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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: Should Blizzard support Hunter pet diversity?
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Apr 18th 2008 at 8:00AM
While looking over the new "fake" pet skills page at Petopia earlier today, one of the biggest things that struck me is that the whole Thorns skill that the temporary Crab pets get for the lowbie Hunter taming quests would be a great thing for normal Crab pets to get. Right now, They're stuck learning nothing but Claw, placing them right near the bottom of the pet pantheon - very close to Sporebats, who can't learn any special abilities at all. My two high level Hunters tamed a Carrion Bird and a Boar, respectively, so I'm lucky enough to have a good selection of skills to use, but I think there should be more options for people who love their offbeat pets like Sporebats or Hyenas or Crocs. They can even use some of the old rumored alpha skills for pets that popped up around the time of Burning Crusade's alpha. I'm hoping that Blizzard shows more types of Hunter pets some love in WoTLK with a wide selection of new skills, be it thorny shells for Crabs, a Cannibalism-type skills for Raptors, or anything else that lets us see Hunters fighting alongside fewer Cats and Ravagers (or in the case of arenas, Scorpids).
What do you think? Should Blizzard focus a bit more on a wider variety of options for Hunter pets? Or should Hunters just take what they can get and be grateful for it? If the former, what types of new pet skills would you like to see?
Filed under: Hunter, Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 5)
ninjasuperspy Apr 18th 2008 8:40AM
More choice is good. I like the Ice Claws skill and the Thorns skills from the taming quests. I'd love to see more "mini-class" skills like the Wolf Howl thing. I don't think you can play with the hunter/pet dynamic TOO much; we won't ever see a healer pet supporting a close in hunter for instance. So we'll just have to play with different DPS/Tank modes. How about some AOE? An Arcane Explosion pet or something?
I'm just wishing they'd bring back the Ghost Wolf. Stupid me worked on a horde paladin thinking that I'd have time to get a hunter alt to 70 before they closed the Ghost Wolf door.
TobiasX Apr 18th 2008 8:50AM
There are other pets besides cats and boars?
Seriously though, there seem to be so few useful pets and interesting pet abilities for each family. All pets seem to learn Bite & Claw, there are a few interesting abilities but realistically in PvE or PvP they're novelties.
hellshire Apr 18th 2008 9:46AM
Wolves are actually the best raid pet if your min/maxing for raids due to furious howl. When I played my rogue, I would always smile when our hunter put king B away and brought out the wolves.
Blorg Apr 18th 2008 9:10AM
Blizz have already made a move towards increasing the viable pet families: raptors can now learn dash and are just as useful as cats for raiding.
There are only a few pet families that are viable for high end raiding - cat, raptor, owl, maybe windserpent and wolf, but there are plenty of other families that make decent general purpose pets if you're not obsessed with min-maxing, and there are plenty of skins within these families to allow for a little originality.
Hunters have 3 pet slots, so this enables us to have one pet for raiding and one for fun - I have a cat, and Blorgilla the Gorilla, as well as a scorpid for arenas if that's how you want to play. I'd rather use the cat for this myself, but then again I don't think I've ever hit 1700 rating.
I'd love to see another pet slot in the expansion though, I'm going to be sad to have to lose any of my three current pets in order to teach the others some skills.
Thing Apr 18th 2008 9:14AM
Hunters seem to fall into 2 categories when it comes to pets:
1) Min/Max'ing stats and abilities to suit your need (ie PVP, Raiding, Grinding)
2) "RP" or just plain personal preference. The look or emotional attachment to the animal.
I wouldn't mind more choice or even more models to the current choices. What I think we really need or really really have cried about since day 1 is stable slots. Please, please, please let us gain 1 or 2 more stable slots and I think the hunter community as a whole would stop bitching for like a whole day or even more!
Lizardking63 Apr 18th 2008 9:21AM
Just give every hunter the same pet. My priest gets the same one all the time.
Cynra Apr 18th 2008 9:21AM
Absolutely! As a Beast Mastery hunter, my pet does upwards of 20% of my damage during extended fights. However, it's disheartening to see the entire class pigeonholed into the same selection of pets because they're the only ones capable of sustaining damage while maintaining skills that have a high DFP. Pets with Gore or Claw are valued for these reasons; they're wonderful Focus dumps because they lack cooldowns and generate high damage per point of Focus cast. Unfortunately, that limits the pets that are considered viable for raiding.
I'll admit, my primary raiding pet is a strigid owl, contrary to the current preference for cats. Like cats, he has Claw as a Focus dump though he does have slightly less DPS than his feline counterparts. Selected initially for PvP purposes pre-TBC (I've been told that Horde hunted down the bird because of his incessant flapping and screeching when in the Battlegrounds - it's that annoying!), I've tried very hard to avoid picking up a cat for the slightly higher DPS or a ravager for Gore. I also love Screech and try to find uses for it outside of soloing or PvP.
