Innate skills — skills that a pet already knows when it is tamed — are by and large active skills. This is just how it’s been since the beginning: some creatures innately know some active skills; hunters tame those creatures to learn those active skills; if you want a passive skill you go to the pet trainer.
Of course, this categorization isn’t completely accurate. Pet trainers also teach Growl, which is an active skill, and in the beginning that was all they taught since there weren’t any passive skills. (Remember when there were just four pet skills, period?) But regardless of accuracy, this is still how we hunters tend to think about skills: active skills are learned from the wild; passive skills from pet trainers.
But starting with the Burning Crusade, it has been possible to find innate passive skills on a handful of creatures. Actually, handful is too generous a word – there are just three of them: King Bangalash knows Cobra Reflexes when he is tamed, the Scorchshell Pincer knows Fire Resistance 5, and the Scorpid Bonecrawler knows Natural Armor 10. It’s never been clear whether these innate skills are mistakes or intentional. King B got his Cobra Reflexes before the trainer did, which was probably unintentional, and it’s quite possible that the scorpids were intended to have armor and resistance bonuses in their wild state, not their tamed state. (It wouldn’t be the first time a game designer set the wrong bit that way.)
Mistakes or not, these skills don’t have a major effect on the game. The skills aren’t free — each of these creatures starts with negative training points to account for them. And hunters can’t learn the skills from the creatures (nor would they really want to, since it’s a lot simpler to buy them from the pet trainer). But they do make for small but interesting differences between the pets. And they do have a small advantage for hunters — namely, that you don’t have to wait until your pet gains enough loyalty and training points to afford these skills.
So, given that, I’d like to see Blizzard expand this trend and give level-appropriate passive skills to individual creatures that don’t currently have innate skills. Note that I’m not talking about families like crabs that still need interesting family skills – that’s an entirely different and all-together more important issue. *grin*
No, I mean individual creatures like the Slavering Worgs in Shadowfang Keep. They look just like Young Black Ravagers from Duskwood, and neither has any innate skills to help set them apart. But what if the Slavering Worgs knew Great Stamina 3 already when they were tamed? And perhaps the Ravagers could innately know Shadow Resistance 1. Minor changes like that would help distinguish these pets and give you a reason to choose one over the other, depending on your needs. In the long run, it wouldn’t make one pet inherently better than the other — bith could eventually have all the same skills – but in the short run each pet would have their own particular small benefit.
Situational and entirely optional — my favorite kind of design!
ya but if they all have some type of passive skill(which would be pretty cool in my opinion). They would all start out with negative talent points.
it would be kool… but if im trying to level a pet and it has as the scorpion has… fire resistance 5. thats just that much longer i have to wait to teach it skills i want it to have. plus fire resist wont make a break leveling it any easier. i can only see that being good if it meant not paying (what 25s) for the skill or learning it before the trainer.
im really fine with everything about hunters in general, i just want more active or unique abilities on the pets nobody uses. i like taming a pet and having it be unique (i had the new tallstrider from terrokar, but it couldnt hold aggro like i wanted so i ditched it) and im about ready to release my black raptor from blades edge because he doesnt have sprint or dash or equivalent. (i know in the wild ive had raptors dash at me and knock me down with a stun).
What’s the big deal if a pet starts with negative training points?
If you don’t like the starting skill, you can train a different pet. That was Mania’s point, that starting pets out with passive (or active) skills gives you a reason to choose one over another.
And if you still want that particular pet, you just take your pet to the pet trainer as soon as it would have enough points for something different. Pet retraining is cheap.
Personally I appreciate having some useful skills as soon as I tame a pet.
in the past i enjoyed to tame rare pets, like BT, camping and trying to hunt him down before someone else got him, or killed him :( becouse of something special with that pet, not only the look. but now there is no deffrence between the pets, so i can take whatever.
get some rare spawns some cool abilitys, think how fun it would be if a reare spawn, spawn once a day, had something cool/good. my world would be so much more fun.
Rare spawns (and maybe some common ones) should have special abilities, but nothing you want be able to “transfer” to your main pet. I mean cases like Humar’s speed before some patch – everyone in BG with black lion. Then King B with cobra reflex – and again everyone in BG with white tiger. Unique abilities – yes! But only to learn your own pet. More unique looks – yes! To show others your determination with hunting (like Ghost Saber on Horde side or Humar for Alliance – especially on PvP realms)