Hunting Party Podcast Ep. 89 Recap

Welcome, my pet-taming comrades to the first Hunting Party Podcast Recap! This week, special guest Zeherah of femaledwarf.com joins Darkbrew and Frostheim to discuss the pet focus bug, racials and race demographics, followed by the usual round of Q&A.

Pet Focus Bug and Sic ‘Em!

The podcast begins with discussion of the pet focus bug. This caused pets’ focus to reset to full whenever the hunter’s stats changed, effectively giving unlimited focus and allowing the pet to always cast their focus dump spells like Bite. Combined with Wild Hunt, hunters with two points invested saw damage increases in spite of the extra focus required for basic attacks. The bug has since been fixed, and has primarily hit BM (who has the extra points for Wild Hunt) and others who specced to take advantage of it. Frostheim and Zeherah also said they had not seen any changes in the way Sic ‘Em! works. Apparently it’s still the same as always.

Lava Bolt Crossbow‘s Gun Sound To be Removed

In the next client-side patch, the sound file that makes the crossbow fire like a gun will be “fixed” back to the appropriate “twang”-ing sound. Frostheim again lamented the lack of any raiding guns this tier, which led to….

Racials and Race Demographics

The lack of a raiding gun deprives dwarves of their racial bonus once more. Strike three! As always, Frost, Darkbrew and Zeherah agree that skill is far greater than racials in terms of who to bring to a raid. However, racials remain something that people use to optimize their character. The worgen racial is a flat DPS bonus, and in some cases is better than upgrading a piece of gear from ilevel 359 to 378. Frost presented a case for removing all flat DPS, healing or tanking bonuses from racials. Darkbrew agreed and gave an example of racials being a choice between bonuses like the human’s additional reputation or the worgen’s Darkflight.

Commenter Wilkin weighed in with hunter race population statistics. Tauren, Forsaken and humans brought up the rear in terms of representation at 2%, 4% and 4% respectively. Predictably, night elves took the largest chunk of the pie at 27%. A word of caution; these numbers come from WarcraftRealms which requires a mod be installed on players’ computers, so the percentages may be a bit skewed.

Q&A Questions Abbreviated 

Zeherah said yes, she might add it in, and apparently is working on adding the ability to filter PvP items in or out of gear recommendations.

No, in short. At the time of the podcast, the schematic was not yet able to be learned. Now, though, the Warcraft Hunters Union has a great post on that very topic (you can find it here).

  • “How does the crew feel about small group leveling and grouping: bear or turtle for tanking?”

Frost said bear, but turtles are great for spike damage.

  • “Do exotic pets do extra damage, or do they just bring the extra ability? Should BM hunters always be using an exotic pet?”

No, exotic pets do not do more damage than non-exotics. Yes, they just have the extra ability, and, as always, you should bring the pet that gives a buff not already covered by your group members.

  • “Do you ever think Blizzard will allow hunters to have dual combat pets? If so, what combination would you use?”

Frost weighs in with a no, Blizzard will probably not allow hunters to…dual-wield? dual-tame? pets. Darkbrew, on the other hand, thinks dual sporebats would, of course, be the best combo.

  • “With talk of the new hydra pet family, what ability should it have? In addition, what pet families should come next?”

In Frostheim’s opinion, whenever a hydra is low on health, one of its heads should die, spawning two additional ones from the stump. They’d be around until the hydra was healed. Darkbrew thinks that hydras should get their own pets. I’ll give you three guesses as to what they’d be. Yes, you were right. Sporebats.

And that wrapped up the Podcast! You can catch the link here to download this episode from the Hunting Party Podcast website. May your arrows and/or bullets fly true. Until next time.

 

 

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