5.2 Pet Updates From Twitter

There's news about the 5.2 pets from Twitter. Mumper confirmed and clarified a few things about the new pets and Elite Pets.

RE: Stunted Direhorn

"Stunted Direhorn is not 5.2 anymore, most likely 5.3 at this point. We have a cool replacement though!"

I'm a bit sad that the triceratops companion won't be ready for 5.2. It's good to hear that it won't be abandoned forever though, and will hopefully make it into patch 5.3. I think I'll name mine Cera. ;) Internet high-five if you get the reference. XD


RE: Elite Pets despawning/level changing

"Despawn on elite pets is a bug, fixed in next build to work like normal tamers."

"Different levels each time is a bug, fixed in next build."

It sounds like the Elite Battle Pets will be like the Pandaren Spirit Tamers, but instead of getting one goodie bag from each "tamer", you'll only receive one for defeating all the Elite Pets.

My question now is just how long will it take to defeat all 8 each day? Dailies are starting to eat up quite a bit of time for a task that's supposed to be doable on a daily basis. On top of traveling to each of these new Elite Pets and then battling them, players will probably continue doing the other Grand Master dailies for a chance at Battle-Stones. Combine travel time with time necessary to go through an encounter with each pet team/pet, I don't know if I'll have much time to do any other dailies.


RE: Raid dropped pets

"Plan is to have bonus rolls work for raid boss pets. Currently 2 of those and one pet on raid trash."

"Currently plan is that they will drop as normal loot and on bonus rolls."

And last but not least, I find the raid dropped pets interesting at the very least. I'm not a fan of having vanity items drop in raids, but hopefully the way devs are implementing these will work out for everyone. If they drop in both LFR and normal/heroic, then they won't be exclusive to just raiders.

Being able to roll for a bonus loot/pet using Elder Charms sounds like a good way to handle it. Leave the RNG up to each individual, rather than having 25 fight over one pet.

But I'm curious how the "raid trash" dropped companion will work. What kind of droprate will it have? Need or Greed? Or just Greed? Cageable? These factors directly affect if placing a pet drop on raid trash is successful or not.

- If the drop rate is too low and 25 people have to roll, there will be a lot of frustration.

- If players can Need, there will ultimately be those that always Need and others who always Greed. Each side in the same raid always leads to conflict.

- If the pet is cageable, everyone will have a reason to select Need (if possible). Those who aren't pet collectors will want it simply to sell. These players could easily take advantage of the situation. It's not against the rules, nor is it "wrong", but it is frowned upon in the pet collecting community. Nabbing a companion from someone that will actually use it and adore it for the sake of earning some extra gold can be seen as underhanded and shady. It depends on your POV though. One person's "right" is another person's "wrong".

Well, we'll see. I have a few Elder Charms so I'll definitely try out the new raid LFR if and when it opens up on the PTR.

Anyway, just my thoughts so far!