Ghostcrawler was out in force last night answering many questions about pets and pet skills on the WotLK Beta Hunter forum.
First, the great news: Wasps are definitely non-exotic:
We didn’t want BM to have all the fun. Wasps for everyone!
Pet Abilities – Damage and Scaling
Ghostcrawler mentioned several times in these posts that the current damage numbers on pet abilities are placeholders; Blizzard hasn’t done a real DPS pass over pet abilities yet. More interesting, however, is that they apparently intend all pet abilities to scale with attack power.
On pet abilities and AP in general:
They should scale with AP, though many of the numbers themselves are definitely placeholder.
Note that the context makes clear that this includes abilities such as Bite and Claw as well.
On changes to Froststorm Breath:
Almost all the pet specials are set at the same numbers. They are just placeholder.
The only bug that was fixed was that the chimera was getting an insane coefficient on its damage.
And yes, I believe the slow is still broken.
And more on Froststorm Breath:
The reason the spell was doing too much damage was because of a typo in its spellpower coefficient. We are trying to convert all of these over to scale off of AP instead.
It was just a bug fix, not the nerf bat. Almost all of the new abilities have placeholder numbers in place. We’re trying to get the mechanics ironed out before we put in final numbers.
Finally, some hunters were concerned that they’d be forced into bringing worms and wasps along on raids for the armor reduction effects. Ghostcrawler responded:
The worm and wasp abilities won’t stack with similar player abilities.
The idea is that if you have a tank that doesn’t debuff armor and nobody else in the raid in a position to do it, then the worm becomes an interesting choice.
The dps between ferocity and tenacity shouldn’t be that extreme in any case. We didn’t want tenacity only ever used for tanking and only ferocity pets brought on raids.
To me, the most interesting part of this response is the last paragraph. The pet talent tree system gives us strong indications of what pets might be more useful for us depending on what we’re planning on doing with them. But those are general guidelines, not constraints, and the family skills can break the mold.
Unfortuntely, since the family skills in particular are still lacking their final damage and AP scaling, it’s not always clear to us at this point how that balance will work out.
Pet Talents
Ghostcrawler also had a good bit to say on the functionality (or lack thereof) and changes coming to various pet talents.
Give us a little more credit than that. :)
Almost all of the pet specials were changed to cost no Focus but be on a longer cooldown. That way they aren’t competing so much for your Bite Focus and you can use them when you want them.
Having the pet take damage from Roar of Sacrifice is still a bug waiting to be fixed.
Next patch Tenacity pets will lose Dash and gain Charge. See how that feels.
We’ll switch the Boar back to benefiting from Charge as well.
And:
We’re not pulling Charge from Ferocity.
The ideas is that Charge is generally better than Dash, but is deeper in the tree. Under this new change, for Tenacity Intervene is better and deeper.
Unfortunately this is a limitation of the talent.
Hunter pets reset all their cooldowns when they are summoned. So without this up-front cooldown, you could use the ability instantly every time the pet died, because death resets the cooldown.
Originally, we had this talent as an automatic, but that was less useful.
Context on Heart of the Phoenix: Right now the 10 minute cooldown resets not only when your pet dies, but any time the pet is dismissed — for instance when you mount up, or run out of pet range.
And More to Come
I’ve skipped over a lot of comments by Koraa, by the way, that deal specifically with hunter skills and talents and don’t mention pets. But Koraa did make one important comment (in the context of a question about Lock & Load) that may explain, among other things, why rhinos don’t have a family skill yet:
I know, this will be fixed in a future build. Data was pulled while we were still working on a lot of things.
The difference between taking Dash away from Tenacity pets and taking Charge away from Boars, is that if they give all the Tenacity pets Charge, then boars will have it in both TBC and Wrath, while all the other Tenacity pets will get it for the first time in Wrath. Similarly, all the pet families that currently have Dash (except Boars) will keep it in Wrath, while several other families will gain it for the first time. Changes between early beta builds and later beta builds
One of the things to keep in mind here is that given the choice between training Dash and Charge in TBC, all boar owners chose Charge. Now, as far as soloing went, a big chunk of that popularity was due to the 3k or so threat burst it used to provide, but whenever the topic came up on the Blizzard hunter forums, you would still get a number of people recommending them in PvP for the 1 second immobilise (especially for hitting flag runners in WSG and EotS – ride within range while mounted, hop off within Charge range and let the pet loose).
