Unfortunately, the patch notes haven't been clarified to a point where anyone except for the author can understand it. Or at least understand it and remain calm. To quote the patch note itself:

# The hunter pet ability Growl will no longer scale with pet Attack Power.

Already I see boars becoming obsolete, basically moving over to the junk pile to make friends with crocolisks, tallstriders, turtles and the like. Though personally, I don't quite see the point. With a boar, you used a WHOLE stable slot for a pet you ONLY used during extremely long grind sessions. Thanks to charge, you could use your highest dps rotation to burst down one out of three mobs, plus charge had an added convenience of rooting the target for a second, preventing it from taking your pet 40 yards in an unknown direction, aggroing more mobs and forcing you to kite. Ok, I get carried away.

First thing I would like to note is that kiting mobs is fun. Hell, kiting is half of what hunters are about if you ask me. But during long grinding sessions, like when you need to make more money than the daily quest limit allows (you'd understand if you were raiding sunwell), kiting can become a nightmare. Seriously, forcing customers to press mouse keys as much as kiting a hundred mobs takes should be forbidden by the law for how agonizing it is. It's probably already forbidden, we just haven't read about it yet.

Now you think "why would you need to kite if, as a hunter, you are supposed to just autoshot the mob until it dies?". Well, check my gear please - I do 700 damage per auto shot, and a 1600 crit. So, when the first auto shot that leaves my bow is a crit, the mob has already forgotten about my silly pet and is running towards me. If I stay in melee, I'll be doing 200 dps at max and continuously losing HP, which - admit it - SO TICKS YOU OFF (when you're grinding). But if I choose to kite the mob, a whole new world of fingertip pains awaits me. I don't have the strafe function bound to keys - I think it's silly and I never use it. Instead, I hold down my right mouse button whenever I want to kite. All in all I press my left and right mouse buttons a minimum of 5 times to kill a single mob. 500 times to kill 100 mobs. Compare that with ANY OTHER CLASS, which have to press the mouse 2 times - to target the mob, and to loot it. That's 500 mouse clicks versus 200. Can you hear than saying carpal tunnel syndrome? (I checked a site earlier and found myself having two symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome - frequent tingling with a numbness in the index and middle fingers of my right hand. Didn't have that before I started playing)

Anyway, now you're like "ok, but you have feign death, kill command, all that stuff in your arsenal". Pressing feign death in time to still be 5+ yards away from the mob when it actually understands that it didn't resist the feign may require reflexes. Not saying I don't possess them, but more casual players probably don't. Blizzard always cares for their casual players, so I'm giving them a chance to care for them even more. And kill command - oh please, it's something like 300 damage and in any case, 800 (growl) + 110 (bite) + 150 (swing) + doesn't make 1600. Plus, FD can be resisted. Plus, growl can be resisted (and does get resisted lol).

Plus, with a 2.11 sec attack speed, I can pull aggro with two normal shots, then 0.5 secs later another growl comes, the mob targets my pet but they both continue waltzing in my direction, stopping only at the spot where I'm standing. More mouse clicks to move away and face the mob again. What the hell?

And what's more - it takes 15 seconds on average for me to kill a mob in, say, quel'danas without pulling aggro from my pet. 15 seconds!!! That's a hell of a lot when you compare it with destro warlocks, fury warriors, combat rogues. PVP geared arms warriors are having an easier time killing mobs than me!!! I'm wearing the best gear available bar sunwell loot, running a cookie-cutter hunter PvE spec and it takes 15 seconds for me to kill a squishy little elf, of which I have to kill 20 more to get 11 gold. Sometimes I don't think it's worth it, honestly =\

Anyway, all this was to say that I don't blame hunters who buy gold, and you shouldn't either.

