WARNING: This info from beta very likely to change!
The hunter pet community – or at least the WoW Petopia Community, but I’m pretty sure lots of other hunters too – is very excited right now about some news out of the Cataclysm beta.
Boss tank silithids. As pets.
Sort of.
But before you get too excited, let’s take a look at what’s really going on here. And as I am oh so fond of saying, please be aware that any information from beta is likely to change before launch – this information even more so than usual since the it’s probably a bug to start with.
*snort*
The Current Behavior
You may remember the rare silithids Haarka the Ravenous fron Tanaris and Soriid the Devourer from Silithus, yes?
On the live realms, these beasts can both be tamed. Other than being rare, both are perfectly normal silithids: Haarka is a green silithid and Soriid is a purple silithid.
On the Cataclysm realms, however, both Haarka and Soriid have new models – the ‘boss’ tank silithid in blue and purple/red respectively. And neither one of them can be tamed.
Previously-tamed versions of Haarka and Soriid remain as pets as is usually the case. And for the moment, at least, previously-tamed Haarkas and Soriids inherit the new boss model.
So if you are in the beta, you can tame Haarka or Soriid on your live realm and then copy that character to the beta. You will end up with an enormous pet that looks like a boss tank silithid – like Buru the Gorger from the Ruins if Ahn’Qiraj or a blue version of Buru – on the beta realm.
If you’d like to see this in action, check out Zeilla8′s [Cataclysm] Most Epic Pet!!! video on YouTube. (Also take a look at [Cataclysm] New Hunter Pets! while you are there.)
What’s Going to Happen?
If the current behavior holds until Cataclysm launches, it means that any hunter who tames Haarka or Soriid before the launch will end up with a very unique – and retired – pet.
I have no secret insider knowledge here, but I strongly suspect that the current behavior is a bug. I doubt that it is Blizzard’s intention to introduce an enormous, exotic, unique, retired pet only for level 60+ Beast Master hunters who happened to hear about this before Cataclysm and had a stable slot free.
(And did I mention enormous? These suckers are huge.)
I could be wrong, of course. But assuming for the moment that this is a bug, I see several possible outcomes from this situation.
Old Pet = Old Model
During the Cataclysm beta, Blizzard might change the wild versions of Haarka and Soriid so that they are no longer the same underlying mob. That would mean that hunters who tamed these silithids before Cataclysm would still have them, with the old silithid look, after launch.
This is what happened when Sunreaver Dragonhawks changed from regular red dragonhawks to their new armored look. I suspect that this is the most likely outcome.
Alternatively, Blizzard might not have time for this change before Cataclysm launches but might do something similar afterwards. This would be very similar to what happened when the worg Garwal retained his humanoid worgen form after taming.
In that case, Blizzard changed Garwal to be untameable and then replaced all tamed Garwals with a Winterskorn Worg instead. Considering the reaction of the hunter community to the Garwal action, I rather hope that Blizzard avoids this outcome. I really hate it when everyone is angry.
Let It Be
Blizzard may decide that even though this behavior isn’t intended, it also isn’t worth their time to try to fix the situation, especially if they can’t get to it before Cataclysm launches.
The biggest problem with this solution is that in all likelihood they won’t tell us that they plan to do nothing until they’ve done nothing … and even then they may change their mind – as they did with the Grimtotem Spirit Guide – and do something.
Personally, I’d rather avoid a lengthy period of uncertainty. See my comment above about everyone being angry.
Tame Away!
The absolute best outcome – and unfortunately in some ways the least likely – is that this situation is temporary; that Blizzard plans to extend the silithid family to include the boss tank model (and possibly the ant-like and scarab models as well) but they just haven’t done the pass yet where things get flagged as tameable.
Of course I am pulling for this one with all fingers crossed. I like Haarka’s new model – although I’d like it better if it weren’t quite so big – and I adore the silithid scarab model.
I’ve always been saddened that silithid encompass so many forms in the wild but so few of those could be tamed. So even if we only got these two rare beasts in a tameable new model and nothing else, I would be overjoyed.
Recommendations
At this point, I strongly advise WoW hunters to wait and see what happens with this situation. You don’t want to dismiss a pet you love and then spend hour after hour camping a rare spawn for nothing. We have a good bit of beta left and plenty of time to find out more about what may happen and then figure out what to do about it.
Really, the only problem with having them be tamable is the fact they don’t resize properly when called as pets. Fix the size bug, and I don’t see any reason they can’t just be flagged as tamable for Cataclysm as well.
