Beast Mastery will dual wield pets in Legion

I’ve talked about my desire for Beast Mastery to be able to have two pets many times in the past, and I’m happy to say it looks like it’s becoming a reality in Legion. I hesitate to get too excited since things can so easily change at this point, but I can’t resist.

The extra pet is tied into Titanstrike, the Beast Mastery artifact, so this is not something you’ll see at earlier levels. Also, some of the functionality of the secondary pet isn’t unlocked until you get deeper into your artifact trait tree. Lastly, the secondary pet is probably going to be a fixed appearance as it’s referred to by name (Hati) and is themed around being the guardian of the Titanstrike.

Update: Beast Mastery is now unlocked on the alpha. More details here

Who is Hati?

Hati is listed as a spirit beast in the Wowhead database and looks very similar to Skoll and Thundermaws. Skoll is deep blue, Hati is light blue, and Thundermaws lean more towards grayish blue. At this point we can probably assume this is the specific pet that is summoned by the gun.

In Norse mythology, Hati is actually Skoll’s brother.  Skoll chases the sun in the sky throughout the day, trying to eat her, and Hati chases the moon during the night. The brothers eventually succeed at Ragnarök, consuming both the sun and the moon. They are also the sons of Fenrir the wolf, who you may have heard of before.

Skoll is the name of the wolf
Who follows the shining priest
Into the desolate forest,
And the other is Hati,
Hróðvitnir’s son,
Who chases the bright bride of the sky.

Using a combination of Skoll and Hati in-game will be hard to resist. 🙂  I mimicked it in the header image of this post, but the lighter colored one is actually just a Thundermaw for now (BM is still not available in the alpha).

Hati compared to other electrified wolves
Hati compared to other electrified wolves

How will Hati work exactly?

It seems that merely equipping the artifact will summon Hati to your side, but there are still many unanswered questions.  For starters, does Hati behave like a guardian (no control, like a Dire Beast) or does it follow the same orders as your regular pet? It’s possible that it might be both. It could work as a guardian at first, until you eventually unlock the completely insane Master of Beasts trait in your artifact tree.

Master of Beasts upgrades Hati so that he will use Kill Command and Beast Cleave with your other pet. He will also be affected by Bestial Wrath. My hope is that Hati just assists the main pet at all times, though I suppose it could still work as a guardian (it would just be less responsive). I have to assume that Hati can be killed, so what happens when he dies? Can you resurrect him with Revive Pet? Or maybe he just automatically resurrects after a certain cooldown period? What about dismissing? Maybe it would be best if Hati just obeyed all the same commands as your regular pet.

Double Beast Cleave and Kill Command sounds insanely powerful, but they can easily balance out the spells to account for it, or just have Hati’s versions deal less damage.

On the aesthetics side, it’s a must that Hati always stays on the opposite side of the Hunter. I don’t want him piled on top of my normal pet. Stampede already seems to spread out the pets like this, so I doubt it will be a problem. Running around flanked by 2 pets is going to look pretty badass, if you ask me.

So I’m stuck with this wolf?

Probably. You can still use whatever primary pet you want, but Hati is specifically named after a wolf from the Norse myths. I guess you could invoke the “it’s just a video game” argument and let us customize it somehow. Some people have already suggested that the pet could change appearances based on your weapon transmog (or artifact variant), or maybe have a minor glyph where it automatically summons the first available pet from your list. This would give you direct control of what the secondary pet was.

Personally, I am fine with it as-is, but I would definitely not be against the option to customize it!

bmtraits

More pets, but not as many as before

On average you can probably expect to have your main pet, Hati, and 1-2 Dire Beasts summoned at a time. Sometimes you’ll get lucky and have an extra Dire Beast or two active, but 3-4 total pets will be the average. This is much different from earlier iterations of the BM artifact tree that summoned bonus Dire Beasts and extended the duration of existing beasts, PLUS summoned additional pets every 5 seconds during Bestial Wrath. That’s all gone now.

Toning down the number of pets is probably for the best. As fun as it would be, there was potential to cause lag or FPS issues for those with potato PCs. Not to mention annoying our Survival brothers and sisters up at the rear end of the boss with our personal zoo!

Go check out Wowhead’s artifact calculator to see how all the various traits interact with our pets.

When can we see this in action?!

Probably not until 2016. 🙁 The alpha is going on a break starting December 21 and won’t return until the new year. Hopefully the other specs are unlocked at that point so we can answer some of these questions.

Let’s also hope Blizzard doesn’t change everything before we even get to try it! I am super excited about the prospect of having two permanent pets, and I really hope it sticks around.

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16 thoughts on “Beast Mastery will dual wield pets in Legion”

  1. I think they will work like the old Feral Spirits worked for Enhancement Shamans back in Cata, one of them was the pet the other was a guardian that mimicked the pet, outside battle they stayed at different sides of your character, they still do this, but they are both guardians now, but it is still badass, so the tech to do this they already have.

