WoW Petopia Community

Does anyone already have a high-enough hunter in Classic who could please check if there are any pets that have "caster stats", like they did back in Vanilla?

To see what I'm talking about, and for a list of relevant pets, please see:
https://www.wow-petopia.com/classic/casterpets.php
You can compare your tamed pet's stats to those in the table on the bottom of that guide and decide if it matches normal or "caster" stats.

We know at least two old "caster" pets do NOT have caster stats in Classic, and I'm hoping the rest are the same, as it means they'll be more useful. The "caster stats" issue originally rendered almost the entire wind serpent family useless for anything above levelling.

The lowest level are Lady Sathrah (Spider, 12, Teldrassil) and is Krethis Shadowspinner (Spider, 15, Silverpine Forest). The full list:

-Azzere the Skyblade (Wind Serpent, 25, The Barrens)
-Cloud Serpent (Wind Serpent, 25-26, Thousand Needles)
-Elder Cloud Serpent (Wind Serpent, 27-29, Thousand Needles)
-Fire Roc (Carrion Bird, 43-45, Tanaris)
-Greater Thunderhawk (Wind Serpent, 23-24, The Barrens)
-Hakkari Frostwing (Wind Serpent, 49-50, The Temple of Atal'Hakkar)
-Hakkari Sapper (Wind Serpent, 49-50, The Temple of Atal'Hakkar)
-Krethis Shadowspinner (Spider, 15, Silverpine Forest)
-Lady Sathrah (Spider, 12, Teldrassil)
-Thunderhawk Cloudscraper (Wind Serpent, 20-22, The Barrens)
-Thunderhawk Hatchling (Wind Serpent, 18-20, The Barrens)

I've put a strike through the ones that Petopians have checked and confirmed are NOT casters.

I'm not asking for all of them to be checked, just one or two that you can access. Thanks

This is really important to know, because this bug rendered almost all Wind Serpents useless during Vanilla. It's quite possible the same will be the case in Classic. If they decide to keep this bug then I'll ask them to at least list it in their "not a bug" list of intended quirks and bugs.

Well if the old way of telling was a mana bar, most Beast NPCs even if they did cast spells, didn't have one, caster stat pets did.

Thunderhawk Cloudscraper

Thunderhawk Hatchling

Are these from the latest Classic build, so it confirms their caster status?

Wain wrote:Are these from the latest Classic build, so it confirms their caster status?

Yes these are from the latest build, as far as I know, when I get back in I'll let you know. The best test I could come up with is taming both Azzere the Skyblade lvl 25 (caster stats) and Washte Pawne lvl 25 (not caster stats) and compare the stats.

Awesome! Thank you

ah yes, the bad old "don't tame anything with a mana bar!"

A shame if this will render Azzere and many other windserpents useless.
But at least we will get them back. Current game deleted classic wserpents :/

I was looking for information about this which is how I discovered this website. I didn't know about caster pets until after I tamed Lady Sathrah, when I decided to read up on pet management and mechanics. I was worried that I messed up and had to look for a new pet, though so far she has been an absolute beast! (excuse the pun)

I found the page : https://www.wow-petopia.com/classic/casterpets.php and saw there was a stat table to compare and check.

My pet's current stats at level 12:
Base HP: 247 (currently 262 with the +6% from ET 2/5)
Armor: 580
Attack: 60
Power: 46
Strength: 33
Agility: 28
Stamina: 38
Intellect: 23
Spirit: 25

The table linked only shows HP and Armor values but from my own pet it looks to be "normal" and not "caster" stats. I apologise for the slight necro of this thread, but since the question has not been answered on both the main website and this post, I thought I would chime in. If anyone wants to check for themselves and confirm whether this is accurate please do!

edit: Added pet's level for clarity.

Sioux wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 7:59 am I was looking for information about this which is how I discovered this website. I didn't know about caster pets until after I tamed Lady Sathrah, when I decided to read up on pet management and mechanics. I was worried that I messed up and had to look for a new pet, though so far she has been an absolute beast! (excuse the pun)
I found the page : https://www.wow-petopia.com/classic/casterpets.php and saw there was a stat table to compare and check.
My pet's current stats:
Base HP: 247 (currently 262 with the +6% from ET 2/5)
Armor: 580
Attack: 60
Power: 46
Strength: 33
Agility: 28
Stamina: 38
Intellect: 23
Spirit: 25
The table linked only shows HP and Armor values but from my own pet it looks to be "normal" and not "caster" stats. I apologise for the slight necro of this thread, but since the question has not been answered on both the main website and this post, I thought I would chime in. If anyone wants to check for themselves and confirm whether this is accurate please do!

Hey Sioux, welcome and thanks so much for that info! I haven't had a chance to try out live Classic yet, but your news gives me hope that "caster" pets are fixed. If so, then wind serpents will be a properly functioning family.

Are there any others playing Classic who could please help out with checking these? There are only 11 pets that were affected and they're listed at the top of : https://www.wow-petopia.com/classic/casterpets.php
The health and armour tables at the bottom of that page will show you how a pet should look if it's normal, or if it's a "caster" pet.

