Give all pet families a special ability

[Steakhouse]

Currently, the following pet families have a special ability unique to their family :
- Boars (Charge)
- Cats (Prowl)
- Gorillas (Thunderstomp)
- Scorpids (Scorpid poison)
- Turtles (Shell Shield)
- Wind Serpents (Lightning Breath)
- Wolves (Furious Howl)

The three aerial families, ie Bats, Carrion Birds and Owls (and eagles, which are classified as Owls) share Screech, which is also fine.

Unfortunately, the following families learn no special abilities, which greatly limits their niche. Of course, not everything has to be meta, but atm there is little reason to use these families outside of flavor:

- Bears
- Crabs
- Crocolisks
- Hyenas
- Raptors
- Spiders
- Tallstriders

Here are some suggestions for each. They are by no means intended as a definite guide of what these pet families need, but are rather conversation starters. Lastly, even if I'm suggesting mutliple ideas, it's moreso to give a few options, by no means am I saying that bears need 3 family-exclusive skills :

Bears are creatures with great vitality and thick hides, so defensive skills make sense here :
- Survival Instincts : Last Stand clone
- Thick fur (passive) : reduce all damage taken by 3%
- Vitality (passive) : reduce the duration of diseases by 50%, and regenerate 1% of health every 5 seconds

Crabs are known to regenerate missing body parts, and to clamp on their prey, never letting go :
- Renegeration : Channel to heal 50% health over 10 seconds (this gives crab a good niche in long fights with a lot of aoe damage)
- Pinching hold : Channel to immobilize target over 3 seconds

Crocolisks have an even thicker hide than that of bears. Also, they will spin their bodies after clamping on their prey to try to break their neck. WOTLK gave them a retaliate clone which I find very cool, but I'll also list some alternatives that stay in the Croc flavor :
- Snap back : Retaliate clone
- Thick skin (passive) : reduce all physical damage taken by flat amount (which gives the croc a good niche against fast attackers like dual wielders)
- Go for the kill : channel for 3 seconds, dealing damage every second. Damage is doubled against incapacitated targets (similarly to Judgement of Command)

Hyenas are often used as hunting hounds in Vanilla. We can build upon that with sniffing out prey, finishing off wounded enemies, or taking advantage of fleeing enemies :
- Odor sleuth : snifs out the area, greatly increasing the pet's stealth detection for a few seconds. Could also work as a flat +3 stealth detection passive.
- Go for the throat : (execute clone) deals high damage, and empties all focus to deal extra damage. Requires target to be below 20% health.
- Pouncing bite (backstab clone) Deals high damage, requiring to face the target's back (this would make hyenas the premier pet for hunters that prefer kiting)

Raptors are pack hunters. We can make them synergyze with other raptors. Their horribly sharp talons also makes a bleed a good option, making them great at keeping rogues out of stealth :
- Pack hunters (passive): Increases damage done by all other raptors by 2%. Stackable.
- Slashing Claws : Applies a DoT bleed. Optionally, to fit with the pack hunter vibe : Deals bonus damage for every other application of Slashing Claws on the target

Most spiders in WoW either web, either poison, so both make sense here. However, a simple poison DoT is already the Scorpid's niche, so we'll have to be a bit more creative :
- Web : roots target
- Poison bolt : a long range nature damage shot with a dot component
- Slow poison : deals light damage over time and slows target
- Paralytic poison : Has no effet until it reaches 5 stacks, at which point the target is stunned (very strong, but very niche: most mobs will die before it, bosses are immune to it, and players can play around it)

Tallstriders are wow's ostriches, nature's most ferocious and large bird, a modern raptor of sorts. They're very fast, and their beaks can break into very sturyd things :
- (passive) Increases outdoor movespeed by 50 / 70 / 90 / 110 (this makes the tallstrider the mount-stalker. Two pets previously did this before their movespeed was normalized : the ZG bat, and the AV Frostwolf, so there's a precedent for it !)
- Piercing beak (passive) : Attacks ignore 10% of the target's armor. Could also work actively as a sunder armor clone.

Could also differentiate bats, carrion birds, and owls, but this is likely to make waves as people would lose their pet's current special ability, so I'd advise against it.

Tell me what you think !

[Akos1896]

Liking it

[Natuaduck]

I wish more people tried to be on board with ideas like this for expanded hunter pets but there's a fair amount of vocal people that shout down attempts at deviating from "muh classic" experience because there's such a hatred for Hunters in PvP.

