Hunters – WotLK Pets

I’ve been meaning to post something about hunters, but despite it being my favorite class in WoW, I couldn’t really think of an angle that interested me enough to actually do it. Then the other day I noticed the Wrath of the Lich King hunter pets preview over at Petopia, and realized I’d found something to talk about – hunter pets are going to be revolutionized in a few months.

So, what will happen to our pets in November? I highly recommend going to the source for the full details (especially since they are regularly posting new updates as changes occur in beta), but if you want a quick preview, here are the essentials that I’ve been able to glean from the excellent research done by Mania and friends:

• Pet families. Pets are now grouped into 3 distinct families according to basic function – cunning, ferocious and tenacious. The cunning family seems to be more about having PVP utility skills, while the ferocious and tenacious families contain the DPS and tank pets respectively. Stats are now based off of family rather than pet species, and a pet’s family will also determine which talents it is eligible for (“caster” pets apparently still have lower stats but this is supposed to be fixed soon).
• Pet talents. These are accumulated at the rate of 1 every 4 levels beginning at level 20, and the pet can only choose from the tree assigned to its family. Talents are how your pet will “grow into” his family’s role; although a Beast Master spec’s pets will remain superior as you’d expect, it will no longer be necessary for a hunter to take the BM spec just to have a pet that is capable of pulling its own weight.
• Implications. This is huge: no more pet trainer (well that’s not quite true – they are still available if you want to respec your pet), no more taming pets just to learn their new skill, no more spending ridiculous amounts of time raising your pets’ loyalty levels… and your third stable slot pet can now be a “keeper”. Apparently the basic pet feeding/loyalty mechanism will remain but only for the purpose of retaining the “happy” damage bonus and preventing it from eventually running away due to neglect.
• Pet skills – Blizzard finally will be delivering on their promise to assign a unique ability to every species, so folks who stuck it out with their spider or croc will finally be rewarded for their perseverance. In general pets who already had a special skill will keep it as-is; this is mainly for the pets who previously had been ignored.

Some other bits

• New species – They’ve moved owls over into a species called birds of prey, which also includes hawks and eagles. These birds can disarm an enemy and belong to the cunning family, so it looks like they may be handy vs uber geared pvp meleers. Also and more dramatically they have made moths tameable – these are ferocity pets with a pretty cool looking turbo boost/recovery skill and I will definitely be taming one or two of these for my hunters.
• Exotic pets – level 60 BM spec hunters will be able to tame “special” pets available to noone else. So far Mania has confirmed that devilsaurs belong to this group, and I have heard that chimaera may also be tameable … this is very cool and I can’t wait to learn more about this.

New roles (IMO)

• AOE pets – for the solo hunters out there, there will be 7 pets with AOE type abilities, with pretty even representation from all families (recommend taking BM spec for the cunning/ferocity pets though);
• Cunning – dragonhawks and sporebats
• Ferocity – carrion birds and tallstriders
• Tenacity – bears, gorillas and crocolisks
• Tank pets – these pets have the toughness for heavy solo’ing but lack AOE and so their main value lies in their ability to offtank in groups (just be aware that when the tank is holding aggro, the guys with cats and scorpids are going to be laughing at you);
• Tenacity – crabs, boars, turtles and warpstalkers
• PVP pets – for those who prefer the arena and want something relevant to that environment, there will be 7 pets with PVP type abilities; most are from the cunning family but the other families do make a brief appearance;
• Cunning – bats, birds of prey, ravagers, spiders and nether rays*
• Ferocity – hyenas*
• Tenacity – crabs*

*Some of these pets are equally useful for PVP and solo play – PVE’ers take note.

