RFC: Bats & Sonic Blast
RFC stands for “Request For Comments” — which basically means that I need your help (again!). I’m getting a lot of questions about the pros and cons of each pet family and in particular the pet family skills. But there’s no way that I really test all the pet families in every situation myself, so I want to hear about your experiences with them! (And yes, with 32 pet families this could take awhile.)
Today’s RFC: The Bat family and the Sonic Blast pet skill.
Now we know some things about bats haven’t changed: They have big flappy wings — which can be either a plus or a negative in different situations — and they look really cool. Their diet had broadened out to include meat, which didn’t use to be the case, so there’s one problem taken care of.
But the biggest questions will always be: Are bats any good? Is Sonic Blast any good? Should I use a bat? Or alternatively: When should I use a bat? What are bats best at?
So please, if you’ve had any experience hunting with bats in a post-Patch 3.0 world, take a moment to comment and let me know what you think. In particular, I’d like to know:
- What are the pros and cons of bats in general?
- What are the pros and cons of Sonic Blast in particular?
- Are bats particularly good (or bad) for soloing, grouping, raiding, PvP, tanking, damage-dealing, etc?
- What talents do you suggest for bats? Are there any required talents, or talents you should definitely skip?
- Do you know any clever strategies for hunting with bats, or are there any particular gotchas to watch out for?
- Would you recommend a bat?
(These are just guideline questions — you need’t try to address each one in turn.)
I’m especially looking for input from people who have been hunting with bats for the past couple of weeks (since Patch 3.0), but even if you haven’t, feel free to throw if your theorycrafting — just let us know whether your advice is based on experience or spreadsheets (or both)!
This post will remain here as a reference for the future, and additionally I’ll try to distill the basics down into a brief summary for use on Petopia.
As always, thanks for your help!
35 Comments
First post! flap flap flap sonic blast, weres the hunter?
definitely a great pvp pet. making your target stay at range is a necessity for hunters. the stun is a nice interrupt too for casters. Stun is basically intimidation with nature dmg if you arnt bm spec, and if you are then two 2sec stuns, very nice.
Yeah, as Sybok mentioned.
I found the pet, as a Survival hunter, have a quite poor performance in most PvE situations. I’m not that fond of the PvE performance overall for the cunning family however so no surprises, and there’s very few situations in PvE where I have found Sonic Blast useful. I rather bring a ferocity or tenacity pet depending on what I’m supposed to do.
It was pretty nice when I tested it out in BGs however. Big flappy wings in your face is a major annoyance for your enemy (especially in smaller spaces like WSG forts and AV bunkers), and a 1min cooldown stun is nice, those 2 seconds can do alot in a sticky situation when coupled with all other escape/cc abilities a hunter has.
To be honest, I do not like the Bat pets.
Granted, I am a huge fan of the “flappers”, but the Bat itself does not give you much in terms of overall “fun” factor.
Like someone before me said, the Cunning family in general just does not have much in terms of PvE performance. Now will we see the need for things like Roar of Recovery at 80? Honestly I am not quite sure. Maybe for an MM hunter. Yet at 70 its just too difficult to see how useful this will be because mana is so plentiful that in a PvE encounter such as versus Kazrogal, Hunter mana barely moves.
I really could see a Bat being a nice PvP pet for an MM hunter, the stun is wonderful in BG’s and Arena’s but the use is limited to a PvP environment.
I got one sort of at random because a glitch hearthed my poor draenei to Tirisfal (of all places) and I assumed it was fate. Anyway…my big issue is the fact that SB has an >80< focus cost. I mean… good god. What this means is… they use it as a first shot, then you’ll never see it again. Ever.
This seems to be a bit dubious in usefulness when other ‘immobilize’ traits are on a much shorter turnaround. Now admittedly, most of them don’t actually /interrupt/ but there’s no real chance that the mob is going to be in mid cast the instant you engage them.
I think this COULD be very useful, but only if they drop the focus cost down to 20 like the others.