Thanks

I just tamed a Cloud Serpent
https://classic.wowhead.com/npc=4117/cloud-serpent


Seems that it is not a "caster pet" according to this table https://www.wow-petopia.com/classic/casterpets.php

Health: 699 (no talent)
Armor: 1348 (with 30% talent)

I also tamed Lady Sathrah while leveling and confirmed she also did not have caster stats!

That's great news! Thanks guys It seems likely the rest will be the same, but if anyone has hard data on them please post here so I can cross them off the list.

It's looking like windserpents will be viable in Classic! Though, as one person who mailed us pointed out, if you teach a wind serpent Lightning Breath it would actually benefit from the "caster" boost in int.

Tamed a Thunderhawk Hatchling near Camp Taurajo and I can confirm they don't have caster stats. Looks like the bug was fixed! Only took them 15 years!

Jaamadaa wrote: ↑Sun Sep 01, 2019 4:55 am Tamed a Thunderhawk Hatchling near Camp Taurajo and I can confirm they don't have caster stats. Looks like the bug was fixed! Only took them 15 years!

Thanks! I've struck it off the list.

Hey all. I appreciate all the hard work Petopia has done over the course of WoW's life and I'm glad to see there is a classic section! I'm new here, but far from new to hunters or classic... Anyways..

On topic:

Caster pets ARE still a thing, but not in the way that is outlined here or on the petopia classic website. I did some analysis back in the beta on pet stats, and determined the armor/health were the same as normal pets, however the DPS of the "Caster" pets were slightly lower.

In order to check this, I had to tame multiple pets of the same level of a caster pet and then if they were different families you divide by the family modifier. In the case of Azzere the Skyblade, you can compare to Washte and notice that Azzere's DPS is slightly lower, even though they have the exact same stats. I don't have any screenshots on me handy, but I'll try to tame them both to show what I mean.

I tested this for several, but not all of them, and they were all consistent in each test. Meaning, yes caster pets are still a thing but it's not quite as big a deal as before, as the DPS difference is 0.5 - 1.0 DPS at best from what I recall.

watchyoursixx wrote: ↑Mon Sep 02, 2019 2:55 am Hey all. I appreciate all the hard work Petopia has done over the course of WoW's life and I'm glad to see there is a classic section! I'm new here, but far from new to hunters or classic... Anyways..

On topic:

Caster pets ARE still a thing, but not in the way that is outlined here or on the petopia classic website. I did some analysis back in the beta on pet stats, and determined the armor/health were the same as normal pets, however the DPS of the "Caster" pets were slightly lower.

In order to check this, I had to tame multiple pets of the same level of a caster pet and then if they were different families you divide by the family modifier. In the case of Azzere the Skyblade, you can compare to Washte and notice that Azzere's DPS is slightly lower, even though they have the exact same stats. I don't have any screenshots on me handy, but I'll try to tame them both to show what I mean.

I tested this for several, but not all of them, and they were all consistent in each test. Meaning, yes caster pets are still a thing but it's not quite as big a deal as before, as the DPS difference is 0.5 - 1.0 DPS at best from what I recall.

Wow, good work. Thank you! I wonder what's still going on that causes that. Do you have some data on those, or on which NPCs you've tested so I can mark them on the list?

Here is an example of what watchyoursixx is talking about. I'd say it's pretty conclusive evidence that caster pets are not working as they did in Vanilla but are still a thing. I used Arikara and Elder Cloud Serpent as they are conveniently in the same zone and the same level.

You can see first Arikara, who has typical stats and does 26dps.

https://imgur.com/a/pNKGJAi Next is Elder Cloud Serpent. You can see that he appears to have the same exact stats except for some reason does 1 less dps, or more explicitly 2 less damage.

https://imgur.com/a/taeLyN2 So I'm thinking the penalty for caster pets has been severely reduced. It is probably -2 damage across the board, which essentially translates to -1dps since every caster has 2.0 attack speed I believe.

Obviously, we need many more examples to verify this is true, but it corroborates with watchyoursixx's data which he says he tested across several pets.

Another example:

Level 25 Crag Stalker tamed in Thousand Needles
https://imgur.com/a/NyYhIFF Level 25 Cloud Serpent tamed in Thousand Needles
https://imgur.com/a/kEzEden You have to do a little math on this one because the different species damage modifiers.

24.2/1.1= 22 normalized dps for the Crag Stalker

22.6/1.07=21.1 normalized dps for the Cloud Serpent

Alternatively, 22.6*1.1/1.07 = 23.2.

The latter makes me believe the 1dps loss is static, i.e. not dependent on the damage modifier. So it's theoretically slightly more penalizing on say Fire Roc, who does not get a +damage modifier. He will lose 1 flat dps when he already does X% less dps than other +damage pets. All the other caster pets are 107% damage.

Thanks! That's very useful info. I wonder what they intended here. On one hand I could report this as a bug and see if they can fix it. But on the other, they could decide to make caster pets like they were in Vanilla :/

Some stats of my lvl 33 windserpents.
One "Caster" and a normal windserpent.

Maybe the dps loss increases during leveling the pet. Currently it's 3 flat dmg difference which leads to 1.1dps less on the caster.
Update:

Stats of a freshly tamed Hakkari Frostwing, which had caster stats during vanilla. Need some data of a normal lvl 50 windserpent to compare.