Don't Charge- Dash!Follow

Okay, I'm pretty sure someone has covered this on the Hunter forums, but I only lurk here from time to time, and haven't seen it mentioned before, although I have seen the problem mentioned.

As with many people who have boars, my little piggy Rancid is my pride and joy. A very smelly pride and joy, since he is a plagued swine. I tamed him at 60, surprised that he'd be so close to Undead, yet tameable. I kept him all the way to 70, not replacing him with something newer. Yes, I am one of those people who gets sentimetal over an in-game pet. All the way to 70, I didn't have a problem- except occasionally, when I was trapping mobs. Then, inexplicably, Rancid would decide to give the trapped mob a love tap before running back to his targetted mob- thus releasing the trapped mob. I almost never noticed it when soloing, but whenever I was in a group, he would do it at least once. It was frustrating, but I could live with it.

Recently, I saw a couple of posts on various forums mentioning the same problem. The solution the people came up with was simple- get a different pet. I didn't care too much for that, but decided to tame a Ripfang Lynx from Netherstorm. I went and did the deed without too much effort, but I wasn't happy with the result. The new pet was surly and moody, and was eating me out of house and home. I wasn't looking forward to a long stint of getting it used to me, having to feed it much more often than even Rancid needed, and have it go into frequent sulks for who-knows-how-long. So, I released it, and it pranced happily away.

I took poor Rancid out of the stables and went to the pet trainer in Ironforge, asking for some alternative to having to euthanise my good friend. Luckily, I was able to get him to un-learn everything he had been taught, and retrained him in new skills- one of which was Dash! We are now a happy team again, running through the wilds of Outlands and clearing a path wherever we venture.

The moral of the story: don't give up on your boar when he (or she) Charges rampantly at every mob- drop Charge and get Dash. The only thing you really lose is the stun ability, but the boar will start running faster earlier, and for longer distances.

That extra second of Immoblization has saved me quite a few times and I would never sacrifice Charge over Dash. It's just my playstyle though. In group settings or multiple pulls, I'll leave it on auto-cast until she first uses the ability. Afterward I switch it off autocast, because as you said the boar will tend to love-tap your CC'd mob, which usually breaks the trap, but not always.

I'm a CCer at heart. Damage has always come second with me, and I pay more attention to the mobs and their targets, then I do about my arrows pelting them. If I see a mob heading for the healer, I'll sic my pig on it, and stop it for that 1 second so I can then gain aggro and trap it again, or kite it around, etc.

As a survival hunter I've come very accustomed to my spec and my piggy. We make a great combination for CC purposes, and when used properly we're unstoppable. Much like you, I tamed my pig at level 60, when they actually received "Charge". Before then I didn't think much of the boar, they never had charge, and aside from the fact that they ate everything, they just didn't seem to appealing to me.

I leveled using the Rake, of all pets. I managed to tame him around level 12 or so. Back when he still had the 1.2 attack speed. I named him Stimpy, and we've been best buds ever since. I still have him now at 70, but find that he has taken a back seat to Ino-Pig (my 70 boar, the name is a Naruto reference).

I also have a Scorpid mainly for DPS purposes, but I find that I mostly use my piggy just for comfort of knowing that if that something goes wrong, she's got my back.

Remember that Charge + Growl = a lot of threat. Charge's added AP Bonus adds to the threat of growl, and can almost always pull aggro off of some one in a pinch (assuming they haven't done that much damage/healing against it). I personally can't live without it, but again that's my playstyle.

Good story though, and hopefully this will enlighten some hunters on how to better control their boars.

Actually you have to click charge, then click Pet Attack, or your pig will just charge and come running back to you. Makes it rather tedious. Best thing to do is set it on attack first, so it starts to run, then hit charge.

Yes, that's what I've got. In fact, I would suggest it for ANY pet with Dash or Dive.

/petattack
/cast Dash

Pet AI for dash/dive just isn't very good. It's best to use it when you're telling your pet to attack the next target. And if you need your pet to dash its current target which is getting away, you can just hit the macro again.

Woots for Az! I'm just going to add a penny here and say:

Charge produces a high amount of threat. Charge = / = Dive or Dash

I got rid of my trusty pig that I'd kept since Dun Morogh at about level 58 in favor of pet experimentation. In the end, I now have one of those ugly Plagued Swines since Charge is in fact such a powerful aggro tool. Sure, Charge gets resisted sometimes, but it's still craploads better than dash or dive on my Owl and Wolf will ever be for aggro. Sooo...

Don't replace Charge! My Owl tanked for Slabs so just think what a true aggro-snatching armor boosted smelly pig could achieve! I really hope that trap bug gets fixed someday though. In the meantime, great advice on the macros people, and deactivating auto-execute on Charge, etc. Someday we'll be able to replace our Plagued Swines with Wooly Tuskers or some sh*te with WotLK Tremor. Good Hunting!

EditNotes: Apparantly I am having trouble spelling in the dark again.

Edited, Sep 10th 2007 10:06pm by Bordagar