A game idea suggestion for Blizzard

Hunter Pet CollarsThis is entry #12 in the 30 days of WarCraft series of articles.

The thing I’d like to see implemented in WoW is something that nearly every hunter has hoped to see happen… pet collars!

Blizzard has been taunting us for years by having mobs drop Small Leather Collars in our starting areas. When I picked up my first one, I was over the moon thinking that I’d be ale to outfit my pet – acquiring better and better collars as I progressed through the levels. Then the harsh reality… pets don’t have an equipment interface. There is no way for them to equip anything. 🙁

Eventually I realized that the Small Leather Collar was just a piece of vendor trash… a devious ruse to fool us unwitting hunters into thinking we’d have further pet personalization. A cruel trick really.

I think it’s time they end our torment and enable our pets to wear these. I think it would be an awesome addition to the game on so many levels…

First, it would allows us hunters to further tailor our pets for different types of game play.

Second, Blizz could make the majority – if not all of the pet collars – craftable. I see leatherworkers making these, but I can also see jewelcrafters and maybe even blacksmiths playing a part. For example, a LW would profit from the crafting of a collar, but a jewelcrafter could also benefit by crafting gems hunters will need to socket in these collars, with blacksmiths making the tags for them. What a boost to the economy that could provide!

Heck… Blizzard could allow them to be displayed, therefore bringing tailors into the mix. Tailors could sell dye to the hunters that want to color coordinate their pet’s collar!

As far as how the collars would work…

I’m flexible here. If they were to implement wearable pet collars, I’d be happy with almost any benefit, as long as there were choices. I’d want to be able to fashion my PvP pet’s collar one way, with a solo-tanky pet’s done up another way, then be able to have my DPS pet set up another way.

I’m not sure how Blizzard could approach this, because I’m sure this new mechanic could be a huge can of worms in terms of trying to keep things balanced, but my solution would be to make their impact fairly minimal, with no direct boost to DPS. The benefits would be in the form of slight increases to various pet abilities — with the emphasis being on utility and survivability.

The basic premise I see would be to have collar, and collar enhancements, function much like glyphs. They would simply provide a boost to some skill by either increasing its effect by a very slight amount, or by reducing its cooldown by a fraction. As I’d mentioned, in order to not upset the apple cart too much, none of the augments to pet abilities would apply to DPS skills.

Collars could boost armor, health, speed, threat, resistances, healing effects, etc… all by a small amount. Added pet speed could help a teensy amount in the DPS department, but would mostly be inconsequential. However, all of these enhancements could help hunters in PvP — the area where we could use it. Not that we need much help with soloing, but these things would help there as well.

For example…

  • Lower the cooldowns on Dash or Charge by 10%, and maybe increase Boar’s Speed by 10%.
  • Increase the benefits of Great Stamina, Natural Armor, Great Resistance, Blood of the Rhino, Lionhearted, etc… all by a small percentage.
  • Increase the threat of Guard Dog by a small margin.
  • Increase Bloodthirsty’s healing chance to 25%; up from 20%.
  • Reduce the channeling time on Lick Your Wounds to 4 seconds; down from five.

These are just some early thoughts, and I would see collars as having no more than 3-4 total benefits – with enhancements.

It’d be great if there could be a way to buff pet DPS by way of a collar, but I don’t see that happening. It would require Blizzard having to recalibrate all sorts of hunter/pet mechanics in order to prevent an uproar from the lesser classes. 😉

Alright, so what do you guys think..? What would you want to see introduced in the game if you could get Blizzard to entertain one of your ideas.

I like the idea of pet collars for hunter pets… what do you like?

10 thoughts on “A game idea suggestion for Blizzard”

  1. i kinda had a similar idea with the collars although the idea i would like
    to pitch to blizz is to at least have racial armor for pets
    for example if your hunter is an undead have like sum bones around the pet
    if your an orc have sum spikes and metal around something like
    i have a few sketches i made when the servers go down…haha
    i really dont care if they dont give stats i just thought hunter pets
    can get sum kool looks

    Reply
  2. Pet Grooming shops – somewhere you could change the color and maybe give that pet a shave.

    And 100% agree – gnome hunters!

    Reply
  3. This isn’t Hunter specific, but I wish Blizz would add an “appearance tab”. Players would be able to wear the best gear for them stat wise, without being stuck wearing some of the hideous armor designs Blizz comes up with. (Hunters seem to have some of the ugliest armor). So say you don’t like the look of your current gun, acquire say the Wolfslayer Sniper Rifle and drop it in you appearance tab. You still have all the nice stats of your current gun, but it looks like the Wolfslayer.

    Reply
    • Any chance this appearance tab would make my dwarf hunter look like a Gnome? Or make my mount look like Arcturis? IT SHOULD! This idea is Tiger Blood WIN!, as well.

      Let’s keep the good ideas rolling here, gang!

      Reply
  4. Since the question was asked, I’m going to beat the drum again (DISCLAIMER: I claim no ownership interest in either of these ideas. I am sure the people at Blizzard have already thought of them…they simply don’t yet have the courage to act on them):

    1. GNOME HUNTERS!!!!
    Everything about it makes sense. EVERYTHING!
    Gnomes are the only race that CAN’T be hunters (and there’s no legitimate reason for this). Plus (and I’d have to double check this), I’m pretty sure Gnomes rank at the bottom with only 6 classes that the race can roll.
    Gnomes are engineers by nature. Engineers make guns and bows. Hunters use guns and bows to make things dead.

    2. LET HUNTERS TAME THEIR MOUNT!!
    Warlocks and pallys have their class mounts.
    Engineers and tailors can craft their own mounts.
    There is NO good reason a hunter shouldn’t be able to tame a mount. NONE! Make is so that the beast you tame for your mount CAN’T be used as a pet (forcing selectivity). make it so that all specs can tame mounts but that you can only tame a mount from the beasts you can tame (Oh, what’s that?…Then only BM can tame SB mounts?…YOU’RE G*#%@*! RIGHT ONLY BMs WOULD BE ABLE TO TAME SB MOUNTS!!!!!!).

    These ideas are pure WIN! Tiger Blood type WIN! Just ask Charlie Sheen. He’ll tell ya!

    Reply
    • Count me on board, lawman.

      /petition signed

      Those are both superb ideas. You’ve always made a good case for gnome hunters, and the taming mounts idea is fantastic.

      Reply
    • 1) Allow flying pets to continue dps on a boss during air phases. I mean, they are flying pets after all.

      2) Add a “closet” tab to our individual banks. I would like to be able to retain and reuse festival clothing, colored shirts, and tabards within my bank without taking up traditional bag slots or repurchasing items. They could limit the items allowed to be placed in your “closet” much like they do with engineering and mining specific bags.

      3) I love the idea of visual pet collars. I also believe the increased stats / abilities should be kept minimal to maintain class balance. For example, I would love a visual pet collar that had a minor increase to pet run speed or a collar that slightly reduced the cast time of revive pet.

      Reply

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