WoW Petopia Community

Hey there, I have been using Petopia as a resource for a long time, but haven't really posted in the forums. Something has been really annoying me since I got back into wow recently, and I just wanted to voice my opinion on something and see what some other long time hunter players think about this. I say that just because if this is something that has been discussed about at length on here, just let me know.


I feel like Blizzard in an attempt to "balance" the game has now really hurt the usefulness of some pets. I can see why when you don't need raid buffs anymore, there is no need to have pets that provide all those different buffs, but there are now so many pets who essentially can't do anything but attack. Even the new mechanical pets, in all their awesomeness in terms of taming and tracking them down, are essentially no different than a bear or any other "lower tier" pet. Now I am not advocating that pets should be only judged for their abilities and "usefulness", but it hurts when I am playing and would love to use my bear or newly acquired mecha-sheep and I am essentially playing at a determent cause I could be using a pet with an actual ability.

So maybe I should just be patient and maybe this sort of stuff will be worked out, but it is frustrating cause there are apparently abilities that Blizz has decided are "balanced enough" for pets to have, so why not just make sure every pet has at least one of these. Even if it is just a silly shield or mortal wounds debuff, there just shouldn't be these basically "place holder" pets, cause I would prefer to see so much more variety out there in the kind of pets people use, especially for people who play survival or marksman with a pet, who I feel have such a small window of worthwhile pets to choose from.

So these are just a few of my thoughts, I would love to know what you guys think, and what some fair solutions to this problem you think Blizz could introduce. I hope to start posting more.

They've dropped off the front page, but here are some of the threads discussing it:

http://forums.wow-petopia.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=24066

http://forums.wow-petopia.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=24124

I do wish they had gone back and redistributed the acceptable pet skills, one per regular family, two per exotic.

Welcome to the forums--I love your avatar!

I completely agree here. I've wanted a Talbuk since I first saw them, and the greater talbuk model made me so ecstatic. I didn't come back after mid-pandaria until the start of legion, and so I'm working my way through all the old content on a fresh toon, and it's damn near impossible for me to justify using a stag as a tenacity pet for questing when my shale spider I randomly found as an old-world rare has such a strong solo ability. Except for exotics and a few non-exotics that still have abilities, all the pets basically have nothing unique. It's great for people who use a wide array of pets, but i feel like they could bring in some much needed uniqueness without the terrible pigeon-holing we saw in wrath with wolves/cats/ravagers.

I strongly suspect that at some point, they are going to rebalance pet abilities, either by removing them all (other than exotic abilities) or by adding them to other pets. At the moment, it makes no sense that some pets have 0 abilities, some have 1, some have 2, and a couple have 3 (exotics).

The current situation for pets definitely leaves an unpleasant taste in my mouth. One the one hand I guess it's kind of nice that it doesn't really matter what you bring anymore (to a degree), but I also miss having some of the flavour and utility of a wide variety of abilities. I'm hoping when they get a chance they're going to take another look at them and tweak things when they're not so busy with the rest of the expansion release.

Added the "Non-Exotic pet skills" list to the top of Pet Discussion as a Sticky

Hopefully we will hear more about balancing some time soon.

I'm at the point I feel that if I don't use a Spirit Beast (for the heal) that I am doing it wrong. I hate that feeling because theres plenty of pets I want to run around with but I know I need that heal now more than ever.

Do the things like Chimaera frost storm/worms burrow or extra dmg out of spirit walk not contribute extra dps? The more I look at the list SB just mentioned, the more I feel like the intent, which I assume was to make every pet viable, ended up possibly doing the opposite. Hard to give up the 50% damage reduc on a shale/basilisk/crab/beetle/turtle or the heal of a spirit beast or Clefts passive or Quilen, which of all the shield abilities, looks the strongest, minus that it's passive like Clefthoof.

I feel like for trashpacks in raids/dungeons, a chimaera or worm in ferocity would be required for the aoe, and for solo content, ESPECIALLY with how squishy tenacity pets are now, any of the damage reducers and/or healers are pretty hard to say no to. Granted, tank-wise, there is a fair amount of diversity. But I want to run my Talbuk without feeling like I'm at a disadvantage towards a large group or elite enemy etc.

And PvP-wise, you're shooting yourself in the foot for sure if you're running a pet with no ability. Slowing seems common, or mortal wounds.

TL;DR: I almost see a revert to LK style of abilities, where uniquesness for SOME is present, but ultimately puts them ahead of others

Quiv wrote:I'm at the point I feel that if I don't use a Spirit Beast (for the heal) that I am doing it wrong. I hate that feeling because theres plenty of pets I want to run around with but I know I need that heal now more than ever.

^ this. I don't hate my SBs but I'd prefer to use some of my other pets, but without a short CD heal, especially in dungeons, I feel completely gimped. I miss spirit bond so much!

Thank you so much for the responses

I would absolutely love a return to LK style pet abilities, cause I loved how unique it really made each pet feel. It did provide the problem though that it made it so "If you don't have a cat/wolf/scorpid, you aren't competitive".

Honestly it would be cool if every pet had an ability based on the specialization it was given. Like...

Tenactiy: Shield or Heal?
Ferocity: Battle Rez or Bloodlust
Cunning: Slow or Mortal Wounds

I dont know, just an idea.

Gimlion wrote:Do the things like Chimaera frost storm/worms burrow or extra dmg out of spirit walk not contribute extra dps?

Oh and in response to this, I thought of this too. The problem is that when either of these pets use these abilities they completely stop auto attacking, and since so many of the DPS abilities in BM require your pet to be using it's normal attacks, you really just lose DPS in the long run. Even against groups

That was the case for both abilities back in LK too. Still leaves the stealth open from spirit beasts. It's not much, but when coupled with the already cheap and frequent heal, it puts them above others for min/max raiding. Just glad I'm not a hardcore raider any more. Once I can, my Silver Greater Talbuk, Echo, will be my go-to in dungeons/damage, and the manashell will be my tank

peanutbuttercup wrote:

Quiv wrote:I'm at the point I feel that if I don't use a Spirit Beast (for the heal) that I am doing it wrong. I hate that feeling because theres plenty of pets I want to run around with but I know I need that heal now more than ever.

^ this. I don't hate my SBs but I'd prefer to use some of my other pets, but without a short CD heal, especially in dungeons, I feel completely gimped. I miss spirit bond so much!

It's even worst if you play Survival because their best DPS pets are the ones with the Mortal Wounds debuff, and you need to spec them Tenacity as well as leave Growl on! I know, it's insane! But that's the fault of their mastery, which makes Growl, Bite/Claw/Smack, Thunderstomp, Charge, and the Mortal Wounds skill proc it and give a charge of Mongoose Bite.... yeah... It's even crazier with Thunderstomp in an AoE situation because each hits has a chance to make the mastery proc. I'm at a loss for words here, I have no idea wtf went on in the devs' brain to come up with something so messed up.

Shinryu Masaki wrote:It's even worst if you play Survival because their best DPS pets are the ones with the Mortal Wounds debuff, and you need to spec them Tenacity as well as leave Growl on! I know, it's insane! But that's the fault of their mastery, which makes Growl, Bite/Claw/Smack, Thunderstomp, Charge, and the Mortal Wounds skill proc it and give a charge of Mongoose Bite.... yeah... It's even crazier with Thunderstomp in an AoE situation because each hits has a chance to make the mastery proc. I'm at a loss for words here, I have no idea wtf went on in the devs' brain to come up with something so messed up.

I really did want to give survival a go but it seems so needlessly complicated that... yeah. And then BM is a spec with 3 or 4 buttons. I don't get the design philosophy at all here.