Why hunters still use "growl" in LFG?

Community General Discussion
21

Literally 60-70% of people who use that addon end up kicked in the dungeons I’ve been in, because it contributes nothing to the group.

As many of us have pointed out, auto-growl is turned off. If the pet growls, it’s either because of a bug, or because the hunter purposely growled because the tank is not doing their job.

By using said add-on, you are either A. Shaming a hunter for a bug they cannot control or B. Shaming a hunter for a tank doing a poor job.

And either way, the group should be shaming you for using a bad addon. And yes, I point this out in groups, and more often than not, if it happens more than once, I will bring it up again, and sooner or later, it’s usually the tank (if they aren’t the one using the addon) that initiates the vote to kick on the person using the addon.

2 Likes
22

It is a true taunt. That’s how all taunts work.

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23

The sad part is that there are so many other hunters that believe the same thing. This is one of the long list of reasons why hunters ( not the class itself but the person behind the keyboard playing hunters ) have such a bad rep…

24

Most of the time, I’m yelling at my screen because I’m aggroing more than my pet even spamming Growl and Misdirection :thinking::triumph:

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25

No. I’ve used threat meters. Pet Growl is NOT a true taunt. Yes, the last official stance was it was a true taunt, back in Mists of Pandaria. However, it was SILENTLY changed back sometime during WoD or Legion, as I’ll explain. (Next time, do your own research and don’t just trust old patch notes)

A true taunt has 2 mechanics:

  1. It forces the target to attack you for a few seconds. Growl does this.
  2. It forces you on the top of their threat list, now if you do not generate enough threat, you will fall down off the top. HOWEVER, Growl, despite what you might think, does NOT do this. It generates a ton of threat, but it does not instantly put the pet on the top of the threat list. For hunters, it generates enough threat to pull threat off the hunter.

However, if you’ve ever noticed, if a pet survives the 3 seconds it has the aggro from the taunt, the mob it growled is immediately is pulled back onto the tank, even if the tank has not done anything else to said mob. It’s because Growl did not generate enough threat to pull off of the tank.

Use a threat meter, grab a tank, grab a hunter. Go do a dungeon where you can test this. I’ve done this many times throughout the years, seen it many times throughout many raids and dungeons.

And hell, you can even tell it simply by looking at Growl’s wowhead page:

Notice how there’s a Modified By: Section? If it were a true taunt, there would be nothing to modify. As if it were a true taunt, it would simply put the pet at the top of the threat list. No. Growl generates threat, it does not simply place the pet at the top of the threat list. Aspect of the Beast increases the threat it generates by 30%.

Again, this is all easily checked by asking a tank friend to do dungeons with you and turning growl on.

I’ve tested it quite a few times.

Growl is not a true taunt. It taunts, and generates a butt load of threat, but it’s not a true taunt. It literally has no affect on the tank’s threat whatsoever.

2 Likes
26

The growl supposed to be automatically turned off and not properly working thing is why I just do MM Lone Wolf in dungeons/LFR.

2 Likes
27

Maybe end game’s different in this case, (I doubt it) but whenever I was tanking dungeons (up to level 110), the mob/mobs would literally turn around. Stop attacking me (the tank). And start attacking the pet . Kicked plenty of hunters that didn’t turn growl off while leveling after asking them to “turn growl off” and them not turning it off for whatever convoluted reason they had for leaving it on or just plan out ignoring me or the group

28

I would guess that about 97% of the time a pet growls in a dungeon it is from a bug since BfA started, like others have stated.
Pet died and you res it = taunts once because of a bug
Pet dismissed and you summon it = taunts once because of a bug
Other things can trigger the bug as well, but I’m not super well versed on other causes.

By default growl auto-cast is turned off in instances.
By default growl isn’t on the pet bar.

The bugs have been reported numerous times, but so far they either can’t fix it or won’t take the time to fix it for whatever reason.

