WotLK: Beta Pet Skills

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I’ve updated Petopia to include what we know about pet skills in Wrath of the Lich King. I’m not going to repeat it all here — there’s a lot of info! — but here’s a quick summary:

  • Remember, pet talents are not the same as pet skills.
  • All pets know 9 skills when they are tamed: Growl, Cower, a physical attack (either Bite, Claw, or Smack), a family skill, and all five resistances.
  • These are the skills they will have for the rest of their lives. You never have to train your pet in any skills ever — they will automatically learn new ranks as they level up.
  • The three physical attacks are all identical, the same as Claw is on the live realms right now.
  • There are 13 new unique family skills (and 3 that have changed somewhat) so that every family now has a completely unique family skill.

I’m not going to list all the family skills here — Petopia has the full list, and note that some of them have changed a bit since we saw the first leaks come out in alpha — but suffice it to say that there are some interesting ones:

  • Raptors get a Savage Rend that bleeds the target and, if it crits, boosts the raptor’s attack power.
  • Spiders can Web their target from range, preventing movement.
  • Nether Rays can use Nether Shock to deal Shadow damage, plus interrupt spellcasting and prevent spells from that school from being cast for 1 sec.

And that’s just the beginning. Go check it out!

My thanks to Nimizar, Darkautumn, Maax, and odie, among others, for all the help in sorting this out. (And I suspect I’m missing some people. Let me know if I am.)

56 thoughts on “WotLK: Beta Pet Skills”

  2. Okay, I’ve checked all the skills out now, but I got a question;

    Will each family still have different stats (Like cats have 10%+ dps etc.), or will that be removed too?

    Personally, I hope it will, so more pet families will be viable, instead of the cat-ravager-raptor thing that’s going on right now.

  3. Maree: I haven’t had time to check yet, and I haven’t heard of anyone else who has either yet.

    However, I am uploading all the raw screenshots I took last night to Flickr, and this includes laborious screenshots of all the stats of all the (25) pets I tamed, so you are more than welcome to start going through those and figuring it out. :>

    Flickr Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/maniasarcania/

  4. Is it just me, or did they give some of the strongest abilities to the least used pets before?

    Crocolisk – it sounds like it works like a warrior’s retaliation – that would be tremendous for group pulls, plus it last 2 minutes?

    Crab – 6 sec immobilize every 20 secs? Great for PVP

    Netherray – Counterspell, 30 seconds cooldown? Add that + Intimidation and you can tear casters apart

    Spore Bat – the new Screech?

    Tallstrider – terrific for raids

    The rest of the abilities are decent, but nothing to write home about.

  5. It’s sounding more and more likely I’ll be going BM for WotLK. This new system is great, and I’m glad you got into the beta even if I didn’t. That way I still get to find stuff out.

    So, Mania I really appreciate what you’re doing, but can you get on the case as to what an exotic pet is please? :)

  7. OH NO!

    They have taken away the old screech!! My days of farming packs of clefthoof are done! /sad-panda

    There are some AOE debuffs that sporebats and others have, but it looks like the are taking away the AOE aggro abilities that screech gave us.

    The best replacement is the bear’s swipe, but that’s only 3 targets. Screech was a true AOE. I don’t think the sporebat ability is going to work in the same way from the way it sounds.

    /pout

    Oh well.. /release raven to wild

  8. They are nerfing cats too…

    Unless you actually use prowl, there won’t be a reason to have a cat. You’ll be gimping yourself. You’ll miss out on damaging abilities that other pets have.

    Sounds like the humane society is gonna have a lotta work to do, as there are gonna be a lot of abandoned cats.

  9. Looks like my Cat and Raven are going to get traded in for a Dragonhawk and a Bear. Gonna be interesting…

  10. Wow this is awesome. Shame cats are so bad by comparison… My Humar and Echeyakee are sad now.

    Maybe I’ll trade them in for a Green and Black Raptor and a White Carrion Bird. But I dunno. I never tamed pets just because they were the best, or I’d have a Scorpid and a Ravager like everyone else. That said, all these new spells look like so much fun… I’ll be interested to see what everyone is using a year after WotLK comes out and everyone has settled on one pet for Solo, one for PvP, and one for PvE like it inevitably occurs.