• Raid pets – not much has changed here, although as the list of known “exotic” pets expands this may change (note that raid pets are also fine for solo’ing and share the popularity of DPS pets within groups);
• Ferocity – devilsaurs and wolves
• Tenacity – scorpids
• DPS pets – these pets are best for getting into groups who are “LF1M DPS”, and are also nice for casual solo’ing (the single target DPS is great vs 1-2 mob fights, but they won’t do as well as AOE pets in the larger rumbles);
• Cunning – serpents and wind serpents
• Ferocity – cats, moths and raptors

Other thoughts

Charge. The charge skill is being moved from boars over to the pets in the ferocity family. Initially I was kind of annoyed at that, because after all it is the boar’s trademark move; when you see it you think of something big and heavy coming in like a meteor and stunning its target with the impact – not something light and agile like a kitty or buzzard (plus I went to all that trouble to tame a blue agamar – how could they do this to me!)…

However, on further reflection I think there is a good justification for giving it to ferocity pets; charge is one of- if not the best- skill for a MM spec’s pet, and so they wanted to give it to more species so that MM spec hunters could have something with both the opening threat spike of a boar and the longterm DPS to continue holding aggro through a long fight.

It will be nice to be able to change some of my hunters from BM to MM, but I’m going to miss having it on my dwarf’s boar – currently my only MM spec hunter. I still don’t think it should have been taken away from boars (why can’t they just share it with the ferocity pets? There’s no good reason why it can’t be a pet skill for one and a talent for the other), but at least they did give them a damage bonus to gore while dashing, which is better than nothing I guess.

Dash/dive. This is the only bit that I still have an issue with; apparently this can now be purchased with the pet’s first talent point (i.e. at lvl 20), at the current rank 3 strength – not only is this overpowered for a level 20 pet IMO (there’s a reason why it currently isn’t available until lvl 30-36), it will now be available to every species. That’s right, come November we will be seeing giant galapagos turtles, kodiak bears and other extremely ponderous things zipping around the battlefield at the same speed as hawks and cheetahs (faster even than a lvl 30 mount). It’s going to look ridiculous, and detract from the “feel” of the tenacity pets. Why not give them cybernetic jet boosters and gun pods while they’re at it? Maybe the ability to polymorph into humanoids for covert operations, like a terminator? The possibilities become endless when you ignore game atmosphere. Seriously though I could possibly see giving tenacity pets dash rank 1, at a higher level (like say 40 or 50), just to reflect the general uberness of the high level creature, but rank 3? I gotta say this one just seems dumb (and I’m saying this as one of the prime “beneficiaries”).

Know what they could have done that would keep it balanced and preserve the pets’ feel? A) Limit tenacity pets to dash rank 1 as above but also B) give them a high level version of barding that actually shows up on the model itself. That I think would make everyone happy, or as close to it as can be accomplished. But it’s something they would have to do now if ever, because if they wait and do it after every last Tom Dick and Harry have their superfast bears, turtles etc, the screams of dismay from players who prefer things that look goofy and contrary to the feel of the game will be deafening and unending. Sadly I have a feeling this brainless change is going to sail all the way to the end zone without challenge… and you just know that either they extend it to lock pets or provoke a lot of complaining from that class (and rightly so)… and then next thing you know warriors will be angrily wondering why they aren’t getting turbo movement too…

All in all though I’m psyched about the new pet changes, and plan to follow this closely at Petopia.

Acknowledgment

Once again I’d like to thank everyone at Petopia for providing such a huge wealth of information on the upcoming pet changes to us hunter addicts!

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Denise Amber Lee

I just finished watching Primetime on ABC, and I'm still reeling. Tonight's story was on the kidnapping and murder of Denise Lee. By itself this certainly qualifies as an act of sheer, subhuman evil, but isn't what has me stunned; if it was, I'd be reduced to a gibbering heap anytime I flipped through the news. Such things sadden me, but sooner or later you either go nuts or deaden your emotional nerve endings.

