pet family abilities

[GormanGhaste]

I haven't found any info on the abilities of the new families, or changes to old families. Do the new families have any yet?

[Wain]

I don't think so. Nothing at all. Surely they have to at least address that before launch?

[Melissa]

Most "cast and forget" buffs are gone, as in, from every class. Things like Mastery buff or Haste buff are no longer a thing as Blizzard deemed them boring -- they didn't really add an awful lot of gameplay. Hence, pet buffs are gone as well from old pets, with none to be added for the new ones.

I'm noticing on the PTR that exotics have kept their exotic ability, they weren't standard buffs anyway, but seeing how the only new exotic is Broken Isles-only and I don't have access to the beta, only PTR, I can't tell you what Mana Sabers get.

[Tonnes]

Uhh I feel like this thread could use this bit of information. Scalehides don't actually have... A basic attack? At all????

[Bambu]

Made a new thread by mistake, forgot about this one!

Copy and pasting:

So, copied my main to Beta and since Broken Shore was bugging, I decided to check out all the exotic pet families for abilities. (For those that haven't heard, passive "raid buffs" are gone in Legion, and with them, most family abilities.) From a purely gameplay perspective, its pretty awfully imbalanced now. Spiders completely outclass Silithids now that the raid buffs are gone, and Devilsaurs only have a healing reduction, which doesn't seem all that great for a monstrous T-rex, and Worms' burrow attack does such low damage, I can't imagine a situation where it would help. It really bums me out, I know the devs do a lot for us pet-fanatics, and I really appreciate that, I just feel like this is something that should be touched upon. I know its too late for 7.0, but Blizz addressing Family abilities is probably top of my wishlist for 7.1 (well, next to tameable frogs...)

I'd personally like to see Exotic Pets have more abilities like Updraft and Water Walking, useful, but doesn't effect DPS in a Dungeon/Raid. Maybe give Core Hounds a built-in Fetch/Cooking Fire, or let Mana Sabers access Transmog/Void storage for a short while on the fly. Mechanicals being able to repair your gear... Stuff like that would be fun and worthwhile I feel. Maybe replace the Killer Cobra talent (looks so unappealing to me, not sure if its actually useful or not) with one that gives your pet a Raid utility or two like Battle Rez and Bloodlust or something?

Sorry for the long post, just felt like dumping my thoughts on the matter.

[Rawr]

I think one of the most useful pets in Leg will be the Quilin. It has both its tank ability and the B-Rez. Corehounds are ok, AH is the same, but their Molten Hide is 1 fire dmg per melee hit on them for 10 sec, CD 60sec, not great. Same with Foxes and Monkeys, 2 min CD for 10 sec 30% dodge bonus, not great. I would keep something like a Quilin/Clefthoof or Turtle/Basilisk/Crab/Beetle/Shale Spider for soloing and a Quilin/Moth/Crane B-Rez pet for instances or a Lust pet, maybe a Spirit Beast for the heal but I'm sitting at 574k HP at lvl 102 and that heal only does 27k max, so........

[SpiritBinder]

Maybe for ManaSabres, have something along the same lines as Spirit mend, but instead of health, something like a small Innervate?
However as we use focus, maybe have the ability restore a certain amount of appropriate resource rather than just Mana so it's useful for everyone.

Mana -> Mana Users
Focus -> Hunters
Energy -> Rouges
Etc, etc.?

[Kalliope]

I would love that so much, SB!

[SpiritBinder]

For a second ability if they are still doing that for exotics, they could potentially be something like Devour Mana?

• Drains an enemy of mana and heals the caster for the mana stolen.

The heal would only effect the pet, but would potentially give the pet some PVP utility also?

[Bambu]

I think one of the most useful pets in Leg will be the Quilin. It has both its tank ability and the B-Rez. Corehounds are ok, AH is the same, but their Molten Hide is 1 fire dmg per melee hit on them for 10 sec, CD 60sec, not great. Same with Foxes and Monkeys, 2 min CD for 10 sec 30% dodge bonus, not great. I would keep something like a Quilin/Clefthoof or Turtle/Basilisk/Crab/Beetle/Shale Spider for soloing and a Quilin/Moth/Crane B-Rez pet for instances or a Lust pet, maybe a Spirit Beast for the heal but I'm sitting at 574k HP at lvl 102 and that heal only does 27k max, so........

Yeah, Quilen and Core Hounds seem like the go-to pets in Legion if you just want "whatever is most useful".

Maybe for ManaSabres, have something along the same lines as Spirit mend, but instead of health, something like a small Innervate?
However as we use focus, maybe have the ability restore a certain amount of appropriate resource rather than just Mana so it's useful for everyone.

Yeah, that'd be pretty great, I'd add a stealth like what Cats and SBs have too. They need something, being exotic and all...

I know it'd be quite a bit of work for Blizz, but if every family had a unique ability and Exotics had two, I'd be one happy camper. I wouldn't mind seeing some shared abilities either. (I'd especially love to see Blessing of Kongs and Bark of the Wild return somehow.)

Scalehides getting their own version of Molten Hide would be neat, what with Thunder Lizards being included and all. "Thunder Skin" or something?

For a second ability if they are still doing that for exotics, they could potentially be something like Devour Mana?

• Drains an enemy of mana and heals the caster for the mana stolen.

The heal would only effect the pet, but would potentially give the pet some PVP utility also?

Now that sounds awesome!

[zedxrgal]

For a second ability if they are still doing that for exotics, they could potentially be something like Devour Mana?

• Drains an enemy of mana and heals the caster for the mana stolen.

