Analysis of new Pet Abilities

[Satyr]

I didnt see comment on spirit beasts.

They lose spirit strike. They gain spirit mend instead----HOT heal - 28 sec CD, 25 yd range, 2365 heal + 1253 over 10 sec.

[Nymrohd]

I've check WoWhead and MMO-C's database and not all pets have lost their damage dealing abilities yet, including Spirit strike. Obviously this is an oversight that will be covered at a future pass. I'd guess spirit strike becomes a + spelldamage taken debuff.

[Slickrock]

Games are supposed to be fun, and these new pet abilities are not fun. That's the deal breaker for me.

IF I decide to play at all during this expansion, I will absolutely not be playing a hunter.

I have to ask, were the previous abilities much better in your opinion? How exactly was (for example) WotLK-Furious Howl more fun than Cata-Furious Howl? I can see where you are coming from in some cases, i.e. crocs losing Bad Attitude, but those were the exception among the pet abilities, and not really the rule.

This. The ONLY thing that truly got gelded and made MUCH less useful are bears and crocs. The rest of the abilities are just buff rearrangements. But the multi-mob aggro abilities of the bear and croc are gone, and that will hurt.

Other than than, I don't see why everyone is having a tantrum. Pets getting nerfed was when rhino-bowling was taken away.

[Slickrock]

Of course a bigger question is, will people run 25mans? Still no word about how they are going to make them special. More gear sounds nice but it will have to be much more gear (or legendaries in 25mans only I guess).

A lot less will be doing 25s, many more will be doing 10-mans. All the more reason for the varied pet buffs/debuffs, and more need for hunters to fill those gaps.

[Slickrock]

I can't believe some of you folks are complaining about these changes, to be perfectly honest.

All the pets are going to do balanced damage. If pet damage is too low, then presumably Blizz will do something to bring it to the correct level.

This. Remember these abilities are all the non-damage abilities. There will still be the claw/bite/whatever, and pets will be balanced on that.

You will be bringing the pet that fills the gap in your group. You will be filling that 25-slot stable.

Only two things make me sad. The loss of AOE tanking pets (bear and croc) and spirit beasts becoming a low-grade healbot. I don't see my spirit beasts coming out the the stable much, and I'm not sure I see a bear or croc in my stable either.

Back to soloing with a boar or a cat.

[Raydex-of-the-dawn]

Warp stalkers were nerfed too.

Time Warp is not nearly as good. Warp let my pet solo things my old croc, Reshekekek (returning in Cat) could, and let me skip Charge for another point in Pet Barding. :/ And don't tell me I'm complaining. I've had him for ages and I adore him! <3

On the bright side, Deadlock should be more viable now, Para will still be useful, and Loki just respecced Shaman!

[Slickrock]

Warp stalkers were nerfed too.

Time Warp is not nearly as good. Warp let my pet solo things my old croc, Reshekekek (returning in Cat) could, and let me skip Charge for another point in Pet Barding. :/

Yeah, that's true too. Pet tanking seems to be a thing of the past. With the reduction in MD abilities, higher CC needs, and now these changes, it's gonna be different.

Don't think I will have a bear, croc or warpstalker (Unless Gezz is tameable) in my stable. Only gonna need my armoured boar.

[Nymrohd]

Hmm, considering the awesome Major Misdirection glyph, pet threat should be better than ever at least on single targets (Resets the cooldown of MD when it is used on your pet, which means you can use it at will). We have yet to see all the changes and I would hope for some pet talent changes as well.

[Victorelle]

oooooo I love the fox abilitys :3

[Kalliope]

Hmm, considering the awesome Major Misdirection glyph, pet threat should be better than ever at least on single targets (Resets the cooldown of MD when it is used on your pet, which means you can use it at will). We have yet to see all the changes and I would hope for some pet talent changes as well.

Wowwwww....that's nifty.

And really, I love my bear and I consider this to be a buff. Swipe only hit three targets. This is better; less incoming damage.

[Anyia]

I agree with Nym, except for one point: these are NOT all autocast buffs or debuffs. If a hunter leaves their corehound's bloodlust on autocast, there is going to be massive raid emo.

This makes me wonder whether they've finally fixed the pet-ability-automagically-reenables-unless-it's-on-the-pet-bar issue?
Given we'll be switching pets far more often in Cata, that could become quite painful very quickly otherwise, at least on the core hound!

[Worba]

[*]Warp Stalker - Time Warp (renamed from Warp): Changed completely. Now reduces enemy's movement speed by 50% for 6 sec. 15 sec cooldown.
[*]Crocolisk - Ankle Crack (renamed from Bad Attitude): Changed completely. Now reduces enemy movement speed by 50% for 6 sec. 10 sec cooldown.

I was never bothered by the DPS equalization in fact I welcomed it... that being said however I was still keenly interested to see what sort of movement debuffs would be appearing and on which pets, because a pet with movement debuff can at least delay an enemy from reaching you without needing to generate competitive threat - that's why I like hyenas and chimeras because they tie the enemy up while also doing respectable DPS.

But unless they also merged the pet talent trees into one and I didn't notice, this now means the only two families with movement debuffs will be ... tenacity. Which is failing at its intrinsic purpose by kiting a mob instead of taking the hits.

I suppose it's possible that Blizzard considered ferocity/cunning with slow effect to be OP, but if so that would seem a rather fine distinction since this really only materializes in the solo game.

Or did any pets in ferocity or cunning families get movement debuffs and I missed it?

[Worba]

Spiders still have web, if that's what you're looking for, Worba, but I understand what you mean. It does seem to defeat the purpose.

You're right I missed that. However it's still got 40 sec CD which is handy for PVP but not enough to be a part of regular PVE combat...

