Shadowlands Alpha/Beta Beast Thread

[Valnaaros]

So, just to recap:
- Clefthooves are missing their exotic ability on beta
- All pet families that have a purge/dispel ability are going to become redundant because hunters will be able to do it anyway.

Is that correct? If so, what ability, that is on a par with the other non-exotic abilities, might be given to replace it? The list is of existing ability types is here:
https://www.wow-petopia.com/abilities.php
What stands out as missing?

In a recent blue post, Blizz stated that all pet families that had a purge will be getting them back. Their removal was due to a bug, not something intentional on Blizz's part.

[Valnaaros]

The blue gorm with a modified head has been found.

[DannyGreen]

Shadowlands has a variety of pets that won’t be exotic, I know many pets that are super cool are exotic, but we got new beasts that are eye catching but usable on survival, a tauralus is awesome, I’ve never seen anything in wow with 2 tails, and I have made a SV hunter to keep an undead theme, it sucks i can’t tame exotics, but I’ll be happy to tame what I can since shadowlands opens up for undead hunters, and all hunters alike, but I understand how you feel, and SL has the best hunter pets in my opinion

I don't even care about the exotic side of things, I'm talking more about the pet specs.
A elephant is cool as hell, and a goat is awesome to add to my team.
But unless they are ferocity they are pretty useless to me.
That 10% leech and free Bloodlust makes them simply, better in every way to most other pets.
The only thing I will probably do is bring a cunning for when i need to run slightly faster through old raids.

I'm not saying I don't like some of the new models. I REALLY want a goat. But I'm intentionally nerfing myself in order to run with it.

This is a pet topic so I won't get into the SV state. But without my ferocity bonus I would have never managed to do as much as I have.

[Wain]

In a recent blue post, Blizz stated that all pet families that had a purge will be getting them back. Their removal was due to a bug, not something intentional on Blizz's part.

But do we need two purges? Is it going to make them unwanted?

[WerebearGuy]

It's a sad truth how Ferocity is basically the best pet type. Other than Spirit Beasts in Tenacity, no pet is as viable as any pet that is in the Ferocity spec. Tenacity is alright, but clearly inferior to Ferocity's sheer viability. Especially in Mythic+ and raids; leech with tons of enemies clumped together makes for a very fast and consistent heal. Reduced damage and extra health from Tenacity pets is fine, and it might be just the thing that'd push your progression a bit easier, but when progression isn't a problem and you just need a quick solution to a nearly non-existent issue, Ferocity is the correct pet. Cunning suffers horribly from being nearly useless however. As Danny said, the run speed is nice when doing old content. Unfortunately, that's all they're useful for. Unless you don't care about the group, Cunning tends to be the incorrect choice. Not a questionable choice, not a less viable choice, but a genuinely incorrect one. You might as well just be playing Lone Wolf Marksman at that point. Cunning provides absolutely nothing aside from a small speed boost. Because of the lack of utility outside of very niche shenanigans, Cunning provides less than nothing.

I too have Cunning pets I love, especially my tiny Un'Goro pterrordax, but I just can't use them outside of animal companion or mount farming. It's unfortunate that you have to essentially play incorrectly to use any pet of your choice if it's the 1/3 that's not Ferocity or Tenacity, and it's something that needs to be changed. Sadly, it feels too late for it to be given a proper look, so here's hoping next expansion can find a way to fix them. Or, we could just get pet respec back. Literally nobody would complain for that to return.

[Valnaaros]

In a recent blue post, Blizz stated that all pet families that had a purge will be getting them back. Their removal was due to a bug, not something intentional on Blizz's part.

But do we need two purges? Is it going to make them unwanted?

Depending on the encounter, it could be fairly useful to have two purges.

[worgpower]

It's a sad truth how Ferocity is basically the best pet type. Other than Spirit Beasts in Tenacity, no pet is as viable as any pet that is in the Ferocity spec. Tenacity is alright, but clearly inferior to Ferocity's sheer viability. Especially in Mythic+ and raids; leech with tons of enemies clumped together makes for a very fast and consistent heal. Reduced damage and extra health from Tenacity pets is fine, and it might be just the thing that'd push your progression a bit easier, but when progression isn't a problem and you just need a quick solution to a nearly non-existent issue, Ferocity is the correct pet. Cunning suffers horribly from being nearly useless however. As Danny said, the run speed is nice when doing old content. Unfortunately, that's all they're useful for. Unless you don't care about the group, Cunning tends to be the incorrect choice. Not a questionable choice, not a less viable choice, but a genuinely incorrect one. You might as well just be playing Lone Wolf Marksman at that point. Cunning provides absolutely nothing aside from a small speed boost. Because of the lack of utility outside of very niche shenanigans, Cunning provides less than nothing.

I too have Cunning pets I love, especially my tiny Un'Goro pterrordax, but I just can't use them outside of animal companion or mount farming. It's unfortunate that you have to essentially play incorrectly to use any pet of your choice if it's the 1/3 that's not Ferocity or Tenacity, and it's something that needs to be changed. Sadly, it feels too late for it to be given a proper look, so here's hoping next expansion can find a way to fix them. Or, we could just get pet respec back. Literally nobody would complain for that to return.

