WotLK: Beta Hunter Talents
There’s no way I’m going to be able to keep up with all the WotLK info that’s coming out today, what with the start of beta, the fall of the NDA, and the fact that I got less than 5 hours of sleep. (I woke up twice to check my mail.) So given that this is a hunter pet site, I’m going to be concentrating on hunter pets.
But having said that, I’m immediately going to start talking about hunter talents — because the very top new Beast Mastery talent looks to be something really amazing for pets.
Blizzard hasn’t released talent calculators for WotLK yet, but which people in the beta willing to post what they are seeing, we hardly need to wait for Blizzard. A player named Avarim has posted details of the new hunter talents to the WoW Beta Hunter forum, and Wowhead has a talent calculator for the new talents up already. My favorite source at the moment, though, is the WotLK Information Wiki, which has details of the talents and skills laid out in a nice table and also hosts Wowhead’s talent calculator.
So why am I, a person who normally ignores everything about hunters except the pets, excited about new talents? Because of the description of the very top of the Beast Mastery tree, the 51-point BM talent, currently called Beast Mastery:
You master the art of Beast training, teaching you the ability to tame Exotic pets and increasing your total amount of Pet Skill Points by 5.
Exotic pets … Think about that for a moment …
At this point we have no idea what ‘exotic pets’ might mean. [edited because I'm an idiot] But for the moment, we can certainly dream!
Do you think exotic pets will be otherwise untameable examples of the pet families we already know and love? Or maybe existing beasts that can’t current be tamed? Or not beasts at all?
[Update] Nimizar has just pointed out to me that there is something else for me to be excited about in there as well. There is a new 41-point talent called Longevity that:
Reduces the cooldown of your Bestial Wrath, Intimidation and Pet Special Abilities by 10/20/30%
Now I never remember to use BW or Intimidation when I should, but reducing the cooldown on special abilities is a big deal. In particular, if this works for Growl then it can bring the Growl cooldown timer below 4 seconds, allowing the pet to Growl every time they get a tick of focus regen. That should certainly help with aggro, at least for BM hunters!
[Update #2] Koraa, a Blizzard class designer, has posted more information on “exotic” pets in the WotLK Beta Hunter forum:
We’re still working on implementing this particular talent. The talent will allow you to train a different “class” of pets which we’re calling “exotic” right now. Only hunters with this talent will be able to train those pets. They won’t necessarily be “stronger” (though will all have unique abilities that you can only get from exotic pets), the extra power you should get from the talent will be from the additional pet skill points (pet talent points).
Devilsaur anyone?
[Update #3] We’ve learned more about about exotic pets!
[Update #80] Blizzard has posted the official WotLK Hunter Talent Calculator.
55 Comments
I really hope Devilsaurs are exotic pets!
Wow, that sounds great! Now all we need is some hints on “Exotic Pets”… I hope there will be dragons :>
Exotic Pets, count me there. I think it’ll probably be pets that would normally fit into a category of current familys, that are normally untameable. Think SFK’s ghost wolves. Wolves are a family we can use, but we can’t tame that particular beast.
But part of me hopes its not that, because I want to tame a Devilsaur. Plus, I dont want to see a million hunters with ghost wolves @_@
Don’t we already have enough talent points to get the toptier talents?
A question I have on top of that is, what happens when you respec out of that talent? Do you lose your “exotic” pet, or do you get to keep it and just not be able to summon or pull it out of the stable?
I personally think this is going to include basically everything short of humanoids.
LoL you ARE tired Mania. We already have 61 points, as Keilden mentioned, which is more than enough to get the top tier.
Imagine being able to tame say, a silithid wasp! Yes, I know, silithids aren’t really beasts, but then they don’t really fit into any other category.
BUT, if two headed dogs become tameable (as in ALL two headed dogs, I’m looking at you mister core hound)….well then. Decisions, decisions.
Of course the real question’d be, once you tamed an “Exotic” pet, would you be able to re-specc back into whatever, or would your pet go away once it found out you like the other talents more to your liking (Basilisk says “I just don’t know you anymore. I think we need time apart.”)
@Keilden: Yeah we do, but while the 51-point BM talent is in the game files, it is also flagged NYI (for “Not Yet Implemented”) and doesn’t actually do anything when you spec into it.
