Potential Mana-saber Replacement Exotic ideas/discussion

[Xota]

Skyterrors (rocs and dread ravens) would kind of fit in carrion birds, or birds of prey. I guess they are monstrously bigger, which might warrant a new family and exoticness. But then the ji-kun model birds would fit that family better too. Either way, I don't think pterrordax/skyscreamers would fit. They're reptiles, "dinomaurs".

But I voted gryphs anyways. Just a personal preference. Skyterrors would come in second. I don't think unicorns work as well as the other two for a family. Maybe one as a spirit beast. Unicorns would make better mounts. Accessible mounts, like from rep, without armor.

[Xella]

Feathermanes for me for sure, Saberhorns would be okay but I already don't use my Outland talbuks very often even though I LOVE them cos I'm not super fond of their attack animations (well, and Versatility, but that's not gonna be an issue anymore lol). I spent more gold (and occasional RL money c/o RAF) than I'd care to admit to finish off my hippogryph mount collection (though I'm super afraid from the mount description that the new one is gonna be like the Voidtalon or TLPD or something since it's one of the colours I've been coveting for years) so having even more access would be fantastic, haha. That said, I'm not sure if hippogryphs (and gryphons) have ground-based attack animations, so they might be kind of annoying as a giant flying pet a la Hami and the other big Draenor birds. Maybe they could switch to their flying animations in combat and be grounded the rest of the time? I dunno.

I mean all that said, I voted for Feathermanes before I noticed there was a "no replacement family" option and I don't think I can change my vote after the fact. I don't really like how many exotic families there are right now because if I have to switch specs to or away from BM I have to also hope that there's a stable master nearby to swap out my pets; if each spec had its own active pet roster it'd be different but that's not currently the case, and Warlords of Draenor was MISERABLE for stable masters. There isn't one in the garrison unless you have a Stable, Stormshield/Warspear had one but the Alliance outpost in Tanaan doesn't have one either (Horde does, apparently, though I haven't done Tanaan on a horde hunter so can't personally verify).

Not counting the two that are in TM vs SS (which I don't think were actually usable as Stable Masters and were just there cos Hillsbrad), the Stables-exclusive stable masters in the garrison (2 named for Alliance, 3 named for Horde, plus the random NPCs) or the hostile Iron Horde NPC that may not have actually made it in-game, Wowhead says there are 18 stable masters across Draenor—8 accessible to Alliance, 11 accessible to Horde. Which would be fine, except that none of them (except the Horde Tanaan one) are anywhere NEAR the raid instances, most aren't even on the WAY to raid instances, and raids are mostly where I have to swap specs at, sometimes multiple times per instance (though thankfully not as often as our mages do). The closest ones would be Tormak the Scarred in Nagrand (except that I just flew around Nagrand and he's not in either location Wowhead lists for him there) or your outpost in Gorgrond (if you got to BRF using Aviana's Feather like I always did). And keep in mind we didn't get access flying 'til HFC came out (which was also the only instance where you could reasonably get to your Ashran city in either direction) so in a lot of cases it was a long walk or a multi-part taxi journey.

Oh snap that reminds me I really have to make an effort to go make sure stable masters are more prolific in Legion, even though I reported the lack of them in WoD beta and it didn't actually help.

[Zalani]

As much as I love the Skyterrors and Zhevras... The Feathermanes got my vote since I have been wanting them as pets for a long time now. <3 Hippogryphs and the new owl cats.

Although I feel they would go better as a non exotic family so that everyone could enjoy them. Kinda like the Hydras.
So I voted Feathermanes since I want them as pets more but the Skyterror family would work better as an exotic. At least thats how I see it.

[Xota]

I don't know how much skeletons are shared across classic and HD models for gryphons and hippogryphs, but since "missing animations" are sometimes the reason pets aren't tameable, I thought I'd look at all the different models to see what animations were missing. Flying animations would be fine if it's following you while you're running on your mount, or when it's sprinting, but lots of other times, yeesh. So the first thing I'm checking is for non-flying combat and standing animations, since flap-flappy is burdensome to melee players or for looting.

Most of the gryphon models don't have non-flying combat animations, but spectral gryphon does. The other animations seem to be the same across other gryphons, including the HD models. They all even have a nifty whirlwind model. So there's a good chance they use the same skeleton, and spectral gryphon's non-flying combat could be copied over, for both classic gryphon models and HD gryphons.

