Patch 3.1 is probably still a week away, but the Public Test Realms have largely cooled down and I thought it might be handy to do a bit of an overview for Patch 3.1.
Note that this list is not meant to be comprehensive or have all the details, especially about skills. It’s really just a quick look at what’s coming up. If you have any questions or want more info, you’ll probably want to start with the PTR patch notes (at least until 3.1 launches and we get real patch notes) but I will also link to other sources below when I have them handy.
Major Features:
- Dual Talent Specialization: At level 40 you can spend 1000 gold to unlock a second talent specialization. Each spec behaves just like your spec right now — in particular, you can set up and respec each spec just the way you do now. Once you have unlocked the second spec, you can switch between them almost instantly and almost anywhere. Each spec also has its own set of glyphs and hotbars, and switching specs switches these as well. Note that switching between specs drains all your mana. (More on how this works with hunters below.)
- Argent Tournament: A permanent event for level 80 characters in Icecrown that introduces mounted jousting and can reward you with cool new mounts and mini-pets. (If only I could do it!)
- Noblegarden: The Easter-like Noblegarden event has been expanded from a single tortuous day into quite a fun week. This is the first holiday I’ve looked forward to in quite a while.
- Ulduar: Apparently some sort of new raid dungeon.
Hunter Changes:
- Switching between talent specs will also respec your pets, which gets annoying fast but is necessary. Blizzard has, however, apparently fixed the bug that unsuccessfully respec’d your pet when when you switched, so at least you no longer have to go back to town to straighten everything out.
- In order to help level 80 hunters switch between exotic and non-exotic specs, hunters can train the Call Stabled Pet skill at level 80. This skill lets you access your stable (almost) anywhere. Call Stabled Pet can be used without switching specs — it’s just a normal level 80 skill with a 30 minute cooldown — but the cooldown is reset when you switch specs so as long as you have unlocked Dual Talent Specs and you don’t mind repeatedly spec-switching — and you are level 80 — you can switch pets at any time. Did I mention this is only for level 80s?
- Hunters no longer need to use quivers and ammo pouches, although they can if they want to. The haste from quivers and pouches has been removed from them and is now an inherent part of the hunter class. In addition, ammunition now stacks to 1000. Other ammo changes may come later, but this is what we get for now.
- There’s been a whole laundry list of hunter talent changes which I’m not going to bother to summarize here.
Pet Changes:
- All hunter pets now have the same stat modifiers: +5% Damage, +5% Health, and +5% Armor. Note that these are the stat modifiers previously help by Cunning pets.
- Pet talent trees have been expanded. All three trees get the new talent Wild Hunt, which increases the hunter’s Stamina and Attack Power contribution to the pet. Ferocity pets get the new talent Shark Attack, which increases damage. Tenacity pets get the new talent Silverback, which heals then when they Growl. And Cunning pets get Grace of the Mantis and Roar of Sacrifice, which were previously only available to Tenacity pets.
- The Gorilla skill Thunderstomp is now a Tenacity talent available to all Tenacity pets. Instead of Thunderstomp, gorillas will instead get Pummel, which interrupts and prevents spellcasting.
- We have a new spirit beast — Gondria of Zul’Drak — and a new non-exotic but exceedingly cool pet in the form of Aotona.
- There are new turtles and crabs to tame in Eversong and Ghostlands.
- As with hunter talents, there’s been a whole laundry list of pet talent changes. I’ve deliberately left out the changes to Furious Howl, Stampede, Acid Spit and more for this post or it would be a good bit longer.
Other Stuff:
- The cooldown on the ubiquitous hearthstone has been lowered to 30 minutes.
- You can now queue for Battlegrounds anywhere.
- You no longer need flint and tinder to make a campfire.
- The level 40-ish quests for cooking and fishing are no longer required to advance your skill, although you can still do them for rewards. Similarly, you no longer need to buy cooking or fishing books to advance — the trainers will, you know, train you instead.
- The way fishing works has changed slightly. You can fish (and skill up) anywhere, but you won’t be catching actual fish unless your skill is high enough.
- You can fish up a mount in Northrend!
- Horde characters now have an avenue to obtain a Sprite Darter mini-pet and an easier avenue to obtain a Westfall Chicken.
