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Wow! What a day! It started out great at 12:01 AM, where I saw The Dark Knight. It was truly excellent. I highly recommend it to anyone, not just comic book fans. Easily the best movie I’ve seen all year. Possibly the best I’ve seen in the last decade. I’m still trying to absorb it all in.
And then it proceeded to get better when it was announced that Wrath of the Lich King beta was beginning. I haven’t received an invite yet, but I’m still crossing my fingers. Along with this announcement, came the news that the NDA was being lifted. And that’s when the day got even better!
Reports started coming in about the new Hunter talents and the new Pet talent trees. All I can say is Wow! Some of those sound incredible. Drotara, over at Less QQ, More PewPew, has already given a pretty good write up about the new talents. All I can add is that, I’m looking forward to seeing some of the results of testing these things out, to see if they are as effective as they sound. The jury is still out on a few of the talents involving stings.
All in all, I’m really excited about the new talents. I’m hoping to stay Survival, but some of those talents in the MM tree are highly tempting. The only way that this day could get any better would be if I found a beta invitation in my email!
I had heard about the pet aggro issues before, but I had always chalked it up to post-patch paranoia. Then, I read about the Charge nerf. I didn’t think too much about it at the time, because I’ve never used a Boar before. Not my cup of tea, I guess.
But I have never experienced any pet aggro issues since the patch. That is, until last night. I’ve been doing dailies and grinding some with my pet cat Sanura. And she’s been leveling up from 66 all the way to 70. And as long as I let her get 3K or so of aggro built up (using Omen) before engaging the mob, I would usually be ok. For this, I would normally turn off Claw, and just have Dash and Growl active. This was to make sure that she would have enough focus to get that 2nd or 3rd Growl off. And from levels 66 through 69, she would easily get 3K threat within just a few seconds. But I noticed that once she hit level 70, it was taking 10 seconds or longer, and that each Growl was producing less threat. Then I remembered to train her with the level 70 Growl, Rank 8. Well, this did not solve the problem. In fact, according to Omen, Growl Rank 8 was producing the same amount of aggro as Growl Rank 7. Now, I know the actual numbers from Omen are not exact. And for all I know, they may be inaccurate. But I do know that my pet was holding aggro better at level 66 through 69 than she is at level 70!
I’d like to do some more testing on this, just to make sure. But I do know that once she hit 70 last night, while I was doing dailies on Isle of Quel’Danas, that aggro suddenly became a problem. And the amount of threat she was generating in Omen was almost cut in half. This is seriously distrubing, and I hope that Blizzard is using pets of multiple levels to track this problem down. I wonder if it has anything to do with the pet skill inconsistencies that Mania spoke of.
What are your thoughts? Has anyone else experienced similar results? Anyone have any 60 to 69 pets that they would like to test this out with?
Yes, I’m talking about “Huntards.” We’ve all heard stories about them, or even seen them in action. Hell, I’ve even done things that would make people think I’m a Huntard, too. I’m sure many of us have had our Huntard Moments.
Generally, when I run across an individual like this, I will try to give them some pointers or advice (in a private tell, as I don’t want to call them out publicly or embarrass them) or even point them to a good website like Petopia or TKA Something. Many times they are thankful for the advice, but sometimes you come across someone that is offended, or that thinks you are wrong and that they are doing things right. I usually just stop trying to help them, if that’s the case, and I will make a mental note to try and not group with that individual in the future. But every once in a while, you come across a real gem. I’m talking about those rare individuals that just transcend normal Huntard-ness. Those that take it to a whole new level. Those make for some very interesting conversations.
Last nite, I was in Nagrand leveling up my new pet, Sanura. I saw a call go out in General Chat for help killing level 67 elites. Sanura was only level 61 and Loyalty Level 3, but I figured I’d help the person out. I whispered the person for an invite, and saw that it was a level 66 Dwarf Hunter. So off we go to Forge Camp Hate to kill some elites. During one of the fights, I used Wyvern Sting to sleep an add. After the fight, the conversation went like this:
Huntard: Do you like Survival?
Me: Yes! It’s a LOT of fun! Plus, I’m an Agility fiend, so that helps a lot.
Huntard: Survival raises your Agility?
Me: Yes, with the Lightning Reflexes talent. It increases your Agility by 15%.
Huntard: Pfft! That’s it? I’ll stick with my BM thnx.
/boggle
I can understand not wanting to switch. Survival isn’t for everyone. And I’m totally not knocking the guy for picking BM, either. It’s a great spec. But he didn’t even know we had the Lightning Reflexes talent. And then he blows it off with “That’s it?” IMHO, 15% Agi is HUGE. But don’t worry, it gets better.
So after a little while of killing the elites, we ran into Demos, Overseer of Hate. And we sadly lost both pets. So I decide to bring my level 70 Wind Serpent. I figured it would do a lot better than a lvl 61 cat. Anyway, so out pops the Wind Serpent, and this guy asks:
Huntard: Is that pet any good?
Me: Yes. He’s good DPS, and with my crit rate, and the right talents, he is a Lightning Breath machine!
Huntard: Whats LB?
Me: It’s a pet spell that does 99 – 113 nature dmg, and it goes up based on my RAP. And he gets to cast it every time I crit.
Huntard: Yea, but is it GOOD?
Me: Yep.
At this point, I realized there was no getting through to him. I just wanted to finish up this quest, and be on my way ASAP. Which we did pretty quickly, thanks to a properly leveled and trained pet. Just as I was about to leave, he hits me with this:
Huntard: What lvl for pet?
Me: I honestly don’t remember. 66, maybe. It was in Blade’s Edge Mountains.
Huntard: What was?
Me: The pet, I found him in Blade’s Edge.
Huntard: but what lvl?
Me: I’m not sure, maybe you should check out http://petopia.brashendeavors.net for some more info.
Huntard: k thnx bye
Wow, just wow. I don’t even know where to begin. Like I said, normally, I try and help these people out. And for the most part, they listen, and at least appear to be interested. But this guy, man, I don’t know what to think. He didn’t even know what talents we had in the Survival tree. And I can understand not knowing about the Lightning Breath on the Wind Serpents. But he wasn’t even interested in what I was saying about it. He just wanted it to be GOOD. Like an “I Win” pet or something. And I’m not even sure what the hell he was thinking in that last exchange. I had to log shortly after that because, this guy was giving me a headache.
So if you see a little dwarf hunter running around with a new Wind Serpent, look out! It could be this little Huntard. Because they are out there amoung us, hiding in plain sight. And you could be their next victim. Mwahahaha!
/evil laugh off
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