Hunter pets: leveling improved, caster stats removed
by David Bowers 
Oct 3rd 2008 at 9:00AM
Once again, we return to Mania's Arcania for the latest and greatest in pet news:First off, hunter pets' leveling has been improved in the latest beta patch, so that now pets have to get just 1/10th (10%) of the hunter's total experience per level rather than 1/6th (16%). That's a big improvement of more than a third off of pet leveling time, but considering that now our characters have a ton more experience to earn per level than they used to, and a huge part of that experience we get comes from turning in quests. Our pets were taking an incredibly long time to level up before, I'm personally not sure this improvement will be enough to give it that special "training a pet feeling" (if it ever could -- personally I would do without pet leveling altogether, but that's just me). Hopefully this still won't be so bad, since, as we already know, if you tame a pet any lower than that, it will automatically just jump right up to 5 levels below your hunter. Hopefully Blizzard will be paying attention and reduce the leveling time even more if it's still too slow, or maybe even, as Mania hopes, include quest experience in pet leveling too.
Secondly, "caster stats" on pets are at last going extinct. Many of us have, in the course of our travels around Azeroth, desired one nifty pet or another, only to find out that it was a "caster pet" with reduced stats, and far inferior to the regular pets. Somehow for ages now, beasts found in the wild with a mana bar haven't changed to regular pet stats when you tame them, and have basically been a waste of stable space (nevermind why in the world beasts would have mana bars). But now that is going to change! As Mania reported, and Ghostwalker confirmed, caster pets will be a thing of the past, and their damage will be brought in line with all the other pets of their family type.
Filed under: Hunter, Leveling, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
atree496 Oct 3rd 2008 9:08AM
you mixed up how much the pets have to get for experience, what your daying is they have to get more now.
atree496 Oct 3rd 2008 9:09AM
never mind that comment, I see my error now
medderia Oct 3rd 2008 9:17AM
im getting the kurken as a pet if i can, and core hound if it levels to 65 right away it willl be worth it (finally replace my ZG snake and ghostsaber...)
Andelorn Oct 4th 2008 8:13PM
On the PTR there is a permanent queue on Azuremyst of hunters lining up to get the Kurken.
archangel723 Oct 3rd 2008 4:32PM
You mean Ghostcrawler.
Also, very cool news.
Netherscourge Oct 3rd 2008 9:19AM
Why do we have to level a pet at all? They should be the same level as us at all times.
Warlocks don't level their pets... Mages and Shaman don't level their summons...
It's just another pointless grind/time-sink.
However, I do like them getting rid of the stupid "caster" gimped pets.
Netherscourge Oct 3rd 2008 9:21AM
Also - what's the deal with pet loyalty not increasing in PvP? Why do we have to grind PvE to get our pet's to like us better?
Emil Oct 3rd 2008 9:42AM
There is no more pet loyalty.
pudds Oct 3rd 2008 9:48AM
Thankfully, loyalty is gone in wrath.
farfromout Oct 3rd 2008 9:30AM
WTB
Less Topics about Hunters.
GIVE ME SOMETHING INTERESTING TO READ!
Please :)
Bullethead Oct 3rd 2008 9:59AM
WTB
Fewer topics about Wrath. Has everyone abandoned the current WoW? Why can't we continue to talk about what IS happening and what players ARE doing and not what MIGHT happen and what players WILL be doing?
Welcome to wrathinsider.com I guess.
Karl Oct 3rd 2008 10:15AM
What? Wait, what? The near future, literally two weeks in the future (patch), of WoW, is somehow out of bounds for a blog/site devoted to, y'know, WoW?
/boggle
Karl Oct 3rd 2008 10:28AM
Seriously, I'm still baffled by this. I can just see WoWInsider not covering WotLK a friggin' MONTH BEFORE IT COMES OUT!
I can see the headlines now. "Current WoW still in holding pattern. Nothing is going on."
Sallix Oct 3rd 2008 3:52PM
WTB
no more WoW news from a blog about WoW
is effectively what you are saying?
Sorano Oct 3rd 2008 9:49AM
The new change to pets and Beast Mastery really motivate to finish leveling my Orc Hunter on Hyjal.
The sheer variety of family abilities is really going to help Hunters define themselves as a class.
I can't wait to tame a Rhino in Northrend then immediatly use Bestial Wrath. Its going to be gi-normous!
Wistin Oct 3rd 2008 9:47AM
Pet loyalty is going away.
However, I've increased pet loyalty just by sitting and feeding it when it was hungry. So it doesn't seem tied to PVE or anything at all really except time.
Schadenfreude Oct 3rd 2008 2:07PM
It's actually a combination of time and experience gained from killing mobs. Mania's Arcania has an article about it.
Nick S Oct 3rd 2008 9:47AM
Mania mentioned in a recent blog post that "caster" pets are still showing a DPS drop of about 3% for some reason. So casters aren't totally gone just yet.
Ben Oct 3rd 2008 9:54AM
Hey hunters, we can't fix your freezing trap so we're just gunna fuck you on that, but we're fixing a bug thats been in the game for 4 years.
ThorinII Oct 3rd 2008 10:04AM
Oh, but they say it wasn't a bug. They say it was working as intended. So, it's more like we're going to screw you on the freezing trap, but to make it up to you we're going to lessen something that shouldn't exist at all. The only way to truely fix it is to remove it.
As said above, no other classes with "pets" have to grind to level it. Why do we?