Forum post of the day: Pet demands
by Eliah Hecht 
Mar 16th 2007 at 4:36PM
Wow, who knew Hunters were so unhappy with their pet situation? Zolberserker, of H-Eitrigg-US, has made an exceedingly long list of improvements he wants for Hunter pets, to be included in what he terms a "pet patch." These aren't mostly new demands, nor does he pretend them to be so, but it is a nice compilation of ideas. Some of the ones that caught my eye:
- Pet armor, giving pets simple proc bonuses or whatnot, preferably appearing on the pet.
- Saddles to make some pets mountable. I'm heavily against this, for obvious reasons (there's already too many free mounts in the game, Hunters already get a movement speed increase).
- Foods that give bonuses to pets (the Sporeling Snack is one such that is already in the game).
- Rare pets, including some doing non-physical damage.
- "All beasts and beast like pets should be tameable."
Filed under: Hunter, Analysis / Opinion
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Yssa Mar 16th 2007 7:03PM
As a hunter:
Maybe not a full pet patch, but my big beef is that there isn't enough diversity among the types of pets. You have your basic classes of pets, a couple of unique skills for certain species, and that's it.
What I'd like to see is more differentiation between the species of pets, with more skills like charge and lightning breath that add flavor to each species. As it is, bats act like owls. Hyenas act like wolves without furious howl.
Add more skins and open the field up for more thought and choice behind a pet. That's what this hunter wants.
Asclepius Mar 16th 2007 4:53PM
I DO think hunters are overpowered, but I do agree they should be able to tame ANY beast in WoW...it seems strange that they can tame "beasts" but they can't TAME beasts....laziness by Blizzard maybe? I'm a priest, so this isn't a hunter wishing, just a player pondering.
Pritchard Mar 16th 2007 4:54PM
It should be done. We all know how gimped hunters are in every aspect of the game. Pets should have equal armor with warriros, do magical damage, and shit gold coins. Completely rational.
Hooper Mar 16th 2007 5:01PM
As a hunter, there are a few things I am upset about...
-My pet should be able to jump down a 1 foot wall. You know what I mean. When you're in a dungeon and you jump slightly but the pet runs all the way around and aggros everything. Ridiculous. Give the pet the ability to follow the same path I do.
-Uniqueness. THey killed us in the last patch, making so many pets the same. If someone works their @$$ off to get that unique pet, it should have a rare skin paint and its stats should show for it.
-A hunter should have the ability to train their pet to also be a mount. It makes sense lore-wise, and it evens out the warlock/pally free mount a bit. Though, to be fair, a hunter pet/mount may be slower than your average mount, as it is trained for fighting more than riding, or something.
-The pet size change when you tame it? Why. Keep it the same size, it won't effect its stats. Unless there is a reason for this i do not know of.
-The warlock can switch in between pets without going to a stable master. Maybe give us like, say, three wistles to blow to get our respective pet...
Just thoughts.
-Hooper
Zuuler Mar 16th 2007 5:12PM
I don't see anything wrong with making pets mountable. Mounts themselves are always cheap, its the training that usually costs money. Even epic flying mounts are fairly cheap, its the training that costs a lot of money. Making pets mountable is just fine as long as they have to pay for training (which kind of puts lvl 40 locks and pallies in a position, as they get their training and mount for almost nothing)
Pet armor on the other hand, I can't see that. It would be an advantage in group PVE but in PVP it would cause more problems. Do what non-demonology locks do, keep your pet back and use him for an emergency offtank/additional dps or whatever pet you have.
As for magical attacks, I think there are pets that already do this. Wind serpents come to mind, as do the warp stalkers. I don't have a hunter, but I know I have seen hunters with those pets, so I know they are tameable. And I have read that they do magical damage as hunter pets as well.
I would like to see more tameable pets in the game. Might be kind of cool to at least see different pets in major cities.
Melf Mar 16th 2007 5:18PM
Hunter pet/mount from a lore perspective -- Orcs kept wolves as pets, and use them as mounts as well. Frostwolf clan is HUGE example of this, as the frostwolf mounts in AV are descendents of the pets that Durotan and crew had as pets/mounts. While it would be cool . . . there'd have to be limits. Like a hunter tame mount quest that was a specific racial mount or something that just looked cooler, but required a special "harness" or "saddle" or something that was equivalent cost of the pet itself.
