Growling at Tanks
A note to the tanks on my battlegroup: It is better to remain silent and have people think you a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. If you’re going to try and instruct a hunter on how to manage his pets, you had better have played a hunter beyond level 25, and actually understand the mechanic in question. Over the weekend, a tank demanded that I turn growl off, as it was taunting the mobs off of him. When I replied that a pet’s growl was not a taunt, the conversation continued:
- Names hidden to protect the moronic.
For the record, the pet ability of growl is not a taunt – it merely increases total aggro. It does not reduce the total aggro of the tank in any way – the only effect that appears to do this is misdirect (which removes the total threat generated by misdirect after 30 seconds). Growl has a single-target effect, so only the hunter’s current target is affected. In fact, even with growl, a hunter will a non-tenacity pet will generate far more threat – if you lose aggro to the pet, you’re doing something seriously wrong.
There is a strong case for keeping growl on during a 5 man encounter in the current build. In the event of a dead tank, a pet with threat already can use a quick misdirect to gain the attention of the mob, allowing the healer time to get off a rez spell, or to give enough of a “speed bump” to allow the DPS to finish him off before it turns on them (which happened this weekend). With the aggressive pet stance gone, the pet will attack the hunter’s current target – where the tank should have an aggro head-start. If the hunter is attacking something other than what the tank wanted, it is most likely a marking problem (also happened this weekend).
Fix the Hotfix
I’m not sure what Blizzard did between 1 and 7am this morning, all I know is it managed to screw up our possibility of downing Beth, with a massive number of disconnects from about 9:30pm CDT and on. We were hitting Phase 2 with regularity, and had moved some more DPS up to death with her spiderness.
And, apparently, it stuck with me and hung around. I had continued problems with disconnects even in BH – I’m not sure if our guild’s switch to Mumble had anything to do with it, but I’ve not had a problem with graphic settings since I’ve hhad this computer. So, whatever you did Bliz, fix it.
But hey, I did pick up a nice [Ramseur of Hatred]!
Quote of the Week:
On Jan’alai:
Rusty: You can’t let all the eggs on a side hatch. The healer died because you couldn’t hold aggro on any of the adds. Tank: Haha. I’m a warrior, it’s impossible for me to hold aggro on that many adds. Rusty: So … don’t let the guy release all of the birds at once. Kill him before he breaks more than one or two sets. Tank: Well, none of the other groups I was in had a problem with it. But, if the DPS can’t handle it… Rusty: Were you tanking the other groups? Tank: No. Rusty: And you don’t see the problem?At this point, I firmly wished to have a head extraction device, because the tank’s was firmly lodged in his posterior.
I give up…
Blizzcon tickets sold out with me #417 in the quene. They need to come up with a more honest system, given that some folks manage to push the button at EXACTLY the right time year after year. A notable number of them ticket resellers…
More Computer Fun
Well, I’m in Maine, and somewhere between New Orleans and Atlanta, my computer took a massive dump. So, my posting might be a bit spotty until I can get back to the Big Easy and get the damn thing fixed…again.
Note to self: No more travel.
Elitist Attitudes part 2: You Can’t Go “Home” Again
Previously, I discussed the recent complaints by the elite crowd that raiding had become too accessible for the “causal” player and that only the best should be raiding. I’m presuming that they’re referring to the days of The Burning Crusade, as the raid content was so difficult in Vanilla that only the top 1% of raiding guilds ever reached Naxxramas. Most, in fact, were stuck in Molten Core. BC raiding required the huge time investment, but the gear drops allowed more advancement. The biggest problem in BC raiding, and the one that seems to have fostered the elite attitude, was that it was nearly impossible to join a guild that was progressing past the initial steps. As a new 70, you needed to be in a guild that was starting heroic dungeons – without a dungeon finder getting a group together to run heroics that required an attunement process was astronomically difficult. And, once the gear had progressed past the heroic dungeons, the grind virtually guaranteed that folks wouldn’t be going back. This held true as groups began to gear up through each tier of raiding. So, if you couldn’t find a group that was starting when you were, your odds of getting to raid were slim indeed.
Little Blue Dog 