Nachtwulf: To the best of my knowledge, Sonic Blast no longer has a focus cost. Or am I confused?
What are the pros and cons of bats in general? I have 2 hunters with a bat; One is a now retired ex-twink, the other is a character I’m lvling naked/without weapons. When I was lvling the ex-twink, it was before 3.0.2, so I can’t really say the pros and cons in general, but I’ll try..
The big wings are a big pro in PvP. I’ve had many hordes running around, trying to target me, but with a bat in their face, they kept clicking on its wing. In instances it might be annoying, but I haven’t heard any complains about it yet. As for my naked hunter, well, any pet would be good to her :P
What are the pros and cons of Sonic Blast in particular? I don’t really like it. Sure, it’s a stun and all, but its on a 2min cd, and it costs 80 focus! So you certainly shouldn’t tame one for that skill.
Are bats particularly good (or bad) for soloing, grouping, raiding, PvP, tanking, damage-dealing, etc? As said before, they are good in PvP. I guess SB could come handy too, but most of the times, your pet won’t have enough focus when you need it. In high-lvl instances, the bat would’ve grown so big that it would be a major annoyance.
What talents do you suggest for bats? Are there any required talents, or talents you should definitely skip? My cunning pets always get Carrion Feeder, just so I don’t need to feed ‘em anymore :P Then I’d recommand avoidance/wolverine bite (I’ve had my chimera critting for 1100 with that. I think that is much for a pet!) and roar of recovery. Cobra reflexes isn’t a must for pvp anymore, since they kinda removed pushback.
Do you know any clever strategies for hunting with bats, or are there any particular gotchas to watch out for? Well, none of my bathunters are ‘normal’ hunters, so I gotta pass on this.
Would you recommend a bat? If you like the bat model, then go for it! But you shouldn’t get one for SB. If you want a cunning stunning pet, then I’d recommend a ravager.
EDIT; Correct, SB is focus-free now. But a ravager is still better, since it’s stun got a shorter cooldown :3
The bats stun is ranged though, the Ravagers is not.
And its 1min CD vs 40sec CD.
Havnt tried it, but it looks quite nice for pvp as others said.
When they make an exotic flavor of bat, then perhaps the bat ability will be worth more than it currently is. The stun is not long enough to justify the long cooldown. The model is one of my favorites, but I abandoned my bat for better cc from other pets.
I wouldn’t recommend a bat for instances. The big flappy wings in the tank’s ear and in everyone’s way for targetting are a good way to not get invited back (at least with a pug, and that might also be a positive thing with thsoe :P ). Like stated before, the big flappy wings are positive in a pvp environment.
I would pick a ravager for the stun ability myself, as they’re smaller and less flappy. Their stun is also on a shorter cooldown (and looking at the pet skills page, does more damage? My stables are too full to go test it). If you absolutely need a ranged stun, go for the bat, but otherwise I’d use a ravager.
Well since Bats are Cunning pets and their SB is a strict PvP skill, its not ment to be a raiding or tanking pet.
For PvP however it realy shines with its large wings and ranged stun.
Bats were my favorite PvP pet when they had screech, and good for keeping multiple aggro in PvE, but without screech bats are just terrible now.
I have read all the posts here and people seem to have mixed responses about the Bats, and no one has even mentioned how being a beast master effects the bats usefulness. When i had my bat he was extremely useful. In PVP if i had an alliance run faster than i could chase. He would Dash/Sonic blast, and then when he got to the, intimidate for another 2 second Stun. Extremely useful in PVP because he doesnt have to be as close as the ravager to stun. And with longevity the cool down on Sonic blast is only 40 seconds. In PVE, the same thing. Useful in Raids when trash randomly decides to target a healer and go crazy. Good to stun until the tank can pick up aggro and save us from a whipe. Bats have their usefullnenn in some situations like all pets do. But bats have a little bit of use in both sides of it. PVP and PVE. I love having my pet scream at something from 20 yards away and stun it. Make me trying to catch it a whole lot easier
Forgot to mention, after a while, you kinda forget about the flapping.
