Wednesday 14 January 2009

The Growl and the PussyCat

I've had some stick in the past for leaving my pets 'Growl' turned on when in a party.

Let's get something straight. I cause more aggro than my DPS pet. Much More.
My pets growl is fine, for me, while I'm solo'ing. Because anything I'm trying to kill is usually dead by the time I over-aggro it.
But if I solo an elite, it usually comes running after me just before it dies.

When I'm in a group, the tanks these days generate much much much more aggro than me. So why shouldn't I leave growl turned on.

The chances of the mob focusing on my pet are minimal as long as the tank is up and running.
The chance of my pet over-aggroing are almost Sweet-FA, and I can always use 'Cower' if I notice it getting too high.
But let's say the tank misses a mob, or is stunned, the next one in the threat list is gonna get a fistful of DMG shoved down their throat pretty quickly.
Who would you rather got that DMG?

There's 4 options:

1 - Me - Who's probably 2nd on the Threat Meter, but I have 10k Armour, upto 20kHP can feign, shadowmeld, misdirect, trap etc etc.
2 - Others - Who may / may not survive.
3 - My Pet - Who has upto 20k HP, 12k Armour, an instant rez button, and who isn't usually too far down the threat list, but hopefully higher up than...
4 - The Healer(s) - Alot of them wear paper armour, and most have the survival chances of a chocolate tea-pot in a microwave. They might last a few seconds, but then they're just a stain.

I don't send my pet in to attack until I start attacking, and I always allow a few seconds for tanks to build aggro, as it's pretty easy for me to overaggro at the beginning of fights. Just good practice, and well worth the cost of a few seconds of DPS.

Pet always attacks in 'Defence' mode, but if it goes off the rails it can be switched to 'Passive' and recalled with one click of button 5 on the mouse.

Edit: There are always exceptions to the rule, for example, I switch the pet to agressive when fighting Jodega Shadowweaver in Old Kingdom, simply because my pet starts attacking whichever mob she sacrifices as soon as it's released. And identifies it to the group.

So can anyone give me a good reason not to leave "Growl" on?

3 comments:

  1. I can...

    When having a rage based tank, warrior or druid, theres nothing *pause* NOTHING worse than not having aggro. No or very little rage generated when not being hit and especially for druids that use swipe to multi-tank is it bloody annoying if a pet starts moving a mob around. And they do that because that omg-this-is-so-cool code where the pet is suppossed to stand behind the mobs isnt working at all. The pet and mob takes off where the pet tries to go behind the mob and the mob just follows the pet. It often ends up in a mess.

    If the mob comes for you, use feign dead because you can.

    In a boss fight where theres no aggro swiping abilities, sure, use growl. If you remember to turn it off again.

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  2. OK, point taken...
    Roar on with Pallies and off for druids / warriors

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  3. I would like to add something about Pallies. If a druid/warrior dont get dmg they dont get rage... When a pallie dont get dmg they dont get mana back. Getting mana back is really important in WotLK as not any tanking item has intellect anymore, in TBC lots of tanking items still had intellect.

    There are quite some bosses around WotLK who got aggro resets and some bosses are even bugged that everybody got reduced to 0 aggro except the pets (last boss in VH for exemple). Sure a Taunt does mirracles but I always preffer that hunters put growl off.

    In Naxx 25 pets are buffed like to tomorrow aswell and yeah, they can get verry high on the threat table early in combat even with growl off. It becomes worse if it's a boss that silences. Pallies cant generate much aggro if that happens, only with holy shield what we need to be hit for to proc. If a pet steals aggro we wont get hit = no threat = no mana back etc.

    Last thing is I dont really see why you would let it on. Is it changed in WotLK? Ain't sure. If tank loses aggro try and use intimidate/traps to save other party members. That would give the tank enough time to taunt the mob back.

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