Now that I have started leveling Ideale — with much frustration, I might add; after not having played her, literally, for a month, I am a borderline huntard mostly because I keep forgetting where I put things. "I have aggro! I have aggro! Oh yeah, Intimidation! ... Why did I just Arcane Shot?" And also ammo. Shamans do not have ammo, nor do they need it. So I'm sitting there shooting, shooting, shooting, and suddenly I am getting the out of ammo message and have to melee my way back out of Baleheim. *facepalm* Luckily, I think I got all the huntard out of my system by the time I dinged 71.
Where was I? Oh yeah.
Now that I have started leveling Ideale, I've had to face facts. With the exception of my wasp, none of my pet choices are all that awesome for PVP, which is where I intend to spend all of my non-farming time on Ideale. Because really, I am not so good at PVE as DPS. And I don't know if it is a spec problem or I have the cower bug going on or what, but pre-WotLK Cinnamon had no problem holding aggro, and post-WotLK I am pulling aggro even though my DPS has tanked and even using Aspect of the Viper, thus tanking my DPS even more. (The DPS thing is a spec problem, I think — my DPS in Aspect of the Hawk is a bit lower than it used to be in Aspect of the Viper back pre-Wrath, and I don't think it's due to nerfs. I went with a hybrid spec for PVP, and because I am a defensive player went for Readiness, survivability and other tricks rather than massive DPS; this is not a leveling spec at all.)
I desperately MUST tame Loque. I have wanted to tame this cat since the moment I laid eyes on the screenshot at Mania's blog, and after having done the Har'koa quests on Ahami, I want him even more desperately. I've never wanted to tame a pet so badly, ever. I would also very much like a windserpent for PVP, and if I keep having aggro problems with Cinnamon, I would really like to tame a rhino for soloing with.
That's two pets, or maybe three. I have one remaining stable slot.
I am keeping Cinnamon, of course, and I'm already super-attached to my firefly, RIzal, even though he's still not 70. (I was leveling him through Alterac Valley ...) Plus, the wasp poison is absolutely wonderful for PVP. Not a lot of damage, but it really helps with kiting, and annoys the crap out of paladins. And there are so few wasp hunters!
I love Saffron a lot, but having two cats (hopefully soon to be three) is silly, especially since I will be respeccing full BM and the extra pet talent points make Saffy's spec and Cinnamon's incredibly similar. But she's been with me since the Badlands, and I am such a cat person.
And Gutripper — I was so excited when I managed to solo-tame her, and she's been so much fun as a pet, but after the patch, when Screech changed to Snatch, I really don't pull her out much. I don't like to micromanage a pet's abilities, but Snatch very much needs a hunter to micromanage it, or you have your owl grabbing a mage's weapon and then on CD for the rogue or warrior. It's fun to use — they always kind of pause when they lose their weapons, like "WTF???" — but not that fun. But even though I have not had her very long in comparison to my cats, I am attached to her.
So which do I choose to keep? And which do I let go? And more importantly, can I bring myself to follow through, and will I be able to go through it a second time if I can't figure out my aggro issues and need to tame a rhino, too?
I think this is why I've put off leveling Ideale so long (after I'd intended to level them together) — I knew this was coming, and I really don't want to deal with it.
5 comments:
You may want to look into seeing if your pets happen to accidentally have Prowl enabled, because if so, it will completely negate Growl. If you click it off in your spellbook and it won't stay off, try to drag it to your pet's spellbar and keep it there-- that's what helped me!
I dont much like windserpents. I cant really see why you would chose one specifically for PvP either except for flappy in-your-face wings.
Hyenas are good at slowing the enemy and are ferocity pets with high dps as well. Spiders or silithids look reasonably good as well.
Serpents have a nice anti-caster debuf and do decent damage. Mine is great against caster mobs in pve. I've not tested it in pvp yet. The advantage of serpent and hyena is shortish cooldowns.
Gorilla with thunderstomp are still probably better farming pets than rhino, even after the upcomming nerf to volley.
You might consider keeping the 5th slot "open" since its relatively quick to level up any pet a max of 5 levels. This way you can test any pet and release them when you want a change.
Keep Cinn and Saffy if you possibly can!
I am not having much problems with single target aggro with cats in the 20's or the 40's with my hunters. You do have to watch cower though since it turns itself on after zoning, or pet resurection, or stableswaps... very annoying!
@Pike: I don't think it's the Prowl thing because I have that on my bar already (for WSG), but it might be the same thing only with Cower. I'll try dragging that to my bar and see if that's the problem. Thanks! :-) Hopefully that'll be it.
@Crypt: I like flappy pets for PVP because they so annoy other players, particularly gnomes and dwarves. As for why a windserpent? Well, I've heard that the Cunning families are pretty good for PVP, but mostly I just want to check out lightning breath. They seem like they would do some decent burst damage with it, and burst damage is really handy in the battlegrounds, I'm noticing.
If I don't like them (I had one at level 20 and didn't care much for him, but I picked one with caster stats — hadn't found Petopia yet), I might test out a spore bat. My first thought, actually, was a spider, but I hate micromanaging pet abilities and with a 40 second CD, I wouldn't want it webbing every time it could.
Oops, I can't believe I said Prowl. I meant Cower. *cough*
@pike LOL. watch out, that mistake could prove costly :P
@ everyone else: I was playing my 48 hunter last night. I rotated through several of my pets on the beach near reventusk village in The Hinterlands. The turtle mobs there are 49 and 50.
My cat at 43 had no difficulty soloing (without help or healing from me!) any of the lvl 50 turtles. Rarely did he get below 1/3 health though it was painfully slow to kill.
When I joined in the fight the cat held aggro fairly easily if I held back at least until the first growl went off.
My carion bird also started at 43. It seemed to hold aggro even better than the cat. Against the trolls and wolves on the cliffs above he was awesome as usual with screech holding aggro against 2-3 mobs at a time, through mend pet and bloodthirsty self-heals.
I also pulled out the gorilla. He started at 46 and had absolutely no trouble with anything I threw at him. I wasnt using volley much, preparing for the nerf, but he handled small groups easily while I burnt down the main target.
In short, I'm not having aggro troubles... so look into it being a cower issue. Check your combat logs and see if it cast.
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