Blizzard Wants Hunter Pet Feedback

[Palladiamorsdeus]

I think I would try to murder the people with Anacrhonos or Chromie. Just sayin'.

I love the dragonkin idea, but I don't see it ever happening. Just like I don't ever see us being able to ride our pets.

[sameyer716]

This is what I posted earlier today. Sound okay to everybody?

Since we’re trying to keep hunters ranged as much as possible, give us the ability to tame the Marshwalkers in Zangarmarsh. I seem to recall Marticar (the rare spawn) having a magnetic “yank”, similar to Death Grip. If this were the Marshwalkers’ family ability, I’m sure you could program the Marshwalker to auto-activate it whenever threat changes from the pet to the hunter. It would help to keep the mobs at a distance, cut down on runners, assist when being ganked, and it would be especially useful in most gameplay.

One thing I’m noticing from all the leaked Cataclysm stuff is that there is a LOT of water. Aside from completely underwater zones and raids, there’s also a lot of flooding on the mainland. How about giving us the ability to tame some underwater creatures as pets, and only allow us to summon them in the water? Sharks, eels, seasnakes, threshadons… These would all be fantastic choices. As incentive to use them, perhaps they move 10% faster in the water than their land-based counterparts? Just a thought.

I’ve always wanted to see Slimes added to the hunter pet roster. They could have the ability to cause a debuff that would lower the accuracy of their target slightly over a period of time, in contrast to the Tallstrider ability to miss the next attack. Or their family ability could just fill an opponent’s bags with trash items.

Hydras, I think, are a MUST-HAVE for Cataclysm. The Hunter community’s wanted those for a long time, and since we briefly had the opportunity to tame that bugged ghost hydra, people have been chomping at the bit. I propose giving them “Thrash”, which a couple Hydras already have, giving them two extra attacks.

One of the biggest challenges I think you (Blizzard) have with creating hunter pets is that one pet family will always end up being pigeonholed as “best raid pet” or “best PVP pet” etc. I feel like pet choice should be based on player preference for what they like, instead of how they are better statistically than the others. There is also a large discrepancy between BM and MM/SV for end-game damage output. I think we can fix this with the same solution.

I’m thinking about pets as four categories. Tenacity, Cunning, Ferocity, and Exotic, and damage output should follow in that order. Tenacity and Cunning probably wouldn’t change that much with this idea. However, since Ferocity is based on dealing more damage than its counterparts, ALL Ferocity pets should have similar damage output so that they are ALL viable in raiding. That way we won’t have every hunter showing up to raid with a wolf.

Now, let’s concentrate on Exotics for a moment. Since Exotics are the be-all-end-all of the BM tree, the Exotic pets (especially the Ferocity ones) are what should close the end-game damage gap between all three talent trees. The Tenacity Exotics should be able to survive better than non-Exotics, and the Cunning Exotics should be better at mobility and utility than non-Exotics. See where I’m going with this?

BM is my absolute favorite talent tree in this game. I work with animals IRL so it really appeals to me. I just want it to be equal to the other two trees. I pitched the idea of Exotic pets when you asked for suggestions before Wrath came out, and I was pleased to see that it made it into the game. (Even my “As long as I’m dreaming…” comment about wasps being tamable!) But if the Exotic pets don’t bring BM up to speed, than what’s the point?

[Tygamoon]

Sounds good Sameyer, I like your view on BM and the exotics.

[Ryai]

I think I would try to murder the people with Anacrhonos or Chromie. Just sayin'.

I love the dragonkin idea, but I don't see it ever happening. Just like I don't ever see us being able to ride our pets.

I CAN DREAM.

WHEN I DREAM I DREAM BIG.



like I dream of tanking LK 25 hc on my paladin....

[Thornberry]

Rottweiler I know its a may seem like a plain pet to some but I would love one

Special move

Lock Jaw: Your pet locks on to he target with his jaws stunning it for 4 secs and applys a Bleed affect for the duration.

That would be my dream pet

and another would have to be

Walrus

Special move

Tusk Impale: Impales the Target with its tusks cause _____ Damage and applys a Bleed affect that last 8 secs

That's what I posted if that were to happen (especially the Rottweiler) I would never play another class ever lol

[Adam-Savage]

The black panther in sholzar! That would be on bad ass pet.

[Kayb]

i just added

Kangaroo, Platypus, Makara, Bunyip, Basilisks, and my own invention, Dragonsharks. Hey, ya never know.

[Nimizar]

Now, let’s concentrate on Exotics for a moment. Since Exotics are the be-all-end-all of the BM tree, the Exotic pets (especially the Ferocity ones) are what should close the end-game damage gap between all three talent trees. The Tenacity Exotics should be able to survive better than non-Exotics, and the Cunning Exotics should be better at mobility and utility than non-Exotics. See where I’m going with this?

So you want BM raiders to have a more restricted pet choice than MM and SV? That's exactly what will happen if Exotics inherently do more damage than other pets. Avoiding that situation was a deliberate (and correct) design decision on Blizzard's part - the only way to give BM a wider range of pet choices is to make sure that the nominal DPS didn't increase much purely because a pet happened to be Exotic.

There's also far more diversity in PvP pets than there is in PvE. In PvE, you just want max DPS, with utility and survivability as a secondary concern, so wolves (with the option of a devilsaur as BM) rise clearly to the top. In PvP, utility and survivability matter a lot more and different players will make different choices - some like a ranged root, some like the longer root duration that comes with Pin, some like a silence, some like an interrupt, some like a snare, some like the option to insta-rez their pet, some like a pet that is a bit tougher in the first place, etc.

