Rhino pet Useless?

[Zorgen]

This is not to debate on how "cool" or "uncool" Rhinos are, it's simply about the talent they have: Stampede

Stampede: Your rhino slams into a nearby enemy causing it to take 30% additional damage from bleed effects for 30 sec.

1.To get a Rhino you must be a Beast Master
2.Being a Beast Master means that you do not have any bleed effects.

The only argument you could make for this would be bringing it into a group with say.. a warrior or rogue, But If your bringing a pet with the intention of helping your group i'm sure the corehound, shale spider, or delvisaur/wolf would all prove more useful?

I could be wrong about this, anyone see any reason why the Rhino has this ability?

[Tyddraig]

Because blizzard has given BM's a huge toolbox for you to use as you see fit. Yes it might seem to have such an ability but if a Kitty druid, Arms warrior or a (combat?) rogue do not have this talent or are not in the group/raid then the bleed debuff won't be there either.

It also gives you more choice, as Pets do the same damage now or near as damn it bringing the Rino would possibly give your warrior and rogues an extra talent to play with and let kitty's skip mangle from their rotations.

[Dunee]

What bugs me is not that it brings this buff.. but the fact that rhinos are tenacity pets.. meaning they are NOT raid viable + I fucking love rhinos :'< I would love to have my Rhyhorn slamming mobs in raids (fuck yeah knockback)

[Karnus]

I don't understand it either. It seems like it should be changed to something more useful to a tanking pet. I also don't like how the Devilsaur has the weak MS debuff. Hunters have Widow Venom for that. Seems pointless on a DPS pet.

[Cyph3r]

What if I have an MM hunter in the group, I'm sure he'd appreciate the extra bleed damage.

[S7orm]

What if I have an MM hunter in the group, I'm sure he'd appreciate the extra bleed damage.

he'll use a Hyena and the BM a cat/raptor/wolf?

[Rozynrot]

Now now there, I had to make an account to correct you on Tenacity pets being non-viable in raids. Sure they do less damage then Furosity and Cunning, but what they have is a massive gambit of CC's(often the best out of all of the other family's of pets) and interrupts, on top of their ability to offtank, taunt, intervene, etc. Expecially when they're tanking, your own mend pet is no joke, when it's ticking for in excess of 13K with the glyph and proper talents on both your pet and on you. I actually successfully tanked Ozruk in heroic stonecore with my Beetle just yesterday from 100% to 0%, and it was possibly the easiest way to have done the boss, so long as the dps you have with you aren't retarded and watch their aggro. Have video of it too: Youtube "Punchbug vs Ozruk" if you need the proof

My point being: a hunter with a tenacity pet who can pick up a boss, even in a raid, for only 5 seconds, can circumvent a wipe in cases where a tank goes down, and you need that few seconds to b-res said tank. Even if your pet ends up dying, you're not bound by the bres timer, and can just cast your little 10 second revive pet and have him up and ready again to eat dirt if your group needs it. I'm still pulling a decent 11k-12k single target at 335 ilevel on prolonged fights with a tenacity pet in my full dps build(yea the tanking above was in a secondary Survival build and actually had been modified to put every extra point I could into the BM tree for more pet focus and increase the potency of healing to my pet), so I don't agree at all that tenacity pets are less viable then furosity or cunning. I'm pretty sure my guild will disagree as well. Expecially with my wide use of my pet's intervene and Roar of sacrifice to keep damage as mitigated as possible.

On topic of the rhino, sure the raid buff may be worthless to me, but the throwback is worth its weight in gold, as well as its intervene, roar of sacrifice, Blood of the rhino, and taunting if you're at all willing to consider it, can be a godsend to your healers. They made all pets close enough in damage for a reason. The only reason to not use any Tenacity pet is sheerly to run with the maximum amount of damage you possibly can, which is not enough, I might remind you, to call them raid inviable.

[Koumaru]

The problem isn't that the ability debuffs for a damage type you don't personally utilize. The problem is that it's a tenacity pet with a dps debuff. And it's a pet only usable by the spec most dependent on pet damage scaling.

A BM hunter using a tenacity pet in a raid? Heh. That's a good one, Blizzard. Tenacity pets should all ideally have abilities like turtles, bears, crabs, etc.: defensive self-buffs, crowd controls, or damage-reducing debuffs.

But an exotic tenacity pet with a DPS debuff? That's a sick joke.

@Rozynrot:

In the case of the rhino, most bosses are very much immune to knockback, and the bleed debuff is a common one typically provided by the very spec which desires it (I'm looking at you, cat druids and arms warriors). So if you're going to choose a pet with the intent to offtank or recover from a main tank failure, it should ideally be a turtle, beetle, or bear, all of which have useful tanking cooldowns. If you're going to bring a tenacity pet for the off chance that the main tank goes down, however, you're handicapping yourself in order to plan for the exception scenario. The dps penalty of fighting a boss with a tenacity pet as beast mastery spec is quite significant.

Does your guild let your dps warriors and ret paladins dps in tank gear because they don't have confidence in the tank to survive the encounter? Or do they go for top dps in order to beat enrage timers and kill that boss before the healers go OOM, so that the tank will survive in the first place?