[zedxrgal]

Like with so many other things in Cata so far this is another thing I'm completely 50/50 on. This could end up, yes, working in our favor but the depending on if the compensations for the adjustments are right could really neuter us and make things even harder for us to be an 'acceptable' class.
I'll of course wait before full judgement.
But if it's exactly as it is now I'm not please and it may alter my rolling any new hunters when Cata comes out.

[Kalliope]

Spiders still have web, if that's what you're looking for, Worba, but I understand what you mean. It does seem to defeat the purpose.

You're right I missed that. However it's still got 40 sec CD which is handy for PVP but not enough to be a part of regular PVE combat...

Mmmm, kinda. I kite stuff all the time with my spider, though given, I have very nice gear and a PvP marks spec (aka extra conc shot effects).

You know the elite ogre inside Brackenwall Village? The guy who goes aggressive for a quest? I soloed him when he was red to me as a survival hunter with an underleveled pet crab. Kited him around the village using frost traps, wyvern sting, and pin. Might've gone a bit easier with a spider instead, since I was just using my crab for damage/roots, not tanking, and spiders dish out a bit more of that as cunning pets. Pin has the same cd as web, so same thing really. BM could rotate it with intimidation, so that's all the specs covered.

[Slickrock]

The list showed up on Elitistjerks as well, with a few pieces I didn't see in our list.

Wild Hunt: When your pet is above 50 focus, your pet's Basic attacks will do 60/120% more damage, but cost 50/100% more focus.
Roar of Recovery: 30 focus over 9 seconds. 3m cd.
Culling the Heard: When your pets Basic Attack deals a critical strike, you and your pet's damage is increased by 1/2/3% for 10 seconds.
Serpent's Swiftness (Replaces Cobra Reflexes): Increases your pet's melee attack speed by 5/10%

Bat: 2s stun.
Bear: -10% physical damage debuff. 10s duration. 15s cd.
Boar: 30% increased bleed damage. 15s duration. 10s cd.
Birds of Prey: unchanged/unimplemented
Cat: prowl + rake (unchanged)
Carrion Bird: unchanged/unimplemented
Chimaera (Exotic): unchanged/unimplemented
Core Hound (Exotic): ancient hysteria (lust) as exotic, lava breath as special
Crab: unchanged
Crocolisk: Ankle Crack - Slows target by 50% for 6s. 10s cd.
Devilsaur (Exotic): MS debuff & 5% raid crit
Dog (Wolf): 5% raid crit.
Dragonhawk: 8% increased magic damage for 45s. 30s cd.
Fox: Tailspin Attackspeed debuff (8s duration, 40s cd) and Play (bonus ability that makes your fox dance)
Gorilla: 2s interrupt. 30s cd.
Hyena: 30% increased bleed debuff.
Moth: 2s interrupt. 1m cd.
Monkey: "Bad Manner" - Hurls a handful of something special at the target, blinding them for 4s. 1m cd.
Nether Ray: unchanged/unimplemented
Plainstrider: Attack speed debuff - 8s duration. 40s cd.
Raptor: -Armor Debuff
Rhino (Exotic): Bleed debuff. 30s duration. 15s cd.
Scorpid: Clench - Disarms melee and ranged weapons for 10s. 1m cd.
Serpent: -Armor Debuff.
Shale Spider (Exotic): 5% Agi, Str, Sta, Int raid buff.
Silithid (Exotic): +Stamina Buff and 5s root (40s cd)
Spirit Beast (Exotic): heal as mentioned above as exotic, prowl as special.
Spore Bat: AoE -cast speed debuff for 9s. 15s cd.
Turtle: unchanged
Warp Stalker: 50% movement slow. 15s cd
Wasp: 2s stun. 45s cd.
Wind Serpent: +magic damage debuff.
Worm: 4% increased physical damage on target for 25 seconds. 10s cd.

Cats.. sigh... you won't be bringing them to raids. Or for soloing either. With just prowl and basic attacks, they are basically a PVP pet? sigh.

Assuming the dps is balanced out on the basic attacks, I think my core pets in cata, based on what we know now, will be:

Soloing/leveling: Boar/Worm
PVP: Silithid
Raiding: Trex/Corehound/ShaleSpider

[rubybeam]

damnit.... they be making my pets worthless man bizz if you could quit picking on hunters as your teasing class lots of people wouldn't of quit your game thank you very much

[Slickrock]

damnit.... they be making my pets worthless man bizz if you could quit picking on hunters as your teasing class lots of people wouldn't of quit your game thank you very much

I don't see how they are making them worthless. Basic damage is supposed to be fixed, and each pet will bring a buff/debuff or have a snare or prowl. Exotics will have a bit extra.

They are making it so you will use a good portion of that stable space.

One other thought on this.. they NEED to remove those damage components from the specials if they are every going to balance pets. Pet damage needs to be based on a core coefficient, pet/hunter stats and talents, so they can balance and adjust as needed. The only result is pets with specials with limited use (prowl.. ) will be gimped unless they fix those.

[Kalliope]

Cats.. sigh... you won't be bringing them to raids. Or for soloing either. With just prowl and basic attacks, they are basically a PVP pet? sigh.

Cats can't possibly be done yet, along with the other "prowling" pets who have an extra ability. Work in progress!

EDIT: I actually read the rest of your repost and LOLed at the monkey ability!!!! Linked for general amusement.

[Slickrock]

Cats.. sigh... you won't be bringing them to raids. Or for soloing either. With just prowl and basic attacks, they are basically a PVP pet? sigh.

Cats can't possibly be done yet, along with the other "prowling" pets who have an extra ability. Work in progress!

Let's hope.. my RedLynx awaits my call if they get brought up to the others. (Let's also hope they fix SpiritBaidAid.. ugh.. gimme a break.)