Animal Handling

[jacksin125]

I've always loved having pets in games, and the plans for the Animal Handling skill seem amazing, but I've found using the skill to be... troublesome. I was hoping some people who have gotten the skill to 60 and actually use it could help me with a few things:

1. Can I actually make a tank pet? I play lycan/psych right now, so if I changed psych to AH I would lose pretty much all of my healing ability. This means that my pet would have to be able to tank for me. However, many people say that the pets actually can't tank much.

2. This is probably the most important by far: How the hell do I get my pet to do what I want? When I set it to follow, it will still attack an enemy that hits me, which makes that enemy call all of its friends before I can actually pull it away from the group. When I start backing up, and I need my pet to back up with me, I use 'get it off me". However, my pet generally starts to obey, then turns and runs back to attack the enemy when said enemy hits either me or the pet. I also don't know of any way to get the pet to attack the enemy I want it to attack, rather than the first enemy that attacks me or it.

[Tagamogi]

I haven't played animal handling for almost a year, so I hope someone with more current knowledge will jump in. I'd really love to know the answers too. In the meantime, here's my potentially out-of-date knowledge:

There are several animal handling abilities that will heal your pet or buff it to take less damage. There are no abilities to heal yourself that I'm aware of, so if mobs change aggro from your pet to you, things can get ugly.

As I recall, the ability "Get it off me" tells your pet to get a mob off you - by attacking it and taunting it. So, if your pet is attacking when you use that ability, that actually sounds like it's working as intended.

The ability Sic 'Em is supposed to send your pet to attack a specific mob while creating no/minimal aggro for yourself. At the time I stopped playing ah, it was broken for me but I'd assume it's been fixed by now.

[jacksin125]

Tagamogi, I'm pretty sure you played AH before they nerfed pets' health and armor, which is why I'd like to know if pets can now tank again. As for Get It Off Me, I was kinda hoping "come to your aid" meant return to your side, because I can't currently find any way to keep your pets from attacking (I can't pull if my pet starts hitting the thing as soon as it hits me). Sic 'Em does seem to make them attack your target, but only when you're not yet in combat. If your pet is already hitting something, then it will just use its special attack on that thing (At least as far as I can tell).

[Tagamogi]

You are correct about when I last played, so I can't offer much on pet tanking beyond that there are assorted ways to heal the pet, so at least it looks promising in theory. ( Well, technically, I played a bit afterwards - after the patch, there was a bug that prevented pets from getting meaningful aggro, and then the next time I tried, there was a bug that often prevented my pet from attacking at all. Then I gave up. ) I mostly wanted to offer my input on Get It Off Me.

Now, do we have any more current players around?

[Eachna]

My experience is "get it off me" does nothing. Mobs do not transfer interest from me to my pet. They only drop aggro for me and target my pet if I don't use any commands on my bar. Even if I heal my pet but don't damage the mob, I pull aggro from the pet.

Bears are pretty tanky and the panthers (or some of the panthers) get a heal as a special. Wile I was leveling AH to 60 I used the panther special heal a lot which usually kept them alive. But I wouldn't describe the living pets as "tanks" (ie: front-like aggro magnets that keep mobs off you).

I've taken a little break (about a month now) so that I could level more pairs of combat skills to 50. I'm almost done with my last pair (mentalism/psych) so I'll be back to AH soon and I'll play with it a bit more. Edit: I have no idea how to get my pets to obey me. Follow is the one that works best for my play style.

My necro skellies constantly got aggro (I tend to use the mage and the archer). I have no idea if they do more damage than the living pets or mobs just really hate the undead. I think if you had the right mods they could tank for you.

[Gorstak]

AH is completely broken and usseles thers nobody using it past lvl 50-60 activly,its yust not viable,it was very fun and i loved ah before they destroyed the skill by removing more than half armor,hp and dmg from ah pets,now its only frustartion,u would need had perfect mods yustto have a chance.

[cr00cy]

Ah is a bit bugged at this moment. Ok its very bugged:
-Pets aggro is messed up (mobs often ignore them completly, adn sometiem aggro on them for no reason)
- bonus mitigation for pets from varius mods seems to not fully apply
- they sometime get stuck

So yeh there are few problems with ah. That being said i playe dit a bit recently and must say its not terrible. Not great, i think AH is weakest skill i played with, but it is playable.

As for your questions:
1) Bears can be quite tanky, and few of them hae taunt as tehy specialy skill. Unfortunatly, it appers that pets specialy skilsl are bugged and tehy dont use them (at least thsi is case for bears).
Keep in mind that if you wnat your pet to tank for you you woudl NEED mods for it. Not only ones for increased taun t for your pet, but also increased hp/armor.

2)There is currently no way to forve pet to switch targets. Its behavior can be alerted, in limited fashion, with skills and pet seetings.

When you set your pet on "guard me" it will focus on first mob attacke dyou or it. With "Assist me" setting it will focus on first mob you attacked". Im not 100% sure but i think usign "sic 'em" skill will casue your pet to tempraly switch target.

Keep in mind that using "get it off me" will put your pet in guard stance.

[rastaah]

Well when I started playing Hunter in WOW early beta it had no talents so say no beast mastery etc. I figure if you learn to play the class now as it stands, kinda borked, you will really rock it once they address some of the issues So I plan to level it, live it and love it. I'll let you all know how it goes in a few months lol.

My rat is a fine tank but they are not aggro holders that I can see.