Wishlist for Hunter Pet System Changes in 10.0

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Wain
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Wishlist for Hunter Pet System Changes in 10.0

Unread post by Wain »

I wanted to start a thread for the things we'd like to see changed or added about the hunter pet system in the next expansion, including any long-term issues (if any) that need to be addressed. I can compile a list in the OP here, which we can use to lobby for changes.

This thread isn't for new pets or pet families we'd like to see - there are other threads for that. This is all about mechanics and systems.

I'll get it started. Feel free to add things as they occur to you, and I'll get a list started :)

Pet specs:
I feel we really need to switch back to a system where our pets can change specs again. At the very least, *all* pet families should have access to Ferocity, plus at least one other. I can understand if they don't want to allow thin and fragile looking pets to be Tenacity, or gigantic, stocky pets to be Cunning, so I'm not asking for all pets to have access to all three specs (though that would be good too). But all should at least have access to Ferocity. The change away from the flexible system meant that suddenly a lot of pet families dropped out of favour and hunters are avoiding them.

Remove the "Exotic" category on pet families:
In short, I believe strongly that the "exotic" category should be removed and instead ALL families should offer a bonus ability for Beast Masters.
  • BM players would no longer feel pressured to use a narrow range of families.
  • All families would offer something special for Beast Masters, so BM would become a spec for "getting extra tricks out of any pet" rather than "taming a slightly wider range of pets".
  • Other specs could then tame any family they like, they just wouldn't get the bonus ability.
  • These days, the "Exotic" category no longer makes a lot of sense. It was different when Exotics were first added and there were fewer families, and even fewer exotic-looking things. Now we're in a situation where any hunter can tame fantastic flaming birds, progenitor wolves, and pink elekks, but for some reason only beast masters can tame mundane clefthooves.
  • Spirit Beasts: I propose dissolving Spirit Beasts as a separate family and making each a "Spirit" type within their related families (all existing spirit beasts have regular family counterparts they can join), mirroring how undead types are effecitvely sub-classes of their respective families. Optionally, the ability to tame "Spirit" types could remain BM-only. For abilities they'd get the regular ability of their related family (so a spirit wolf would get the wolf family ability) and an exotic 'spirit' ability that is common to all spirit beasts, for BM players. I thought this proposal would be the most controversial, but the replies in previous threads where this was mentioned have been very supportive.

Following animations:
It would be nice, visually, if pet models that have flying animations use them when in "follow run" mode. if the player is in walk mode, they could default to walk (or run). Some flying models look pretty ridiculous hopping along behind players at high speeds, their ground animations were never designed for that.
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Talihawk
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Re: Wishlist for Hunter Pet System Changes in 10.0

Unread post by Talihawk »

I second the desire for changing pet specs. I was so disappointed when that was taken away. Especially when we were supposed to be getting 'unprunning'. Why take away something so useful? There are so, so many wonderful, beautiful and amazingly designed pets by WOW's devs / artists and because of the way specs are, the majority of them are useless or regulated to niche moments. I don't want to have to default to clefthoof just to keep my pet from autodying in current content.
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Re: Wishlist for Hunter Pet System Changes in 10.0

Unread post by Vephriel »

Chiming in that losing the ability to choose our pet specs really was a huge step backwards, I'd love if they returned that functionality to us.

I've felt locked into using a Clefthoof for most solo encounters all expansion because they're heads and tails above the rest, but I don't feel particularly fond of any of their models (they're quite obtrusive and clunky too).

it's just a disappointing feeling to use a pet that I don't even want or feel an attachment to.
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Re: Wishlist for Hunter Pet System Changes in 10.0

Unread post by WerebearGuy »

My hope, other than an expansion that makes up for Shadowlands' innumerable failings, is for something that probably nobody will agree with me on; homogenization of pets. By this, I mean removing Tenacity and Cunning, and giving all three activated effects to the pet by default. I don't have faith that talent customization will come back, and even if it does, everyone will still default to Ferocity because it's objectively the correct spec. I speak only for myself here, but I almost never found myself using a Tenacity or Cunning pet for anything other than leveling, and even then I constantly swapped back to a Ferocity pet because the benefits simply made it superior to the other two specs. Why would I intentionally handicap myself by using clearly inferior tools? Because of this, I've felt myself enjoying Ferocity families significantly more (and finding my love for carrion birds due to the Thunder Isle birds), and I've found that I only use Tenacity or Cunning pets in my Animal Companion slot unless I just want to idle in *insert main expansion hub here* with a pretty set of useless pixels.

