Recently the Grumpy Elf posted an article where he asked readers a simple question, how do you choose your pet? He outlined some criteria which a Hunter might use to choose their companion, such as raid buffs, a specific task, how the pet looks, as well as matching them with mounts, battle pets and gear.
My original plan was to answer this with many ways that I choose my pets, but I as started putting some thought into this, I realized that I often don’t choose my pets. Let me explain.
When it comes to taming pets I put in lots of thought, and there are many reasons why I’ll choose to tame a pet. Having all the buff and debuffs is one. I also like to go after many of the rare and unique looking pets.
Darkbrew has all of the Spirit Beasts. He also has many of the other rare pets such as Sambas, Skarr, Terrorpene, and many of the Mists’ rare pets such as Savage.
I recently went on a taming spree with my newest Hunter, Zeldra. With her not only did I want to have all the buffs, but I also went after pets that I thought would look great with her transmog set. You can read about that here. That set has a black theme going so pets like the black and grey Dragonhawks, Sunwing and Manas, the black Wasp, Rex Ashil really complete Zeldra’s look.
This is how I choose to tame my pets, but it’s the not same as choosing to use these pets.
The the only time I really manage my active pets is on raid night. I wait by the stable master for the group to form and then I determine what I need to bring. Since we have a fairly regular group, I usually have what I need already.
Therein lies my problem. The times when I’m not raiding I don’t think about what pets I want active. I logon and immediately go about my business and just use whatever pet I happen to have out. Occasionally I grab Loque’Nahak, but for the most part I just go with what I’ve got. I find that I tame pets for a variety of reasons, but seldom do I find myself choosing them other than on raid nights.
I get that stable masters are practically ubiquitous now, but I wonder if they have outlived their usefulness. What if we had an interface similar to the one for mounts and battle pets? Would this make the having five active pets trivial? Perhaps, but what is the downside of being able to access our pets anytime or anywhere?
We would still need to have the five active pets for the purposes of Stampede and making use of the call pet spell. Also, those active slots would still play a role in swapping out pets mid-fight. It would be just like it is now only less time wasted having to hearth to town to grab a pet because you swapped out two key raid members.
I know the simple thing for me to do is for me take a few moments of my game time and remember to visit a stable master on more than just raid night. In this day and age that feels like a workaround and not a solution.
I may not think to use the stable master all that much, but I know if I had that functionality built into my UI, I would make better use of those wonderful companions that I’ve worked hard to get.
Is it just me, or do you also forget to visit the stable master and manage your pets on a regular basis?
I just started my 3rd Hunter on my current realm. My main, Bazzog (Draenor-EU) I managed to get Loq pretty quickly. Never managed it on any other.
I use him a lot, mainly for the Spirit Mend which is really useful (Glyphed Stampede Spirit Mend FTW!) but also because he looks so damn cool!
I haven’t gone after any other Spirit Beasts though. My Nelf hunter uses a Winterpring cat which matches the Winterspring Frostsabre pretty well. And yes, I got that when it was hard. I got Exalted with the furbolgs doing it.
The dwarf hunter is still a lowbie though, haven’t thought much about what would suit him.
Totally agree. Seems really dated at this point when I have to go back to town mid-raid for a buff we just lost. Especially with most raids going to a flexible format in WoD, it’s time to have full stable anywhere,