Hunter's Pets Explained

Looking for that perfect companion for your hunter in WoW? This guide will help you pick out the best hunter pet, regardless of your spec!

Best WoW Hunter Pets - PvE DPS Pets
If you're looking for a pet to join you in instances or raids, these four pets are your best choice for both personal DPS and group utility. Any hunter spec may make use of wolves, raptors, and wasps, while devilsaurs are a Beast Mastery exclusive pet.

Best WoW Hunter Pets - Wolves
Pet Special Abili
ty: Furious Howl, Increases melee and ranged attack power by 320 for the wolf and its master for 20 sec. Instant cast, 20 Focus, 40 second cooldown.
One of the most classic pets in World of Warcraft, the wolf is also the most popular as it offers the best personal DPS, even for Beast Mastery hunters. This is mainly due to its special ability, Furious Howl, which offers a personal DPS boost that sims higher than any other pet ability. This same ability used to be group-wide, making it a required pet in days of old. Now, Furious Howl is only for the hunter, but still tops the charts in what it offers to the DPS hunter.

Best WoW Hunter Pets - Raptors

Pet Special Ability: Savage Rend, Slashes the enemy with the raptor's talons for 59 to 83 damage, and causes the target to bleed for 21 to 27 damage every 5 sec for 15 sec. Successful critical strikes with this ability temporarily boost the raptor's damage by 10% for 30 sec. Instant cast, 20 Focus, 1 minute cooldown.

Coming in second on DPS charts is the raptor. Savage Rend, as a bleed ability, is enhanced by abilities that increase bleed damage (Mangle and Trauma). Raptors offer a great secondary option for hunters who want a high DPS without choosing a wolf.

Wasps
Pet Special Ab
ility: Sting, Your wasp stings for 64 to 86 Nature damage, and decreases the armor of the target by 5% for 20 sec. While affected, the target cannot stealth or turn invisible. Instant cast, 20 Focus, 6 second cooldown.

Although the wasp offers a little less personal DPS than wolves or raptors, it does offer a crucial raid debuff not often offered in every raid group. Sting is classified as a minor Armor Debuff, and does stack with Acid Spit, Expose Armor, and Sunder Armor. It does not stack with a druid's Faerie Fire or a warlock's Curse of Recklessness, so if either of these classes are present and providing your group this debuff, you're better off using a different pet.

Special note: The constant flapping of the wings of this mount, plus its higher profile due to flying, may annoy some players.

Devilsaurs
Pet Special Abi
lity: Monstrous Bite, Your devilsaur ferociously bites the enemy, causing 91 to 123 damage, and boosts its own damage by 3% for 12 seconds. This effect stacks 3 times. Instant cast, 20 Focus, 10 second cooldown.

Exclusive to Beast Mastery hunters, the Devilsaur offers comparable DPS to the wolf or raptor as it greatly boosts its own DPS with a virtual 100% uptime. This pet offers the best DPS for BM hunters, followed by wolves and then spirit beasts.

Be aware that the devilsaur makes a lot of noise, even when idle, and its size may be annoying to some.

Hunter PvP Pets
Do you enjoy PvP with your hunter? There are a variety of pets that offer great utility for hunters in PvP, but here are the top four!

Hunter PvP Pets - Crabs
Pet Special
Ability: Pin, Pins the target in place, and squeezes for 112 damage over 4 sec. Instant cast, 40 second cooldown.

The crab is a popular pet as it both roots its target and does damage in the form of a DoT. This pet can be used both to stop a fleeing enemy and to hold a charging enemy in place, keeping them out of melee range from the hunter.

Due to its cooldown, it is recommended that hunters manually use Pin by keybinding it for easy use when needed.


Spiders

Pet Special Ability: Web, Encases the target in sticky webs, preventing movement for 4 sec. Instant cast, 40 second cooldown.

The spider's ability is very similar to the crab, except without a damage component. Nonetheless, because of its root - and because many players are arachnophobic - the spider is another popular choice for hunters who want to keep their target in place.

Like crabs, it is recommended that hunters with spiders hotkey Web for manual use.

