The Daily Grind: What do you want from a pet class?

I like all sorts of classes for my various moods, but pet classes are up among them.

I am also generally open. The "controlling masses" are nice, but I can see trouble in cramped spaces, where they just become a jumping pain, especially in full groups (looking at you, CoV!). Don't get me wrong, I do like Masterminds.

I think I like an access to a variety of pets over just one pet. I know it's silly, but I'd also like more usage out of them in non-combat and social situations. You know, "roll over" or "play dead" and the such.

Your "growing big pet per leveling" idea is intriguing, inasmuch as it'd be neat to have a dinosaur-sized pet at your command, maybe even being able to ride it!

I think I would like a pet class where the pet does most of the work, to the point where there's no pet command bar. Rather, the pet abilities all go on your player command bar because you don't have a whole lot of player character abilities.

It's one of two possible solutions to the problem I have with pet command bars, specifically that their keyboard commands tend to be awkward and clicking is bad. Smart pets that don't need much input are nice and all, but common enough already. I already have that, so I'm not left wanting.

I want a pet class that has a whole load of pets, kind of like the Minion Master in Guild Wars, but with even more, much more pets. These pets shouldn't do much damage each, but added up they can deliver extremely stable DPS. There also should be a couple different kind of pets, some blow up and keep generating more pets which run to the enemy, blow up and another one gets generated. That would create a train of pets between you and the enemy. Kinda fun to watch :D

The player's character should be EXTREMELY fragile, more so than a glass cannon. They also need to be very mobile, so aside from the summoning skills, he won't really have any damaging abilities, rather lots of utility, support and mobility.
The idea behind the whole thing would be an attrition battle, the enemy tries to kill you as quick as possible, while you keep trying to use your skills in a way that'll make it impossible to catch you. Shouldn't be too easy of course, but since you can't take any hits and can't heal yourself, you need to be able to kite extremely well, both melee and ranged toons.

I was never too mad on pet classes because the pets always seemed somewhat lacklustre performace-wise. Then I tried Rift. Rift's pets are great (imho), because they do what they're supposed to brilliantly - the tanking pets take the aggro and hold on to it without exception (warrior cats). The dps pets (mage earth elemental, rogue boar) knock out the pain exceptionally well. Only the Cleric's fae companion seemed a bit weak and useless to me.

I still think WoW's hunter pets are one of the best.
They are given abilities to help the hunter (master's call, intervene, buffs/debuffs, snares, stuns, the ability that makes you crit immune)... Although the amount of skills that they add to a hunter's arsenal is sometimes very annoying to manage (macro becomes a must) it still works to improve wow's silky smooth combat.
There are a fair amount of variety of pets as well and if you're BM you get to have 'exotic' pets as well (with more coming with firelands)
But... It is hard to feel connected to one's pet, as many of them offer different utilities and people are kind of 'forced' to pick the right pet at times.
GW's necromancer is also a noteworthy mention... I love having tons of bone minions surrounding me going around gnawing on enemies' faces. As tedious as it was to manage them.
Pet classes are by far my favorite types of class, and I cross my fingers and hope that GW2's engineer will implement more than turrets for 'pets' .

I like pet classes where you don't have to micro-manage your pets. I loved the Necromancer in Diablo 2. I summon my pets, they follow me around and hit things. I loved my Illusion Controller in City of Heroes. Phantom Army decoys, my Phantasms (back when you could get 3 up at a time, each summoing it's own decoy as well), and mobs that I would charm. That was awesome.

The loremaster in LOTRO was pretty cool, but the pet is so much of an afterthought. The pets are pretty weak compared to what you see with other "pet" classes. They are mostly used for the flanking procs that they give. I wouldn't even really count the LM as a pet class, it's more of a CC/utility class.

Pet classes handled well:
(1) WoW -- Warlock, Hunter. -- The pets have decent customizability, variety (for hunters, anyway), and control. Good AI.
(2) Guild Wars 1 -- All classes (using Heroes). Good AI, good skill customizability, but limited appearance customizability. The class-specific necro summon pets in this game are great; the ranger pets, however, are pretty lame and have poor AI.
(3) STO -- All classes (using Bridge Officers). Fair AI, good skill customizability, good appearance customizability.

Pet classes handled badly:
(1) LotRO -- Captain, Lore-Master. The pets in this game have absolutely terrible AI and very little skill customizability. Appearance customizability is available but is badly handled, a nuisance to use, and can "gimp" your pet/character.
(2) DOD -- All classes (Hirelings) -- The hirelings in this game have terrible AI and little to no skill/appearance customizability. Neverwinter, I have no doubt, will blow DOD out of the water on this score.

What makes a good pet class is (1) variety, (2) customizabilty (both appearance and skills), (3) AI, and (4) player control. Very few games get all these features right.

As a pet owner, I obviously have skills in keeping pets under my control.

Since I can do that, I want to be able to control every type of pet eventually as I level/rank up and there really isn't a reason why I shouldn't.

Whether I'm a ranger or beastmaster or a scout of some kind, I have an aptitude for dealing with beasts, so a game should make that possible.

Kudos to the ones that do, shame on the ones that are too lazy to implement that. (unless restricted by IP lore)

Btw: FFXI's Beastmaster class was the best ever at this.

Developers need to take a look at this class and see how it's supposed to be done.

I think the City of Villains Master Mind is my favorite pet class. You slowly get better pets as you level while you earn more of your previous pets. Eventually you run around with 3 of your first pets, 2 of your second, and then one of your best all at once. Each of your pets have their own set of skills that they use. Then the Master Mind's secondary powerset is support, so they spend their time keeping their mini army alive (they also help keep their party alive when grouped).

I just wish controlling pets wasn't such a pain in CoV (or at least it was when I played).