I woke up this morning just a few minutes ago (and yes, it is morning for me!) to 18 new e-mails in my inbox, most of them about this post from Ghostcrawler on the WotLK Beta Hunter forum:
There are 2 additional slots in the stable.
Integrating hunter / warlock pet management into the new mount and companion UI has certainly come up already. Let’s give the new UI a whirl and see if it works and then we can consider if it makes sense to integrate the stable or anything else into it.
Taken in context of Ghostcrawler’s previous one-word “Okay” response to a request for more stable space, I think we can take this to mean that an upcoming beta build will have four stable slots, allowing you to keep five pets at once.
It seems that Ghostcrawler would like us to try out this new expanded stable and see how we like it before we consider removing the stable all together and moving to an interface more like the new mounts and vanity pets. I, for one, am certainly willing to do that!
Of course, there’s not a lot of detail here so we’ll have to keep an eye out for additional details as they become available. But considering the absolute legion of hunters who e-mailed me about this today — thank you, all of you! — I am confident that we won’t miss much for long.
why not have both the new tab and extra stable slots. the tab would link to the stable so that unique names can still be used. It would work like this, your stable functions as it does now except with the removal of the ‘on hand’ pet vs ‘stabled’ pet portion where everything is just considered to be ‘stabled’ or in your possession . The tab would act like a link to these pets and you’d have one highlighted as your ‘active’ pet. You’d call pet, dismiss pet and everything normally but if you wanted to switch you’d open the tab and just highlight the pet you want, possibly with some minor cooldown and only possible out of combat and choosing the new pet automatically dismisses the old one without calling the new one (so it wouldnt just suddenly morph into the new pet youd have to actually use the call pet command). This removes the need to visit a stable other than to add/remove pets you want or no longer want and limits the tab to what you’d know with the stable system anyway.
Ghostwolfs answers were extremely vague, and could mean many different things. The current included no extra pet slots.
@Evo85: you have a really strange definition of vague mate.
All good, All good!
2 more slots . . . (I had enough trouble keeping to pets leveled up with me from 60-70) Getting from 70-80 should only require 2 pets again. (Tanker and DPSer)
Once at 80 grinding your 3rd, 4th and 5th pets from 75 to 80 shouldn’t be near the hassle that it is on live realms now.
As far as having all my pets available on the fly? I’m not sure. It would be nice to start with my DPS pet, then if a rough pull requires the use of my TANK pet for a little OT/CC that would be nice. But I think it would be better to just keep the stables with the posibility of having the Portable stable slot from a hunter quest like was mentioned earlier. Or maybe the Stable Master could have a few slots, and sell portable slots at a much higher price and/or a lvl requirement.
ie:
Stable slot #1 = 50s
Stable slot #2 = 1g
Stable slot #3 = 5g
Portable carrier #1 = 500g and lvl 65
Portable carrier #2 = 1000g and lvl 72
Portable carrier #3 = 5000g and lvl 80
Palla-
What I’m getting at, and it sometimes takes me a while to word and say it properly, is the idea of giving Hunters the ability, be it with the pet tab or the carrier, to change pets on the fly takes away the only real big advantage that Warlocks have over Hunters just in terms of pets.
As it stands now in the Beta-
Hunters will have over thirty choices of pets with various abilities while Warlocks will have four or five depending on spec with specific abilites.
Hunters will be able to not only costimize their pets via their own talent tree, but the pet’s talent tree. Warlocks will only be able to customize them via the Demonology talent tree.
Hunters can more easily put points into both the main tree and the off tree which benifit their pet. Warlocks have trouble putting points into all three trees in order to make the most out of their minion. (Basically, Hunters have their pet talents concentrated in the BM tree and a little in MM. Warlocks have their pet related abilities scattered across all three trees and it is impossible to concentrate in one tree and still make the absolute most out of a minion).
I would like to see Blizzard either not impliment a way for Hunters to change pets on the fly OR to impliment a system of customization for Warlock minions which is similar to Hunter pets. Because, quite frankly, at this point, there is no real use for Warlock minions and they might as well just give them a root ability similar to what Mages have and remove the pets all together.
unlike you guys for me this isnt exiting i dont care at all
Rudda.. Gaw!! *shakes head* Don’t post stuff like that! lol the Blizzard guys read this stuff. If they think hunters are going to pay five thousand gold for a stable slot they might actually charge that. *Just shudders at the thought* Why put that sort of thing in their heads? They’re starting to show our class some love.
