The Cataclysm beta realms were updated with a new build (12759) tonight and there’s a whole bundle of interesting hunter changes in there.
But I’m not going to tell you about them.
Unfortunately for me – and therefore for you – I am very nearly dead on my feet right now. So I’ll round up all the info I can into some coherent form and post it tomorrow. If you want to follow the exciting discoveries as they happen, you should be reading the Petopia forums anyway.
But even dead on my feet I can manage to regurgitate blue posts, and Ghostcrawler posted some stuff tonight that deserves to be regurgitated.
Err … wait … I mean it deserces to be repeated! Heh. Close enough …
First, a post on the massive beta hunter thread of doom:
Pets — As I posted in another thread recently, a pet scaling pass is underway. We still plan to do passes on the hunter pet talents and abilities as well. With the design that allows you to swap pets often in the field, we want to make sure that there are some interesting choices in which pet you use for a given situation. Provided they are all crabs.
Well, that was the pet-related bit anyway. The post also contains a lot of other great info on focus and aspects and mobility and survival … but I’m just repeating the pet stuff here. See above re: dead on feet.
But wait, what is that ‘other thread’ that GC mentions about a pet scaling design pass?
Pet scaling is getting a massive overhaul at the moment. For starters, we still intend for pets to scale with all of the master’s stats for things like hit, haste and crit. For the big stats, our current plan is something like this:
Ferocity (damage) — 50% of master’s AP, 40% health, 50% armor
Tenacity (tanking) — 35% of master’s AP, 50% health, 70% armor
Cunning (utility) — 40% of master’s AP, 40% health, 60% armorWarlock pets will be getting a similar pass. In general, we want pet dps to be 20-30% of player dps. Note that this is a lot lower than current BM and Demo lock numbers. Pet damage as BM will still be higher than Marks or Survival though, and we want BM to be competitive overall with Marks and Survival. (Ditto for locks.)
Well that’s interesting! Or I think it would be if I was awake enough for it to make any sense. Quick, someone comment and tell me what I should think about this!
*cough*
And finally, and almost completely off-topic, Zarhym posted this tidbit about upcoming live patches on the regular General Forum:
There are no plans for any additional raids before Cataclysm ships. With that said, there will be at least one major patch leading up to Cataclysm with a lot of core features and framework being added for the new expansion for players to explore. There will also be various limited-time events to set the tone for the release of Cataclysm.
This isn’t too much of a surprise – we had a major patch before both Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King that introduced ‘core features and framework’ for those expansions. Cataclysm is a bit of a different fish, though since the new content covers the entire world and isn’t nicely separated into expansion zones. Presumably Blizzard is organizing their source tree, though, so that they can do a code patch without the content.
Anyway, the reason I brought this up: It seems possible that hunters’ 20 inactive + 5 active pet stable may be part of those core features that patches out before Cataclysm. That would be wonderful – it would give us a chance to go on massive taming sprees in the world we know … before it is splintered and crumpled into a shape we barely recognize.
Not to mention a chance pick up any pets we know won’t be around any more post-Cataclysm launch.
As far as the 20-30% of DPS comment for BM goes, that is likely just the “fire-and-forget-furry/scaly/feathery/chitinous-dot” component. A lot more of BM damage that is ascribed to the hunter by the game, will still be dependent on the pet (specifically the Kill Command and Focus Fire mechanics, plus hunter focus regen from Invigoration).
With the reintroduction of different scaling for the three pet categories, they will hopefully ensure that at least one family in each category can provide any of the pet buffs/debuffs.
http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2010/august/nemesis.jpg
please tell my this little darling is tameable!
A little part of me died after reading the first scaling plans. It was probably too much to hope for, but I’d like to use something other than a ferocity pet in raids (*cough* Aotona) with similar numbers.
I shouldn’t really complain though, at least we’ll have more than a wolf to choose from :)
Hey Mania,
Nice update to Petopia. I noticed a few changes and not sure if they were there before:
1) Google search at the top right.
2) A couple of advertisements. I like them and I really hope they are helping to pay for the domain name and hosting.
3) Pet diet chart? Not sure if it was there before.
4) The pet changes are sexier. You have them so when you mouse over it tells you where to find them. Even a list of pets with similar looks.
5) Abilities and diet at the top of the pet families page.
6) Each pet skin got a new or improved screen shot.
Did you do these changes by yourself? It doesn’t matter. I like them a lot. Thanks for being a wonderful hunter community resource.
! Guntitan
If they give us the shiny new huge pet stable thing before the expansion ships I am going to go insane with the taming. And I’ll fill the whole thing and then have to play “who shall I release” come the expansion. Because I’m just that silly.
Nimizar: I knew I could trust you to fill me in. I can’t say that I am incredibly happy about the stat differences between the trees, though — although I suppose they were there in actuality with the talents, anyway.
Seryth: At this point, I’m afraid not. I’ve only seen that model on Nemesis himself, and he’s some sort of major lore turtle.
Guntitan: I’m glad you like the changes! The pet diet chart existed before but it was hard to find. My husband helped me a bit with the backend SQL changes, but for the most part it was all me. :)
Wild Hunt is bugged at the moment (as of build 12759). If you train it, your pet’s health is just around 6K. Untraining Wild Hunt and switching aspects after the respec works around this bug until a fix comes.
As a note, GC also said regarding the line about crabs that he was joking. ;) Although really, I could see players doing arena with five crabs lined up…. I’d personally prefer five different ones for different comps. :)