I have brought up this point before in here. Basically, I think we shouldn't have animal abilities covered the way it happens now, with the "ability" article if ranger's pet/Warden's mabari/Shapeshifter's shape uses it and the "monster" article for when it is used by hostile creatures (even though the ability is exactly the same in both cases). Instead, we should merge the two, as there is no reason to keep them separate. In similar vein, I would suggest merging the "thrall" articles with the regular versions of these darkspawn - there is not much difference between the two, other than that one is a party member in DC and the other isn't (the abilities change as well, but the darkspawn pages are small enough to comfortably fit the thrall ability lists and approval bonuses.) 4Ferelden (talk) 13:20, April 6, 2012 (UTC)

I'm in favor of merging when the abilities are exactly the same. There's probably a way to make the icon at least show up as intended when it's supposed to be the creature's ability.

I'm rather indifferent with the thrall pages. --D. (talk · contr) 03:40, April 7, 2012 (UTC)

OK, so can I proceed without putting the merge/delete tags on all pages in question first? 4Ferelden (talk) 08:23, April 10, 2012 (UTC)

I suggest waiting at least a few days still (at least a week—so this would up this weekend). If you're not getting any more feedback by then, you may proceed with it. Proposing changes on forums is the same process than tagging on individual pages, so there should be a time to wait for feedback. --D. (talk · contr) 14:20, April 10, 2012 (UTC)

The reason there are two pages is because when the abilities were transcribed from the game files there were two abilities. The animal ability and the warden's ability are fundamentally two different abilities in the game, even if they do the same thing. For that reason, I think we should keep them separated. We weren't able to transcribe the creatures so I don't have feelings about that either way. -- tierrie talk contr 18:56, April 11, 2012 (UTC)

The animal ability and the warden's ability are fundamentally two different abilities in the game, even if they do the same thing.

Can you elaborate on that, please? What exactly is the fundamental difference between abilities of summoned animals/forms and the wild ones? 4Ferelden (talk) 02:06, April 12, 2012 (UTC)

I suppose Tierrie means the game makes a distinction from the summoned animals and the creatures, e.g. different ID, different description. Some of the creatures' abilities are categorized as the same on the wiki, but they are also different abilities in-game. For example, the game marks Overwhelm for a shriek and a spider (enemy) as different, even though they have the exact same mechanics afaik. --D. (talk · contr) 16:55, April 13, 2012 (UTC)