- There are all sorts of useful new UI options built into the default UI. Unfortunately the Equipment Manager addition had to be pulled from the patch at the last minute, but check out the so-called Colorblind Mode (useful for all sorts) and the Preview Talent Changes option.
As I said when I started, I’m hand-waving away a lot of the changes, especially in hunter and pet talents. I also know that there’s been a host of animation changes (ghost wolves can run now!). I’m afraid it’s going to take me several more posts to round all that info up! But please feel free to let me know what I missed in the comments.
Whatever happened tot he “new ability” that was supposed to be tacked on to the 51-point BM skill? I would still love to know what it is, and when we will get it.
As a hunter, I can say that the Ghost Wolf is one of the coolest (if not the coolest) looking pets in the game. Having said that, I personally could care less if they made them tamable or not. Actually, I have to change my mind on that. I would have to say that they should be kept “retired”. The players who were actualy able to tame them should be rewarded with a cool pet. One thing you have to remember is, when they were first tamable, they were bugged pretty bad. Stll to this day, they do not function right. They are finally gonna get “fixed” in the next patch (from my understanding). At one point in time, hunters couldn;t even feed them. Also, we just got 2 extra stable spots. Having a gimped pet take up a stable spot shows that a hunter really likes that pet. So yeah, they should get to keep it. Finally, Before patch 3.0, we needed had to leave a pot open in the stables so we could tame other beasts to train our tamed pets newskills. Like i said, fewer stabl spots and you had to leave one available. If a hunter is willing to go thoruhg all that, they deserve to have a very unique pet.
If you do wanan make a new “spirit wolf” pet, use a new skin and make it funtion exactly like the other spirit pets. Don’t change the existing pets. Ghost wolves have been “wolves” all along, and should remain as such. To change them now would be a shame. just make a new model.
When I first started playig a hunter, I didn;t know anything about th game. Friends got me to start playing, and as i wa leveling,i kept asing them “is this tamable.. is that tamable?”. 9 times out of 10 the answer was “no”. One of the things I always wanted was a pet slime and a pet hydra. Both became available to tame, so I busted my butt to level to 80 to get them. I didn;t race to 80 because I wanted to be 80. I rather like leveling and questing and enjoy all aspects of the game. I raced to 80 solely so i could have 2 pets that i thought would look really cool! I use my slime for everything, and I break my hydra out more often than any other pet. I love those pets because they look really cool to me. i don;t use them because i want peple to constantly whiper me asking where i got them. Are they the most versatile critters in the game? no. would I like to have my slime be dps pet? yes. but, i still use him in raids anyway. I only lose a couple hundred dps anyway. The point is, most people have pets because they are what they think are cool looking. Same with the ghost wolves. Do I care if slimes or hydras beomce tamable again? NOpe. i already have mine, and they are the coolest looking pets (to me).
I wanna tame a Worgen. Make that the skin for a SB wolf. :)
I’d totally be up for tameable worgen or harpies. That’d just rock. Yes yes, I know, humanoid! Just dreaming….
Dweezill
i never had a problem feeding my ghost wolf.i do wish they would add new ones though.i never see anyone with theirs out anymore.
something about the fixed run animation worries me…
84
I wasn’t around that far back when the ghost wolves were tamable. I heard stores from guildies that they weren’t able to feed them, and they had to take them to battlegrounds to get their happiness up. Even still, they tamed the ghost wolf because they looked cool, and they kept the ghost wolf because they thought it looked cool. Maybe some people do hold on to them just to showboat, but they put up with the hardships of having one, so they kinda earned the right to showboat a little.
Dweezil:
Sounds fishy; the ghost wolves never had a feeding problem, only the Sandfury Guardians way back in the day in vanilla WoW. I had about 5 people on my realm (horde + Alliance) who got those Ghost wolves. No one ever complained about not being able to feed them. They functioned just like a regular wolf, the only difference being they didn’t have an idle howl nor could they run.
84:
I wouldn’t worry about the fixed run animation, I’m positive it’s just a side-effect of some of the shaman spirit wolf changes that went through this last 2 builds. Enjoy the hell out of it, cause knowing Blizzard, they’ll break it again soon enough.
