The issue:
- PvP players can't get dire or hearty and PvE player can.
- Considering that pets are not widely used, (rangers are currently used mainly for conditions and interruptions) pets need some love
The Suggestion:
- My suggestion is to add an accessory slot to the animal companion panel, with its own set of runes and insignia.
Acquisition:
- All animal companion panels gains one equipment item slot located on its right side.
- In that slot, there will be an collar with tho empty slots. Just like with Heroes. You could say that the 'enchant animal' spell magically creates the collar... hey! That sounds great!
Appearance:
- Item icon: The icon seen in the slot could have some different appearances, depending on animal type:
- Collar: Wolves, cats and walking birds.
- Harness: Bears, lizards and rats.
- Ribbon: Spiders, crabs and pigs.
- Leg Mount: Flying birds.
- Model appearance: Those accessories may not be visible when equipped, since that would require a lot of extra work, but I think that would be a nice addition and would also warn players that the damage type of the animal may be changed. For example, turning the pet skin darker or brighter depending on applied insignia.
Mechanics:
- Those accessories won't affect animal level, growth or evolution. Only override evolution and damage type while equipped. Animals will level up normally regardless of what they have equipped.
- Those accessories won't be armor. Animal armor would stay by level: 23..80. Just like paragon armor, armor pet has will be shown in the item description.
- The accessories will accept insignia and runes.
- Insignias could be:
- Soft: Turns level 15 or higher animals 'Hearty'. Turns level 11 or higher animals 'Playful'. Do not affect level 10 or less.
- Plain : Turns animals under level 15 'normal' and level 15 or more 'elder'.
- Spiked: Turns level 15 or higher animals 'Dire'. Turns level 11 or higher animals 'Aggressive'. Do not affect level 10 or less.
- Runes could be:
- of Slashing: Animal deals 'slashing damage'. (Like most animals)
- of Piercing: Animal deals 'piercing damage' (Like lizards, crocodiles and spiders)
- of Pounding: Animal deals 'blunt damage'. (Or whichever damage the rest of the animals deal, if they give only piercing and slashing, this rune won't exist)
- There could be other runes or insignia, but I would limit them to the previous ones. There's no need to change basic mechanics, let's stay withing the ones we have.
- A collar without runes or insignia will be plain useless. Like festival masks and empty hero armor: Just filling the slot.
PvE specifics:
- Animal runes and insignia would be sold under the Ranger tab by rune traders.
- The runes and insignia would drop either from pets charmed by enemies (Yeti Tigers, Boss pets) or just like any other runes: attached to dropped armors by any enemy.
- When you give away your animal, any applied upgrades stay in that slot. When you charm another animal, the upgrades will still be there.
PvP specifics:
- Runes and Insignia would be unlockable in Priest of Balthazar under the Ranger tab.
- They would be listed under 'head' armor in the PvP Item Creation Panel, after the other headpieces.
Pets with collars:
- Changes made with the runes and insignia would be temporary. Remove the upgrades and the pet goes back to it usual evolution.
- Animal evolution would work normally, but it would just be overridden by the properties of the collar.
- They will evolve normally with the usual rules, even wearing dire or hearty insignia. That is, a pet wearing a dire collar may turn hearty, and if you remove the upgrades from the collar and use /petname you could see that.
- Using /petname will work normally. Even if the pet has a Hearty collar, if the pet evolved Dire it will change the name to dire. This is not a problem, since people can already fake pet evolution names with /namepet.
- Size will follow normal evolution too.
Benefits of this system:
- An animal without the accessory would be as affective as one without it.
- PvP players would be able to get Dire Piercing dealing animals or Hearty Slashing ones with this system.
- PvE players that loves his animal but wants it to be dire or hearty would be able to do so.
Edit: Slight reworks of descriptions and poll added.
