Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Gorilla = OP

I have just finished levelling up my gorilla, cat, and turtle to level 80; mostly soloing, with some (normal) dungeon runs. Here are my observations:
  • While soloing, I will pull aggro off my cat, even if I use Misdirection or Intimidation, and stick to Steady Shot.

  • In dungeons, the cat is great single-target DPS (as it should be), but squishy if focussed on (as expected).

  • While soloing, I will pull aggro off my turtle, even if I use Misdirection or Intimidation, and stick to Steady Shot.

  • The turtle is a decent tank and can last awhile, but *only* if he can hold aggro.
On the other hand...
  • While soloing, I will not pull aggro off my gorilla while soloing unless I spam abilities like crazy.

  • The gorilla has some pretty epic DPS in dungeons if we're AoEing (and let's face it - nobody bothers to CC anymore unless you're undergeared and running a heroic).

  • The gorilla has also saved my normal Violet Hold run from wiping by tanking a boss for awhile (I and the healer were the only two left).
Questions:

Why is it so hard for other tenacity pets - such as poor Koopa the turtle - to keep aggro?
Why is the gorilla actually a viable choice for a DPS pet when it's supposed to be a tanking pet?

I used to raid with a bear in MC/BWL.
I used to solo elites and farm with "DPS" pets (cat, windserpent or bat usually), and they did fine if I alternated MD/BW/Intimidation.

The new pet system, complete with 2 extra stable slots, was supposed to bring MORE pet variety, not less.

Why, then, am I finding that I still only need 3 stable slots - for raiding (cat), arena (to be determined) and everything else (gorilla)???

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gorilla's thunderstomp generates more agro than regular damage. In single target dps fights, it does slightly less dps than a ferocity pet (or scorpid). You also have to be careful about it pulling agro from a tank if you use thunderstomp on the boss.

In any other non-raid situation, I use it exclusively. Even PVP these days seems to be more about aoe than focus- I will focus _my_ attacks on one player, but the gorilla is thunderstomping him, his vehicle, his healer, and any unfortunate NPCs within ass-kickery range.

I just with that there were an exotic pet with this type of ability...

Euripides, Drenden US

Phyllixia said...

Good point about AoEing in PvP - I don't tend to do BGs much because they bore me, but when I do I usually take a cat so I can Shadowmeld/Prowl to camp nodes.

I really should start taking a gorilla into AV and SOTA, though - I almost never stealth in those.