Not this time. This was not "just another" fatality, in the sense that police weren't even notified until long afterward, and had little to work with beyond some very old DNA traces and maybe a suspicious number on the victim's calls list - here the poor woman was taken from her home by Michael King, right in front of her two little boys and just a little before her husband was back from work, and yet within a short time she managed to quietly dial 911 on the kidnapper's own cell phone... and was then able to keep the line open for 6 minutes while she kept him distracted by pleading for her life.

Now, I'm no expert on tracing calls but just speaking as an average joe, I'd have thought 6 minutes would be enough time to trace a call; I can recall a company I used to work for where people would occasionally dial 911 while attempting to place outbound calls (the kind of phone network where you dial "9" ahead of the number to indicate that it's outside the company) - they would usually realize their mistake and hang up while the number was still dialing - and not more than a couple minutes later a cruiser would be out front. That's all it took.

In fact it got so prevalent that the local PD threatened to start billing the company for each accidental 911 call, which is how I first learned of it - through a company wide memo telling everyone they'd better be careful how they dial their calls or be prepared to pony up the $100 fine themself.

Needless to say the experience gave me the sense that dialing 911 was a serious act that got results - fast. So when I learned on Primetime that police were unable to get the phone's location during that time, I was kind of blown away. But, they at least managed to determine who the phone belonged to, so it wasn't a total loss - and maybe cell phones are much harder to trace, let's give the police the benefit of the doubt on that one.

Well, they checked the guy's house - recently gone, TV still on, pieces of duct tape lying around with Denise's hair on them, but the trail has gone cold.

Then apparently King's running low on gas but doesn't want to stop at a gas station with a screaming woman in his car, so instead he drives to his cousin Harold Muxlow's house and asks - with Denise in the car screaming and trying to get out - if he can borrow a can of gas and a shovel, because his mower is stuck in a ditch and is out of gas. Think it can't get more insane? Denise managed to get out of the car, at which point Muxton saw she was tied up, she says "call the police!" and King shoves her back in the car and drives away - with his shovel and fresh gas.

So, not having done anything to stop a self-evident atrocity in progress, can Muxlow manage to even pick up his phone and call 911?

Almost - he later picks up his phone but instead of calling 911, this waste of oxygen calls... his daughter. Who urges him to you know, call the police and stuff... but he still won't do it... so finally it is his DAUGHTER who makes the (latest) call to 911. By that time this call will only be useful after the fact when the DA is building a case against the murderer.

After this, Primetime reported that 2 different witnesses saw Denise crying, screaming and struggling in the back of King's green Camaro as the murderous dimwit drove around looking for a place to kill the girl. Did either of them call 911? Follow the car? Anything? Well, one guy said he thought it was a "domestic dispute" and "didn't want to get involved", and the other said he had dialed 911 and was about to click send but changed his mind because King drove off in a different direction.

Finally someone (whose head was not shoved up their ass, for a refreshing change) saw King and Denise, and called 911. They played the audio of that call on Primetime, and my jaw just slowly settled down into my lap; here is the caller Jane Kowalski telling them she's next to a blue Camaro with a screaming girl in the back seat... the driver is reaching back and pushing her down... the girl's hand is violently smashing against the window from below... there are patrol cars all over that very area looking for a Camaro with a screaming girl in it... but the operator keeps asking her to repeat herself and is then making Kowalski hold so she can repeat her words to someone offline; when Kowalski states the camaro is about to make a turn and should she follow it, the operator pauses to relay that too... and the opportunity is lost as the caller becomes separated from the kidnapper's car in the traffic while awaiting word whether she should follow or not.

A perfectly reasonable question for the caller to ask; after all she is speaking to a police dispatcher and should be able to expect some lawful instruction, but simple as the question is "should I follow him?", the operator makes her repeat the question and then has to consult, again, with whoever it is in the background.

That was the last chance these fools got - Denise's body was found a couple days later less than three miles from where the last witness saw her struggling, kicking, screaming and thrashing in the back of the killer's camaro.