Dweezil:
A few posts up you were talking about the ‘Spirit wolf’. check out my post a few up, too. I state the same thing you do. WOW, great minds think alike! It’s pretty awesome to have someone have the same excact oppinion. And I totally agree with your slime and hydra comment. I too have them both, and I just found it annoying when people kept asking me where to get one and the response was always that they were no longer tamable. I actually had to make a macro for it…
And now this is REAL offtopic, but does anyone else get ticked off at the Palladins? Especially in BGs? I completely appologize if you love to play your pally, but I HATE them! all they do is stun, bubble, heal, attack, stun, bubble, heal, attack… and what makes matters worse is (Im not sure when this change happened) pallies can attack when bubbled. I noticed this a few days ago and thought it was a glitch, but it keeps happening. GOD! if there was ever a class to nerf, y us hunters?
I love how they copied Warhammer’s Idea for the BG Anywhere thing. Go Blizz.
Dweezill
i never saw it as very hard.the worst part was pugging steamvaults twice and then getting all the tame timing down.i actually enjoyed punching mobs in the face to level my pup from 30 to 70,before the auto level thing was added.it was nicer then the mindless farming i had been stuck doing.damn wolf saved me from burn out.
Rikaku
probubly be right after i get used to it too.i wonder if theyre going to give them a howl sound?
Dweezill, you’re thinking of the Zul’Farak snakes from way, WAY back. Those who had them did have to go to BGs to keep their happiness high enough to prevent them running away.
In other news, it’s so nice that no one will have a need for any Gnomish Utility Knives anymore now that you don’t need flint & tinder. Guess I’ll vend them when I get high enough to make them.
84:
I could live without the howl sound. I mean, if they give the GW the idle wolf howl sound, they’d probably also give it the standard wolf-attack sounds; which would in turn ruin the sweet unique ghost-wolf soundset that they have (which is sweet). As far as I know there isn’t a ghost-idle howl in game, but if there was one then yes, that would be possible and sweet.
Tarjin:
Man poor engineering >< I’ll still use mine though. I have to take up engineering for my mountain o mounts achievement XD
And for whoever asked:
Vargul Blighthounds STILL don’t run right.
Tarjin,
Thanks. Could have sworn they were talking about the gost wolves, but I left that guild for a reason. lol If I am wrong, i do appologize.
Sinful, Blizzard doesn’t usually do original things. They rip off from other MMOs, refine it, dumb it down, and call it their own. They’ve been doing that for years now though.
Dangit. Was really hoping the vargul blighthounds movement would be fixed, seeing as I’m on the verge of dropping it for amother regular wolf. I’m just worried they’ll go on the wayside of tameability. They’re cool but iritating…
Ah well, back to flying pets only.
Still no hint that the stone cats (from the basin Oracles quest or from the Earthen stablemaster’s pet) are going to be tamable in Ulduar, huh?
Actually Palla, not defending Blizzard but imo everyone in the MMO world rips off eachother- or rips off the basic ideas. As unfortunately when you’ve seen one orc, you’ve seen them all.
Ok maybe not orc wise- but elf wise. Though honestly? Blizzard’s version of Night/Dark Elves, the males anyways, are the ONLY ones that ever scared me- and were part of the reason why I rolled horde as my main and most of my alts up untill recently.
Just .. creepy. Not in a good way. And the dance Blizz gave them does not help imo.
The only ‘lost pet’ I have is the Hive Queen from Sholazar. She’s gorgeous. She is also…. huge. I’d actually like to USE her, but I can’t, because she’s bigger than a freakin’ devilsaur and gets in EVERYONE’S way. So…. I drag her around Dalaran when I feel like showing off, and she blocks up stable space the rest of the time.
IMO, they should make the Sholazar wasps in general about 30% smaller.
Personally, I kind of love having those Sholazar wasps’ size as is, they’re a lot more intimidating that way. I also have a black wolf (originally Rema before she was tamed) and I loved the effect on other players when she glitched and was humongous from time to time back then. At first, I even wondered why I got a lot of whispers saying I got the coolest wolf around until I realized she was glitched the first time it happened and only visible to other players and not to the hunter that owned her. *grin*
As for the overview on 3.1 – for a supposedly major patch, its really lacking the much needed changes/fixes to hunters that GC and company have been tooting since they realized they screwed up the BM tree in their zeal to nerf it down. Lots of promises, but leeeetle of the show. Understandable since Ulduar is the main thing they want to get out and at least some of the other stuff are just window dressing that went along with it.
