Fine tuning your hunter: Pet choices
I think I am going to make this a sort of running series on the ins and outs of being a hunter. A week or so ago I wrote an entry entitled “Things every hunter should know” .. If you haven’t checked it out, I highly suggest doing so. Today’s entry is sort of continuing along those same lines, and also somewhat inspired by Daniel who commented on my previous posting. He brought up a good point that I hadn’t thought about, so I will just quote him directly: “i would like to add, the choice of the pet is HUGE. if you could roll out with a “pet choice” area, so we can compare. other then that this is a great place to pick up the needed tips.”… Well, Daniel, you’re absolutely right. The choice of your pet is immensely important, and with that I give you this basic guide to the animal classes of WoW. I won’t go through every single tameable animal available in the game, because there’s simply too many. If you want a full listing, and all of their species-specific abilities, then wow-petopia.com has a magnificent listing, and is easily navigable.
Now, all tameable animals fall into 3 categories, which their respective talent trees are named after. Tenacity, Ferocity, and Cunning.
I am going to start off with Tenacity, because as a levelling hunter, this will most likely be the animal you use the most. Why? Because Tenacity is mainly the “tanking pet” talent tree. Here is an example of what a Tenacity pet’s talent tree looks like. As you glance through the tree, you’ll see what I mean. Lots of talents here for increasing the animal’s armor, threat, and stamina… Perfect for your little pet tank. It’s important to point out that while previously, talent trees did change slightly from animal to animal within the 3 classifications, they no longer do. All tenacity pets have the same talent tree, all ferocity pets have the same talent tree, and all cunning pets have the same talent tree. Tenacity pets really are the pentultimate pet for soloing. They have high survivability, great aggro generating capabilities, and when played well, can even let you solo very difficult dungeons. I’ve soloed several BC heroics with my bear, in my beast mastery spec. wow.com has a video of a hunter soloing several Northrend normal-level dungeons as well. Quite impressive, no? Now, there are very subtle differences between the different species of animal you choose, but as I said, all pets of the same “tree” have many of the same abilities. Some common tenacity pets: Bear, gorilla, boar, turtle.
Next on the list is Ferocity pets. Once you get to higher levels, you will more than likely see these taking over for your tenacity pet. Why? Because Ferocity pets are mainly the “dps pet” talent tree. Here is your ferocity talent tree template. You’ll notice that a few talents here do overlap the Tenacity pet, but there are a few more damage outputting things to spec into, and things that benefit your damage, as well as the pet’s. Ferocity pets aren’t used for soloing as much because they can’t sustain damage nearly as well as tenacity pets can, nor do they generate as much aggro, but properly specced your ferocity pet will put out roughly double the dps of your tanking pet. Once you get to the higher gear levels, however, you’ll just use whichever pet strikes your fancy because your average mobs will fall at your feet before they can even reach you…. that’s a good feeling to have, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Some common ferocity pets: Cat, wolf, devilsaur*, hyena.
Finally, we come to the Cunning pets. Now, cunning pets are an interesting breed of animal. Looking through their talent tree you might notice it’s kind of a strange hybrid between DPS talents and tanking talents. They don’t have quite the damage output of a ferocity pet, and they don’t have the survivability of tenacity pets, so what are they good for then? Well, cunning pets are best labeled as a “utility” animal. They’re mostly found in PvP. They provide a decent balance between survivability and damage output, while offering some unique abilities that can help in rather sticky situations. For instance, a spider can do it’s infamous web shot from a distance of 30 yards, holding an escaping enemy in place for 4 seconds. Some common cunning pets: Bat, Dragonhawk, Ravager, Chimaera*.
(Animals with an asterisk* next to their name require the 51-point Beast Mastery talent to tame)
Which Pet is for me? Well, there’s no right or wrong answer to this question. Chances are, by the time you get to a higher level, you’ll have a full stable of pets that you want to keep around for various situations. The first thing you want to ask yourself is this: “What is my goal?” Are you looking for some serious pvp? Are you wanting to solo your way from 1-80? Are you already level 80, and want to start owning faces in some dungeons/raids? If you’re interested in min/maxxing then you probably already know the answers to these questions, and are just humoring yourself by reading this anyway.
The next thing you want to ask yourself is: “What spec am I going to do (x) with?” I’ll get more detailed about spec-specific things in a later post, but this is important now for one main reason. Beast Mastery… It is a great talent tree if you want to focus on improving your pet as much as possible. Also, the 51-point talent (aptly named Beast Mastery as well) is required for taming some “exotic” pets. Spirit beasts, devilsaurs, chimaeras, corehounds, they’re all considered “exotic” pets, and require the 51-point BM talent to pick them up. There’s another, added benefit to speccing BM as far as your pets are concerned. With that 51-point talent, your pet instantly picks up an extra 4 talent points. That’s right, at level 80, your pet will have 20 talent points instead of 16. How cool is that?
Now then. All this having been said, if you plan on being a DPS hunter, and pwning your way around raids, there’s really only one of two pets you should consider getting. If you’re Beast Mastery, get a devilsaur. If you’re anything else, get a wolf. Why? Simple, wolves have “Furious Howl” which boosts your attack power by 320 (at level 80) for 20 seconds. That’s a lot of attack power. For BM hunters, why a devilsaur? They have “Monstrous Bite”. 10 second cooldown. Applies a buff to themself increasing their damage by 3% for 12 seconds, stacking 3 times. Basically, 100% uptime on a 9% damage increase. I don’t want to get any more specific than that, because then we start getting into theorycrafting and min/maxxing and that’s just not my style. I like raiding and tweaking my character to be the best I can be, but I am a very firm believer in the fact that you should have fun above all else. Raiding and tweaking my character is fun for me.. simple as that.
If you plan on having a tankish pet or pvp, there is really no “wrong-way” to go. Again, I would suggest going to wow-petopia.com for some specifics regarding the different pets. Find a pet which suits your play style, and just go bananas with it. Take time to adjust to your new best friend. If you don’t like it, don’t hesitate to stable it, or release it if you’re out of stable slots (which will happen more than you might like). Obviously, I can’t make decisions for you. That’s not why I’m here, and to me, taking the choice of things reduces a lot of the fun in playing… I wouldn’t want to do that. So now, armed with a little bit of basic information on pets, you’re pretty well armed to make some real decisions about your companion. The next step is to get out there, and hit that “Tame Beast” button. Stay beastly, hunters.
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I need a bit of help i've got a raptor and a ravager obv both diferent trees but when i look in the pet panel it says they both have the same damage does that mean they do the same damage then? Or is it the raptor is faster so hits that damage more frequently than the ravager… please help it is startin to bug me
If you are a hunter try to go after the wolf pets because 1 they are ferocity and 2 when they attack something they will do a howl increasing your attack power by 20% i believe.
Nice write up. I hope hunters follow your advice. i don't know how many times i've seen a hunter in a raid useing a cunning pet.Maybe this piece will help them get that wolf they need. I myself have a alpha wolf from mulgore he has been my pet from the start. Don't get me wrong i also have some of the exotic pets you can have as BM but they are for show only.So here is to all hunters: Happy pet hunting!