I edited this into the previous post on the topic, but this news really deserves its own post.
Yesterday Ghostcrawler responded to the feedback thread she started on pet talents with a list of changes that will be in upcoming builds, based directly on our feedback. In addition, she is now seeking feedback on pet skills, especially pet family skills, in the same thread. So if you are in beta and you haven’t already given your feedback, head on over there now!
Here are some changes you’ll see next build or so. I may have forgotten some.
– Taunt no longer shares a cooldown with Growl and Cower.
– Avoidance, not Great Resistance, is the prereq for Wolverine Bite.
– We are still trying to rework Heart of the Phoenix to get around the shortcomings.
– Tenacity and Ferocity pets lost their armor multiplier but it was given to all pets at base. The net effect is that Cunning pets won’t be at a stat deficit compared to the other trees.
– Roar of Recovery provides more mana.
– Lick Your Wounds now with faster licking technology.
– Carrion Feeder cooldown dropped to 30. We can’t easily change the range because this spells uses the same tech as the undead racial.
– Focus cost removed from Bullheaded.
– Not directly talent-related, but rather than reworking Prowl, cats got a second damage ability, Rake. It felt odd for them to shift from most desired pet to one of the least desired.As far as who belongs to which tree, those decisions were made largely based on the pet special ability, not what ecologically makes more sense with the tree’s theme. Strong CC or other PvP-useful abilities were generally given the Cunning tree, just because we didn’t also want to see those same pets as the most popular when raiding or soloing. The goal is to have a lot more options about which pet you’re going to bring. With the Cunning stat change and tree rework, hopefully that will include those animals as well.
Rather than start another thread, feel free to talk about any of the pet family abilities (Rake, Web, Poison Spit etc.) as well within this one.
I’d like to bring up a point I didn’t notice anyone else mention… I use a warp stalker often, and warp is fairly well as circumstantial a skill as prowl, in that its really only good once per fight to get it started. The skill has no use after the fight is under way. So if cats get an extra skill, what about warp stalkers… but then if we add in that I’m sure MANY hunters would want just about every pet to get some sort of extra little something. The more I think about it, the more I like Manias idea of putting the skill into the talent tree.