Hunters

[Abyssal]

Does Furious Howl (from wolves) stack?

[Vyndree]

Does Furious Howl (from wolves) stack?

Nada. Put it on manual cast in a castsequence.

It also has a (quite sucky) 15 yard range.

[Abyssal]

boo ;(

Using boars atm... only really need 1, he keeps aggro from everyone, heh (for now at least, only lvl 12)

ya, i read the range of howl is increasing to 40 yd in wotlk... there's also a new wolf type

[Depherios]

Yeah, they're increasing the range to 30 or 40 yards I forget, saw a blue post on it where they said nobody had ever bothered to rework it from the version the mob has for hunters.

[Korruptor]

A different pet per hunter for the various abilities, start a guild called "The Zoo" and their slogan could be "The Zoo is coming to a town near you!"

Ok, so I'm bored at work :)

[ElectronDF]

I started off with 2 ravagers (DPS), 1 flyer (screech), 1 boar (charge), 1 wolf (furious howl). I LOVED it. No problems, too much fun and got up to 40's. But I want ferocity pets in WotLK, so I changed to 2 wolves (just left furious howl on auto, dont want to worry about it), 1 hyena (tendon rip-slowing), 1 flyer and 1 tallstrider (AOE 1 attack miss). It sucked leveling up the tallstrider, but other than that, they are 50's and I love it. No problems except in BRD room from hell until I figured out the timing. 2 parts I wish were different, imtimidation should not be tried to be applied if one is already on a mob (like slowing effects saying "A more powerful spell is already in use") and furious howl should give buffs numebers. It already has a little 1 in the corner, so it should just make the number 2. Not stack so you hit 10% harder, but so if one buff runs out, the next one can still go.
I really love pet classes, so I hope you have fun. Good luck.

[accretion]

Any hunter group needs to consider a pet with Screech. ESPECIALLY if you run with a healer. Screech is the best aggro lock-down there is and even though the same ranks don't stack, they still register full aggro, so the mobs rarely (if ever) peel off on the healer.

[Suvega]

Clefthooves = fun for tanking :)

[Vyndree]

Any hunter group needs to consider a pet with Screech. ESPECIALLY if you run with a healer. Screech is the best aggro lock-down there is and even though the same ranks don't stack, they still register full aggro, so the mobs rarely (if ever) peel off on the healer.

I've never really had a problem pulling aggro on my healer... but then again I am a big fan of /focus'ing different tank targets for each pet.

http://vboxing.net/v/index.php?q=node/74
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYnmX_g5jc8

(Granted, that was without a healer but I still don't have issues with one)


That being said I'm currently leveling up some new pets on my hunters and THAT is where I'm having aggro issues. Granted, the pets are 10 levels lower than the hunters or more, but I find a line spread-out (kind of like a firing squad) works well so the hunters can still shoot and bounce aggro between each other.

[accretion]

I didn't encounter any problems with aggro until my 60's (I used boars through 67 or so). If I had to level to 70 again, I would add a bird with screech around lvl 40 then switch to all birds at 61 or so (the ugly, 2-headed things from HFP). Outland dungeons are much tougher without Screech and my biggest frustration while leveling was grabbing aggro with the priest before I had all my "toys" like PoM.

The firing squad formation is quite effective (and looks pretty cool) but gimps dps if you ever pull the mob off the pet. Frost trap helps for that as well. Essentially, I found that for PvE, the slight dps/synergy hit you take is more than made up for by the fact that you rarely have to melee or trap anything that peels off on your team. Keeping everything range is a huge advantage all the way around.

That said, you can pretty much do anything you want from 1-55 and still be a well-oiled killing machine =)

[Stealthy]

I'm running 5 hunters, currently level 68. For PvE I run 5 owls. I tamed 5 x Gutrippers at 67, and let me tell you - trying to tame an elite mob thats immune to snares and roots and does about 1.5K pet hit was tricky to be sure (your armor gets dropped to zero when cast Tame Beast). Owls are great becuase Screech generates agro on every mob within range every time it's cast, and gives an AP debuff on mobs as well. It has no cooldown, so works great as a focus dump, and generates enough agro to hold mobs through a mend pet - important on large pulls since you'll want to cast Mend Pet almost as soon as you send your pets in.

For PvP I use either Boars for their 1 second root with Charge (note - it's a root, not a stun, so won't stop casters unless you use intimidate), or Wind Serpents for their lightning damage (ignores armor, unlike most hunter shots).

I havent had too many agro problems since 60, provided my pet is equal to or one level behind my toons. Any lower and their argo drops as they get more resists / misses / blocks etc. At 68 with a mixture of high level greens & blues, I can go full dps on elites and only have to feign towards the end of the fight, and in many cases not at all.

Cheers,

S.

[Abyssal]

Ya, I'm not new to hunters, just to multiboxing ;) Two 70s and three 60 hunters already under the belt.

I'll probably go for a mix of screech, howl and boars. Sucks that the only owls available are the grey ones until Winterspring ;(

[Stealthy]

Ya, I'm not new to hunters, just to multiboxing ;) Two 70s and three 60 hunters already under the belt.

I'll probably go for a mix of screech, howl and boars. Sucks that the only owls available are the grey ones until Winterspring ;(

There are some lowbie owls in Teldrassil - if you can get someone to summon you there you can tame them. I had the benefit of having previously levelled a priest / lock team so it didn't take me too long to get 'em.

Cheers,

S.

[Aethon]

Highly recommend any pet with screech. I tamed my first bird (owl in Felwood) at 50, I've switched specs to/from Marks and BM (with gear for each) and I've never had any issues pulling agro off my bird.

That being said, I recommend 2 hunters with birds, just in case and both have at least the talents for pet armor and health (if not full BM) The birds keep agro very well, but that doesn't mean they live a lot longer vs elites.

On my hunter (single box a long time ago) I had the cheaper mana pet heal talents, the increased focus regen talents and (when I got high enough level) the Marksman talent for focus on crits. Put screech on auto cast, and no agro issues. Ever.