Wednesday, July 23, 2008

WotLK Pet Talent Trees 1/3: Tenacious

Wrath of the Lich King Pet Talent Tree: Tenacious (spelled out to help search bots).

Possible spoilers ahead. There is no NDA for the beta so I am ok to discuss this. This is still a beta so things may change.

Hunters still only have 2 stable slots. All skills and talents for each pet is learned "naturally" as you progress and level. No more scouring the land to find and train the newest Bite or Scorpid Poison. This is great in saving time, but personally it kind of takes away a little bit of fun from the class. I'm not too concerned.

There are now three pet classes:
Ferocious (DPS) - IE cats and high damage pets
Tenacious (Tank) - IE turtles and high armor/stamina pets
Cunning (Utility) - IE spiders and mixed ability pets

I have a Warp Stalker named Gaz that falls into Tenacious, and a cat named GIR that's Ferocious. I do not have a Cunning class pet but I will be getting one soon. Each pet class has a separate five level talent tree so you cannot train a Ferocious class pet in Tenacious talents and so on.

Tenacious Tree Breakdown:
A level 70 pet will have 13 points to use in the tree, with seven more as you hit 80. If you go all the way down to the BM 51 talent point "Beast Mastery" you will be granted an additional 5 pet skill points, bringing your total up to 25 . The first tree is roughly what every other pet can get ingame right now:
    Natural Armor
    Great Stamina
    Dash (depends on pet)
    Cobra Reflexes
Once you hit the second tree, things change. There are talent spells that increase damage output and an armor/dodge buff, but the jewel of the tree for me is Blood of the Rhino, giving a 1/2% stamina buff and a 20/40% increase in healing effects.
Third tree contains Avoidance, a +growl buff, and Lionhearted (2/2); a 15/30% reduction in all fear/stun effects. shocked me when I came across this talent:
    Intervene (1/1) - 40 focus; 30s cooldown; instant - Your pet runs at high speed toward a group member, intercepting the next melee or ranged attack made against them.
Tank pets have intercept. INTERCEPT. The fourth tree only has two talents:
Nice, all very nice. Now we come to the fifth and final tree. Reading these talents make me very giddy:
    Last Stand (1/1) - 6m cooldown; Instant -Your pet temporarily gains 30% of its maximum health for 20 sec. After the effect expires, the health is lost.
    Taunt (1/1) - 3m cooldown; Instant - Your pet taunts the target to attack it for 3 sec.
    Roar of Fortitude (1/1) - 100 Focus; 5m cooldown; Instant - Your pet roars, increasing the total health and Dodge chance of all party members within 20 yards by 10%. Lasts 40 sec.
The Tenacious pet tree has thrilled me to no end and has also made me start looking around my button bars to find what things I can get rid of so I can make Intervene macros.

To learn more instead of reading my ramblings, you can always check out Petopia.

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