I’m exhausted. I have 257 messages in my inbox (12 of which I haven’t even read yet), including copious comments from the last several posts here. I have 496 unread posts in Google Reader, including 146 from my own forums. My legs are killing me and my feet have (rather ominously) gone numb. After three nights crammed in a tiny hotel room my husband is barely talking to me, and somehow I still feel slightly hung over from last night’s SOE party (what do they put in those drinks?!) …
… and Blizzard is updating the Public Test and Beta Realms. What, are they trying to kill me?
I’ll do what I can to get caught up tonight and relay any interesting news — both from the new builds and from the comments, e-mails, and posts I have yet to read through. But in the worst case, if I just plain pass out here on the floor … well, I’m flying home tomorrow. We may have to pick up the pieces afterwards.
Thanks for being so patient with me while I fumble through!
Wonder what the spirit beast is… sounds like a cat of some sort though. Hopefully its a ghosty pet. And if its an exotic cat, well, that may bring me back to the cat family XD
Poor Mania, hope your enjoying the Blizzard..thingie.
I wonder if they will put Blighthounds under the Spirit Beast tree…
I’ll put money on it being the spirit wolves, and other ghosty beasts. Have to say its a bit of a crowd pleaser pet to put in if it is. And for the hunters that worked so hard to get the first one, especially if it is your main pet man it must hurt. Also again “if” it is a little bit disapointing that its just an other now tamable pet rather than a whole new pet like the rhinos. Still not totally bad an other new pet to mix up the jungle of core hounds and devilsaurs :D
It will be disappointing if it IS ghost wolves, seeing as I did work my butt off for mine, but I wont be TOO sad. Cause if it was, maybe it could actually run XD
I’m going to assume it’s some sort of super cat though. What’s a cat-like untameable beast O_o
Actually to recap on my comment, I was jumping to conclusions a bit. So I’m hoping that I can give the benefit of the doubt to Blizz and hope it is a new pet. Crazier things have happened!
yea seen the spirit beast with exotic tag. Im hoping for that metal looking tiger that we seen very early on, and haven’t seen it since :) should be a cat though since it has prowl, I wonder if they decided on what they want prowl to do yet!?
Awww. Hey Mania, don’t push yourself D: I can e-mail you with anything I find that’s new for the PTRS!
taken from the beta hunter forum post regarding spirit beast
” Still don’t know what this is.
- Mana Wyrms untamable
- Newer Mana Wyrm model untamable
- Old Grimtotem Spirit Guide is still a wolf
…”
re: Spirit Beasts = see http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?pet=46 – Wowhead have them with a list of learnable skills – including claw, prowl and “spirit strike” that seems to be an arcane damage DoT. All very mystifying
Hmm, time to go taming and see what’s what…
*sigh* I need to get out of Northrend, something is bugging out the world server again :P
10 second CD on Thunderstomp confirmed (thanks to an Elder Mistvale Gorilla).
Also did a quick check on stamina scaling without any hunter or pet talents on my level 80 premade (level 75 gorilla – the one I just tamed to check Thunderstomp):
Naked:
Hunter stamina 131 (listed as increasing Gorilla health by 39, or just under 30%)
Gorilla stamina 392 (listed as 334 + 58, suggesting 45% stamina scaling)
Gorilla health 5755
Add cloak (+73 stamina):
Hunter stamina 204 (listed as increasing Gorilla health 61, still just under 30%)
Gorilla stamina 425 (334 + 91, there’s that 45% again)
Gorilla health 6118
Health difference: 363
Stamina difference: 33 (look, 45% again, since the cloak had 73 stamina!)
That looks fairly conclusive to me: hunter pet health scaling just got a big buff.
I’ll check this holds for cunning and ferocity pets as well.
In regards to the ranged freezing trap mentioned further above:
Something like that could prove to be quite useful, depending on whether or not it…
A) Shares a cooldown with freezing trap.
B) Telegraphs the target location to enemy players in PvP the way us bending over does now.
