Plant Beasts (Untameable) Listing

[Wain]

Here's an unofficial family page for untameable plant beasts:

https://www.wow-petopia.com/family.php?id=plantbeast

Currently it just includes mandragora (plant hydra) looks, no NPCs have yet been added.

There are technically 5 different colours for mandragoras, but the texture for the petals & leaf collar is separate from the texture from the mouth, neck and body. As several mandragoras in the game mix and match these, it means there are 25 possible colour combos. Some of the unused combos look pretty awesome too:



Mandragoras were recently brought up in our 9.2 discussion thread, where I mentioned I was compiling an unofficial family for them. I'm starting a new thread rather than getting further off-topic on that one.

I'm going to add some other animated plant models, because it's unofficial and fun, but mostly I just want to. If they don't become hunter pets, perhaps it'll act as inspiration for a designer to broaden druid pets And if we ever get Botani as a playable race it would then make sense for a wider selection of plant beasts to be available (at least to that race).

[ace_of_hearth]

Yo Botani needs to playable and start out with this pet. Botani can be Alliance and Horde can get Tuskarr or something, haha.

[WerebearGuy]

Shame pets can't have spaces or hyphens in their name, because if these actually did become tameable, the perfect name would've been Audrey II. I'd love to tame a mean green mother from outer space, especially if it's fightin' mad.

[worgpower]

I can’t call those lashers beasts since they don’t resemble any creature, even though they’re the most beast like, they’re still the same as the other lasher/flower creatures, we still need a new grub family consisting of normal grubs, fanged grubs, Argus grubs, and move the caterpillars there since they’re not worms, and they shouldn’t be exotic either

[Valnaaros]

I can’t call those lashers beasts since they don’t resemble any creature, even though they’re the most beast like, they’re still the same as the other lasher/flower creatures, we still need a new grub family consisting of normal grubs, fanged grubs, Argus grubs, and move the caterpillars there since they’re not worms, and they shouldn’t be exotic either

I agree. Even if Botani were playable, being able to tame lashers would be like us being able to tame ghouls since we can tame undead beasts, or fel hunters since we can tame fel core hounds. It just steps too much into another classes domain.

[ace_of_hearth]

What if 'Plantiforme' Beasts are just like Undead Beast - There's a prerequisite to tame it either gaining the skill from an NPC, or from a Tome, and when you learn it, you can tame a variety of pets consisting of wicker beasts such as the wicker-bear, and the plant-hydra beasts, which are from different pet families?

[worgpower]

What if 'Plantiforme' Beasts are just like Undead Beast - There's a prerequisite to tame it either gaining the skill from an NPC, or from a Tome, and when you learn it, you can tame a variety of pets consisting of wicker beasts such as the wicker-bear, and the plant-hydra beasts, which are from different pet families?

Separate tomes would work since wicker beasts are not full plant, mandragoras are full plants made by botanists and hydra corpses(I don’t know how they work, I swear), wicker beasts are corrupted versions of normal beasts infused with drust magic, transforming them to plant, animal skull constructs, but considering the fact that they look so natural without any Druid markings or linen wraps actually make good candidates, come on, give them to us blizz

[WerebearGuy]

I think a tome like how the undead tome works would be fine. Mandragoras are just hydras, so giving them a new family would be silly. The Drust beasts could fit in their own normal categories of bear, wolf, stag, and hawk, since there's nothing special about them either. Their uniqueness comes from their looks, and I'd be worried that they'd be thrown into the cunning family. Granted, if the hawk was put in, it has a 50/50 chance of being a bird of prey (which would absolutely make sense), but the other beasts would all be either ferocity or tenacity, so those would be safe.

[Wain]

Mandragoras are just hydras, so giving them a new family would be silly.

Well, as far as I can tell, they're not hydras, they're animated plant creatures that happen to use the hydra model skeleton. Because they superficially look like hydras, people are more inclined to accept them as hunter pets than other plant creatures.

At the risk of getting off-topic, all the wicker beast looks can be seen here: https://www.wow-petopia.com/family.php?id=wickerbeast . You're right that all of them do have a corresponding "natural animal" family, so the designers could opt to add them that way.

[Valnaaros]

I wouldn’t mind mandragoras ultimately being put into hydras. Even though they aren’t hydras, they do look very similar to them and are also capable of using poisonous breath attacks, which some hydra are capable of doing. In a quest, Maraad does comment on their similarity to actual hydras.

Besides that, there are a few families that contain groups that don’t match the family name. Elekks being in Mammoths. Alpacas being in Camels. The wasp family in general. Etc etc. This all doesn’t make it fine, but so far it has been shown that at least from Blizz’s perspective, they don’t mind if certain members of the family exactly match the family in which they are currently classified.