[Kargal]

This is the kind of topping i like on my vanilla ici cream

[Eeeeeeeeeee]

Liking these ideas, and in general I support giving every family something special. The ideal here for me would be to help open up more off-meta Hunter playstyles and just generally let people express themselves without it feeling like a total waste.

Some general ideas that could be serviced a bit with new pet abilities:

• A pet ability that sheds the pet's threat onto the Hunter, for tank/solo survival playstyles

• A pet ability that increases nature or arcane damage taken by the target, for spell Hunter

• A pet ability that itself scales on the Hunter's spell power, again for spell Hunter

• A pet passive that sometimes triggers a free auto from the pet when you land a melee hit, for on-hit gambler Hunters and melee weavers

• A pet ability that temporarily increases healing received by the pet, for pet tank Hunter

You already covered a kiting playstyle, and raid straight up dps and debuffing are covered, and any pet can handle your standard marksman questing setup. I'm sure there's more Hunter niches to look at, but I'd like to note that I'm not looking for these new family abilities to shake up the top of the meta. Just give people fun playstyle options.

Here's some ways these could be implemented:

• Crab: Stay Low - While active, hide from the target, redirecting threat to the Hunter.

• Alternative, Hyena: Disorienting Cackle - Surround the target in an unnerving cacophony, driving them to attack the Hunter.

• Spider: Enfeebling Fang - Poison the target, weakening them to further nature damage dots.

• Manawyrm: Expose Mana - Open the target's inner mana, causing the next arcane damage instance to pop for further damage.

• Manawyrm: Arcane Spike - Pierce the target with concentrated mana, dealing arcane damage. Scales with the Hunter's spell power and arcane spell power.

• Raptor: Opportunist (Passive) - Vigilant of weakness, gain chance on Hunter melee attack to attack the same target.

• Alternative, Tallstrider: Relentless Pecking - Channel for 5 seconds, pecking the target each second. Each Hunter melee hit against the target exposes it an additional peck. High Focus cost.

• Bear: Shift Hide - Expose injuries to allies, increasing healing received for 8 seconds.

Good thread :)

[Geojak]

I hope all pet families can have their unique ability. It's sad that some are useless.
But passive ability are not normal. No existing pet has passive ability, instead they have a health dmg and armor % bonus.
Example, owls have +7% dmg.
Bears have +10% health.

All we need is an unique active ability for each

[Ibux]

it would be nice if some of the unique abilities have to be learned from rarer pets. so hunters could get a little more out of finding the rarest pets. and then use it or teach it to their regular pets. could also be some rank of an ability can only be learned from the rare pet variant.

[Steakhouse]

I wish more people tried to be on board with ideas like this for expanded hunter pets but there's a fair amount of vocal people that shout down attempts at deviating from "muh classic" experience because there's such a hatred for Hunters in PvP.

To not ruffle any feathers, the new abilities could be PvE centric moreso than PvP, with a focus on defensive utility, threat, and, to a lesser extent, damage, rather than crowd control and stealth detection.

Liking these ideas, and in general I support giving every family something special. The ideal here for me would be to help open up more off-meta Hunter playstyles and just generally let people express themselves without it feeling like a total waste.

Some general ideas that could be serviced a bit with new pet abilities:

• A pet ability that sheds the pet's threat onto the Hunter, for tank/solo survival playstyles

• A pet ability that increases nature or arcane damage taken by the target, for spell Hunter

• A pet ability that itself scales on the Hunter's spell power, again for spell Hunter

• A pet passive that sometimes triggers a free auto from the pet when you land a melee hit, for on-hit gambler Hunters and melee weavers

• A pet ability that temporarily increases healing received by the pet, for pet tank Hunter

You already covered a kiting playstyle, and raid straight up dps and debuffing are covered, and any pet can handle your standard marksman questing setup. I'm sure there's more Hunter niches to look at, but I'd like to note that I'm not looking for these new family abilities to shake up the top of the meta. Just give people fun playstyle options.

Here's some ways these could be implemented:

• Crab: Stay Low - While active, hide from the target, redirecting threat to the Hunter.

• Alternative, Hyena: Disorienting Cackle - Surround the target in an unnerving cacophony, driving them to attack the Hunter.

• Spider: Enfeebling Fang - Poison the target, weakening them to further nature damage dots.

• Manawyrm: Expose Mana - Open the target's inner mana, causing the next arcane damage instance to pop for further damage.

• Manawyrm: Arcane Spike - Pierce the target with concentrated mana, dealing arcane damage. Scales with the Hunter's spell power and arcane spell power.

