The growl is only if they happen to have it on. You need to put the pets away with growl off, to avoid their using it.
Also, I checked and my stampede came to stand around me after finishing the current mob - I’m guessing those hunters are also using barrage (which I like for the pure noisiness of it, but if you use it from more than a handspan away will pull mobs) or hitting something with a stray multi-shot.
Or maybe my pets are just well-behaved… naaaaaah.
Collected a couple more pets today. Grabbed a turtle near the Nessingway camp, and then grabbed a fox while doing one of those quests to kill a bunch of them. I like the fox pet. Forgot to check the dps numbers, but seems to be close to what the cats are doing.
Also soloed that rare that spawns near the turtle pit thingy. It dropped two blue items…one was a piece of plate that I sold. The other was a nifty little trinket that summons a terracotta warrior to fight for me for 10 minutes. Haven’t tried it out yet, but it sounds fun.
That Terracotta Shard thing is the awesome sauce for classes that could use someone else to absorb damage for them for a little while. I’ve heard of a lot of people who couldn’t reliably solo the initial fight of Blackwing Lair because of the unmitigated beating you take while MC’ing Razorgore to bust all the eggs. Pop your terracotta warrrior and you’ve got your own tank, grabbing all those mobs that would otherwise be beating on you. And since he’s not a controlled pet, he doesn’t interfere with controlling Razorgore. Total win.
I imagine that distance to the nearest other mobs plays a factor. In my case, I never use Multi-shot, and I use Glaive Toss instead of Barrage. (I briefly tried Barrage, but all the extra mobs it pulled down on me convinced me to go back to Glaive Toss.) If I use Stampede on that hozen lorekeeper mob, and Stampede is still up when he dies, my cats will consistently run up the path to the south and attack that little group of rockflingers, then despawn and send them all down on me.
On another note, the Battlefield: Barrens weekly quest is doing even more to convince me that Dave Kozak, the lead quest designer for WoW, has never played a rogue and doesn’t understand the class (or does understand it and actively hates the class). Two things I’ve seen a lot of in MoP are quests that force you to fight multiple mobs at once (a problem for rogues because they have no AoE to speak of, and quickly run out of energy when fighting multiple mobs), and strangely specific, anti-stealth gimmicks (like the stinky turnips that knock you out of stealth if you get too close, or those swarms of bugs near the Hidden Master that bite you with a stacking debuff that prevents the use of stealth for a full minute).
And now, an entire quest area —the area for gathering Kor’kron Meat — that is absolutely packed with wolves that can see me when I’m stealthed. My other 90s (a paladin, a hunter, and a shadow priest) don’t have any more trouble with that area than they do with the other three. But that area is utter misery for my sub rogue. She’s forced to skulk around the fringes of the area, pecking at at what mobs she can, and it takes frakkin’ forever to gather 150 meats. She can’t Sap the lone wolves, because even if she uses Shadowstep and hits Sap the instant she appears behind one, they still “see” her in that split second between Shadowstep and Sap, forcing her out of stealth so that Sap doesn’t work. Or if she tries to Ambush instead of Sap, same problem. The ability has to be used from Stealth. I have the glyph that makes abilities used while stealthed cost zero energy, which is a big help in not running out of energy during a fight — I can Ambush, which does a huge chunk of damage, and then start the rest of my attacks at full energy. But if I’m forced to start combat while not stealthed, I’m practically out of energy before the mob is half dead.
And the mounted Kor’kron Outriders? My rogue is almost helpless against them. As I mentioned, a sub rogue isn’t much good at fighting multiple (even just two) mobs simultaneously, especially when one of the mobs is of the tougher variety, like the Outriders. Sometimes I can manage to land a Sap before the wolf sees me, but in this case, if I sap the rider the wolf will still chase me all over the place, and if I sap the wolf the rider can still shoot me from a distance. I can sap one and kill the other, and then kill the sapped one, but that’s still entirely dependent on being able to land the Sap before the wolf sees through my stealth, which the odds are against, and I’m most likely going to end up either trying to fight both at once or using Vanish to escape. And Vanish usually isn’t much help because the wolf sees me again 2 seconds after I Vanish.
My point is that Stealth is apparently being treated as “just another ability”, and the quest designer(s) think neutralizing it just adds a bit of challenge. No, I’m afraid not. Stealth is an utterly vital, fundamental class ability, and without it rogues are horribly crippled. Neutralizing Stealth to this degree is, IMO, on par with creating a debuff that auto-dismisses a hunter’s pets, or a warlock’s demons, or knocking shadow priests out of Shadow Form, or giving warriors a 50% chance to fumble their weapon each time they attack.
True for subtlety rogues… my combat rogue only uses stealth for opening, and that’s optional if I prefer a ranged pull, which I would, since fighting most of those mobs where they stand is begging for adds. As a combat rogue, not opening from stealth is almost a non-factor.