Once it is implemented though, BM pets will have 21 pet talent points (18 at level 70) instead of the 13/16 available to non-BM hunters.
@Rasta: Yeah, handling characters that respec out of that will certainly be an interesting problem for the devs. Even if the hunter doesn’t have an exotic pet, how will the game decide which 5 talent points to take away? Do all their pets get a free respec whenever the hunter respecs? Those kind of questions are probably part of the reason the talent hasn’t actually been implemented yet.
Also keeping in mind, that just with BC, we’re going to get alot of new beasts we’ve never seen before..
The first thing i thought of when i heard of this was, “why would i want to tame a zebra??” lol..but i do think blizzard will be putting in a specific “exotic” category for animals..
and yeah, dragons would be AWESOME!!! but theyre dragonkin..sooo im not to sure about it…i think everyone else would get jealous.
BUT i definetly think this will be including currently untameable animals..Like that lime green bird in the outlands.
and longevity….AWESOME..bming more then usual!! yeaaaaa..at first i was kind of dissapointed with the ending talent, but then i read longevity, and was like..”EH..works for me!”
really cant wait to see the new animals they release!!!
Exotic pets?!?!?! Oooohhhh….I’m starting salivate, being the rare pet dweeb that I am lol
Which brings me to the one point I want to make from your page showing the WotLK hunter pet changes: It saddens me to see that there is going to be a nerfing (in my mind) of taming lower level pets with higher level toons. I, for one, have a few rare pets that appear at lower levels (one that ONLY appears below level 10) on a hunter of mine and it’s sad to see that the work I’ve done to bring her all the way with me to 70 is soon going to be for naught. I worked hard to get to find her, to get to her, to tame her and to bring her home. I am constantly complimented on my server with things like “omg your pets is awesome looking, where can i get one??” and I took pride in that. To see that any level 70 can snag a pet like that, skip the often times PAINFUL grind to level it (making it not so much fun) is going away.
*sigh* what a shame….
The 51 point talent I’ve seen (linked from BRK’s blog) is nothing like this and involves having 2 pets at once. As both Mania and BRK are pretty trustable sources, I’m really not sure which one is accurate, but I do definitely prefer this one.
Although it’ll be a shame if Hooked Net (51 pt SV) isnt real.
Keilden & toque: Err, whoops. :> I edited that part. Thanks for the correction.
Rasen: I saw that post on BRK. I also am curious about the discrepancy. For now more people seem to be reporting the version I quoted, including people on the beta forum, so that’s the one I linked. :>
This is looking good so far! All we need now are more stable slots.. and for typing “/dance” to also make the hunter’s pet dance. After all, cats,bears,wolves, all have dances made up because of druids, shams. I wonder what ‘exotic pets’ are. I hope its not just moths. Sure, moths are pretty, but I think most of us are hoping for a bit more. Mania, can you respec your talent points to start testing this out for us? :D we all love you!
Bearing in mind it’s the BEAST mastery tree, we are BEAST class and the ability is called BEAST mastery, I don’t see dragonkins being tameable. I would bet my money on it being every pet in the game being specified as ‘beast’, so those giant devilsaurs in un’goro can be an option. Personally, I see mana wyrms becoming pvp favourites if they can keep mana drain.
However, the description doesn’t say exotic beasts, but exotic pets. This is what is keeping my hopes of taming a blue dragonkin alive.
Exotic Pets…
…if I had my druthers that’d mean you can tame an elite beast and it stays elite.
personally, i like the Tier 3 talent “Master’s Call” which causes your pet to attempt to remove movement impairing affects and make you immune to all affects for 4 seconds.
Noba: I would if I could, but I’m not in the beta. Not yet, anyway. :> But thankfully lots of people are being kind enough to send me information as they run across it, so I’ll keep sharing everything I hear.
Oh, hey, Nimizar actually already answered this and I almost missed it: apparently the Beast Mastery talent doesn’t actually do anything yet — it’s NYI (Not Yet Implemented). Well we’ll have to keep an eye on it!
I really hope that Hydra’s will become tameable..That would be good….