Just joking, I only got to the part where I demand buffs instead of nerfs, here goes:
1. First and foremost, fix the bug when after pet + mob collision, the mob takes the pet somewhere far away (or the pet takes the mob, not sure really). It's extremely annoying and forces us to make more mouse clicks.
2. Second, we need growl to a) generate enough threat without scaling with anything (something like 1100 should do I suppose), b) scale with the hunter's attack power (not the pet's attack power), so that people in higher-end gear can achieve faster grinding than people in season 1 pvp gear (which is completely logical since the former are definitely playing their main characters, whereas the latter are probably just gold farmers on the job).
3. We need to remove the aspect of kiting from grinding monsters. I'm talking about people playing hunters risking to get carpal tunnel syndrome because of how our class works. "Play it or quit" just doesn't cut it IMO.
4. Keep in mind that what I just said applies to the CURRENT, 2.4.1 state of growl - with my 2270 attack power unbuffed (which is no small feat to achieve when specced beast mastery), my pet generates around 850 threat per growl. That's far from enough to be grinding comfortably.

How and where did I get the nerve to post this? - I'm just seeing all the other DPS classes like warriors, rogues and warlocks - they can be specced whatever they want, warriors can go arms, rogues can go hemo, warlocks can be afflict specced and still put out MUCH FASTER farming (that is including warrior downtimes) than a hunter in top gear, specced in the best PvE spec available (dps -wise). "This just seems counter-intuitive", as blizzard posters like to say.

/sign if you agree and if you feel the same way, I guess. Hopefully someone will tell us we got it wrong and that growl will end up generating more threat after the patch, or at least this information will be given to the responsible developers and after consulting with a neurology specialist, they will come to realise the risks imposed by kiting large amounts of monsters for hours on end.

never even used boar ....u want imba pet for grinding/lvling take bat ...the best agro keeper there is (yes better than bug from boar charge)

I don't even use growl, just concussive and dps the fck down, or intimidation, or md on pet, or let pet do some damage while you dps your target down and then fd and finnish it off. All these things work and it's not complicated, stop being lazy and rely in your pet aggro, just foog the mothafooga up!

And if you want to take 2 at same time?! MS two dudes let pet take the other while you focus primarily on one target then trap it in and focus on the one pet is killing then take the iced target that has very litle hp left.

Comon dudes, be creative. . .

<edit> I'm more concerned with aotv nerf and not regerating enough mana in long battles then some silly growl nerf that has never worked for me anyhoo

1. Don't use boars

2. Speccing SV is useful to all aspects of hunter gameplay (except arena) and ur crits make pet obselete. Speaking from experience.

3. Million posts on this already

4. They say that growl doesnt scale with pet AP, but they don't state the specific new mechanics of the ability. Every patch has lots of undocumented changes, and there's a good chance that growl works better than pre-patch

It will scale with hunter's AP !

Even though I agree it sounds so very lazy and silly when you say stuff like this:

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Q u o t e:
All in all I press my left and right mouse buttons a minimum of 5 times to kill a single mob.

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^_^

Yeah but, I"m talking about grinding for at least two hours. That's a lot of monsters and mouse clicks. To learn about the dangers of carpal tunnel syndrome, just type the three words in google.

I know of the risks of CTS. Since I had a bad case of it. But there are a lot more ways to not get it then to limit the use of mouse clicks.

- Use the keyboard more, you find straving silly, but it will cut down on mouseclicks and it's in the game.
- Make sure your desk and chair are in the right position.
- TAKE SMALL BREAKS, 10 seconds every 5 minutes. Just don't touch the mouse or the keyboard. This can be easily done during mana drinking.
- TAKE BIG BREAKS, every hour 5 to 10 minutes. A bit hard during raid time, but for the rest of the game it's very doable. Stand up, walk around, wave you arms, do small excersises.
- And lastly: if you start getting symptoms, cut down on computer time by a lot! Getting Illidan down is not worth the risk of getting paralised!

Do this right and you can spend a lot of time each day behind a pc. I do around 7 hours at work and on average another 3 at home and due to what I've learned, I feel no stress in my hand/arm/shoulder/neck/back.

This takes the cake. I don't use a boar, never had, the only time my pet held agro while when I was leveling. It didn't hold agro at level 60 and didn't at 70. Now my pet offtanks while I try to dps something down fast, or it's just extra dps while I try to kill the mob before it reaches me, or kite it.