• Raptor: Opportunist (Passive) - Vigilant of weakness, gain chance on Hunter melee attack to attack the same target.

• Alternative, Tallstrider: Relentless Pecking - Channel for 5 seconds, pecking the target each second. Each Hunter melee hit against the target exposes it an additional peck. High Focus cost.

• Bear: Shift Hide - Expose injuries to allies, increasing healing received for 8 seconds.

Good thread :)

Thanks for the feedback and good suggestions ! I especially like your suggestions to encourage off-meta playstyles, but it can be a bit of a double-edged sword: I think it's nice that hunters have many options in most situations, and saying "if you're a tank hunter, get a hyena. If you're a melee hunter, get a raptor" might go in the wrong direction. Just a thought, but I do really really like your ideas, especially getting a taunt through the hyena, and the threat redirect from the crab, what great design !

I hope all pet families can have their unique ability. It's sad that some are useless.
But passive ability are not normal. No existing pet has passive ability, instead they have a health dmg and armor % bonus.
Example, owls have +7% dmg.
Bears have +10% health.

All we need is an unique active ability for each

You're right that currently all family-exclusive abilities are active, but I don't see it as a hard requirement for future ones, personally. I do agree that active abilities are usually more fun, since, well, they're interactive, but at the same time a lot of pet abilities are left on autocast so they might as well be passive.

it would be nice if some of the unique abilities have to be learned from rarer pets. so hunters could get a little more out of finding the rarest pets. and then use it or teach it to their regular pets. could also be some rank of an ability can only be learned from the rare pet variant.

I agree with this, and there's a Vanilla precedent for it: the max level of Bite and Furious Howl are only trainable from Bloodaxe Worgs in LBRS, and the max level of Lightning Breath is only trainable from Sons of Hakkar in ZG. It's not the case for every animal but I'd be down for any of these skills to only be added to rare mobs or elites to make getting them challenging, and reduce the workload of implementing these family-specific skills on a bunch of animals.

[Ibux]

if they make pet changes like these, it would be nice if they didn't give details about where and what. just that they have done it. so that people can have the pleasure of exploring and finding them themselves.

[Eeeeeeeeeee]

Thanks for the feedback and good suggestions ! I especially like your suggestions to encourage off-meta playstyles, but it can be a bit of a double-edged sword: I think it's nice that hunters have many options in most situations, and saying "if you're a tank hunter, get a hyena. If you're a melee hunter, get a raptor" might go in the wrong direction. Just a thought, but I do really really like your ideas, especially getting a taunt through the hyena, and the threat redirect from the crab, what great design !

Thanks brother, and I see what you're saying. It's more elegant if they can be multi-purpose and it lets people get more involved in how to use it. I think Screech is a good example to work off of from live. Screech is great both for debuffing mobs for other tanks, the Hunter themselves facetanking, or the bird screeching as it generates AoE aggro. That type of multi-purpose is cool and compelling.

Some care is definitely needed there tho, I don't know what the general playerbase reaction to raids needing new pets would be. For instance, a pet ability similar to Furious Howl that gives everyone around one charge of X magical resistances and explodes for a little damage if hit by magic is multi-purpose in a similar way, but as its desirable for raid and somewhat for pvp some wider polling on what other class players are ok with would be in order.

I hope all pet families can have their unique ability. It's sad that some are useless.
But passive ability are not normal. No existing pet has passive ability, instead they have a health dmg and armor % bonus.
Example, owls have +7% dmg.
Bears have +10% health.

All we need is an unique active ability for each

You're right that currently all family-exclusive abilities are active, but I don't see it as a hard requirement for future ones, personally. I do agree that active abilities are usually more fun, since, well, they're interactive, but at the same time a lot of pet abilities are left on autocast so they might as well be passive.

I don't super mind passives either, but I do think most can be made active without losing the spirit or function of them. Actives, even if left on, also have the desirable effect of costing focus periodically which helps balance abilities. I'd think I land on "might as well stay closer to Classic" here.

it would be nice if some of the unique abilities have to be learned from rarer pets. so hunters could get a little more out of finding the rarest pets. and then use it or teach it to their regular pets. could also be some rank of an ability can only be learned from the rare pet variant.

I agree with this, and there's a Vanilla precedent for it: the max level of Bite and Furious Howl are only trainable from Bloodaxe Worgs in LBRS, and the max level of Lightning Breath is only trainable from Sons of Hakkar in ZG. It's not the case for every animal but I'd be down for any of these skills to only be added to rare mobs or elites to make getting them challenging, and reduce the workload of implementing these family-specific skills on a bunch of animals.