[Rozynrot]

Sure, raid BOSSES might be immune to Knockback, but there's a reason you have 5 slots of pets, you can pull out a pet that is more viable for taht encounter. Many times there's adds that aren't immune to Knockback, and that can help in those situations where they're adds that shouldn't be allowed to touch someone, if they get too close and your pet is at the appropriate angle, that knockback can be powerful in what it does. You have an extra bunch of slots you can use to bring other pets out, and you are also not obligated to keep one pet out for an entire fight. There's a dismiss and call pet function for a reason.

I prefer to be prepared for my fights and to extend my guild's knowledge of said fights by prolonging a wipe as far into the raid's phases as possible. During progression, you expect wipes. Learning fights, you want them to go on as long as you can to be able to see mechanics and learn to perform them appropriately. The shorter a fight, the longer the learning curve ends up being. There's a big difference equating a hunter doing damage with a tenacity pet to be able to offtank at a moments notice to a Ret pally in tank gear. Difference being: If my pet dies, I can re-res it without so much more punishment as a 10 second cast and a mend pet. Whereas if that ret pally dies, he's out for the count, expecially if it was in the case of saving time for the main tank to be b-ressed. My guild is of the opinion that we focus on mechanics first and foremost, Enrage timers are our last concern to beat. If we get to the enrage timers, THAT is when we worry about our DPS.

Plus if you're so up in arms about your DPS, shouldn't you be in Survival right now anyways instead of BM? I mean, making the point of maximizing dps in the non-optimized raiding spec is kinda going against the point you're trying to push at me. Anyone in BM right now is in it because they like it, not because they're pushing BIG NUMBRS.

[Koumaru]

Yes, you expect wipes during progression. And when the tank dies, the raid leader calls for a wipe, and everyone runs back to try it again instead of letting the main tank sit on the ground and watch as the healers try their best to heal your pet, and the dps pray they don't pull aggro in a matter of seconds.

My other point stands: if you want to take a tank pet in the first place, there are better choices than a rhino. A knockback on a 63-second cooldown is far less useful than a 4-second root on a 28-second cooldown (crab), for example. Or there's a worm, which at least deals some serious AoE damage when you want it to.

Given the opportunity to prevent a wipe, I'm quite willing to dismiss my cat or spirit beast or core hound and pull out my ... turtle. But a rhino? Why? And I'd never have it out from the start "just in case" anyway. So there goes any use of that bleed debuff.

[Rozynrot]

Oh, I'm not arguing for a rhino for that. Like I said, it's a situational pet that would be good, say, on a raid boss like saurfang so long as he's positioned right. I was arguing about the guy above who claimed that all Tenacity pets weren't raid viable, when they quite are. I have my wasp or Parrot out mainly at all times when it comes to raids, unless it's a fight that we're on for progression, which then I'll pull out my beetle instead until everyone gets the mechanics down enough that it's not needed(Or, in some cases, it being an absorber is needed, to eat high damage attacks or keep a boss somewhere instead of it following a tank when the tank needs to move), etc.

My point with the last thing I said about the rhino was if you want to use it, you can, it's still viable, and if you macro/keybind for intervene + Roar of sacrifice, if you insist on using it, can still make it a great pet to have on certain raid fights(though yes, I wouldn't pull it out if I was even BM specced unless there was a use for the knockback). I do agree though that it's not optimal for tanking. There isn't a reason why someone should really stick with one pet the whole time though. I've fallen from the buff pets straight to cc pets though: my raid pets have neatly lined up into being a wasp, beetle, croc, gorilla, and Parrot(which switches out when/if needed for a cat).

[bamfrosty]

BM is a more optimal choice than Survival for raid DPS if you're missing Bloodlust (I think).

Rhinos are broken. Hyenas bring the bleed debuff and are ferocity pets.

[Zorgen]

What if I have an MM hunter in the group, I'm sure he'd appreciate the extra bleed damage.

If there is a MM hunter in the group then he can bring a Hyena to have the same buff himself. You shouldn't be incharge of uping HIS dps above your own.

[stuperdude]

This is a great discussion. And here I was thinking hunters were a bunch of snivelling 12 year olds... Keep it up guys!

EDIT: I got a warning for this, but I meant it as an actual compliment on the level of discussion. Oh well.

[Shawnacee]

This is a great discussion. And here I was thinking hunters were a bunch of snivelling 12 year olds... Keep it up guys!

EDIT: I got a warning for this, but I meant it as an actual compliment on the level of discussion. Oh well.

I thought all the little kids played classes like warriors and pallies. most hunters Ive ment have been adults. but I guess that may be because anyone under 18 isnt aloud in the guilds Ive been in. and most kids (i believe) think that they can be all super bad with the tanking classes. Ive never really see younger players with a priest or a druid or even a hunter. there maybe alot out there if you think this Stuperdude. ? . but I think if any of the classes where full of a bunch of* "snivelling 12 year olds" would be pallies. Ive meet more pallies then any other class, but most have been very....immature. but thats my opinoin.

[Sharpopiev2]

I think now with the fact that hunters have the Focus system instead of mana, alot of the younger players gave up and went to an easier class to play. I love the fact that Focus is our new resource, I absolutely hated having to give up 50% of my dmg, (40% cause I raided BM in LK) just to get some mana back. Focus makes the hunter more fun, and more challenging for sure.

Now on the Topic: I see both sides here, MM hunter using a ferocity pet already for the bleed debuff, but the Rhino from BM to perhaps be an extra CC or PuT (Pick up Tank) incase the MT or OT goes down so the brez can happen to not secure a wipe. Not to mention also that BM pets have an extra 4-5 talents to add some extra CC or tank options should it be needed.