You see, while every other last bit of the description was an exact match to the kidnapper and his victim that police were actively searching that very area for, Jane Kowalski said the camaro was "blue", and so the police wrote it off presumably as some other kidnapping-in-progress rather than the one they were looking for.

The dispatcher didn't even notify local officers of the call - because (get ready for it) she thought the "other dispatcher" had done it (this would eventually be admitted to be "a missed opportunity" by the police chief). If you were still capable of feeling surprise or shock by now, this should cinch it.

Watching these events unfold was beyond surreal - excluding the efforts of Jane Kowalski and Muxlow's daughter Sabrina, this was such a mind bending series of fuckups it was like something out of Monty Python, except with a horribly real outcome - seeing the reactions of Denise's husband and her father, and seeing the two small boys who now have no mother, made it all too real, and it has chilled me straight through.

In the couple hours I've been writing this, the source of that chill has finally become clear - it's from the combination not only of inhuman evil, but also of the fabulous stupidity that made it possible for this murder to even happen at all - here is an evil shitbag with no brains who nonetheless blunders his oafish way through a kidnapping and murder, even having to make a stop in broad daylight to borrow the shovel and flashlight, and gas just to keep his car running, and yet everything just still seems to somehow go his way; at every turn, people get a new chance to foil the crime in progress, and yet they somehow keep dropping the ball until finally poor Denise's chances run out.

Michael King was apprehended a few hours after if was too late for Denise, but hopefully the DA at least will possess the basic competence that seems to have eluded the police dispatchers - serving justice on this filth is the one thing the government can still do right by Denise and her family.

Well, they did also pass the Denise Amber Lee act which apparently requires police dispatchers to have an IQ in the triple digits before they are allowed to answer emergency calls... but of course that isn't mandatory yet, due to "budgetary constraints"... but it's something I guess.

The police dispatchers still have their jobs... and so does the police chief who stonewalled and played down their role. I'm not always a big fan of the Mainstream Media, but this is one of those times when I find myself very grateful for their coverage; I respect police officers a great deal, and always try to give them the benefit of the doubt when any questions arise in the news about their performance or integrity, but as far as I'm concerned the dispatchers involved (the last 2 anyway) are a public danger and should not - ever - be manning another emergency line. And the police chief just came off as an evasive, oily fuck with no sense of accountability (apparently he only even admitted to the "missed opportunity" thing after it blew up in the papers). Denise's husband is going to be suing that department and I hope he wins enough to make the state sit up and take notice in the very direct and personal way that a financial loss will do.

Well, I hope anyone reading this will consider going over to Denise's website-in-memoriam to learn more, and hopefully the Denise Lee act will get enough support to become mandatory - I don't know what sort of internal environments and policies made it possible for this to happen but I sure hope it gets looked at and fixed before someone else is allowed to fall through the cracks. Continue reading

Leveling Alts - Casual World Events

I’ve raised some 20 or so characters on various servers, and played pretty much all of the game’s solo content… over, and over. And over. 3 have made it to 70 so far, and the rest are now mostly idling at levels ranging from the teens to the sixties.

My primary motivation in trying to level this crowd of alts has so far been mainly to grow characters into talent specs that I thought would be interesting, and then find out how the character “handles”, with the best gear I can lay hands on.

However, this has lost a lot of its luster.

The fact is I am actually pretty easily amused; it used to be pretty easy to find motivation from things like…

New classes. I’ve played everything short of druids and priests at this point.

Special mounts. Plan on getting a cross-race mount for the alt by running around finishing entire regions’ worth of quests for rep gain, to add a bit of flare to the lvl 40+ experience.

Pokemon. More of my toons are hunters than any other single class, and it can be fun to “shop” for new/interesting beasts over at Petopia, and then level up the hunter alt to find and tame them.

Dustwallow Marsh content. The new quests in DW marsh help make the trip from L33-41 more interesting (although they don’t give much rep so if you’re working on a cross-race mount you may want to skip these).