There are encounters in the game that require classes with controllable pets to dismiss them in order to control an encounter-specific pet. And some encounters in which the pet dies so fast you may as well not have it. (I’m looking at you, Pandaran Monk rare spawns and your Spinning Crane Kick of Pet Pwnage)
OK, I’ll admit I’ve never seen that happen.
I don’t know what to tell you, except that most classes can name a few encounters that neutralize their primary strengths and require you to find another way. I know that in some of those cases that I’ve experienced, I’ve fallen back to an alternate spec.
Yeah, I should have specified that it was a Sub problem. Others have recommended that I switch to Combat, mainly when I was complaining about multiple mobs and Sub’s anemic AoE. I tried it for a bit, but … man Combat feels slow when you’re used to Sub!
I guess I haven’t come across enough of those on my hunter to see it as the same kind of problem, i.e., what feels like widespread, deliberate crippling of of a primary class/spec mechanic. The only one I can remember off the top of my head was the quest in Grizzly Hills where you have to take Budd along with you to capture a troll - you couldn’t have Budd and your pet out at the same time. I can think of some other quests in WotLK, which had so many vehicle quests, that might have been a problem, but my hunter was like my fourth or fifth toon to pass through Northrend, so he ended up skipping a lot of NR content on his way to Cataclysm content.
The other big stealth problem I run into is those quests where you have to summon a mob and then kill it. Performing the summoning drops stealth, and even if there’s time to re-stealth, the summoned mob sees right through it and comes straight for you.
Huh. That sounds more like a bug than anything deliberate. From the description, it looks like using Anduin’s healing thingies is counting as the shadow priest casting a Holy spell, which will always drop the spriest out of shadow form. Not sure how that would keep the priest from re-entering shadow form afterward, though.
But even then, it’s a specific mechanic in a specific encounter, not a widespread, pops-up-all-the-time thing. In the case of my ret paladin, the only thing that seems to stymie her is Blood DKs in PvP 
Howzabout disarming mobs? I don’t remember which of the MoP raids it was, but I think my “¿qué COJONES?” must have been heard by all my neighbors.
That same warrior has found out that running after the fracking Kor’kron outriders makes for very good practice at fighting on the move. I should say running “in front of” - I’ve gotten darn good at figuring trajectories so I can cut in front of them, rather than running behind (they run faster than me).
Interesting lesson for the day:
If you’re lower than level 85, I take it that all those level 90 Battlefield: Barrens mobs appear “yellow” to you. At least that was the case while I was running my level 22 orc rogue around the Northern Barrens. And of course, yellow mobs don’t attack you unless you attack them first. Well, not quite.
Basically, if you see a caravan under attack, don’t stand and watch. Get the hell away from it. Those yellow Kor’kron Outriders will apparently just randomly shoot anything in sight.
That’s actually the second time I’ve seen that “mechanic”, and I’m not sure whether or not it’s intentional. Either way, I don’t like it. The first time I saw it was on the Isle of Thunder, while doing the Alliance PvP dailies. Those Sunreaver Magi have an ability/spell called “Fire Spouts” that puts sort of a targeted AoE fire spell under your feet, and will continue giving you the hotfoot even if you move, as long as they’re still channeling the spell. And I discovered, to my dismay, that you don’t have to be in combat with them for it to “target” you. If somebody else is fighting a Sunreaver Magus and she casts that spell, and you’re anywhere near, that fire will show up under your own feet. Three of my toons didn’t mind it too much, since it’s easy enough to move out of, but it was infuriating for my rogue. There I am, stealthing my way around the area, when here comes a paladin running full speed and dragging every mob in the area behind him, including 3 or 4 Magi who are all casting that spell. So I’m repeatedly getting knocked out of stealth every time one of those things appears under my feet… :mad:
On a more amusing note I got a good laugh today while doing the Operation: Shieldwall dailies inside the Horde fortress. You’ve got all these Alliance NPCs running into the place and attacking the Horde soldiers … and one NPC night elf warrior chasing a fleeing NPC orc peon all over the place. I’d never seen that before. I was imaging that peon shouting, “Me not that kind of orc!” 
“Fun” bug of the day: My priest acquired some new leg armor via the Battlefield: Barrens weekly. It’s a skirt, not pants, and it has a rather unfortunate interaction with my priest’s robe:
http://mister-rik.com/hosted/wow/pants_bug_01.jpeg
http://mister-rik.com/hosted/wow/pants_bug_02.jpeg
And unfortunately, it’s not just a display issue on my end. I spoke to some other players in-game, and they could see it too. Completely borks my transmog.
