I haven’t seen much about these two little taming tidbits yet, other than a quick mention here or there, so I thought I’d draw your attention to them.
Pets Autolevel to Hunter-3
Back before the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, most hunters would avoid low-level pets. Well, most sane hunters, anyway …
See, before Wrath you had to level up your pets yourself, from whatever level they were when you tamed them. And since pets could only earn XP if you could have, you would have to spend hour after hour kiting and meleeing green enemies in order to level you pet. So a lot of hunters just skipped that and went with the highest level pet they could find.
With Wrath, however, Blizzard took pity on us poor pet-obsessed hunters: now if a pet isn’t within 5 levels of the hunter that tames it, the pet will auto-level to the hunter’s level minus 5. In other words, a level 80 hunter who tames a level 20 pet ends up with a level 75 pet as soon as the tame is finished.
Auto-leveling pets have made my life much easier and you won’t hear me complaining about that change! But if I were going to … critique, shall we say … I would perhaps have mentioned that a pet 5 levels below me isn’t quite grab-n-go because it’s just a tad too low to hold aggro well.
Blizzard appears to have heard my near-silent critique, however, because right now in the Cataclysm beta auto-leveling kicks in for any pet this is more than 3 levels below you. In other words, a level 80 who tames a level 20 pet will end up with a level 77 pet as soon as the tame is finished.
This also works for lower-level hunters, of course. A level 10 hunter who tames a level 1 pet (and yes, there are several good reasons you might do so) will end up with a level 7 pet as soon as the tame finishes.
Tame Five Pets at Once
Well, not simultaneously “at once” … but in one outing without hitting the Stable master “at once”.
As a hunter, you have five spots for five active pets. Call Pet, at the moment at least, will only call the pet in the first active spot, and there is not yet a way to shift your active pets around except at the Stable Master.
But you can tame pets into those other active spots if they don’t have a pet in them.
Example: I am a goblin hunter and I have just hit level 10. I have my starter crab by my side and I really quite like him. But I also want to tame a monkey and a raptor before I leave my newbie area. Unfortunately, there are no Stable Masters in the goblin newbie area and I can’t come back once I leave. I’m doomed!
But no, this is easy. All I have to do is dismiss — not abandon! — my crab. He is no longer by my side although I can call him at any time. Now I find my favorite monkey and start taming. When the tame is done, I have a pet monkey by my side.
The monkey will stay with me until I use Call Pet again. When I do call a pet, I’ll call the crab and not the monkey. And when I eventually make it to a Stable Master, I will see the crab in the first active spot and the monkey in the second active spot.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I also want a nice Outlandish raptor before I leave this zone. So I dismiss — not abandon! — my monkey (or the crab if I’ve called the crab back) and tame a raptor. Now I have a raptor by my side, and there it will stay until I use Call Pet, at which point my crab will come back.
And when I eventually make it to the Stable Master in Azshara, I will see my crab is active spot #1, my monkey in active spot #2, and my raptor in active spot #3. Indeed, I could have kept going and tamed a black panther into active spot #4 and an orange turtle into active spot #5.
But that’s it: after filling spot #5 I wouldn’t have been able to tame anymore pets until I visited a Stable Master and moved some of them out of the active spots and into the inactive spots.
A caveat: it feels like the hunter pet stable hasn’t exactly stabilized in the Cataclysm beta yet and so the details here might change. But I am reasonably certain that this is nonetheless an intended feature. It’s certainly very convenient — just leave a spot open and you can tame any fabulous rare you happen to run across.
So there you are — a couple of minor taming tweaks to look forward to!
Nice changes indeed. Now I won’t have to worry about stumbling over rares anymore.
Also, I believe that the reason for the three levels change is that three Cata levels will be roughly equal to five Northrend levels, or something like that. From what I’ve seen, 80-85 is worse than 70-80.
Ah, very good point, Saturo! A level 80 pet on a level 85 hunter would likely be a lot more painful than a 75 on an 80 hunter is now.
I wonder though.. How many inactive spots are we going to have?
@Sevil34: those numbers (1 current pet, 4 additional active slots accessible anywhere, 20 inactive slots accessible only at the stable) are probably fairly stable. I believe the “beta’ish” part Mania is referring to is that the Call Stabled Pet UI doesn’t work properly yet, so you can only rearrange the active slots (and hence change the pet summoned by Call Pet) at the stable. (At least, that was the case last time BRK demonstrated it, and I would expect either he or Mania to mention it when Blizzard get that UI working properly)
@Mania: I believe pets are also subject to crushing blows when they’re 4 or more levels below a mob, just like players. So level-3 should make them significantly less squishy against same level mobs when first tamed. Saturo’s point is a good one too. There’s also the fact that the bigger stable is going to encourage taming more pets.
It’s been said time and time again and they just need to do it and let go of the silly ideal of making hunters level their pets. Tame a pet and it auto levels to hunters level. Hunter levels, pet levels with hunter. Just like Warlocks. Why should a demon who is ripped from the twisting nether at level 28 suddenly level up to 29 the instant it’s master does, and yet hunter pets don’t? What, is your pet not really paying attention during the hundreds of fights you go through just to get one stupid pet level?
Pet leveling is dumb. Remove it and get over it.
I disagree Alaros. Our pets aren’t sentient slaves who blindly follow our every whim. They are companions, and as such, we both require a modicum of time to adjust to each other. Level and get over it.
