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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBlue Notes: Seduction, Pet Health, and Old Hillsbrad
by Eliah Hecht 
Mar 13th 2007 at 10:26PM
Crowd control is an important part of the BC instances, especially heroics, more so than it was in the old world. Polymorph, sap, banish, and shackle all play their part, but up till now Seduce has not been very usable in Heroic-mode instances. Set for a change, this is. Thus spake Tigole:In an upcoming content patch (2.1.0) Warlocks will be able to use their succubus to seduce many humanoid creatures which are currently immune to charm effects.
To clarify, the creatures do too much damage to allow them to be charmed (whether it be by a priest or by an engineer). Seducing them does not threaten the balance of the dungeon.
This will mostly effect heroics. And it only makes things able to be seduced -- it doesn't make anything immune to mind control that was previously charmable. It's not a nerf for priests. It's a bonus for Warlocks.
That makes some sense of why these mobs were no-seduce, too. And, as a healer, if there's one thing I love more than mana, it's crowd control.
Moving on, some players, myself included, have found that pet health bars are often stuck at full, even when the pet loses health, thus rendering it very difficult to monitor said pets' health. Though naysayers blame this on AddOns, the usual scapegoat for UI glitches, it turns out this was an actual game bug, and was hotfixed; the fix will apply next time your realm restarts. Tseric:
Party members should now see pet health bars update properly. This hotfix will take effect after a realm is restarted following the hotfix's deployment.
Several issues in Serpentshrine Cavern have been corrected. The Lurker Below should always spawn.
Finally, a player suggests adding more quests, possibly solo or small-group, to Old Hillsbrad in the Caverns of Time. I think that's a great idea, since I love the zone, and evidently Blizzard agrees. From Tigole again:
We'd love to add more quests to this zone. Hopefully, time will permit in the future.
We have some pretty cool ideas for Caverns of Time.
They've hinted at CoT expansions before; maybe that'll be the focus of 2.2. That's obviously too far off to have a hope of making accurate speculations, but...that's never stopped me before! For the second WoW expansion, by the way, i predict that all classes will be given a fourth talent tree. You heard it here first, folks.
Filed under: Warlock, Odds and ends, News items
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
Roguerhunter Mar 14th 2007 11:55AM
NOW that Blizzards replied quickly for there Locks can US Hunters get better stats for our pets. If I was to choose 3 simple things that I am sure every hunter would agree on or that anyone can contest to seeing our pets in actions are the following:
*Either increase health of pets or more dodge with them the point is they die too quick and can’t maintain more then one mob on themselves without dying in a few hits. There worthless in Raids and party members always ask you too or don’t take ya without having you to dismiss your pet or put him on passive!
*Pets need better Argo control maybe an ability to gain Argo from several mobs at a time rather then having to run your pet around to all the mobs to chase him for crowd control.
Lastly I say this because I want everyone to speak up and it would be nice for a party to say "hey hunter we need your pet"
Quoi Mar 14th 2007 11:57AM
@ 17
Don't you have distracting shot to pull the mob away from the group?
Locks and mages don't have an aggro snap.
Hank Mar 14th 2007 3:32PM
@20- Hunter's shouldn't need their pets in a group. The whole point of the pet is to kepp the mob at ranged attack distance. If the tank is already doing that, then there is no need for the pet. When I group with hunters (my main is a rogue) pets are put away, and never come out. My biggest problem as a rogue is the cooldown on feint.
jaydlawii Mar 14th 2007 1:18PM
simply put Huntres need to control their pets better and take it easy with their multi shot in instances. Its not the tanks fault that your pet pulled, The tank is responsible for holding the aggro, and most of the time more then 1 or 2. If a pet comes in and growls its the same as a tanks taunt. once we lose that aggro we have to then chase it down, taunt it off and lay saunders on all on the group over again to build up aggro again. all the while the mage is in the background nuking, the healers healing, and the rouge is dps-ing close by, and while we have stances and moves to generate hate, once we lose it it is very hard to get it back when others are dps-ing higher then us. Not only that, the Hunter pet is more likely to pull more aggro since for some reason even when it is in defense mode it still wants to hunt. Put your pet in passive, turn off growl and the hunter will be fine, use growl only as an off-tank. I don't mean to bash hunters they are a good class to play, but like any other class, you have to learn2play. It takes a minute, and while the game is easy, you still have to think about wht you are doing. There's a difference between solo,group and instance play, especially when pets are envolved. one mistake by a pet could wipe the group.
