I’ve had to face the fact that among the MOP team, I’m in somewhat of a minority who actually likes — nay, passionately loves — pet classes in MMOs. Maybe it’s because I secretly see myself as a Cobra Commander-type figure who loves to send minions to do my bidding, or maybe I just like the feeling of fighting as part of a team rather than solo.
Today I went back through all of the MMOs I’ve played over the years and whittled down the pet classes to a list of my favorite 10 (and it was hard!). This won’t include companion systems given to all players, such as what Elder Scrolls Online or Star Trek Online have.
City of Heroes: Robotics Mastermind
City of Villains was a bountiful gift to us pet class fans, as we got an entire archetype — Mastermind — set around summoning tons of pets to stampede around the battlefield. There were a few options (zombies, street thugs, etc.) but only one real winner: Robotics. Because why wouldn’t you have an army of bots blasting and punching your foes? Sure, it was super-fiddly and required a lot of oversight to work right, but it was so satisfying to see in action.
City of Heroes: Illusion Controller
Taking a step back to the original launch game, City of Heroes had my first real MMO pet class in the Illusion Controller. All of these pets were initially temporary summons, yet I still adored the ability to drop remoted controlled chaos into the middle of enemy packs and watch the mayhem that ensued. It was a pretty cool theme, too!
World of Warcraft: Hunter (Vanilla)
While the Hunter is… fine… in WoW these days, I’ll always carry a torch for the original version of the class that came in 2004. And that’s because pet management was a whole lot more interesting and involved, from catching rare pets with ideal stats to collecting traits that you could then use to train your favorite attack boar or whatever. I was a whole lot more attached to my pet because of that, and when it was reduced and then eliminated with subsequent expansions, I drifted away from the class.
RIFT: Druid
All of RIFT’s archetypes had at least one pet-related soul, and my favorite was the Druid. This is because there were a few pet options including the ever-so-handy Fairy, which would function as a continuous healbot for you and/or your party. I’d often spec 32 points into Druid as a default in order to get the improved Fairy.
WildStar: Engineer
The day that Carbine revealed that one of the classes was a robot-leading Engineer, I instantly knew what I’d be playing. How could I not? Robots! Shotguns! And while the class wasn’t exactly what I’d hoped it’d be — the pets did feel weaker than I expected — it was still a hoot-and-a-half to romp around Nexus with my trusty bots at my side.
Lord of the Rings Online: Lore-master
While I haven’t clocked a lot of time with the recent revamp to this class, I’ve played the Lore-master pretty regularly since 2007. It always felt thematically cool — like a low-rent wizard who had a stable of set animal companions that he or she could rotate at will. Finding the best pet for a given situation was tactically interesting, even if I ended up using my Bog-guardian 99% of the time.
World of Warcraft: Death Knight
While I’m sure that WoW’s first hero class had a lot of other factors that drew people in, for me it was always the promise of an array of necromantic pets. My Unholy DK’s been my main for several expansions now, spreading diseases and summoning skeletons, abominations, ghouls, and gargoyles to stampede over my enemies. It always feels so overpowered, and I love it.
Elder Scrolls Online: Warden
Speaking of long-running mains, I’ve been rocking a Warden in ESO ever since Morrowind. The big draw is, of course, a mighty bear guardian which tromps around with me and is a genuine force to be feared. It’s so good that I’ve never felt the urge to dabble in other classes. They don’t have bears.
Guild Wars 2: Necromancer
I do tend to skew toward “minion master” builds if given the opportunity, and Guild Wars 2 gave me that opportunity with the Necromancer. Sure, the pets were truly weird, but I kind of liked this creative approach rather than whip up a generic crowd of skeletons.
Marvel Heroes: Squirrel Girl
Oh man oh man, I miss Marvel Heroes. Anyone hear me on that? It was so great that many of the game’s heroes had summons of some sort — not to mention Team Ups! — but my favorite had to be Squirrel Girl. I’ve been a longtime SG fan, and playing her mighty toothiness in the game with a regular combat pet and plenty of alternative summons was a joy for the year or so that I got to hang out with her.
Everyone likes a good list, and we are no different! Perfect Ten takes an MMO topic and divvies it up into 10 delicious, entertaining, and often informative segments for your snacking pleasure. Got a good idea for a list? Email us at justin@massivelyop.com or eliot@massivelyop.com with the subject line “Perfect Ten.”
