Analysis of new Pet Abilities

[JayCanuck]

For those who don't want to read all the changes/details, here's a quick analysis for ya:

• Fox - Tailspin: Reduces attack speed of all enemies within 10 yards by 20% for 8 sec. 40 sec cooldown.
  Play: A fun ability with no combat purpose
  Does not replace prowl.
• Corehound - Lava Breath: No longer does fire damage. Cooldown reduced to 8 sec. Focus cost removed.
  Ancient Hysteria: Increases attack speed/casting speed of all party/raid members by 30% for 40 sec. 6 min cooldown, but causes 10min Sated debuff preventing Ancient Hysteria and Bloodlust.
• Rhino - Stampede: No longer does damage. Bleed damage effect increased to 30%. Duration changed to 30 sec. Cooldown changed to 15 sec.
• Wasp - Sting: Changed completely. Now simply stuns a target for 2 sec. 45 sec cooldown.
• Worm - Acid Spit: No longer does nature damage. No longer reduces armor, now it increases enemy physical damage taken by 4% for 25 sec. 10 sec cooldown.
• Moth - Serenity Dust: Now interrupts/prevents spellcasting from that school of magic for 2sec. 1 min cooldown.
• Serpent - Corrosive Spit (renamed from Poison Spit): Instead of a DoT, it now is a debuff, reducing enemy armor 4% for 30 sec. Stacks 5 times. 6 sec cooldown.
• Ravager - Ravage: Changed completely. Now increases enemy's physical damage take by 4%, lasting 25 sec. 15 sec cooldown.
• Warp Stalker - Time Warp (renamed from Warp): Changed completely. Now reduces enemy's movement speed by 50% for 6 sec. 15 sec cooldown.
• Sporebat - Spore Cloud: Changed completely. Now reduces the casting speed of all emenies with 6 yards by 25% for 9 sec. 12 sec cooldown.
• Nether Ray - Nether Shock: No longer does shadow damage.
• Dagonhawk - Fire Breath: Changed completely. Now increases the enemy's magic damage taken by 8% for 45 sec. 30 sec cooldown.
• Wind Serpent - Lightning Breath: Changed completely. now increases the enemy's damage take by ??% for 45 sec. 30 sec cooldown.
• Bird of Prey - Snatch: No longer does damage. Duration increased to 10 sec.
• Hyena - Tendon Rip: Changed completely. Now, it increases enemy damage taken by 30% for 15 sec. 10 sec cooldown.
• Bat - Sonic Blast: No longer does nature damage.
• Scorpid - Clench (renamed from Scorpid Poison): Changed completely. Now disarms the enemy for 10 sec. 1 min cooldown.
• Tallstrider - Dust Cloud: Changed completely. Now reduces attack speed of all enemies within 10 yards by 20% for 8 sec. 40 sec cooldown.
• Raptor - Tear Armor (renamed from Savage Rend): Changed completely. Now reduces enemy armor by 4% for 30 sec. Stacks 5 times. 6 sec cooldown.
• Gorilla - Pummel: Focus cost removed.
• Crocolisk - Ankle Crack (renamed from Bad Attitude): Changed completely. Now reduces enemy movement speed by 50% for 6 sec. 10 sec cooldown.
• Boar - Gore: Changed completely. Now causes the enemy to take an extra 30% bleed damage for 15 sec. 10 sec cooldown.
• Bear - Demoralizing Roar (renamed from Swipe): Changed completely. Now reduces physical damage caused by all enemies within ?? yards by 10% for 15 sec. 10 sec cooldown.
• Wolf - Furious Howl: Changed completely. Now increases the critical strike of the entire party/raid by 5% for 1 min. 45 sec cooldown.
• Spider - Web: Duration increased to 5 sec.
• Silithid - Venom Web Spray: Stun duration increased to 5 sec. No longer does nature damage.
  Qiraji Fortitude: Increases party and raid members' stamina by 20. Unknown duration and cooldown

So it definitely looks like Blizzard intends to move forward with their plan to let hunters use a variety of pets, rather than sticking to wolves, like currently for high dps.

