The intrepid members of the Petopia Community forums spent some major brain cycles recently figuring out how to tame a pet in such a way that pre-tame effects would stay on the pet.
For example, I posted before about taming the oily coated wolf. That tame relied on the fact that the beast despawns because of the quest. Time the tame and the despawn just right and the Oily Coat effect wasn’t cleared when the tame completed.
From that and other similar situations, and a lot of testing, the forum community worked out a way to preserve visual effects on a whole bunch of pets. In some cases, the effects that persisted past the tame weren’t just visual – in some cases they included damage buffs, for example.
… Which is probably the reason that the most recent list of Cataclysm hotfixes included this:
Cataclysm Hotfixes – Updated Dec. 13
It is no longer possible for hunters to tame pets in a way that allows them to keep any buffs the creatures had on them prior to being tamed.
Reports from players seem to indicate that as I type this, the hotfix hasn’t been applied to all realms. It’s also unclear what is happening with existing effect pets.
That’s the news. I have some opinions I’d like to add:
1) I didn’t post about effect taming before not because I thought it was an exploit and not because I thought it should be kept under the radar, but because I am incredibly lazy.
2a) Based on my experience with game coding, I would guess that it was faster and easier for Blizzard to fix effect taming across the board than it would be for them to fix damage buffs and such on a case-by-case basis – especially since they would also have to be careful in the future whenever they made a new creature tameable.
2b) Similarly, I would guess that clearing all effects from all existing pets would be easier than leaving existing pets with just visual effects. Since I’m not Blizzard, however, these are informed guesses on my part and we’ll have to see what happens.
3) I don’t have an opinion about whether effect taming was an exploit or not. The question just doesn’t interest me. It’s sufficient at this point to say that Blizzard has removed the behavior. So do me a favor and don’t argue about whether or not effect taming was an exploit in the comments. :)
[edited to add:]
4) If you would like to see Blizzard allow pets with visual buffs retain their visual effects after taming, I suggest making one (1) thread on the Blizzard forums and all piling on there. Not a petition, mind, and we should keep it civil. But I suspect that a thread with why we love to tame these beasts might help get the point across. I would suggest the Suggestion forum for this but I can’t seem to find it on the new website.
5) The style of the post title is stolen from Birdfall at Letters from Birdfall.
What is included in this definition? Does this mean you cannot tame the ghost worg in eastern plaguelands and it keep the ghost form or does this deal with pet abilities?
I was curious why I’d seen no posts from you about it. Figured you were being neutral. On the other hand, I’m curious as to what they’ll do about existing ones.
Autumn: I believe that all the look-changing pets – like the wolves that turn into ghost wolves during some of their attacks – do so through a buff. But I don’t actually know yet exactly what might be covered.
Correction: There is apparently a Blizzard post about this on the EU forums that might give us more info, but I can’t get past the website load to see the post.
Saw a hunter this weekend with a wolf that had a sword stuck through its head.
Appropriately, he had named it “Swordhead.”
Bluegrass Geek: That would be the ‘effect’ version of the Lone Hunter. It’s an interesting visual effect and one that I know some hunters would love to keep.
Pets have been getting more and more “generic” for quite some time. No more defense bonus for one class and attack bonus for another, for example. This has been partly addressed with Talents, I know, but it just seems “wrong” to me. For all spiders to end up with web-tossing but without poison also seems “WRONG”. And Poison Spitting is just missing. Most of these effects are, essentially, trivial. They root a target for a couple of seconds or do a truly modest amount of damage, then it’s your pet tank trying to keep your target at bow/rifle range and absorb the damage that rightly belongs to YOU and you trying to kill the target before your pet gets seriously injured or dead.
Why should Blizzard object to look-changing pets? Like my big cat! while it MIGHT prove useful in the hunt, it also takes points that might better, more effectively, be used in a special attack! As for the spiders and the poison … with just a little more flexibility, a poison-using spider could gain the attributes of some other pet – and LOSE the web-tossing attribute of most spiders.
Does anyone have a link to the mentioned blizz post about this?
