Anyway i think that maximizing time with AotH (or, more accurately AotD) by reducing mana usage via Efficiency talent, will give more dps than boosting the already expensive Aimed Shot.

So I noticed that the Glyph of Mend Pet seems to cause my pet to immediately gain 20 happiness once every time I cast Mend Pet on 3.0.2 live. Spamming Mend Pet rapidly pumps up my pet's happiness as much as I want, which is handy following a pet death during a boss fight but also completely obsoletes the need to carry pet food around (let alone separate pet food for my DPS and tank pets). I wouldn't be surprised if it gets nerfed to randomly proc on Mend Pet ticks instead of proccing reliably on initial application.

20 happiness gain is in fact correct for this glyph, but I highly doubt it will be nerfed. The reason this glyph was implemented in the first place was to appease the hunter community complaining about lack of bag space and additional expense imo. Plus, the 20 gained is 15 happiness points less than actually feeding the pet out of combat. In combat, for the sake of mana efficiency spamming Mend Pet is not effective vs. putting a few Mends up after reviving until the pet is happy again (not necessarily full happiness). Keep in mind that Bloodthirsty is pretty powerful in that regard too.

So, basically I agree with you that this minor glyph is a raid must. But, I don't see it (or Bloodthirsty) completely replacing Feed Pet or this glyph effect being nerfed.

20 on the first tick is highly unlikely to be cause of a nerf, also if you choose to waste dps time and mana on spamming a pet back. It's kind of like a trade off similar to having to switch to viper and loose dps for mana.

Yeah, I mentioned the nerf possibility more in regards to obsoleting pet food in situations where Feed Pet would normally be used. Being able to proc Glyph of Mend Pet in combat is irrelevant in that context because of the mentioned DPS tradeoffs and not being able to use Feed Pet in combat anyways. Mana isn't an issue out of combat (since you can drink), and I'm also not sure that the 20 versus 35 argument is entirely valid, as I seem to recall Glyph of Mend Pet proccing more often than Feed Pet ticks.

I guess I'm just feeling a little guilty now that I don't have to buy anything that could be counted as a Hunter class reagent >.>

There's always ammo.

Can I ask what are you basing the 1 second gcd on exactly?

20 gained really isn't much when you remember that pets have 1000 max happiness (I believe... been a while since I tested it and my memory is a bit fuzzy). Bloodthirsty probably raises pet happiness as fast as spamming mend pet, without the drawback of costing mana and dps time. I'm not even sure I'd bother with this glyph, it really isn't a big deal.

At 80, yes, but Bloodthirsty isn't an option at level 70 unless you want to forgo either Rabid or Spider's Bite.

Not using this glyph is debatable. I see what you trying to say, but think about it from this angle. We are going to revive our pets after they die to continue DPSing (especially for BM) and a Mend Pet immediately follows to get their HP back asap. Now, out of all the available minor glyphs we have to choose from what would you use instead of this Mend Pet glyph? and, if we are already going to fire off at least one Mend after a Revive why not have that Mend boost happiness faster? Bloodthirsty helps a lot with happiness gain during combat, but any extra assistance to speed the process is great when DPS is based on time spent attacking with as much damage as possible.

I found something rather interesting with that last night though. I'm not sure exactly what happened. But apparently either revive pet, or the mend pet spamming, generates a ton of threat.

I have revived my pet after being disconnected midfight and he was chasing a fire elemental and me of course not being there to pull him out. We switch to the next phase, I figure it's a good time to rez my pet. Not noticing it, but he hit demon phase about the same time, locks got it, ok spam mend pet for happiness... Illdian turns and nukes my pet and I, and it all goes downhill from there. Blah.

Maybe I'm just bad and should have known better, but a word of caution when (or not) to use the method I guess.

Keep in mind that Hevanus said he feels guilty because *he* doesn't have to spend anything on reagents (he has Thor'idal). He wasn't suggesting that no one does.

I actually wondered about that but was too lazy to armory him (plus I don't like armorying people in general b/c of the bias it tends to lend). I wish I had Hevanus' problem.

Seriously, that glyph is definately not the first Minor glyph in line for nerfs. There are plenty much better minors than what we get.

