I'm sorry, but I'm tired of unique rares

[PorrasouxRex]

Remember back in the old days of Wotlk, when we were exploring Sholazar for the three rares? Remember the fun we had back then, being a hunter and searching for these beauties in the forests of the basin? Well, ever since Arcturis showed up, most of our hunter rares are in one area. Sure, you may be saying "But what about Sambas and Karoma?" those both can be easily scouted by only running up and down the side of the Highlands one spawns in. That isn't exactly what I call "Hunting" Now, rares for a long time have been for the hunter community, and open for other classes to kill it. With this new patch, rares for hunters are given unique abilities that make taming them a challange, which is fine and all...but they are so close to the other quest areas, they are more open for harassment then rare hunter pets ever were. Skitterflame and the Yellow Spider challange are both rares that already have a common skin, just that they have a challange. This should work for other rares that are not spirit beasts, because for a long time Blizzard has been adding new old skins that are in the database rare, other then the ice cats whom they just swapped skins around with the other cats.

What I'm trying to get is this: What ever happened to hunters hunting their prey in the wild instead of waiting alongside four other hunters in one spot? that is NOT hunting, that's camping and seeing who is going to get an aggro advantage first. Second, why is it that everytime Blizzard works on something shiny, we have to keep wasting hours of our lives waiting for these beautiful gifts to spawn, only to be killed or tamed right infront of our eyes? Then we have to wait EVEN MORE. Sure, you don't HAVE to tame them. But honestly, would you turn down something like Terrorpene or Skoll? Since we are taking the next step with rares having challanges, why can't the new skins be common, instead of giving the excuse that "there is only one of it's kind" Now, in Loque's case I understand, but do you think there will only be one Skoll, only one ghost saberworg that connected with the lightning elements around him in Storm Peaks? Or that there is only one kind of Spirit Beast that died from all the other beasts in the area? If you don't like that arguement, then give Spirit Beasts the "Hunting" element back, instead of trying to make us all against each other? Give new skins a common form again, but for those who like challanges, give them something to hunt for.

Now, perhaps you're a rare hunter. You only get rare beasts because they're shiny and you show off to your hunter friends. Then Blizzard could put in a title, a mini-pet, an achievement, a mount, anything that you can get that will make you stand out. With rares being so common with hunters wondering around the cities, if you successfully complete a number of challanges from a number of rares, then it won't be so common. In fact, the rares you tame should have something unique added to them. Not a skin, not a boss icon, not a combat bonus. But something it does, or maybe it's size will be different. You never know.

Noah, you've done a fantastic job for the hunter community here, but at the same time consider that not every hunter wants to waste hours of his/her life for something that gets stolen or killed from them. Not every hunter has such time on their hands. It's one thing to feel the thrill of finding the rare, it's another to feel broken because all that hard work and patience gone down the drain because of some jerk. And they don't even get punished for their actions when that player just randomly appears and takes away what YOU waited for. I waited 15 hours yesterday when the patch went live for Ban'Thalos, waiting on the tip of that tree. Then a human mage appears and dies several times after he breaks my freeze trap and kills me as well, reseting Ban until he calls his other guildies. I then try and use the mage when he pulls him down to steal it when it's on the ground, only to have some Draenei come on her Paladin and NEARLY kills him before dying herself, before logging on her DK and successfully kills him when I keep spamming tame beast and distracting shot, and when he's dead infront of me she has the nerve to hug me. I log on an alliance alt and demand to know what the hell that was all about. She replies "He's part of an achievement" I reply "You moron, link to me what achievement he's from." She replies "Well atleast we stopped a tauren from taming him." Then she tells me to talk to that mage from the start. I ask "What gives you the right, when I clearly had him?" He replies "Don't cry to me, I don't F- care." Do you think every hunter enjoys that? Do you think we hunters enjoy being marked by the community like that to kill any rare they find before a hunter gets it?

[Novikova]

On one hand, I can definitely see where you're coming from. Camping sucks sometimes as does having a rare killed in front of/beneath you. I help friends camp so we can prevent griefers, etc. I'd still rather chew my leg off than camp but dammit, if I want a chance at a pet odds are good I have to go camp. I've met some good peeps while camping and I'm quite happy for it.

On the other, I don't know how likely it will be that a common skin for each rare will be added. I really would like to protect rares during tames or even from random morons, but alas. Some people will argue their right to kill it, regardless on what it drops - which I think is kind of horrible but technically it is true.