I understand and fully support the concept of bringing specialization choice back, but the main flaw of pet specs would be unaddressed simply because Ferocity is the only correct choice. Hunters are already stupidly durable with various defensives, and hunters are already hard as hell to snare compared to other classes, so the "benefits" of the genuinely inferior specializations are pretty much worthless. They have their uses, sure, but a sledgehammer sure does a hell of a better job at beating something to death than a safety blanket or a pair of cheap sneakers. Pets should simply have all three activated abilities, and retain the Ferocity kit. Have all three abilities share a cooldown, and it's balanced. It may not be an appealing change, but I'd rather have all options than a choice of two handicaps and one performance enhancer.

Other than that, I'm a simple man who wants one thing at a time. Give me plant hydras, and you can shut me up for most of the expansion. Pink Elekks proved that!
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Re: Wishlist for Hunter Pet System Changes in 10.0

Unread post by SylviaDragon »

Put me down for another vote of "let us change the pets spec." I have no idea why they removed it, it was such a huge step back and I recall them talking about how they didn't want people to feel forced to "only every bring that 'one' pet" to a raid back when they gave us the ability to choose its spec. it seemed like a resounding success so im not sure why they went back on it. Now everyone and their mother is using Faultline because hes got hero and the best shield. I miss using my spirit beasts and reptiles. Miss being able to go pick out the pets that I feel like showing off. Now if i want to use one of my fun pets, I know im making the game noticeably harder to play.

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Re: Wishlist for Hunter Pet System Changes in 10.0

Unread post by worgpower »

Pets should definitely get a overhaul, like spec changing, BM hunters stuck with clefthooves is like Demo locks with Felguards, come on, we’re not demo locks, we should be allowed to use a majority of the pets on three hunter specs, most pets with the exotic flag should be removed, except for spirit beasts since they make the BM more special, hopefully Blizz will make those changes, because some cunning and tenacity pets have unreasonable abilities for their spec, boars/mechs with defense, and 4 families with mortal wounds, instead of pet passives, hunters should have baseline leech passive from kill command(SV) or barbed shot(BM) that can possibly fix the case so we can use all pets, all specs without worrying, and make tenacity tanks again
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Re: Wishlist for Hunter Pet System Changes in 10.0

Unread post by DannyGreen »

Assuming minimum effort. A simple rework to return pet specs would be easiest solution that would probably make the most happy.
Toggle on what you need when, Increase defensive pets healing by a decent chunk make them actually do their job.

Going into it a bit more advanced.
Remove the leech from Ferocity, just make it baseline for any pet on the field. Now the hard part is what to replace it with, as any damage or attack speed auras etc would instantly make it more viable in combat and higher dps numbers. (Assuming we want to make the 3 specs balanced) Stuns would remove Cunning's edge in pvp, we already have mortal wound, slows etc. So you would need to think of something to actually give ferocity pets that would still have them standing out, because even if you take away the leech all together. Then they would still be more beneficial in pve mythic content due to the Bloodlust. And giving it extra leech would just bring the issue full circle.
Options could be having Ferocity pets naturally move faster, keeping them on the target. Or maybe having a attack speed reduction on primary target like curse of weakness from locks. Still edges them up in pvp situations though.

