I’m got a level 11 Hunter doing a solo self found run in Classic (not hardcore, although I would like to get to 60 without dying, but I’m not going to commit to deleting).
I’ve been thinking about pets. My current plan was to go down the screech line, I’ve currently just grabbed a wolf because it had bite, but I was planning to run over to Westfall at level 16 to grab a Greater Fleshripper.
I will have my pet abilities on autocast. I know it’s may be better to manually to it, but I can’t think fast enough. This being said, here are some facts I’ve heard about how pet autocast works (correct me if I’m wrong):
- A pet will immediately cast a spell that is off cooldown if it has enough focus.
- Screech has no cooldown. It will cast even if the 4 second effect hasn’t worn off, simply refreshing it.
So now I’ve got some questions:
- Lets say I have both bite and screech on auto. I presume when I’m focus starved, bite will never be autocast, as screech, requiring only 25 focus, will always eat the focus first?
- Lets say I have bite, screech and growl on autocast? Upon entering combat, when I have like 100 focus, what will get cast? Will it go in decreasing order of focus cost, using bite first, then screeching repeatedly down to below 25 focus, and only then casting growl? Or will the smallest focus ability go first, so starting with growl, then focus dumping with screech, and never casting bite? Or is it just random?
- How much threat does the AOE effect actually generate? And does it generate the full threat even if screech is just refreshing the effect, not reapplying it?
The other thing is that I can’t get screech 1 until level 16, and I can’t get screech 2 until level 32. These both do a lot less damage per focus than bite, although if the AOE effect of screech generates a lot of threat it might be worth it.
So, considering all these unanswered questions, I’m thinking of instead just grabbing a cat, which also has a faster attack speed, as 1.3 attack speed pets are pretty easy to get. And it’s easy to keep bite upgraded with a cat. But I do like the idea of the AOE threat gen with screech. I’ve used one levelling before (on a non-solo hunter) and that extra screech threat seemed to help gather the packs on your pet and saved the hassle of explicitly getting your pet to manually grab all the targets. But I wasn’t paying much attention of whether it was actually better than just using a cat.
So what do people think of a solo levelling pet? It is worth it going down the screech line? Is screech really that great? Or will it just eat up all my focus on autocast, prevent growls and generally make my pet worse at holding threat, particularly as I’ll only have screech 1 until level 31 and only screech 2 until level 48, which is most of the levelling journey?
I always get The Rake from Mulgore as soon as I get my taming skill.
Owls have Claw not bite, you would need a carrion bird, I have no idea how Blizzard work with pet skill casting and that’s many years of experience talking.
I thought screech reduced melee attack power so only worked within melee range.
For AoE you want a gorilla from 32.
Boar has been fantastic for HC, the charge gives your pet ultimate mobility and snaps aggro quick. Also eats anything
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Yeah, I’m thinking more about boar now, at least up to level 30 until other pets have a charge style ability.
I noticed I can grab charge rank 2 at level 12 Young Goretusk in Westfall. The trip will be annoying but it might be worth it. It’s sounds nice to charge a mob that you accidentally pull agro on.
I really like my buzzard. Screech helps reduce its damage taken, it does better damage than the tanky pets, and it eats fish. I usually go boar, then wolf or cat when dash is available, but the carrion bird is quite sturdy.
Definitely check out Petopia that Dottie linked, everything you need to know there.
pets can have more than one attack type ability. Like bears can learn both claw and bite and scorpids claw and poison. If you want bite with screech you would need a bat which can also learn swoop which is a charge type ability but lacking the stun the boars have. Focus starvation can be an issue lower level but if you are going down the beast mastery tree there are talents to increase focus regen rate for pets. Whiled screech only damages the primary target it hits and causes threat on anything in melee range of the pet which I find is helpful for not having stuff run over to me when I heal my pet.
If you want to put you pets abilities on auto cast, then I’d recommend getting a cat (The Rake if on a PvP server) and teaching him bite and growl. The reason for bite over claw is due to focus economy.
Bite does better damage per focus than claw but has a cd long enough for your pet to cap focus. However, when your pet is auto casting growl as well, the two spells cost just enough focus to keep your pet from capping.
Alternately, claw has no cd which makes it do better dps than bite, if both spells are the only ones being cast. The issue with claw is whenever your pet is casting growl it’ll burn through all of its focus and won’t be able to get growl off on cd. Claw can be used with growl but it needs left off auto cast and you need to watch your pets focus to manually cast claw before it caps.
For these reasons I recommend a cat because it can use both bite and claw while also having the highest damage of any pet family, tied with raptors who unfortunately can’t learn dash. You auto cast growl and bite while questing and disable growl and auto cast claw in dungeons.
The buzzard can as well. The damage is less, medium compared to a cat which is high. It’s the payoff for having a tankier pet, which is helpful in HC. I prefer to use bite as well because of focus issues.
wow-petopia is every hunters friend. So much info there.
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I guess it’s up to preference. The carrion bird gets +2% health +5% armor and -10% damage compared to a cat. Not sure if OP’s personal restriction prohibit them from doing dungeons but it’s worth noting that if they can, then the cat is way better for DPS.