*Grins* This is exciting. They are probably working on just what ‘exotic pets’ should intoll, since it could potentially mean they have to make up new pet trees and family abilities for these exotic things. While I personally would LOVE it they gave us the ability to tame non-beast pets, such as certain dragons, there are plenty of beasts in the game currently that we can’t tame as it stands. They have lots to work with without moving to other types of mobs. Glancing at Wowheads list of pet abilities was interesting, with several new pet families getting charge, but ravagers losing gore. I am not sure, however, that I think that’s the extent of what our pets will have to offer. It may be that they are aiming for a form of warlock stream lining, where every pet has exactly four abilities on the action bar or in their arsenal, or it may be that they aren’t done yet. I am hoping for the not done yet option.
And Noba, if Mania were in the beta, I don’t think she’d be here. *Laughs* Well, not for more then like ten second period to rave at us for a bit.
i wanted a worgen, and one of these cat people from zg :P
sight unrealized deams
OH OH maybe i can finally get that druid skin bear from ashenvale!!
I’m kinda disappointed in the last point myself. I mean…I have had my Edgar since lvl 24 (cat) and I don’t want to replace him with another pet. But if ‘exotic’ pets are superior to regular pets then I will have too to be able to raid at top quality. If exotic pets are the same as regular pets…then what is the point?
Plus how many exotic pets will there be? I am not looking forward to seeing every BM hunter running around with the same 4 exotic pets x.x
I dunno…maybe I am worrying for nothing. But it just doesn’t seem that great to me >.> *hides*
Longevity seems really good, especially when you consider the gorilla’s Thunderstomp (1 min cooldown) and the turtle’s Shell Shield (3 mins cooldown). This means those skills will be able to trigger a lot more often than right now!
Exotic pets better be amazing.
Because aspect mastery is junk.
It adds less AP in Hawk than Careful Aim will, for goodness sake.
You may have a point, Circie. Being a fifty one point talent means that those exotic pets had BETTER be amazing, considering the other fifty one point talents. That being said, I am still excited about the prospect of having pets on a completely different level from the ones we have now. Or, it may just be pets that we don’t normally get access to. *shrugs* Its still to early to tell, and at the moment the talent isn’t implimented anyway. Its there, but the talent, it does nothing!!
The extra 5 pet talent points is pretty amazing in itself. The exotic pets may just be a cool side perk.
…..
…..
/cough, gratz BM hunters!
Unfortunetly, I really am not a BM spec lover. I am Surv, I am marks, I am NOT BM. Unless Exotic pets are like, Worgen, or something so amazing that its worth going BM, then I am staying with my pets.. I mean, there are already 6 more families coming out…
I just hope they are also buffing MM/Surv big time…
(Sorry for the negativity!)
Point Mania, considering how many things I see in the trees that I want already, those five points might go a long way.
Wolfington, head on over to http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?hunter if you want to see all the new talents. Survival is getting an AoE fire damaging shot on a six second cooldown, and marksmen are getting a shot that has different effects based on what sting is currently effecting the target. Personally I think the two should have been switched, but eh. Some other interesting little talents have been added, and they have done some adjusting to the first few tiers of marksman. A new trap has been introduced, bear trap, and a new shot, kill shot. Bear trap is a root and bleed over time effect, and I have no idea about kill shot yet. I’ll let you know when and if I find out.
Exotic pets… hrmm maybe i can tame a lvl 70 druid like that boss in slave pens.
I think exotic pets will be like the 2 headed dog in the cave on the Draenei start area. I’d love to see something mad like a 2 headed bear similar to a furry Magmadaar.
Kill Shot Rank 1
475 Mana 5 – 45 yd range
Instant cast 6 sec cooldown
Requires Ranged Weapon
You attempt to finish the wounded target off, firing a long range attack dealing weapon damage plus [RAP * 0.15 + 325]. Causes an additional 745 to 825 bonus damage against targets at or under 20% health.
Found it.
Oh please let them put tamable ferrets in the game. Or a weasel of some sort.
Wow, this seems awesome so far. Im excited about the whole ‘exotic pets’ thing.
i think the 5 extra points is probably the draw to the end bm talent possibly made to allow you to get 2 end pet talents instead of just 1? although i havent looked at how the pet talent points work that would make sense to me, and exotic could possibly be rare skinned animals like the ghost wolf. so the points would be the beneficial aspect while the exotic being the ooooo you have a cool pet you must be a BM hunter.
probable sounds odd but i hope exotic pets includes some of the untamable ungulates, namely ZEVRA!
