Tag Archives: Exotic Pets

Hunter Pets, Opinion

How Blizzard could bring back Hunter pet loyalty

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Hunter pets back in vanilla were convoluted by today’s standards. You couldnt’ simply tame a pet and use it. You had to worry about several things:

  1. Pets did not level up to your level. If you were level 60 and tamed a level 10 pet, you would have to manually level them up. Very slowly, since they weren’t able to do any tanking for you when they’d get killed in a few hits.
  2. Pets had 6 loyalty levels, which also had to be leveled up. The more loyal they were, the easier it was to keep them happy.
  3. Pet Happiness had to be kept up by feeding your pet regularly, if you didn’t keep your pet happy they would do less damage. If they stayed unhappy for too long, they would permanently abandon you.

In today’s WoW this simply wouldn’t fly, but there was something good buried under all that. Hunters tended to pick a single pet and stick with it (helped that we could only have 2 other pets in the stable at the time). Rak’shiri was my main pet through a good part of vanilla. Your pet was your best buddy because you worked so hard to get them there. Not like today where it’s almost become a collection mini-game.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy collecting pets, but I still think something was lost from the spirit of the class. Pets feel more disposable than ever.

It got me wondering if there was a way to bring back the idea of a hunter bonding with their pet, without all of the baggage that made it not fun.

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Hunter Pets, Opinion

What new pets do you want to see?

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I’ve written posts in the same vein as this before (like this Scattered Shots) and I try my best not to sound like a spoiled, entitled hunter. The reality is, we have a crapton of pets to choose from. There’s not much reason to beg for more, but hey, Muffinus asked! The same designer responsible for Gara and other new pet families in in 6.0.

So with that in mind, I thought it would be cool to touch on some of the interesting potential pets out there. Think of it as a wishlist. Some of them are new skins for existing families, and some would have to be new families entirely (much less likely outside of a new expansion).

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Hunter News

WoD Beta 18663: Clefthooves, Stags, and more new pets

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The highlight of this beta patch was a serious amount of new tameable hunter pets. We have two new pet families and a bunch of new pet skins to discover.

Let’s get the non-pet stuff out of the way first because there’s not much of it in this build:

  • Glyph of Misdirection is back in the build. This has been absent from alpha/beta for a very long time, and some of us were beginning to get worried. It’s all good though.
  • Misdirection is now learned at level 42 (old: level 76)
  • Exotic Munitions: Poisoned Ammo has been buffed slightly (40% AP to 48% AP)
  • Exotic Munitions: Frozen Ammo has had its damage nerfed considerably (40% weapon damage down to 15%). There should no longer be a question of what munition does the most damage on single target.
  • Hunter WoD PvP Marksmanship 4P Bonus: Aimed Shot reduces the cooldown of Rapid Fire by 5 sec.
  • All enchants have been buffed. For example, cloak enchants now grant 250 seconday stats (up from 200).
  • Scopes have been buffed (from 750 to 938 stats)

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Hunter Pets

Warlords of Draenor: New exotic pet abilities

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I recently spent some time outside Draenor to get my hands on a few exotic pets to test their new abilities. Today we’ll be looking at the new Quilen, Rhino, Devilsaur, and Core Hound abilities. Exotic pets in Warlords can have up to 3 special abilities or buffs. For example the Core Hound has a 5% multistrike buff, Ancient Hysteria, and the new Molten Hide. Exotics which only have 1 special ability bring double buffs instead

Quilen

Stone Armor: When falling below 40% health, the Quilen’s skin will change to stone, causing it to take 30% less damage and regenerate 3% of its maximum health every 1 sec for 8 sec. This effect can only occur once every 120 sec.

This has a similar visual to the turtle’s shell shield, only its automatic whenever the pet’s health gets low. The turtle’s shell is arguably better since it’s 50% reduced damage for 12 seconds on a 1 min cooldown, but the benefit of this one is its passive nature and the healing. The Quilen also comes with its crit buff and the battle rez compared to the turtle which has zero buffs.

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Hunter Pets

Pet of the Week: Arcturis

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Most people think that Loque’nahak is the most difficult spirit beast to tame, but I’d argue that honor goes to Arcturis. At least Loque has multiple spawn points, so you could always get lucky and find him at one of the spawns where no one is currently camping. Arcturis, on the other hand, spawns at a single location and almost always has at least 1-2 hunters camping that spawn point.

