WoW

[PhelanArcetus]

900 is all? Granted I don't know how accurate this formula is, but it says 664 + (pet AP - 735) * 5.7. Now I don't know how to measure the pet's AP, but I'm right now poking for that data. I know they get some percentage of the hunter's AP, then any buffs they receive. 22% of the hunter's RAP, eh? Added to the pet base. For the hunter I know, along with a grace of air totem and blessing of might as we get them in a raid, and hell, gift of the wild, no agi pots though he might drink them... the pet gets 575 AP from the hunter. Then add in the Trueshot aura, an improved Battle Shout, and the pet has 1081 without counting whatever base he has (or if he gets his own Might). I'll be conservative and give that only 200 AP; it's probably much higher but I don't know how to check. So 1281 AP plugged in there is more like 3,800 threat. Every 5 seconds. And right after a taunt, often enough.

Yes, Gagarin Is Overpowered.

[TerraPrime]

Terra,

You can fit scopes to bows and X-bows as well

Someone should tell me these things!!

Oh, you just did. Heh.

As for Growl, let your pet hit a bit on the mob before you start shooting. Stick to hunter's mark, pet attack, pet hitting, start autoshooting. Use AotH. That should be enough for grinding really. Serpent sting is not really needed, and aimed shot is a PvP-tool, it's far too mana expensive for grinding. I used to slap a serpent sting on mobs back at levl 40ish, but it's really not needed.

That's what I have to do when I hit on mobs that are higher levels than me. I still use Serpent sting once in a while, when I am taking on a high elite and my pet has to tank for a while. I figured that every bit to help take some heat off my pet helps. The Rank1 Wyvern sting I got now is fairly useless against 40+ caster mobs, since I need 2 to 3 of them to drain them completely, by which them they are usually dead.

Another thing about Growl is that at certain levels, it will be less efficient. You can tell if you are running the KTM threatmeter how much threat your pet is generating, and when you overtake him. Since you are ranged, you have a little leeway before the mob will switch aggro, but still, depending on level, it can be really tricky to make Growl work well. Takes some tinkering, Feigning, trapping and kiting to kill mobs. Especially jsut before you will get a new rank of Growl (like at lvl 59) it can be quite obvious that it is a bit lacking.

Yes, I did notice that. The Disengage also doesn't always work on higher-than-me mobs, I think. Sometimes even after 2 Disengage the mob still goes after me, even tho my pet has been working on that mob for all that time. Feign (almost) always works, but it has such a long cooldown. I've had a few cases in tough fights where I had to feign to get the mob off me, and then it still goes south, and I needed it to stay alive, and it's on cooldown. That usually happens when I pull 3 or 4 tough mobs at once.

One good thing you can try is using "target of target" in the interface, and when your pet loses aggro, fire a concussive shot at the mob. That gives you time to 1) start kiting the mob or 2) fire a few shots more before he comes close to your melee range. If you haven't got serpent sting on, it may be a good time to practise chain trapping.

I've been doing this in cases that I know the mob will go after me even if I don't hit them directly. When my pet aggros 2 or 3, and if they are higher up than me, it frequently happens that even when I don't hit either of them they will turn aggro on me. So now if I suspect that may be coming, I trap right away. That way, by the time I pull aggro, the cool-down is over and I can sometimes freeze trap 2 mobs at once. That gives me time to finish off 1 mob and reduce the intensity. I wish pets get AoE pulls. Or at least, there's an easy way to order the pet to rotate attack evenly among the mob so that it can hold aggro on all of them at once more solidly while I pound away on a single target. Right now I have to click the ground to deselect attact, choose a new mob, ctrl-1, then pick up the original mob again. Bit cumbersome.

Also, I need to put a couple more points into the talent that increases the range of my guns/bows. I have 1 pt in it right now, but I would like a longer range. That will give me more time to do stuff when I pull off my pet.

If you have a BM heavy build, I'd actually recommend to go with only Growl and Claw/Bite/Poison since according to what I read on EJ the pet's white damage will actually be more than the yellow, a lot. Although there are some controversy about this. Also, Bite does more damage than Claw at present, so I slapped Growl and Bite on my cat, and no claw. Plus your pet will never lack focus for more yellow attacks, if you get an attack power buff or something else, you can just make your get do bite/claw/ poison during he buff period.

The yellow dmg from my scorpid is a bit lacking. Though I have planned on pumping the talent that increases the pet dmg in the next couple of levels. So far it is using only Poison. Between Growl and Poison, though, my pet tends to oom quite easily on long fights. I then have to turn Poison off so that it has mana to keep growl going. If the pet manages to stack 5 poison (rank 2) on, the poison dmg is about the same as his yellow dmg, so he's doubling his dmg if he can run on full poison stack. That's why I want to keep him filled on mana. I already put 2 pts into the talent that refills pet mana when I crit, and that has helped quite a lot.

If you are MM or SV, I'd say go with two yellow attacks.