The heal would only effect the pet, but would potentially give the pet some PVP utility also?

This is an excellent idea.

Wait. Doesn't the Felhunter have this ability?

I could've sworn they did.

Edit: Yes. Devour Magic! So this could easily be placed on another beast I'd think?

[Kurasu]

Balancing abilities would be great..... but I think the first thing that needs to be done is to at least give Scalehides bite/smack (whichever they would have). They're still without *any* attack. They're the new Sporebat.

[SpiritBinder]

For a second ability if they are still doing that for exotics, they could potentially be something like Devour Mana?

• Drains an enemy of mana and heals the caster for the mana stolen.

The heal would only effect the pet, but would potentially give the pet some PVP utility also?

This is an excellent idea.

Wait. Doesn't the Felhunter have this ability?

I could've sworn they did.

Edit: Yes. Devour Magic! So this could easily be placed on another beast I'd think?

That they do That said the felhunters Devour Magic removes a beneficial buff from the targeted player/mob, I actually gleaned the idea from the Shamans ability Devour Mana.

I thought a small Mana burn in exchange for health/ pet heal felt a little better for a hunter pet. Pets have a lot of ways to mitigate damage (Shields/shells/dodge/Last stand/etc), but only the SB has anything that actually heals. I thought a heal that only effects the pet could be a nice point of difference, that and doesn't effect/make the hunter themselves OP per-say.

Balancing abilities would be great..... but I think the first thing that needs to be done is to at least give Scalehides bite/smack (whichever they would have). They're still without *any* attack. They're the new Sporebat.

This would be so wonderful, but I really fear the amount of work involved at this late point in time of the Beta/PTR is not looking good. I just hope with high hopes that they already had/have a big plan that just hasn't been rolled out yet.

Many pets have no special, and yeah, those poor scale hides

[Xota]

I like the resource-innervate idea for mana sabers. Pet abilities really need to be addressed before the prepatch is released. I know it's too late to expect a more interesting pet talent system, but exotics should be at least as good as mundane pets.
For what it's worth, worms' burrow ability can also be used defensively, iirc, they can't be targetted while burrowing. It could be a lot more interesting, but I don't expect it to be redesigned right now.

[SpiritBinder]

For what it's worth, worms' burrow ability can also be used defensively, iirc, they can't be targetted while burrowing.

Ummm why has this not been mentioned before, that is a brilliant idea Xota, like amazing!
Just thinking about the possibilities is awesome. You could pair it with a binding arrow, burrow and force move/stun everything on you pet too... very very cool.

[Rawr]

For what it's worth, worms' burrow ability can also be used defensively, iirc, they can't be targetted while burrowing.

Ummm why has this not been mentioned before, that is a brilliant idea Xota, like amazing!
Just thinking about the possibilities is awesome. You could pair it with a binding arrow, burrow and force move/stun everything on you pet too... very very cool.

I use Binding Shot/Stampede for big mobs, I guess u could Binding Shot/Burrow/Stampede sounds like fun as soon as your worm go everything will run to u and get studded in a nice group for Stampede

[zedxrgal]

I thought a small Mana burn in exchange for health/ pet heal felt a little better for a hunter pet. Pets have a lot of ways to mitigate damage (Shields/shells/dodge/Last stand/etc), but only the SB has anything that actually heals. I thought a heal that only effects the pet could be a nice point of difference, that and doesn't effect/make the hunter themselves OP per-say.

It is an excellent idea I feel especially if pets remain squishy after the expansion hits and they need to constantly be healed to be kept in the fight.

But dang. The ideas y'all are coming up with are amazing

[SpiritBinder]

It can be pretty hard to come up with possible and suitable ability, anything that could potentially be added would generally have to follow....

• a) Isn't to hard for blizzard to implement/create (ideally something already in game would be best).... or they probably wouldn't added.
  b) Does not make the hunter overpowered in DPS, overpowered in Soloing or overpowered in Utility.... or others will complain
  c) While not being too overpowered, still making sure it's still worth using and feels useful/fun.... or whats the point
  d) Also trying to have it fit the family thematically.... or it would be weird (Like giving a Wolf a Shell Shield or something)
  e) And they have the time to go over and give all 52 families (Holy Shiz we have that many in Legion!) an appropriate family special, and an additional 12 to the 12 exotic families.... or it would be incomplete and unbalanced.

Admittedly a good chunk of families abilities done but who knows if they want to revisit them now too.
It's going to me a gargantuan task is they can pull it off, but we can only but hope right?

[Xota]

If it were up to me, I'd make it so only BM had access to pet abilities. Survival already has tons of buttons, and pets are optional in MM.

I'd distribute the current abilities (brez, shield, heal, time warp, mortal wounds, ankle crack, prowl (without the slow), thorns, dodge) and a couple of removed cc abilities (ranged web/root, knockdown) among the existing families, with each combat ability being castable by at least one mundane and one exotic family.
I'd have exotic families having an additional utility ability (sometimes non-combat): water walk, slow fall, aoe, focus/health regen.

The one ability that might go against a) would be to change Devilsaur's Feast to also increase the Devilsaur's size by 10% for 65 seconds, stacking up to 5 times.

Other ability ideas, that already exist in other ways: innervate, swim speed, sea floor run, (near?) instant mounting.

[Rhyela]

The one ability that might go against a) would be to change Devilsaur's Feast to also increase the Devilsaur's size by 10% for 65 seconds, stacking up to 5 times.

I really miss this. I loved seeing my big angry dino chomping on people's faces.