Douchebag of the day: My paladin was doing the Grizzly Hills PvP dailies to cap her Honor (Yay, no more PvP dailies until the new season lets me buy new gear!), and when I got to Captain Zorna, the elite mob target of one of the quests, I saw another Alliance player approaching. So I quickly invited him to group so we could both get credit, instead of one of us having to wait around for her to respawn (she takes forever). I especially like to extend the courtesy to lower-level players, since it’s more dangerous for them to stand around waiting than it is for me. Douchebag ignored my invitation, one-shot Zorna, clicked “Decline”, and flew away :mad:
As I mentioned upthread, I cheated and talented for Piercing Howl, a 15-second AoE 50% slow with no CD (only rage cost). So I don’t have to lead 'em or chase 'em, just walk along behind them and wail on them. They go down fast when you whack 'em with a big-ass axe. And it’s AoE, so if you’re dealing with multiple raiders, you can slow 'em all and kill a couple of them in the duration of one shout.
TBH, AoE slowing abilities seem to be the only way to make caravan escorts work for me for melee classes. (AoE so that I can apply them to the worg even while I’m targeting the caravan raider.) But it seems that most melee classes have some kind of slowing AoE… except maybe rogues. I hadn’t thought much about that.
Yeah, rather infuriatingly, when my Death Knight hits those outriders with his frost abilities that are supposed to slow down movement (such as Howling Blast) don’t hinder them one little bit.
I have learned, the hard way, that there’s really no way for a melee character to solo escort one of those caravans to safety. You need at least someone in the group with ranged attacks, or multiple melee classes so someone’s always near the outriders as they make their circles.
For a couple of the melee classes (the ones I’ve tried caravan defense), there’s a response. Warriors talent Peircing Howl. DKs can talent Chillblains which adds the slow effect to Howling Blast. (If I recall, the slowing effect used to be baseline, but now you have to talent for it in the 3rd tier.)
An enhancement sham can toss Earthbind Totem or switch targets to keep the worg frost shocked, or maybe switch back and forth between normal and Spirit Wolf form to catch up to raiders.
Rogues… I guess Crippling Poison (either shivving with Blade Flurry to hit the worg also, or with Fan of Knives), but you’ll be denied the healing of Leeching Poison. Haven’t tried it yet, so don’t know for sure.
No clue about paladin, never having played one beyond level 64. Or either melee durid.
No slowing AoE that I’m aware of, but I’ve only really played Sub and can’t speak to Combat or Assassination. We have Crippling Poison, which reduces movement speed, but that requires a melee attack, with the poison having a less than 100% chance of being applied (I think), and in any case to use it I’d have to do without Leeching Poison, which is where a great deal of my survivability comes from.
My hunter dinged 90 today. Can’t quite get into heroics yet, about 10 ilvls short.
Been reading up on Patch 5.4 tonight. There’s a new area called Timeless Isle that appears to be mostly about hunting rare spawns. They can drop ilvl 496 BOA gear, that apparently will morph into an item suitable for any spec. Not sure exactly how it works, but I think that if I were to give one of these pieces to my mage, it would be cloth dps gear. I could wear it for awhile, then send it to my hunter and it would morph into mail dps gear, then send it to my tankadin and it would morph to plate tanking gear. Very interesting concept, and could take some of the pain out of gearing up alts…
Combat doesn’t either. We have Deadly Throw, which slows and interrupts, but it’s single-target.
So…are the Pandaria silver mobs intentionally impossible to kill solo? Because even as a tank, I’m dead after three hits. First hit takes me to 40% health, hit my panic heals and buffs, second hit back down to 40%, third hit dead.
It’s annoying because seeing a silver border activates the “must kill now” portion of my brain and it takes a huge amount of effort to remember that I’m not allowed to attack it.
No, except for Zandalari Warbringers, they just have abilities that will kill you dead if you don’t deal with them properly. Which rare was it ?
Nope. I’ve soloed several of them on a variety of toons. Frost Mages can kite them, Druids can root/kite, my Hunter just pet tanks them, and the Tankadin goes toe-to-toe, but dodges the circles of doom that indicate something nasty is about to happen. Some are tougher than others, but most of the ones I’ve seen are do-able. The only one I’ve tried and haven’t been able to take out is the one that spawns in the courtyard of the gates to the Vale.
Now Barrens bosses are a different matter. Tried soloing a couple of those. Ate dirt. Quickly.
The thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of the rares have a great big damage special ability that will just shred you … except that they somehow can’t turn around while they’re channeling it. So as soon as you see them start channeling, just get behind them. I ran into this with that mantid rare in western Krasarang. My 90 ret paladin took him on, figuring it would be easy since he was only level 87. Wroooong. He hit me with his Blade Storm (Blade Fury?) and I was dead in about half a second. Second attempt, I just moved behind him as soon as he started that, and then went to town on him and killed him.
My nephew dragged me back into WoW after about a 1.5-2 year absence. I knew there’d be some disorientation on re-entry, but I probably underestimated it. Old news to you guys, but having a wildly-simpler talent tree and missing all my hunter’s ranged weapons (no, not in my bags or bank) have been perplexing.
Just ranting. Move along.
Like…your bows and guns? Not throwing knives or anything? We lost our ability to melee so we only have one slot now, but I wouldn’t think it would get rid of your bows and guns!