Again to preface, these are just my opinion. I know there are people who love the super rare RNG aspect of the game, but at least for the people who socialize in the community, the vast majority of us hate it.
These are the pets that for some reason or another, are either impossible to obtain anymore or are so ridiculously rare you should go buy a lottery ticket if you do get one. A few of them have suggestions, but in general, this is mostly just meant to be a list for Blizzard to look at for pets that most, not all, of the community consider a nuisance. If you think of one I’m forgetting, don’t be afraid to speak up.
Unobtainable Pets
No, this isn’t about old BlizzCon or Collector’s Editions pets. Those we knew were limited time from the get go, and there’s zero things wrong with those being “unobtainable.” This isn’t even about things like the Vampiric Batling from the Wrath Pre-Event. This is about pets that we had no knowledge or foresight were leaving permanently, or given very little warning.
Spirit of Competition: - This pet was introduced in the Burning Crusade as a reward for battlegrounds during the Olympics event. At the time, we were told it would return every 2 years and the Olympic event would be recurring. However, it has not returned ever since the initial event. The fact this was re-released in BC Classic, but not in retail at the same time bothered me as well. (I have the pet, so it doesn’t affect me, but I know a few friends who hate it)
Old Recruit-A-Friend Pets: Not only were we only given a month of warning, it quite literally wasn’t enough time to get one of the pets, let alone all of them, as the pets were rewarded after your friend hit their third month subscribed and there was a deadline to redeem the rewards as well if your friend stayed subscribed. This also applies to mounts, but to a lesser degree, because the pets were only added to Recruit-A-Friend during the first revamp of the system, so you had much longer to get the mounts.
The Gryphon Hatchling and Wind Rider Cub: These two are a bit of a mystery to me. They were added to the Blizzard Store as a bonus for buying the corresponding plushie. However, the plushies would sell out within the first day they restocked. To add to this, we were never informed they would be limited time only, or never be available again. I personally think it’d be a nice thing to re-add them to the Blizzard Store as standalone pets.
Fetish Shaman - I know I said Collector’s Edition Pets would be excluded, but this is an exception. We were never told the Diablo III Collector’s Edition would go away, to my knowledge. On top of this, even if you buy the code from someone else for thousands nowadays, there’s reports they can’t even be redeemed anymore.
Various Pets: I don’t really want to spam links to every one of them, but there’s a dozen or so pets that are only available in specific regions. Some are only in NA, some only in EU, some only in China, and I believe one only in Korea. However, for some of them, they still appear in the pet journal and the pet API for all regions, which inadvertently makes a collection feel incomplete. I’d suggest removing it from the API/journal if you can’t physically obtain it in the region you’re in. Either that, or add a way for us to access those pets in the other regions, be it through a new system or the Blizzard Store.
Pet Rarity
First and foremost, I enjoy rare pets. The thrill of the hunt. Do not get me wrong. However, much like this thread Halite made about RNG in WoW, the RNG on some pets is just silly and often times is RNG on RNG. Just to re-iterate, I love rare pets and working towards them, but in a handful of times, I feel Blizzard went too far with the RNG.
Everliving Spore - This is a rare reward from the first Pet Battle Dungeon, Wailing Caverns. To put this in perspective of exactly how rare it is, it’s the most expensive pet on almost every realm, barring the Spectral Tiger Cub TCG pet. Blizzard learned from their mistake of this RNG in future pet dungeons, and added a currency system to those to buy the pets. But they didn’t retroactively do it to Wailing Caverns. I was gifted the pet by a nice person on the forums after I posted about how I’ve done the dungeon the equivalent of 2.5 years worth of attempts and still hadn’t gotten it, but I had to do it for so long I despise the dungeon with a passion now, even when I queue into it on a low level.
Spineclaw Crab - Anyone who collects pets knows this pet. It’s the bane of many of our existences. It has a very low drop rate off of a rare on the Timeless Isle. The problem though, is this rare can spawn all over the island, off the coast, and spawns in place of the elite crabs when you kill them. As no one is on Timeless Isle anymore, you rarely see it spawn, and even though we found one place to farm it, the drop rate is so low you’re better off buying it, as it’s still RNG on RNG.
Wondrous Wisdomball - This is a bit of an oddball, no pun intended. This is a rare reward from the Kirin’tor Emissary chest (not Paragon Chest) from Legion. However, it’s a reward from a quest you obtain from the chest, and it can’t be caged. I have friends who have done this every single time it’s been up since Legion and still don’t have this pet. Me, however? I have 3. But because I can’t cage them, 2 of them are sitting in my bags on two different toons.
Gilded Wader - This pet, is one of the things that made me despise Shadowlands for a while. It comes from a handful of treasures in Bastion, and of course that means it’s only available while there’s a calling to Bastion or the coins calling is up. I opened I believe over 1,000 viable chests and never received it. I ended up caving and buying one off the AH for like 70,000g when someone mispriced it.
Burdened Soul - Similar to the Gilded Wader, but like 1000x worse. This pet only comes from a single Secret Treasure in Revendreth when the callings are up. The problem? Due to RNG, that chest hasn’t been up in over 6 months. On top of that, when it IS up? It’s not even a 100% drop. RNG on RNG is not good. EDIT: Literally a week after this post was made, the Burdened Soul’s treasure popped up and has steadily been available over the past few months, so I’m assuming there was a bug that was fixed.
Honor 400 Crabs: Ah, would a list like this be complete without talking about these? For those unaware, there are 2 pets rewarded when you hit Honor 400. However, they are unique models, and thus sought after by collectors. Unfortunately, most of us will never get them. Most of the top collectors in the world have excluded them from their list of possible pets they’ll ever obtain. To add to this, we were told during Legion that they wouldn’t add anymore pets to Honor Levels, as they understood pet collectors were annoyed at the ones that existed, and then they went and added these a year later.
My suggestion on the Honor 400 Crabs specifically? Make them available at a lower Honor level, something like 35, but they will only have the helmet on (or nothing tbh). To retain some sort of visibility for people who are Honor 400 who get them, make Honor 400 reward items that apply the Weapon and Shield and possibly helmet to the crab. This is similar to Uuna, who can change appearance as you complete quests. This way, collectors can get the pet, but Honor 400 players still have a unique pet to show off.