The oldest hippogryph models have very few animations, but the skeleton seems to be the same as hippogryph mounts and the HD hippogryphs. The animations they do have are identical with their more recent cousins. The more recent models do have non-flying attack animations. They do not have the whirlwind animation.

If "owlcats" share the same animations as feral druids, there's no floating/flapping (or any) whirlwind animation.

[Maizou]

After thinking, if they did have to shoehorn in an exotic before they revamp the exotic system that will inevitably come, I wouldn't mind Kunchongs, since they did promise them.

[Valnaaros]

After thinking, if they did have to shoehorn in an exotic before they revamp the exotic system that will inevitably come, I wouldn't mind Kunchongs, since they did promise them.

When did they promise to make them tamable?

[Qraljar]

After thinking, if they did have to shoehorn in an exotic before they revamp the exotic system that will inevitably come, I wouldn't mind Kunchongs, since they did promise them.

When did they promise to make them tamable?

Second this.

Huge fan of Kunchong, so I'm pretty curious? I also think Blizzard is pretty careful with "promising" stuff.

[Valnaaros]

Yeah, they usually are pretty careful. Most of the time when some employee has made a promise about something in the past, and they end up not keeping it, players never let Blizz forget about it.

[Qraljar]

Yeah, they usually are pretty careful. Most of the time when some employee has made a promise about something in the past, and they end up not keeping it, players never let Blizz forget about it.

Yeah, after what happened with WoD, I doubt Blizzard ever wants to "promise" anything ever again. I mean, I think the complaints about the stuff scrapped from WoD are fairly reasonable, but from Blizzard's perspective, I just can't see them "promising" anything.

That said, we got both Yaks and Mushan in Legion. Maybe Pterrorwings and Kunchong are next? I think those two are the other remaining popular beast models that aren't yet pets?

[zedxrgal]

The only pet I know of that was originally "promised" WAY back in the day by Ghostcrawler I believe was a tamable moose. Took em what. Ten years? But they finally made good.

[Ickabob]

Pterodactlys.

/thread

[Wain]

I don't know how much skeletons are shared across classic and HD models for gryphons and hippogryphs, but since "missing animations" are sometimes the reason pets aren't tameable, I thought I'd look at all the different models to see what animations were missing. Flying animations would be fine if it's following you while you're running on your mount, or when it's sprinting, but lots of other times, yeesh. So the first thing I'm checking is for non-flying combat and standing animations, since flap-flappy is burdensome to melee players or for looting.

Most of the gryphon models don't have non-flying combat animations, but spectral gryphon does. The other animations seem to be the same across other gryphons, including the HD models. They all even have a nifty whirlwind model. So there's a good chance they use the same skeleton, and spectral gryphon's non-flying combat could be copied over, for both classic gryphon models and HD gryphons.

The oldest hippogryph models have very few animations, but the skeleton seems to be the same as hippogryph mounts and the HD hippogryphs. The animations they do have are identical with their more recent cousins. The more recent models do have non-flying attack animations. They do not have the whirlwind animation.

If "owlcats" share the same animations as feral druids, there's no floating/flapping (or any) whirlwind animation.

Thanks for checking! Since both are used in the wild as creatures that you can combat I thought they had a full suite of animations, or at least those that would be needed for combat. It sounds like they still mostly do, aside from a few ground ones.

What I would dearly love to see is some animation management for flying creatures that has a rule that is something like, "Walking : use ground animation. Running : use ground animation for first ~three seconds, but if it continues longer then switch to flying". That way we could have pets that use ground animations for most combat, and for small amounts of other movement, but if we take off on a mount they don't continue to hop along behind us forever and look slightly crazy

[Xota]

What I would dearly love to see is some animation management for flying creatures that has a rule that is something like, "Walking : use ground animation. Running : use ground animation for first ~three seconds, but if it continues longer then switch to flying". That way we could have pets that use ground animations for most combat, and for small amounts of other movement, but if we take off on a mount they don't continue to hop along behind us forever and look slightly crazy

All that would extend nicely to minipets too, especially if flight/swim animation speed weren't synced to movement speed. And after seeing that murder of ravens sig so many times, I wish birds would land whenever the hunter stayed idle for too long.