With my NE hunter, I traveled all the way to Tirisfal Glades to tame Ressan the Needler. I find that bats are great for soloing, since that’s what I usually do, and the sonic blast owns against spellcasters. I have my bat, Goliath, dive at 20. We’re currently level 23, so I may have more to say later. All in all, I find the bat to be an awesome pet choice.
Ah. Well… then they haven’t fixed the tooltip. XD
I looked at my bat just yesterday (I do have a lowbie hunter with one) and it still says 80 Focus on it. I suppose they’ll fix it eventually.
As a BM hunter, I find bats to be a pretty decent pet. However, there are several much better pets. While Blizzard tried to keep pets from being “sub-par” and keeping Hunters from using “that one pet”, some pets fell behind in the run. I find Bats and Ravagers have fallen into this pit. While they’re still good pets, and can get the job done, they don’t really do anything that another pet can’t do better.
Just my opinion
My apologies — it looks like Rank 2 of Sonic Blast does say that it has a focus cost of 80. Huh!
Lowbie bat users, I’d love to know if that’s just a tooltip bug or if the skill really uses focus at Rank 2. :>
I tamed my bat for the first time on my baby BE hunter, long before the big patch and pet overhauls. I liked him well enough, but it was after the changes that I decided to try taming him on my main, a NE hunter, for PvP. (I roll on a PvP server, so my PvP pet of choice tend to be the one who travels with me. My bear and cat pop out for either tanking or dpsing as necessary for PvE, but if I can’t get to a stable master, it’s my PvP pet who gets to go.)
I tried a number of pets on the PTR, but found that the ranged stun from sonic blast suited my style the best. I’m still not locked into him being my final choice, since tenacity pets still have much greater survivability and their tree has a large number of useful talents for keeping the pet alive that cunning pets lack. On the other hand, I am currently playing without scatter shot (will get that back at 71) and intimidation (since that’s deeper BM and I’m rolling as marks, which is my favorite spec), which means that because of the changes to imp conc shot, I’m running without any other stun abilities.
Now, I admit that my knowledge of ravagers is less than stellar. I had not tamed one on the PTR to experiment with as a PvP pet, so the only ravagers I’ve played with are from the SSO daily, and that was pre-patch. I forgot that ravagers got a stun too, so now I’m torn about whether to try one because of the 20s shorter cd or if I should stick with my bat for both sentimental reasons and the ranged stun. I’m GREATLY annoyed by pin on my crab, which also requires melee range to be triggered, but then, she’s not stunning anything either.
Arrrgh. I may have to test more, which means setting another pet free and possibly retaming him/her later. But in the end, I do love my bat and I’ll be keeping him on my BE hunter if not on my main. Thanks for starting this discussion; I had completely forgotten about ravagers, since they’re not really my kind of pet.
OK. Most of what I have observed is not from myself but other hunters. I personally am a raiding BM hunter. The skill set for cunning pets in general, and bats in particular, have made me shy away from them. I DO use a wasp and there is sometimes some issues even with their small wings. Since I do not PvP for the most part, I can not answer for that. That said, if you are raiding, I would recommend against it. That has been the general feeling from other hunters I talk to and raid with. Some hunters that I talk to who PvP, flat out love the bat. Esp for arena games. Anywho, take it for what it is worth.
Gunsnbutter Excelsior/Uther
“First post! flap flap flap sonic blast, weres the hunter?”
Keep that shit to the wow forums please. We don;t need the first post crap here.
I know my post is spam too but this need to stop
So it would appear that bats are best suited to a pvp/solo roll. I wouldn’t mind hearing a bit more on what hunters have done on their bats talent points, so far only one post has included that in detail. What about pet skills and combinations? and abilities toggled on/off?
my tauren hunter had a bat from tirisfall as his only pet all the way to 70, but I’ve had to retire it for PVE play since it lost screech. I’m not a big PVP player but he does do rather well stopping a flag carrier just enough on wsg for the rest of the team to catch up. losing screech not only loses it’s AOE tanking ability, but it survivability too as mobs are no longer get reduced attack power. avoidance/wolverinebite is a nice way to go but i find that i skip carrion feeder because i always have ample food if necessary (thx to sporregars pod).