Besides, pets are cheap nowadays. it's the training that costs. We'd still have to train to ride, just get the option of a cooler mount look.
Regarding other pet mechanics... yeah, I'd like to have some warlock abilities like being able to summon any pet, or be able to get buffed by dismissing my pet. The tradeoff is that they use soulshards and they can't customize their pets as much as we can.
I'd like pets to have some limited aoe immunity or something like that. I'm not sure if stealthed pets get any AOE avoidance, as i've been levelling a boar for the past several weeks.
Also, pets need to level faster. If I want to have 3 viable pets (armor/stam tank, resist tank, dps/pvp) then I need to spend a huge amount of time levelling the pets. Reduced pet levelling time would be extremely beneficial.
Regarding pathing, normalization, etc . . . the pathing has been pretty much fixed. Normalization sucks, but then they at least need to give us some more fun skins to work with. I liked elite pets that were hard to get . . . maybe have more instance-only pets that are actually better than their non-instance counterparts.
Derbeste Mar 16th 2007 5:21PM
I agree with Zuuler.
Mounts themselves don't need to be expensive. It merely something you ride for heaven's sake.
I've always thought it seemed not only logical, but OBVIOUS for hunters to be able to ride their pets.
The hunter/pet relationship defines the class so I personally think they should have more of a tie to each other - something to really make sure you had your pet out all the time and really seemed "sad" if they died.
I also think there should be more than their name that can make pets unique. More customization can only help WoW.
But blizzard seems so damn worried about balancing PvP and PvE at the same time that they are now scared to death of ANYTHING that could make a player different. It's holding WoW back at this point. So enjoy your cookie cutter pets (and everything else for that matter).
btw...I'm a pally so I'm not QQing. :P
Karl Mar 16th 2007 5:27PM
Buffs pets a little and Nerf Hunters A LOT. I'm okay with this...
Seriously though, Hunters are already widely accepted as the easiest class to do ANYTHING with right now. They are pretty much the only thing you see in PvP BGs, PvE they have things like Feign Death, they already have a movement increase effect. The idea of mountable pets...I don't care, but you should have to send that pet to training that costs the same amount as another class the does not have speed increasing effects.
Don't even get me started on Paladin and Warlocks having free mounts. I would rather pay for my epic than have to go through the hell of questing for that damn Pally mount ever again. Not to mention, it was far from free. Any other class can turn 60 (and if they saved the gold), go directly to a mount trainer and buy their mount. The Paladin and Warlock have to quest for their class mount, which means you'll be waiting for it. I'll simply buy the dang thing next time. The Pally mount quest was a pain in the rear. Make the Hunter Mount Quest, and make them pay for the reagents, and I think that I would see that as fair...or poetic justice.
As for the rest of the post, I think it would be great to throw another class (hunters in this case) a boon with little adjustments to pets, but they have to be willing to take a nerf in some other area too. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.
I do agree with Hooper's first statement. Hunter pets are almost as ignorant as the masters at times. The AI needs to be updated when following. When you send them to attack something, they can climb vertical walls...why not allow them to jump down them?
MattRossi Mar 16th 2007 5:41PM
@7 - dude, a paladin calling for a hunter nerf is like a warlock calling for a shaman nerf.
I play primarily warriors, because most classes bore the hell out of me. I have a druid and a shaman because I wanted to see what they were all about, a level 50 paladin I never play because the Seal and Judgement system bores me to tears, and a level 29 hunter I don't play because I dislike the pet system.
Anyone who thinks hunters are overpowered is nuts. I've run a warrior to 70 alongside my wife, a hunter, and there's nothing she does that's OP. Her damage isn't that much better than mine when I spec for DPS (it's better by about 50 DPS, which is reasonable considering DPS is all they do) and her pet certainly neither outdamages or outtanks me. Hunters have a lot of neat tricks, it's true, but none of it is game breaking, and their pets are often more of a liability than an asset (has to be fed, levels much more slowly than the hunter especially since it doesn't get any quest XP, often can't stay up in instances). As for PvP, if you're a pally and you focus on the pet, well, then you'd be making a mistake. Even with Scatter Shot (not exactly a BM talent, and no non BM hunter has a pet worth worrying about in PvP) you're much better off focusing on the hunter and putting him or her down, and once a pally gets into melee on a hunter it should be game over.