Hunters have been complaining about the pour scaling of pets for a long time, so lets remove one of the few things that almost made up for it... yay_NOT!

So what if it scales with hunter's AP ? It's basicaly the same as it was, only:

- Blessing of Might on pet won't be such a farm-helper as it is now
- Charge won't add up to Growl

The problem is not if it scales with hunter's or pet's AP. The problem is, as you develop your gear, your AP doesn't really grow that much. Sure, you get some, but you also get hit / crit / haste / armor pen all of which affect your aggro while they don't affect your pet's.

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Q u o t e:
So what if it scales with hunter's AP ? It's basicaly the same as it was, only:

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Well that's what's scary - the patch note doesn't say it will scale with the hunter's attack power. Just that it will no longer scale with the pet's. That is why all these threads are emerging to find out how it's gonna be.

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Q u o t e:

Well that's what's scary - the patch note doesn't say it will scale with the hunter's attack power. Just that it will no longer scale with the pet's. That is why all these threads are emerging to find out how it's gonna be.

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U.S. forums receive far more frequent blue responses than we do and once they asked they received the following response:

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Q u o t e:
Growl was scaling incorrectly before so it's been changed to scale with the hunter's AP starting at around 1200 AP.

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The matter is under discussion on the US forums>test realm section.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=5973994474&sid=1

The same blue continued with:

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Q u o t e:
Other pet abilities such as bite, claw, etc will still scale with pet AP.

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Which indicates said blue hasn't got a balls notion of what they are talking about in respect to anything other than the direct question regarding growl. Seems that the devs only respond to single question and answer with no elaboration. (for anyone in the dark - bite, claw, etc don't scale with pet ap).

Umm, okay. But I'd still be grateful if what I said here would be taken into consideration. Playing a hunter shouldn't increase the risk of getting CTS.

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Q u o t e:
Umm, okay. But I'd still be grateful if what I said here would be taken into consideration. Playing a hunter shouldn't increase the risk of getting CTS.

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I don't want a god-mode pet. Grinding with my hunter is easy as it is, and growl scaling with hunter AP is all the change that is needed.

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Q u o t e:

As mentioned by the poster above me, no changes has been done in regards to the other pet abilities such as bite, claw, etc. so they should still be scaling with the pet's AP.

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Bite and claw never scaled with the pets AP afaik.

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Q u o t e:


This is correct. It has been changed to scale with the hunter's AP, starting at around 1200 AP.

As mentioned by the poster above me, no changes has been done in regards to the other pet abilities such as bite, claw, etc. so they should still be scaling with the pet's AP.

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Are we really talking about AP, or RAP ?
How would this affect the effectiveness of Growl for BM hunters compared to SV and MM hunters?
Maybe i am wrong but in my opinion SV and MM hunters usually have more AP than BM hunters. So this would make growl more effective for those hunters, which seems a bit wrong since BM is the build thats all about improving the pet.

Does Blizzard at least know what is scaling and what's not?
This is not about knowing issues or mechanics how hunter class works, but simple question of good manners.
I don't know how others took this, but, to me, it was mocking to our, I would say countless, problems with pet(s).

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Q u o t e:
Vaneras:

This is correct. It has been changed to scale with the hunter's AP, starting at around 1200 AP.

As mentioned by the poster above me, no changes has been done in regards to the other pet abilities such as bite, claw, etc. so they should still be scaling with the pet's AP.

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I'll take the same question asked on US forums regarding pet abilities scaling with pet AP:

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Q u o t e:
Please clarify this if you can. Currently pet specials like bite, claw do not scale at all in any way shape or form, are you sure those are now going to scale with pet AP? I'm not doubting you, but mabye you misunderstood, because that would imply that bite will do more damage now for example.

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Are you saying that when this patch goes live that pets will now scale with pet AP?
If not then it's wrong to state so as they currently do not.
If, however, they will post-patch scale with pet AP then this is a great buff to us and really should be mentioned in patch notes.

I wonder how this will affect my SV hunter at ~2300 RAP with hawk. :>