Not to mention that, instead of trapping things running towards us, it also gives us the potential to trap things running AWAY from us, like say, for instance, a Rogue who’s decided he’s going to lose, or a PvE enemy that’s heading towards the healer or running towards a group of adds.
Grabbed a cat in STV as well:
Heart of the Phoenix CD problems appear to have been fixed (you can dismiss and recall the pet without restarting the CD)
Stamina numbers were the same as the gorilla’s (again suggesting 45% stamina scaling)
Health numbers were obviously lower: 5840 with the cloak, 5494 without (so also still 10.5 health per point of stamina)
I’ve been playing with the new freezing arrow while taming pets: it is indeed on the shared trap cooldown, animation is like a blue version of Flare (i.e. really obvious), and the projectile speed is also similar (i.e. really slow). There’s also still a brief arming time for the trap after the projectile lands.
It’s tricky enough using it to trap patrolling PvE mobs, I can’t imagine being able to hit a player with it unless they have been stunned or disoriented first So it looks like scatter->trap will still be the order of the day in PvP (although there are technically other pet-based options like pin->trap, ravage->trap, sonic blast->trap, web->trap, venom web->trap).
Hopefully the missle speed/arming time is still something that can be tweaked…
Hang in there
Fully configurable pet bar is at least partially implemented (i.e. attack/follow/stay/aggressive/passive/defensive can all be rearranged on the pet bar, but they can’t be removed yet – which is a good thing, since they aren’t in the pet spellbook to be restored if you did remove them!)
Grabbed a spider to check out Cunning pets, and found Web is down to a 40 second cooldown (far more reasonable!)
The Cunning tree has had a few changes: Owl’s Focus moved to Tier 2, Roar of Recovery increased as noted above and no longer has any prerequisites, Wolverine Bite prerequisite changed to Avoidance. This does mean the tree now suffers from the same problem as the Ferocity tree in relation to the BM 51-point talent (i.e. you can get all the best DPS talents with 16 talent points), but it makes for a much better tree. Using a Cunning pet is still going to require taking the Mend Pet Glyph for in-combat happiness recovery though.
I checked a Wolf as well, and can confirm the fixes to Furious Howl, and the various adjustments to the talents in the Ferocity tree.
Kinda sad to see the effect of Seperation Anxiety gone. I liked the animation, just not how it spammed the effect a million times. Oh well, not that bad =)
Should probably put some of this on the forums, but eh, this is the page I have open :)
Checked some new bests:
Sinewy Wolf, level 78, Crystalsong Forest – tamable, grey worg model
http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?npc=31233
Carrion Fleshstripper, forgot to check exact level, Icecrown Glacier, – not tamable
http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?npc=30206
Only beasts I am aware of in those two zones.
Aaaaaaand, there goes the Northrend world server again – might be a hint that it is past time for me to head to bed :)
We now return you to your regularly scheduled liveblogging host, Mania (well, once she gets back from Austin).
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@Nimizar
Don’t forget that, according to the current health formula, the family modifier is applied to the hunter’s stamina contribution, so unless they changed the formula, the contribution is increased, so it wouldnt be exactly 45%. I can’t wait to do some more research tonight! =)
Also note, Grace of the mantis is no longer 4 dodge and 4 hit, but 4% chance to not be critically hit
youre thanking us for being patient?! man, we should be thanking YOU for putting up with all this! again, as im sure youre tired of hearing, thank your for going through hell to supply us with wrath ptr/beta/misc. info. it is much, much appreciated. i hope your feelin better. /hug.
remember the sunwell!! (sorry, i couldnt help it)
@Ihlos: the pet family health modifier is applied to the Stamina-> health conversion, not directly to the pet’s stamina. The reason my figures don’t give exactly a 45% conversion for the new stamina conversion (or 30% for the old conversion) is just due to some fairly sizable rounding errors when working with such relatively small Stamina numbers.
The family health modifiers can be seen in action with the addition of the cloak:
33 stamina -> 363 health for the gorilla (11 health per stamina)
33 stamina -> 346 health for the cat (10.5 health per stamina)