How do YOU want epic pets to work?

[Maizing]

I only JUST got my last battle pet to rare today (now I just need to work on leveling them all). I have stacks of family specific stones sitting on my pet battle storage alt.

I really do not want to go through that again. The way that they implemented the battle-stones was very frustrating.

[Livingdeath]

Ugh. No offense to Kring but that idea makes me queasy. The idea of releveling all those roaches, rats and cats doesn't appeal to me. I'd rather get a stone and just have to releveling due to the penalty. The penalty would be one or two trainers to get back to 25. Unless they implemented Kring's idea to function the same way.

But... levelling past 25 to reach Epic, and upgrading then relevelling to 25, are almost exactly the same thing in practise...

Yeah, that's why I said unless they implemented Kring's idea to function the same way. Sorry was writing that on my phone while between meetings at work. I should have clarified and I'm sorry about that.

I like Kring's idea if it means getting 2 levels of pet XP like the current stone penalty system works. Because you could use 2 trainers to get that XP back. And if grinding out the equivalent amount of XP would be required, I am okay with that too. Because it's the same thing as you noticed.

Heck as much as I hate to admit it, even grinding out 5 levels of XP for each pet as a penalty for epic stones or epic XP if you want to call it that is even okay for me. But that's pretty much my limit. Anything more than that will feel like a punishment for having maxxed out each pet to begin with.

Imagine if using an epic stone reverted the pet to level 1? Or if using Kring's idea, you had to grind out another 25 levels of XP for each pet? I just don't want a severe penalty to upgrade.

Because... No. Just... No. I am really against anything that require me to acquire another 25 levels to get to epic quality. That killed my time in this expansion. I want to really maintain my collection, collect new pets, and explore other aspects of the game I haven't quite had time to work on.

I only recently got geared up because my sole game-time was spent toward pet battles for a long time. I think a lot of people are like that. I also think a lot of people accepted that we'd probably spend more time on this expansion on pets because it was a new feature and we had 5 expansions worth of pets to collect, level, and stone. Pretty much 100 pets per expansion. Because that's a lot to catch up on, but no one here can deny it is a daunting task that takes time.

But when each of us approaches "end-game" do we really want to start from scratch with each pet? Or build on your previous accomplishment of leveling the pet to 25? I really prefer the latter because then it would feel like I didn't waste all this time in MoP getting each pet to 25.

[Gurggulk]

If epic pets are ever introduced, this is my outline for the basis of epic pet taming. I don't expect some or even all of the ideas to have merit to everyone, just want my thoughts out there to be picked apart.

1. To get an epic pet, 1st an epic stone must drop. This epic stone would be usable on any pet you currently have. It would soulbound the pet to your account. Your Epic pet would be dropped to level 1. You will have to level it completely. Epic pets should be allowed to a max level of 30. At level 30 a new battle ability is unlocked.

2. A maximum of 3 epic pets would be allowed for any account.

3. After choosing the pet and using the epic stone, 1 of 3 epic pet breeds would overwrite the current pet. They would be epic Battle abilities. A maximum of one each, breed would be allowed per account.

4. If using for PvP, only another player owning exactly the same number of epic pets would be allowed to pvp each other. If that means no pvp until other players acquire epic stones, so be it.

5. Allow 1 epic pet max to be acquired by some other means other than a drop.

6. Epic pets should be 50% larger than normal. Shiny, smokey, glows special graphic for any epic pet.

That's my outline. Look forward to epic pets, whatever breed or family they come in.

[Gilneas]

I want them to not implement epic pets at all.

Same. There's no real need for it. The rarity system is fine as is, other than polished stones being largely useless.

[Breehit]

I am NOT in favor of epic pets or a level cap increase. I have been working hard to gradually level my current set of pets to 25, and to convert the non-rares to rare. With so many pets, my "head would explode" if I had to essentially start over. I do not mind leveling the occasional character alt, but if I had 500 alts???? Not a chance!!! I would probably give up on pet battles and pet collecting, which has been one of my main interests in WoW this expansion.

[Waflob]

Like many others, I would not welcome an increase of level cap, or a higher quality (i.e. epic).
The thought of having to re-level/upgrade 500 pets is one that puts me off completely. I honestly think that if they did that, I would give up on pet battles and level some alts instead.

[Kring]

I don't know what's prevented them from implementing the epic stones already

Purple Direhorns, probably.

Epic stone, at this point, would probably make the PvP experience for player less involved in pet battles even less enjoyable.

[Nataku]

How about doing a weekly quest rewarding one single epic stone? That way noone would feel forced to upgrade ALL of his pets (because it would take more than 10 years to do so - if blizz decides not to add any more new pets^^).
I'm against raising the level cap also, tedious enough to level 500+ pets to 25.

[Ebil]

I like the idea of epic pets just not of epic stones. I would just like to see epic pets introduced into game as a reward for pve pet battles. Instead of letting the pve pets keep a static set of moves like they do now with the trainers it they would change on daily or weekly. Or even the type of pets used would change as well of their move set, it would keep it fresh, for a little while at least. I really enjoyed how the spirit tamer quest and I would like to combine that with how the fishing spawns work.

That would mean that players would have to go to a trainer in their main faction city to pick up the quest and location for the weekly quest (I would like it do be weekly). The first time you finish the quest chain to get access to the weekly quest you will be rewarded with a epic pet of your choice. After that you will have a change to find one out of the bags from the weekly.

