Caster Stats: I Spoke Too Soon?
While checking out pet stats (at least the ones that display on the pet panel) in the current beta build, I noticed something unfortunate: my warp stalker was missing about 3% of his damage. His armor and health was exactly what I expected, compared to other Tenacity pets, but his white DPS was only 97% of the expected value.
This pet was a Warp Stalker, an ‘ex-caster’ from Terokkar Forest, tamed by a level 70 in the beta and auto-leveled to 65. So I headed back to the Forest to tame a Warp Hunter, a non-caster warp stalker, and see if all warp stalkers had low damage. (I know Palladiamors mentioned in a comment that rhinos seem to be behind the curve on stats. I haven’t had time to check that out yet, but if rhinos are then maybe warp stalkers as well.)
But no — the tamed Warp Hunter had completely normal stats, including damage, as compared to other Tenacity pets. … Which left me with the tentative hypothesis that ex-casters are not as ex- as we might like. So I headed to Zangarmarsh and tamed a nether ray, who was also missing about 3% of his expected damage although all his other stats were fine. Finally I journeyed to the Barrens and tried a Thunderhawk … also missing about 3% of expected DPS.
*sigh*
Now I could have sworn that last time when I checked casters, all their stats were normal. So is it just me? Am I doing something weird here? Or did I somehow neglect to check DPS when I checked their ‘fixed’ stats before? Can other beta and PTR hunters verify this for me? (And keep in mind that when you first tame a pet, their displayed white DPS is often wonky. Dismissing and recalling them will fix it.)
In the worst case, if casters do still have lower than normal damage, I believe that Blizzard will likely fix it — since they said they wanted to fix casters a while back and did, mostly. And I should point out that in the very worst case, if they don’t get these fixed before Wrath launches, that missing 3% of white damage is still an awful lot better than missing 5% to 20% of armor, health, and DPS. But it still isn’t ideal.
40 Comments
first post, and sigh
=/
I was really looking forward to no caster pets
:(
Yeah. As much as I enjoy the challenge of taming elites inside instances, it would have been nice to know that the elusive skins from the “casters” would be that much easier to obtain. I too hope that this gets fixed. An improvement is a bit better than none, so there’s still hope…
Did you /bug it in game Mania?
Oh no! Am I gonna have to drag my guild into Slave Pens so I can sit there and “Tame Pet”? *sigh*
Oh well…one question: are you absolutely sure that the only missing stat was 3% DPS, no other missing stats, not more DPS? Because if so, that’s still a big improvement!
I guess they should keep in the caster idea, when they once did it at all. You know, the 3% damage is nothing THAT horrible, and it adds more variety.
Non-caster(green) windserpent from 1k needles, autoleveled to 60, no dps talents
http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh65/Sukulatae/noncaster.jpg
Caster windserpent(white) same deal
http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh65/Sukulatae/caster.jpg
on a side note, the skin is bugging out, I put in a bug report already. Although the black on their heads and wings looks pretty cool.
Hm.. Oh well.. Still, it won’t stop me from getting my Azzere ;)
Any chance we can stop it with the whole “first post” plague that seems to have spread here? :S Seriously, no one cares!
Anyway, back to the point, that’s a pity. Hopefully it’s just due some more tweaking to get things evened out. Otherwise it’ll make the whole thing quite inconsistent.
9th post! Woot!
Oh….wait….
Kitairra
So, one question here: is the loss of 3% damage the *only* difference between these ‘new Caster’ pets and the other ones oftheir type? If so, I’d definitely /bug it. Because at least with the other Caster pets, they had considerably larger intellect and spirit scores. It wasn’t a lot of help, but at least there *was* more of one thing and less of another.
What about these new ‘casters’? If the *only* thing there is is a loss of DPS, and no counterbalancing gain somewhere else, I’d say that it’s a bug and should be mentioned.
All the other stats were identical on the 2 wind serpents I tamed.
It sounds like they’re still working out the kinks. There are still a lot of little issues I’ve run into with pets, so don’t be surprised if things aren’t perfect yet.
Aww! =( I hope they fix this so I can use my favorite Dragonhawk! I’ve had him since lvl 10! Oh well at least he’s mostly fixed. =P
Here is the Dragonhawks on beta, one is from eversong woods, the other from shadowmoon valley. The only difference is the damage but everything else has stayed the same.
http://i402.photobucket.com/albums/pp106/Matt3788/DragHawk3.jpg
http://i402.photobucket.com/albums/pp106/Matt3788/DragHawk.jpg
i don’t think i want to live anymore.
Boarwood: It’ll be okay. Really it will!
Sukulatae & Mattias: Thank you very much for the confirmation! Now at least I know I’m not crazy. :>
Nimizar: I didn’t /bug it last night. It was late, I was tired, and I honestly thought I might be wrong. I’m logging in now to do that, and I’ll hit the bug report forums as well. (The new PTR forum helper is really quite thorough.)
(I am also really looking forward to getting hit and crit chance on the pet panel so we can verify those as well.)
Blaurgh, confirmed. I could have sworn they were reading the same, though. 3% isn’t a whole lot, at least, its not the plague that was old caster stats.
Rhinos don’t have mana bars, so they are even more wonky. They almost seem to have straight out old caster stats, which is uber weird considering they are new pets. I’ll fill out a bug report in a bit.
