Beast Mastery: Bats
Filed under: Hunter, Analysis / Opinion
My very first pet was a bat. As soon as my white-haired Troll turned Level 11, I hied off to Tirisfal Glades and sought out Ressan the Needler, one of only two tameable all-white bats in the game. Of course, some people mistook him for those semi-albino bats found in the Eastern Plaguelands, but true pet connoisseurs knew better. Even when Hunters started turning to those 1.0 speed bats from Zul’Gurub, I stuck to my white bat. All pets were eventually normalized but now in the Echoes of Doom, each pet has its own ability, making our choices of pets even more special and important.
In Patch 3.0.2, all bats now have Sonic Blast as their unique, bat-exclusive ability. It’s a 2 second stun with negligible damage on a one-minute cooldown. As far as Hunter pet abilities go, Sonic Blast is pretty run-of-the-mill and isn’t significantly great to merit taming a bat for. It pales in comparison to the Ravage skill of Ravagers, for example, which is on a 40-second cooldown. Ravage is melee range ability while Sonic Blast has 20 yards — an irrelevant bonus considering our pets are almost always at melee range. It’s only a little better for chasing and stunning, but otherwise, I would much rather have it available every 40 seconds than have some extra range.
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