Hunter 101 – Hunters and Their Pets

So, I was gonna write this week’s post on trapping.  But while going through my RSS feeds I noticed that Pike over at Aspect of the Hare had beat me to it with a great post.  And honestly?  She did a great job and has movies over there to boot.

As for the topic of trapping,  let’s just say it’s a shame it’s not used as often as it should be and that many hunters don’t have a clue how to trap.  Sad thing indeed.

So that left me thinking..  What’s another thing that many Hunters today really don’t seem to know? Or at the least needs to be highlighted and discussed a bit more.  In turn, that got me thinking about all the questions asking “What’s the best Hunter Pet?”

Now I know what your probably thinking. “Get with the program!! What kind of Hunter doesn’t know this?? It’s three simple letters D-P-S!”

But come one.. Have you really seen the list of DPS Pets? Not only that, which ones of those are truly the best to get for the Raiding Hunter.  And what about all those Hunter’s looking for a pet other than one to raid with?

Well, that got me thinking. I was off leveling the other day and some other hunter decided to tell me I needed to have a DPS pet.  I tried to explain to them why I had a Turtle and was very happy with my Tenacity pet.  I basically got a shrug and a “whatever!” back, and was told that if I wanted a tanking pet I should get a gorilla.

Well, that might be true in some cases. But the main reason we all went ga-ga over the gorilla when WoTLK was released was Thunderstomp.  And we all know Rhino’s requires the 51st talent (Exotic Pet) so we can’t really tame those right away, nor are they always the best pet to get.

So here’s what I thought.. Pets have always been a difficult thing for us Hunters to keep tabs on. And now it’s made even more difficult with having Pet Talents.

So let’s see if we can help make this a bit easier.

Raiding Pets are just like Raiding Hunters. Their goal is to put out the most DPS as possible. SO we need to look at the class that’s focus is on damage. That would be Ferocity.

Ferocity pets are the DPS pets. Now there’s a ton of different Ferocity pets. They have everything from Carrion Birds to the fabled Spirt Beasts.

But unless your going down the route of being a Raiding Beast Mastery Hunter (and in that case get a Devilsaur) there’s really only two choices.

The current top reigning pet is the Wolf. Why? Well, it’s because they have this neat lil buff called Ferocious Howl which adds +320 Attack Power to both the Hunter and the Wolf. +320 AP! Using the thumb’s eye measurement for dps (appx. DPS = Attack Power/14) that’s an approximate +23DPS on all the attacks you both give. Gotta love that!!

The next pet to get is everyone’s trusty Cat. Seems these guys are the tried and true pet for every Hunter.

It is true you might find some others work for you. As a matter of fact, I have one friend that loves his Wasp.  So you can try others, just remember that in the normal Raid it’s:

Wolf > Cat > all others

Now your probably asking, “But I’m not raiding, what should I farm or quest with?”

For that you need the Tenacity pet. As to which one, well there are still some discussions on that topic.

You see, me personally? I like the Turtle. You get Shell Shield which is basically like a Pally Bubble. Except it only reduces the damage by 50% AND your Turtle still attacks!

This has saved me many a times as I don’t have to through out as many mend pets when I “accidently” pull too many mobs. (We all know it’s always an accident. lol)

Other’s like the Crocolisks with Bad Attitude that can give an additional 89-125 bonus damage for the ext 45 seconds. This is nothing to sneeze at and really needs to be considered while your helping grind down those mobs.

But for me? I’ll stick to my Turtle.

Alright, the last one is a bit tricky. It’s traditonal role has been that of PvP. But I’ll be honest, I don’t know much about the Cunning Tree.

But to give you an idea, this pet has things like Serpents with Poison Spit to reduce casting speed by 25%, Spiders and Web stop mobs in their tracks for 4 seconds, and Ravagers with Ravage to give a 2 sec stun (you can see why they’re big in PvP)

There might be some other uses for Cunning Pets so maybe give them a try, but for now it seems the community considers these guys PvP only.

I think I gave an alright overview of the different Pets and a recommendation for each tree. But if you want some more detail info.

• Petopia – The Bible of Hunter Pets (source for all pictures used)
• Aspect of The Hare – Tuesday Chat: Agility, Attack Power and Pets
• Slow Wolf – Furrious Raiders: The Cunning and Furrious Raiders: The Ferocious
• The Hunting Lodge Forums – Pets – A Hunter’s Best Friend