"Caster" petsFollow

I am curious about the "Caster" pets in game.
I'vd tried to read as many articles as I could on the specifics of the differences between this group of pets and "normal" pets. However, not being a raider, nor much of an "instancer" (excuse the neologism), I'm not even sure the stat differences will be something I will notice.

Since I started playing WoW, my pets have generally been cats and ravagers. However, recently, I created a "bodyguard" toon on my second account to help me level a Priest on my main account, and thought "hey! why not try a Wind Serpent? After all, they look really cool."

Well I leveled enough and went to GREAT pains to eventually tame one that did not have caster stats. I'm just curious whether anyone using a "caster pet" might have some personal insight to share about their supposedly "inferiour" pet?

Is this something the Hunter community feels that Blizzard should address in an eventual update? (ie: eliminate the "caster class" deficiency)



Edited, Sep 29th 2008 9:46am by capcanuk

Caster Pets have been completely eliminated in the current Beta build, so all those beasts with Mana bars will have normal stats when tamed. We will, however, have to deal with the fact that Wind Serpents SUCK now. It really pisses me off. I camped for about 6 hours over the course of 2 days to tame my non-caster white windserpent, and he's been tearing up the damage charts. But once 3.0 comes, he'll likely sit in my stable until the expansion comes, and then he might get to see the light of day until I start raiding at 80... maybe.

As for how inferior they are, it's pretty big. At level 70, they have about 1k less HP than a non-caster pet, less armor and lower DPS. It can be a real pain to keep them alive. There are some hunters who swear by their caster WSs for end-game raiding (see: BT and Sunwell), but I just wouldn't go that far. I already have a hard enough time keeping my pet alive as it is some times.

Edited, Sep 29th 2008 7:19pm by ProjectMidnight

Really? What did they do to them?

I know this probably isn't a good example, but the other day I had my alt run through SM by a lvl 60 something hunter with a WS (it was a green one). He loved it and said it did about the same dmg as his ravager, so he planned on keeping it until WotLK comes out.

Wind serpents are really an SV pet. With the massive amount of crit they have, combined with the lack of other normal dps boosting talents for the pet, it really shines. For a BM hunter, a ravager is still almost always better. The highest parses I've seen have all had a ravager as a pet. It's a bit weird to me, as some of the math I've tried has put the wind serpent pretty high, but I've never seen it perform to it's theoretical potential. It could be I've just missed the WWS's of it though. It still eats bread and is pretty cool imo. I use a wind serpent or a cat because I don't like ravagers.