My Ideas for the Implementation of New Pet Changes

[Harvoc]

I was browsing over Wain's Pet skins that are still untameable, http://forums.wow-petopia.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4290, and his Missing skins from untameable families, http://forums.wow-petopia.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=10346, and decided to take all his info and turn it into a proposal for pet changes after doing lots of research on abilities and buffs/debuffs. Here it is:

New families to be added:

Armadillos
Diemetradons/Incendosaurs=?
Elemental Birds
Gryphons/Hippogryphs=?
Hydras
Pachyderms
Pterrordaxes
Ruminants (Gazelles, Rams, Talbuks, Shoveltusks, Stags)
Spore/Marsh Walkers=?
Wyverns
Horses and Zhevras/Unicorns=Equines
Kodos and Thunder Lizards/Stegodons=?

Pets to join current families:

Basilisks=Crocolisks
Camels, Giraffes, Horses, Kodos, Thunder Lizards/Stegodons, Zhevras/Unicorns=Ungulates or Camels and Giraffes=Ungulates
Gyreworms/Mana Wyrms/Arcane Wyrms=Worms
Hell Hounds=Dogs
Sandreavers=Silithids
Hawkstriders=Tallstriders

Abilities to be added and to which family type:

Physical Damage Reduction=Cunning
Disarm=Ferocity
AoE=Ferocity (Exotic)
Attack Speed Slow=Cunning
Disorient=Ferocity, Tenacity
Physical Vulnerability=Ferocity

Abilities to be added that currently aren't available and to which family type:

Armor=Ferocity, Cunning
Pushback Protection=Ferocity, Cunning
Combat Resurrection=Ferocity, Cunning
Remove Disease=Ferocity, Cunning
Remove Curse=Ferocity, Cunning
Remove Defensive Magic=Ferocity, Cunning
Remove Poison=Ferocity, Cunning

Families that will change family type:

Rhino or Boar=Tenacity->Cunning: ?
Cat or Spirit Beast=Ferocity->Cunning: ?
Crocolisk or Warp Stalker=Tenacity->Ferocity: ?
Wolf or Devilsaur=Ferocity->Cunning: Devilsaur (I chose Devilsaur because Cunning lacks both the healing debuff and the critical strike chance buff, and since Devilsaurs can provide both, why not kill two birds with one stone?)
Dragonhawk or Wind Serpent=Cunning->Ferocity: ?

Number of families in each type before and after changing of family type (excluding new families):

Cunning: 12->15
Ferocity: 13->12
Tenacity: 12->10

Now I need your input. Anyone got any ideas on what the families with question marks after their equal sign should be named? Also, anyone want to classify the new families into family types and give them an ability from the Abilities to be added and from which family type and Abilities to be added that currently aren't available and from which family type sections? Lastly, anyone want to give their opinions on which family should change their family type? I based the family/ability changing sections on how buffs/debuffs that are useful in PvE should have only one ferocity and only one cunning family that has that buff/debuff since those are the only two viable ones in terms of damage. As for PvP abilities, I wanted one of every family type as all three are in use in PvP. Instead of making all the abilities from the two or three PvP family types the same, I'd change the range and uptime. Maybe one has a high uptime and melee range. Another has a low uptime and a long range. The last family has average uptime and range. On the other hand, the two PvE family types must have exactly identical buffs/debuffs in order for both of them to be viable. Lastly, big thanks to Wain for all his info and for inspiring me to do this! I'd greatly appreciate any opinions and corrections!

[CrystalKitten]

I... Disagree with a lot of this.

I like my crit bonus on my dino. No stealy. I also like my +agi/str. These are GREAT for soloing, or when in dungeons when the respective player classes are missing.

Also.. don't remove my kitties stealth. Just fix it (so I can bring her out at will to show her off). Decent for pvp, and the small damage bonus when first attacking is nice.

I also don't like the idea of animals which are largely mount-like (equines, etc) being pets. I just don't think it would fit. Nor am I really fond of some other odd animals being pets, like the giraffes. Yes, it would be kind of cool to have one of my own, I just don't think they'd work as damage dealing pets. Also, elemental birds (I'm guessing you're thinking of the new firehawks) are elemental.. not beastial. So while yes, they look sweet, I'm not sure they'd fit either.

