Pet tanking in Cataclysm?

[Protego]

I'm curious. Will pets be able to tank bosses, in Cataclysm (like they do in Wrath of the Lich King)? Thank you!

[Coldfire989]

Hummm since they cant get buffs anymore and scale percentage wise off the Hunters stats I dont think so at least not at first for sure.

[Altheaus]

where there's a will, there's a way

[Tahlian]

I'm fairly certain we won't see a return of a hunter pet being able to tank normal or heroic-mode current raid content, like a certain gorilla tanking Marrowgar or a pair of worms tanking hard-mode Sindragosa. But I'm willing to bet hunter pets will be able to tank older content and 5-man group quests just fine...because that's what the devs intended for us to do with Tenacity pets originally.

[Protego]

Awww too bad we wont. That sucks. How sad.

[Raydex-of-the-dawn]

I'd say it's still -possible-, myself. With the better scaling from the hunter, including buffs, we can put on very high-stamina gear and it translates nicely over to our pets.

[The Insect Man]

Frostheim points out they can't be made crit-immune in beta, apparently

Although - don't think we've seen any scaling figures for resilience.

[Kalliope]

Frostheim points out they can't be made crit-immune in beta, apparently

Although - don't think we've seen any scaling figures for resilience.

I thought resilience was changed to do something else too.

*logs on PTR*

Yep, here it is: "Provides <x> damage reduction against all damage done by players and their pets or minions."

[SpiritBinder]

Frostheim points out they can't be made crit-immune in beta, apparently

Although - don't think we've seen any scaling figures for resilience.

I thought resilience was changed to do something else too.

*logs on PTR*

Yep, here it is: "Provides <x> damage reduction against all damage done by players and their pets or minions."

I know, atm we can just pop on a few bits of pvp gear and it would do the job, This is actually the thing I belive will hurt pet tanking the most. The stam we can stack on ourselves, the healing buffs via talents I think will still be there, but the crit immune seems to be unobatinable atm. It only takes a few sting crits from a boss to land your pet in serious hot water

[Nimizar]

Resilience scaling will likely be 100% (similar to crit and haste), but the removal of the crit chance reduction effect from that stat means pets will be capped at a 4% reduction in their chance to be crit (from Grace of the Mantis).

It would be nice to see GotM buffed to 3/6% but I wouldn't bet on it happening. However, the generally higher health pools in Cata apply to pets as well, so that small (at most 1.6%) chance to be crit may not be as fatal as it would be in Wrath.

Another interesting question will be whether pet dodge chance scaling with Agility and dodge rating on the hunter's gear is part of the new "pets scale properly with secondary stats" world order.

[Kalliope]

Another interesting question will be whether pet dodge chance scaling with Agility and dodge rating on the hunter's gear is part of the new "pets scale properly with secondary stats" world order.

And what of defense? O_o

[Anyia]

And what of defense? O_o

Isn't Defense being removed as well? Or am I mistaken?

[Kalliope]

And what of defense? O_o

Isn't Defense being removed as well? Or am I mistaken?

Oh crud, you're right.

Durp durp....

[Nimizar]

And what of defense? O_o

Isn't Defense being removed as well? Or am I mistaken?

No, you're not mistaken - defence is gone.

As far as I know, pets can neither block nor parry, so dodge scaling is the main question when it comes to pet tanking. This question did get raised in the comments over on WHU, where Frostheim pointed out that testing this would basically require getting someone else to sit there autoattacking his pet for hours in order to get any data.

[The Insect Man]

Also worth noting that Cata heroics are going to be quite brutal, according to the early runs by Totalbiscuit et al - doesn't mean that normal 5 man content won't be tankable though - and the "move to" command will help a great deal on tactical fights.

[Nimizar]

Has anyone tested to see what a pet does if given a "Move To" command while it has aggro? Does it shuffle backwards, or does it turns its back to the mob and run for the destination?

