Instead of being a affect make it into a real MOB.
After so many hours you need to feed it like you would feed yourself.
They can be killed and they can assist you in combat.
Also give rangers the ability to capture and train specific mobiles that make sense, it could part of being a beastmaster.
Basically, pets you can ride. Not difficult to do as rangers and some cabals can already use some of their pets as mounts.
Killing a mount would be great to the chaser, not the chased.
Pets don't follow you through recalls (without help) or various obstacles (doors).
Pets can get lost. That sucks when they don't come home on their own.
... I swear I had another point to go here. Might have to do with mob limits and/or mount levels.
The feed mechanic is nice, but it's one more thing to worry about.
All said, not a fan.
@Magick Do you know what the mob limits are?
I saw the other post, but as I'm not 100%, I didn't post. Should be class +1, maybe +2. A berserker in Knight with the Inquisitor and a golem for example, cannot buy a pet if memory serves. I might have finagled something along the lines of calling the Inquisitor after having the other two charmies but my memory is fuzzy. I'm not sure if you can do that with a necro or beastmaster. I'm fairly sure that a beastmaster in Knight (again by example) can't get an Inquisitor with a full horde but might be able to call horde after.
So if you're wondering if a necro can get two animated minions, a summoned minion, two golems, cabal pet, mournblade (pre-change ... not sure about post), mercenary and [other] for like 8-9 pets, no.
Short answer: I'm not entirely sure.
What would your suggestion actually bring to the game?
The only thing I see is that it will become more annoying to have a mount.
Recently I became a witness to a conversation in the NEWBIE chat - there was some obviously new guy who was trying out the game and was asking about eating and drinking. He said there is no way he would stick to a game that requires you to eat and drink. Imagining his reaction when he gets told that he needs to water and feed his mount too is priceless.