Physical damage reduction, and physical vulnerability sound like the exact same thing to me :/

Keep snares. You don't like snares on a tank pet? Use a different tank pet :/ Bubbles just wouldn't be the same if he couldn't pinch people's legs in place :/

I'm not sure that pets need pushback protection, as there aren't really enough of them that have channelled spells.

I'm curious as to why change cats and spirit beasts out of the ferocity family... Logically, those beasts are generally considered quite fierce. Same for wolves/devilsaurs (though.. the wolves I could MAYBE understand).

I personally am fine with ____ pets being mostly for pvp, _____ being for mostly pve, ___ mostly for soloing, ___ mostly for grouping. That's pretty much what a hunter is all about. I guess I'm just not entirely sure as to why one would propose many of the changes. I mean.. it sounds like you're trying to make cunning and ferocity exactly the same, pretty much, which seems pointless. Then what's the point in having 3 different classes of pets? I think I'm confused

[Thwip]

The way this is coming off to me, correct me if I am wrong, is adding a lot of pet skins that we don't have, but also somewhat taking away special abilities for....less...abilities?

I have to agree with CKitten. It makes no sense what-so-ever to move cats/spirit beast and wolves/devils from ferocity. I don't like that idea. As a beast master my top two pets are those families. Cunning is great, but not as good as ferocity. Those are some of our highest damage dealing pets you are talking about futzing with and giving us more cunning? Cunning is great, but not the best, IMO. I see cunning more geared towards PvP, not all of course, but most of your PvP like debuffs are in the cunning tree. [Disarm, Stuns, Physical Damage increase, Reduced armor, Reduced casting speed, Increased magical damage....ect] That's what cunning feels like it's geared towards for me. This change looks like your more interested in bringing more pets to the PvP front and taking away from the PvE front.

I wouldn't mind crocs and warpstalkers being brought over to ferocity as I usually spec mine that way anyway, but it doesn't bother me with them being what they are as I am a PvE soloist and a casual raider. I also have to say that I actually like having a Sunder Armor debuff in ferocity instead of a Disarm as to me the Sunder Armor is a lot more useful when you don't have a warrior around. The physical vulnerability is already kinda covered with the Sunder Armor that Raptors provide, as it's kinda the same thing. The way this is mainly set up with your suggestions seems more like you are trying to homogenize the three trees and personally I like that they are this different. You want a certain buff, it's already provided somewhere, why does it have to be added to the other two trees? That just makes no sense to me why every tree has to have every type of buff. Which you may not have -every- type of buff listed to be added to other trees, but I mighta missed that while I was reading.

I also have to agree with CKitten on the whole.....mount type beast as pets. As much as those can be pretty fierce in the wild, I just can't see them as pets. On the other hand, however, I would love to see more dinos from Un'goro tamable, but added into existing families. Stegodons aren't much different from Rhinos and for me, I would LOVE to have a Stegosaurus as one of my tanks. xD As well as a few others you mentioned, like Hawkstriders, Mana Worms, Basiliks, Hydras, and Armadillos.

But the changes to the families, looking over it, just looks awkward to me. Could just be me though, but I will not be a happy camper if my Devil gets changed any more then he has been.

[GormanGhaste]

Stepping back and redesigning a system a different way can be a fun project, but most players wouldn't be happy with such drastic changes!

[Harvoc]

Sorry if the way I phrased things were confusing but when I meant move cat/spirit beast from ferocity to cunning, I meant move one of them. Why would you have two pets from the same family that can provide the same buff, an increase in strength and agility. Sure, some might say because spirit beasts provide a heal, but say cats were ferocity and spirit beasts were cunning. Then maybe if ferocity did higher dps than cunning, then some hunters would take cats and others spirit beasts for the heal at a loss of dps. When I meant remove a ability from a family, I only did that because certain family types have 2 families that can provide the same ability. Dragonhawks and wind serpents both provide the same debuff, increasing magic damage done to a target, and are both from cunning. What's the difference? What I'm going for is for a buff/debuff, a cunning and a ferocity family can provide it and hunters would choose the one that does more dps for them based on the family type or if one of them is an exotic pet, then some hunters would take it for the extra ability. For abilities that are used mainly in PvP, I wanted all 3 family types to be able to provide it. What I didn't want was for there be redundancies in certain family types. About the elemental birds and to a lesser extent the hell hounds. You could make the same case for shale spiders because they most obviously are elemental. The difference between physical damage reduction and physical vulnerability is that physical damage reduction is a debuff that reduces the amount of physical damage a target does while physical vulnerability increases the physical damage a target takes. Crabs don't have a snare... They have a root. A snare means a slow and since both warp stalkers and crocolisks provide that, that's why I said change one of their family type to ferocity as cunning has chimeras with their slow. When I said pushback protection, I didn't mean for the pet only. I meant it's a buff to the raid/party. Does that answer all your points CrystalKitten?