With this change, I think the three trees provide really interesting movement alternatives – Dash+Charge with a Ferocity pet, permanent Dash with a Cunning pet, Charge+Intervene with a Tenacity pet. Very different styles of movement for the three pet groups, all with benefits and trade-offs, but I don’t consider any of them to be a clear cut winner over the other two (obviously, folks that dislike the Charge mechanic will have a different opinion).
I don’t think the question of whether or not I had used a boar myself had come up before – but yeah, I used an EPL boar for the trip from 60 to 70, and for a decent amount of time at 70 as well (since I mostly only log Nim on to raid or run an instance now, Ribs tends to stay in the stables these days – I use a ravager as a DPS pet, and Kosh does the job for farming and dailies as well, so I tend not to worry about switching pets)
Whoops, forgot to finish that first paragraph: “Changes between early beta builds and later beta builds tend to be far less of an issue in the long run than actual changes between one expansion and the next – the number of people that are even going to be aware of the former is pretty small relative to the total number of people that are going to get the new expansion”.
Nim, I don’t get you. All the time you talk about Charge it’s as if you’re always inside the 25 yards range to use it, and that it’s always off the cooldown. That doesn’t make any sense at all. We can easily kill mobs within 5 seconds, maybe 10 at most, that leaves a good ammount of time where Charge is on cooldown. When I still had my Boar I could kill 3 to 4 enemies before Charge was up for use again.
I’m not saying Tenacity pets shouldn’t have Charge, as it is a good skill, but removing Dash from them is a bad decision. It’s the same thing as when they removed Charge from the Boars. I don’t understand why you can’t see this.
And you’re flat out wrong about all Boar user only chosing Charge. This is completely false. All hunters I know that use Boars in PvP use both Dash and Charge on manual cast to use one or the other depending on the situation.
I posted something about this on the forums. I’m not going to repeat myself. However, I have always wondered why don’t they get rid of Dash/Dive from the talent trees and just make it an automatic trainable?
Charge is more likely to be off cooldown than Dash (25 second CD vs 30 second CD).
I don’t think I’m ever going to convince you that Charge isn’t as bad as you think it is, and you definitely aren’t going to convince me that Dash is so much better that losing it in favour of Charge is somehow a huge nerf to Tenacity pets, so I think we’re at the point where we’ll just have to agree to disagree and abide by the arbiter’s (i.e. Blizzard’s) decision :)
Oops, got a little confused between responding to Seidoyumi and Shinryu with that last post. Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that since we have fundamentally different assessments of the relative value of Dash and Charge, we aren’t going to convince each other to change our minds (I rate the two abilities as roughly equivalent in overall utility and effectiveness, so I see replacing Dash with Charge as a nice flavour improvement for the Tenacity tree, while others greatly prefer Dash to Charge, thus seeing the proposed change as a major nerf for Tenacity pets).
From a game design point of view, Charge was also the only truly unique ability boars provided in TBC, so if someone deliberately went out to tame a boar for its skills rather than its looks, then it was most likely to be for Charge rather than Gore or Dash. Since Tenacity pets should definitely have Intervene, that means Blizzard are left with the options of giving boars Dash+Intervene, Charge+Intervene or Charge+Dash+Intervene. I think the last one would make the Tenacity tree’s mobility too good, and the first one would upset anyone that tamed their boar specifically for the immobilise effect from Charge. I see the second option as being the one which makes the best trade-off between preserving the existing flavour of boar pets, while still making sure the Tenacity tree pets have reasonable mobility.
First an off-topic note; I’m so darn happy tallstriders are ferocity. They’re getting better than cats (Dust Cloud seems better than Prowl to me)!
Back to charge.