Another option as said before would be a general homogenisation of pets all together. Like Werebear said. We just give us all 3 bonuses.
Remove pet specs all together.
The down side to this, is clefhooves would still reign supreme in any BM content. Due to blood of the rhino.
And here's where it's time for BIG BRAIN TIME!
Remove exotic pets.
THATS RIGHT!
Remove exotic pets as an option. And Give the important exotic pet skills to all BM pets. Dunestrider, Blood of the rhino, Eternal guardian (heart of the pheonix) While things like shimmering shale and calcified carapace can be useful I don't really think it's needed, would just add to a bit of bloat and blood of the rhino already does a good enough job for it.
Now with this a BM's cat is just simply better than a normal hunter's cat. Makes sense.
I would say though, let them keep spirit beasts. That's just class fantasy at this point.

Now my mechanical rant is done.
It would be nice to have some general pet commands. A simple option to have a pet sit, would be fantastic. Even if you don't give a button for it, have your pet wolf sit next to you when you use the /sit emote. A falconer glove would be great for a bird to rest on your arm/shoulder or land and walk when not moving for a period of time. As wain said having them follow you on foot, if available in the pet's animation while you walk would be so cute.

I love eyes of the beast, but I'd like it to be a bit longer or refreshable at any point.

An item that lets me have bigger pets. I'm an orc main. So many cool pet's are so uncomfortably small. Have a toy that let's me choose my pet's size.
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Wain
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Re: Wishlist for Hunter Pet System Changes in 10.0

Unread post by Wain »

DannyGreen wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 8:11 pm
And here's where it's time for BIG BRAIN TIME!
Remove exotic pets.
THATS RIGHT!
Remove exotic pets as an option. And Give the important exotic pet skills to all BM pets.
I've been pushing for that for a long time too! I'll add that to the list :)
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Re: Wishlist for Hunter Pet System Changes in 10.0

Unread post by worgpower »

I always agree to remove most exotic pets from the exotic flag, i was told exotic pets are flavor to the BM spec, but the BM spec should be unique for full control of your pets, but one thing, I wish it went melee
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Re: Wishlist for Hunter Pet System Changes in 10.0

Unread post by Ana »

Full customisaition of pet specs and family. If you want a toad but for it to be cunning and in the cat family you should. Maybe only Bm?


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Re: Wishlist for Hunter Pet System Changes in 10.0

Unread post by DannyGreen »

worgpower wrote: Sat Apr 09, 2022 10:06 am exotic pets are flavor to the BM spec, but the BM spec should be unique for full control of your pets
Yer i'm always confused why BM wasn't the spec that went Melee, since y'know. Rexxar.
But the exotic flavour. It never made sense to me. Other than SB most if not all Exotic beasts are tamed by just regular npc in the wild.
Why can we tame raptors, trikes, those fin dinosaurs, crocodiles, elemental birds and snake dragons. But a scaly chicken is to much.
It seems like a good chunk of exotics, are just bugs.
Snails, isopods, worms, waterstriders, silithids and the rock spider/worms

But this is just me complaining about stuff at this point.
If they want to make them special, they could add quest lines to unlock the families. Ungoro crater for a Devilsaur. Ends with you kiting around a suped up version of thok the bloodthirsty while Maximillian of northshire is hacking away at it's ankles.
Deepholm for the shale beasts.
Firelands for corehounds etc etc etc.
That would be pretty fun imo. You could also add these skills as a bonus for some races. Mag'har orcs have rylaks auto unlocked. Zandalari have pterrodax, dark iron can have core hounds.
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Re: Wishlist for Hunter Pet System Changes in 10.0

Unread post by Maizou »

1. Exotic pets being removed. I posted in the Community Council forums a while back my thoughts - Make Spirit Beasts BM-only, but open up every other family to Survival and MM. To make BM unique, have Spirit Mend become a generic pet spell that every pet learns as a Beast Mastery hunter. This way, BM isn't shoehorned into a Spirit Beast for Survivability, and they retain a unique pet ability.

Exotic Pets have no place anymore. They made sense when all 3 specs were ranged and used pets, but all 3 specs are unique now. One is melee, one is ranged with no pets, and one is ranged with pets.

2. Pet Specs. For the love of god just let us respec pets again. It's not that complicated. Lol. There's no ferocity pets I like, but they're pretty much mandatory now.