[Kurenio]

On one hand, I can definitely see where you're coming from. Camping sucks sometimes as does having a rare killed in front of/beneath you. I help friends camp so we can prevent griefers, etc. I'd still rather chew my leg off than camp but dammit, if I want a chance at a pet odds are good I have to go camp. I've met some good peeps while camping and I'm quite happy for it.

On the other, I don't know how likely it will be that a common skin for each rare will be added. I really would like to protect rares during tames or even from random morons, but alas. Some people will argue their right to kill it, regardless on what it drops - which I think is kind of horrible but technically it is true.

Pretty much this...

but I reserve the right to camp any prick who griefs a hunter in the middle of a tame...

[Shade]

On one hand, I can definitely see where you're coming from. Camping sucks sometimes as does having a rare killed in front of/beneath you. I help friends camp so we can prevent griefers, etc. I'd still rather chew my leg off than camp but dammit, if I want a chance at a pet odds are good I have to go camp. I've met some good peeps while camping and I'm quite happy for it.

On the other, I don't know how likely it will be that a common skin for each rare will be added. I really would like to protect rares during tames or even from random morons, but alas. Some people will argue their right to kill it, regardless on what it drops - which I think is kind of horrible but technically it is true.

Pretty much this...

but I reserve the right to camp any prick who griefs a hunter in the middle of a tame...

Both that. ^

What I would like to see is something like a quest. Rares that can be obtained only while in some hard to get quest or such. Make it like an item drop from a boss starts a rare quest for each class. For hunters have that item lead to some elaborate hunting quest-like some new fantastic rare beast spawns-anywhere in the game-and is phased so only you can get him-you can then tame or kill him. Kinda like the rare critters in Pokemon that spawn randomly in different areas and you have to hunt them down. But phased, so its not you against whomever sees your spawn and decides to grief you.

I would love to see rare spawns be something like that-you have to do something before you yourself can see them, but it is a hard to get quest or such.

*shrug*

[Kurenio]

Both that. ^

What I would like to see is something like a quest. Rares that can be obtained only while in some hard to get quest or such. Make it like an item drop from a boss starts a rare quest for each class. For hunters have that item lead to some elaborate hunting quest-like some new fantastic rare beast spawns-anywhere in the game-and is phased so only you can get him-you can then tame or kill him. Kinda like the rare critters in Pokemon that spawn randomly in different areas and you have to hunt them down. But phased, so its not you against whomever sees your spawn and decides to grief you.

I would love to see rare spawns be something like that-you have to do something before you yourself can see them, but it is a hard to get quest or such.

*shrug*

Two reason this won't happen.

1. If would force hunters that want the pet to raid. So it would be a raid only pet which blizzard would avoid.
2. Blizzard has shied away from class specific quests so they wouldn't do a quest for it either.

[Novikova]

I think the only reason that Chromaggus became tamable is because BWL was retro content.

And yeah, hunter rare quest thingy would rock but it's not too likely. :/ I kinda hope they give more rares Nerfbat-like abilities or one shot people.

[Sasrei]

I do think it would be neat to maybe add something like maybe an item you have ot use in order to tame the beast, or a certain thing that you have to do but the rare is so out of the way, that noone is.. say in a quest hub waiting on 7 rares to spawn, but in a desolate area that only hunter would be insane enough to be there. But then again it would just be purely camping again, unless it hard a short respawn timer but how short should it be until its not really considered rare anymore? Or a thrill to find?

Maybe making them green and not attackable unless you do a certain hunterly thing, and once you do it you become phased maybe? Then youll always have those people saying we get special treament cause we get cool and unique pets they cant kill for 25g.. Anyone who kills a rare in the middle of a tame is the biggest douchebag ever, and sadly there are alot of ignorant people. But alot of ignorant people are hunters to, which makes its extremely difficult for Noah trying to figure out how to work this. If the rare cant be DS'd that be nice but if someone can break your trap your dead. And if you cant DS it off some douche trying to kill it, is that a fair trade? Theres alot of things and variables to work out in order to make it work.


But unique rares are.. just that unique and somewhat rare. Even though everyone has it, you know what it is. People enjoy the thrill of the rare, camping is just hunting.. waiting for the prey. Alot of the time its right place/right time which makes it fun.. but it's also fun when you get rewarded after alot of heart ache and time wasted to finally get the rare you want.

Yeah these guys spawn in one spot area but they all make sense.