Serpents
Pet Special Ability: Poison
Spit, Spits poison at an enemy, dealing 104 Nature damage over 8 sec and reduces the target's casting speed by 25% for 8 sec. Instant cast, 20 Focus, 10 second cooldown.

Although other pets exist that interrupt spellcasts, Serpents are viewed as the superior anti-caster hunter pet because of a lower cooldown and increased overall use of their skill, Poison Spit. In addition to its damage, the increased casting speed portion of Poison Spit is great against most casters.

Beast Mastery hunters looking for this same utility should tame a Core Hound, which offers the same debuff but with greater damage (and a more intimidating looking pet).

Chimaeras
Pet Special Ability: Froststorm Breath, Your pet simultaneously breathes frost and li
ghtning at an enemy target, inflicting 128 to 172 Frost and Nature damage and slowing the target for 5 sec. Instant cast, 20 Focus, 10 second cooldown.

An exotic pet for Beast Mastery hunters only, the Chimaera offers a two-part special. Most obviously used for its slow (again useful for either retreating or charging enemies), Froststorm Breath also uses two different types of damage, making it less resistible.

Chimaeras also have the added benefit of being a rarely used pet.

Tanking and Soloing WoW Hunter Pets
Hunters are known to have threat issues with their pets when soloing or grinding (with the exception of Beast Mastery, which gets an added taunt for their pets). This can make even questing difficult for hunters, without the help of a special pet.

These four pets are designed to give any hunter a great tank pet, with both durability and increased threat. They make great pets when soloing, grinding instances or multiple mobs, and even as a standby tank against elite mobs.

Crocolisks

Pet Special Ability: Bad Attitude, Snap back for 89 to 125 damage at any target that strikes you for the next 45 sec. Instant cast, 2 minute cooldown.

At first glance, a two minute cooldown ability may seem too long to make the Crocolisk a worthwhile tank. However, this ability offers incredible threat generation, making it perfect for AoE grinding.

Hunters wanting to get the most of their crocolisk pet should gather multiple mobs, cast Misdirect on their crocolisk, use Volley, and then enable Bad Attitude to watch the crocolisk's threat scale exponentially.

Turtles
Pet Special Ability: S
hell Shield, The turtle partially withdraws into its shell, reducing damage taken by 50% for 12 sec. Instant cast, 1 minute cooldown.

The turtle is a classic tank pet, having been commonly used since vanilla WoW due to its high durability. Shell Shield is a great defensive cooldown, useful for both AoE situations and facing elite mobs. Given a hunter's Mend Pet spell is only minorly effective when the pet is taking substantial damage, Shell Shield helps keep the turtle alive longer, allowing a hunter to finish off the enemies before they become a threat to the hunter.


Warp Stalkers

Pet Special Ability: Warp, Teleports to an enemy up to 30 yards away and gives the pet a 50% chance to avoid the next 3 melee attacks. Lasts 4 sec. Instant cast, 15 second cooldown.

Like the turtle, the warp stalker has a great, effective defensive cooldown. Warp does not last as long as Shell Shield, and only offers a chance to miss versus straight damage reduction; however, it can also have significantly more uptime due to a shorter cooldown.

This unique ability offers the added benefit of teleporting instantly to an enemy within 30 yards, reducing wait time for the hunter before they can begin DPSing.


Bears
Pet Spe
cial Ability: Swipe, Swipe nearby enemies, inflicting 90 to 126 damage. Instant cast, 20 Focus, 6 second cooldown.

If you've ever watched how effective a druid in bear form can tank multiple mobs merely by spamming Swipe, you have an idea of how great this classic tank pet can be. The main difference is that the bear pet's swipe ability uses a frontal cone, instead of the druid's 360 degree attack.

However, with a low cooldown, and the ability to become a focus dump skill in combination with growl and Thunderstomp, the bear offers amazing AoE threat, and even solid single target threat, making a great all around tank pet for any hunter.

Pet Information and Tactics
Pets are the thing that separates hunters from almost all other classes (the one exception being the Warlock). They are a vital part of the Hunter class but can prove to be confusing. To help clear up confusion Hunters are provided with a basic pet at level 1 (4.0.1) to allow them to gain knowledge of using a pet from the very beginning. Despite this intimate relationship the Hunter will create with his pet there may be still be some unanswered questions remaining. That's where this portion of our hunter guide steps in. It should be answer all your questions and more, allowing you to make far better use of your pet.

