Gun Bunny FTW
“Dear BRK and Hobbes, I used to have Araga trained with Bite alongside Claw, for extra damage. However, I once read a report online somewhere that training both skills was pointless, as Bite never went off – Claw, costing less Focus, always went off well before Bite had enough Focus saved up.
“I actually have no idea if this is true, but I was only a little hunter at the time and it seemed to make sense. At 70, I still don’t have Bite. Have I been entirely wrong this whole time? Is Bite worth the Training points? Am I hampering my DPS? You yourself seem to fluctuate between having it and not having it, and I was wondering if you could provide any insights. I’m certainly not sacrificing Claw.
“Second, a rant more than a serious question. I need to get this out of my system, and my non-WoW-playing flatmate just doesn’t understand. How come so many hunters seem to think it is acceptable to go into instances WITHOUT ANY AMMO? Why oh why? Why is it that when I’m in a party, after clearing the first monsters in the Arcatraz, the other hunter whispers me: “gief ammo plx, I have run out lol”.
“It’s not just one or two. This has happened to me multiple times. A hunter going into an instance without ammo is like… like… I can’t think of anything so wrong. A warrior tank going in without his shield is better. Damn, a warrior tank going in without any clothes on is better. We rely on our ammo to do damage. Not being able to lay on our major source of DPS because you didn’t think to bring any ammo with you is just not acceptable. No, melee doesn’t count.
“I’d like to think it was just PUG’s but it has happened to me in Guilds too. Also hunters asking me for arrows when it’s very clear I’m a gun-bunny. But that’s not the point damn it. Is it just me? Do I attract huntards? Is there some secret hunter scheme to annoy me? “Hey, if you see Wydra, ask her for ammo, it’ll be funny”? I swear, the next damn hunter that asks me for ammo is going to get shot in the face.
“So far I have been kind and patient and donated ammo to these morons so we can get on with the instance. But no more. No more. Wydra and Araga (much loved psychotic battle-cat)
“P.S. Screenshot attached. Eyepatch, gloves and boots just for looks. Araga was tamed at level 35 in the Alterac Mountains. Way prettier than the other mountain lions. Look at her now! She’s huge! And that’s without being Big and Red…”
1. Who wouldn’t read the Gun Bunny Blog?
2. Who doesn’t want to run Karazhan with Wydra?
3. Who doesn’t want to ask her for ammo just to listen to the explosion? (Or maybe that’s just our sick sense of humor at work; we’re often accused of being not right in the head.)
Bite versus Claw in a Nutshell.
Claw is a Focus Dump. It’ll chew through as much Focus as you can generate and do tons of damage. Bite is not a Focus Dump as it has a long cooldown. You have a limited number of pet-talent points. As a BM hunter you want to keep your pet alive as much as possible, so that means Avoidance Rank 2, Greater Health Rank 11 and lots of Resistances. BRK recommends Rank 2 of Fire and Arcane resist as a minimum, some Shadow resist is nice, too. Add in Dash and you’ll run out before you can train Bite Rank 9.
BRK doesn’t recommend Bite for cats in Karazhan as the damage it inflicts is not justifiable compared to the defense-boosts one receives from the spell resistances. Are we hampering our DPS? A little, but not nearly so much as if Hobbes died.
Running Out of Ammo.
Running out of ammo, or not bringing a full quiver/ammo pouch to the start of an instance, is a Raid Kicking Offense. We have recommended that punishment and we’ve seen it implemented. We don’t feel we need to remind everybody of the importance of repairing and purchasing bullets, pet food, and consumables anymore.
Just know this:
Hey all you raid leaders out there! Kicking a hunter for inadequate ammo reserves is known as the BRK Sucker Punch. You have full authority to use it.
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19 Responses to “Gun Bunny FTW”
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Couldn’t agree more. Sucker punch ‘em. Don’t mind throwing a stack of bullets to the warrior. He uses them so infrequently I can understand not keeping track of them. Got no problem with that.