The epic pets would have more health and power then the rare pets but you would only be able to have one epic pet on your team for battles. So people would just not use all epic pets when doing pve/ pvp and it the playing field would be equal with people that have better luck/ gold then others. I also would like to see one pet from each pet family as an epic pet so that there would be more variety in the type of pets out there for pvp pet battles at the start.

There would be no ability to upgrade to epic pets.

[Azrile]

I guess I am disagreement with the majority.

I think a weekly quest that rewards one epic stone would work. You could choose which pet to use it on, it makes the pet uncageable. It only increases it´s stats, no extra abilities or anything OP. There are two problems with this.. first would be pvp, although I think even with one player with an epic pet and one without, comp would matter much more than the extra stats. But the real problem would be nerfs. People would be outraged if they used an epic stone on a pet that was later nerfed.

I am also not against them increasing the level cap to 30 next expansion. I think people are overestimating how hard it would be to level 500 pets to 30. You would probably get 10-20 pets leveled to 30 just by capturing new wild pets in the initial zone, then use 2 of them along with a lvl 25 while you capture all the other wild pets in the rest of the zones, and you are probably talking 100 or so pets at lvl 30 just from collecting your wild pets, which you would have to do anyway. WIth the change in 5.4 with family battle stones (3 for 1).. next expansion we are probably still going to want to do the spirit and battle tamers in pandarian for stones, along with all the pet battle tamers in the new zones etc.. It really wouldn´t take that long. Level 25 pets would be survivable against lvl 30 pets. The problem with this expansion is that level 1-5 pets can´t be used easily in endgame pet battles (with a few exceptions). I think almost every endgame pet battle we have now (tamers and spirits), it is fairly easy to use 2 real pets and a lvl 20, and in some cases, even lower. I think there is a big difference going 1-25 than going 25-30.

I think without epic stones, and without lvl 30.. there isn´t going to be much to do. Collect rare versions of another 100 pets.. level them to 25 ( which will be very easy since they basically will be lvl 23 and we will have new battle tamers as well as panda battle tamers to do it). I think many even moderately dedicated players will have all their pets rare by the end of this expansion (especially with the 3-1 stone exchange).

[Rafein]

I want it to be very simple.

1. Replace Polished Stones with Epic Stones. fairly common drop in PvP, purchasable for Justice, ect. Exactly like current polished stones are. Epic Stones have no breed

2. Epic stone's work as follows. Upgrades 1 level 25 rare pet to a level 25 epic pet.

This makes them rather easy to come by, and waste all the previous work you put into pets, but instead, rewards it.

[Poofah]

I think without epic stones, and without lvl 30.. there isn´t going to be much to do.

Remember though that battlestones didn't exist until 5.1. Initially we were supposed to camp wild pets until we found a rare (or settle for something less). The real problem was that pre-MoP pets were assigned a rarity of uncommon or rare, and the ones that could only be uncommon were strictly inferior. Rare stones solved that problem by giving us a way to bring those uncommon-only pets up to par. But there are no epic pets in the game currently: therefore epic stones don't solve any existing problem, they just create a new standard that everyone will feel obliged to meet.

Another issue is that in order to 'rarify' your collection, you don't need nearly 500 rare stones, because the majority of pets are available as rare to start with (either wild or by default). If you get most wild pets as rares then you need less than 150 rare stones for the uncommon-only pets. If we need 600+ epic stones in 6.0, then either epic stones will have to be a lot more common than rare stones are now (which makes no sense--epic should be more rare than rare), or else it will take more than a year to upgrade everything. I think they're torn between unsavory possibilities, and I hope they find a different way to make epic pets.

I have no issue with leveling to 30 though--that seems like natural progression for an xpac, and probably necessary to keep pet battles interesting (new ability slot maybe? who knows).

[Mehetabel]

I don't want epic pets. At all.

[Azrile]

I think without epic stones, and without lvl 30.. there isn´t going to be much to do.

Remember though that battlestones didn't exist until 5.1. Initially we were supposed to camp wild pets until we found a rare (or settle for something less). The real problem was that pre-MoP pets were assigned a rarity of uncommon or rare, and the ones that could only be uncommon were strictly inferior. Rare stones solved that problem by giving us a way to bring those uncommon-only pets up to par. But there are no epic pets in the game currently: therefore epic stones don't solve any existing problem, they just create a new standard that everyone will feel obliged to meet.

Another issue is that in order to 'rarify' your collection, you don't need nearly 500 rare stones, because the majority of pets are available as rare to start with (either wild or by default). If you get most wild pets as rares then you need less than 150 rare stones for the uncommon-only pets. If we need 600+ epic stones in 6.0, then either epic stones will have to be a lot more common than rare stones are now (which makes no sense--epic should be more rare than rare), or else it will take more than a year to upgrade everything. I think they're torn between unsavory possibilities, and I hope they find a different way to make epic pets.

I have no issue with leveling to 30 though--that seems like natural progression for an xpac, and probably necessary to keep pet battles interesting (new ability slot maybe? who knows).

Agree completely. I think the difference is the OCD thing. I think it would be cool if at the end of the year, and doing a weekly quest every week.. you had 52 epic pets and I had 52 epic pets, and we both choose different pets to make epic. For pvp.. a person would only have to do 3 weeks worth to have a full epic team, but obviously people who did it 20 weeks would be at an advantage because of more comp choices for teams.

I think where ´epic´ falls completely apart is where you mention having all 550 pets at epic. Why? why do you need to do that? Lets put it in current terms. Could a person legitimately compete in pvp 25s if they only had say.. 10 rare pets? Of course they can. Am I at a huge disadvantage right now for pvp because my calico cat still hasn´t been battle-stoned to rare?