I've been playing wizard101 on and off for several years and in that time I have delved into pet hatching a few times but recently I really upped my search for a stronger pet. But something happened tonight, at 4:00 am in the morning, in the first week of 2018, that is not only frustrating but stranger than anything I have encountered in my long quest for my perfect pet.
Naturally, I expected to get a random combination of the 10 talents here - as has been the case with every hatch I have ever done previously. However, I was baffled when I trained the baby I just hatched to teen and I got a pet talent that neither parent had: fire shield (may cast fireshield). I have literally never had a pet with this talent before, I do not know if my friend who supplied the wandering eye has had a pet with this talent before. I do not know how to explain how this is possible and was hoping someone more experienced than I could.
I suppose my question is, how could a talent that neither parent had appear in a hatch?
Re: Pet acquired talent that neither mega parent had
Because one (or both) of the parents actually did have that talent in it's pool. It was not a learned talent, but obviously it was there. Think of it as a recessive trait, like when two brown-eyed parents have a surprise blue-eyed child.
Keep in mind that any talent can manifest when you're hatching, not just the trained ones.
With enough hatchings, you (and your partner) will eventually figure out what all of the untrained talents are. What I do to help me with this is take a screen shot as I'm about to hatch, then make a note of which talents actually develop in the babies.
Sorry this particular pet didn't work out but hopefully, if you can hatch again, the next pet will be a mix of talents you'll love to have.
Re: Pet acquired talent that neither mega parent had
I think the problem is something that I have seen confuse people quite a few times. The child pet doesn't draw it's 10 talents from the 5 talents the parents have but instead is drawn from both parents entire talent pool of 10 possible talents, whether they are manifested or not. If it's not that then your pet must have fallen into a vat of nuclear waste and mutated from the radiation, haha I'm joking.
Re: Pet acquired talent that neither mega parent had
Thank you for all the replies I'm not sure I exactly understand but at least now I know I'm apparently not the only one and that this is something well understood in the veteran hatching community.
Re: Pet acquired talent that neither mega parent had
Think of it like recessive genes. Each fully trained parent carries 5 expressed and 5 "dark" talents. The baby can get any mix of 10 from that pool of 20. 5 of the 10 will be unlocked when it's trained to mega. It's more common for what you see on the parents to recur, but not unusual for something hidden to pop up.