Had a guildie bugging everyone to run SV. Needed a tank so I hopped on my druid and we had a good run going. Till we downed the first boss and this huntard, in my guild, had to run back to town to purchase bullets. WTH? You organized the run and couldn’t even be bothered to prepare? I can almost understand it if you were a last minute find. Almost. Even then, you should be hitting the bank for some pots and repairing before getting a summon. I’m pretty much of the opinion that the first run where you are not prepared gets you booted out of the run. 2nd offense is a gkick. If you can’t come prepared, don’t come!
/rantoff
This touches on question of mine that I think would be worth a more in depth column – pet builds. There is a older one that talks about generalities such as while pets should receive more dps-oriented talents and which pets should train more defensive talents, but something a bit more specific would be nice. For example, I’m always debating the point budget between Natural Armor and Greater Stamina. Which should receive more points, and by what margin? I just kind of guess without any real information to base my decision upon.
We’ve all seen the clowns that come unprepared to a raid. The healer with no mana pots. The hunter with no ammo.
The warlock with no soul shards in an instance too low for him to get more.
*blush*
I blame it on respeccing as you’ll see here
You failed to mention Cobra Reflexes, the essential to any spec pet talent.
Didn’t I read awhile back that BRK was running with bite on and liking what he saw? I recently just trained my cat with bite and to be honest haven’t paid too much attention to a dps difference/lack of focus.
Perhaps he just meant for Kara? I can understand him not needing the extra arcane/frost/etc. protection in lower level instances as he outgears it.
Since we started Curator, we’ve left Bite of our trained-list. The Arcane resist has been too much fun, too nice, too Uber to omit.
Want to really have some pet-fun? Go run regular Shadow Lab and let your Avoidance and resistance-trained pet tank Murmur through the sonic booms. Hobbes destroys Murmur, laughs in his face, and pees on his corpse.
I’ve had nightmares where I run out of ammo in the middle of a huge instance- ever since it almost happened to me as a baby hunter in, I think, a SFK run.
Worse? Having a broken gun or bow. Again, almost happened recently in a rough Karazhan run (I actually had to port out and get summoned back in) which is why my Kara bag now has my old bow in it.
YO! Wydra,
Got any arrows?
I’ve been training bite for when I am in the battlegrounds, not training growl, since it’s useless there. Of course at 39, my pet talents are limited.
I have to admit that I’ve been guilty of the ammo thing from time to time. Most of the time I do instances it’s as part of a PUG, and a lot of the time I’ll be on an alt, see somebody ask for dps in the LFG channel, and think “Oh, Tamer needs to do that another time!” So I’ll message the party leader, tell him I have a Hunter, and log in with Tamer. Then I get the invite and they summon me before I have a chance to even see what my ammo/food status is. Most of the time I am able to plan ahead, but there have been a few where I’ll get through the first boss and notice I only have 600 bullets left and think “Oh man…can I make that last through this run?” One time I even had to tell the party “Okay, guys, I hate to say this but I only have like 100 bullets left and I should probably save that for the final boss.” Luckily they let me concentrate on trapping and doing some pathetic melee damage until we got to the boss, but I’m sure they were muttering under their breath about me.
I’ve run out doing BG’s back to back to back. I still topped the damage done scoreboard though. A BM cat is a sight to see.
I had one even worse happen last night.
Since I ain’t posting this on MY blog, I think I’ll be safe from any guildies seeing me tell the truth. God knows the hunter I’m talking about isn’t gonna read this, cause if he read BRK it wouldn’t have happened.
We had guild hunter in our kara group last night I hadn’t run with before. The trapping skills seemed pretty good. Certainly didn’t notice any glaring horrors.
We blew through Attumen and trash pretty fast, one silly wipe at Moroes’ threshold, and then we got started on Moroes himself.
To this point, the hunter had NOT had his pet out once. Not at all. I didn’t even know what kind of pet he had. Early on, the raid leader asked him what spec he was, when the damage meters showed him at #9 consistently, even on no trap pulls. He replied “MM”. Ok, so he doesn’t sue his pet in the run, ko, that’s his prerogative.
But on Moroes, the raid leader specifically asked him to bring his pet out and use it to help DPS the first add target. He brought it out, they were on the otehr side of the room. Didn’t see what it was. We pulled, we fought, we did pretty well but the ice trap was resisted and the shackle broke early. Raid leader ran out of the room to reset prior to the wipe.
