In the past you where able to sit around mob spawns with a pet on aggressive and it would solo the mobs. You would get exp for them. With spirit bond and a high armor pet you could just sit somewhere for 10 hours afk leveling. It was common when hunters had minimal quests and they had to grind a bit.
In cata I believe, they changed it so that you didn’t get exp or loot. This was in response to a exploited farming area in deepholme.
Later I believe they made it so your pet couldn’t even tag. Obviously not a problem in BFA. A major issue with the change in cata is that pets could kill old content mobs so fast that you didn’t even get loot. I don’t think this would be a dilemma in Classic.
Slightly on topic, The tag feature allowed hunters and warlocks to take named kills as they spawned with serverside aggressive pets.
To the point…
Should AFK pet farming be a thing? If you believe it should be then speak up, this can easily be overlooked. If you don’t then please explain why.
I remember this being addressed in an early vanilla patch in 2005.
On Nost they did not incorporate this fix so as a BM hunter I could afk grind exp when I strategized about it. (Mostly it was to catch up a pet in exp.)
I don’t think Blizzard will allow this but it would be unbalanced (not game-breaking) if they did.
hunter had to tag for exp and pet had to tag for pet exp. this is why leveling a low level pet was such a pain and time consuming.
hunter and pet tag, were independent of each other. if the hunter did not tag the mob, you got nothing. same as other way around.
this was changed later on but this is about vanilla.
yes. afk leveling for pets was a thing. as long as you did not care for loot, skins or exp of your own.
why should it be any different than it was in original vanilla?
Anyone have anything official on the topic? Patch notes, old blizz Statement? I remember it functioning as a afk farming/leveling method in TBC on my hunter. The rep comment is alien to me and I can’t say anything on it.
i clarified how it worked in vanilla, in my other comment above.
people always using BC changes (vanilla psevers with BC changes) as some idea of how vanilla worked. and its beyond asinine at this point. aka beyond retarded.
in vanilla: NO- the player did NOT get exp if the pet was on aggressive. only the pet got exp. player and pet tag were independent from each other. unless the player tagged the mob TOO, they got no loot, exp or skins.
YES- pet leveling this way, was a thing. as long as you were okay with not getting any exp, loot or skins. A pet got exp if IT tagged something and the hunter got exp if IT tagged something.
I just painstakingly went through all the Vanilla patch notes and didn’t see anything regarding Hunter Pets passively farming exp for the Hunter being turned off or on or stopped. So I’m going to assume that Hunters never got experience from their pets SOLO killing mobs as they don’t now.
This is the best answer in the thread so far and how I remember it working. The hunter HAD to tag mobs to get the experience, otherwise they would receive NOTHING.
You’re only partly right as in patch 1.2.2 warlock and hunter pets were fixed to tag mobs for the owner. The mob not being tagged was a bug and there was no “separate tag” for pets and hunters.
*wowwiki.wikia. com/wiki/Patch_1.2.2
Specifically:
Pets and summoned creatures attacking enemies will now tap the enemies for their owners.
In patch 1.10 pets where changes to no longer grant Reputation if the owner did not assist but no mention of exp:
throughout Vanilla wow, a Hunter and their pet received NO Exp.
if the hunter did not tag/hit the mob …
also for leveling your pet, you needed to kill at least green mobs
to the hunters level, to gain exp for your pet to catch up.
also in BC - required a tag/hit from the Hunter
also in WoTLK, Also in Cata, also in MOP, also in WoD,
also in Legion, and BFA.
The change in 1.2.2 was to prevent other players from stealing a mob your pet was fighting. You are correct in remembering that hunters had to deal damage to a mob before their pet killed it. If a hunter didn’t do damage to a creature that their pet killed, the mob could not be looted / skinned.
That was only so a different player couldn’t tag the mob.
One of the biggest gripes from hunters when I first started was that if they let their pet kill a mob and they didn’t at least autoshot it, they’d get no loot.
i was a hunter in vanilla and i remember when i was in darkshore i let my bear solo a mob to see if i would get any exp because i thought of going afk and letting him get me some exp. i got nothing and this was very early as my hunter was my first 60. it was never a thing in vanilla
Completely false. If your pet killed a target solo you would get no loot and no XP. This was changed in WoD or legion so people could loot things that their pet one shot by mistake.
right. thats when pet and hunter tag became dependent on each other (one entity). you could sit and do nothing and get exp, loot etc. and you didnt have to tag the mob at all.
in vanilla, hunter and pet are seen as two separate entities. like two different people. their exp, loot etc- depended on who takes part and who doesnt.
its no different than if a small party is fighting a world boss but one of them doesnt make it in time and misses getting the tag. they then do not get loot or exp from the fight but the others do.
so you are partly right but you still stated that pet and hunter are one entity (one person) and they were not. they were not treated as one entity until Wod/Legion (as someone else pointed out).
let me use an example of a real fight: say you come up on a green mob. if your pet is on aggressive, it will attack and get their tag. if the hunter does NOT attack as well and does not get the tag, the HUNTER gets nothing. but the pet DOES get exp. same applies on the reverse. the one that tags- gets exp, loot, skins.
this is why, unless i am doing pet leveling its self, i keep my pet on defensive (mostly passive) and then create a macro for pet attack. i can control when and where, they attack.
![:roll_eyes:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/roll_eyes.png?v=6" ":roll_eyes:")