As for Pally/Warlock free mounts, you only have to quest for the EPIC. The level 40 mount is free. No training costs, no mount costs, a simple quest to get it. Not even five minutes of your time. So don't play dumb: the game is more than endgame, and allowing hunters the same luxury as pallies and warlocks to have that free mount at level 40 doesn't break anything. I personally think no one should get a free mount, especially as I play warriors primarily and we don't get anything, no travel form, no free mount, nothing. But if you get them, there's no reason they shouldn't.
All hunters do is DPS. They can't tank, heal and DPS in bursts like pallies. So if you're going to call for nerfs, maybe you should look at home first?
Didn't think so.
MindTrigger Mar 16th 2007 5:53PM
I really enjoyed the Creature Handler profession that Star Wars Galaxies use to have. Creature handlers trained their pets with voice commands of their choice to control them. "Kill", "Come", (follow me) "Stay", "defend" (follow/defend targeted player), etc were my commands of choice, but you could make them whatever you wanted.
You also had the ability to have multiple lower level pets (up to 3 in the early days) instead of a single high level pet. You could make them all follow you in certain formations such as a wedge. It was damn cool having a pack of pets following you and attacking targets. You could even train each one with different voice commands if you so desired. Made crowd control more fun.
Anyway, I think like most features in this game, Hunter pet abilities are simplified and boring. In SWG you felt a much bigger attachment to your pets than you do in WoW. Pets had a durability of sorts and if they died too many times, they were gone for good. In WoW they just feel like another weapon. "Click here to attack." Yawn. I really believe it was the voice commands that made you feel really connected to your pet. WoW has more 'specials' than SWG did, but it still isn't as fun to play.
Oh, and Creature Handlers in SWG could catch and train pets and mounts for other players. We could hold several animals and there was a neat market for selling them.
Too bad SOE dumbed SWG down and destroyed it in a futile attempt to be more like WoW. Morons killed their own game.
MindTrigger Mar 16th 2007 6:07PM
I forgot to mention....One of the coolest pet features in SWG was "patrol" You could set up a path for your pet to patrol around your camp, harvester or whatever else. It was neat. Right up there with being able t have your pet follow and defend other players. That feature was great for leveling nubs.
Rick Mar 16th 2007 6:05PM
Hunter's crying to Blizzard is like white people complaining about "The Man."
Hunter's are without a doubt the easiest class in WoW. They have never had to stuggle with anything. Hunter's have all the abilities various other classes would kill for: Aggro dump on a short timer, Reliable CC for ANYTHING in the game, AOE snare, Disorient, Hamstring (Wing Clip), Silence, Mana Regen, Melee ability, Mail armor, a tank anytime they want, another silence through at pet, the ability to DPS even when out of mana, immunity to silence/counterspell even though they use mana, Flare, Track anything and a limited Fear. About the only thing they can't do is heal, wait, they CAN HEAL their pets (who tank for them).
IMO Hunters should just STFU so Blizz doesn't notice how OP they are.
Roguerhunter Mar 16th 2007 6:10PM
WoW I am glad there were so many responses. I did my studies and requested Eliah Hecht to continue this study on this topic as he has done for in the pass and we can stay on top of this issue till the next patch. I too am a hunter and feel YES pets are underpowered in some forms. The issues with pets lacking the XP to keep up to us and having to lvl other pets at the same time. We have to level up at some point! The statements are here and I will take time to read before addressing additional issues I may see fit commenting on later.
Metaphyzxx Mar 16th 2007 6:11PM
I think the unique pets / all beasts tamable would be my biggest issues. If I worked extra hard to get a certain pet, went into the maw of hell to tame a certain animal, I'd want to make sure that it was for more than a certain skin. Give it a bit more dps, a little faster attack speed, a little more armor...
hell, let it shit gold. I'm tired of seeing 50 echyakee's running around
Juro Mar 16th 2007 6:22PM
Well, being a hunter for some time now I guess i have a few cents to toss in:
Mountable? Would be cool, but unfair to the rest of the classes. "hey i got a plainstrider, a boar, and a crab for a mount...hows that crappy palamino?" Great idea, not great for everyone...