Trade skills. Research trade skills really closely and plan an alt’s questing/farming/etc around that, to pick up cool new items I’de never bothered with previously (or hadn’t gotten around to learning early enough to benefit from).

Twinking. No description needed for this one – this has produced mixed results for me, helping with some alts (like tanks and shaman) while making others boring as hell.

Rep grinding. I’ve made it to anywhere from honored to exalted with most of the factions currently available, and am currently grinding SSO with my lvl 70s when I get around to it. This however only really becomes practical in the Outlands since the BC expansion, since the old lvl 50-60 factions just don’t increase fast enough to give you anything worthwhile by the time you are high enough for Outlands.

Outlands rewards. The fresh burst of high quality gear available at lvl 58 used to be a big incentive; by the time you finish the quests in Hellfire Peninsula most if not all of your old pre-BC gear (pretty much regardless of quality) will be replaced by sweet new upgrades.

Patch items. The new armor made available in patch 2.4 for level 70s is still kind of a nice incentive… once the character finally makes level 70.

All of the above got me a long ways – you can almost hear the jaws dropping into laps when other players ask me how many characters I play, and see my reply – but lately I’ve been finding there seems to be only one reliable draw for me, and that is world events.

Once upon a time, I used to loathe world events – patches always seemed to take longer when they were being loaded, world server restarts seemed a lot more prevalent, and they just seemed… silly. Back then of course we had 30-45 minute login queues, which made me a lot more irritable and prone to view things like this in a negative light.

Yet almost inevitably when a new world event launches now, I’m over at wowwiki doing my research and seeing what alt I want to send after which reward, what dungeon to make sure and visit for the special boss, etc.

It’s also helped a lot that the more recent world events have included some decent (i.e. combat-relevant) rewards, but honestly I’m so bored with everything else in WoW that even the chance of obtaining a “blue” non-combat pet is usually a big incentive for me.

Which brings me finally to the point of this post – why do world events have to always be tied to holidays? Does it really have to be a semi-monthly thing that is more about world travel than fighting? Fun as that is, how about something a bit more regular and integrated with existing areas/quests/factions?

There is a ton of game content in the pre-Outlands areas, but it’s all been played so many times that the thought of collecting 8 more boar tusks for some crappy piece of +spi gear just makes me bleak.

So, why not design an occasional event that is based in these areas but involves new NPCs involved in special, limited time activities? This should be a no-brainer – all over the world you have scheming factions like the Dark Iron Dwarves, Stranglethorn pirates, etc hoping to put a dent in the established world order – well, just build something out of those conflicts, with a few “hook” NPCs scattered around the capitals or whatever to alert players to the new quests/grinds.

It wouldn’t need to be anything too crazy; even perhaps a dozen events that repeat at random intervals would be a nice boost to flagging interest in leveling yet another alt. It's not even unprecedented - think of the Shattrath cooking daily quest as a mini-example.

I know this would not be “easy” to develop, but it needn’t be as sweeping as the holiday events either – all that’s really needed is enough exp to get you perhaps 2-3 levels of exp and some rewards – greens are fine so long as they have intelligently allocated stats (i.e. like they did with BC items and rewards in the new DW Marsh quests) and not garbage like most of the pre-BC rewards are (“w00t! Another reward with +2 stamina and +9 spirit! Yeah baby!!”) - if I wanted something that lame I could just buy it from weapon/armor vendors...

Of course, long before Blizzard even thinks about anything like this, they will roll out Wrath of the Lich King, and figure they’ve solved the alt-leveling problem by simply diverting players into unlocking heroic classes (which begin life at lvl 40).

Which won’t solve anything; all that will do is kick the can further down the road, unless they intend heroic classes to actually replace all of the pre-existing ones… otherwise, if you think leveling an alt from 1-70 sucks, just think how much fun it will be to do it from 1-80...

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