The cooldown wipe for Call Stabled pet every spec switch with Dual Spec was just an afterthought when a lot of people complained (and was heard, for once). It won’t take long for people of all classes (who can afford it) to try to abuse the use of spec switching and soon Blizzard would somehow fix Dual Spec to need some more stringent requirements later on.
Sorry if I sounded pessimistic there, but that’s how I feel anyway. Blizzard has been known to do a few sly “bait (oops) and switch (this needs “fixing”)” tactics via hotfixes from time to time before.
Boing:
Oh those wasps NEED to be smaller. There’s intimidating, and then there’s annoying. XD I’m sorry, but if your wasp can completely cover an entire WG portal or fill up a player’s view of a raid, it needs to be smaller. I know of about 4 guilds on my realm who won’t allow raiding hunters to use those wasps because they’re just too big.
And that glitch is still very much active. Very very active. My friend sent a nice screenshot to me showing it just a few weeks ago.
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o270/Suzaelos/WoWScrnShot_031209_161006.jpg
*Yawns and pokes Ryai* That is just the truth. However this isn’t the first time Blizzard has almost openly ripped from another MMO. Just the most blatant and obvious times. Ain’t no way you can really wrap that one in candy, they said “Hey~! What a great idea Warhammer had! I think we’ll ues it!”
Just one of the most blatant and obvious times* I’m going back to sleep….
And I am going to do a third. I would like for everyone to bid a fond farewell to the BRK blog. Daniel posted his last post there today, announcing his own personal blog and the closing of the BRK one.
Well, over at EJ they’ve posted what they’ve calculated as the best possible dps output for each Hunter spec. It goes as follows:
Best Survival template: 6703, 76
Best Marksman template: 6171, 49
Best Beast Master template: 6026, 81
Each test was done with a Raptor. I know that this is the best case scenario for each (which will almost never happen outside a pretty stellar 25 or 40 raid group), but is this still acceptable? Is BM, going by this, an acceptable raiding spec, or are we down in the gutters again?
And yeah, I know the BM probably should’ve had a Devilsaur in its test, that part of why I’m asking the question to begin with.
Gelannerai:
At this point, no, BM shouldn’t have a raptor. BM is in such dire conditions that it isn’t really worth taking the extra 51 BM talent since 1) the point is better spent in either MM or SV at this point and 2) The pure DPS pet talents can still be taken without the 4 extra pet talent points.
And no. That is not acceptable numbers. Previously in the PTR builds BM was about 200 DPS behind SV and MM which WAS acceptable. 700 DPS is too much though. Currently 700 DPS is what we’re currently looking at on average, and if that is the numbers from some of the best Hunters we got, well, then I shudder to think of how this’ll look live.
Blizzard didn’t care about BM Hunters now, and I’ll say why. GC already confirmed *why* BM is getting this treatment. They’re looking to ‘reward’ harder playstyles (and specs) with superior damage. They have already admitted they feel BM is easier to play and therefore, are not required to do top dps.
I agree, but this isn’t “suitable” or even “competitive” dps; this will continue to pigeonhole hunters into 1 spec.
Another reason, Ulduar. They don’t care how much of any of the classes look cause currently they’re focused on Ulduar.
I mean to say, No BM shouldn’t have had a Devilsaur. Yes, they Should’ve had a raptor, thus the use of one in the test. No more responding on blogs after I just wake up. XD
I alkso forgot to add. To calculate what I mean by “not acceptable”:
Keep in mind that these guys are SERIOUS pros. And overall, YES. 6k is an appropriate number of damage for ANY class. But as posted, these guys are preforming to their maximum spec, gear, and optimal raid fights. Generally, most players will probably fall int the 3.1k – 4k range of DPS.
My goal is saying that the 600 DPS difference in the specs alone (regardless of it being 3k, 4k, 5k, or even 6k) is not tolerable for “competitive specs” within the same class.
If that makes sense XD
A raptor? Seriously? Did something major change? I mean I know I’ve called it quits and everything, but since when is the raptor being figured in as the highest DPS pet?