Palla…. not for nothing but I’m not too worried about the poor pitiful Loks and their pets. Loks don’t lvl their pets, they don’t feed their pets and they can be summoned anywhere any time. More over they’re getting Demon form. It’s not like the pooooor pitiful locks with their maximum damage out put of the casters are crying in corners. They’re alright.
Estaron:…. that’s great…. um.. if you don’t care about hunters or pets or stable slots… why are ya here? More over why feel the need to share it? lol
Hunters have been asking since the start for more stable slots to allow us more well rounded char’s by having different pets for different needs (( or all the pretty critters we want)) two more slots, nearly doubling the number of pets we can maintain is a massive thing. If it doesn’t ping on your radar in some way you probably don’t play a hunter as your main and put the time and effort into your pets that many of us do.
PepsiJedi
5000g is the current cost of the epic flappy mount training. . .compare that to the epic land mount cost. . . each one was “hard” to come up with at the “max” lvl available at the time, so 5000g at lvl 80 I’m guessing won’t be much at all (atleast that was my thinking) But I suppose you’re right, I should have just said “x” amount of gold.
Although personally I’m curious how I would fit a portable carrier big enough for my 800 lb. gorilla inside my backpack. Although sometime back I read a post somewhere that maybe the stable master (or pet trainer) could sell whistles for us to “train” each pet respond to. again each whistle could cost more much like the stables do on live. To summon a different pet, we would have to “dismiss” the current pet before we could “use” the other pet’s whistle. (The Whistles could be contained in the mount/non-combat pet ui)
Pepsijedi-
I would gladly give the time and effort needed to level each Warlock minion up if I could be allowed to have a tanking pet which can hold aggro AND is smaller than a Volkwagon Van!
*Laughs* Pepsijedi, warlocks are more then alright, they are one of the most overpowered classes in the game. Honestly I was rather hoping they’d get a kick in the face instead of a leg up, but oh well.
Sei, the point I was trying to make was this. Warlock minions are getting much the same treatment as hunter pets, just on a less grandiose scale. It wouldn’t be unplausible to give hunters a system similar to warlocks summoning, but on a regeant cost. I personally just don’t think they should.
Warlock minions are….. useless? *Falls over laughing* Sorry, Sei, but your wrong, and it shows you don’t have a high level warlock. Even non-demonologists will swear by their felhunter/succubus/rare cases imps. The only thing that might, I stress MIGHT make warlock minions less useful is fear, since it has no cooldown and a long effect time in PvE. And if your calling felguards useless, then you more or less just called a hunters pets useless, since the felguard is a match for and maybe even surpasses even a beast masters pet. Damage on par with the high DPS pets, enough damage mitigation with the right talents to match tanking pets damage mitigation, multi-targeting cleave that deals over double even bites damage and effects two targets, a stun, better overall single target taunt, AND a stacking damage increase that at ten ticks puts it nearly on par with a pet in beastial wrath, except its always on. Now throw in the reliance on mana and the ability to constantly refresh that mana supply to all of a warlocks pets.
Useless indeed.
Reading through this I noticed something that came up a couple times…Warlock Minions. Warlocks can summon on the fly and not be OP because Warlock Minions aren’t nearly as powerful as Hunter Pets. Currently the only one that can really stand toe to toe with a Hunter pet is the Felguard, and you can pet he’s either dead or alive…no swapping around him. For whatever reason an Affliction/Destro Lock would want to hot-swap demons would not really bring him much of an advantage over Hunters in that aspect. None of the Locks lesser demons could match a Hunter pet in combat. So, to give Hunters the ability to summon pets on the fly, would definitely make us OP, as Hunter pets can actually kill players (unlike Lock pets, which just finish you off, mostly).
Invador, While I’ve known any of my pets to solo (no hunter dps) same lvl non-elite mobs, I’ve never known them to “take down” players. So again how would that make us OP?
I rarely PvP, but when I do I only want one pet anyway (growl/taunts) are practically useless. In PvE, it would mostly be nice to be able to use pets situationally in raids/instances like locks do. Especially with the new family specific abilities. This pull needs an OT, but the next one needs spell interupts/stuns.