Seconded, tho I might say "certain ranks" or something like that. Like there are normal ways to get the ability at times, but for instance getting a rank a few levels early or getting the max rank can be done via rare world mobs or raid mobs.

I'm just reminded a little of it taking 11hrs of queuing Warsong over 4 days to find a single match at low level to get the Horde Defender's Axe. The worry is the reverse, where since a particular rare mob is the only way to get an ability you end up checking back for a chance at it not already being dead for a week. I think that's fine for twinking or pushing power, but not for mechanical uniqueness.

if they make pet changes like these, it would be nice if they didn't give details about where and what. just that they have done it. so that people can have the pleasure of exploring and finding them themselves.

I'm cool with this as well, fun community exploration element.

[Mac]

This post by Dragunovi from 2020 lists all the scrapped Hunter pet abilities from beta that are still to this day in the game files.

Update: Because the abilities that teach the hunter how to teach the abilites to their pets are broken an alternative book system is being considered.
Alright, this is a big one, it was a hard decision if i even should post this but here it is.
I will rate the abilities for their plausibily for being added in a 5 point system. Alright, a long road ahead, lets go!

Bears:

Roar of Fortitude is an active ability that makes your Bear increase your party's hitpoints by 200 for 2 minutes on a 3 minute cooldown, simple as that.
Plausibility 5/5.

Enraging Bite is an active ability that makes your Bear do a taunt, some aggro and decreases the targets armor by 40 on a 15 second cooldown.
If it weren't for the taunt this would be a bit weak but the taunt makes it really good. I guess it's balanced enough.
Plausibility 3.5/5

Tallstriders:

Healing Tongue - Rank 1
Healing Tongue - Rank 2 is an active ability that makes the Tallstrider heal the target for either 62-73 health at Rank 1 or 99-116 Health at Rank 2 in melee range with a 1 second cast time on a 15 second cooldown. It could be balanced with a 40-50 Focus requirement. Reminds me of Spirit Beasts in Wrath.
Plausibility 4/5.

Distracting Spit is an active ability that your Tallstrider spit at the target, reduces the damage of the target by 5 on a 30 yard range. I feel like this is just too weak, not worth it.
Plausibility 1.5/5.

Strider Presence is a passive ability that gives your Tallstrider a 5 hp5 and 10 mp5 aura for the party members around 10 yards of it. This really makes it a really good support pet combined with the other abilities. Update: Broken, constantly gives 5 mana to everyone around.
Plausibility N/A

Spiders:

Web - Rank 1
Web - Rank 2
Web - Rank 3 is an active ability that makes your Spider shoot a web from a 20 yard range that roots for 8 seconds at Rank 1, 10 seconds at Rank 2 and 12 seconds at Rank 3 on a 2 minute cooldown. This ability would be extremely good in PvP
and decent in PvE, as you would need to pull your spider back to be fully utilise the Web by healing your pet. It's too good for PvP, this probably belongs in the Grinder.
Plausibility 2.5/5.

Spider Poison is a passive ability that gives Spiders attack a chance to poison their target for 100 damage over 30 seconds. Well, it doesn't sound that bad, guess it is possible.
Plausibility 3.5/5

Poisonous Spit is an active ability that makes your Spider spit at its target from a 30 yard range for 155 damage over 15 seconds on a 2 minute cooldown. Update: Spit looks like a frostbolt, don't think it should be added.
Plausibility N/A.

Crocodiles:

Quick Snap is a passive ability that gives your Crocodile a chance to do a counterrattack when attacked. This would make crocodiles generate a lot of more aggro when fighting a lot of mobs and even a single target. Don't think it is overpowered, it's plausible to be added. Update: Broken, can't teach it to your pet.
Plausibility N/A

Consume Flesh is a passive ability that gives your Crocodiles a chance to leech 50 health from the target its attacking. Doesn't sound that bad.
Plausibility 4/5.

Ankle Snap is an active ability that makes your Crocodile knockdown its target for 3 seconds and slows them by %33 for 6 seconds. Cooldown unknown. Maybe usable but could be too good.
Plausibility 3/5.

Crabs:

Tight Pinch is an active ability that makes your Crabs next attack do 18-21 more damage and stun for 5 seconds. Okay, this is a more overpowered version on Ankle Snap, too good for both PvP and PvE, don't think its happening.
Plausibility 2/5.