  2. Count me among those begging for more customization. I’m already disappointed that Stampede was saying it would pull creatures from the wilds (or have they fixed that?) and if I can only get to choose 1 out of the 3-8 beasts I can up at once, when I’ve got 50 awesome pets sitting in my stable, that severely undercuts the awesome Beast Master fantasy they are building.

    I already feel a little guilty that I benched my hyena for Gara throughout Warlords. I’ll feel guilty again when I’m stuck rolling with the whatever super-awesome-mech-taming-challenge they give us + Hati throughout Legion.

  3. Two pets. That is a strong image and one that would resonate with me. The ‘feel’ of a hunter (call out the hounds!) even pre-pull or lounging in Dalaran would feel extremely strong and powerful. On some level, how it plays is secondary to looking bad-ass.
    I’ve come to enjoy the petless Marksman spec; I like standing and lining up a shot and firing away but, really, lets get back to hunters and pets.

  4. omg finally something I’ve asked for ages.

    My version:

    BM: 2 pets and/or turn into a feral humanoid for duration of bestial wrath with new sets of skills – possibly having your pet and you do the same attacks (naruto style)

    Surv: Warcraft 3 rexxar with focus on mid range throwing weapons and melee attacks, lots of trap use (assassin in D2)

    MM: Don’t care much, make it a generic ranger

  5. Looks like I will have to rename at least one of my (spirit beast) wolves. I already have a Hati , Sköll , Freki , Fenrir and Geri. I prefer the standard and Draenor models over the Saber Wargs but having two side-by-side will be nice. I guess I have to check Norse mythology for additional wolves 🙂

  6. This better get customization. I do not want to go back to the days where every hunter has the same pet/family. It will be quite boring to see every hunter with two wolves.

  7. Seconding Banard’s comment. My main loves her wolves, and I’d have no problem having my fel wolf or a spirit beast wolf out alongside Hati for variety’s sake, but a) it’ll feel weird to me, personally, to have Hati and, say, a wasp or something, and b) we’re going to see 90% of hunters rocking Hati + Sköll. If there was a battle pet that was a miniature version, that’d be out too. The spectral wolf mount from Tol Barad goes nicely, even though it’s the oldest model wolf. Ugh. Please god let there be some way to customize it.

  8. I hope there is a way to change the pet out, I am REALLY not a fan of that model, and if I am going to have more than one pet, I would prefer that they match. Perhaps different artifact skins could change the appearance, or a Glyph.

    [Glyph of the Pack Mentality](BM only): Changes the appearance of Hati to that of your pet or a random beast from the same family.

    Hati is always going to play second fiddle to our real pets, so Hati should follow the real pet’s example and even if it isn’t the exact same beast, two different kinds of raptors being in a pack is far better than a raptor and what looks like spirit beast.

    I know it isn’t perfect but they NEED to find a way to change Hati’s appearance, or it could aesthetically ruin BM hunters as they will all be running around with the same pets which is far worse than everyone having the same weapon.

    So BM hunters in the alpha and beta, bitch with all your might so that they will take it to heart.

    P.S. This could ruin RP making it a requirement to not have the Titanspark equipped at all to participate (transmogging won’t change Hati’s appearance/get rid of him.)

    1. Yeah, not too enthused with that old model. One of the draenor wolves with lightning effects would be SO much better!

  9. Gah, I’m really not a fan of this.

    The appeal of the BM hunter is– and has always been, to me– just a hunter with a pet they’ve formed a bond with. With two customizable pets, it would be fine, because the pets themselves are still theirs, but now… I’m calling a bunch of random animals from the wild and keeping uptime on that, having this magic wolf summoned by my gun, and then… Having one pet that I camped spawns for or went through challenges to get playing second fiddle to all these other beasts? I don’t like these changes, and I really hope Blizzard allows us to customize it. It doesn’t help that with all of the updated models, the one they give is a wolf from three expansions ago that has that strange broken-legged run of older wolves?

    If this goes to the live game the list of classes I’m going to have fun playing with these changes will be one thinner, which isn’t good considering how short it was already.

  10. Tbh.. I think they will customization to Hati .. AND i doubt they will use a old wolf/warg model.. perhaps a new warg model that would make it look so much better!

    But i vote yes for customization to Hati, they could just add some kind of system where you select which kind of animal you want Hati to look like, so it fits every hunter who prefers a specific race.

    But again, i doubt they are gonna make Hati use a old warg model from wotlk.

  11. Darkbrew had mentioned on the HPP about Hearthstone being pulled into WoW and I would love them to model BM hunter after how the hunter plays in hearthstone, calling on a pets that do not just dps but have great synergy with each other. This pet family gives the other pets charge or dash, another family could add another dps mechanic or trap. Not sure if they would do it by pet families or if you pick a slot for your main pet, one for hati and one for your first dire beast or just the dire beasts add this bonus. I feel like a true bm hunter playing HS, 3 or 4 beasts a couple taunting, one adds charge to the others, one adds plus attack to other beasts the synergy is great.

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