WotLK Hunter Pet Changes

A lot of interesting fixes and overall “smoothing” for lack of a better word, for hunter pets coming up in the next WOTLK beta build. While there’s been a lot of truly major changes for WOTLK, it’s great to see these type of small…seemingly insignificent changes as well. Honestly, these are the things that have polished the game to the point it is, and will continue to polish and perfect it into the future.

• Taunt no longer shares a cooldown with Growl and Cower.
• Avoidance, not Great Resistance, is the prereq for Wolverine Bite.
• We are still trying to rework Heart of the Phoenix to get around the shortcomings.
• Tenacity and Ferocity pets lost their armor multiplier but it was given to all pets at base. The net effect is that Cunning pets won’t be at a stat deficit compared to the other trees.
• Roar of Recovery provides more mana.
• Lick Your Wounds now with faster licking technology.(lol?)
• Carrion Feeder cooldown dropped to 30. We can’t easily change the range because this spells uses the same tech as the undead racial.
• Focus cost removed from Bullheaded.
• Not directly talent-related, but rather than reworking Prowl, cats got a second damage ability, Rake. It felt odd for them to shift from most desired pet to one of the least desired.

As far as who belongs to which tree, those decisions were made largely based on the pet special ability, not what ecologically makes more sense with the tree’s theme. Strong CC or other PvP-useful abilities were generally given the Cunning tree, just because we didn’t also want to see those same pets as the most popular when raiding or soloing. The goal is to have a lot more options about which pet you’re going to bring. With the Cunning stat change and tree rework, hopefully that will include those animals as well.

Rather than start another thread, feel free to talk about any of the pet family abilities (Rake, Web, Poison Spit etc.) as well within this one.

Cats have Rake, Prowl and Bite. Prowl has almost no combat use. Bite is spammable. Rake has a short cooldown like other pet abilities, but it’s a bleed like the druid attack.

WotLK Hunter Pet Changes

Good news for all you hunters out there. The guys over at Manias Arcania discovered a host a undocumented hunter pet changes appearing the most recent patch update. Check out the new hunter pet stuff below.

• Exotic pets do not seem to be implemented yet.
• The talent points were all refunded but the pets were not.
• The pet talent trees now have an obnoxious background.
• The bug with the tooltips that said they required too many talent points has been fixed.
• And there are a bunch of pet talent changes, although most are pretty small. Let’s list those by tree …

Shared Pet Talents

• Dash/Dive now says it works for 16 seconds and has a 32 second cooldown.

Cunning

• Mobility now reduces the cooldown of Dash/Dive by 8 seconds per rank, which means that you can bring the cooldown down to 16 seconds — exactly the length of the effect.
• Wolverine Bite now says it does 330 damage instead of 5 damage.
• Owl’s Focus has a greater chance of a free special ability: it’s now 15%/30% instead of 5%/10%.

Ferocity

• Loyalty has been renamed Bloodthirsty (and has a new icon). It now increases happiness by 5% when it triggers instead of 10%. (Health is unchanged at 5%.)

Tenacity

• The Stamina boost of Blood of the Rhino has been increased slightly (to 2%/4% instead of 1%/2%).
• Improved Growl has been renamed Guard Dog and now generates 10% happiness in addition to 10%/20% additional threat when your pet Growls. This gives the Tenacity tree a way to regen happiness without food.
• Roar of Fortitude has been replaced by Roar of Sacrifice: Your pet absorbs damage from the friendly target up to a maximum of 50% of the pet’s total health. Lasts 12 sec. (60 Focus, Instant, 40 yd range, 3 sec cooldown)

Pet skills changes
Boar – Gore

• Was: Gores the enemy, causing damage. This attack has a 50% change to inflict double damage, or triple damage if used during a Dash.
• Now: Your boar gores the enemy for damage. Causes double damage if used during a Dash.

Cat – Prowl

• Was: 40 Focus
• Now: No focus cost

Crab – Pin

• Was: Pins the target in place, and squeezes for damage over 6 sec. (20 sec cooldown)
• Now: Pins the target in place, and squeezes for damage over 4 sec. (1 min cooldown)

Crocolisk – Bad Attitude

• Was: Snap back for damage at any target that strikes you for the next 2 min.
• Now: Snap back for damage at any target that strikes you for the next 45 sec.

Nether Ray – Nether Shock

• Was: Instantly lashes an enemy for Shadow damage. Also interrupts spellcasting and prevents any spell in that school from being cast for 1 sec. (30 sec cooldown)
• Now: Instantly lashes an enemy for 35 to 47 Shadow damage. Also interrupts spellcasting and prevents any spell in that school from being cast for 2 sec. (1 min cooldown)

Tallstrider – Dust Cloud

• Was: Kick up an obscuring cloud of dust, lowering the chance for enemies to hit by 30%. Effects last 8 sec. (20 sec cooldown)
• Now: Your tallstrider kicks up an obscuring cloud of dust, causing all enemies within 10 yards to miss their next attack. Lasts for 8 sec. (40 sec cooldown)

Warp Stalker – Warp

• Was: 25 Focus
• Now: No focus cost

Wind Serpent – Lightning Breath

• Was: No cooldown
• Now: 10 sec cooldown

All Pets – Growl

• Was: Taunt the target, increasing the likelyhood the creature will focus attacks on you.
• Now: Your pet growls at the target, generating threat and increasing the likelihood the target will attack it.