Nerfing rare pets

It’s confession time, which they say is good for the soul. As a hunter I’ve been hideously unfaithful to my pets – but it doesn’t stop me from being utterly dismayed by the new Pick And Mix attitude being adopted by Blizz in the Lich King

I’m full of admiration for those who grab a pet at level 10 and stick with it through thin and thinner. Don’t ask me what my first pet was 60 levels ago – I can’t remember.

As I’ve levelled from land to land, I quickly had an eye for the new pets chewing me up.

Me: ‘I must have one of those.’

Brain: ‘But you got three already, which are you going to jettison.’

Me: ‘Who cares – just look at it’

My longest standing pet was a scorpion from Shadowmoon called Mort and when returning there I then fell in love with the Dragonhawks, tamed one and called it Sherbert. Didn’t I have fun watching hordies disappear in a cloud of flame in the BGs wondering what the view was like on their screens.

My current pride and joy are two cats. One is Bukowski, who I picked up while running the Wintersaber grind (which should be completed this weekend).

The other is Steinbeck (aka as that rare spawn Humar). I absolutely fell for this big black kitty at the start of this year. I found the level 23 cat languishing under the shade of a tree just outside Rachet and then worked him hard up to level 70.

If any hunter out there wants to know the best grinding route for that …. oh, hang on. That’s going to be superfluous in WotLK.

And there lies my beef. Suddenly all us hard-working level 70 hunters who have taken a low level pet and ground it up to our level are to see our work evaporate.

After the Grand Expansion you can pop along to your local rare spawn site, pick up your pet and ‘bingo’ its level 65. No hours of grinding out xp, using every skill you’ve got to fight off mobs cos your pet still can’t hold aggro.

Just a hunky dory 65 that you can take to the Isle of Quel Danas to knock off those last five levels and pocket a sack full of gold in the process.

Suddenly all those rare skins like Humar effectively become worthless. It may seem a slightly hypocritical argument given my infidelities, but having done the level 23 to 70 grind with Steinbeck I have a right to feel aggrieved.

Why now even bother with a special, rare skin?