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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsHunter pet tanks Gruul the Dragonkiller
by Alex Ziebart 
Oct 22nd 2008 at 8:00PM
Durante of Hydraxis-US did what many Hunters have been dying to do since the changes for Wrath of the Lich King were announced: He tanked a raid boss. Or more specifically, his pet tanked a raid boss. His Gorilladin (dubbed thusly by BRK) Bubbles smacked Gruul around for a raid made up of members of the guilds Snuggles, Redemption, Gone Casual and Unemployed.
I'm not sure if this video displays how powerful Hunter pets are after patch 3.0.2, or just how much raids were nerfed. A little from column A, a little from column B? In the thread on the official forums, Durante mentions that the raid's DPSers didn't really need to hold back on threat much at all, nor did they need to stand around forever as you can see in the video above. A few seconds was more than enough time for Bubbles to hold aggro, and the raid only had four healers. I'm willing to bet things would have gotten a little more dicey if Gruul lived long enough to stack more Growths, but he didn't, so it's kind of moot. If you're interested, Durante has also posted his 'tanking' spec as well as his pet's spec.
I'm willing to bet we'll see a lot more Hunter pet tanks in level 70 content, but it'll drop off dramatically (perhaps completely) at level 80. Time will tell!
Filed under: Hunter, Analysis / Opinion, Bosses, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
Durante Oct 23rd 2008 10:47AM
If you go to the forum post linked in the story, there is a direct link to the video on filefront where you can download the full sized video.
- Durante & Bubbles
Clbull Oct 23rd 2008 12:31PM
How the hell did his pet NOT get 1 shotted by a crit? if talents can only give a 4% crit reduction. Admittingly, I think its BRILLIANT that pets can somewhat tank now, (speaking as a hunter ofc) but I think blizz should go the extra mile.
Give us some talents, skills or even a new aspect which allows us to MT in raids, prehaps with a small cost to DPS.
Imho, Aspect of the Beast should do that because in its current form, the 10% melee AP buff is kinda useless, but the untrackable stuff is good for pvp.
Yako Oct 29th 2008 12:38PM
Wouldn't using Growl generate more threat than thunderstomp, especially because your pet gets the 20% threat bonus from the talent you have spec'd?
Thrashnak Oct 23rd 2008 2:51PM
I imagine he is using both. Growl and TS are both on CD's, so he can easily rotate through both and have the focus to spam them when they are available.
spacehyena Oct 23rd 2008 4:55PM
Very cool!
I was grinding leather in Nagrand last night, and helped some mid-60's with Ring of Blood and Durn the Hungerer. They couldn't find tanks, so I offered the services of Duncan, my worm. :) Worked out pretty well, actually.
Scusio Nov 11th 2008 3:51PM
/facepalm