Now to move on to Thwip. I'm saying that abilities that can be provided by all 3 family types, but has one family type with 2 families that can provide it should have one of the families get a different ability. I'm not trying to homogenize them, but later in WoW, when more abilities get added, Blizzard will mostly do what I'm thinking of because if not, then instead of having a buff/debuff able to be provided by both cunning and ferocity and all abilities able to be provided by all 3 family types, you're going to have new buffs/debuffs/abilities created just for one family of hunter pet, something the other classes wouldn't find so appealing. That is unless, you also give other classes the ability which wouldn't sit so well with the other class because since most new abilities are added around the same time (usually as part of an expansion or content patch), the other class wouldn't have a new unique ability. They'd have a new ability that one family of hunter pet out of the many there would also be able to provide. Or you will have ferocity able to provide an ability with 6 different families, all ever so slightly different from one another. Which of the 3 options would you rather have? And lastly, just because some people don't like mount-like animals to be tamable, many do. I know you're not saying that animals that can be mounted shouldn't be tamable because then we wouldn't be able to tame bats, bears, cats, wolves, raptors, turtles, dragonhawks, nether rays, and all the other tamable beasts that can be mounts. Though if you think about lore, all classes could've mounted a giant cat to ride, but hunters would've tamed the cat usually after people started to ride them because of how common they'd become afterwards and how tamer they'd because of training. So maybe pets that are mount-like as both of you said might be able to be tamed by hunters, should Blizzard allow it.

[Kurasu]

Why would you have two pets from the same family that can provide the same buff, an increase in strength and agility.

Simple answer: because not everyone is a Beast Master. Same as the +5% crit.

[Harvoc]

Kurasu. What you say is true, but does that mean that later in WoW, when Blizzard adds more pets and more abilities do you really want every single buff/debuff to be able to be provided by both an exotic pet family and a normal pet family, both from the same family type? The only difference being that the exotic pet family has another ability, which seeing as every exotic pet right now has both a PvE and a PvP/AoE ability, would mean that it'd probably be a fear or something. Would you like that idea instead of mine?

[CrystalKitten]

Honestly, I just don't think everything NEEDS to be spread out everywhere. I see why some might think that could be beneficial, however, the current system allows people to pick and choose. For example, your windserpent and dragonhawk example. What if I DESPISE windserpents? And the cats are cats, spirit beasts are exotic is a perfect example.

I honestly just feel this is a case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". The fact that there's redundancy allows for people to pick and choose. It lets me spec, say, my cat for pve and my spirit beast more for pvp while keeping similar bonuses (which I like) but not having exact duplicates (which aside from Sparkles and Kinserok, and 2 cats for sentimental reasons, I'm staying away from).

As Gorman said, redesigning seomthing can be a LOT of fun. I've done some game development for a php browser game, and it's a LOT of fun to work out various system. However, when reworking something that already exists.. you have to ask:
What are the benefits? (in your case, you're claiming no redundancy is the benefit, but some people LIKE options)
What are the downsides? (removal of abilities to me is a downside, confusing people is another, etc)
Do the benefits outweigh the downsides? (debatable in this case, as I don't agree with your upside)
What affect would this have on the game? (honestly.. if I was a min/maxer.. would I ever USE a cunning pet instead of ferocity if both specs were homogenized in the buff department?)
Would people be really pissed off? (I know that I would if some of these changes were put in place)

but later in WoW, when more abilities get added, Blizzard will mostly do what I'm thinking

Honestly, I don't think blizz would do any of this. Most of our pet buffs are ALREADY abilities that players have. Sometimes they're even scaled down versions just so that we can be more useful, and perhaps a reason to bring a hunter for that last spot rather than a mage, or some other buff/debuff providing class. I also think it's difficult to say what Blizzard would do. I REALLY don't think they would completely redesign nearly all of our pets, under any circumstances. Something like that could possibly make a lot of people quit, especially those of us that have been playing forever, and sometimes think that's too long.. then we see our pretties and end up being all "don't worry, I could never leave you!", heh.

