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:

Grace of the Mantis (2/2) Increases your pet's dodge/hit chance by 2/4%.
Great Resistance (3/3) Pet takes 3/6/9% less damage from Arcane, Fire, Frost, Nature and Shadow magic.

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.

My Prayers Answered.

See you in Northrend!

Still Hoping For a Key..

Have three horses in the race:

1. WoW Account
2. Blizzard Store Account
3. Blizzcon'07 Beta Key

Keeping fingers crossed.

It's not hard to be a competent hunter.

Your competency is not represented by your guild's progression.
Your competency is not represented by your epic collection.
Your competency is not represented by your arena rating.
Your competency is not represented by your pet.
Your competency is not represented by your DPS meter.

DPS meters and raid logging programs are only of use by two kinds of people, raid leaders and ePeen strokers. A DPS meter can help a hunter find problems in their playstyle and gearing but so can websites like be.imba.hu and mods like Ratings Buster. At that point is a meter really needed? As long as the trash is dying, the bosses are dying, and there are few (if any) wipes then the group is doing FINE.

Your competency is directly, DIRECTLY represented by two things. Your skill in playing the class, and your ability to consistently not be a stupid hunter. Why so many people are unable to be a competent hunter is beyond me. I'll even cut a break for the people that can't master the jumpshot:

• Unless your pet is tanking, offtanking, or the main tank requests you do so; DO NOT enable growl in an instance or with a party.
• Unless you have absolutely no choice, DO NOT melee. An instance is no place to be leveling your staff skill, do that on your own time.
  
• Unless you are trapping behind the party, DO NOT run away from a mob that's aggroing on you. Use "feign death", freezing trap, your pet's intimidate (if talented for it), or just drag the mob back to the main tank.
• Learn to jumpshot. If for whatever reason you can't, learn to use maximum range, traps, distracting and concussive shot to kite as much as you can.
• DO NOT forget to bring at least one stack of food for your pet at all times.
• DO NOT forget to bring at least one stack of health potions, mana potions, and your own drinks.
• For the love of pete, DO NOT FORGET TO BRING ENOUGH AMMO FOR THE ENTIRE RUN.
  
• +SPI and +STR is not a hunter's friend. I understand that while leveling you will end up being dressed like a clown but please stay away from Spirit and Strength. If you need mana regen that bad look into buying wizard oils to apply to your weapons.
  

It's not hard to be a good hunter. Not hard at all.

WotLK Beta Up, Invites Going Out Soon.

I've got three horses in this race:

1. Blizzcon Beta Key
2. WoW Account Opt In
3. Blizzard Store Account Opt In

Really hope one of the three pans out. I haven't been in a beta since EA's failed Multiplayer Battletech:3025.

Activating the Authenticator

On the 14th I finally got my token and as I sat down to do a nice big writeup with pictures, I nosed over to WoW Insider and found one of my friends there had already done such a post. Well heck there's really no sense in me doing what's already been done, so here are a few paragraphs from Amanda Dean's post "Activating The Authenticator" and a link you can follow to the full post:

The Blizzard Authenticator is currently sold out on the Blizzard Store. I'm sure there will be plenty more to come, when they're ready. I bought one as soon as I heard they were available. Although my experience with the Blizzard Store was not great, it was certainly better than some others. After my order was placed, every time I checked on in, I what appeared to be a rag doll murloc who informed me that an error occurred on the page.

My authenticator has arrived. Thanks to the free shipping from the Blizzard online store, I saved $0.59 in United States Postal Service postage. To be honest, I'm just glad to have my security token. The token come with a single piece of documentation, which directs the user to the security token FAQ page.

I expected the authenticator to be slightly larger. It's approximately the same size as the clicker for my Mustang. I have not yet devised a tether for it, but the device will soon be leashed to my computer.

Continue reading Activating the Authenticator

Blizzard Authenticator Unboxing

For giggles I broke down and ordered an authenticator when they were first released, and it should be arriving in the next day or two. I'll have pictures and usage writeups as soon as I can.