Better pet scaling promised in Cataclysm
by Gregg Reece 
Jan 15th 2010 at 10:30PM
With hunters, warlocks, and unholy death knights, there are a lot of talents and glyphs that affect the scaling of stats to your pet. If you allow certain stats to scale too well, you suddenly unbalance the class. If the stat scales poorly, then the class falls in the other direction. Every talent and ability that taps into these has to be checked to make sure it doesn't throw things out of whack. Considerations on diminishing returns on certain stats scaling would also need to be checked.We'll try to do what we can. Technically it's just more challenging than you might think. For Cataclysm, we have on our list that 100% of stats scale. If they don't then certain stats just won't be as valuable for pet classes. At the very least, we can do stuff like convert your X into damage for the pet so every stat is valuable. Getting everyone to scale with every stat better is a major goal for the class team for Cataclysm.
Overall, there is a lot of number crunching and statistical analysis involved in trying to find the right balance between all of the knobs that they need to adjust. However, the frustration of out-gearing your pet will hopefully be behind us either in an upcoming patch or (more realistically) when Cataclysm hits.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it. Nothing will be the same. In WoW.com's Guide to Cataclysm you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion. From Goblins and Worgens to Mastery and Guild changes, it's all there for your cataclysmic enjoyment.Filed under: Hunter, Warlock, Death Knight, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Al Jan 15th 2010 10:40PM
That's a promise? Where?
smcn Jan 16th 2010 3:09AM
Seriously. There's enough "Blizzard promised" bullshit on the official forums. Change the title.
Al Jan 16th 2010 3:28PM
Note to self - Link this the next time they slam people for thinking "GC promised me a Pony."
Jeff Jan 15th 2010 10:49PM
Awesome. I've always liked the idea of making my pet a more significant part of my class. As it is now- my pet does ~15% of my overall DPS as a hunter. I want to go BM- but the dps difference is significantly different. QQ
krizzlybear Jan 16th 2010 6:24AM
Sounds good for glyphed forst mages as well!
sephirah Jan 16th 2010 6:44AM
"Technically it's just more challenging than you might think."
Sure, except that DK ghoul scales with haste and hunters and warlocks pet not.
Moreover, Warlocks have a talent that let the pet get a percentage of the master crit.
So WoW already contains code that gives a character haste and crit to pets.
They should stop the "it's technically difficult" and simply say "it could be a problem for balance so we want to test it a lot".
Ruhig Jan 16th 2010 12:48PM
... and the ghoul was built to work like that. Retooling all the potential hunter pets, and the warlock pets, isn't as trivial as moving X bit into Y slot.
sephirah Jan 16th 2010 6:58PM
I hope they didn't code WoW in Cobol, but used more modern languages that support inheritance and polymorphism...
Anyway, every single time that someone point to Activision Blizzard greed (not upgrading instance servers infrastructure) or pretexts (technical difficulties in coding something) there's always some fanboi posting "They know better, you cannot understand"
Clbull Jan 16th 2010 3:29PM
Didn't Ghostcrawler 'promise' this for Hunters in 3.3?
All we got was 100% scaling from Resilience, and pets are still ridiclously easy to kill. Let them scale with Agility, Armor Penetration and Haste please.
Same goes for warlock pets and their master's stats.
Philip Jan 16th 2010 7:32PM
Careful what you wish for.
Hunters are second on the list of top damage dealers, and not too far behind combat rogues at that.
If hunter pets start scaling too much better, someone is gonna get a nerf.
Clbull Jan 16th 2010 10:52PM
@Philip
Like Hunters haven't had enough unnecessary nerfs already.
Lemons Jan 17th 2010 6:09AM
Name a single major nerf hunters have received in the last 3 patches.
Other than that volley nerf...I can't really think of one.
Clbull Jan 17th 2010 7:57AM
Since 3.0.2 onwards....
10% scaling nerf to Steady Shot. Pretty much killed off BM as a DPS spec. Arcane Shot wasn't buffed to compensate for this overnerf.
Pet damage nerfed in 3.0.8 as part of the Steady Shot nerf, although that was reversed
RNG immobilising proc from Wing Clip removed, ironically still remains in Spamstring for Warriors.
Glyph of the Monkey removed, no more 30% speed boost when a Rogue jumps out at you
Frost Trap nerfed to 50% speed reduction from 60%. Crippling Poison is ironically still 70% and OP as hell.
Volley nerf (as you mentioned) although that was pretty much reversed quite recently.
Bestial Wrath nerfed to a 10 second duration, probably because Beast Cleave, a comp that can actually compete with RMP wins an arena tournament. Feral Spirit still OP as hell and unnerfed.
Many pet nerfs, including a damage nerf to Scorpids. Though some buffs to compensate.