Mmk, I'm here to report in on my undead pet theme.
I had one of these pets in my stables already, the diseased wolf, and so I'll honor him by doing his report first. ^_^
Meet Rotface.
Rotface is another of Venjin's buddies that she's had through WotLK. As we all know, wolf's were THE pet to bring for PvE content in Wrath and I figured if I HAD to have a wolf, I would try to get one that wasn't as commonly seen on my server. The coyote style wolves have typically been my favorites and I have some sort of weird fascination for the diseased pets so I went out to Western Plaguelands to tame me one of these guys.
Even made a story for him
here. >_>
To anyone with a weak stomach, the diseased pets can be a little gross to look at.
Their flesh is stripped away in many places, their ribs (and to some extent, organs) are showing...they basically look like they should be dead. The claws are a little low res as well but it doesn't bother me.
They also have some weird breaks in their fur going on that looks a little cheesy, but I still love my Rotface anyway!
The animations of the coyote style wolves is one of the things that's always drawn me to them. I love that they sit and scratch themselves, snuffle the ground, and howl. Very cute. They have pretty basic fight animations, nothing fancy. They're pretty quiet little guys too. Every now and then, their howl animation makes a howl noise too and their combat noises aren't overbearing.
The new wolf buff is a great all around buff as well. Crit benefits everyone so if you have all buffs covered that you need in a group, I'd recommend keeping one of these guys around.
Next is Fester the bear (tried to name him UncleFester but it was reserved.
).
The diseased models of bear are actually about the only bear models I can tolerate because the hair-lip issue they have isn't as noticeable. I have a black one named Festergut (I have a green snake named Putricide as well, but I digress).
Going to tame one of these grey guys actually kind of made me sick, and it's not even the diseased parts that bother me. It was that nasty, disgusting egg-sack they carry on their backs. *shudders*
I actually spent the whole tame making this face in real life: >:[
Anyway, thankfully that creepy mess doesn't stay after the tame (even with the trick tame it goes away). Bears are one of those pets that I have a love hate relationship with. They're kind of cute, and their debuff is good, but gosh do their models, in my opinion, have so many issues. As I mentioned before, they have this goofy lip effect that splits up the middle of their face to their nose and is pulled back in a funny way to make the bears "snarl." I also can't get over how their shoulders slope too low making their butts look huge.
As you can see in the above screenshot, they also seem to have a problem with their wrists; they don't bend right or something. Really weird. O_o
Also, when using rest, their front left leg hangs in a really awkward position.
As for the skin itself, it looks a lot bloodier than my black bear, but maybe that's because I've never studied Festergut's skin the way I've been studying Fester Jr's skin.
It's not a bad skin design, but I think I still like my black diseased bear better.
As for animations, another love/hate by me. I dislike the way they run. It looks bumbly, which makes me think of Whinnie the Pooh, and I dislike Winnie the Pooh. XD
I do like their combat animations, however, although that's probably because they share them with bear druids.
Of course, being in BM spec, this guy tanked like a pro. Demo roar is a pretty nifty ability, especially against any melee, and it also gives them some AoE threat, much like warriors and bear druids. Speaking of which, if you have a warrior tank or druid tank, you won't need this debuff as I'm pretty sure they'll be using it (unless they're going against casters). I know for sure bear druids use it, not sure about warriors. If you don't mind the loss of CC, you could take this guy into PvP as well, just be careful of fellow teammate's CC as I'm not sure whether Demo Roar would break it.
Next is Franknfurter, the undead swine!
Boars. *sigh* I want to tame one and love one sooooo bad...but I just can't get over how useless their debuff feels. Anyway, on to looks. In a different thread someone argued against the skeletal raptors becoming tamable because of their soulless eyes, while I think that's an interesting point, and I respect their opinion, I'd like to counter it with the fact that two of the pets I've tamed today have blank, soulless eyes, Franknfurter included.
I actually think it gives these guys a sort of charm. I never thought I would like this skin, but I'm actually pretty impressed with him. The base skin color is really nice, a very pretty shade of gray. Their face is pretty much exposed skeleton and their ribs show as well. I think the worst things about these guys is their low res, sort of two-d looking mane. The hair on the tip of their tail and down by their hooves looks this way as well.
With that said, pigs have the most ADORABLE animations.
I squee on the inside when I see them do their little butt wiggle. They're always so happy and energetic; I love it! They look cute when they fight too, lunging at things with their tusks.
Which now brings me back to my earlier statement of disliking their debuff. My main huntress would totally sport a wee little piggy if I didn't feel that 30% increase to bleed damage didn't feel so useless. I almost never run with rogues, and I believe feral druids and arms warriors supply their own bleed increase (dunno if they stack, and dunno if rogues provide their own bleed increase debuff). These guys would bring a teeny tiny benefit to a MM hunter, but if you really need to provide this debuff, a hyena's a way better way to go about it as they're ferocity (if you're into min-maxing). I could see *maybe* bringing these guys to PvP if you're running with a bleed heavy group and want a sturdy pet, otherwise, they're really just pets to have for looks, in my opinion.
And lastly, Tony the undead hawk.
First, I'll explain Tony's name a bit. When I first showed my boyfriend this pet, he said "that looks like the symbol Tony Hawk uses." I forgot about it and asked him what I should name this guy, and he reminded me of our discussion. And thus is how Tony earned his name. =P
Secondly, these guys (as of right now) are only obtainable through a quest in WPL (I still have the quest should anyone want one of these guys before 4.0.6). There's one pre-quest to it to kill 20 diseased animals; nothing real hard.
On to looks. I was surprised to find myself pretty impressed with this guy looks wise. The model is actually really well done and looks to be in decent quality.
His vertebrae sticking out of his back made me go "O_o" at first, but doesn't creep me out enough that I wouldn't tame this guy. Like I said, it's a pretty solid looking model with some really nice touches on it. His face and feet have no skin on them. What feathers he does have are a neat greyish-brown color and he has bandages wrapped around his body (to hold it together I guess).
These guy have animations pretty standard to the bird families. They flap in place (next to your shoulder thankfully and not by your feet), they fight with their beaks and claws. The noises they make are pretty cool, very fitting to an undead bird I think. Also, they do perform trick! ^_^