In a recent hotfix aimed at correcting an issue with Augmentation Evokers and their damage logging, we adjusted how Hunter pet damage is calculated. A side effect of this was that Hunter pet attacks started scaling with weapon attack power, increasing the damage of a Hunter pet’s special attacks by about 32.5% at 450 item level. The side effect is something we would like to retain, as it means that Hunter pet damage will now benefit from weapon upgrades.
We’re currently testing the following hotfix, and intend to apply it to all realms as soon as possible today:
Kill Command, Bite, Claw, Smack, Flanking Strike, Froststorm Breath, and Burrow Attack damage reduced by ~25%.
After this hotfix goes live, it will be added to our next Hotfixes Update.
A nerf is definitely due and I was hoping we would get one, but 25% less pet damage? That sounds ill-considered and unimaginative. Especially because it also affects the damage of the SV Hunter.
Why no more targeted nerfs?
Why not Call of the Wild as an example with 1 Pet/20sec or something similar?
I’m just disappointed with the nerfs in the last patches and hotfixes. Be it the ineffective nerfs of the Aug or 3 buffs for a feral until it became usable.
Did you miss the “The side effect is something we would like to retain”, the fact that pet damage increases with weapon iLVL and that that is conserved, and that the nerf to basic attacks, specials from Exotic pets and Kill Command are inferior to the boost of the weapon’s iLVL ?
And that’s not even counting the effect of the future 4-pieces Tier Set.
I could not play yesterday due to family reasons, but what I’m reading here tells me that yesterday I would have snatched aggro from Tanks even more often than I already do with my BM Hunter, adding even more pressure to everyone in the PUG, and that today after the hotfix I’ll get a net 7.5% damage increase after the reductions of the hotfix, and that’s whithout procs, applied buffs and of course the 4-pieces that is not available yet.
Finally, it’s a currently tested hotifix, and as in every expansion deployment, things change almost every day … the old saying from Ultima Online in 1997 still applies : “On Patch Day, Don’t Play” !
Yes, they are. Well, not literally, but functionally. You could buff them by 100%, then the next day nerf them by 1% and the people in this thread would screech the same old useless rhetoric.