    Right now, I’m thinking it’s gonna be Tallstriders or Sporebats for Raiding or maybe Raptors. Raptor DPS is probably going to be the highest Pet DPS in the game, come the expansion. Moths and Bears/Crocolisks/Gorillas are both really appealing to me for solo play as they’re all great tanks with self-healing and AoE tanking abilities respectively, but PvP is iffy… There’s a LOT of options there. So many stuns, interrupts, roots, disarms, and so on…

    Getting really excited now! Especcially since, and I might be wrong but I haven’t seen anything about it, it looks like we’re going to finally be able to use that third stable slot! =O

  11. Yeah, saw that Mania mentioned that Gorillas will eat bread now too. That will help and with their AOE, could be viable too. Raptors, yep, come the expansion..

    But I’m really liking the idea of Bears, or perhaps the Gorilla if they expand the diet to include fish.

    I really love pets with an AOE for soloing, so I know I’ll have one of those.

  12. @fearstalker

    Carrion Birds are the one who have Screech, though it’s been renamed Demoralizing Screech.

  13. Gorilla has Thunderstomp (8 yard AoE) still. Nothing like a pink (enraged white) gorilla “smacking” stuff around. Now that he’ll have dash. . .well lets just say I’m tickled “pink”. As far as my cat, well prowl is nice for camping flags like rogues do now. But I’d also like disarm, spell interupt, and web. . . More stable slots please Blizzard. (Like they havn’t heard that before)

    Atleast we will be used to using that 3rd slot for “swapping” pets anyway. We can get to 80 with our favorite pet. Then use the 3rd slot to play around with the mechanics of the others and which roll we like (or our guildies want) in raids etc. . .(And we can tame any skin we want since we don’t have to worry about lvling a pet more than 5 lvls.)

  15. @ Shinryu Masaki

    true, Carrions birds have the renamed screech, but from mania’s notes the AOE component is removed. It’s single target now.

  16. (@Mania – I e-mailed you a more in-depth explanation…)

    There’s still some stat variation between families, but not like there is now, that I can tell from Mania’s images. Base AC/AP/spi/int/sta/agi/str are the same for all the level 65 pets pictured. The bonus armor (basearmor+bonusarmor in the tooltip) varies by what “role” (cunning/ferocity/tenacity) the pet has. Tenacity has the highest bonus armor, though oddly enough Ferocity has higher armor than Cunning. Tenacity pets get 11HP per point of bonus stamina (from hunter gear), while both Ferocity and Cunning get 10.5. DPS is allllll over the place though, Ferocity tends to have higher DPS than Cunning which tends to have higher than Tenacity, but there’s at least one 65 Tenacity that has higher DPS than one of the 65 Ferocity pets… o_O

    Unfortunately, if the nether ray tamed is the norm, caster pets are still around. *sadface*

    Phew… Time to go find something to eat.

  17. Well, one thing for sure.. if you are leveling a hunter, don’t worry about having a pet that you want to take to 80. Just get one that you’ll enjoy leveling with. Because it will all change in 3-12 months.. :-)

  18. @ Fearstalker

    Demoralizing Screech’s damage only hits one target, but the debuff is an AoE, just like the original screech.

  19. @ Kalalay

    Ahh… detailed reading required. :-) So Ravens will still have an AOE. That’s good. Will be interesting to see how they compare to Gorillas and Bears in AOE then.

    Sounds like we will have more choices, and it won’t be that painful if you change your mind and want something new.

    but for Cats… oh well… the one sitting in my lap is probably enough. :-)

  20. Gorillas have always had their AoE, though, and very few people have tried them out for AoE grinding. :O Similar with dragonhawks, who have a cone-AoE AND dive.

    I don’t think I’ll be getting rid of Nemesis any time soon. He may not get updated skills, but he’s been with me pretty much forever and I love my ghost cat. :)

    I may need to trade my windserpent in for a warp stalker, though. Or a spore bat or a moth…so many choices of things to play with!