Armor? For PVE yes, boost it a tad, make our pets 5man tanks...but leave the big stuff to the classes that spec and roll for it. My little bird tanking kara isn't what i want, but i'd like to see him hold aggro and be able to not get one shot in say shattered halls. No more LFG TANK GTG...more versitile for us to get in a group. And anyone that complains for pet armor in PVP cannot be serious. "omg get that priest capping flag" "NO WAY, screw that I'm takin out that hunters pet" . Pet armor in pvp means next to nothing, it's feared, cc'ed, ran past, or just tanked...NO ONE goes after a hunters pet first (unless they are a jerk lol). Our pet isn't as effective as a warlocks pet...
WARLOCKS! Hunters NEED to have pets available at all times, stables are a good idea, but the whistle idea, or at least TWO pets available is a fantastic, needed update.
More pet variety! With the latest nerf making all pets 2.0 speed, every pet is just a bland carbon copy of each other. PVE: Turn on growl, turn on gore, turn on dash, send it in....forget. PVP: Turn off growl, turn on gore, turn on dash, send it in....forget. zzzzzz Yes you can micro manage your pet with it's growl usage and focus consumption. But with the talent "go for the throat" why even bother, pets are some Ronco knockoff...set it and forget it.
The idea of multiple pets, new pet skills, ect. are great ideas...but I'd guess it will be some time before we see anything done.
Me personally? I want a pet that can heal party members and me. NOT a ton, but make his dps GARBAGE and not an offensive/defensive pet, but a support pet. Sitting back by me, doing little 100-200 heals...similar to the defender of the timbermaw...give us something where we don't need to put our pet away for bosses, situations in raids (cleaves, poisons that deal damage to friendly, fears, ect.). I'm getting sick of putting my pet in and watching it get 2 shot by some aoe standard attack. 90% of raids (before xpac, in naxx/bwl/aq), my wolf sat back with me and just gave me furious howl :-\
So yeah, I guess bottom line, pets need a serious looking into by the dev. team. WE are the class that is supposed to rely on our pet to be great...not warlocks...
TCGiant Mar 16th 2007 6:47PM
Hunters cry too much.
Roguerhunter Mar 16th 2007 7:00PM
WoW 1st off now that I have some time to write my main is a hunter. I never once ever stated a class needs to be nerfed you know why! Cuz I always find it a challenge to take on a Pallie / Cursing Lock etc... It’s a goal for me to come out on top or to kill him/her after I had been killed a few times. EVER heard of something called Evolution, I have dealt with the nerfs and yeah its made me sad but look at reality k Locks own that’s cool/ Pallies heal/DPS and stun. WHAT IS a HUNTER Ever Heard of the U.S. RANGERS... SUR/Killer... Quick Bursts of Damage with trickeries to either evade or defeat enemy when they mess up. Never did I mention we should be on the high end of the Animal Kingdom chart but a force not to be reckoned with and dealt with care!
I know I laugh when people say we too over powered or have all these abilities.. Ever class is going to have its pros & cons and Damage out put but its player specific. you can kill a 70 lock with a lower level if that player is not skilled enough nor is in a guild to acquire the proper stats that correspond to his / her talent tree for optiminal DPS performance.. Without going into a math standpoint you guys get what I mean. Some classes are better then others depending situational awareness and stats.
Look issues that need to really be addressed:
*Increase in stats in pets Health
*Perhaps pet specific gear (Bomb Dogs have it/Gear/Armor) Blind Dogs have bags that can carry more on them for Master. So why cant we have an additional Slot for a bag for food/Ammo/mana only perhaps. Some may say Gear on pet I say so many green trash/armor or mount in personal bags. Ahhh hunnn..! Point exact. Locks / herb bags 20-24 slots what about an ammo bad 20-24 slots we use all of our bullets/Arrows.
*Pets need additional abilities yes I am gona say for tanking why what are Guard dogs for ie:nutraizing the enemy or holding him off till you can get a better handle of the situation.
*Pet Food that we can make for cooking for pets/ Scooby Snacks/ a whistle to switch our pets be cool something Engineers can only make would be nice with a cool down...
Different types of pets for different type of talent spc hunters / players. Some with grouo mana regen/ party attack power like Howl 4/ Spell crit increase for casters. Knowing Blizzard if they did this it be a small buff we could live with that.