Also, I would say that 1/2 Bloodthirsty is better than a point in Spider's Bite on a lot of fights. The happiness booster obviously helps a lot to just keep the damage topped off, but the healing isn't that bad itself if the pet just doesn't get a lot of direct damage (but in that case not much will help anyway). And you really only need 1/2 for it to work properly since it is a 5 second HoT.

Some things that I've noticed while I was farming with my "gorilladin":

- Growl isn't always on a 5s cool down. If you'll watch closely, the first growl or two will refresh in 5s. BUT, after those initial growls and/or if you switch targets midfight or after your gorilla AEs (not sure if it is family specific), for reasons that I can't explain, Growl will double in cool down length.

- If you have your pet on defensive and send it in on a target that is within range, even using the pet bar "attack", you will fire off an auto shot at whatever you have targetted.

- As has been mentioned, pets are seemingly prioritizing pet specials. But what I noticed with my Gorilla, and I'm betting that it is specific to it and maybe the Bear (as it has an AE type special attack), is that if I'm fighting a single target, Smack is the only special used. The second that a second target was engaged or started attacking my pet, Smack was no longer used, regardless of focus levels, and all focus was diverted to that ability alone.

- Seems that Blizz hot fixed the issue with specials auto activating when they're turned off and not on the pet bar. BUT, this is often rebugged, for lack of a better term, when you zone into some instances.

The Growl observation is new and not something I have paid attention too. I will look for this more once I start the grind to 80 with my own Gorilla. I also have not paid attention to any possible hotfixes made to the auto toggling of pet abilities in the spellbook. I will check this tonight and maybe offer some additional confirmation.

Something that I do to combat the mechanic of Thunderstomp's AoE preference to multiple attackers vs. single targets is macro TS in with Steady Shot (like Rabid is now for many macro set-ups) to force it to trigger.

I think that the one frustrating thing about all of what I found, Mattaos, is the lack of synergy with Volley and Go For The Throat. I'm hoping that it is an over sight on the part of the Blizz devs but I'm betting that they've limited GFTT to operating on specific "shots" which disallows Volley to interact with it. I've noticed that my rare Wild Quiver procs don't trigger GFTT either. As I haven't paid too much attention to it, I'm wondering if crits on the the Serpent Sting 40% bonus damage from Chimera Shot trigger GFTT and/or if Explosive Shot's AE crits trigger it as well.

Food for thought...

It would be nice if Volley will procc Aspect of the Viper. Vper decreases Volley's damage too, so if we want to be logic, it could procc from it. (And yes, this would be so nice. )

The few times I have grinded with my gorilla I did noticed he was solely functioning with natural focus regen (2/2 BD). One good thing though is we can sort of pick and choose our battles (for say) with mob packs. I am thinking for same level or lower mobs it is fine to have the gorilla tank them all and Volley the pack down. Volley is such a powerful tool for us now and does a very effective job. If I am facing higher level mobs, maybe just have the gorilla tank 3 or less mobs and use multi-shot. Or, of course, just single target each mob down. I figure the higher level mobs are going to require more available focus for the gorilla to fire off more attacks consistently to hold aggro.

I think it would be a good thing for us to know exactly what shots do effect GFTT. Knowing that could offer up some insight going into larger, tougher pack pulls where we could rotate Volley and a focus generating shot until it crits to give the pet a quick focus boost and resume Volley. Honestly, this idea is more or less brainstorming and not truly worthy of deep thought, but maybe something interesting to explore as TBC raiding starts to come to a close.

Can anyone else elaborate on bloodthirsts mechanics as far as proc rate versus up time? Currently I'm using 2/2 Bloodthirsty and 1/3 Spider's Bite, aware I'm loosing dps but not enough for it to actually matter for my guild's current kj-farm state.

Is 1/2 Bloodthirsty really enough to guarantee 100% or near 100% uptime? If so I'd love to drop a point of it to pick up another point in spider's bite.

has anyone tasted what happens if you use a [Glyph of Possessed Strength] and start a new poison stack with your scorpid?

The cast time of Eyes of the Beast plus the time it would take to apply the poison/abort the "Eyes of the Beast" mode and get back to DPSing, I could assure you, would eliminate it from being a viable idea in a raid environment.