A lot of abilities seem similar or identical, but I'm afraid that's the price to be paid with such massive changes underway. Interestingly, a lot of the ability durations are longer than the ability cooldowns, a nice trend, which might lead to some interesting macros if that ends up as inefficient as is sounds.

All in all, looks like a huge nerf to Wasps, Moths, and Bats, unfortunately. On the flip side, Tallstriders get a nice buff, and Bears seem to be an ideal tank (Thunderstomp and Demoralizing Roar look like an amazing combination).

[Kikanu]

Core Hound = Shaman
Glyph to be Core Hound where, Blizz?

Spore Bat
NO! NO NO NO NO NO! Dammit Blizzard, you royally fucked up the most obscure pet! Excuse the french, but that pisses me off. It's less useful now.

Crocolisk
Blizzard typo. I refuse to believe the croc just became garbage. Tanks do not need to slow their enemies down. That's DPS' job.

Raptor
Is Raptor becoming Tenacity? Because that sounds like it would be as awesome as Sunder Armor. If not, then Blizzard didn't think that through properly, giving a DPS pet a tanking ability.

[Teigan]

First impression: not impressed. They broke my wormie! And several other things...
And, these seem more "group focused" than they used to be, which makes me wonder about the future of solo play after Cata? What are they up to, here?

[Saturo]

WHAT!?

[JayCanuck]

I gotta say, I'm kinda liking the new Hyena ability.


I really hope that an ability won't be re-used if an existing duration is up. For example the Worm ability lasts 25 seconds, but the cooldown is only 10 seconds. That could potentially mean 15 seconds wasted.

[Anyia]

Overall, this looks awesome to me! I certainly don't mind that there is some overlap between families - after all, otherwise it'll be mandatory for any raiding hunter to have one of each pet family (in fact, there'll be a lot of taming to do anyway!).

If this survives to go live I think I'll need to write an add-on to analyze the raid composition and make pet recommendations...

[Skarm]

What did we as hunters do to piss off blizzard? They have totaly nerfed my worm and my corehound. I was planning on getting my silithid back, but not anymore. What a bunch of garbage. Who pissed in Blizzards chillie? For all they say that theyre going to do to improve hunters, they sure seem to be nerfing us 7 ways from sunday. I was upset over loosing my volley and eyes of the beast, now they geld my pets? How am I supposed to play the higher levels with my pets sissified like this. Most especialy when I have been playing with a couple of them since I was of a high enough level to tame them. I've had my core hound since around lvl 65, and got my worm at around 75 or so. I don't want this!

[Skarm]

ALso, I fail to see the "awsomeness" of these changes.

[Skarm]

I think that I might just have to trade my hunter in on a drood. At least then I might have an animal that might do some damage.

SO much for the "improvements" that bliz promised hunters, huh? Great, Foxes, dogs and monkeys! WHOOPEE! More stable slots! HURRAH! They give with one hand and stab us with the other one, and I aint too impressed with what they've given thus far.

Here ends the rant.

[Kalliope]

Not sure where everyone's getting the "OMG THESE ARE NERFS" thing from.

Corehounds now pack HEROISM/BLOODLUST (talk about getting BM hunters invited to raids again). Miss your caster debuff? Pick up a spore bat, who can now debuff all the casters in an area, not just the initial target. Crocs look like PvP pets now, which is pretty amazing. Scorpids will be viable PvP pets again! Raptors are viable raiding pets again. Moths are PvP pets, ha!

Etc. etc. etc. For the most part, these abilities are just shifting families. Ravagers lost their stun, but wasps gained it. Pets got homogenized in the name of having more viable PRACTICAL options. At least every family has an ability, y'know? I remember the days of bears having nothing...sigh. Bats and nether rays lost their nature/shadow damage, but otherwise remained the same. That's not a nerf.

About the only part of these changes that truly seems like a nerf to me is the loss of any extra AoE threat generation from pets. But all tenacity pets have tstomp anyway now, so that's covered.

So yeah...different, but not nerfs. Pets will be changing their roles, which players may or may not like, but these things do happen.

[Palladiamorsdeus]

Not nerfs? A lot of abilities completely lost damage components that made them very good in the very place. It does do away with that dividing line, but not in a good way. I'll have to check my devilsaur once servers come up.