As far as the sucky's charm, i don't think of it as a huge deal, most of the time during instances on my Lock alt, i use the imp anyway.
Odas Mar 14th 2007 1:05PM
@14 ...and consecration for Pally's....and blade flurry for rogues.
But...I think if all the AoE abilities for melee fighters did NOT affect CC it would make things too easy. I like having to stay on my toes - if I hear a sheep I don't hit consecration and if my mage sees fire at my feet he should not start sheeping. It just adds a nice bit of complexity to the team play.
Jeff Mar 14th 2007 12:43PM
As a BM Hunter, My main concern is always my pet survival (my own survival first lol but that's same for all classes).
My current pet is Gutripper and it got the best aggro out of all pet, with the screech/growl ability that reduce atk power by 210 is AoE aggro, most warrior i grouped with in Nagrand had lot of problem keeping the aggro (if they werent 70).
For dmg ; crit for ~400 dmg on a 70 rogue so the dmg is really good IMO. For armor rating, i think 12000 armor/ 6800hp is nice for the pet ; it can compared to a medium geared warrior from what i've seen.
20% dodge chance is also nice vs rogue like unit.
I think pet are not underpowered, but maybe would need more defense rating skill, since they are beast and often their only purpose is taking dmg instead of a party member.
Wolfkin Mar 14th 2007 3:00PM
@21: A blue post came down recently saying that "pet survivability" was one of the main things they were looking at with regards to the hunter class. Look for pet tweaks coming soon to a tamed beast near you.
@25: Your superbly insighful comments apply to all classes, not just hunter. As a hunter I pride myself on being able to do a lot of things that other classes can't do. Using traps to lock down mobs, scatter shot/distracting shot/my pet to bail out healers who draw aggro, wing clipping mobs that break off the tank to go after casters... The hunter is uniquely positioned to be extremely helpful in any raid or group setting. And the pet is a huge part of this. The fact that some players don't understand how to manage their pet is hardly unique hunters. Bad tanks don't build hate fast enough or pick up secondary targets. Bad rogues put extra strain on healers. Bad mages pull hate like nobody's business. I've been wiped FAR more times by mages and locks pulling hate by going balls-out dps during pulls than by pet mistakes. Bad players are bad players, regardless of class.
Roguerhunter Mar 14th 2007 4:10PM
But riddle me this anyone: Why must pets be put away, they should play an important part in Raids. My part in a Raid has always been DPS, Cables if I need to Feign and rez, Trueshot, Kite mobs, and protect Healers. I am always close to main healers trap have them step on the trap or scatter shot and sick pet on mob to get Argo and maintain CC on it till the party can move in.
Maybe a pet ability should be something called Guard or something where the pet can be attached on say a healer in case a mob swings at him/her to pull the Argo off and with that in mind maybe some pet abilities that can generate some Argo and Health and any mobs within a 6 yard distance. That would be good and also get party members to ask for your pet more so you don’t always feel that your pet is always neglected.
Granted Kill Command was a good ability why cant there is a few more out there available and accessible to other spec hunters rather then BM spec. If our pet is our main in this class there should be more!
Karl Mar 14th 2007 5:14PM
Anyone who has read any of my other posts in the past know that I love to bash Hunters...nothing personal, just fun screwing with my pals. I do actually think they have some great talents to offer for group play and (the ones I play with) use those abilities to their best. If I could ask Blizzard to change classes (with what most people would say are reasonable requests), I would ask these changes to hunter's pets:
1. Better Health or Defense at a lower point cost.
2. A command for "Defend My Target".
I think a pet that could be set to defend others (from a direct attack, not just an aoe) would be a HUGE benefit in instances and would bring more of a desire to bring a Hunter along...because I sure don't like them watching my back at this time, knowing they will Feign Death and hide while we all get wiped.
BTW, Huntards suck...Buff all other classes.