I’ve had a boar for 1 year now. He’s a lovely yellow fellow named Piggy, and I’ve had him since I was lvl 49.
I don’t know what to think about charge. Before the nerf, I always used Piggy. I went to instances with him, I grinded with him, and if I had PvP’ed, it would probably be with Piggy too.
Now after the nerf, he’s been living permanently in the stable.
So here’s my suggestion; Since tenacity pets ARE tanking pets, I can’t see the problem in getting an aggro buff from charge. Plus, it doesn’t affect other players or PvP, so no ones gonna whine (No one with their brain in the right place, that’s it)
The arbitrary-ness of the new pet talent trees are huge. They are trying to give one talent tree for each pet type where they should give us 2 seperate and divergent trees with alot more options.
A general tree with the “common” talents such as Stamina, Resistance, Dive/Dash/Charge, Avoidance, Cobra Reflexes, and Lion Hearted. This talent tree could be expanded for general use.
This would allow the family trees to be expanded much more and give us more choices. Forcing us to use a certain number of points in the general tree before being able to spec into the specialized tree is a real option. I just do not find this system much better than the old system. We have more trainables, but limitations to pets are even worse now than they were before.
Dweezil, how long have you been playing WoW? Once upon a time, many, many pets had different attack speeds. Cats in general attacked faster then any other pet, with Broken Tooth clocking in at a one second attack speed. Drove casters nuts. All pets ARE getting unique family abilities. Believe me, after three years of pets having mostly nothing, this change is so huge, and so welcome its not even funny.
Greetings,
im can say that charge into tenacity tree is good thing, im thinking of getting myself a crab and charge -> pinch -> intimidation while nuking the mob. I dont think losing aggro will be a problem with something like that.
Pally,
I’ve been around long enough to know that pets used to have different attack speeds. That’s why I brought up The Rake and Death Flayer. What I mean by giving pets the abilites they had when the were wild is, give them the faster attack speeds, give the back shadow damage if their attack had it. Ee=ven spiders, in the wild, have several poison attacks. Give them than skill when tamed. Give the game some variaty and let the pets keep all the skills they had when they were wild.
I was one of those hunters who used boars for soloing at 70; that is, until they got the nerf bat. I was so furious, that was the day I canceled my WoW sub. I soloed a lot, almost every day and he was my right hand pet for that. No other pet could hold a candle to him. I still have him in my stables in the hopes they will rise to glory again. Maybe, just maybe, this will do it.
I had to get a bird for their screech-spam to replace him. It’s still not the same. Depending upon the mob, I still have to concuss, intimidate, FD, all that ridiculous stuff I NEVER had to do with my boar; all that stuff that just eats up our precious mana anyway. I am happy to hear of these changes and when I return with WoLK, this is the first thing I will look into. Everyone in my guild knew that me and my boar were *the* soloing team. I look forward to that companionship and butt wiggle again.
By the way, I’ve played a hunter for over 3 yrs now and no pet ever impressed me as much as the boar.
Nimizar – And their descision is “oops no tenacity pets” afaik. The movement issue, the “hey there’s fire, I need to recall oops its only going 130%” issue, picking up the -2- mobs charging all over the place…
Your choices are up to you, but in “fixing” Boars (reproducing an old bug) they’ve removed any chance I’ll be using one to OT, which I was looking foward to.
Boars > All Tenacity Pets per Blizz. *sigh*
Nim-
I remember a time before Boars had Dash. People complained until they were given it.
There are mechanics in place now that make it so that you can’t do Charge and then Dash. Those mechanics may have caused some grumbling, but it didn’t cause an all out revolt. What it ultimately did was force people into choosing whether they wanted Charge or Dash, but not both. Since most battles last only a short time (in terms of solo encounters), one or the would not come into action. I suspect that a lot of people with Ferocity pets will choose to have either Charge or Dash, but not both.