I will miss Talyn a great deal on the trek to 80, maybe i’ll pull him out if i start PVPing more.
I loved my bat.We went through over 50 levels together.It was my absolute favorite pet.Even when everyone else said “get a boar,they hold aggro better”,I still clung to my baby.
And after the “patch” that destroyed the boar’s title of aggro king,my little pretty held aggro like gangbusters.Everyone then said “get a owl” or “get a carrion bird” since they discovered what a wonderful aggro ability Screech was.
Then came patch 3.0.Sonic Blast has made me permanently stable my bat.I don’t PvP much so I can’t speak about that with any real knowledge.
I do however PvE solo,and in that department Sonic Blast is horrible!It is too long CD for a special which is what is needed to generate threat since Growl alone is next to worthless.A two second stun every minute?That does what really?It makes bats almost totally useless in all but the most controlled situations.
I sadly do not recommend a bat as my once best buddy is now only collecting dust and taking up a stable slot.
You want to solo,get a gorilla.Just avoid the bats.You’ll be happier.
i swear if i see one more person complain about people writing “first” on their comments i’m going to eat the internet. if it bothers you, don’t do it. it’s not such a huge deal that someone else wants to alert you to the fact that they’ve made it to a forum first that you have to write out a post entirely devoted to whining about someone’s proclamation of “first”.
Well now that that’s out of my system, here’s my thoughts on bats: They’re a decent pet, but at a certain point they’re just too big. you can get away with having one in the mid-levels but once you get up to 60 or so they just take up too much screen. As a troll hunter, I had a 70 bat for a little while and I couldn’t say that I enjoyed playing with it. Its wing sliced me in half and its run animation was glitched and was just a high-powered walk animation, which got on my nerves a bit. So basically, for mid-level players they’re an interesting and fun pet but high level players will probably have trouble tolerating them.
I’ve made a post on my blog with reviews on every pet family available to lower level hunters. Testing was done in patches 3.0.2 and revised for 3.0.3.
Each review was focussed on pve utility for the pet. Cunning pets and bats in particular are generally not much good for pve but of course thats not their strong area.
I personally liked bats when they had screech. SB just doesnt cut it for pve.
blog: WoWDecrypted its currently the most recent post.
I usually play as marks and my interests are mostly pvp.
For that the “pvp” cunning pets (including bats) aren’t good in my opinion.
The right pets are the tenacity ones, especially crabs and scorpids, because we need roar of sacrifice and the increased healing on them.
I really like the bat model but I think as a pet it is really lackluster for my interests in the game. I wish we had the choice to spec our favorite pets into our preferences (tenacity-ferocity-cunning), so that we could use any model/pet the way we prefer.
Just my opinion.
Okay, this is just a checkup (I dunno if anyone’s still even reading this…)
Although Rank 2 of Sonic Blast still says it requires 80 focus, it appears to work without actually using any. Sooo… tooltip bug.
Nachtwulf: Thanks for testing that out! I appreciate it.
Choosing sonic blast will get you:
– A ranged, controlled, predictable stun. This seems obvious, but there are few if any class abilities that offer a ranged stun on command, with no random chances involved.
– Unlike Ravage, Sonic Blast cannot be dodged, blocked, or parried because it is a spell, and since your bat gains all of your +hit, its unlikely to miss targets of your level or lower. This makes it more reliable than most class stuns, which are more easily avoided.
