Petanks 4 Cataclysm

[SashaKuroi]

Dear readers.

I used to play a hunter previous to Wotlk but had to switch to a death knight so I could tank for my guild. As such i have been out of the "loop" on many hunter related changes. (Thank goodness for this site) A couple days back I was testing out a DPS spec and noticed a 20 minute wait time for a random dungeon. I thought to myself ;_; (cries) Why don't they just let hunters tank 5 mans with their pets already!!! From my past 5 years playing a hunter I knew exactly where to go for the truth! Here! So without further delay...

My questions to readers here would be:

1) Would you tank with your pet to help reduce the wait times?
2) Would you support pet tanking in all specs?
3) Would the longterm affects of pet tanking be okay? Any concerns?

This topic on the wow suggestion forums is here:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/threa ... 19&sid=1#0

In a nutshell I am suggesting they provide hunters with a new aspect so hunter damage is converted to threat for the pet. Also while being in his aspect the pet gets any +health or armor increases needed. Exactly like my Frost Presence on my death knight. Ideally i would like any hunter to be able to pull out their tanking spec pet, and throw on this new pet aspect, and be able to pet tank 5 man heroics.

Thanks for reading, and if you support this idea please draw attention or post suggestions on the forums. Something really needs to be done about this shortage!

[Sphax]

I was thinking something similar.
Since Beastmastery falls behind in dps terms with MM and SV. They could make something like a tanking tree. With some simple talents like:


XXXX : 100% of the hunters threat is transfered to the pet.

XXXX : The damage that the hunter does is reduced by 50% but threat is increased by 100%

XXXX : Eyes of the beast becomes instant cast

Something under these lines

it works pretty simple. Just send in pet.

Nuke a bit 1-2 shots cast eye of the beast and place ur pet where u want the boss or whatever to be tanked. aaaaand back to ur dps/threat


and one something happens u just go eyes again and control pet.




The problem here is that u cant control ur hunter then. Leaving him vurnable.




what u think? xD

[SashaKuroi]

The eyes of the beast set up is nice! I never considered using that to position your pet somewhere.

I think it might work if you started out and built threat up first, then managed to "move your pet" using eyes, and place him where you want him to be it might work. Movement is probably the aspect about pet tanking that would keep it out of raids, just by virtue of threat loss incurred while doing it. Even when I move around on my DK i lose threat, but it would be nothing compared to what a hunter would deal with. Even with instant eyes.

Ways to get around it:
Dots , Dots, and more Dots. If you Dot up the target(s) you can probably afford those few seconds to move around. Although it would be a real threat loss it would be better then having nothing ticking in the background.

I would ideally love for all hunters to be able to help with the tanking shortage because its getting pretty bad. The 5 mans for example can run people up 15 minutes or more for wait times. 15 minutes just waiting for a tank to hit the random button. Its pretty sad. Especially when most bosses in the 5 mans really are tank and spank encounters with a few cool abilities. I think a pet could do my job Its not like an ICC raid.

I think if they implement instant eyes (Which is a great idea btw) they also need to split any damage taken by the hunter while hes not being controlled" with his pet, so if he does take damage by fire or something while hes controlling it, his chances of death are reduced. Heck while there at it, give the pet a threat boost while being controlled by eyes.

Edit: Your right there is a real vulnerability here because if the hunter dies , the pets gone On the + side if the petank dies the hunter is still around providing he has enough time to rez it Due to PvP I doubt that blizzard would protect hunters from sources of damage while they are using eyes of the beast. However it was a good idea. Buffing instant eyes to increase threat may be a solution to allow more mobility.

[Ryai]

TBH an instant EotB is still worthless because pet bars are still 4 attacks on the spot. And not everyone uses macros; pets also aren't able to have that many taunts or ohshi buttons like paladins, warriors, bears and DK's.

The only viable solution would be something that either A: transfers all threat to pet, but reduces damage. Or B: something like Warlocks Metamorphisis. As Aria has told me that there's been several times a warlock has been forced to tank.

The irony of this is a resto druid tried to get me to pet tank ToC trash before Paletress...

ye no... not happening.

[Palladiamorsdeus]

You'd have to have a defensive aspect first off. Something like defensive stance or frost presence that would up the pet's survivability and threat capabilities. After that, you'd have to have a lot more player controlled tanking abilities, things more along the lines of intimidation. A player controlled, no-pet bar taunt, snap taunt, and maybe even AoE aggro all being player controlled. The defensive aspect would probably need to switch to a new bar.

Is it possible? Hell yea. Is it likely? Hell no.

[SashaKuroi]

Oh yes -_- I forgot about the dreaded action bar bloat! I think the new aspect should increase survivability and threat. I am a fan of the "constant misdirection" approach because all *reduced* damage done to anything by the hunter is turned directly into threat *modified by the presence of the aspect* so how it works would be like this:

Hunter hits a target for lets say 1800 dmg =3600 threat. (My frost presence works exactly like this)
Then
Add on whatever your pet does normally.
White damage
Swipe
Thunderstomp

So imagine everything you do normally being transferred as threat to the pet. I highly doubt your pet would have any issues keeping hate. On large packs you could run him in and just volley to your hearts content. It would actually be very easy for the pet to hold threat in this manner. The hunter would not be terribly affected by this approach either since they would just be "dpsing" normally in most cases. (be it at a reduced amount.) If they build threat amazingly well with the addition of swipe and thunderstop great. More flexibility for the hunter to do their normal routine.

As far as cooldowns go. For 5 mans you really don't need very much to get the job done. A single cooldown which could be used once each boss fight might be enough.
I don't wish to build a raid tank here, or clutter up hunters bars, just engineer a solution to resolve the huge imbalance for 5 man content. I think if there are hunters willing to pet tank 5 mans, other tanks should recognize that they can't handle the demand and let them.

Blizzard needs to know if hunters are interested. Many of the suggestions on the forums have been implemented. Thanks for the feedback!

[Tygamoon]

Back before BC I thought this was a great idea. I had read the suggestion on the forums then. I didn't know how to play as a tank then but I was getting interested in that roll because I planed on making a paladin. My idea about the whole problem with control of the hunter while in pet tank mode durring a boss was to have eyes instant and it would put the hunters avatar on a pet AI system. The character would lose some finer points in hunter dps but the AI would keep it at ranged and you could still kinda keep some control on it. I ran it by a few people but was told that it would never happen, and if it did then they would refuse to run with the hunter. Kinda bummed me cause these were good wow friends lol. Now that the game has evolved a lot it just might be doable.

Another idea that I would love-love-love to see is BM able to spec 2 or even 3 pets out at the same time. The trade off would be one pet bar would control all the pets and they would have to lose the special ability of the family's but the added dps would really help the spec out imo. OR maybe have a cooldown like TBW and Kill Command where for 5 seconds all of your active pets would be called on to attack one target. I was talking with Hun on this and we were joking about getting the biggest most annoying pets in game (like a bunch of sholazar wasps or devilsaures) JUST for this cooldown.






Annnnnnd pet emotes! The addon is sort of fun but I want my pet to dance when I tell it too!