Boars have always been the better aggro holding pet for non bm hunters b/c of Charge. I’m not going to say that I agree with them taking it away from boars b/c its a fun skill, & it kept aggro on the pet for a long time. Usually if the boar was able to charge the target, then I could maximize dps on it, & kill it just as I pulled it off my boar. Intervene though I’m not sure how it will work for pets but for warriors it allows them to charge at a friendly player, blocking the next attack. I’ll actually see them use this skill in raids to get to the front of the raid group before a pull or to escape if a fight is going badly, they’ll intervene a player that is in front of them until & hopefully make it out alive.

I can’t remember what the fel guard’s charge skill is if its intercept or intervene now, but if boars got intercept which can be used in combat to charge a combative target, then I would be ok with the loss of charge. Even now since I love my cats them getting charge is great.

BETA USERS: if you happen tosee this, and if you have a little time to spare,i would love to know if a critter has become tamable. I would like to know if Sunblade Dragonhawk (70 Elite, Sunwell Plateau) is tamable in Beta. Thanks a ton if you check. See,I told you I was having a ton of fun with the Dragonhawk.

For example, windserpents. I KNOW people say they’re phat dps, but I can’t bloody use them. They feel awkward, they’re always out of focus, they’re hard to feed, and they don’t seem to hold aggro for me worth beans. Obviously other people have better luck, but… there you go.

Your build has a lot to do with it. Are you a crithunter? Steady dps? Survival? Where did you put your points? What’s your gear, your hit rating? The numbers on your pet are only a sliver of the whole picture.

Palladiamors
You are too right. Aggro does have more detail to it than just growl. That’s kinda why i tried every kind of pet there was before picking my spider as my main. You said you use them too, and I think that is great. Maybe it’s just my playing style, but I don;t think I have EVER pulled aggro form my spider. LOL That is why I keep my “boring, non-skilled” spider as my main. I am sure somebody who plays differntly than me would completely disagree, and I think that is one of the great things about being a hunter…. everybody plays them different. Just wanna give you kudos for going into detail… which I am not good at. I thinkyo0ur post will help a lot of people out.

Everybody Else…. if you are having a trouble holding aggro, try taming a different pet. Sometimes the most plain looking pet will be the one for you. It doesn’t always have to be that really cool, ultr-rare skin, ultra-rare spawn critter. Those aren’t any better than a normal skin, and sometimes they just don’t fit your playing style. Change things up a little and you may just find your perfect pet. Look at me: I made an alt and I am trying “caster” pets. lol

I admit that innitially I was saddened by the loss of Charge on Boars, but with Intervene in there, and reading GC’s post, I can see why Blizzard did this. Also, Galathir keeps crying about Charge being a tanking tool since warriors have it. While it might look like it has some merit at first, I found it strange, like there was something in my subcounsious telling me it was wrong. So I went to check out the warrior’s Charge on wowhead.

“Charge Rank 1
8 – 25 yd rangeInstant 15 sec cooldown

Requires Battle Stance
Charge an enemy, generate 9 rage, and stun it for 1 sec. Cannot be used in combat. ”

Oh hey! Look at that nice little line in there!

Requires Battle Stance

Sweet! So the guy is talking about a BATTLE Stance skill like it’s a major tanking skill. Now I don’t know much about warrior tanking tactics, but I’ve rarely seen them using it at higher levels. Don’t they lose some rage when switching stances? I also heard some mobs are immune to it and it can cause some weird problems. Anyway, I’ve always viewed Charge as more of an aggressive move rather than a tanking move. Like a “I’m getting in yer face to beat the crap out of ya” thing.

I saw Scott mentioned the Warp Stalker’s Warp skill up there. I think this might also be another reason as to why Blizzard decided to not give tanking pets Charge. since the Warp Stalker is a tanking pet, having both Warp and Charge would be wothless. Warp has a 5 yard range activation over Charge, and a shorter cooldown, meaning that having both on the pet, Charge would never be used at all. If they where to give Charge to the tanking pets, they’d have to change the Warp Stalker into either a DPS pet or a utility pet. Something that they probably didn’t want.

Yes, it is sad that Boars wont have Charge anymore, but hey, I’m looking forward to see Carrion Birds, Cats, Devilsaurs, Hyenas, Moths, Raptors , Tallstriders and Wolves use it. Especially the dinos. Oh my God that is one scary thing to see coming at you! At least all pets will have Dash/Dive now, so I think it is a fari trade off.

Now to address something directly, Scott, you can’t compare a boars charge to a warp stalkers warp for two reasons. A boars charge has an imobilize AND an attack power increase, while warp is just that, a tele port with a 50% dodge increase on next attack. Second reason, boars had gore AND charge, basically two unique abilities to every other families one. They had to make a decision of which family ability to keep, and which to toss out. Ravagers got ravage, thus losing gore, and it was decided that charge would be a much, much more attractive ability for DPS pets, simple as that. That left boars with gore, which in all honesty is a much better tanking skill then charge. Its an every ten/seven second additional damage attack, which does even more in dash. For beast masters, there are very few moments when dash won’t be up when gore is.

All in all, considering the massive amounts of changes our pets are undergoing, complaining about something like this sounds to me like serving some one dinner on a gold platter, and having them complain about the color.

Personal note, I’d trade in warp for a poisonous bite in a heart beat.

Even with Growl at its currently gimpy-ish state (though GC says they’re fixing it, woot!) I expect things like a bear’s Swipe to generate a -lot- of threat, stacking on top of whatever Growl manages to do.

Also, YOU as a hunter are responsible for not overtaking your pet’s threat. Someone above mentioned a ‘rotation’ and overtaking aggro… honestly… rotations are for instances (where your pet isn’t likely to be in a tank role). If you’re just grinding or questing, there’s really no need to be even worrying about maximizing your DPS because whatever you’re shooting is going to go down in five autoshots anyway. I never rotate when soloing stuff… I lob Serpent sting on the target, then AS it to death with maybe an Arcane tossed in if it’s got a buff up. It’s so not worth stressing about… and you almost NEVER drag aggro to yourself, and this coming from someone that uses ‘non-cutting edge’ pets like spiders and carrion birds. Just kick back, put on some tunes, and roll methodically over your foe like the hail of death you are.

I think overall it sounds like hunter pets got a huge boost, even if other things needed to be toned down or tweaked. I’m itchy to have the new system instead of what’s on live…