Sorry if this has already been discussed ad-nauseum here, but I've noticed something since I got to Outland.
Previously, Piggles teh Uber Boar has always had more HP, higher armor, and just in general heaps more survivability than me. Ever since I started equipping the mountain of BC greens/blues that I've gotten from quests etc. that has changed.
I understand that
Blizzard appears to have ramped up the difficulty with BC and as such, has provided almost instant access to dramatic gear upgrades relative to Azeroth pieces, but the pets seem to have been left out. I was actually rather shocked to see that from level 61-69, there are no new trainable pet abilities. I've noticed in the past that around levels 47, 59, etc. (ie.
just before the next rank of Growl becomes available) my pet's hate holding abilities have dropped off considerably.
I was surprised to read in these forums some time before I hit Outland that pets in Outland instances just don't survive. "How could that be?" thought I. "Piggles has always had a roughly equivalent (if not greater)
armor rating than most same level tanks I've grouped with, and if I know ahead of time what kind of magic he's most often going to encounter in a given scenario I can respec his resistances to match. Piggles dead in a matter of seconds? Say it ain't so!
Then today I logged in to do some more questing in Zangarmarsh. I had run into Maticar (sp?) the level 63 elite strider mob the day before. He was patroling close to Telredor and the thought occured to me that it might be fun to pull him to the Telredor guards and see if I can't get in enough damage to be able to loot the corpse...
The only corpse to be found
was mine...I think Maticar ate Piggles entirely in a matter of seconds. Yup...they were right. I had done a wee bit of reading up on Maticar and know he's not a common elite, but he hit Piggles with that electric mouth vacuum thing and drained him of 6k HP It was sad. The air around Zangarmarsh smelled like pork roast for the following two hours. And all I did was Serpent Sting for the pull, run towards Telredor for several seconds and then engage Piggles just to maintain hate. As soon as I saw the Charge button start to cool down on the pet task bar I hit Follow. Piggles never even started to close the gap between me and Maticar before he was dead...
Sorry, Piggles...
Later on I managed to solo the level 63 elite Naga for one of the Wanted: poster quests (the one just north of Telredor). Piggles lasted for maybe 70-80 of the fight with constant Mend Pets being thrown on him before he died. Granted, he's only level 62 and specced for Arcane resistance (Forst
would have probably been better), but he still took a miserable pounding.
Has Blizzard commented on whether or not they intended to reduce the effectiveness of pets in BC areas? That seems to be the way it's headed. Piggles at 62/63 is still a great tank for solo adventures, but I notice he's taking a lot more Mend Pets
and still finishing fights way more beat up than he did in Azeroth, and it's only getting worse. My sense is that by the time level 69-70 rolls around, Piggles will have been relegated to the role of speedbump for angry mobs.
Any thoughts?-I tink I made an angry poo-poo!
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