a mob down well below half health before I pull aggro.

Meanwhile, that 500 health and 2.25% extra damage mitigation does have long fight implications. So, I wouldn’t discount them.

And now to segue in to the growl issue again, a pet that can’t hold agro (anything without a focus dump and/or high DPS) is a pet that can’t tank. If the mob isn’t hitting your pet, it doesn’t matter how much armor or HP it has.

Damage _is_ everything.

While I would love to see each family be unique I think Mania solution in part 2 of this works just fine.

Conversely, having had a Gorilla, that extra health can make a difference in single and multi-mob fights.

Quite honestly, damage isn’t everything. If you can’t burn down a mob exceedingly fast, then that 10% extra damage is pretty useless. And, if you do too much damage, you generate too much threat and growl breaks and you’re no longer doing as much damage as you need. So don’t discount tanking pets.