For now I am MM spec (16/14/1 right now) and probably won't respec until endgame. I am not planning on any more pts into MM for a long while. The next 20 points will probably be split 18 bm and 2 sv. I do intend on using bite on my cat when I go get him at 43 (King Bangalesh). Looks like I will have to untrain him to get rid of the claw. Oh, I need to pick something else up to get bite, too.

Actually, looking at petopia, Claw does not have a cooldown listed, whereas bite has a 10s CD. Is that true? I don't imagine that the pet will have enough mana to continuously claw, but the no CD is kinda cool.

[Stego]

For reference:

Me

Dude, buy some solid stars, ya cheap bastich. I have worse gear than you in many ways (Head, belt, boots), but my hp is over 2k higher.

[PhelanArcetus]

I'm trying not to stack hp at the expense of everything else. For the content I am doing, it's still not appropriate. Though there's a few sockets I want to change, I'm not currently interested in going with solid stars everywhere that I don't feel I need the socket bonus. And I refuse to spend on my Timewarden's because I want them gone. Gone gone gone. I'll probably replace the gem in my bracers with an enduring talasite, though.

If I was MT'ing Gruul, I'd want the max hp, yes. In Kara, for the most part, while I think I dodge/parry somewhat too much still, I'm more concerned by sustained than burst damage. Nothing that I tank can come close to one-shotting me, and I normally can let the healers grab a bit of a break.

But at this point, we're differing in content level and gearing philosophies more than anything else.

My current main goal is getting that paladin a bit better geared and a lot more practiced. Both for another viable guild tank and for not having problems with whatever he's tanking.

Claw can be used pretty non-stop if the hunter has Go For The Throat and a good crit chance, it seems. All the time I see "Pinchy gains 50 focus from Gagarin's Go For The Throat." All the damn time.

[Tobin]

Cute warrior avatar,

[Kalbear]

Bear tanks have their place. (As off tanks or fill-ins if you can't find a real tank. )

I have yet to see a Pally tank worth their beans, though it is of course theoretically possible. My only issue with Pally's as tanks is the limitations. Let's be honest, the best Pally tank tank in the world can only be as good as say...a very good warrior tank. Skill and gear being equal, the warrior just has so many advantages over the pally. Hit points, oh shits, doubtless more defense because we can;t fucking shed it fast enough. I can gear up at 552 defense if I so choose. (Not that I'd want to.)

I think that's reasonable. I'm guessing that the main reasons you'd want to bring a pally tank are:

OT vs. MT

Utility of blessings/cleansings

AOE tanking

ability to get another healer on the fly if you need it

some other weird boss issue (like having bosses that can't crush a pally but can crush a warrior because of holy shield).

I think the one that will tend to win is the healing aspect; bringing two sets of gear and healing when needed in some spots and tanking when needed in others is a good ability, and a full prot pally still can heal quite well assuming they've got the gear, at least from what I've read. The blessing aspect is also really good, and the auras can be good too.

Still, I think that right now the pally is the worst of the three tanking classes. That might not improve (and if it doesn't, I'll deal with being a good healer instead) but I'm hoping that blizzard does what it says it will do and improve the state of pally tanking to make it a viable choice post-Kara.

[Arakasi]

The point is of course you want a warrior tank and a druid tank. For example on Gruul a druid can do much better as the main OT because he needs far less rage to maintain second on the agro. The question then is if you have a third tank, do you want to have a second warrior, second bear or maybe a Paladin? Thing is a Paladin does bring some unique abilities that the others don't bring, and there are fights that cater to them. (Hydros for one)

Btw, Wrath of the Lich King has been confirmed as the next wow expansion. Early news so far from there?

Some of the highlights you will learn more about at BlizzCon:

* The dark, necromantic Death Knight - the first new character class added to World of Warcraft since launch.

* Northrend, the harsh, icy continent where the Lich King holds sway - complete with new zones, quests, items, and monsters.

* New level cap of 80 - including access to mighty new powers and talents.

* New Battlegrounds: featuring siege warfare and destructible buildings.

* Expanding character customization options, including new hairstyles and dances, the ability to change the hairstyles of existing characters, and new skin color variants.

[Kalbear]

Hehe. Boy, is the pally community going to be pissed, especially the retan00bs. "Fix pallys by giving them DPS!" "hey, instead of that, let's make a death knight that can tank and DPS and looks like an emo paladin"

[Tobin]

Expanding character customization options, including new hairstyles and dances, the ability to change the hairstyles of existing characters, and new skin color variants.

This brings me joy - but fear that it's as far as they'll go for after-creation modification.

Things like tattoos, scars, visible jewelry - all of those give you a chance to not look like the other 1500 humans or orcs with your face.

SWG had a profession class called Image Designer - where a player could essentially open up the character build template and change practically anything you wanted about your avatar.

[Kalbear]

Oooh, another possibility, and one I like - all the people screaming for DPS pallies will instead get a death knight and go away from pallies entirely, and let pallies be tanks/healer/support instead. That'd rock, and everyone would be happy. Sure, the ret tree would still be bad, but that's not a big deal.