  21. fearstalker – I think we’ll see MORE cats. Why? Camoflague. It’s not only Nelfs who need their pet to vanish now :)

  22. @ Ketari – That may be true.. but we haven’t seen details on Camoflague yet. Will every hunter be able to learn it, or only SV? We don’t know yet. But I think it may be used more as a second FD. We need to see the mechanics. Can we use it when moving?..

    If that plays out, cats with prowl might be very nice.

    But I just still might get my bear smacking on something while I sneak behind and then unload.. :D

    (and you mean that there are hunters that don’t have a cat right now?…)

  23. I love the talent trees but the known skills that level as the pet levels sound to me like hunter easy mode… Where’s the challenge in balancing the resistances for example, when they just have them? Sounds like hunters will be a bit OP to me. Dunno if Blizz is balancing this with our talent trees ;o)

  26. I guess the new hunter developer is not a cat-person … :( I’m not abandoning my Rhiow (Humar-tamed) though … faithfulness must be returned in kind :)

    Cheers,

    Silvart on Proudmoore

  27. Regarding the pre-Wrath Screech shared by Owls, Bats and Carrion Birds: only Carrion Birds keep it, and it has been renamed Demoralizing Screech. Owls (Birds of Prey) get Snatch (Disarm) instead, while Bats get Sonic Blast (ranged Stun).

    Regarding Dive & Dash: the Ferocity, Cunning and Tenacity trees all contain the relevant one of these as a single point first tier talent. The Cunning tree contains an additional “Mobility” talent that reduces the cooldown.

    On Gorillas: the problem with Gorillas pre-Wrath is that they don’t have a focus dump and they don’t have Dash. This means their single-target threat-per-second is inadequate and they take an annoyingly long time to reach their target.

    Regarding resistances: level 65-70 pets in beta get +120 resistance against all non-Holy schools of spell damage. That’s pretty significant (around 18% reduction in magic damage taken)

    Regarding Prowl, Camouflage and DPS modifiers: the new hunter skill at 75 is Bear Trap and at 80 is Kill Shot, and there isn’t anything like Camouflage in the talent trees. If Camouflage was ever a real skill, it appears to have been dropped. This was actually mentioned as being a possible reason for keeping the per-family DPS modifiers – to help balance out the differences in the damage output of the family special skills.

  28. Something to keep in mind Nimizar is that TBC introduced four new skills, and if I remember right other classes already have more then two skills intro’d in Wrath. It’s entirely possible that camoflauge simply hasn’t been balanced and put into the beta yet. That or they, more likely, decided that a stealthed hunter and their cat would be a very, very overpowered thing. *Laughs*

  29. Ghostcrawler indicated that the basic design for the classes in Wrath is that everyone gets one new skill at 75 and one at 80. There are a few exceptions where “new” skills have been added that start at lower levels (e.g. Revive for druids and Earthliving Weapon for shaman).

    While Camouflage would be nice, I’ll be surprised if it happens.

  30. Hm, well, considering everything else that is being added, I can’t say I am uberly disappointed. Bear trap is HAPPY, I just wish they’d intro’d it as a lower level skill. Thank you very much for the info, Nimizar.

  31. So it is indeed cat nerfage. Oh well. Time to explore new pets.

    I like my raven, so I’m glad about screech. I’ll miss my red lynx, but oh well.

    Bears are looking really good. :-)

  34. So..

    Druids get a channeled stun and a new healing spell
    Mages get a damage shield and a frost/fire spell
    Pallies get a threat ability and a reactive heal
    Priests get to sleep all attackers and their heals also 30% healing another
    Rogues get a disarm and an AoE
    Shamans get a new damage spell, a CC and a healing weapon enchant
    Warlocks get a new shadow aoe spell and a very useful self-teleport
    Warriors get to disarm shields and do AoE bleeds

    We get…

    An easily avoidable root (which one trap allready does) which does a bit of damage but gets broken on damage (i.e. it’ll break itself)a dn is only 10s long, procs second wind for warriors (which will offset the damage nicely) and there’s that rogue ability which eats bleeds…

    An mana-expensive shot which is inferior to >steady< except versus 20% hp or less enemies (arcane ignores armour, this dosn’t) – and which probably shares a cooldown with arcane shot anyway (explosive, the other 6s CD shot, does)!