I remember quite some time ago I went to the Core for the first time as my hunter. In order to avoid inadverdantly pulling extra mobs with our pets, the hunter lead continuously told us when to put our pets away and pull them out. However, he kept saying, "Okay, guys, kitties away." And people kept asking, "Can we take our kitties out yet?" Looking around, I noticed that all of the other hunters - perhaps six? - were sporting identical cat pets, despite the fact that they were from seperate guilds and some of them were pick ups like me. It made me sad.
More variety, please!
enkafiles Apr 18th 2008 12:42PM
My hunter's main pet is a raptor, which I use for exactly that reason - variety. I had a cat main pet until 50 and just got sick of seeing all the cats all the time. I released her on the dock in Southshore...
I always stop and have a short chat with other hunters with raptors - it is totally worth doing without prowl for. ^^
Adam Flanczewski Apr 18th 2008 9:21AM
As an avid MM (0/48/13) PvP'er, and pre-BC Hunter, pets aren't that important--but I am definitely sick of seeing the same pets over and over again.
Sure, my pet is a Cat, but only for synergism with Shadowmeld. I also have a Scorpid I use often in the Arenas. But really, I'd like some variety, if not just for fun. BC added a bunch of pet skills and a recent patch /finally/ gave Raptors Dash (something I complained about a year before it was fixed). So come on--give those Crabs some love! BM Hunters will love it. :P
Oh, and stables: 3? More please! Honestly. It's one of the reasons you see so few distinct pets.
Poxus Apr 18th 2008 9:25AM
While not an avid Roleplayer, I do have this fondness for bears on my Dwarf Hunter, but being there are no real great skills for them to use, I don't us him all that much.
I think the major problem right now is the lack of variety of pet skills for Hunter pets. If done correctly, pets could be another optional CC for groups besides the traps Hunters have. Something to bring to a group instead of DPS, and make the micro management of pets more productive.
Alchemistmerlin Apr 18th 2008 9:26AM
Pets are like Equipment. Sure, you can use the one that looks cooler, but in the end if you want to raid you're going to have to use the only ones Blizzard bothered to make workable.
Ahab, my troll hunter's pet crab, will always stay by his side. Screw Raiding.
Hurode Apr 18th 2008 10:32AM
My old troll hunter and his pet turtle Koopa agree.
Raspy Apr 18th 2008 3:45PM
My hunter and her green chicken tallstrider Pook also agree.
Gnarl Apr 18th 2008 3:56PM
My Hunter Moolan and her Teal and Orange Plainstrider "Mooshoo" are also in agreement
Alchemistmerlin Apr 18th 2008 10:41PM
This is the largest number of positive replies I have ever received to a comment on WoWInsider.
csarcops Apr 19th 2008 4:49PM
My hunter and her big ol black bear Snuffy wholeheartedly agree.
Syme Apr 18th 2008 9:30AM
My troll hunter has had the blue crab from Durotar since level 10 (currently 69). I would love to have some unique skill for the crab family, like a bleed-over-time or even a pipe-dream like Hamstring. I think all pet families should get a unique skill not shared by any other family, and hunters can decide which one suits their own situations best. Instead, Blizzard has loaded certain pets like Cats with abilities and neglected pets like crabs and sporebats.
thain Apr 18th 2008 9:33AM
Yes having a variety of interesting and unique pets would be great, I just don't know how much time blizzard should devote on customizing 1 classes pet, warlocks have like 5 choices (imp, suc, void, felguard, felhound) and they dont even get to choose a name for theirs, let alone a pretty color scheme.
Also with their uber focus on pvp if any pet showed any new ability that might be good in pvp it would take alot of focus(nerfs) from devs.
Boven Apr 18th 2008 11:21AM
Adding a bit more diversity to hunter pets would definitely be a plus. Before pets were normalized, you'd see a bit more variation in the pets that ran alongside hunters. Removing the uniqueness of pets pretty much eliminated that. I'm sure theres many an old school cloth wearer out there who still remembers the effect that Broken Tooth had on them in PvP and a number of folks who'll remember seeing Takk catchin up to their epic mount.
When Blizz homogenized pets, they pretty much made only certain ones really useful. Now it's all cats and ravagers and, to a lesser extent, raptors. You don't really see level 70 turtles or crabs or bears. It's kind of sad, really. Adding some more unique (and useful) pet skills could help revitalize things and get us seeing more than just the same few pets in the hunters' stables.
Personally, I'll always keep the level 70 pink tallstrider that my Tauren hunter tamed way back when he was a level 10. The bird doesn't get out of the stable much, but I'm never gonna get rid of him.
Jane Apr 18th 2008 9:52AM
Let's not forget spiders! It would be wonderful if they kept the 'webbing' skill they sometimes show in the wild. A nice way to 'freeze' a mob into place for a few seconds.