Why can't my pet hold aggro?Follow

So I leveled a hunter to 70 and then left off on him ever since 3.0 hit, I got busy with other stuff.

I leveled his Jewelcrafting more than anything, and now he's 71 and his JC is getting up towards the 230 mark and I want to be able to use a Lv77-required damaged necklace so I figured I'd level him next.

But, what confuses me, is that my pet cannot hold aggro worth a damn.

Honestly, fights literally go like this:

1). Stand max distance away from mob.
2). Use Serpent's Sting.
3). Watch pet run up to the mob and engage.
4). Watch omen flash the screen red as my threat goes way beyond my pet's.
5). Watch as mob and pet both come back to me, as I'm tanking it.

I have to literally walk backwards to stop my character's auto attacks for at least 5 seconds before my pet can get enough threat to hold the stupid thing off me.

Is there _anything_ at all I can do about this? Honestly. There's Misdirection, but surely Blizz doesn't expect us to use that _every single fight_, especially when it has a 30sec cooldown?

I've tried a Ravager and a Core Hound, neither of them can keep the stupid mobs off me. My gear isn't that stellar; I shouldn't be doing so much DPS that my pet can't keep the mob off me. I made sure I have cower turned off and growl turned on, and I am ONLY using auto-attacks, and serpent's sting.

Did Blizz somehow, for some reason, feel that pets hold too much aggro or something? Arrgh. At this rate, I'm going to have to Feign Death every single battle, just to actually shoot the mob instead of swinging at it.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Moon+Guard&n=Arsavis

Wow-Armory of my character, btw.

Edited, Jun 19th 2009 9:00pm by Zariamnk

QFT x a million.

As I stated in my OP, I made sure Cower was turned off. Double, and Triple checked it.

I'll make sure Growl is Rank8, but I don't see why it wouldn't be? Doesn't the game always choose the latest rank of a skill?

Edit: Errr, whoops my bad. I forgot to mention I checked Cower in my OP... I meant to say it, but I forgot to, when I was typing all that other stuff.

Edit 2: Yup, Cower turned off on both pets, Growl is Rank 8 on the Ravager, Rank7 on the newly-tamed Core Hound (which is still 66).

Edited, Jun 20th 2009 5:52am by Zariamnk

Okay, two screenshots:

http://dragonsguild.hypermart.net/hunter1.jpg
http://dragonsguild.hypermart.net/hunter2.jpg

I expanded the combat log, and had Omen print a message on-screen whenever I pull too much threat.

You can see that there's no Cower usage, and you can also see Cower is turned off.

Now, I know that it is common for a hunter to get aggro at the beginning of a fight, as it takes time for a pet to get to the mob, but on these mobs (Vrykul Amulet was the JC daily), these mobs were green and didn't last long enough for a better test. Yellow mobs probably would have yielded a better test, but I threw these two screenshots up just to give you an idea of how a battle goes.

On Yellow Mobs, the pet does even worse, as you can see all I'm doing is Serpent's Sting and Auto-Shot. Nothing more.

It wasn't this bad Pre-3.0... I'm still trying to figure out just what they did. Did they make the masters do too much damage, or did they nerf pets' aggro?

I have not played my hunter that much lately but i have always been able to pull aggro off my pets and i do mean any pet i have tried . One suggestion i have is send pet first let it hit first then fire ? .
I do not always do it as send pet first but it does help a little , there is always intimidation if you have it or even stunning the target but i am used to having to go backwards anyway , in many ways i am glad my firepower is not that great as i bet it would be worse for me.

My hunter isn't quite at level cap (76), in mostly crafted gear with a couple of BoA pieces. If I keep anything like a normal FCFS going, I get aggro pretty reliably when mobs are about 25%. This is not a big deal, since I use it as an opportunity to practice escaping (feign/kite/trap/wingclip/etc.) or a melee weapon skill.

I think I also have a problem since neither my tenacity (boar) or ferocity (wolf) pet have caught up with my level, so they're much closer to parity with the mobs we're fighting.

Yeah, you really have to send the pet first (which is where Dash/Dive or Charge really comes in handy).

Seriously, if you're complaining about your pet's tanking abilities when you don't even give it a chance to hit the mob first...well, just try that with a real tank and see how far it gets you, mmkay?

Misdirect is there for a reason as well, works wonders.

I've found that with my tenacity pet, its only good for instances and pure dps, but my tank turtle has no trouble holding aggro even when i am doing my more damaging shots, and with my cat, i have a little trouble holding aggro, but i let it hit the mob a few times, then serpent sting it then follow up with a steady shot to take a little time for a growl or two to get off, then i can hit it with enough damage to kill the mob.

i would suggest you try a different spec pet and see what happens then

Or a cat,bear works better. I've noticed dogs are nice also.


You do have a 2nd pet for dungeons right? Here i would suggest a cat,raptor,a dog can do some dps. Never use a bear for dungeons(like Nexus,Utergade Keep,or Azjol-Nerub,becuase it has a CHANCE to take agro off the tank.)

If a bear, or any pet, is being used for DPS, Growl will be turned off. Otherwise the Hunter is trying to tank, and should be allowed to do so until he has died several times and been forced to walk back into the instance instead of being offered a rez.

Growl IS available to all pet families--it's a basic ability that is automatically learned when a pet is tamed. The only pet that may not be able to Growl is the Worgen, who is currently bugged to all hell--even then, Growl is still available to all other members of the Wolf family.

A tank with weak enough threat generation that a hunter pet can pull off of him without the use of Growl or Taunt seriously needs to work on his gear/rotation/spec--and given that even BM hunter pets do about half the damage of a player DPS at the same level, the mage/ret/SVhunter would pull off the tank long before the pet would get aggro, even if the issue was AoE threat rather than single target. And all tanks have AoE abilities, so there's not much excuse for losing threat there, either.