I’ve always loved the Silithid Harvester model (The rare in the barrens), and as much as I love my green silithid Xzar, i’d replace him with the harvester in a heartbeat. (although with all the new stable slots I hope I shouldnt have to, assumeing I don’t use em all up). If these tank model guys become a new silithid skin, I certainly hope they open up the other skins as well.
Definatly looking forward to having a unique silithid boss skin though :) hope it stays! Ill call him Vegemite.
They also could be setting us up for another tameable type of Silithid. Blizzard knows that the Hunter community demands a LARGE assortment of new pets from each expansion.
That being said, we have yet to see any new Exotic Pet models save for this one. A test case for a new pet model in which time we will see it shrunk down, a given normal Silithid abilities.
The last two exotics added were Spirit Beasts. I would love to hope that we will see a new exotic pet family when the pet pass comes through in the coming months.
I think if they don’t fix it before launch, it won’t get reverted later, like Garwal. It’ll likely get turned off, so to speak, and left as it is, like the slime “crocolisks”.
Garwal was different, I think, because it was humanoid, and resembled slavery, and thus Blizz felt they needed to completely put a stop to it.
Although if they do leave them in, they’ll probably have the model shrink, like most other giant pets.
Warning: wall of text incoming.
With all of the reasons mentioned as to why Garwal was taken away from hunters, I’m surprised that no one yet has mentioned the main reason why I believe this happened: Worgen being the new Alliance race. Human slavery or no, I see no way Blizz would allow anyone to tame a faction race…hence why I don’t see Druids ever becoming tameable.
Let’s look at the other options and what seems most likely. First off, making both of them tameable. As nice as that would be, one must remember that even without doing the tameable-pet pass, someone at Blizz took the time to make these named Silithids untameable. It makes no sense to do this just so that they will be tameable at launch.
It’s possible that Blizzard could try and change the model of pre-tamed Soriid and Haarka to the old model pre-Cat release, but they will be strained as is. If they are going to hit their end-of-year release period (and they will, I’ve little doubt), they aren’t going to have a lot of time to fix it in their game client. And as Mania mentioned above, if it isn’t fixed pre-release it likely won’t be. However, I vote that if you want one, you should get it sooner. They may not have time fix the model for those that have already tamed it, but it wouldn’t take a lot to turn off taming these two pets during a Tuesday maintenance period…thus severely limiting how many are out in the field.
myself, i just want to be able to train the slithid wasps, since i think they look better than the zangarmarsh and sholizar ones. nice muted color schemes, very respectable.
Mm, that’s a good point AngerFork about Blizzard suddenly making Soriid and Haarka untameable on live servers to limit the amount of ‘grandfathered’ pets in Cataclysm.
Bah…I was going to wait until much later to tame one, but now I’m paranoid that they could randomly make a patch where we’re no longer able to do so. :<
I already pointed this out on the Petopia forums, but it bears repeating: there is so much positive hunter buzz about these models that it would be in Blizzard’s best interest to make the brainbugs legitimately tameable. It would also be a good idea to expand the family to some of the other models (the wasp-like ones can go with the wasps). The animation work is already done; the only issue is scaling, and as we know from the foxes and such, Blizz has to make a pass on pets for that anyway.
There aren’t a whole lot of hunters out there with silithids. Why not give us more options, especially with the expanded stables?
@AngerFork:
Yes, you’re probably right, but even if it was another humanoid race, I think Blizz would have done the same thing. I seriously doubt they want no part of Hunters having any sort of humanoid pet.
Different (non-humanoid) models have stayed in the game, grandfathered in, as Blizz has typically let hunters keep those pets; croco-slime, et. al.
There’s no way that Blizz will let this one slide, these bugs are just too big! Maybe they will let us keep the skins and just resize them. *fingers crossed*
Taming one of these guys on my second hunter just for a test… Is it definitely Sorrid who is the red skin? You mentioned Silithus and Soriid is in Tanaris. There is a purple silithid in Silithis and I wanted to make sure I don’t tame the wrong rare. :S
Well, Addendum: Wowhead’s Cataclysm page now lists Soriid with the boss model, like Haarka. It hadn’t been doing so before. It looks like for the time being I don’t need to test a tame on Haarka. I don’t have beta access so it’s just a wait and see matter on my dummy-hunter, seeing as I have absolutely no room in Neilaren’s stables to test cool pets anymore.
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