[Turgus]

I am quite concerned with my pet not being able to be crit immune.

I guess I can only hope that they play with pet talents a bit and maybe make Grace of the Mantis a 3 pt talent or give it a butt to 3% per talent point.

I have recently been working on BM Hunter Tanking gear, and I have to say, I have been quite successful so far.
But, it has brought something odd to my attention.


****Be warned there is math involved.****


Blood of the Rhino is supposed to increase your pet’s total stamina by 4% (per the tool tip,) but from some number crunching I have seen that this is not the case.

Now, I could be missing something, but this is what I got.

When my tanking pet has 1,382 stamina it has 18,802 health; and when it has 1,329 stamina it has 18,190 health. (With and w/o Blood of the Rhino)
The theoretical increase of stamina from Blood of the Rhino is 55 (.28) stamina from a base of 1,329 stamina.
However your pet only gets 53 stamina. (Only a 3.84% increase)

When my tanking pet has 3,464 stamina it has 31,346 health, and when it has 2,374 stamina it has 30,260 health. (With and w/o Blood of the Rhino)
The theoretical increase of stamina from Blood of the Rhino is 98 (.56) stamina with a base of 2,374 stamina.
However your pet only gets 90 stamina. (Only a 3.65% increase)

Keep in mind that with a difference from when my pet had 1312 stamina and when it had 2793 stamina there was a 5% decrease in total bonus stamina from Blood of the Rhino.

Basically, what I am pointing out is that for some reason the Blood of the Rhino talents suffer from diminished returns.

I did some more number crunching, and if the decrease in Blood of the Rhino effectiveness is Linear, (I really hope it is) then when the pet is at around 65k health the effectiveness of it would be close to 3.1%.

So not as bad as I thought. But Seriously, a flat percentage increase to health should be easy to implement correctly!

(Edited to remove bad calculations)

[Turgus]

I found out my previous calculations were bad on a fundamental level. So the theoretic values in the above post have been removed.
(I was using pet scaling as it is, and not as it projected to be in Cataclysm)

If pet talents stay "as is" our pets will actually scale with us almost perfectly if they have "Wild Hunt."

Cunning Pets will get 67% of the hunters stamina (base) and with "Wild Hunt" (pets get an extra 40% stamina) the pet will actually get 93.8% of the hunters stamina.
Ferocity Pets will get 72.5% of a hunters stamina (base) and with "Wild Hunt" the pet will actually get 101.5% of the hunters stamina.
Tenacity Pets will get 78% of the hunters stamina (base) and with "Wild Hunt" the pet will actually get 109.2% of the hunters stamina.

Now, they are probably going to be looking at the pet talents, and probably changing them around but as-is I am pretty happy because "Theoretically" the pets will actually scale better than they do now (on live.)

[Rawr]

And what of defense? O_o

Isn't Defense being removed as well? Or am I mistaken?

No, you're not mistaken - defence is gone.

As far as I know, pets can neither block nor parry, so dodge scaling is the main question when it comes to pet tanking. This question did get raised in the comments over on WHU, where Frostheim pointed out that testing this would basically require getting someone else to sit there autoattacking his pet for hours in order to get any data.

Pets can block and parry, I made an argument on the WoW forums about how my druid bear can't block or parry but my pet snake can

[Nachtwulf]

Well, to the best of my knowledge, pets have not been viable boss tanks since mid-BC when warlocks started void-tanking heroics.

Even now, the taunt mechanic for pets/minions is 'broken' in regards to bosses... this is why no one minds when that DK does Army of the Dead on a boss anymore. Basically, they don't want people to feel like tanks are out of a job when it's already a pretty thankless one as it is. If some DPS's mobile DoT can be as good of a tank as you are, then that really doesn't feel so good, and can be really discouraging to tank players.

While it's amusing to think about being able to pet tank for the epic win, I can totally understand why things are as they are as far as pets vs bosses.