Another thing, would taming one of these exotic beasts as a BM hunter and then respecing to something else allow you to keep the tamed pet?
My tauren BM hunter will be getting a kodo to go with her tallstider if “exotic” means what I hope it does. :)
Geez, I hope Exotic includes Moths :D
No idea yet, Trackk, the only thing we have for it is that you need the skill to train the exotics. Moths were already planned to be tameable without the exotic skill I think, Tabris, I seem to recall some one playing at the WWI tamed one sans beast mastery. The only exotic pet we know of so far are devilsaurs, but that should give us a clue that it is in reference to normally untameable beast families. This could include hydras, griffons, stags, zerveras, the list goes on for a bit. It may also mean we can tame things not strictly beast. The skill is still being worked on, though for now just the thought of taming a devilsaur makes me very, very pleased.
I liked the exotic pets taming ability — but…. uuummm, sorry for sounding “noobish” but did anyone notice that Efficiency moved up way up to the forth tier in the MM tree? It may not be much, but that talent in MM helps a lot with getting out more shots and stings due to mana being – you know – “efficient”, no matter what major spec you’re in…. but that’s just me, coz if you pour almost everything into the BM talent, you’ll have nothing left to get it unless you have to skip some stuff from the BM line and but still get the Beast Mastery top talent while totally leaving the Survival tree untouched…..
I dunno what the future of pet aggro will be in WOTLK since I am not in beta, but the way things are now, it looks like they almost nerfed MM as a soloable tree…. (it was possible to solo “carefully” with it tho since growl was GOOD back then, but now…….”phoooey”)
I want a zebra!!!
But since I’m not likely to leave survival, it’s not gonna happen. ;_;
Maybe they’ll let you spec, tame, respec!
@blacksands: take a little look at Invigorate in the BM tree, then combine that with Cobra Strikes. Add in the fact that Intellect will now be a DPS stat (due to the relocation and improved effect of Careful Aim) and BM hunters shouldn’t be seeing any mana issues. And if we do… why, grab a Cunning pet and use Roar of Restoration.
@palladiamors: I don’t about WWI, but moths are definitely tamable on the beta servers as normal pets.
@never: I think a non-BM hunter can just manage to get 2 tier 5 talents on their pets at level 80 (13 points for the first one, leaving 3 for the second tier 5 ability and its prerequisite). BM hunters should be able to get all 3 tier 5 talents for their pets.
As far as exotic pets go, I think the most likely options are a few of the beast types that aren’t usually tamable such as devilsaurs, kodos, basilisks, that kind of thing. Dragonkin and non-typed mobs like silithid and fireflies probably aren’t going to be available. Hopefully if big beasts do become tamable for the top end BM hunters, they will also appear larger than normal pets do. A devilsaur that is the same size as a raptor is, well, pretty much just a raptor :P
Hmm, it’s funny how I only heard my idea of an “exotic” pet in this whole conversation once. The first thing I thought of when I heard the term “exotic pets” was Basilisks. Come on, you would have to be insane not to want to tame one of those incredibly shiny beasties, especially one of the STV ones (I think that’s where the best ones are). On the other hand, I’m not particularly into the obese Outland ones.
Hmm. So, maybe this’ll solve the issue I’ve heard of tank pets literally having half the player’s health? :P The sole reason why I’m playing my druid instead of my hunter is because of the weird things I’ve heard about pets.
well, ok. for all you asking if you can keep an exotic pet, i also have a warlock along with my hunter. my warlock used to be Demonology, now he is Aff/Destro mix. when he respec’d, he didnt keep Felguard, so there, i believe there is your answer LOL
Since this comment “thread” has become a discussion about what this “exotic pet” and how different they will be than normal pets, let me just say what I had hoped for when I saw this.
When I first saw this talent I was hoping that “exotic pet” was more akin to a rare that pre pet normalization had an ability or skill that was normalized out of them. ie Brokentooth’s old 1.0 attack speed or the fast moving raptor in the Barrens. While being able to tame a Devilsaur, Basilisk or maybe even a Core Hound or an Amani War Bear sounds really cool, I personally would rather have them give back some of our pre normalized “unique” skills.
That being said, I really do hope that the extra 5 Talent points are not the real draw of this talent. That having an exotic pet opens up a final tier of talents where we use those 5 points.