[sameyer716]

So you want BM raiders to have a more restricted pet choice than MM and SV? That's exactly what will happen if Exotics inherently do more damage than other pets. Avoiding that situation was a deliberate (and correct) design decision on Blizzard's part - the only way to give BM a wider range of pet choices is to make sure that the nominal DPS didn't increase much purely because a pet happened to be Exotic.

Hmmmm, that's a good point. I didn't think of it that way before. Any ideas for how to make BM more viable for raiding?

[Palladiamorsdeus]

They need to pick a path and go with it. They either need to make certain pets flat out better then others ((My vote goes to exotics)) or find a way to better balance all pets. And actually the ONLY reason wolves are on top right now isn't because of their personal damage, it's because of that buff to the hunter. So you can either remove furious howl, have furious howl buff JUST the pet but for more, or make furious howl a talented ability.

[Murloc Chow]

waaay too much QQ, i didn't read all of it, but it seemed 50/50 of people actually being on topic, and people complaining about everything but what kind of pets they wanted. so many ideas buried by nonsense some of it sounded like it didn't even come from Hunters, i read a few things where i asked myself if they were high when they posted

but i posted my suggestions, Woppletinger and Wyvern FTW!

[Chrizesu]

I'm pretty sure they wanted suggestions how to make pets better, not a list of all of the farsighted things people wanted tamable.

Edit: NVM, I read it more closely. That's exactly what they wanted.

[Nimizar]

Hmmmm, that's a good point. I didn't think of it that way before. Any ideas for how to make BM more viable for raiding?

Their problem right now actually stems more from MM being overpowered with an ArPen spec and gear set - I believe the last set of numbers showed BM is getting close to SV levels for raid DPS. (Checks best theoretical DPS thread at EJ... yep currently at 15.1k theoretical max for MM, 13.6k for SV and 13.5k for BM. There's less than a 0.7% difference in theoretical max output between SV and BM at the moment)

So with DPS parity as a stated goal and the first two masteries as additional per-spec tuning dials, and with BM (hopefully) not soft capping out on haste as easily in Cata, Blizz should be able to get all 3 into line for Cataclysm.

[Fuzzywuzzy]

How about a pet that heals you? Just an idea.

[Tygamoon]

Fuzzy, your sig just made me laugh. I try and stay away from the leetspeek but just some consistent grammar mistakes from grade school stick around.

And yes healing pets were suggested. I do feel bad for the guy that has to read all of that junk in there. Some things were posted as funnies (and it is sometimes) but it does get old after the 50th person to say the same thing. I really do hope they add some of those things to the game. Would sure spice things up and get people excited.

[Hawkshadow]

This is what i posted: Tell me what you guys think

Taming dragons would be amazing. Though after taming a dragon who in their right mind would want to use a kitty or wolf or bird ever again?

So the only way i could see Dragon pets working is this:

Have a quest for hunters in Cata that once completed allows them to choose what dragon flight they wish to be part of. Once the questline is completed you gain the ability to summon a drake from that dragon flight for 30 seconds, and depending on which flight you choose, it can give you different buffs/heals or just do some crazy damage for the time its summoned.

This ability could be on a 5 min or more cooldown or something. This makes it more like a balance druid's force of nature ability (the trents), only lets have a dragon do more damage than a bunch of walking trees k? lol

The summoned drake can be like a DK's pet in that it comes with a name already from a list of random ones.

The drake has the pet bar in that you can have it attack, or have the ability to put it on passive /defensive. Might also be able to have it do specific abilities by clicking options on the pet bar.

Maybe also have it de-summon your current pet for the duration it is active. Then re summon your pet after the drake goes away after the 30 seconds (or however long) is up.

[Vespias]

Here was my 2 cents worth:
Second post: I'm still sticking with my wish for a small version of Gluth as the ideal pet for UD hunters but adding this possible scenario. How about a quest line where we would have to find perhaps a dead dog, then collect the parts needed and then bring them to one of the Apothecaries in UnderCity to have him reanimate the creature. Now that would be cool but I'd expect the beast to do amazing DPS for all that work. Perhaps the abilities would include some type of "sickening stench" that would cause their target to pause every so often to throw up.
Also, 2 other subjects I see a ton of posts on. One, dual pets would really be a much better 51st point for BM spec hunters. It would put us back in a position to be favorable to have in raids.
Two, taming our own mounts. I really like the idea of us having to buy a saddle so that the QQ for us getting them would be minimalized. However, if you already have the high level riding skill the cost should be way lower for it.
As far as vanity pets, let hunters be able to tame critters with a select price available for selling on AH. This way everybody would have access to them, hunters would make a modest amt of gold and no ridiculous prices on AH to start yet another QQ-fest.
OK, there's my added two cents and ty for even asking us for our input on what matters most to us.

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"And in the end...the love you take...is equal to the love...you make".

[Rottingham]

I think some more Hyena Models are in order... I saw the new crab and croc models and loved them! I would really like new models for hyenas, though. They're my favorite pet

[Lor_the_hunter]

I'd like to see undead hunters, but that's just because I think the demon hounds in the zone with brill would make cool pets, and it would make sense for undead hunters to have them

[Kayb]

undead will be able to play hunters, we've known this for nearly a year