Rikaku, do you have a link to where Blizzard talks about rewarding harder playstyles with more DPS? I’ve never heard that before but I find it infinitely fascinating, and I’d love to learn more.
Palla:
A raptor is the highest non-exotic pet now. they’ve been in the top 5 on average, but they’re more or less the non-exotic version of a devilsaur now.
Mania:
I do have a link somewhere, I’ll go look for it in just a few minutes. It was a general post, but let me see if I can find it again.
Mania:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=14578748409&sid=1&pageNo=6#106
Ah! Here we go. I’m quoting Ghostcrawler on this part for those who don’t want to click the link.
“BM is an easier spec to play. We tend to reward specs that are a little tougher to play if played very well with higher dps. Affliction and Mutilate are good examples, though we went overboard with Mutilate’s dominance over other specs. If BM was simpler and provided the same or higher dps, then you would see 95% BM hunters (which, no suprise, is exactly what we had). Some players will try SV or MM, decide it’s not for them and go back to BM. If they couldn’t make SV work, then their dps may be just fine as BM (or else the drop will be so low that they don’t care). At issue is how much lower BM can be than MM and SV before it isn’t worth spec’ing into. Combat for rogues is too far below Assassination so that you take too big a hit if you choose to opt out of the more demanding Mutilate play style. Make sense? ” – GC
Palla: It’s most likely the change to the Raptor’s racial; which is a toned down version of MB [like how Rake and SS are somewhat alike or Spider and Sith webs or Snake and Scorpid poison.. kinda]
If I remember right they lowered the cool down- so BM or not, raptors did get a boost.
And explains why I’ve seen so many around.
And Rikaku: I .. I want to say something, about GC, but that would be rude, infantile… and most likely get my post moderated by Mania or cause grief.
So I leave this blank [BLANK].
Now- GC should crawl off that high chair and realise how belittling, stupid, and hyocritical all this BS is; Blizzard said CLASS NOT SPECC. What are they GOING BACK ON WHAT THEY SAID!? And have they even PLAYED a BM hunter seriously!? Raiding is much more challenging imo if you are BM BECAUSE of your pet! If you let your pet die, you suffer the consequences, imp talents or not! You have to blow a CD, you have to waste mana, you have to waste precious time, while MM and SV can continue to blow everything out of the water!
It’s not like warlocks or death knights! Even on my Belf and Nelf dk, if my ghoul dies I just shrug it off and keep plowing on thru quest mobs or pvp, even as unholy my pet isn’t my crutch, it’s an addition!
Hunter pets aren’t the same for BM as they are to SV and MM; and tbh MM and SV are EASIER! I had to spin out an MM and SV build for each of my friends, and it sorely hurt to realise that even MM gets better talents and boosts; I mean sure I love BM and Ryai is NOT changing her specc, but it hurts so much to be punished for playing a specc I like, and so much so I’ve barely logged onto my mains. I mean only thing having me chugging along on my dorf is the fact at 11 more levels I can get a ram.
Luv rams.
But outside that? I like Palla can’t really say I’ve been enjoying my hunter- and rolling SV or MM won’t fix it, it’s not how I play, it’s not my style. I like having it where my pet is my equal on nearly all of my hunters.
I mean with how they made MM and SV now, it’s like Ranger and ROGUE WITH A TRAP SHOOTING GUN.
No offense to those that do roll MM and SV.
/sigh.
Sorry for the rant.
700 dps. Gods.
I knew I would never get to see Ulduar, but now I won’t even have a chance for any raid.
Ryai:
Keep in mind though, that it’s ultimately not GC’s decision. Now, bear in mind I’m not defending him, but instead of being mad at the only person we have as any sort of reasonable response, be mad at the entire development team.
I’ve always considered BM harder (in a way) due to the fact that I have to care for my pet to the same extent as another player *entirely* I have to make sure he’s healed. I have to make sure he’s de-cursed, de-magiced, de-diseased. I have to make sure my pet moves out of the way of Lava Waves, Storm Clouds, Void Zones, AoE. I imagine mutl-boxing is probably easier than handling a BM pet in some fights.
