Dragonhawk Review
Dragonhawk – Eclipsion Dragonhawk (68)
Overall Rank: 13/23 – Not Recommended
| Name: Brak DPS: 134.0/148.8 HP: 6237 Armor: 11000 Damage reduction: 51.03% Skills: Fire Breath, Bite, Dive |
Solo: (B-) I liked firebreath, but I wish it was usable more than every 10s. Instance: (C) Wings can still get in melee’s way. No focus dump for raiding. BG: (C+) Dive is great, but DPS can’t back it up. Arena:(C+) Ranged AoE attack, and dive are nice. There are better pets. Then again, there are worse, too. |
I think this is going to be as close to recommended that a non-recommended pet can get. Fire Breath is really nice. Nice enough that if it was on a 3s cooldown (ie you could keep it up constantly with enough crit and GftT), I think I could recommend it even though it wouldn’t be a real focus dump (Please note that it does not). I mean LB does about the same damage only instantly for the same amount of focus. If you can get LB to go off every 3s I think you’re doing pretty good… Not great, but good at least.
Anyway.
I’m getting bored with saying it, but no DPS bonus and no focus dump means not recomended. It is however not a bad pet. It’s still got some annoying flappiness like the other fliers though not as much, and an AoE damage ability if you can line it up right. I’m not a fan of the eclipsion model, but the darker colors of bloodfalcons appeal to me, and I’d be very tempted if the dawnblade versions were tameble. As long as we’re on taming, the low level versions have ‘caster stats.’ That’s bad. Most of your pet’s damage is physical, and they also lower stamina. At low levels, it’s not such a big deal, but as you get higher (and especially if you raid) you should not be using a caster pet. I’d suggest having your hawk ‘molt’ when it gets to Outland.
Last note is that this seems to be the least annoying pet with wings. Not only is the wingspan fairly short, but it is much slower and easier to click around. I think there was only 1-2 times when I tagged Brak rather than the mailbox.
The Mystic Hunter 
Azzola said,
June 24, 2008 at 10:23 am
I am going to have to beg to differ on this. I have a dragonhawk and I use him for pvp. He is really annoying with the fire and wings to the enemy and people seem to ‘run’ when the fire starts. I think we have come to the conclusion that they think it may be a mage or something of the like. It is really entertaining to watch and the pet seems to do what it is intended to do in BG’s, which is protect me. I am BM specced and although when I take him in instances, I am not the highest on the chart now, compared to the other hunters with ravagers and cats, I am ok with that knowing that in pvp he really is quite effective. I have other pets for other uses, I just wanted to compare it in the instance and not good for intances due to aoe. I am leveling the blind hunter (bat) right now to compare in pvp and see which one I like better. I don’t know that I will ever get rid of this one though, just because of the effectiveness of the fire breath and the confusion it causes. Good luck! Oh and the one I have is from the botanica I like the red color better than the shadowmoon valley ones and they have a companion pet to match it!
Znodis said,
June 24, 2008 at 11:21 am
Excellent comment.
It’s good to hear well thought out, different opinions.
tom said,
June 25, 2008 at 3:03 am
i have a dragonhawk and he has almost the same armor as my warpstalker with a bit more raw dps and the fire aoe he can tank the ramparts on non heroic and the aoe will hold the agrr from healing a few stray shots how ever a mage aoe will cause a loss of agrr
look up leiidina in the armory
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Baelgun&n=Leiidina
Scott said,
August 13, 2008 at 10:20 am
My orc uses a dragonhawk; dunno if it’s partly due to his (BM spec + racial + AQ set bonus), but he does decent damage, and has plenty of focus dump even with the 10s delay – it wasn’t until Worba got both 2/2 improved focus and 2/2 gftt that Incineratus finally had enough focus to keep up with the demand from FB, bite and growl.
One interesting thing I’ve learned from playing dragonhawks – the sometimes finicky positioning needed for FB gives me a reason to use eyes of the beast on a semi-regular basis (I love hitting dive, rounding up a bunch of mobs and then turning and roasting them evenly – after that I know I can switch back to my hunter and my pet will continue catching all of the mobs with subsequent FB’s).
One of the best if not the best solo/AOE pet IMO.
Andarta said,
August 21, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Things to add:
You can target yourself and manually cast the firebreath, no matter where the DH is standing (if it’s not already in combat). This can be useful to knock people out of stealth if they are within the short range of the firebreath at the time. This can be nice when guarding a flag node in Arathi Basin. Park your DH on the flag…stand back for range, and manually cast your firebreath on the flag every now and then. If you put it on agressive it will immediately attack any enemy it detects on its own.
Firebreath is also a 2 second DoT. Therefore, it does buy you 2 seconds where rogues canno’t re-stealth or vanish effectively if you hit them with it.
Lastly, it will eat fish. Which can be nice if you have some and your other pets cannot eat it, at least you can use it on your DH.