[Wain]

Regarding wicker and bramble beasts, apparently my understanding was all wrong. I thought all the models represented the same process but in different beast shapes, but it’s not the case at all. The standard wicker beast is purely a construct with a spirit bound to it, as I thought. All the other models: bears, stags, birds, and thornclaws (which use a saber cat skeleton but the game seems to have treated as wolves) are native beasts of Drustvar that have been transformed somewhat by the magic of the zone. As such, I should probably move all of them except wicker beasts to their related mundane families. I’m not sure if I should add wicker beasts to Hounds or just lump them into the miscellaneous untameable family for now.

[Valnaaros]

I would just through them into miscellaneous for now. Even though they can have hound souls fueling them, they can really have any animal’s soul, or even human souls, powering them.

[WerebearGuy]

Wicker is still something made from nature, so despite being a construct, I think they still fit just fine in the plant category. Kind of loosely, like how Chimearon is a hydra despite being an amalgamation of random dead things rather than an actual hydra. Misc category works though, since they are weird things.

[worgpower]

Regarding wicker and bramble beasts, apparently my understanding was all wrong. I thought all the models represented the same process but in different beast shapes, but it’s not the case at all. The standard wicker beast is purely a construct with a spirit bound to it, as I thought. All the other models: bears, stags, birds, and thornclaws (which use a saber cat skeleton but the game seems to have treated as wolves) are native beasts of Drustvar that have been transformed somewhat by the magic of the zone. As such, I should probably move all of them except wicker beasts to their related mundane families. I’m not sure if I should add wicker beasts to Hounds or just lump them into the miscellaneous untameable family for now.

As for the wicker cat/wolf, there’s a wolf in a cave named greenstalker that uses the wicker cat model, and outside of the cave, they’re sorted out as cats

[Wain]

As for the wicker cat/wolf, there’s a wolf in a cave named greenstalker that uses the wicker cat model, and outside of the cave, they’re sorted out as cats

Yeah, that's what makes it awkward :/ The model looks like a cat to me, but the one named one is classed as a wolf and is referred to as a wolf in its associated quest.

[Wain]

Wicker is still something made from nature, so despite being a construct, I think they still fit just fine in the plant category. Kind of loosely, like how Chimearon is a hydra despite being an amalgamation of random dead things rather than an actual hydra. Misc category works though, since they are weird things.

I get where you're coming from, but to me that's like saying a haunted wooden carving should be classed as a plant. It just doesn't feel right.

[worgpower]

As for the wicker cat/wolf, there’s a wolf in a cave named greenstalker that uses the wicker cat model, and outside of the cave, they’re sorted out as cats

Yeah, that's what makes it awkward :/ The model looks like a cat to me, but the one named one is classed as a wolf and is referred to as a wolf in its associated quest.

Yeah it is odd, the ones outside the cave have normal cat sounds, and the quest npc has wolf sounds, and tbh, I want a cat that sounds like a wolf

[Wain]

As for the wicker cat/wolf, there’s a wolf in a cave named greenstalker that uses the wicker cat model, and outside of the cave, they’re sorted out as cats

Yeah, that's what makes it awkward :/ The model looks like a cat to me, but the one named one is classed as a wolf and is referred to as a wolf in its associated quest.

Yeah it is odd, the ones outside the cave have normal cat sounds, and the quest npc has wolf sounds, and tbh, I want a cat that sounds like a wolf

I just went to check them in person, and the thornclaws are indeed all cats, except for Greenstalker himself. Greenstalker's quest text even refers to him as a wolf:

The mighty wolf Greenstalker was once a protector of these forests. He has fallen under the sway of dark forces. My brother and I attempted to calm his spirit, but he is too far gone. Use the charm I have constructed to weaken him. I ask you <class>, please, end his suffering. My brother is still weak and I must stay to protect him. Go now before the wolf consumes us all!

Maybe the quest was created before the model was (not unusual) and the designers swapped in the cat model without remembering the quest text?

[Wain]

I've changed the unofficial family for the drustvar beasts to "Bramble Beast" and removed the wicker beast model from it:
https://www.wow-petopia.com/family.php?id=bramblebeast

I'll probably soon dismantle it anyway and move the models to their related families.

[worgpower]

I've changed the unofficial family for the drustvar beasts to "Bramble Beast" and removed the wicker beast model from it:
https://www.wow-petopia.com/family.php?id=bramblebeast

I'll probably soon dismantle it anyway and move the models to their related families.

That makes a lot more sense, but they’re still corrupted by drust magic, hopefully blizzard at some point makes a tome for them to split them off into their respective families, and maybe add a few npcs for the bramblecrows and thornbucks, and add the rest of the colors too