Changeable Hunter Pet Specializations Added to the Stable in Patch 11.1

[Xcreeping]

https://www.wowhead.com/news/changeable ... 1-1-355165

[Tsukina]

It's a real joy, I can put my boar in tank.

[Ana]

Ohh that's sooo great!!! Will use more pets now

[worgpower]

No need to only stick to scalehides, now i can use beetles, turtles, boars, and mechanicals. I think spirit beast might be the new best pet once we can switch to ferocity, then stone hounds will also be competitive, their triggered defense heals them a bit but it’s minus 20% damage

[Dawne]

They had this several years ago. I never understood why they took it away from us. Good to get it back!

[Ana]

When will this patch hit?

[Valnaaros]

Probably not until March, at least.

[worgpower]

I hope 11.1 ptr hits soon, id love to test this feature if it’s implemented in the first build, i just want to see what creatures we can tame in 11.1 during testing

[Bunny._.Harvestman]

They had this several years ago. I never understood why they took it away from us. Good to get it back!

Basically, Competitive complained that they need to know the pets' ability by just looking at the silhouette or having a glimpse of them to be able to decide what to do in a pinch. I'm really glade Blizz decided to not to cater to this anymore.

[Talihawk]

I so hope this remains I want it back so much.

[Baihu]

They had this several years ago. I never understood why they took it away from us. Good to get it back!

Basically, Competitive complained that they need to know the pets' ability by just looking at the silhouette or having a glimpse of them to be able to decide what to do in a pinch. I'm really glade Blizz decided to not to cater to this anymore.

This lost more and more relevance as players could pretend to be classes they weren't, with mages having enough 'plate-like' pieces to transmog into death knight look-alikes, and warriors into mages. Naturally nameplates show their true classes, but by that same token, the specialization of pets are not hidden by the API and so the pet nameplates can do the same. So the silhouette argument was no longer substantial if it ever was. Not to mention also the different silhouettes of similar pets in different families, such as Carrion Birds and Birds of Prey.

[WerebearGuy]

Yeah, the pvp argument was always so stupid and weak. The competitive crowd does its own research, and surely they could take the time to figure out what hunter pets are what. They used the same stupid excuse when they took away my tentacle boy from my warlock. Luckily they brought the observer pet back for warlocks, so that was just the predecessor to this upcoming fix. God I can't wait to jump on the PTR the moment it's up.

[worgpower]

I still remember the time years ago blizzard replied on a blizzard thread with a stupid argument saying that turtles can’t do mortal wounds or something something. Either they were confused about what people wanted or they tried to convince everyone that they have their reasons to keep this pet system. I guess so many hunters, more than we think wanted this feature to return and boom, it returns soon. The same argument goes for the observer pet that was removed. If we now can change hunter pet specs, warlocks should also have new demon options for all the demons

[Bunny._.Harvestman]

Yeah, the pvp argument was always so stupid and weak. The competitive crowd does its own research, and surely they could take the time to figure out what hunter pets are what. They used the same stupid excuse when they took away my tentacle boy from my warlock. Luckily they brought the observer pet back for warlocks, so that was just the predecessor to this upcoming fix. God I can't wait to jump on the PTR the moment it's up.

You are overestimating the abilities of competitive mouthbreathing pvpers that complained about this. Skilled PvPrs don't care about pet silhouette, but unskilled players are not like them.

[Xcreeping]

If you understand how E-sports works the pvp argument makes perfect sense. E-sports is playing on a competitive level where all things are solved and your job is to be the best to react to all these solved things. Having a Hunter pet enter the arena in a random unknown spec goes against that because if you can't know what somethings spec is you can't know how to react to it.

A small UI change back then would of solved all of this however looking back they very rarely if at all touched the UI and most likely because they couldn't. The UI by then was 14 years old and they most likely didn't have anyone around anymore who knew how to mess with the UI without breaking the whole thing. Usually when something becomes so dated like that it becomes spaghetti code and is most likely why the whole thing got overhauled with Dragonflight.

[Bunny._.Harvestman]

If you understand how E-sports works the pvp argument makes perfect sense. E-sports is playing on a competitive level where all things are solved and your job is to be the best to react to all these solved things. Having a Hunter pet enter the arena in a random unknown spec goes against that because if you can't know what somethings spec is you can't know how to react to it.

A small UI change back then would of solved all of this however looking back they very rarely if at all touched the UI and most likely because they couldn't. The UI by then was 14 years old and they most likely didn't have anyone around anymore who knew how to mess with the UI without breaking the whole thing. Usually when something becomes so dated like that it becomes spaghetti code and is most likely why the whole thing got overhauled with Dragonflight.

O you misunderstood. I understand they need the reaction time thing, I just don't care about their need to react to solve things at the cost of my aesthetic choices, lol. That's why the ones that complained are unskilled mouthbreathers because they are a fraction compared to the number of hunters that don't care about it and ruin our enjoyment of the game.

[Xcreeping]

Oh im with you, I cared deeply about the game back then and was active in the next few expansions alpha/beta section for Hunters and seeing this be the most requested thing to be brought back by a MILE and it being ignored was one of the things that killed me caring about any of this.

Just remember! Retail World of Warcraft is an E-sport and prioritizing the E-sport will always come before all else.

[Vephriel]

Just hopped on PTR to confirm it's real!!!! Every pet has a little dropdown menu to select its talent spec.

[Talihawk]

Awesome!! I pray this won't be some weird monkey's paw! *fingers crossed*

[worgpower]

That looks better than expected, thanks for posting for us Vephriel. Gotta go try for myself