Underused pets, and what should be done to help them

[Highdeath]

Ok so we all know there r some useless pet classes out there, rhinos, crockalisks, dogs to some exstent, and what i wanna know is what u guys think we could change to make them more popular, because alot of the time all i see are cats wolfs and spiders

(pls pardon my spelling, i truly am awful at it)

[Vephriel]

I do think that Rhinos could use a more beneficial ability than what they have now. Crocolisks, though, I adore. ^^ Their slow really comes in handy for PvP sometimes. Not a huge fan of the Dog's ability, but that doesn't stop me from using them as Ferocity pets regardless. Seeing something new and more useful on them could be good however.

[Highdeath]

I just got this idea from MY dog, but perhaps dogs could have a long range stun via Barking, it could have a 30sec cooldown and stun for 3sec and be useable from 30yrds away, that would be FANTASTIC for pvp

[Kayb]

Netherrays and Sporebats desperately need all new abilities.

[GormanGhaste]

I just got this idea from MY dog, but perhaps dogs could have a long range stun via Barking, it could have a 30sec cooldown and stun for 3sec and be useable from 30yrds away, that would be FANTASTIC for pvp

Bolt, Speak!

[Monica Gems]

I just got this idea from MY dog, but perhaps dogs could have a long range stun via Barking, it could have a 30sec cooldown and stun for 3sec and be useable from 30yrds away, that would be FANTASTIC for pvp

Bolt, Speak!

Glad I wasn't the only one who thought that.

[Novikova]

Well. I wish that the interrupt pets didn't have such long cooldowns even with talents. Rhinos... I miss the aoe knockback so much. Bowling for Blood Elves was one of my favorite things in WSG. >_>

[Tsuki]

Netherrays and Sporebats desperately need all new abilities.

Turn the Sporebat's ability into a reduce attack speed/casting time for 10 seconds by 30% on single target, or even make it cause 15% more damage on damage over time spells or some such.
Netherrays have a somewhat decent ability, they just need to learn how to use it properly... and perhaps decrease the cooldown.

[Cerele]

Crocs under used?
Your joking right? they have a very nice slow, and its almost continuous, it is if you are BM. The warp stalkers is ranged, but has a longer cooldown.
Rhinos arent under used either, they are ::okay:: pets that might need an ability change but more often than not youll need it.
Dogs are just bad, their ability is crap compaired to the spider's and their models are... ick
The bark doesnt make sense because it would funnel out to everything in front of the dog, the echo that is by bats is more focused naturally.
i think they should still be wolves, not to mention how over used they are.

[Skeeter]

In my perfect little world of pet customizing, every pet would have 3 talent trees: Tenacity, Cunning, Ferocity, and like player talent trees, your first point locks thats you into that tree.

Then Pet Trainers can teach your pet a single ability: Slow, Snare, Crit Buff, Agi/Str Buff, AS Slow, Cast Slow, +Bleed DMG, Stun, Disarm, +Magic DMG, +Physical DMG, Interrupt, Shield Wall

Pet Trainers could also teach BM Hunter's pets an additional ability from this category: Kings, Regrowth, -Healing, Fortitude, Channeled AOE

Thats in my perfect world, where i can use a single pet, for everything, I WANT A FREAKIN DPS BEAR AND A BEAR WITH SHIELD WALL!

[Kurasu]

Thats in my perfect world, where i can use a single pet, for everything

This would drive me nuts. Seriously. If you could use a single pet for everything, there'd be no need for 25 stable slots, and I *like* collecting and customizing my stable up. We got so many slots because Blizzard made each pet have their own ability and flexibility. And frankly, I *love* it. It means we might even have a chance at more slots later by making an impassioned plea that there's not enough slots for the necessarily raid flexibility (there is ATM... but only barely; hint hint).