Clenched Pinchers is an active ability that makes your Crab root the target and deal 150 damage in 15 seconds on 1 minute cooldown. it can't do anything while doing this aka Channeled. Well, i guess this is better than Tight Pinch in the balance sense, but not that much. Even if you're losing your pet while using this, the root is too powerful in PvP, its fine in PvE.
Plausibility 2.5/5.

Tough Shell - Rank 1
Tough Shell - Rank 2
Tough Shell - Rank 3
Tough Shell - Rank 4 is a passive ability that has a chance to give your Crab 84 armor at Rank 1, 106 armor at Rank 2, 132 armor at Rank 3 and 196 armor at Rank 4 when getting attacked. Fitting but a bit underpowered.
Plausibility 2.5/5

Scorpions:

Minor Scorpid Poison is a passive ability that gives your Scorpions attacks a chance to poison the target for 150 damage over 60 seconds/1 minute, ticks 15 damage every 6 seconds. It's not that bad, i see this plausible.
Plausibility 3.5/5.

Dig Trap is an active ability that stealths and roots your Scorpion. If it attacks at this state it deals an extra 56-75 damage on a 1.5 minute cooldown. It stays stealted and rooted for 1 minute. This is pretty interesting. Maybe this could be used on boss fights for some extra burst or some scouting or as a landmine. This looks good in my book.
Plausibility 4.5/5.

Claw Cover is an active ability that increases your Scorpions parry chance for %61 for 20 seconds on a 1.5 minute cooldown. It is channeled. Now this is more plausible. Compared to Turtle's Shell Shield that decreases damage by %50 but increases time betweed attacks by %43 for 12 seconds, this makes sense. More mitigation aganist melee for longer but can't attack. Sounds good.
Plausibility 4/5.

Boars:

Gore is an active ability that makes your Boars target bleed for 15 damage over 15 seconds on a 30 second cooldown. This is just too weak, not worth it.
Plausibility 1/5.

Vital Wound is a passive ability that gives your Boars attacks a chance to deal an extra 20 damage and reduce the targets attack speed by %100 for 8 seconds. Nope, just too good.
Plausibility 1/5.

Toughen Hide is an active ability that increases your Boars armor by 118 for 10 seconds on a 45 second cooldown. Too weak.
Plausibility 1.5/5.

Wolves:

Rabid Maw is a passive ability that gives your Wolves attacks a chance to reduce the targets Agility and Strenght by 15 points for 30 seconds. Even if its a bit weak, its still a good passive ability.
Plausibility 3/5.

Enraged Howl is an active ability that makes your Wolf increase your partys Strenght and Agility by 4 points for 10 seconds on a 45 second cooldown. Looks like an early version of Furious Howl that wolves have, also too weak.
Plausibility 1/5.

Intimidating Growl is an active ability that makes your Wolf fear the target for 5 seconds and increases its speed by %100 on a 30 second cooldown. Might be too crazy but it does fit the flavor.
Plausibility 2.5/5.

Gorillas:

Bruise - Rank 1
Bruise - Rank 2
Bruise - Rank 3
Bruise - Rank 4 is a passive ability that gives your Gorillas attacks to decrease the targets armor by 84 points at Rank 1, by 106 points at Rank 2, by 132 points at Rank 3 and by 196 points at Rank 4 for 10 seconds. Sounds like a good ability for raids or dungeons, just a little extra damage for you and your Gorilla otherwise. Sounds fine. Also an extra thing. The Bruise ranks start at level 13, it might be needed to add something like rare gorillas for taming on low level zones for it to work. Update: Bruise gets applied on the gorilla itself, it's broken.
Plausibility N/A

Quickness is an active ability that gives your Gorillas next attack 41-45 extra damage and hit another near target on a 1 minute cooldown. Looks like the predecessor of Thunderstomp that current Gorillas have, its still an plausible ability.
Plausibility 3/5.

Throw Rock - Rank 1
Throw Rock - Rank 2 is an active ability that makes your Gorilla throw a rock at your target, dealing 25-28 damage at Rank 1, 40-47 damage at Rank 2 with a 3 second cast time and no cooldown. Gonna be honest, i would love to watch a few gorillas throw rocks at bosses in raids. I think it's balanced.
Plausibility 5/5.

Raptors:

Vulnerable is an active ability that gives your Raptors attacks do increase the damage the target gets by 30 points for 3 seconds on a 30 second cooldown. Even if the effect is powerful, the timeframe is short. Would work good with fast bows.
Plausibility 4/5.

