By now, I am sure you've heard that the Wrath of the Lich King Beta is going live and the patch notes are up. There's a rather extensive section devoted to Hunters on this iteration. We have a few more insights into the pet talent trees that were announced at the Worldwide Invitational, as well as a few changes to existing talents and a nice Steady Shot buff.
Wrath Beta Patch Notes: Hunter
Time requirements for Hunter pet loyalty gain

Basically, to gain a loyalty level, your pet needs to, no matter what, gain at least 5% of the XP you, the Hunter, needs for your next level. This is required even if your pet is your level (which means they aren't actually gaining the XP). But there's also a time component on every loyalty level past Unruly. For example, to get to level 4 from level 5, you not only need the experience gain, but an hour must pass. This, as Mania says, is why sometimes your pet will ding loyalty while you're standing around in town-- you've gained the experience, but the time has to pass as well.
She's not done yet-- she needs (or someone with some time on their hands could do it as well-- Mania's going through a move lately) to check out if the experience stays the same all the way to 70, or if it increases at the higher levels. She also didn't try this keeping the pet anything other than happy, so the numbers may change if the pet isn't at full happiness. And she didn't explore, at all, what happens when the pet loses loyalty-- if your pet has dropped a level of loyalty, it may be a completely different formula to regain it.
But great work so far, and this is more than enough to give any Hunter a clear idea of how loyalty works in most cases.
The hidden formula behind pet loyalty
Mania's Arcania continues its look at pet loyalty and the mechanics of how it works. Last time, she found that tamed pets would stick around for 30 minutes no matter what you do, and this time around she went the other way-- up to loyalty level two, Unruly.Basically, using a newly tamed pet, a stopwatch, and a notepad, she determined that in order for a pet to go from loyalty level 1 (Rebellious) to level 2 (Unruly), the pet needs to gain 5% of the experience the Hunter needs for his next level. So a level 11 hunter needs 8800 experience to get to 12, which means a pet (of any level and family) needs to kill for 440 XP (5% of 8800) to go up a loyalty level with that Hunter.
Interesting. And the formula apparently works even when the pet isn't actually earning experience (ie when your pet is the same level as you are). However (and this is a big however), time is also playing a factor, and Mania's not exactly how it does-- she let her pet sit happy for a few hours, and then on the very next kill, the loyalty level went up. So it seems to be some combo of experience earned together and time (where more experience or more time can replace the other if necessary), but the exact numbers aren't there yet.
At any rate, good stuff, and Mania is being really thorough with it. If you're a Hunter who changes pets often, it's worth a read.
Tamed pets will stay for 30 minutes
Mania's Arcania has been doing some experimenting with tamed pets on the PTR, and she's got a few great tips for all you hunters picking up new pets. First and foremost, apparently any pet you tame, no matter how happy it is or how often its fed, will stick around with you for at least 30 minutes, so if you tame a new pet and don't have food for it, you've got that long to find some. Dismissing a pet or having it die actually stops that timer, too, so if you don't have food and the time is about to run out, you can dismiss the pet, and then recall it when you have food to feed it.She's also looked at some more technical information on how quickly pet health returns after various kinds of dismissals-- in most cases, it looks like your pet actually comes back with a lower percentage of health, which then ticks back up to full in just a second. Probably won't affect most Hunters, although a few of the situation she goes through sound like battleground PvP to me, and it could be that Hunters there are using their pets so quickly that it might make a difference. More testing is on the way, she says.
But at least the taming schedule will probably help Hunters who end up grabbing a rare spawn as a pet and then realize they don't have the food to feed them. We've got more breathing room than we knew we had.
Guild size matters not, judge us by our size do you?

Our guild isn't large by any means. In fact, we're a tiny guild, although that's not for want of effort. The Rogue Knights has been around on Elune since beta, and has had a constant stream of very good players throughout our time on the realm. However, a while back a group of players decided to leave the guild, and since then we haven't quite recovered. How can a few simple people make the difference? Well, these players have gone on to form the core players in some of the largest guilds on the server, so you can see how that might affect our guild.
Continue reading Guild size matters not, judge us by our size do you?
















