Suggestions for our Lurker.. ;)

[Dewclaw]

I'd love to see hunters be able to pick specs again. I was just posting what I'd read on the forums a few days ago when a thread about it popped up.

[ApiBiru]

I read on the forums recently that it was because players going against hunters in PVP wouldn't be able to know fully what they were up against if pets could be any spec.

Hot Take, PvP player wanting to min-max their fight, ruin WoW for the rest of us.

[Talihawk]

Please make the Pureblooded Cloud Serpent tameable! thanks!

[Baihu]

Tbh, the spec switching is mainly I think, so people can switch a Cunning pet to either Ferocity or Tenacity, cos Cunning has the least benefits whereas the other two specs has all important survivability one way or another. The best solution is prolly to bake in Leech or Fortitude of the Bear to all pets, or to buff the benefits of Cunning pets if they're the obv weakest spec of pet.

[Umbriel of Halaa]

Thank you for adding the otters (although I still think mustelid-type creatures should be their own family rather than classed as rodents). What I said about model updates still stands, especially that runehound (which I seem to recall not even having a swimming animation; please at least switch them to a reskinned version of the new darkhound model). And I still want voidhounds (and mandragoras); and let's also add vorquins, woodpeckers, magma slugs, mantacorns, and hornswogs.

Thank you for the additions that have been made so far. Anyway: I still want voidhounds and mandragoras; and you can add razorwings to the list now, too (they could fall under the pterrordax, feathermane, or scalehide family). Ottuks, the new skunks, and maybe marsuul should be their own separate family; and adding badger options would be cool. As for the extant rodent family: let us have giant rats (aside from those mawrats) and/or giant squirrels. And every pet model from Wrath or earlier needs an update, really.

Also? More dogs. The soul-eaters would make for a good hound model.

[WerebearGuy]

Because I mentioned it in another thread and it got stuck in my head, I'm posting this nonsensical idea here too.

Pet Family: Critter
- Unlock Method: Some kind of plot about dryads wanting to teach critters how to protect themselves.
- Allow the hunter to tame critters, AKA those small lil' fellas that always die to AoE.
- Alternatively, allows the hunter to call a battle pet out from their battle pet collection.

Critters have been a massive thing since the very beginning, ranging from rodents like mice and rats to crazy things like demons and cows. Critters are by far the most diverse selection of NPCs in the game simply due to how many different models are labeled as such. They're non-hostile, easily killed, and are used as ambient creatures in many ways. When you think of a hunter however, you imagine a burly dwarf with a bear, or a towering tauren with a tallstrider. Maybe an orc with a wolf, or a human with an abomination composed of dragon corpses stitched together and reanimated... Yeah, that's a thing. Hunters already have such an insane variety of tameable beasts, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, but critters are a type of beast too, yet they get no love from the class that's all about taking care of animals!

As a family, critters would not have an ability. They would not provide run speed, attack speed, a defensive, a heal, or anything else. They'd simply be a vanity tame that is capable of fighting and being affected by hunter abilities (such as Bestial Wrath). They would not be considered Ferocity, Cunning, or Tenacity. Instead, they'd be their own Critter class. The Critter class would not provide anything for a hunter. They would simply have the usual pet abilities like Growl, Smack, and so on, but they would not provide additional on-demand defense, a powerful haste buff, or a means of escaping crowd control. They would not be exotic, which means we would not need to be Beast Mastery specialization to use them.

Assuming battle pets are allowed to be summoned, here is my argument towards allowing ALL battle pets rather than having to sort through everything. First off, critters are critters, and all battle pets are critters. Be they small animals like squirrels or magical constructs summoned by mages, they are small and defenseless in the face of real danger. The dryads have shown to care so much for critters that they would likely not be bothered tending to small abominations and demons. All life is precious to them, after all. Second, there are so many battle pets that it would be a monumental task to hand pick everything. There are humanoids in the flying battle pet category, actual dragons in the dragonkin family, zombies in the undead family, and so on. Why bother taking the time to sort them when ALL life is precious? Finally, this would also lead to allowing players to put their battle pets to good use outside of the minigame. You can't tell me that you wouldn't like your favorite battle pet to fight at your side. You can't tell me that seeing a hunter with Deebs at their side wouldn't be awesome. Battle Pets already have everything they need to be used as hunter pets aside from a family.

Wild critter or battle pet, this is all easily doable. It's just summoning an NPC that takes the appearance of the chosen miniature animal. To make it easier for players to realize it's a hunter-controlled pet, the tamed critter/battle pet would have an icon over its head with the hunter class symbol of a bow and arrow. Or perhaps a paw marker of a different color than battle pets and legendary battle pets. They would provide no increased stats or strategic value outside of being a little smaller and easier to click around. If battle pets are allowed, it could be done by right clicking a battle pet and selecting "Hunter Summon". For Beast Mastery and battle pets, there could be another option as "Hunter Companion" for those talented into Animal Companion that want two battle pets as their hunter pets. The critters/battle pets could also be handicapped so that they have low health, making them less viable for long-term content like raids and PvP.