Feast of Prey is a passive ability that gives your Raptor 39 health when it kills a target. Might be just too weak.
Plausibility 2.5/5.

Tendon Rip is an passive ability that gives your Raptors attacks a chance to bleed the target for 60 damage and slow it for %33 for 8 seconds. Not bad.
Plausibility 3.5/4.

Cats:

Open Wounds is a passive ability that gives your Cats attacks a chance to increase the damage the target takes by 10 points and bleed them for 28 damage over 8 seconds. I think it's fine.
Plausibility 4/5.

Ferocity is an active ability that doubles your Cats attack speed but increases the damage it takes by 40 for 8 seconds on a 1 minute cooldown. A bit overpowered but could be plausible if the book is made a drop from bosses.
Plausibility 2.5/5.

Survival Instinct is an active ability that stuns your Cats target for 2 seconds, reduces the Cats aggro and makes the Cat run away for 2 seconds (Fear), 10 secound cooldown.
I guess it's alright.
Plausibility 3/5.

Birds (?) :

I think they might be deprecated, but i'll still include them. Extra Note: They can be spread to owls and carrion birds with the book system.
Eye Peck is a passive ability that gives your Birds attacks a chance to reduce the targets hit chance by %47 for 12 seconds. Overpowered.
Plausibility 1/5.
Pester is an active ability that increases your Birds attack speed but decreases their damage by 300(?) for 15 seconds and gives its attacks a chance to silence the target for 3 seconds. It's litteraly broken.
Plausibility 0/5.

Turtles:

Hand Snap is a passive ability that gives your Turtles attacks a chance to disarm and bleed the target for 36 damage over 8 seconds. Wouldn't be too dangerous aganist seasoned PvPer as they use weapon chains but still useful in PvE aganist humanoids. I think it's balanced
Plausibility 3.5/5.

Thick Skin - Rank 1
Thick Skin - Rank 2
Thick Skin - Rank 3
Thick Skin - Rank 4 is a passive ability that gives your Turtle a chance to get 63 armor at Rank 1, 87 armor at Rank 2, 99 armor at Rank 3 and 147 armor at Rank 4 when taking damage. It's pretty meh.
Plausibility 2.5/5
And we're done! This took me the whole day to write, i'm still sure i missed a few abilities, i'll update the post if i find them. Hope some can be accepted!

To the best of my knowledge none of these were reintroduced to Turtle Wow.

[Eeeeeeeeeee]

This post by Dragunovi from 2020 lists all the scrapped Hunter pet abilities from beta that are still to this day in the game files..

Definitely a source of inspiration, tho since none of us have experience with them I don't think these should be taken as law or anything.

There's tons of pet cc here, which we barely see in represented in game. I'd be hesitant to focus on CC when adding new abilities for Turtle. Some of these could definitely make waves tho -- a full pet taunt, an aoe hp buff, party damage increased. There's def availability to increase raid pet variety here, and obvsiously tons of stuff people would have fun with in leveling.

There's also some slightly leaning for playstyles in these while maintaining broad usability which is good. For instance, the raptor bonus damage would be better for dual wield melee attacks as they'd get more in, tallstriders could heal a tank hunter, etc.

Interesting to see that passives were a big consideration before release. It makes me wonder if complicating pets with more abilities on top of passives would be worth. I still feel pretty indifferent about passives tho, even if combined with a unique family active.

[Mac]

This post by Dragunovi from 2020 lists all the scrapped Hunter pet abilities from beta that are still to this day in the game files..

Definitely a source of inspiration, tho since none of us have experience with them I don't think these should be taken as law or anything.

There's tons of pet cc here, which we barely see in represented in game. I'd be hesitant to focus on CC when adding new abilities for Turtle. Some of these could definitely make waves tho -- a full pet taunt, an aoe hp buff, party damage increased. There's def availability to increase raid pet variety here, and obvsiously tons of stuff people would have fun with in leveling.

There's also some slightly leaning for playstyles in these while maintaining broad usability which is good. For instance, the raptor bonus damage would be better for dual wield melee attacks as they'd get more in, tallstriders could heal a tank hunter, etc.

Interesting to see that passives were a big consideration before release. It makes me wonder if complicating pets with more abilities on top of passives would be worth. I still feel pretty indifferent about passives tho, even if combined with a unique family active.

Yeah, I think it’s a neat list in terms of inspiration, and not that these abilities are set in stone and the only way to go.