The buffs that provide unique visual effects would be a great way to make pets more unique, even if the actual extra damage they do was removed. I was asked yesterday about some Crabs in the blasted lands that looked like they had felfire on them. I suspect the effect doesn’t stay- which is a shame.
Wolfwings: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/981629642#5
Wasn’t as much info there as I was hoping. :)
You can still tame some of them on some servers. I just tamed one of the ghostpaw runners yesterday on black dragonflight. So I don;t know if they’re just going to wipe the buffs or what.
while I don’t have cata yet (and really no plans at the moment to get it), I have found that pets are really not warriors anymore. I am leveling a human hunter and the pets just lose aggro too much – doesnt matter if it is a bear, cat or bird. I have found mobs just love leaving the pet and jumping on me, and as long as I don’t swing or shoot, back to the pet the mob runs. What the heck, is all I can say. And yes, I have everything turned on that needs to be and turned off things that need to be. If from lvl 1 to 40 this happens, I hate to think how it is at 85.
And what is this with the pets running off to kill small game? I’m sorry, but they are supposely trained to not do this. Everyone of the foxes, bears, cats and birds do this, except Ghostsaber.
As far as the abilites and the way they look, Ghost Saber is still available :) And there is a ghost green (emerald (sic)) owl that is now available too. They still have their ghostly appearences after the tame.
But it would be nice to have a bear with a sword in it’s head :)
Mama, I’m glad to know I’m not the only one noticing this. However, I must say, when it comes to a pet losing aggro… its driving me batty. I need to get a threat meter back up and running so I can tell when I’m about to lose threat on Ruka and scale back. Its doesn’t help me when the mob is already chewing on me. Then I know I’m over the line and will probably have to be a rag doll for a bit before Ruka can pick things back up.
Aggro management with our pets has become a bit more touchy even as BM from what I’ve seen. As I’ve been rotating through my mobile stable of : Ruka (cat), Helki (wolf), Tempest (Spirit beast), and Momma (Core Hound – I have the pup hence the name), I’ve had to juggle my damage a bit as BM, knowing I’m going to be losing aggro and knowing my only shot at times is a frantic MD off to the pet, who is set as my focus target.
I have to admit I’m more used to it, because I played a hunter Marks from about 10 – 70. That meant I had to walk a fine line of heavy damage with a pet that would not hold aggro about 60% of the time. However, that in itself was a good thing. It means that I rarely pull aggro off a tank (we can definitely do it, good hunters don’t)and have a fine grasp of where that line is. When you walk that razor edge every day with a pet, shifting the mentality to your tank is very easy.
The damage meter makes a visual warning of what, after a while, becomes instinctive. I know after doing about three pulls with a tank if I can play aggressive and dance the line or if I have to drop my rotation off a bit so that the tank can maintain aggro.
Basically, all this boils down to, our pets, even if BM, aren’t the super aggro holders they used to be. That in my eyes is a good thing. If it makes a hunter watch their aggro a bit closer, we all benefit.
That’s kind of funny, because I haven’t had problems with my pets holding aggro for ages (BM hunter, hit 85 last week). I even pull things with Serpent Sting instead of sending my pet first, because I know the pet will nab it as it runs toward me. I do use Kill Command a lot, so maybe that’s helping?
This has been on level 82-84 pets too, since I’ve been working on leveling all my pets rather than sticking with just one. Petaholic, I is one. >.>
Edit for afterthought: My hunter’s mastery rating is fairly high, which for BM is a pet damage increase. Maybe that has something to do with it?
I think it’s worth noting that the pet effects on pre-existing tames have yet to be cleared, but stepping into an arena will probably remove these pet effects.
Also worth noting is that no one has found a damage buff that, when preserved by using this crafty taming process, will persist through death. The number of pets that have been sucessfully ‘glitch-tamed’ to preserve an effect which will persist through death and any other cleansing process save entering an arena is six (including the oily coated wolf). Said pets provide no real benefit to the hunter.
So, all this considered, I don’t forsee all tamed pets being cleansed in a manner similar to entering an Arena. Well, not until someone successfully tames a beast and is able to retain a ‘permanent’ damage or stat buff on said beast.