I agree with you, there’s so many cool pets to tame next Xpac, and a majority of them are sadly not ferocity, and it sucks how useless cunning can be outside of PVP, and tenacity is still good when questing or whatever, it sucks that we can’t respec, I’ve been super disappointed that got taken away from us, I hope blizzard will change the pets to make them all viable evenly

[DannyGreen]

We can only hope that they haven't finishes going over hunters.

[Lee]

I guess your mileage may vary with this one.

I was taking a cunning pet to progression heroic raids with my guild because I like the look of it months ago and no one ever said anything. I still pulled DPS near to the top of the charts.

There’s nothing bad about wanting to min-max in this game, I guess. But at the end of the day, it is just a game, and so I’ve never stopped using a pet because it wasn't the optimal choice. I play to have fun, and I’m happy to have found a group of people to play with who have that same philosophy, so we don’t stress out about the little details.

That being said, the best thing would be if they could just bring back respeccing your pets. Removing that was a terrible idea in the first place.

[DannyGreen]

Sure progression is fine when you are in a party. You don't need to use your heals, when you got somebody who's job it is to do that.

I'm speaking from a point of someone who does lots of solo content, be it mythics, horrific visions, or world bosses.
Unless you're packing a set of drums and some leech corruption. Ferocity is king.

I plan to do a whole lot of torgast, I was the first in my guild to get the solo 5 mask, I'm gona be the first to get to the non existent top!

[worgpower]

Definitely gonna do torghast, it’s weird how they made the stuff in there tameable and shouldn’t be, if they did that, might as well make islands stuff tameable too

[Lee]

I was reading that Elegon would be tamable as a spirit beast and Cloud serpents tamable in the serpent family?
is...is that true??

Oh, it looks like no one answered you. This is true, yes!

[Valnaaros]

Found a tamable golden phalynx. The First Guardian of Kalliope can be found during a side questline at Kalliope's Rest.

[worgpower]

Found a tamable golden phalynx. The First Guardian of Kalliope can be found during a side questline at Kalliope's Rest.

Nice, I’m now thinking of getting all golden pets in bastion, seems cool to do that, I really hope they fix the unsaddled phalynxes, like in the photo, mounts are fine, but those ones are hideous, and the bugged model ruins it for everyone

[Dialga]

It's a sad truth how Ferocity is basically the best pet type. Other than Spirit Beasts in Tenacity, no pet is as viable as any pet that is in the Ferocity spec. Tenacity is alright, but clearly inferior to Ferocity's sheer viability. Especially in Mythic+ and raids; leech with tons of enemies clumped together makes for a very fast and consistent heal. Reduced damage and extra health from Tenacity pets is fine, and it might be just the thing that'd push your progression a bit easier, but when progression isn't a problem and you just need a quick solution to a nearly non-existent issue, Ferocity is the correct pet. Cunning suffers horribly from being nearly useless however. As Danny said, the run speed is nice when doing old content. Unfortunately, that's all they're useful for. Unless you don't care about the group, Cunning tends to be the incorrect choice. Not a questionable choice, not a less viable choice, but a genuinely incorrect one. You might as well just be playing Lone Wolf Marksman at that point. Cunning provides absolutely nothing aside from a small speed boost. Because of the lack of utility outside of very niche shenanigans, Cunning provides less than nothing.

I too have Cunning pets I love, especially my tiny Un'Goro pterrordax, but I just can't use them outside of animal companion or mount farming. It's unfortunate that you have to essentially play incorrectly to use any pet of your choice if it's the 1/3 that's not Ferocity or Tenacity, and it's something that needs to be changed. Sadly, it feels too late for it to be given a proper look, so here's hoping next expansion can find a way to fix them. Or, we could just get pet respec back. Literally nobody would complain for that to return.

I agree with you, there’s so many cool pets to tame next Xpac, and a majority of them are sadly not ferocity, and it sucks how useless cunning can be outside of PVP, and tenacity is still good when questing or whatever, it sucks that we can’t respec, I’ve been super disappointed that got taken away from us, I hope blizzard will change the pets to make them all viable evenly

Muffinus had a thread on twitter where he was asking if the BfA changes were a hit or miss and everyone agreed it was a big miss. The hunter dev team should realize by now the hunter class fantasy aesthetic pales in comparison to the simple pleasure of picking a favorite pet and having it be viable everywhere. I don't care if it makes sense for my favorite pet to be in a Cunning tree. I liked Legion because I could respec him and take him everywhere. That's what kept me playing. All BfA did was lock me into a spirit beast for everything, and if I tried to use my other pets, I was basically just handicapping myself - and I could feel it, even in something as simple as openworld WQs.

[Wain]

Wait, they're still being called Shale Spiders in German?

[Aroim]

uh, so at the time yes

[Aroim]

I checked it out, it's still called a "Shale Spider", but the pet family is now "Shale Beast"

[Xota]

In a recent blue post, Blizz stated that all pet families that had a purge will be getting them back. Their removal was due to a bug, not something intentional on Blizz's part.

But do we need two purges? Is it going to make them unwanted?

They'll both be used during Raging weeks of Mythic+.

[Wain]

In a recent blue post, Blizz stated that all pet families that had a purge will be getting them back. Their removal was due to a bug, not something intentional on Blizz's part.

But do we need two purges? Is it going to make them unwanted?

They'll both be used during Raging weeks of Mythic+.

That seems very niche, though. Will the average hunter have use of a second purge very often? Those family abilities should make sense for general use.