2.4.2 for Hunters.Follow

You know growl now scales with hunter AP instead, right?

Since the dire ravens look like Nelf flight form imma tame one and name it Imadrood.

which means that MM gets a buff, but BM and SV raiders are still SOL. BM hunters just naturally have lower AP, because we have faster attacks. SV has higher AP than BM, but a TON of crit, which still makes it difficult for their pets to hold aggro.

Has anyone with full tier 4 gear and beyond gone to the PTR and played around with different pets to see if this is actually a nerf or a buff?

I think Yuppley has it right. Resto Druids will need to be very careful about their form changes in the Arena when facing a team with a Hunter, which will reduce their effectiveness. And currently Druids are very effective in Arenas, while Hunters are not. All on averages, of course, I'm sure there are some good Hunters and some lousy Druids playing in the Arena.

Sure, Ferals are nerfed by this also, but Ferals aren't in high demand for Arena teams. Restos are.

Boars used to be the best aggro generators of all hunter pets, but now Charge's huge spike in AP will not increase the threat of growl, and so boars will generate no more threat than any other option.

Boars cant hold aggro over a SV hunter anyway.
And the change to growl means its a buff for ~T5 and up geared players, below that I think its a nerf (not 100% sure on this though).

If only Blizz would a: make growl scale with crit% too and b: remove the casttime from autoshot.
That would allow us to shoot on the run and thus fix pretty much all our PvP trouble and make haste less situational for us.

The problem however, is that it would buff our PvE damage too because of a better possible shotrotation.
Not that that would really help given the speed of current ranged weapons in endgame.... /sigh

Tonight was the first time I ever got an inner demon from Leotheras the Blind (I've been lucky)... I thanked my pet for not being able to hold aggro. It's taught me how to kite.

I dont get the connection...

Autoshot currently has a hidden casttime of 0.5 seconds (most liklely affected by haste) wich prevents us from shooting while running.
Removing that casttime would allow us to shoot on the run, solving most of our problems in PvP but also making us slightly stringer in PvE wich isnt needed at all.

Meh, its not like we'd be able to shoot steadies on the run...

I believe any instant cast shot (or spell for casters) can be done on the run.

I know I've fired off Arcane, Scatter, Silence and I believe Multi-shot while running. Did an Arcane and a Silence last night in Arena on the run.

Casters do Arcane Explosion and a handful of other spells on the run.

Taking off the cast time wouldn't get you much. I've found that in order to get max DPS I can in Arena (thus downing my target) I need to stop and fire. With my macro now working correctly, I can rip out some decent DPS but I need to be planted. Running is just getting to another location or to force a foe or two to concentrate on me while my team is downing one of their members. The longer I live as a target, the more likely their healer is going down.

So, if they are targeting me, forcing me to 'run' and be defensive, cranking off an autoshot isn't going to help me much. If I'm able to plant and crank out DPS, the cast time isn't really bothering me.

That would leave the idea that removing the cast time off of Autoshot would help would be kiting and generally only PvE work kiting. Arena kiting is something of a misnomer, the kiting area just isn't large enough and you usually have more than 1 player trying to kill you if you are 'it'. I've never seen a group targeted hunter able to kite more than 10 seconds before they were dead. Sadly, that targeted hunter is far too often... me! :(

You should NEVER use AotV in raids if you can prevent being forced to use it.

Affliction Warlocks can. In fact they don't even have to be facing their targets to DoT them up. Fixing auto-shot would be an awesome change for PvP, and I think it would make us marginally stronger at PvE.