I love my Hunter, but just now I told my guild that I’m probably quitting my Hunter, at least BM for raids. I hate to bite the SV bullet, but dammit I want to see Ulduar! I’ll happily dual-spec BM/SV (and you know, stay BM), but I know how it’ll play out in the long run.
SV will make me want to eat lead. I will then return back to my Druid and stick with that.
Then again, maybe I should just stay casual /sigh.
On the bright side, Druid’s goin well.
I think one thing a lot of you are all missing a few very important factors.
Skill > spec.
Skill > gear.
Overall raid competence > single player
I hate to say it, but a lot of people in raid situations aren’t getting HALF of what their ‘theoretical potential’ is. Well…maybe half is harsh, but 3/4 certainly. From paladins to rogues to mages to warlocks to, yes, hunters, there are people who’s leet buttonmashin’z are not as inherently leet as other people’s even if they’re equally geared. What this frankly amounts to is… that “700 dps” is probably a phantasm. For one person, in one set of gear, beating up a target dummy. that’s their result. In a raid situation where people are running around willy nilly, trying not to stand in Bad Stuff, taking dance lessons from Dr. Heigan, or trying to keep spiders off the druid… no one is EVER doing ‘OMFG MAX DPS’ all the time. Not ever. And there’s a nearly infinite variety of indefinable sub-factors such as whether or not you’re feeling good that day, whether your cat has decided to trash your living room simultaneously with the boss pull (this has happened to me), the Fury warrior has an acute attack of girlfriend, or any one of a number of other things. Blizzard gears their raids to an average, because they know this. Out of 25 people, I can gar-un-tee you that not all of them, unless they’re like those crazy bastards that beat Naxx25 four days after Wrath came out and do nothing but play this game… not all of them are going to be the elite pinnacle of WoWplaying madness. They just aren’t.
What this basically means is… hard numbers don’t really exist, no matter how much the elitist sorts like to wave them around. I have seen people with “the best DPS spec’ come in three ranks below me with my less-than-perfect spec in Naxx25. As long as you handle yourself well, keep up as best you can, and when it’s all said and done, the boss drops…. then there’s no reason you can’t see any content you like. Raiding is a team effort, not a matter of ‘who can cap meters’. Cooperation is better than dps. Knowing what you’re doing is better than dps. Given how gimmicky all the fights in Naxx are… I have little doubt Ulduar will be the same. (Hell, someone pointed out that your whole raid has to learn the class ‘Motorcycle’ to even pass one of the bosses…)
Don’t flip out over it. Play how you like; you’ll have the best results from the spec that suits your play style in particular. I tried the ‘DPS Marks’ spec for awhile (using a cat) and actually LOST about 400dps. So… I’m back to BM. And here I’m going to sit, and save that 1000g for buying my poor Deathknight cold-weather flying instead.
Er. And … fail on that first sentence, yo. But you know what I mean!
Nacht:
Oh yes, you’re quite correct. Even now I am currently able to outdps better-geared SV Hunters with my not even perfected BM spec. I come in the top 4 everytime, regardless of what raid or dungeon I’m in. But against a skilled or semi-decent SV Hunter, even if I had the best gear I can’t top them. I think that’s something you also have to acknowledge. With a difference of 700 DPS, it’s very very hard to make up that difference if both the competing BM and SV Hunters are decent/somewhat skilled.
I’m not sure if that makes sense, but I really should get sleep o_O
Druids… We’re in a pretty horrid state right now :/ Particularly Balance if you’re pvping, Ferals have been royally messed around AGAIN and knocked off tank status and restos are still quite happily sitting there just having a change that hits Balance far more than them. Yet again. Sigh. I love Druiding to pieces but it’s a freaking nightmare watching everything I despretely need to actually SURVIVE pvp anymore forked over to restos and told to suck it. Ferals too, they finally get used to something and they bugger with the mechanics again which effects ALL Druids in the process but they keep neglecting this fact.
I’m playing my Priest/DK/Hunter trio more of late as I’m getting that fed up. The only good thing I’ve got this patch is Starfail’s got a decent cooldown but still needs glyphs to sort half the mess it is and Moonkin form is less mana. Oh wooooow. Never mind I’m still a free kill, my mana regen has just been nerfed into oblivion, LB nerf will hit me yet again and yeah.