[Kalliope]

All pets lost their damage-dealing abilities. Now they bring buffs or debuffs. Instead of bringing a pet because they can dish out more damage, you bring one because of the buff/debuff. It's a change in focus from pure damage to utility. I'm sure min-maxers will figure out which pet(s) are the most beneficial for the hunter alone, but I'm sure that in raids, the "best pet" to bring will depend heavily on raid composition.

[Palladiamorsdeus]

Right now bite seems to be busted for me, so I can't do a full amount of testing, but my pets all got MASSIVELY WEAKER. I don't mean a little weaker. I mean a huge, noticeable chunk weaker.

Go look at demonology. I'll wait. Back? Felguards got Bladestorm, Legionstrike, axe toss, and another AoE ability I can't recall right now. BM pets? Got screwed. We are NOT a buffing class. This will ensure our place in raids, but at what cost?

[Skarm]

All pets lost their damage-dealing abilities. Now they bring buffs or debuffs. Instead of bringing a pet because they can dish out more damage, you bring one because of the buff/debuff. It's a change in focus from pure damage to utility. I'm sure min-maxers will figure out which pet(s) are the most beneficial for the hunter alone, but I'm sure that in raids, the "best pet" to bring will depend heavily on raid composition.

BFD (big furry deal) I dont have pets for their ability to buff or debuff. My job is to hand out damage, and my pets job is to keep the baddies off of me while I do it. It seems to me that bliz is doing its best to enforce this whole social thing on us and this time theyre going at it from the pets. Raiding and dungeon crawling is hard enough as it is with the prejudices against "huntards". Those of us who do, have worked at getting the best possible pets for the job. Now, it seems to me, we're going to have to go through this whole interview process: What pets do you have? What level are they? What can you do to make this raid a better one, so that I, the raid leader, can further cover myself in trade chat glory? Bah! No thank you! I'm going back to PVE.

[hudges]

well dosent seems much of positive change imo, insted of getting a pet you like and want with you, you need to fill in the missing debuff/buff,
and atm it seems they are equal in worth just like the class itself, btw the heyna isnt 30% to all damage, its only bleed like mangle.
still quite abit of families missing, e.g. cat, devilsaur, spirit beast...
i wonder what theyll get.
so end conclusion, blizz still failed imo.

edit: i can see many guilds will ask hunters to be bm for shaman hound

[Palladiamorsdeus]

Devilaur gets mortal strike, gimme a sec on the cat. I'll edit the post in just a minute.

Edit: *Blinks* Cat's kept rake. No way in heck that's stayin'. Can't say about spirit beasts, though I'd be angry if they lost spirit strike.

[hudges]

Devilaur gets mortal strike, gimme a sec on the cat. I'll edit the post in just a minute.

Edit: *Blinks* Cat's kept rake. No way in heck that's stayin'. Can't say about spirit beasts, though I'd be angry if they lost spirit strike.

hmm whats the sense in ms for devilsaurs, we have widow venom for it.
and i dont know maybe they will nd then its cat/spirit beast for pure dps

[SpiritBinder]

To be frank, I'm kinda of sad.... I have pets that I currently love to bits. But their ability's are getting removed and then just pasted onto another pets and then given somthing totally obscure? for what reason? ... I r sad panda

[Kalliope]

Before everyone gets their pet leashes in a bind (too late), keep in mind that not every family has been addressed. A.K.A.....these abilities are probably not done yet. Besides, we have no idea what other stuff Blizzard will give us to compensate. They could put this on the beta, say "oh, these numbers are lower than what we're looking for" and tweak again.

The general goal seems to be to allow us to bring whatever pet we want, provided that a particular raid buff isn't needed, since all the pets should do approximately the same damage (in theory).

Widow Venom appears to be gone as well as the other venoms, Hudges, at least based on this speculative build that popped up on MMO. Chimera shot now heals the hunter instead.

[hudges]

beside being removed from chimera, there is no mentioning of widow venom gone, like last build scorpid/viper venoms.
but ill be on soon and see if its removed

edit: widow venom still in game and unchanged.