@Seidouyumi
I have and use a boar, cat, bat. I LOVE my boar’s charge, the root effect alone makes it better than dash/dive, how many time’s do you see a pet dash/dive at a target and they do the little positioning dance all across the screen. Well you don’t see that with the boar’s charge, and I don’t know what server you play on but on the 2 servers i play on Uther, and Argent Dawn, I see a TON of people running around with boar pet’s, so I have no clue where you are coming up with your arguments. Oh and BTW I aslo have a warrior and never have that pathing issue you are talking about with charge.
Interesting to see the opinions fly on a topic like this, but nice to see that no one takes it personal =)
My two cents: I won’t tame anything that doesn’t have dive or dash (after lvl 31, and unless I have already learned it). It is the 1st talent I currently train when leveling a new pet on a lower level alt. That said, I’ve had boars a couple of times and can say that I’m neutral on the whole charge debate. That said, I have to also state that I’m definitely partial to dash/dive because it will work on more than one mob while it’s active. Whether farming or just wanting to take down 2-3 at the same time when I know I can, I can hit dash/dive to the 1st mob while still running in to firing range, then send my pet to the 2nd (and possibly the third or more, depending on what it is). Maybe a better way to describe it is to say imagine running a lowbie guild member through VC or WC without having dash/dive….ugh. Yes, I can take the hits fine, but why pay for the repair bill when my cat (usually what i use for that type of play) can run around an entire section for 16 seconds collecting everything then bring them back to my trap for me?? I realize most of us don’t do that on a regular basis, it was an attempt to exaggerate the point…works for farming hides in Nagrand or motes or whatever.
I, for one, am thrilled to see that every pet is now going to get some type of speed boost. Sooooo many pets just don’t get used because they are too slow. Period.
One final note…on my server, it’s true I do not see much variety in pets when looking just at Shatt and IQD. Cats, Ravagers, Raprots, a few owls and carrion birds, and fewer Warp Stalkers and Wind Serpants and that’s about it (except for the occasional novelty serpant or spider). Rarely see boars, but then again, think of how many bears you see in the mid-teens & 20′s that you don’t see at the top end. I think their utility just wears out for the majority of players over time, and in the end, most hunters want a pet the delivers the DPS.
Having said all that, that you all for sharing your thoughts and opinions on this (and all the other) forums. I usually learn something most of the time I read here, and even if it’s something small or trivial, it’s still something new =) You guys do an awesome job, even when things get a little contested like this topic, of being one of the ‘smarter’ WoW associated forums…I have much respect for many of you regular posters.
Malroth-
It happens a lot less these days, but I still occasionally get ‘no valid path to object’ messages when I try to charge at a mob.
In my opinion, Dash is better than Charge. I’m gonna spend that “1″ Point in Dash. Charge only does *1* attack, like someone said before. Why waste a valuable Point on that, when I can really use it to add a 2nd Point for my (Ferocity) pet’s Great Stamina (after maxing out all the DpS Talents for it)?
I think, as Sgt. Colon persists in saying, reached an imp-arse.
There are those of us who feel that Dash is better than Charge, and those who feel that Charge is better than dash. There are those who think that Dash is as good as Charge, and a few who think that neither are all that spectacular.
I prefer my compromise. We make them both automatic and everyone can choose what they want. We then replace those two slots with buffs to those skills that fit the trees.
Am I the only one who reads “we will change the Boars back to benifiting from charge as well” as them making it stack with growl? Or was there an issue with the boars not getting their pittance of AP from it and that is what they are fixing? I am not in on the Beta so IDK what the new mechanics are.
@Crimsontusk: in some of the earlier beta builds (before the pet talent trees came out), the boar family skill “Gore” indicated that it would do triple damage immediately after the boar used Charge. When the talent trees came out, this was changed to doing double damage while under the effects of Dash (since boars couldn’t Charge). I took GC’s comment to mean that they were going to change Gore back to something resembling the triple-damage-after-Charge version in the build that switches Dash for Charge in the Tenacity tree.
@Bunkey: Like you, I will only tame pets that have a movement speed increase that allows them to close quickly with the target, but unlike you I will accept any of Dash, Dive and Charge as filling that role. I think the fact that every single pet will have one of those 3 skills available at level 20 in Wrath is brilliant.
I still want a two-headed dog exotic.