I think thats why I keep going on my Hunters, all things considered it’s a LOT less depressing :<
Sorry for mini rant but really we’re not even a safe haven either and Aria is and always will be my main after all. My trio are for fun where I don’t have quite the same AUUUGH pressure so I guess I know where you guys come from just from a different class perpective :)
Aria- “Druids… We’re in a pretty horrid state right now :/ Particularly Balance if you’re pvping, Ferals have been royally messed around AGAIN and knocked off tank status and restos are still quite happily sitting there just having a change that hits Balance far more than them.”
Idk bout PvP, but some of my guilds top DPS comes from Boomkins, so they’re fine as far as PvE, and for Feral Tanking, i have to disagree 300%, they are still the best tanks in our guild for tanking Sarth +drakes… so why you say they are all screwed over i personally dont understand.
Hey guys, what do you think about wolves for dps? do you think this change will boost the dps of wolves? 320 ap for hunter and pet with 50% uptime is basically 160 ap for hunter and pet, which seems pretty amazing. Do you think that raptors will still beat them out?
ihlos:
Yes, Raptors still beat out wolves. Wolves have amazing dps now, but raptors are getting buffed too. Raptors are now the best pet to have that’s non-exotic pretty much. They’re little devilsaurs.
Well, in another thread about the state of BM raiding over at EJ, they put up an interesting list of pet dps ranks (in order from greatest to least):
Devilsaur
Wolf
Raptor
Core hound
Spirit Beast
Moth
Wasp
Cat
Silithid
Carrion Bird
Tallstrider
Hyena
I was surprised/elated that the wolf came in second. And check out the Core Hound!
Rikaku: Oh, *that* thread! Thanks for pointing that out — I had completely missed the implications of the second half of that.
Gelannerai: Feel free to link that EJ thread as well. :> I have to say. I am feeling really out of touch right now with pet ‘goodness’ trends. I don’t seem to have any feel at all for where pets may rank or why.
Mania:
No prob =)
Gelannerai:
I’d like to see the thread too =D I’m especially curious. Now, did EJ actually spec or gear for those pets? I mean that by it was stated by a blue awhile back that some pets’ abilities ARE scaled with spellpower (that includes Spirit Beast & the Core Hounds) so I’m especially curious as to their gear for such high marks on both those families.
Sure thing. The pet list is a few posts down on the first page of the thread, post #17 I believe.
http://elitistjerks.com/f74/t52682-raiding_beast_mastery_3_1_a/
I’m not really sure what kind of gear she used, but she did post her overall dps with each one of these pets. She had the top listing with her D-saur as 6145.
And yeah triple post. We can see with her D-saur rating that her dps surpassed what was considered the max dps in the other thread, so I’m taking that as a hopeful sign.
As much as I dislike EJ, the EJ list seems closer to right to me. Part of the reason for that is that Furious howl will be up longer on average then the savage rend buff, and because the AP being added by furious howl exceeds ten percent of the wolfs AP. It’s what, 320 or something now? At the high, high end the raptor will be able to pull ahead of the wolf, but for the time being the overall benefit of furious howl should beat out savage rend. I am still kind of shakey about the raptors place even on the EJ list…..if the patch comes out in the next little bit, I might give it a whirl.
Oh, and an Update, the PvP guide is about halfway finished. I have just been very lazy the past few days. *Chuckles* Sorry!
Gimlion, PvE is fine but PvP is an utter mess for Balance as we’ve got nada to survive and it shows unless we get extremely lucky. Ferals, right now fine, next patch royally messed with and being good at three drakes is the excuse for nerfing them back. I did not say presently since it’s next patch the health/armor is being pulled down, many talent and glyph jiggles and the shield many are extremely suspious of.
Don’t worry striders, you may be low but I still love you to pieces!
Yeah but they’ve changed FH mechanics, how it’s not going to be up 100% of the time and will have a shorter duration/longer cooldown, or was it just a longer cooldown- so overall imo Palla, it pretty much evens out and should really just depend on your build/specc, and if you have imp Focus regen and or GftT [personally I try and get a 2/2, 1/2 or 2/1 combo since alot of dps and tenacity pets eat focus up so much.]
I’m not surprised about Tallstriders tho, tbh, I mean their ability comes off as more of a tanking talent than a DPS talent.