Banny has that druid vibe thing going so hes sticking to Malorne. The cats go all up and down the regrowth. Skarr and karkin.. really dont have a choice, they are stuck on a rock Anny is trying to become one with the universe while trying to hide in broad daylight. Deth thinks she all clever behind the forlorn spire (we see you) Skitterflame needs lava to srurvive. and solix he gets tired chasing people so he relaxes in a bath for awhile. Kirisx is kinda trapped fire on all sides.. and hes afraid of heights to jump down.

10 rares in two heavily quested areas.. to me thats more of a challenge then actually taming the darn thing

[Monica Gems]

Have to say, I am as well.

"Cool, a green devilsaur!" lolrare.
"Ok... how about the green shale spider?" lolrare too.
"Whatever, I'll just get the white/yellow parrot." lolrare in a dungeon.
"Ok fine! I'll just the gem cat they finally made tameable after 2 versions were already put in the game. Wait, why are you looking at me like that? FFFFFUUUUUUU--"

[GormanGhaste]

I know I could care less whether or not my hunter pet is a rare. Certainly, it's less painful when rares are in less popular areas. I'm just glad they added Ghostcrawler as a Spirit Beast, because even though he is a rare, with his nerfbat and out-of-the-way location, it's not a difficult tame.

But other than Spirit Beasts, if you really dislike the camping and the griefing, tame a non-rare. There are hundreds of looks out there, and only 37 unique rares.

Or just wait for the craziness to die down. I've never camped for any of my rares.

[Tankperson]

On one hand, I can definitely see where you're coming from. Camping sucks sometimes as does having a rare killed in front of/beneath you. I help friends camp so we can prevent griefers, etc. I'd still rather chew my leg off than camp but dammit, if I want a chance at a pet odds are good I have to go camp. I've met some good peeps while camping and I'm quite happy for it.

On the other, I don't know how likely it will be that a common skin for each rare will be added. I really would like to protect rares during tames or even from random morons, but alas. Some people will argue their right to kill it, regardless on what it drops - which I think is kind of horrible but technically it is true.

Pretty much this...

but I reserve the right to camp any prick who griefs a hunter in the middle of a tame...

Both that. ^

What I would like to see is something like a quest. Rares that can be obtained only while in some hard to get quest or such. Make it like an item drop from a boss starts a rare quest for each class. For hunters have that item lead to some elaborate hunting quest-like some new fantastic rare beast spawns-anywhere in the game-and is phased so only you can get him-you can then tame or kill him. Kinda like the rare critters in Pokemon that spawn randomly in different areas and you have to hunt them down. But phased, so its not you against whomever sees your spawn and decides to grief you.

I would love to see rare spawns be something like that-you have to do something before you yourself can see them, but it is a hard to get quest or such.

*shrug*

How aobut instead of the item dropping off in a raid boss what if it was a random drop in a zone. LIke the JC trinket quests that drop in the cata zones now it would only drop off for hunters and place them phased zone. You have to go around and gather up items off from beast for example:

to unlock and tame Sambas,
Broken Tooth BOP this item starts a question.

"you find within the corpse of this creature a large larger then normal tooth still suck in the side, what ever bit this creature was large and very hungry." Take the tooth to Alliance/Horde Hunter trainer who then says something along this line "What do you have there?" you show the tooth "can it really be? I've heard rumors of such a creature a pride king like no other named Sambas. Legends state that you can only summon him when something is done" So he sends you off to kill elk like 100 before 5-10 peices of their meat speical will drop something from the owls and maybe the gryphons then it will send you to a peek area that once you enter you are phased. You can complete the quest one of two ways 1. Kill him and gain a great prize say an Ilvl 333 cloak or 2. You tame the creature and get some gold when you return to the trainer to show your prize.

The great thing about this is then only 1 hunter a time would have access to the beast but you would have to farm like crazy to get the item to drop.

[Caanin]

Take away static spawn spots. I think if it would be cool if they placed only 1 or 2 rares in any zone and they shouldn't spawn in any particular spot!!! Perhaps they start putting all empty zones to good use by adding rare pet quests? My idea, and I'm brainstorming as I'm writing this, kinda ties into the old hunter starter quests, back in old wow when you didn't get your pet until level 10. Perhaps a hunter like Nesingwary sends you on these grand hunts and instead of a stagnant spawn spot, you actually track the beast within that zone through random spawning clues, like paw prints or freshly killed prey, this can be implemented similiar to the way the archeology dig sites are generated and they randomize so that it can pop up anywhere within a zone. Eventually it culminates with you tracking the beast down in a random area at which time the rare beast spawns and you can either attempt to kill this rare or tame it. Blizzard can keep the strategic taming part for these rares and since anyone can do the quests, they can tie an achievement to it, perhaps with a title and a mini-pet as rewards, and you would earn this achievement either by taming the rare or killing it. Since it is randomly generated there is little chance someone would gank your rare since they can spawn there own and the achievement is phased so ganking yours wouldn't help them. I always liked the way that Echeyakee was a spawned rare pet.