AAWWWWW MAAAAN!!!! i wanted a Nether Ray /cry i really hope it’s just a bug (though i s’pose it is JUST 3% it’s not THAT low Hunters can make that up with well timed stings and volleys [two things i am luckily good at :)])
Sukulatae: the black is just a glitch with the game files, I had the same glitch a year or so ago (check kobold whiskers, they should have some black hairs mixed in, or be mostly black). Only way I know to fix it is by doing a reinstall, or you can keep it if you like how it looks.
im am doing an online post. which humanoid should be playable?
Alliace: Horde:
Arrokoa tuskarr
etherals centaurs
I agree that while this stinks about the casters still being slightly inferior (sorry if my spelling is off), but 3% is definetely better than it used to be. Suppose they’re a little harder to balance with normal pets than we had assumed it would be. I’m sure if enough hunters report it, Blizz will work on it.
Thanks Snow, it’s just on the PTR so I’m not gonna worry about it for now. Nice to know I’m not going nuts though lol. I don’t understand why on taming they don’t just make each pet type revert to a base set of stats that’s linked to the family name. There’s probably some complicated reason I’m sure, but man would that make life easier! And at pet level 60 the difference was only 4 dps, which isn’t huge by any means. With scaling and good gear(I’m in quest greens still) it’ll be a little worse, but in a raid situation I’m sure it would be hard to notice, and soloing would be no different. That’s less than one autoshot worth of damage.
There are still a lot of bugs in the system. For one thing, Blizz has a bit of a problem with Bad Attitude right now. So, I think this will get fixed.
@Mania: Wasp Stalkers? =P
@Sei: What’s the problem with Bad Attitude? I didn’t notice anything with it so far. O_o;
It hasn’t been showing up on the combat log or the floating combat text. I’ve reported it as a bug. It’s also on the old cooldown timer. Of course, this was a lvl 21 Croc.
I also realized that this might be why I’ve had some major issues with Cunning pets and soloing since the ones I’ve tamed are the old casters.
@Seidouyumi: I don’t think -3% dps would cause you “major issues”. Would you explain?
This may sound like a stupid question….but what do you use to determine the DPS and get the exact 3% reduction from before?
NeronaS-
I noticed that there were more problems with holding aggro and with burning down a like level mob on my Dragonhawk and my Windserpent when I had them. Both were casters. I tried out a Spider and had far fewer problems. All three are Cunning pets. Now, mind you, I’m at level 26 and not at lvl 70, so some of what’s going on may reflect issues at a lower level than the bulk, but I get a feeling that the 3% damage issue probably causes some issues in how well a pet does given that the boosts to those pets were wiped out with the rest of the changes.
Hi Mania,
a bit off-topic: I found a missing mob in your WORMS list:
http://petopia.brashendeavors.net/html/articles/wotlkpets.php
The level 79/80 Jormungar worms in the Hibernal Cavern (Storm Peaks) are also tameable.
*grumble at Shinryu Masaki* I think a wasp stalker would be cool …
Goofball Jones: All I am doing here is comparing the white DPS listed on the pet panel between a caster and a non-caster (of the same level, with the same character, with no skills, talents, or buffs, etc.) As I said, it doesn’t take into account skills and talents, so in the long run it might be more or less than 3% depending on the pet family. But it’s a quick and handy way to compare.
nobbie: *nod* I am having some problems getting the Wrath pets updated. Today, I hope.
Hopefully blizz notices and it gets fix’d, can’t be that hard to change a line of code…
To be honest, even if it’s not fixed past the 3%, it’s still much better than what it used to be. Mostly as I remember on a lowbie belf, I tamed a dragonhawk, cause I just >wanted to< but then at lv 20 had to go tame a tallstrider to finish take down Luzran and Knucklerot as my poor ‘hawk kept dying before the mob could be kited enough :/
I can live with a decrease of dps if bliz doesn’t touch the pets anymore, as they are now viable, and not completely crippled.
But; I like others are hopeful that it is fixed, because it’d make all pets even/equal and you won’t get snobbed for not having the next ‘Brokentooth’.
What races should be playable?
Nagas and possibly ogres.
And if they don’t fix caster pets, I’m going to be very annoyed.
Ogres have been nixed by Blizz. Expect that the Furbolg will be playable eventually, and maybe Goblins.
Bug it. This shit can’t be working as intended.
As for playable races, Goblins should’ve been playable before Blood Elves, but I guess they weren’t ‘pretty’ enough. It seems like the BC races were intended solely to extend the aesthetic of the ‘other side’ to their counterparts to get people to switch sides.
Heh, bingo, Infares. The horde had whined forever about all their races being ugly, so TBC addressed that. Though I don’t nessecarily think that goblins should ever be playable. See, in a lore standpoint, goblins are plain out and old neutral. Cities like Booty Bay, Ratchet, and Gadgetzan are proof of this. However, some where along the way Blizzard felt like the horde needed a ‘gnome’ equivilant, so they aligned a goodly number of goblins with or for the horde. Thats why the horde have zepplins.
Course, that SHOULD mean that alliance transportation would be gnomish subs, but if there is one thing I have learned, its don’t expect fair treatment between horde and alliance.
Palla-
It’s actually a long standing discussion I had on the WoW suggestion forum. First of all, only the Steamweedle Cartel is Neutral, and not the other Cartels. It could easily be created that two different Cartels had chosen to allign with both sides and thus, both sides could have Goblins so long as there was a way around the language issue.
I don’t think it will be okay Mania… I was so looking forward to being able to have all those options…
On an unrelated note, how does one get one of those nifty little pictures in their frame rather than the “no picture” picture?
Rofl Mania, did you see GC’s response to your caster thread, and then the very next comments? I bout fell out of my chair laughing…
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