Ask a Beta Tester: Hunter-o-rama
We'll kick off today with commenter Zayd and a few questions about hunters....
Have any hunters in the beta tried tanking a 5 man run with one of their tenacity pets yet? I'm very curious to know how viable that is.
I approached our hunter in residence, Daniel Howell (you might know him as BigRedKitty), with this question. Here's what he had to tell us:
I have not run an instance with a pet-tank, mainly because Growl -- a Hunter pet's #1 aggro-generation spell -- is a mess. Having used pet-tanks against various elites in Outland, I am fairly confident that a Tenacity-pet will be able to tank a 5-person instance boss, assuming the appropriate heals and aggro management are coordinated by the rest of the party. However, until Growl is fixed, this really cannot be conclusively proven.
For more of your beta questions -- and our beta answers -- read on! But if you're the sort who wants to avoid spoilers, turn back now. We're aiming to avoid major story spoilers, but this feature is all about beta content and we can't talk about the beta without giving a few things away.
Many commenters have asked about pet respec costs....
Again, from BRK: Yes, respecing your pet has a gold-cost. In the beta, a pet-respec costs the same as a character-respec, 1 copper. [This is probably a temporary measure to allow everyone to test different talent specs.] However, when a Hunter levels (i.e. dings), the currently-equipped hunter pet has all its pet-talents points reset. This does not apply to the hunter's stabled pets, though.
Protego asked....
Will a tick bird respawn on a Rhino if it's killed or leaves the Rhino when you mount then dismount?
And yet again, from BRK, also our resident humorist: My Rhino never had a tick bird and has never spawned a tick bird. Perhaps I'll find a Rhino that has a tick bird and see if there's a difference.
What I can say about Rhinos is this:
They fit in all banks, auction houses, and inns.
They will occasionally not de-summon when the hunter gets on a flying mount, and thus become Flying Rhinos.
Rhinos love mailboxes. Being a good WoW-neighbor and not parking your Rhino on mailboxes is an active process on the part of the hunter.
Parallel-parking a Rhino is tricky. *
A Night Elf can sit under a Bestial-Wrath'd Rhino.
Rhinos "stomp" underwater; they cannot swim.
It is usually easier to just put your Rhino on "Stay" outside then try to bring him indoors.
A parked Rhino garners lots of attention from passers-by, in all forms: /love, /pet, /hug, etc.
A Rhino is not a Clefthoof. Saying otherwise is an insult to Rhino-dom.
More than life itself, I am dreaming of... an Armored Rhino.
* And parallel-parking a Rhino is no joke; I do it all the time. One just can't hop on a boat and let your Rhino commandeer the whole bloody thing. He must positioned appropriately, allowing for the comfort and pleasure of the rest of the passengers. Same thing at an inn.
If you have the beta and have been to the Alliance port in the Borean Tundra, just outside the inn are two huge crates. The space between those crate is Rhino-sized, and that cannot be a coincidence.
Robert M. had a couple of questions for us....
Are there any plans for other wings of the Caverns of Time?
You're in for a pleasant surprise. There is a new level 80 wing to the Caverns of Time, known as The Culling of Stratholme. No surprise: you get to hang out with Arthas.
Do we know any rewards for the achievements?
Because each achievement gained grants points, it only makes sense that those points will be used for some sort of reward. However, right now, there are no rewards or any suggestion of rewards in the beta.
Atomic asked....
Will a boat from Kalimdor take you to one side of Notherend. And the boat from the new harbor in Stormwind to the east side of Notherend, any confirmations on this please?
I'll just repeat what several commenters have said with regards to transport to Northrend. To reach the Borean Tundra, on the eastern side of Northrend, players must take a zeppelin from Orgrimmar or a boat from Theramore. To reach Howling Fjord, players must take a zeppelin from Undercity or a boat from Stormwind.
Vispillo asked....
Silly question perhaps, but as I'm sure I'll do quite a lot of dying while leveling in the expansion. I'm curious to know how the corpse runs are, I'm especially curious since it's been mentioned that the regions are quite large. So I'm worrying about really long corpse runs. How bad is it?
It's not nearly as bad as it might sound. Zones are much larger, yes, but with the increase in zone size there is also the addition of cemeteries. When you die, your ghost doesn't respawn at a single fixed point, but instead spawns at the nearest cemetery. From my own extensive death experience, I'd say corpse runs are no worse than they are right now.
jurandr asked....
We all know that you can't walk through the Dark Portal until level 58, but what's keeping a pre-68 from hopping on the zeppelin (or boat) to Northrend?
Right now, absolutely nothing. Under-68s can travel to Northrend as easy as over-68s -- though they don't have any quests they'll be able to do once they get there. This might change for launch, or it might not.
newg asked....
I have a question for you beta testers concerning the Retribution Paladin talent Judgements of the Wise. The talent is described as returning 60% of a judgement's damage as mana to 3 party or raid members. I have two questions regarding this:
Is the Paladin guaranteed to be one of the beneficiaries of the mana return? (while in a group/raid of course), and if so, does the Paladin 'count' as one of the 3 recipients? And how are the recipients of the mana decided?
I talked to Zach Yonzon, who's been playing Retribution in the beta. He tells me: Haven't tested extensively in groups, but no, I don't think the mana return is guaranteed. It should use game logic similar to Chain Heal, so yes the Paladin is counted among the 3 recipients. It isn't completely random, but Blizzard hasn't stated either way what game logic is used to determine the mana recipients.
However, further testing on this cannot be done at the moment because Judgements are bugged in Beta in the recent build 8820 and they do nothing -- they deal no damage and don't apply a secondary effect. This means that it is impossible to receive mana from Judgements of the Wise until they fix it.
The Wrath of the Lich King beta is in full swing, and the WoW Insider crew is here to sate your curiosity with Ask a Beta Tester! Leave your beta questions in the comments and we'll do our best to answer 'em! And if you can't get enough Wrath, don't forget to check WoW Insider's Wrath Roundup page for anything we haven't answered here!