Just some thoughts, heck they could put a high level rare beast in old low level zones like Westfall, Desolace or Azshara which are hardly used at all, since they are spawned technically they wouldn't be a detriment to the zone level.

[Wain]

If I understood your thesis correctly you seem to have two different (although intertwined) issues here: (i) people can grief kill your tame while you're taming it and (ii) you feel you have to camp to get any of the new skins because they're rare.

For point (i) I'm still optimistic they'll find ways to address this. I suspect (but do not know for absolute certain) they already are. I certainly don't believe they like the fact you can have a rare tame killed from under you.

For point (ii) I'm not quite as sympathetic. I think there's a good balance between common and rare appearances in the game and I believe the game is more interesting with some that are just rare. There were many *really* beautiful skins added to common beasts at the start of Cataclysm. While it's a matter of personal taste, I believe for the most part that the common appearances are no less awesome-looking than the rares, they're just not considered as desirable because they are common. With 4.2, for example, I suspect if the red fire spider had been made rare, and the purple ones were everywhere in Firelands, then you'd see masses of campers waiting to tame the red one and you'd see very few hunters with purple ones after the first week or so. Yet the very pretty red skin is available easily for anyone who wants it. But if you feel you absolutely must have the rarest of new shiny colours and you must have it at patch release, to the point of camping it alongside a bunch of others, then I believe you have to accept the risk of short-term disappointment. There are so many other beautiful skins you could have had instead.

[Ijomi]

I agree with Wain on the first point. I've got every faith Blizzard is trying to outfox tame griefers the way they've outfoxed griefers who kite world bosses to cities. But it has got to be complicated, because if there's a way to abuse it, it'll be abused. Still, I definitely understand your frustration. A lot of skins or colors I like turn out to be a rare of some sort, meaning a camp or settling for a pet that doesn't quite click, and the latter is something I just don't do. Keep the bragging rights, I want a buddy I squee at every time I look at him/her. Make a million of my rares "common", it isn't the rare status that matters to me.

As for the second point....I think I'm on the fence. I do wish they would update some common models on the old-world lions, for example. Like the Goblin and Worgen models, skins like Sambas painfully accent the fact that a lot of pet models have not aged well at all. I love Echeeyakee's beautiful blue eyes, but the pixelated mane and sugar-dipped whiskers just throw me every time. :/

Also, camps for a certain color like the Madexxes....well, Pent is my argument for a better system there. He deserves a green, dammit.

[Sasrei]

I have been thinking about a few things to

I like the whole idea or something being out of place and dropped. But I do know people will complain we get special unique things, so why not add some non tameable rares that drop never then average loot and make the tameable rares only accessible to hunters. Perhaps a unique item is needed to make the rare tameable, I like the idea of it maybe dropping off of a rare (short respawn) perhaps something like.. I dont know a locket you can take off the mob, you can either npc sell for a 100g or once the rare spawns you give it to that rare to make him tameable, phasing you and that rare. That way everyone gets what they want.

I also think it would be nice to place them in old world zones that arent highly populated but then comes the issue of, well do they go that level of the area or should they be lvl 85? If they are green and need a special way to tame them, then you dont have to worry about people getting killed by them or people killing them. And should it just be items that change the npc to tameable or is there something more hunter specific? Maybe making a special tame beast that makes them accessible to you to even start attempting them? Like a quest line to tame these special spirit bonded creatures (that dont have to be spirit beasts and bm spec isnt needed)? Say if Deth was a green mob, but once you get this special aura.. or.. tame beast button, the mob turns onto its taming mechanics and you'll go into a phase with the mob.

And what if tame beast channeled in a way that you and the mob can not be attacked but once the taming is complete/mob kills you/mob interrupts you you have a cooldown to tame beast again. That would prevent people from just holding a mob forever but also prevent people from killing it on you.. or heck even you (on pvp servers).