One of the problems with this is hunters will fight over the spawn and Arcturis ends up dead in the process. If you’re taking the camping approach, it might be best to befriend any other hunters who are camping. Perhaps you can come to some sort of agreement where neither of you will be jerks and kill the bear after someone starts taming it. If that doesn’t work, you might need to become a little more dedicated.

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Hunter Pets

Pet of the Week: Chromaggus

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There’s a lot of hunter art out there, but the above “Taming Chromaggus” piece is, without a doubt, my favorite. Taming raid bosses is a rite of passage for any hunter. It’s all the more special if it’s a boss you’ve faced in the past when it was relevant content. Next on the list of tameable raid bosses is going to be Chimaeron in patch 6.0. I’m so ready.

Chromaggus is a Core Hound pet found in Blackwing Lair (level 60 raid) and at level 90 there’s really no trick to taming him. He’s the second last boss of the instance. Razorgore is the biggest obstacle (some people still have trouble soloing that one). If you’re currently farming Dragonstalker armor, you will need to give up a chance at the shoulders because if you tame this guy, he’s obviously not going to drop any loot.

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Hunter Pets

Pet of the Week: Hexapos

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Hexapos is the only water strider to use the “white fen strider” skin and in found in the Dread Wastes. Chances are you’ve flown over this guy without even knowing because he’s one of the handful of Mists of Pandaria pets which are invisible until revealed by a hunter’s Flare. The only way to find Hexapos is to look for his tracks on the ground and drop your flare where you think he’ll show up next, which is usually just a little bit ahead of the most recent footprint.

The problem with Hexapos is the enormous patrol path… he basically takes a leisurely stroll around the entire zone. The map below shows his patrol route and what tracks you should look out for.

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Hunter Pets

Pet of the Week: Ban’thalos

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Ban’thalos is one of the many challenge tames added back in patch 4.2. This level 85 spirit beast can be found in Hyjal, circling high above the Sanctuary of Malorne (around 28,62). The challenge to this tame is the sheer height Ban’thalos spawns at. You need to be able to get aggro and land on solid ground without killing yourself.

There are a couple of ways to pull off the tame, but first you need to have progressed the Hyjal quest lines up until you’ve unlocked the Molten Front daily quest area. If you haven’t yet, this quest will be available on your city’s “call to arms” board. Ban’thalos will be outside of your phase until you do this, along with Magria and Ankha who are also nearby.

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Hunter News, Hunter Pets

New Hunter pets and pet buffs in Warlords

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More fun hunter stuff from the Warlords of Draenor alpha has been datamined! First up, it looks like all buffs will be able to be provided by non-Exotic pets, including bloodlust/heroism.  It appears that some exotic pets will be getting new special abilities instead of having access to exclusive buffs.

We currently know about 5 new pet families in Warlords:

  • Rylak (Exotic) — Haste, Stamina, and Slow fall
  • Riverbeast — Mortal Wounds (reduced healing)
  • Hydra — Mastery buff
  • Stags – Versatility buff
  • Clefthooves (Exotic) — Versatility, Multistrike, and damage reduction.

To learn more about the new pet families in Warlords, check out this video. 

Below is a handful of the new pets you’ll find in Draenor.

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Hunter Pets

Pet of the Week: King Krush

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Day 1: I just dinged level 80 and I heard about this new rare Devilsaur pet called King Krush. He’s the only green devilsaur. I must tame this beast!
Day 6: A fellow hunter who encountered this rare beast told me his initial attempts to tame the beast were unsuccessful because it would fear him before the tame completes. And Krush hits like a truck.
Day 37: Still no sign of King Krush, but I always keep a throwaway pet on hand so I can cast Bestial Wrath for fear immunity right before the tame. I have a macro that will instantly abandon the throwaway after Bestial Wrath. It also pops a haste potion. It’s foolproof!
Day 212: Still no sign of King Krush. I’m beginning to lose hope.
Day 1037: I give up.
Day 1860: Decided to give it another go for old times’ sake. No luck, but I’m going to log out in Sholazar so I can check as soon as I login tomorrow.
Day 1861: I logged in to find King Krush standing 15 yards in front of me. HE’S MINE!

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