Overall the changes to some pet families are disconcerting. The changes to Ravagers and Owl’s specifically irk me. Ravager’s losing Gore and Owl’s losing Screech are both huge slap’s in the face as far as I am concerned. As is Spider’s Bite being a “tree talent” instead of a shared one. (The tree its in doesn’t even include the Spider family, come on…)
I hope that with these talent additions pets are no longer DPS/Utility/Tanking in terms of overall damage/armor/health because taking such heavy damage pet families such as Owls, Wind Serpents and Ravagers and placing them into the so called “Utility” talent tree is a huge slap to those hunters that favor them for their DPS and now will need to tame a new raid pet. Sentimentality is one of the biggest things that draw hunters to be hunters, that Wind Serpent I tamed at level 40 is still my pet today, do not make me stable it permanently because its now not a viable DPS pet.
Read the, finally put in place, “Wrath” Hunter Talents, on Wow Insider! (Tried it out, of course) Awesomely fantastic info, about the “Exotic” pets. Can’t wait!
Can not imagine what “Exotic” pets they’ll give us! Woot!
Keep in mind that the differences between the Ferocity and Cunning trees appear to lie more in the area of raid survivability than they do in DPS potential. Cunning has some fairly nice DPS talents.
I love the idea of exotic pets, but … I’m a bit miffed it seems to be BM only?!
Sure, give BM spec special buffs for pets, that’s what BM is about… but hunters are a pet class regardless of the spec, and we all love our pets (or we should). I have been BM and MM and I’m keen to try Surv, but first and foremost I love my pet and love having trying different pets.
What if your guild already has too many BM hunters, and you want to spec MM or Surv to help out with utility? It’d be a bit sucky to have to make a choice between a certain pet/family/skin that you love, or being more useful to the guild :(
The dev mention of Devilsaurs does strongly suggest, as has been mooted, more beast families, not non-beast pets – likely basilisks, hydras, kodos, maybe chimeras, pterrodax, even spore walkers perhaps.
What happens to the exotic when you respec could easily be that it vanishes from your stable, or that it stays in the stable and can’t be got out unless you spec BM again, or that the BM talent is only required for the training, and once the pet is trained it’s yours. Needless to say, the last would be preferable, but the comment about the Warlock talent-based demons is a fair point.
Incidentally, regarding new (and even potentially exotic) pets – I suggest the change of “owl” to “bird of prey” means that the eagle model from Zul’Aman will probably turn up under the same heading at some point. Also – looking at the pet talent names – we have owls for owl’s focus, we have spiders for spider’s bite… but it would be irresponsible and surely innaccurate for me to suggest that rhinos, mantids and wolverines might feature in our future…
When I hear the word “exotic pets,” the demo 41 point talent Summon Felguard comes to mind. Its a lot different from the warlocks other minions. It has more utility, better defense, and much better damage. When I first took a look at the exotic pet talent I was like “what… the… fuck… blizzard…” but you really can’t judge how good or bad the talent is gonna be until we actually see an “exotic pet.” But when you look at it like the upgrade warlocks got in tbc with the felguard, and how cool we thought that was, think of it as being just like that, except better, because we can tame whatever “exotic pet” we want!
Just my 2c :d
As long as they give me a Giraffe I’ll be happy-
I just keep going back to my first thought after reading that post (mention of Devilsaur). Tame a Devilsaur (assuming this massive hulking carnivore retains some of its massive bodily glory), dismiss it, target a clothie in PvP, call pet, 30ft Devilsaur charges clothie, clothie freaks out, runs away, Devilsaur dashes, clothie stuns, Beastial Wrath, clothie has a urinary accident on the grass.
Can you imagine how scary it’d be seeing an equal level Devilsaur come charging at you…?
Wryxian had a little more to say about Exotic Pets. Here’s what was said:
Thanks for pointing that out, Suzi! I’m going to grab that comment and a couple of others and wrap them up in a new post.
Mania’s Arcania » WotLK: Blizzard Pet Posts - July 23rd, 2008 @ 4:52 pm UTC
[...] Friday we started talking about the 51-point Beast Mastery hunter talent and the lure of exotic pets. Today we have a new post on exotic pets by Blizzard poster Wryxian on [...]
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