Random Notes from the WotLK Beta
I had the color wrong for Dragonbone Condors. They are actually a lovely icy blue. Unfortunately this means that we don’t have any tameable white condors right now, but hopefully one will show up.
Saber worgs, the new spiky worg model, mostly seem to use the stiffer worg animations. However, they do have an idling howl like a wof — although at the moment it seems to lack sound. And personally I think the animations look a bit better on the saber worgs than on the old worgs, perhaps because their overall look is … more animated, somehow.
I tamed a bald eagle and played around a bit with its Cunning talents. Carrion Feeder is really effective — it healed my pet and got him from newly tamed unhappy to completely happy in one corpse. And it doesn’t destroy the corpse so you can loot and skin afterwards.
Loyalty, in the Ferocity tree, is also pretty effective at maintaining happiness on my cat, although it takes a bit longer. So you may want to feed your pet after a death or two before you dive back into combat, just to avoid the damage penalty while the pet gets happy again.
Mobility really does obliterate the cooldown timer of Dash or Dive. With 1 point in Mobility (and the Longeivty talent on my hunter), the cooldown was 10.5 seconds. Two points and the cooldown disappeared from the tooltip entirely. Since the Dash/Dive effect lasts 15 seconds, there’s currently no use in that second point. So I would expect some changes here.
I still don’t know what to do with the hawks. Are they carrion birds or birds of prey? I was happy enough leaving them in birds of prey until I ran across the Daggercap Hawk, a level 6-7 untameable beast in Howling Fjord that happens to use the same skin as Dire Ravens. And Dire Ravens remain carrion birds. So … I just don’t know.
And on the subject of flying creatures, Glassdragon wrote to me a few days ago to let me know that moths don’t have the Charge talent — it’s just not in their tree! There is an empty spot there instead. I’ve been working on retaming all the other families to double-check their talets, but already I’ve found that carrion birds are also missing Charge as well as Dive.
I strong suspect that the lack of Dive on carrion birds is a bug (and I’ve reported it), but I’m not sure about Charge. Soilgheas on the WoW hunter forum pointed out that Wowhead is reporting a talent called Swoop that shares the same text and details as Charge. So it may be that they just haven’t hooked up Swoop as the Charge equivalent for flying creatures yet.
(I know that some of this has been discussed in the comments here in the past few days. I’m having trouble keeping up with the comments here in particular, so let me know if I’ve missed something important that was already discussed, or got anything wrong.)
17 Comments
A question about cunning tree. (since you’ve got an eagle)
Does bullheaded talent work to free your pet from fears and stuns? (It says ALL effects) If so isn’t Lionhearted kind of redundant? Or as you lvl such a pet, you get to drop one for the better one?
Just some random thinking since I’ve been playing with wowhead’s calc.
You’ve given me a lot to think about Mania
Although it’s good that bliz is concentrating on making pet abilities make sense
(hence a moth can’t “claw”)
I still think we might just be worrying just a little bit too much
:P
I’m sure that all the birds of prey stuff will be fixed to make it a big family
and on a sidenote im really glad they excluded bats from birds of prey because i LOVE bats!
Majestic Eagles really should be in “Birds of Prey”.
You know I came to the same conclusion about Mobility as so as I saw it.
And maybe Charge is for land pets only, like how Dash is. So its possible flying pets will get the same skill but with a different name.
I left this out and I normally don’t say things like this, but my god that baby polar bear is so damn adorable!!! I want one so badly now! They have to make one as a non-combat pet.
well, technically they do, its the same as the panda, lol, but ur chances of getting either at this point are slim to none xD
“and on a sidenote im really glad they excluded bats from birds of prey because i LOVE bats!”
Sorry for ROFLing here, but bats aren’t birds at all! They’re mammals, related to rodents as I recall, so it’d been mighty strange indeed to see them in the birds of prey section of pets… :P
On another sidenote, does Carrion Feeder have a unique animation, or is it just a standard attack-type move when the pet eats from the corpse? Not that it really matters in any way, I’m just curious. :)
Looking over what they’ve done, I’m glad that some of the pet’s that I love, and beast families, are getting a bit of spiffing up. However, I noticed something of an imbalance in the number of pets per tree.
There are nine pets in cunning, seven in ferocity and eight in tenacity. I would love to see them set it up so that there was an even number in each- that is eight. Maybe move Wind Serpent or Dragonhawk into Ferocity. I know some people have stated that they would like to see Bird of Prey and Carrion Bird switched around, and I agree. In fact, I think that they should do a total flip of those two. Carrion Birds whould have snatch and Bird of Prey have Ferocious Screech. If you think about the families the way they are, that makes sense.
Alas, I did not get into the Beta. Maybe they’ll let me in later. Who knows.
FaaR: Hmm .. You know, thinking back I don’t think Carrion Feeder has any animation yet. I don’t remember one. Just a crunching noise.
Yeah, Carrion Feeder currently just makes the pet sparkle for a bit while standing still near the corpse (I went back to using my ravager after deciding the terrokkar tallstrider I tamed was just too dang ugly and silly looking for my tastes – in doing so, I discovered that Ravage actually has a knockdown effect as part of its stun). As for the amount of happiness Carrion Feeder restores to the pet… try 200 happiness per tick, compared to the 35 per tick given by feeding your pet appropriate level food.
cant wait for expansion, and to see more new pets! keep up the good work Mania & Friends!
btw, does ANYONE but me t hink there should be a proffesion to make Non Combat Pets? maybe “Domestication”? im not saying go out and make Whelplings, but just some pets. Bear Cubs, Rats, Snakes, maybe critters? id love to go domesticate Lava Crabs, Fire Beetles and Maggots, not to mention any OTHER little critters people rarely find! if anyone disagrees, please speak up, id love to hear the arguments, but i think this is a good idea, personally. (Parrots? that pretty critter you always wanted…)
Fearmdemom
I’d thought of that some time back. Maybe not a profession but cages which allow you catch a new pet. (alternatively a hunter talent ;-) )
Squirrels have been ingame from the start but you can’t get them. Tortoise shell cat skin is only on npc cats. There’s skunks, scorpions, lots of different parrot textures that aren’t on pet versions. As it stands pet collectors are out there and something like that would appeal to them no end.
lol, i forgot all about skunks and scorpids, thank you! but i think a down side would be all the people complaining “why cant i tame School of Fish?! its a critter, isnt it?!”
I just wanted to say about the Owls, Carrion & Eagles/Hawks, what if Blizzard just put’s them all in 1 family? (Bird, or Avian) they all eat the same food. The only problem would be the stats. (Dps, armour etc.)
But i still think Eagles/Hawks will be with Owls.
<3 Eagles :O
A few more hints from Ghostcrawler regarding the way exotic pets are likely to work:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=8202607002&pageNo=2&sid=2000#23
*grumble* Been checkin’ the hunter forum all day and missed this … *grumble*
I booted this up to its own post, so wander over there to discuss it if you would. :>
Oh, and thanks Nimizar! You’re becoming more essential to this blog than I am. *grin*
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