Choosing a bat over other Cunning pets means giving up the other Cunning family abilities. By choosing Sonic Blast you are forgoing:
– A 6 second disarm (birds of prey)
– Burst damage (dragonhawks and wind serpents)
– cast time debuffs (serpents)
– counterspells (nether rays)
– melee stuns (ravagers)
– 4 second webs (spiders and silithids)
– 5 second snares (chimeras)
– AoE armor reduction (sporebats)
Now, to be fair, for the most part these abilities either do more damage, have a longer lasting debuff, or have a shorter cooldown than Sonic Blast. However, none of them (I guess excepting the flat-out damage) has the versatility of a ranged stun. Disarms and webs are less effective against casters, casting debuffs and counterspells are all but useless against melee classes, and chimeras are exotic, which limits them to a select few, dedicated, beast masters. Sonic Blast, by comparison, shuts down any class at range for those few extra seconds.
The disadvantages of Sonic Blast are essentially its lowish damage (relative to other pet specials) and its relatively long cooldown. Its not burst damage, sorry people, and once you use it, you have to do the rest yourself. Beastmasters take note, however, with 3/3 Longevity, the cooldown is only 42 seconds.
There are a number of uses for Sonic Blast beyond making your opponent hate you for stunning him.
– Pseudo-cheap shot: Take control of the first 2 seconds of a fight
– Spell interrupts: stop a heal, frostbolt, whatever. pretty basic.
– Cooldown enhancer: 2 more seconds before you can use conc shot, scatter shot, freeze trap etc…? no problem, we can do that.
– Stop runners: because we all hate it when they get out of range with 5% hp
– Oh snap: last ditch effort to get away from that pesky rogue.
* Note that you can use Sonic Blast to stun a rogue even if you yourself are stunned. This might let you get off a disengage before the stunlock continues. This is also the case with Ravage, but Sonic Blast can’t be dodged, which makes it more reliable in this case.
I used one pre-3.02 for about 30 levels on my BE (BM), haven’t touched it since – like the dragonhawk, loss of AOE = big nerf for PVE (and since I don’t do pvp, that’s all she wrote…).
I like most of what they did in 3.02 but as another poster mentioned in the Great Equalization Effort, some pets that had been holding their own, ended up a little less “equal” than others (methinks a high ranking blizzard Dev got a little over excited).
My best pet, pre-patch, was my buddy Thrombus the bat. I raided, PvEed, PvPed, did everything with him and he just rocked. After a while, it felt weird to not hear his wings beside me when I dismissed him. The wings are not a problem. I’ve had him longer than any pet I’ve ever had, and I wish I could’ve discovered him much earlier, so he is still my favorite. We are the perfect pair in every way! ^__^
However, Sonic Blast is completely useless in my opinion. I don’t even have it on auto-cast or his action bar, because it’s just annoying sometimes, especially for calculated pulls.
It made me sad to see my best friend perform so poorly, so I’m afraid to get any pet other than those in the cunning family, even though I don’t PvP much at all. I had a crab once and it ROCKED! So I got rid of it, because I knew I’d never touch my bat again with that thing.
Bats are PvP pets now. I hate that. I would recommend a bat only for hard-core PvPers. I also hate that. As a strict solo-RPer, it kills me to know that my favorite buddy is a PvP pet with a useless skill. So bats are not for PvE…
Over all, bats just aren’t what they used to be. :*(
I dusted off my bat pet and used him for the past few days, just to see if perhaps I was jumping the gun over the AOE removal…
First off, I found out quickly that with a 1 minute cooldown and 2 second duration, this spell is useless with autocast turned on, so anyone who does want to try a bat should be prepared for some micro-managing.
Used manually, it’s not terrible – but at 2 seconds duration it’s basically just for the occasional spell interrupt or (maybe) for emergency escapes. And in PVE at least the ranged component seems pointless.
So in a nutshell: might give you that slight extra edge for PVP with casters, but otherwise go with something more useful like a hyena, crab or spider. Or dare I say it… a gorilla.
I’ve got a question in this bat topic that I can’t seem to get an official answer to. My friend and I are almost positive that we’ve seen my bat hit multiple targets with a single sonic blast. Here’s the scene: the battle starts; two targets engage the tank; Screech (the bat) swoops in and shrieks; and as the sound wave passes the targets, they both stop moving entirely for about 2 seconds and then get into the fight.
Can anyone confirm? Does/can sonic blast hit multiple targets?
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