I do have to admit, I wish that the dog (and crab for that matter) ability wasn't a channeled pin. It has too long a CD, and doesn't last long enough. It takes the pet completely out of the fight for however long it takes to channel it, and if you happen to use your Kill Attack, that breaks the channel rather than the pet just 'not doing it', thus wasting it. Honestly, Crabs and Dogs are both underused because their ability is badly designed. I say, have it be an up-close one, maybe lasting a similar or shorter amount of time, but not having to be channeled. Or alternatively, have them use the root and then disengage automatically, reacting the way they would in a CC situation; if they attack again, it breaks the root. It could at least be useful in PvE situations then as a CC as well as in PvP situations.

[Andine]

Worms. Oh my god, I don't remember when I have last seen a hunter with a worm. Do they still drop aggro on burrow?

[Worba]

Yes they do, and without the aggro drop there was no reason to use anything else for tenacity... but they also have acid spit, so I think their lack of popularity is probably somewhat more about aesthetics - I use one on my male NE.

But they could fix that quite easily by making tunnelers tamable (especially if they made the lava version tamable - although that should probably be limited to a single rare a la Karoma, else you'd see nothing but)..

Pet respecs. I'll repeat my suggestion from another thread - allow pets to respec but with the following limitations according to body type - medium for ferocity and cunning, and heavy for tenacity. After all it's an uphill battle trying to get into a pet whose skills are quite obviously designed for a different play style than you prefer:

Medium - cannot learn thunderstomp
Heavy - cannot learn dash / dive

This keeps some minimal connection between basic body type and function, just to avoid the most absurd combinations like a dashing turtle et al, but otherwise means PVE'ers are no longer walled off from (most) cunning pets and PVP'ers are no longer walled off from (most) ferocity and tenacity. Note I said "most" - ofc there's exceptions like crabs & dogs (PVP), but to a large extent that's how it goes.

Rhinos. Outside of support classes, I'm pretty much categorically opposed to the idea of spells that enhance others but ~not~ yourself, so stampede's effects need to be replaced imo - I can live with horn as single target knockback (like most I miss the AOE knockback but it's probably OP...), but not the useless bleed boost. That's fine for hyenas - MM can benefit there - but not for rhinos. Instead I'd prefer an AOE movement slow (caused by the rhino's earth shaking and general jostling, but with a longer CD than ankle crack, e.g. some timing is required) - they are exotics, time to make them feel that way.

Crocs as others have mentioned are plenty useful; my thing about them is that they and warp stalkers are now very very similar both in looks and ability.

For warp stalkers a cosmetic improvement would be to reinstate their teleport as bonus ability that simply makes their charge use the 'port animation. And to differentiate them from crocs, warpstalkers could reduce enemy attack speed instead of movement speed?

On similar lines give devilsaurs a bonus skill that reinstates their old signature ability somewhat - Monstrous growth, procs off monstrous bite, causes small size increase (outdoors only), stacks up to 3 times, and does combine with growth from BW. Currently they just look like awkward raptors, and their fight animations are designed more vs smaller enemies so without monstrous growth they look like they've got a thing for attacking people's ankles...

And give spirit beasts a bonus ability that causes their old moonfire visual to proc on crit (again we're just talking visuals here...)

[CrystalKitten]

<.< I love my Squiggles.... I use him as often as my random pet cycling allows! heh, and will sometimes pull him out specifically. I agree that the debuff is nice, and while he is a ferocity pet, he makes a good choice to bring along when running guildies through regs to gear up (especially if the one gearing up is the tank) as you can give him all the dps talents.. but he'll still be pretty tanky. At least... That's how I have Squiggles speced, heh. Not to mention the aoe, assuming you don't have a tank dragging the packs of trash all over the place.

But then, I have a feeling I'm one of those that tends to love some of the pets which are considered "unloved" ... <.< All the Ghostcrawler hate I see sometimes makes me go cuddle up with Sparkles, and now there's people hating on poor Squiggles. I luff mah fluffy black worm!

I will say that some pets seem to be pretty useless as far as their abilities go, but I'll still use whatever I like, at least for soloing. For me.. It's more likely to be the model/animation quality that'll put me off (gaping broken mouths, the poor stick thin worgs...)