  35. @Ketari, But look at all they are doing to our pets. We are getting our choice of stun, spell interupt, disarm, Web CC, hit chance debuff, AP debuff, possibly the ability to use our “tank” pet as OT on 5mans, DPS pets may do even more dmg than before. What can be better than a class doing more dps, but not getting all the threat on the player?

    Did I miss anything?

    No, I think hunters are currently getting some real “love” here. I just hope all of this stuff makes it to “live” not just beta.

  36. Ketari, your not understanding how bear trap works. It does not break on its own damage, and as far as I have been able to determine, its chance to break on damage is smaller then roots, but not as a large as fear. As in while it seems fairly easy to break entangling roots with damage, and darn near impossible to break a warlocks fear on damage, bear trap seems to be in the middle of the two. Thats a few extra shots, an angry pet biting some one, and some bleed damage. And your inncorrect that we already have a trap that does that. We have one that definitely breaks on damage, and one that only slows the target ((Sans survivalist, who have a chance to root on any trap)). Not a bad deal at all. Kill shot I’ll need a bit more information on, but it doesn’t seem like a bad deal so far. And on anything less then twenty, well, thats a lot of extra damage. Cheers, and a cookie for everyone!

  37. @Ketari, going by the historical example of entangling roots, bear trap won’t break on its own damage. But hey, don’t let me stop you focusing on the empty air at the top of your glass :)

  38. Nimizar, except entangling roots *can* break off its own damage.

    Pet abilities on long CD counters, especially when pets can die quite rapidly, don’t really begin to address the pvp issues Hunters have.

  39. And now I have to go test it, to see if it can. Be right back, when I have entagling rooted numerous things to death.

  40. After casting entangling roots around thirty times, and not having it break on its own damage once, I think I can safely say that roots does not, in fact, break on its own damage.

  41. Let me clarify that each time roots went for the full 27 second duration. Being feral, killing things took…. a long time that way.

  43. I think I’ll miss Prowl. I loved watching my Cat sneak up on monsters or just run around “invisible” using Eye of the Beast. It’s a nice scouting tool if you overlook the movement penalty.

  44. @Ketari: roots is subject to heartbeat resists, just like any other CC. When it looks like roots is breaking due to its own damage, it’s actually the mob getting a successful heartbeat resist. I expect bear trap to work the same way.

  45. In Mania’s text at the top was stated that all pets know all their skills when they’re tamed. So you never have to learn them anything anymore? Hunters will now use talents instead, as far as I understood till now. So what does the 51pt talent of BM mean: increasing your total amount of pet skill points by 5. On Petopia is stated that pet skills level up automatically. Is it maybe mixed up with talent points?

  47. Pingback: WOTLK: Dudas sobre talento Beast Mastery (51 BM) | conOsinSemilia

  48. Nimizar – Per EJ it has ~20% more resists that would be expected from heartbeat. And of course in PvP that’s a moderately higher rate of breakage.

  49. @ketari: my Google skills are clearly inadequate then, since I can’t find any threads on EJ with any hard data about ER breaking early more often than heartbeat resists can account for. *shrug* unless they separate the trap cooldowns, bear trap is going to be useless anyway.

  50. There is no way Sianna(Shy-Rotam)will EVER be replaced by anything in WotlK! Not gonna happen! *lol*…that cat and I have been through too much adventuring,too many corpse runs(you know what I mean..*lol*),and just plain “too much” of everything to just abandon her now.
    Having said that,I’m afraid when WotlK does go live,my other two stable slots will be nothing more than a revolving door of pets…moths,Devilsaurs,giraffes,elekk’s(plz,blizz,i want an Elekk!),zvebra’s and whatever else I can get my tame beast on.Until I can settle on what those last two
    pets are going to be permanently.
    Thank you again,Mania and Nimizer for all our work!

    Kitairra

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