This concept is based on the inclusion of tameable beasts with critter models, such as the worms from Pandaria, as well as the ability for those in the Night Fae covenant to transform into critters with Soulshape. This is purely for fun.

[Kilroy]

Was thinking while doing some quests in Pandaria that I should tame a dragon, and after playing around with them I found the veilwing animations kinda weird. Am I alone? I'm not a fan of the way they fly while idle and are grounded to move and attack, feels like that should be reversed.

Also why no more tameable monkeys since Cataclysm, even after adding a perfect new model for it?

[WerebearGuy]

Seeing as how the next expansion "The War Within" is coming out relatively soon, I figured it's a good time to throw in some much-needed attention to the concept put forth a while back regarding raid tames. Once TWW launches, it will have been two full expansions since Battle for Azeroth, which means the restriction on raid bosses being tameable is finally lifted for that expansion. So, here's my argument for each raid from Battle for Azeroth.

Uldir
This raid introduced hunters to the concept of blood beasts. The Blood-Soaked Tome of Dark Whispers is available from defeating Zul on normal, heroic, or mythic difficulty, and allows hunters across your account to tame blood beasts. As of right now, this class of pet is limited to crawgs and ticks, which is a shame since it's a fun concept. Crawgs are mutated offspring of Krag'wa the toad loa, and ticks are... well ticks exist. Thing is, that's all we got. There were smaller ticks that used the crocolisk/basilisk animations, but they were relegated to battle pets. In the halls of Uldir however, there are two candidates for taming as blood beasts; Fetid Devourer and Spawn of G'huun.

Fetid Devourer is one of the bosses you must kill before you can approach Zul. It is a hydra composed of a lion, a vulture, some kind of reptile, some kind of hoofed animal, and a whole lot of fungus. Lorewise, these were all parts of long-forgotten loa that were experimented on by the titans. My first choice would have been to call it a hydra, but it's an amalgamation of multiple animals. It COULD be a spirit beast, what with being made of dead loas. However, I fully support the concept of it being a blood beast since Uldir is the source of the ability to tame them, and Fetid Devourer is a little too unique to just be lumped in as a hydra.

Spawn of G'huun is an add that spawns during the mythic G'huun encounter, appearing when any minion is slain. They move towards a random player, and jump inside of that unfortunate player to make them a host to more adds. This uses a unique worm model, being a smooth grey creature with a prominent horn, mandibles, and striking bloody jaws. I've been enamored by this thing since I first saw them used in the mythic affix "Infested", which is where these lil' fellas made their debut prior to Uldir's release. These would clearly be a challenge tame, since they move towards a targeted player at high speed and despawn when they touch that player. They are susceptible to crowd control of course, but you'd have to manage the spawning and positioning of these worms because that fight has a lot going on, especially in mythic. Currently classified as an aberration, but changing it to a beast is an easy fix.

Battle of Dazar'alor
This raid is unique in that both Alliance and Horde players get to see different versions of some fights, as well as alternate events. One boss that portrays this well is Grong, a massive white gorilla who gave up his intelligence and individuality in order to help the Alliance put a stop to the war with the Zandalari Trolls. This boss was unique in that it was very different for each faction. The Horde fight the living version of Grong, while the Alliance fight the revived Grong the Revenant. This enormous gorilla also has a very unique appearance, having been given a realistic model that more closely represents the physique and mannerisms of a real gorilla. This big fella would pose a small issue however; only Horde would have access to its living appearance, while only Alliance would have access to its undead appearance. Likewise, Alliance would ideally need to know how to tame undead to be able to tame Grong the Revenant. This would mean that, for a player to have both appearances, they would need to do a faction change. A very small boost in sales for that service would happen, because I'm sure there's a small group out there who'd gladly swap factions (more than once, too) just to get both looks. Regardless, these two appearances would be much-needed love for a classic pet family that has received very little love over the years.

The Eternal Palace
This one's a bit of a stretch, but I'm still going to suggest it. In the darkest depths of this raid lives a massive eel known as the Blackwater Behemoth. Resembling a horrifying mix of eel, anglerfish, and the extinct mosasaur, this frightening titan of the deep was a challenging raid boss that took place underwater. That's... sadly all I can say for it. It's just a big prehistoric eel. We have multiple examples of tamed eels, ranging from the magical mana serpents to the freaky abyssal eels. Adding another floating eel to the squad wouldn't hurt!

I'd also suggest Orgozoa and its minion Zoatroid, but we don't have a family for this kind of cephalopod abomination. Sad.


Those are all of the relevant raid beasts I could see becoming available as pets once The War Within launches.