Nimizar: Ah, I didn’t think about the crushing blows thing. Thanks!
hit also probably factors into it. a hit-capped hunter (at least in live) has a zero percent miss chance against level 83 mobs, and theoretically, a level 77 pet should have a zero percent miss chance against level 80 mobs.
as to the dismiss-not-abandon thing, that almost sounds bug-ish to me, kind of like the game half-forgetting you have an “active” pet. of course, that there isn’t a stable-master in some of the early areas is, in my mind, a travesty.
Taming a pet while your active pet is dismissed has been around for some time now; I remember using it in the first couple of months of BC. It probably was a bug.
Now it’s a feature. :D
@thebitterfig – it doesnt sound like a bug to me, cause otherwise you would have to run to your stable master every time you want to tame a new pet while your still under lvl 80, that would be somehow against blizzards intention.
ps: i think they should give us call stabled pet a lot earlier, maybe around lvl 20 or so
well, if it is a feature, it’s a very poorly designed one, that basically requires a player to think like they are somehow exploiting a bug. don’t get me wrong, there SHOULD be a way to remotely stable earlier, but this really doesn’t have the polished FEEL of an intended ability.
call stabled pet would be wonderful at low level, and if they don’t want to give us 5 pets to start, give us 2 at 10, 3 at 30, 4 at 50, and 5 at 80…
Hmm, I wonder if Blizzard would consider allowing the Argent Squire to visit the stable master once an hour… That would allow even more flexibility :)
Exactly, Figgy. Exactly.
I’d love to see loyality being reintroduced to make us spend time with a new pet before using it in raids and discourage throwing it away. Now you are either being lucky by the pet you want being your level or unlucky by needing to level it up to 5 levels.
Pet leveling and happiness can go away (the mend pet and pet talents feels like a band aid on a bad mechanic) and I do have some experience with pet leveling; having leveled with 2 pets from level ~35 to 60 pre tbc, leveled 2 pets from 60 to 70 in tbc (pre and post pet experience boost) after reaching level 70 with my main pet (tried leveling with 2 and it didn’t work well). Lastly I have leveled the same two pets from 75 to 80 in wotlk after reaching level 80. My last pet is now a level 80 wolf chosen because he looked okay and was level 80.
Being forced to level a pet because of some role-playing idea that you’re “getting adjusted to each other” is ridiculous. It’s a silly reason to justify a frustrating game mechanic. It’s also inconsistent, because if you tame a pet that’s your same level then you don’t have to take time to “adjust”, they’re immediately as powerful as they can be.
This road-block to being able to use a pet actually discourages people from taming new pets, or from using old ones. Who wants to gimp themselves every time they take a pet out of the stable while leveling? Who wants to be forced to go out and grind mobs at 80, just to get all their pets up to their level?
Especially for Beast Master hunters, when our pets are such a huge part of our play, it just doesn’t make sense to punish a player by making them ineffective every time they switch pets at the stable.
Blizzard has made steps in the right direction, showing that they understand this flaw in the design; it’s time they went the whole way and let pets auto-level with their hunters.
That’s all very well Donaghan, but why not post that where they can see it? You’re preaching to the choir here.
Actually that’s not all very well, I take it back. This IS a role playing game, and no, it is NOT ridiculous that when I tame a level 20 wolf at 80, it will take a modicum of time to mature and adjust to me.
Demons are demons, and level 20 wolves are cubs. You can preach to the choir some more if you like; this popcorn is making my fingers too buttery to type.
i miss having to tame my baby pets, this is a travesty. another case of ease for new players and game mechanics winning over wows charms.
every time something that was challenging gets stripped from wow we are left with a less experienced playerbase.
having to train pets forced a hunter to respect the change in gameplay when dealing with lower levels. it also let the hunter play without a pet in a way, having to kite and think again rather than tank/spank mobs.
i dont level or play alts in anyway, and training pets was my little way of experiencing a peice of that. the 5 levels below made it bad enough, but this is just stupid.
the whiners win again, making wow less of a game.
“Being forced to level a pet because of some role-playing idea that you’re “getting adjusted to each other” is ridiculous”
isnt wow a role playing game?
insta level to 85 for all players on purchase of expac, this leveling system is rediculous! ive fought the lich king ffs, what are these 100′s of pathetic non elite mobs going to teach me?
Since I been playing from the start! I have seen all the changes and nerfs to pets play and leveling.. I remember having to tame other pets to teach your pets new skills and attacks. Which when you leveled your main pet you taught its skills and made leveling your pet a more a teaching leveling part of play then came the pet trees which took away from the leveling of pets for their collecting of pet skills such as bite ( rank ) claw prowl etc.. I wish the achievements was back then because going out taming certain pets for skills would have filled out alot of the exploring achievements! Anyways now our pets have talent trees plus their basic pet skills so it took away some of the need to tame leveling others to better our main pet.. So now we go and level lower pets because for some reason like looks rareness or being afraid of being ganked by npc or faction player.. which i could see going after your dream pet later and have it level to 5 below which didnt bother me there are still low level pets i want to get but havent yet and now they are making it to 3 i Have no problem with this cause while farming it wont be tough to level…
sorry double post… The beginners pets are more companions then actual true hunter pets since there are no pet toolbars til level 10 and they only go after a target after you start your attack.. Otherwise they are alot like a vanity pet follow you around and thats it..