patch 2.0.10 notes on the PTR

[Kevin]

(and again, 5-mans are negligible; PETS tank 5-mans).

Pre 2.0 I pet tanked bosses in ZG with my hunter. I fully believed I could have pet tanked a boss like Garr in or Sulf in MC as well with a beast hunter pet (long lead time on aggro build). This of course assumes the pet gets healing support.

I've not seen TBC raid design, but if the pet can survive in an OT roll it actually makes more sense for the hunter pet to be the OT and let the DPS warrior or DPS druid stay DPS the whole time. People have been very dismissive of pets as tanks in the raid instances forever but they were more viable than folks think. I'm not sure that will be the case anymore as I don't think even with 13K armor, 14% dodge, 5% parry and 5% block (with only about 30 block value) will be enough mitigation with only 6K base HP (though I'm looking at potential base HP boosts from the hunter gear that don't totally kill the hunter DPS because I want to see just how far you can push it. Just like a warrior or druid or paladin tank the hunter will have to gear for it as well). I have some threat worries as well because of the mechanics. But ruling out a beast hunter pet as an OT could be a mistake and while I'm not in end game gear thinking a beast hunter doesn't offer enough DPS or group utility looks like a mistake as well. That pet damage bonus applies to casters as well. 3% more damage to the group is not insignificant.

Anyway it was just something I had to point out. Considering we pet tanked our first Hakkar kill as well. I don't expect the pet to be able to tank all the bosses and when the boss needs to move it gets even worse. But there is some potential there. But I'm preparing to have to spec Marks or Survival for max effectiveness just like I had to before (though in 2.0 a beast hunter + pet could still beat out marks and survival hunters + pet in BWL so it might still hold true).

It's just some rambling from someone who I know is in about a minority of all of 10 people. :)