2 Likes
29

Calm down there. I main hunter. Hunter is the only thing I play. My friend has the addon, and yes it goes off pretty much any session when I use a pet at least once. When the pet dies and I rezz it in combat it automatically growls, but ya know it’s a good heads up for the tank that my pet is trying to steal aggro. It also helps when the tank dies and my pet may save the healer or the group for a few seconds before the brez goes out.

If someone is using it on purpose then they deserve to be outed. If it is a bug then at least everyone will know that there is an issue. Remember, this is coming from someone who has been on the receiving end and yes I still stand by it.

Getting kicked from a dungeon isn’t the end of the world, by the way.

2 Likes
30

its a known bug?

good thing i dont mind on my lowbie alt tanks

31

I got Accused of this.

Thing is, I play MM with lone wolf. My “pet” was a kitty Druid, and he was pulling aggro off the tank, because the tank actually was forgetting to taunt.

After being sent several harsh messages, I politely pointed out what was going on, only to be met with an awkward silence. I swear I could hear the tank exclaiming “oh s***”.

7 Likes
32

Been there. People assumed a lot in Legion that any hunter had a pet out (I didn’t as MM of course) and they were either upset I didn’t have lust/brez thanks to the stupid talent or they wanted to blame something on me and my imaginary pet.

1 Like
33

I’ll look into that, but I hate bugging people about doing things, but sounds like it would be a fun thing to try.

I’d still prefer the issue to be addressed. It’s not fun for hunters to be accused as much as it not fun in general to a bunch of tank. I think Hunter is an amazing class but suffering a bug is less fun.

1 Like
34

growl can be used properly
if its necrotic week or something or the week where its necrotic AND fortified I usually try and growl off a mob that has a massive 2 hander or something and then the tank crys and its like, okay ill stop taunting, and then the tank dies from necrotic.
/shrug cant please everyone.

2 Likes
35

Well, Blizzard should absolutely address any bugs with pets where the pet is not doing what the hunter wants. I appreciate my pet being able to growl immediately when a tank dies because it actually has staved off a wipe or two I believe, but this whole thing of them doing it when they are rezzed in combat is annoying I agree. But if people are doing it on purpose… Then they don’t get any sympathy from me.

For the record, you can set the addon to whisper the hunter privately to let them know and then it’s just between you two if you prefer to go the more generous route. It’s kind of like that healer addon where it says “~healer name~ tried to heal you but you were too far away!” or whatever and pops up in a whisper. I don’t like that one, but then again I am a hunterd.

I guess I should add this: I have never seen my pet just randomly growl. It’s really only after it has been rezzed like I mentioned. The addon solidifies that by telling me when it happens, so I am not aware of any other bug regarding pets. I played BM all through Uldir so unless it’s a new set of bugs or whatever I don’t think it really does happen randomly.

36

To me it’s more then that. I’ll agree an extra taunt can be useful, it happened in many situations. But if it is in a bad spot, due to a bug, that’s where it’s wrong. Most players who undertake leveling up something are most likely not aware of such bugs? I know for sure that re-rolling something I played years ago is often different.

On the hunter sides of things, it seems resurrecting the pet is done pretty quickly but I know for sure when I was playing hunter I’d find annoying to resurrect my pet for a bug related reason.

It seems like knowledgeable hunters are aware of dismissing and re-calling their pet to reset the growl at the beginning and that’s actually fine if they accept dealing with it.

I personally never had an issue with it joining a Mythic +, I don’t if the bug is related to LFG or LFR over just simply “zoning” in a place.

37

I use this one, main reason was because I was tired of being blamed for my pet when I’m in grps with another hunter(s).

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38

I don’t play my hunters often but when I do, I have noticed a lot of their abilities don’t function properly.

I can’t turn growl off on some of them and on others, like my fire turtle from Hyjal, I can’t turn any abilities on.

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39

There is a bug when you level that turns it on. Turning it kn then off again fixes it… until you level again that is.

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40

Growl’s been a problem since at least 2011. I think people forget to turn it off but even if they do turn it off, it seems to turn itself back on again.