And it's not that I don't think that mount-like pets wouldn't make good pets. I just don't think it'd work in the game. I mean.. what ability would you give a giraffe? Not only that, but many of them look good BECAUSE of their size/scaling. If they were to be made tameable pets, the extent of their shrinking would like end up having a lot of people trash them due to ridiculous animations. (Imagine a giraffe shrunk down to no taller than a tamed devilsaur, and then having a run animation... it would look silly, I think). Also, it would be a LOT of work for the dev team. They'd need new animations, new abilities, etc etc. Some of your pet ideas a like, but most I just really don't see working. It's hard to explain.. but just trying to picture it... it just... Doesn't work in my head, heh.

[Harvoc]

CrystalKitten. Actually yes, min/maxers will use a cunning pet over a ferocity pet if their gear makes their talents provide more damage than a ferocity pet with the same buff/debuff with its talents. What you're saying is that for every single PvE hunter, ferocity is better dps than cunning, ignoring buffs/debuffs. As for the removal of abilities, I'm not saying that the whole family gets no replacement ability. I'm saying that they could get an old ability that wasn't able to be provided by their family type or they get a whole new ability. When you say that all of our buffs/debuffs are abilities that can already be provided by other classes, you are correct. However, the new abilities that I want to add ARE the only buffs/debuffs to be added (after looking over my research again, I guess you could add Remove Disease, Remove Poison, and a Combat Resurrection to that list, though the last one seems highly unlikely. Also, I meant to put Remove Defensive Magic instead of Remove Offensive Magic to that list.) That is unless you'd like to give hunter pets buffs/debuffs/abilities that only one class/spec can bring. The ones that I listed can be brought by at least 2 classes. So I guess Blizzard could also come up with new buffs/debuffs/abilities but I'm guessing they'd like to utilize existing ones first instead of adding something new. Also, what do you mean by mount pets. Can you list the ones in the first section that you think would be mount pets? I can't really tell based on just the two words, mount pets.

[CrystalKitten]

Well, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. I just know that if my class was changed that much, in the ways you're describing (and yes, as a BM at heart since the game was in open beta.. my pet IS my class) I would probably stop playing. If there's to be more balancing of buffs between the different classes of pets, it should be done by adding a few NEW families, not by changing existing ones that people have been playing with for years. And that's honestly how I see blizzard doing it, IF they were to change it. However, I have the feeling that they don't WANT to homogenize pet class abilities. Otherwise they would have done so with the last major pet revamp.

And again with your whole "some people would pick cunning if it did more dps" comment. Ferocity pets always have the higher base dps. So unless you're suggesting homogenizing that as well (in which point I'd have to ask what the point in having different classes even is) a ferocity pet would ALWAYS be able to provide a higher damage output, unless you didn't give it damage dealing talents, and did give the cunning pet damage dealing talents. Especially as a BM hunter, as pet damage REALLY matters a lot more.

[Harvoc]

CrystalKitten. Can you please give me a source where it clearly states that Ferocity dps is always higher than Cunning dps. I have a hard time believing that it's true for every single knowledgeable hunter (i.e. they gear, talent, glyph, use abilities how they're supposed to). Also, I edited in a question about mount pets at the end of my response after I PMed you. Mind editing in an answer to it into your comment?

[Cerele]

wait there are unicorns that arent mounts in this game???


????

[Cerele]

CrystalKitten. Can you please give me a source where it clearly states that Ferocity dps is always higher than Cunning dps. I have a hard time believing that it's true for every single knowledgeable hunter (i.e. they gear, talent, glyph, use abilities how they're supposed to). Also, I edited in a question about mount pets at the end of my response after I PMed you. Mind editing in an answer to it into your comment?

i know for longer boss fights, cunning can come out well above ferocity because of the Feeding frenzy talent that gives them 16% extra damage, that can be huge but on longer boss fights... i cant tell you exact time or anything just reminding you of it

[Harvoc]

http://www.wowhead.com/npc=3242, http://www.wowhead.com/npc=5831, http://www.wowhead.com/npc=37088, http://www.wowhead.com/npc=44166, http://www.wowhead.com/npc=3426, and http://www.wowhead.com/npc=3466 are it I think. They aren't pure unicorns, but instead zhevras with horns. Wain classifies both of them in the same family in his second topic that I mentioned up top. If you define a unicorn as an equine with horns, then yes they can be called unicorns.

