A Way to Diversify Pets

[Gacheru]

I've been thinking about this a lot over the last few days...

It's not uncommon for non-hunters to expect us to bring the "industry standard" best pet along with us on raids. Unless you have hunter-smart people in the raid with you, they don't see the utility of bringing along a non-wolf. I've even been in random heroics, topping the DPS meters and still had someone say that I should have my wolf out instead of my Parrot or Slime (although the later of the two is novel enough that he doesn't get picked on much).

I think it might be fun if Blizzard started putting in fights which allowed the ability of other types of pets to shine. For example, I always switch to my slime for the last boss of Old Kingdom because it allows my to tank the rest of my party when he casts insanity. Putting in mobs or fight dynamics that encourage hunters to switch up the pets they use would be a great way to see tenacity and cunning pets in raids.

Just my 2 cents.... thoughts?
Gacheru

[Ryno]

Yeah, that would be kinda cool.

But then, it fits more with vanilla WoW fights than with newer stuff.

Old stuff, (mainly thinking of the slime boss in AQ40(http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=15299)) let one spec of one class really shine sometimes. In that case, frost mages.

In the new stuff, it's mostly a "bring peoples. Wait, what spec? Haha, there's no certain spec they need!" Having pet specific abilities help more in certain fights really goes against this logic, making those min/maxers want to have the right pet for the right situation.

[Sarayana]

"bring peoples. Wait, what spec? Haha, there's no certain spec they need!"

Couldn't have said it better myself! I really like it this way, though I miss the old days of showing off my non-huntardedness by chain trapping mobs through the whole heroic.

Gacheru, it really sucks that people give you flack over your pet choice, but on the rare occasion that it happens to me, I shrug it off. I do more than enough damage with my pet of choice, and it makes me happy to have him by my side. *pets Rafa*

That being said, if you find times where certain pets shine (I could see the snatch ability come in handy on some fights, for example) then I'm sure your tanks and healers won't mind the extra utility. And really, once you've made your tank and healer's lives easier, nobody has the right to rag on you for your pet choice.



**edited for fail-posting before I finished writing **

[Saturo]

Yup, Snatch is useful against most bosses, I remember the stunned look on my friends faces when I disarmed the Black Knight! "WTF!? He's not doing any damage!" "And he stands weirdly!" "Oh yeah guys, I totally disarmed him"

[Karathyriel]

Yeah, whenever I have my cat for an instance run and someone starts telling me that wolves were the more clever idea, I just post recounts results (you should do more damage than he does, though) and tell him to tell me again how I could improve as soon as he does more damage than I do. As long as I'm a "better" DD, I'd prefer him to shut up and mind his own class.

Most of the time, it works...

[Suicune]

I run with either my Spirit Beasts or Wolf. One day I had just reset NPC Scan, and had been PvPing with my Gezzerak, I decided I didn't wanna set off the rares in my stable by opening it up, so I ran a few instances with the Warpstalker. I was worried someone would say something, but no one did. My DPS was little less on trash, but I still pulled top on the bosses. I would much rather it go to a way of speccing your pet the way you want. It would solve the problem of not being able to use a beloved pet in a raid regularly, and of the 'me too' syndrome we see often (you have that pet? me too!). Special attacks are nice, but I enjoyed the way it used to be in BC before the tree change. To an extent, of course.

[Ryno]

As long as I'm a "better" DD, I'd prefer him to shut up and mind his own class.

I so wish people took that to heart. I think most complaints in PuG groups can be solved with a forceful "LESS QQ MOAR PEWPEW."