BUT know this and all hunter may agree how many times does a party you get into tell you to take out your pet VS Parties who tell you to dismiss your pet. if you never experience that or seen it said or done then you havent been around the block to know that game well..
Also who ever stated a Epic Mount Quest for turning your pet into your mount land / Sea or Air that would be nice. maybe double the Epic price of G and a long chain quest so that not all hunters can easily do it like the Tier .5 upgrade only a few of us have ever done and spent a lot for that quest chain... Its not the money its pride in doing something not many people have come to say they did it.
Also before I go and let people comment who remembers HE-MAN and his Loyal pet/Mount Think about it its not like it hasnt be performed on T.V.
MattRossi Mar 16th 2007 7:59PM
@14 - sorry, but your pets should never be able to tank a 5 man. We have three classes that already do that job, letting a hunter's pet do it would be insane.
Arashikou Mar 16th 2007 9:02PM
I play a BM-spec hunter, and while I agree there are some glaring problems with the current pet system, they are by no means whine-worthy on the level of, say, some of the tanking drama going on between warriors and druids. Or the way priests regularly get shafted.
Furthermore, as far as posts about the pet system problems go, this is the absolute worst. This "Post of the Day" manages to completely miss nearly anything truly important, instead preferring to become a wishlist of some newbie's drugged-out "Duuuuuuuuuude, wouldn't it be leet if...." ramblings. This is probably the same guy that uses multi-shot to break your CC and forgets to buy arrows. And just as one shouldn't judge the entire hunter class by those who cannot play it, (Sidn't we have a thread about this recently?) so do I ask you not to judge the entire class by a few people's whining. Sure, plenty of the things he suggests WOULD be cool if they existed. I'd love to use pets' wild abilities while I armor them up and ride them around. But that's not how hunter class works. And I don't think we should go trying to tack more stuff on the hunter pet system when the old stuff is still broken.
REAL problems with the pet system are:
1) Requirement to keep a pet slot open for "learning" pets instead of fully utilizing the stables. To learn a pet ability, you must tame a pet with that ability. And to tame a pet, you have to have a stable slot open for it. Blizz has even admitted this is a flaw in the system, and suggestions that a fix was in the works were bandied about during the Burning Crusade beta, so one can still hold out hope this is being fixed.
2) The caster pet anomaly. Some pets get tamed with caster-appropriate stats instead of fighter-appropriate stats, and at this time only a handful of pet abilities (Fire Breath, Lighting Breath) get even a small benefit from this. There's even a whole family of pets (Nether Ray) that are almost (save 1) all casters yet have no abilities that benefit from this. My only presumption is that Blizz has some future plans in mind for the Caster Pets, and Nether Rays and their cousins will become the forerunners of- whatever the hell the solution is.
3) Overstandardization of pets. (OK, so he got this one right.) A certain amount of normalization can be good, as it frees hunters to have the pet appearance they prefer without being pressured to dump a "non-optimal" pet. (If any one pet is the "best" then it will become nearly all you ever see. Remember how bats came into vogue when ZG launched?) However, as several have said, standardizing any pet stats ACROSS FAMILIES went too far, as choosing a pet family is one of the primary ways hunters customize their pets. Blizz once said they wouldn't take away the pet attack speed differences until they had other means to allow hunters to customize their pet's attack speed - which so far we still aren't seeing.
Problems, yes, and ones I really hope we'll see some reaction to, since Blizz has promised work on pets in the near future. But a full "pet patch" just to pander to Beast Mastery hunters like myself? Not necessary. That's the pinnacle of arrogance.
Nyx Mar 16th 2007 11:58PM
All this whining about hunter overpoweredness; can anyone give a SINGLE example of hunters being overpowered? I don't want to hear the words "Bestial Wrath" or "Scatter-shot" unless you play your character with NO talents whatsoever. If you've got any talent spec, shut up. Everyone's got a button.
Yes, our pets are underpowered. Yes, it would be nice to have some pet quests, or special elite pets, or pet armour, or more stable slots, or varied skill, or less fucking annoying pet levelling, but it won't happen. Why?
Because a mage, somewhere, can't win all the time. And a rogue might have trouble capping in AB once or twice. So my pet becomes less and less effective with every tear shed by any class that ever takes a point of damage from any hunter.
I'm glad you all have a punching bag you can agree on. It's too bad it poses as actual "analysis/opinion" when it's really just snide observation.