[Kurasu]

Would you like that idea instead of mine?

In a word: yes.

In more words: I would certainly like it more than splitting it up into a variety of different families, when it comes to a buff in a particularly useful area. A +5% crit buff? Exceedingly useful on a Ferocity pet. I see no reason to split it off like they have between Worm and Ravager. I pick and choose the pets I like, and the buffs I like. Having the option of using an Exotic pet to cover the buff over a non-exotic is one I will not *always* happily take, but *often* happily take, as a Beast Master.

I, personally, like the split that Blizzard has done, with the sole exceptions of Wind Serpent/Dragonhawk and Fox/Tallstrider. Even that, it comes down to a matter of preference in a pet, rather than in the spec. I like Tallstriders. I'm not fond of Foxes. Therefore, I cover the debuff with my Fargkrock rather than a fox.

[Harvoc]

Thank you Cerele for the info. Now we wait to see if CrystalKitten has a better source than your word.

[Harvoc]

Kurasu. Well to each their own. Your examples contributed greatly to my inspiration to coming up with this topic. I know for certain family types that can provide the same ability with 2 different family types, the two abilities are slightly different. Not for Wind Serpents and Dragonhawks and Foxes and Tallstriders. The families are exactly the same (except for aesthetics). When you say that you'd happily take an exotic pet over a normal pet, is it because of the extra ability or because they're exotic?

[CrystalKitten]

Most of the hoofed creatures:
Gryphons/Hippogryphs=?
Ruminants (Gazelles, Rams, Talbuks, Stags)
Horses and Zhevras/Unicorns=Equines
Camels, Giraffes, Horses,
Kodos
pachyderms
marshwalkers

Not all are used as mounts or mount-like.. but... really I just don't think they'd fit.

I'm going by my own experience. My ferocity pets ALL have a higher BASE damage than my cunning pets. They're all talented right now(some not optimally for dps cause I want pvp versatility.. or just to mess around with different talents for solo play), but if you really need proof, I suppose I can go wipe a few and post screen shots.... And if they have a higher BASE damage, that means that a min/maxer would talent them to maximize their damage, which would mean that something STARTING with a higher damage would end up with a higher damage output.

Reading Cerele's post, I wouldn't know too much about that, as I'm personally not a min/maxer. However, in that case, then my question is just flipped. Why would anyone ever chose a ferocity pet over a cunning pet if the cunning pulls more dps(and if people largely only care about boss fights when it comes to dps meters)? I'll have to look at my pet's numbers though. Because I'm just curious now as to how much higher the base dps of a ferocity pet is, now. I'll update when I get back to a stable.

Edit: Wind Serpent base DPS: 1168.7
Cat base dps: 1238.8
Which ends up in the cat doing just a little more than 5% more dps with autoattacks, at all times.

Both pets, when possible, have all the same talents. Both have all the damage increasing talents I could find. I however do not have a damage meter to do ingame tests (which wouldn't be fair anyways, as they have different abilities, kitty has all damage buffing abilities right now, would have to turn all of them off I guess). If anyone on Llane does though, we can try some stuff.

[Harvoc]

Kurasu. I only advocate the splitting it up because I think that Cunning and Ferocity pets are pretty close in damage and sometimes their places switch. Thus, hunters can provide the same buff/debuff as before, without gimping themselves because they're bringing a pet with lower dps than the pet's counterpart. Also, CrystalKitten agrees with you on choice, but when I think of choice, I think of being able to bring the same buff/debuff with a pet family that you like more but is still competitive with the family's counterpart, albeit less damage but still competitive. Min/maxers will always choose the family that does more damage but for the rest of us we can choose a family type that is competitive but we like more.

[Harvoc]

CrystalKitten. I'm not saying that Cunning is always higher. I'm saying that it can change depending on each hunter and changes Blizzard makes. Also, your own experience doesn't equal everyone's experience. I'm sure that there's one hunter out there who gears, talents, glyphs, and plays exactly like he's supposed to but for them, Cunning is better. Also, some people min/max for dungeons too. I do because I don't have enough time for raids in my tight schedule and I enjoy min/maxing so I do it for dungeons. I choose pets that bring a buff/debuff that can affect more than one target at a time because of the AoE that's so frequent in dungeons. I talent specifically to boost AoE dps. I glyph for AoE dps (Serpent Sting instead of Rapid Fire).