While solo (or grouped for that matter) a hunter could use one tanking (OT) pet for each type of mitigation needed. One mob/pull needs avoidance/resist, the next one is strictly armor mitigation.
Palla-
Sigh. . .I always worry about posting the name of a character, but oh well. Her name is Shijoshin. She is indeed lvl 70, and Affliction. And, I for one, will not swear by my Voidwalker at any point. I MAY get to set up all my DoTs before pulling aggro off him. His multi-mob taunt won’t hold aggro at all. I basically have to leave the second mob alone until the first one is dead. I had to give up the use of my Succubus, Glynona, around lvl 50 due to the breaking of aggro off just about everything after setting up about two instant cast DoTs. Outside of Instances, Chobis, my Imps, remains banished. I think I’ve used my Felhunter around once. I specced Demonology for a little bit and dropped it since I STILL pulled aggro off the Felguard. Not to mention the fact that he uses Cleave at every single possible chance, thus wasting mana.
Let me see. . .outside of Kara, I have found that Phase Shift has very few uses other than to make my Paladin have to constantly rebuff Warlocks because they forgot to take it off! Fireball is nice. Fire Shield WOULD be nice is if I had a bigger reason to have my Imp out more often. The only thing that they really are good for is Blood Pact.
All of the Voidwalker’s abilities are nice. Shame about the negligable damage and the crummy aggro generation.
The Succubus’ Lash of Pain is a nice shadow damage ability with a good amount of output. Seduction is a great ability for CC in instances and PvP. Soothing Kiss is, quite frankly, a waste of the gold to buy the book. I have yet to have my Succubus build up enough threat to actually NEED a threat reduction ability. What’s worse, in an instance, if CC gets broken and not pulled off of her, that ability won’t matter as she’ll likely be dead before anything else can be done. IF Lesser Invisibility did anything other than make the Succubus invisible, in say, the same way Prowl does more than just make the Cat stealthed, then MAYBE it would also be worth the gold to buy the book. As it is, it isn’t worth it.
Felhunter has some great abilities. Unfortunately, the only place his abilities are really useful for is PvP.
Felguards would be wonderful if a) all Warlocks could have him, and b) he could hold aggro worth a darned. It would also be nice if Cleave wasn’t spammed, but rather used only when there were more than one mob on the Felguards the same way that the Voidwalker’s multi-mob ability works. Not to mention that it runs out of mana after around two fights.
One could pretty much redo the Warlock Minions into, oh, around three pets. Maybe four. Replace Voidwalker with Felguard, combine Succubus and Imp into one, and leave the Felhunter alone. Palla- I noticed that, in the end, your post basically focused only on Demonology Warlocks. Shijoshin is Affliction, and has basically been that most of her run to 70.
And, Palla, other than all those spiffy ‘buffs’ deep in Demonology, the only big change that is happening with Warlocks is to make the Felhunter a bit more useful outside of PvP. I mean, REALLY, somehow Demonic Empowerment is going to make my Succubus SOOO much more useful. I can’t remember how often she got rooted while solo fighting, or in instances for that matter.
So, basically, Imps are great for a buff in an Instance, but die within seconds doing solo work. Succubi are now being relagated to PvP pets and are thus pretty useless. Felhunters are getting a nice buff and a shadow damage item to take them out of PvP, BUT aren’t going to be tanks at all. Voidwalkers are not going to have any damage dealing abilities other than normal. And, you still have to spec Demonologist to get a Felguard. Just give us a bleed’n’ root spell and be done with it. I am sorry to keep going on and on, but really, truely and honestly, when compared to everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING, that Hunter pets are getting, there really is no point to having a minion out. I have seen Warlocks not bother using them and do just fine.
And, btw, I am going to assume that, given what you said, you do have a high level Warlock who is Specc’ed Demonology. I might be wrong, but you seem to indicate that.
Sorry for both the double post and the length of the last post. I kind of hit a point with my Warlock where I really do wish I had scrapped her and kept my hunter all those years ago. Mostly because the minions are not very flexable or useful over all.
Well a lock pulling aggro off his pet too easily obviously means they should reduce the dmg output of the lock to help their pets tank better.