Because It's Everywhere Else - Hunter Annoucements

Announced changes at WWI:

* Steady Shot will no longer clip autoshot -- the speaker acknowledged that Hunters hurt their own DPS by using their abilities - The SS/AS change is great, though I still wonder what endgame rotations will be for BM hunters.
* Pets will get "talent trees" - one utility tree, one TANKING tree, one DPS tree - This sounds very intriguing, I think it might pave the way for a BM talent revamp, and instead moving such talents as Ferocity and Frenzy to the pet tree.
* A specific ability revealed was "cornered" - your pet does an additional 20% damage when they're at 20% health - Great idea, however any hunter worth their salt makes sure they never come that close to death if they can help it. ;)

I'm sure there's more to be revealed. Still to be answered is whether or not tanking tree pets will be viable tanks through to end-game. Currently in WoW and TBC end-game instances a pet cannot be a viable tank. Even if you were to take a valid tank pet (such as a turtle, scorpid, bear, boar etc), and have them properly trained they still would pale in comparison to a tanking warrior or paladin. In a pinch groups can use a hunter pet as a tank but the rest of the party needs to be on the ball to make it work. Though there are instances when a hunter pet may not be enough to clear. One of those is Grandmaster Vorpil inside Shadow Labyrinth.

There are two tactics I've seen used against the Grandmaster. One is to drag him North and South while DPS'ing him down, the second is to simply burn Vorpil down where he stands. The North/South tactic will require the pet to run away from Vorpil -- meaning the hunter has to hit pet defensive twice -- and still attack to apply Growl when the cooldown is up -- meaning the hunter has to hit pet attack. In theory this could work but the hunter has to really be on the ball to balance their own DPS and keep the pet on the job. Burning Vorpil where he stands will not work at all. A set of properly geared players going for high DPS will blow the pet's aggro generation out of the water. Even with proper application of Misdirect and Prayer of Mending there will not be enough stacked aggro to keep up. Vorpil will break free, and all hell will break loose.

Another problem occurs in battles where the tank has to run out of flames/shadow/etc to prevent taking massive damage and/or a debuff. A pet will not do this on their own without a hunter pulling the strings, or using "Eyes of the Beast" to manually control the pet, which removes the hunter's ability to pump out DPS for the entirety of the spell.

What it all boils down to is a pet is simply AI run by whatever code has been programmed by Blizzard Devs, and you as a hunter have no real control over it. Sure you can toggle use of some pet talents like Growl and Bite or use a spell like Kill Command, but in the end pets currently do not have the ability to churn out enough threat to stay ahead of players unless they intentionally hold back their damage output. That will not work because the longer a battle goes, the higher the risk becomes of the entire raid running out of mana and wiping.

This could change with WotLK, but how much of a chance remains to be seen. As it stands now, I don't believe BigRedKitty could take his boar into a raid against Arthas and have his little piggie hold enough aggro to allow the entire raid go full bore (hoho, boar/bore). It's possible that endgame for WotLK will be the same as it's always been for hunter pets, to just maximize their DPS and don't bother with tanking.

I really hope that's not the case though, as I'd love to see the class and their pets become more of a utility knife.

We're No Strangers To Love..

I've got a number via http://www.grandcentral.com that I've succeeded in setting up a voicemail rickroll.

Day Old Goods.

This shelf, at a market in an upper-middle class area, used to be constantly full. Now with the economy this is regularly picked clean daily. Interesting what occurs as prices rise.