ghost-wolf-taming
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Mining the armory for Hunter pet statistics
With Hunter pet information recently added to the armory, Data Miner Zardoz has wasted no time getting his hands on the raw Hunter pet data and breaking it down. The data is only for level 80 Hunters, and only 10,000 of those at that, but it still gives a very interesting snapshot of what's going with the Hunter's best friends. It might not be too big a surprise that Cats are far and away the most popular pet at a count of around 9500, nearly doubling again the amount of Wolves, who come in just under 5000, which are in turn used in numbers over twice as much as the next popular choice, Gorillas, who are just above 2800 in number. Now mind you, this information does take into account pets that are in the stables as well, and there's certainly the possibility that a lot of them have just stayed in the stables for a long time.
When AFK attacks
My wife is a hunter. I don't say plays a hunter because that might give you the idea that she's playing and oh heck no. She's not playing. She's very very serious about taming rare or unique skins of pets, to the point where I find myself leveling a second shaman for the express purpose of using heroism to tame a spectral lupine. The other day, she completed her most recent mission, which was to tame the attractive fellow in the picture above. As you might expect, there were other hunters trying to accomplish it, so we ended up with a two day marathon of sleeplessness, calls from work asking me to check the zone to make sure he hadn't spawned, a mix-up with a hunter who followed her around dropping flares at her feet while she wasn't shadowmelded, and other exciting (and not so exciting) adventures.The other day while I was gleefully stealing baby wolvar from the still-cooling embrace of their mothers because a walrus paid me to, I heard a strangled gasp from my wife over at her computer. Somewhat distracted by wrangling bereaved pups, I at first didn't process what "I got the spirit beast" meant, especially since she gasped it out as one word. Eventually, of course, the congratulations started (in my happiness that I wouldn't have to camp Shol... er, I mean for her, yes, of course I mean for her success) and then I saw on her screen that orc hunter she'd mentioned before.He was AFK.
What Blizzard can learn from the Ghost Wolf debacle
Make no mistake about it-- Blizzard screwed up the issue of ghost wolf taming. A few months ago, when patch 2.3 was introduced with the new Dustwallow content, players found that by quickening Hunters' spellcast time, they were able to tame an animal that was never meant to be tamed-- the ghost wolves summoned by Grimtotem shamans there. Players thought it was awesome, and so did we. And despite the expectation that Blizzard would fix the problem and ruin our fun, we were surprised to hear that even though Blizzard admitted the taming was not intended, they would let it go. Those who wanted to put in the extra effort and cost to get a neat pet model would get one.Cut to earlier this week, when Drysc posted exactly the opposite on the forums.This isn't the first time Blizzard has flipped on players, and odds are that it won't be the last. They screwed this up, and players deserve to either keep having the ability to go out of their way to tame these wolves, or get a good reason why they shouldn't be able to.