[Lisaara]

Worms. Oh my god, I don't remember when I have last seen a hunter with a worm. Do they still drop aggro on burrow?

I see worms all over the place. They're pretty popular for tenacity pets.

[ummeiko]

I think the pets with the "increased bleed damage" debuffs need some changing, because it's not an attractive debuff to a hunter aside from marks, who are still going to favor the buffs like agi, crit, or armor reduction. It seems to me that if you have a class that could benefit from it, they already bring the debuff themselves. Especially Rhinos being exotic when BM doesn't bring a bleed at all (plus they're tenacity so they won't be brought for dps, and if a pet is tanking in groups, it's probably a turtle).

In general, I get the idea of having pets bring some buffs that the raid may be missing, but aside from some of the exotic abilities like fort, most classes that need a buff/debuff are going to bring it themselves. Even in a 10 man raid, you can cover most anything you need now that buffs/debuffs are shared by 2-3 classes/specs.

So the hunters are most likely to bring pets that a) do the best dps, b) give the buffs the hunter wants for him/herself, or c) they've had the longest. Cats and wolves cover a and b pretty well, and spirit beasts can fall into that category now too although bm isn't a top raid spec. And because cats/wolves have been top pets a number of times in the past, they're more likely to fall into category c.

At least that's how I see it for pve grouping. Pvp is different, although there are still a handful of families that don't really go into either. Soloing is kinda any man's game, but at least on my server, people tend to solo with whatever dps pet they pve with anyway, or tank with a turtle. Some spiders because they're still a bit new and shiny.

[dragonaa]

personally i think we need a ferocity pet with the ravager/worm debuff my raid group has no1 that can do this buff and i dont do ravagers a fox or a talstrider would best imo i would love that

[Andine]

I see worms all over the place. They're pretty popular for tenacity pets.

Ironically enough, I started seeing hunters with worms soon after I posted that.

[Sesamee]

I really wish they'd show wolves some love. Along with cats they are one of the most useful pets and a hunter running around with a wolf at her side is just meant to be! The vanilla models look two dimensional, the worgs look stiff like they have a neck brace on. The Saber Worgs are my favorite and I like that they look lean and mean but maybe could they fix them so they don't look like they're starving or their bellies are pinched in with pain?

And Bats! Bats could be so completely awesome but their models are just awful. They desperately need an upgrade!

Oh and the hunch cats! They stare at the ground 24/7 and look hunched over in pain! The only hunch cat I have is Skarr and even his stance is starting to annoy me. I just can't stand the constant staring at the ground, same with the Worgs. Fix please, Blizz!

[Ceibhfhion]

I think the pets with the "increased bleed damage" debuffs need some changing, because it's not an attractive debuff to a hunter aside from marks, who are still going to favor the buffs like agi, crit, or armor reduction. It seems to me that if you have a class that could benefit from it, they already bring the debuff themselves. Especially Rhinos being exotic when BM doesn't bring a bleed at all (plus they're tenacity so they won't be brought for dps, and if a pet is tanking in groups, it's probably a turtle).

In general, I get the idea of having pets bring some buffs that the raid may be missing, but aside from some of the exotic abilities like fort, most classes that need a buff/debuff are going to bring it themselves. Even in a 10 man raid, you can cover most anything you need now that buffs/debuffs are shared by 2-3 classes/specs.

So the hunters are most likely to bring pets that a) do the best dps, b) give the buffs the hunter wants for him/herself, or c) they've had the longest. Cats and wolves cover a and b pretty well, and spirit beasts can fall into that category now too although bm isn't a top raid spec. And because cats/wolves have been top pets a number of times in the past, they're more likely to fall into category c.

At least that's how I see it for pve grouping. .

You must get into really well balanced raids all the time, because for the most part, I raid with a ravager, raptor, hyena or dragonhawk because they're rarely every covered, ravager and/or hyena always being the most requested. I could understand a 25 man raid allowing the hunter to just bring whatever, but in 10s, that increased bleed effect is often crucial.