Nim, why I’m always replying to you is not because I think Dash is better than Charge, nor that I want Tenacity pets to have Dash instead of Charge, I want them to have BOTH of them. And yet you still reply to me as if I think Dash is everything and Charge is worthless. Why you do that, I have no idea. =(
Still, I agree with you that Charge and Warp are way too similar. I’m still gathering up my ideas for that pet and what to do with it. Didn’t think I had to do so much brainstorming to come up with something good.
Sei, I think that is a wonderful idea. Making all pets auto learn Dash/Dive and Charge/Swoop at level 20 would solve all problems. People who prefer one over the other can just turn off one of them. This would give us a lot more configuration for our pet’s movement skills. Every one would be happy and the fighting would stop.
I decided to check to see if Warp Stalkers did anything other than Warp and this is what I came up with. It specifically relates to the Warp Chasers in Netherstorm. I don’t know if there are too many venemous pets in the game right now, but this is what they do:
Venomous Bite: Spits poison on its target, inflicting 300 – 400 Nature damage, then 39 additional Nature damage every 2 sec. for 10 sec. This ability seems to go away after tamed.
This way, at lvl 20, it would be an automatic training in Charge/Swoop/Warp and Dash/Dive
Another thing, maybe add in another pet, exotic or not, that can warp so that Warp Stalkers don’t get two unique skills.
@Shinryu: the question is whether people perceive a significant enough difference between having Dash+Intervene (current beta build) and Charge+Intervene (future beta build) to render Tenacity pets unusable. Having used a boar with only Charge trained for 10 levels and quite a few battlegrounds at 70 (before switching to a Skettis cat and then a Nethermine ravager), my opinion is that it doesn’t make any significant difference to the overall viability of Tenacity pets, but there have been quite a few people posting saying they think this change will render every Tenacity pet completely useless. (I thought you were one of them, but as it appears you weren’t, I apologise for thinking that – I must have mistaken someone else’s comment as being yours).
Nim, I still think it’s a nerf, but really not to the extent of making them worthless. If I ever did say that some place somewhere, it was probably out of frustration. I do however look forward to seeing pets like Gorillas and Crocolisk charge at their target. Oh and Rhinos too. That’s going to be fun.
Sei, I was thinking something more along the lines of a skill that could help them tank better. While that bite is nice, I know it won’t do anything on anture immune mobs. =/
Think of charge this way, I’ve used both charge & dash. Granted Dash does last longer, but when leveling charge is great for instant threat on a mob. Even not being BM, & using a boar with Gore turned off. After the intial charge & growl, I was unable to pull aggro until about the last 2-3 shots, bye then it was to late for the mob. If the fight lasts long enough usually the boar would charge from the one mob, to the one that began attacking me, basically instantly moving him from one spot to another. Dash & Charge being on the same CD I always thought it would be cool if a boar could dash up to charge range, then charge the rest of the way in, allowing them to get to their target way faster then is normally possible, making it a nice combo. Functionality on it though is that it can be a pain in pvp not having dash b/c dash can if your pet is still alive be used to go after that pesky druid in travel form running circles around the ring until he can drink again. In a way the loss of dash is a hard loss b/c it can be used more then just once, but with charge we do get a better tanking mechanic for initial threat generation I honestly would prefer a choice, & seperate cd’s but only b/c I see the potential gained from moving great distances instantly with your pet. :P
“Granted Dash does last longer, but when leveling charge is great for instant threat on a mob.”
Ok, I’ll have to repeat myself on this one. In caps too. And also using one word per line. Hopefully it will get the message across.
CHARGE
DOESN’T
GIVE
A
MASSIVE
THREAT
BOOST
FROM
GROWL
ANYMORE
!
There. While yes having Tenacity pets get Charge is nice, it will NEVER give them extra threat like it used to do. Blizzard nerfed this. Hard. It will get a lil threat from the attack power buff for the next attack after Charge though, but nothing compared to 5~6k threat. Right now a Gorilla’s Thunderstomp looks like the best snap aggro move of all the skills the other Tenacity pets are getting.