3. I wouldn't mind seeing pet talent trees return, even if simplified like the new player talent trees.
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Re: Wishlist for Hunter Pet System Changes in 10.0

Unread post by worgpower »

I would love new talent trees to enhance your pets rather than choosing specs, maybe a talent for example to increase damage from basic abilities or effectiveness of pet abilities, there’s a lot blizzard can do to pets, but they just keep it too simple
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Re: Wishlist for Hunter Pet System Changes in 10.0

Unread post by Ele »

Make rares RARE again has been my biggest hunter pet related wish for the last couple expacs. I'm not sure if I'm in the minority here, but I actually miss the hours of camping with fellow hunters to find Loque'Nahak, Skoll, Gondria, Arcturis, etc. It was a rush when you were the one to tame that elusive beast and got to show it off in the major cities. Either that, or make more pets a challenging puzzle tame like Deth'tilac or Gara. Something interesting.
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Re: Wishlist for Hunter Pet System Changes in 10.0

Unread post by worgpower »

I wish we had more special pets these last two xpacs, it made it more boring for me to obtain hunter pets, most of the looks were too simple to get, my most special pet is the Spectral mana ray from that one quest, and the ivory cloud serpent, otherwise everything was given to us without thought, I hope some special tameable rares will appear again in the next expansion
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Re: Wishlist for Hunter Pet System Changes in 10.0

Unread post by DannyGreen »

Ele wrote: Sun Apr 10, 2022 1:05 pm Make rares RARE again Either that, or make more pets a challenging puzzle tame like Deth'tilac or Gara. Something interesting.
I'd much rather Have a challenge tame than a rare pet. Rare pets are just a case of sitting afk with rare alert on.
At least with challenge tames you have to have the skill to get it.
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Re: Wishlist for Hunter Pet System Changes in 10.0

Unread post by Talihawk »

I am with Danny on this one. I like 'unique' designs as much as the next hunter. But due to sharding finding 'rares' now days is stupid impossible unless you have friends on low pop servers. I don't particularly enjoy waiting around for hours for something to show up. I'd rather have a unique quest like Gara gave us. I want a pet to create a memory of doing something fun not just waiting around hours.
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Re: Wishlist for Hunter Pet System Changes in 10.0

Unread post by Wain »

I added a section about exotics to the OP. That's all I have time for tonight. I fly to NZ tomorrow and have yet to pack and still have to have a Covid test before I go (it has to be within 24 hours of flying so I can't do it sooner), so I'm feeling a bit jittery right now :) I'll be able to log in from NZ, so I'll still be around (though I'll have reduced access for 6 days).
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Re: Wishlist for Hunter Pet System Changes in 10.0

Unread post by Maizou »

DannyGreen wrote: Sun Apr 10, 2022 7:38 pm
Ele wrote: Sun Apr 10, 2022 1:05 pm Make rares RARE again Either that, or make more pets a challenging puzzle tame like Deth'tilac or Gara. Something interesting.
I'd much rather Have a challenge tame than a rare pet. Rare pets are just a case of sitting afk with rare alert on.
At least with challenge tames you have to have the skill to get it.
This. Rare long-respawn pets worked in the past because we were limited to just the players from *that* realm. So you had a finite amount of people you were competing with.

But nowadays with sharding, you are essentially competing with the entire game.

Did you ever try to tame something like Soundless when it was current? Once people had flying, it was pretty much GG unless you got extremely lucky in the middle of the dead of night.

I much prefer Challenge Tames, like the tracking challenges of Pandaria. Those were fun.
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Re: Wishlist for Hunter Pet System Changes in 10.0

Unread post by Tsukina »

I only have 2 wishes, that they make all the beasts of x families tameable (I'm tired of seeing untameable wolves, or hydras and other things) especially in the animals in the expeditions.

And second, that ALL animals retain their "base" name when tamed, I mean, if a bear is called "Raging Roughskin" when tamed it is also called "Raging Roughskin" and not "Bear".

extra wishes. You don't need to be lvl 35 to tame spirit beasts, and the effect of the tame featherneck and mechapet book is the same as the tame undead or blood beast. At account level.
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