[Tobin]

They'd scream even worse if they let Death Knights have mounted combat.

[Kalbear]

Is it wrong of me to hope for these things? I really want more screaming and crying. I don't know if I'm paying attention to it more because I'm playing a paladin or not, but man does it seem like paladins whine more about their class than almost any other class.

On game notes, dinged 32 and am about 2 bubbles away from 33. Am getting really into the swing of prot pally leveling. And this is with crap gear and no holy shield! I love being able to take on 4 lvl 32-34s at once and ending up not needing to pop a bubble or even get that low. SoL and reckoning is damn fun. Carrie dinged 34 too. It's neat having her hellfire while I've aggroed a bunch of guys and wipe out hordes in a couple seconds, and then heal her afterwards.

Also, warlock robes are imba hawt. The hats suck ass, but the robes are good.

[Kalbear]

Oh yeah - there's a new profession too. "Inscription". Not a lot is known, other than the FAQ entry. Looks like a weird version of enchanting to me.

[Green Armadillo]

Best info I've seen so far is from 1UP.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3161725

- They say there will be an entire world PVP outdoor zone, rather than an instanced battleground, which is where the siege weapons will be located. I feel bad for the Horde, last time I did any world PVP, the Alliance had overwhelming numbers in any zone where it actually mattered.

- The DK quest is compared to the Warlock epic mount quest. So, expect a grind or perhaps a lot of cash, but not something like "Kill Arthas and turn in Frostmourne to an NPC".

- From the article: "Rather than using rage, energy, or mana, Death Knights have a special "rune sword" displayed beneath their health bar, onto which the player can etch six different runes (choose between Frost, Blood, and Unholy). Different abilities require different mixes of runes, and using abilities consumes the requisite runes until a cooldown timer causes them to be available again."

World of War is reporting that they saw Gnomes and Tauren as two of the allowed races for DK's. This makes no sense from the lore, but those are the two races with only four classes available to them, so they get DK's. (The races with only five classes are Dwarves, NE, Orcs, and Undead/Forsaken.) Perhaps the lore "explanation" for DK's defecting from Arthas will be that the brainwashing doesn't take on non-humans as well as Arthas thinks it will.

[Liryn]

Gnome death knight. Hmmmmm.....

I don't even know what to think about all this crazy new stuff! I barely have gotten used to TBC yet! Guess we'll see how it turns out

[TerraPrime]

Guild bank!! That'd be quite awesome, imo.

Integrated voice chat seems a bit redundant, given teamspeak.

Etching has got to have some drawbacks, for it sounds quite over-powered right now. Also not sure how the "runes" in Deathknights work.

[Kalbear]

Integrated voice chat seems a bit redundant, given teamspeak.

Well, not everyone has TS and not everyone has the ability to run their own server (which TS requires). This will allow some really nice things, like being able to have voice on PuGs and random PvP games.

Etching does seem to be a bit insane if that's how it works; perhaps you can only enhance one ability from a tree at any given time? If so, it's not that much worse than enchants.

The death knight thing sounds just...weird. I have no idea what that means. You put runes on your sword and then...um...you can only do some abilities in a certain runed state? That sounds vaguely like the stances.

[Tobin]

Official page is up with a Trailer - http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wrath/

The pally runs like a little girl,

[Tobin]

The death knight thing sounds just...weird. I have no idea what that means. You put runes on your sword and then...um...you can only do some abilities in a certain runed state? That sounds vaguely like the stances.

Actually sounds more like renewable charges to me, you etch runes into your sword as stored spells/abilities and then fire them while in combat. After that, you either have to wait for the cooldown or etch a new rune.

I could be way off though.

[PhelanArcetus]

Arthas is utterly awesome.

Now, the biggest problem with ret paladins is that there's a talent spec designed to make paladins good at dps, and it fails. That's really the problem. Even when warrior protection was laughable, warriors were still the tank class. According to class descriptions and talent trees, paladins should be able to heal, tank, or dps. But they're excellent healers, second-string at best tanks, and lousy dpsers. I don't think my friend is wrong when he says his scorpid pet, Mr. Pinchy, could outdamage the vast majority of ret paladins. And he's a Marks hunter.

Reserving all judgment for further information; 99% of all of this will change anyway. But your Death Knight would be a new character, completing the quest merely unlocks access to creating the class. And the rune sword sounds complex but potentially interesting. I get the feeling it works like so:

You have six slots on the sword. Each slot can be filled with one of four runes. Each ability (aside from inscribing runes, which is probably long enough to be a pain in combat if possible at all) uses one or more runes (probably a freebie or two, actually, but those will have cooldowns) of various types. "Death Knight Coil", for example, would use one Unholy and one Blood, say, and do a lifesteal thing. Now one Unholy and one Blood rune are consumed until they regenerate, meaning that your other abilities may or may not be usable just yet. Sounds likely to lead to a few optimal ability sequences.

I assume the Death Knight will fill a tank/dps slot, with some self-only healing.