As we sat there recouping our strength, rebuffing and doing the couple rezzes we needed, the raid elader asked the unter to resummon his pet so we could get him rebuffed.
The hunter replied “I can’t summon him, I don’t have any food for him and he’ll be unhappy when he comes back.”
I kind of went “WHAT?!?!” in the privacy of my own head, but out loud said “I have a stack of Warp Burgers I’ll give you so you can feed your pet.”
He thanked me, but told me his pet couldn’t use them. “Only fish or fruit.”
Meat, I find anywhere. I can’t imagine running any instance without pet food, hell or sporeling snacks for that matter, but at least my kitty on my hunter alt eats warp burgers just like me. But if you runa pet with exotic food requirements, how the heck do you not bring any?
Sorry. I wanted to post about this sooo bad on my blog today, but if I keep posting about hunters on my blog I’m going to get a bad(der) reputation.
On the topic of pet specs… please please please BRK let us know how you spec your kitty for solid running in BM. I just don’t know where to put my points so I have the right balance between health, armor, resists and avoidance. The temptation to take cobra reflexes, avoidance, and then balance health and armor between whats left is strong. Please help!
I’m sure BRK will explain it better and I’m also sure his opinion will slightly differ from mine, but I believe that this he will agree on:
MUST HAVE:
- Avoidance Rank 2
- Cobra Reflexes
- Focus dump (Gore/Claw/whaveter your pet has)
- Dash/Charge/Dive if your pet can learn them (although you need to use with caution in an instance!)
And then, I’m sure BRK will go for Great Stamina Rank 11 (or whatever is the higher rank) and split the remaining few points on some resistances… Currently, I’m doing otherwise, but I have yet to reach those raid instances, so I can’t tell if I’ll change that later!
- I go all out on resistances. Why? Since TBC your pet already takes advantage of your gear, and even though it also gets 40% of your resists, you usually are far away enough not to hit that much so you probably don’t have *that* much resists and certainly nothing that compares with the 120/140 you can get your pet!
As for Natural Armor, that gives you less than 5% PHYSICAL damage reduction at a huge cost in TPs! Same for Great Stamina which, although not bad in itself (640 HP for non-BM pets) it’s just TOO costly, TP-wise!
But, like I say, I don’t raid on my hunter yet, so I may end up changing! And this is to avoid constant re-talenting of the pet, which although not expensive (max out at 10g), does require some advance planning and a visit to a pet trainer, so I keep my pet with a general purpose resistance set. If you *can* plan ahead, then getting only the resists you need and using the rest in Great Stamina may be a good option…
For The Pie?
*BANG*
BRK?
Thanks for posting and replying, it made me smile. Actually very tempted to start a Gun-bunny blog!
BigBearButt?
Thank you for sharing your horror stories. It gives me hope that maybe I don’t have the worst luck out there…
Wydra
So then…what specifically do you use in Kara ala the fancy pet calculator…
http://petopia.brashendeavors.net/html/articles/resources/petcalc_visual.shtml
I also am interested in pet training. My experience is that your pet needs to be trained very differently for grinding and instances. In instances there are a higher number of casters, and the resistances make a lot of sense. From an entire evening of experimenting, when grinding at less than 70, armor is more important, and a more balanced approach helps.
I have found that if you tell your group you need to restock and repair they are more than happy to wait 5 extra minutes for you to be fully prepared rather than start just a bit earlier.
As a non-BM hunter, I find that my ravager Tahrip does well in Kara with Gore, Growl (off), Dash, Cobra Reflexes, Avoidance, max Arcane resist, and the rest in other resists (can’t recall specifics offhand, but I think Fire is higher than the others). The armor and health bumps don’t seem to be worth it for me. But then again my pet is essentially a DoT in Kara, not an offtank. He still survives most fights though.
So what if you’re not 70 end and making your way up through the levels. Isn’t having Claw running 24/7 going to use up so much Focus that Growl won’t have anything to run off of?
Ammo! I discovered once I’d switch to BM that a full kara run results in no ammo left by the time you hit Aran!
So these days I remember to load up my quiver AND add 5 more stacks into my bags. That covers it, usually.