Pet Types
Pets are available in many different types or families, however each family falls into one of three categories; Cunning, Ferocity, or Tenacity. Cunning pets have the most utility and offer a assortment of offensive and defensive abilities and are especially useful in PvP. Popular in groups and raids Ferocity pets are for those who wish to really pump out the damage. And finally Tenacity pets are the meat shields of pets. Useful in soloing or even small groups these pets are born to tank.

The animal types that are currently available as pets are as follows:


Cunning Ferocity Tenacity
Bats Carrion Birds Bears
Birds of Prey Cats Boars
Chimaeras (Exotic) Core Hounds (Exotic) Crabs
Dragonhawks Devilsaurs (Exotic) Crocolisks
Nether Rays Hyenas Gorillas
Serpents Moths Rhinos (Exotic)
Ravagers Raptors Scorpids
Silithids (Exotic) Spirit Beasts (Exotic) Turtles
Spiders Tallstriders Warp Stalkers
Sporebats Wasps Worms (Exotic)
Wind Serpents Wolves

Pet Abilities
Pet abilities, like players, have no ranks, instead the abilities scale as the pet levels. There are four categories that each pet ability falls into:

Basic: The pets most basic damaging ability. Examples include Bite, Claw, and Smack.
Special: These abilities are unique to the pet family (Bat, Wolf, Scorpid, etc)
Exotic: Extra ability available only to pets that are considered to be exotic. These types of pets can only be tamed by level 69 Hunters specced into the Beastmastery tree.
Extra: Some pets are just more talented than others and have an extra bonus ability on top of their normal and special abilities.
Pet Talent Trees
Each pet has it’s very own talent tree and gains talent points as it levels up. While most pet talent trees seem similar there are subtle differences based on the type of pet (Cunning, Ferocity, or Tenacity) and what family the pet is from (Cat, Chimaera, Raptor). How you decide to use your pet’s talent points is totally up to you, however be sure to make smart choices and spec into the talents that will be most useful for your pet and you.

To try out different pet talent builds head on over to the World of Warcraft Armory where a nifty pet talent calculator is available.

Stable Information
As of 4.0.1 Hunters can have a total of five active pets available to them at all times. However most Hunters find that they easily end up with more than five pets. So what is a Hunter to do? The answer to this can be found at the stables.

Stables are used to store the Hunter’s faithful companions when they are not in use. To access the stables players must seek out the Stable Master, who can usually be found near the Hunter trainers in the major cities for each faction. To place a pet in the stable simply speak with your local Stable Master. A list detailing your Active Pets (left side) and stabled pets (right side) will appear. Drag an active pet into an empty slot in the inactive pets section to stable that pet. Similarly if the player wishes to make a pet active all they need do is click and drag a pet from the stable into one of the active slots. Once pets are made active the Hunter can access them by clicking on the Call Pet button that can be found in the Spellbook.

As of patch 4.0.1 20 pets can now be stored in the stables, insuring that Hunters can have a plethora of pets that suit their every whim. It should be noted however the once a pet is stabled all of its talents are wiped clean. Also pets stored in the stable do not earn experience or gain levels, however when you remove a pet from the stable it's level will be checked against your own. If more than a three level difference is found the pet will automatically be leveled up to exactly three levels below you.
Pet FAQ
What is a "Starter Pet"?

As of Patch 4.0 all newly made Hunter characters will start out with a pet from the very beginning. These are considered "starter pets" and each race gets its own specific starter pet type. This will be the only pet available to you until level 10 is reached then your starter pet will be considered a normal pet once the Control Pet ability is learned. Because of this starter pets do behave a little different than normal pets, for example starter pets do not need to be feed to maintain happiness.

What does the Call Pet ability do?

Call Pet is a new ability added in Patch 4.0.1 and will allow players to call forth one of five active pets from their stable no matter where in the world they are.

How do you know if a Beast is Tamable?

In order for a Beast to be tamable it needs to fall under one of the families listed above in the pet type section. To make this a little easier the Beast Lore ability (available at level 10) can be used on any beast found in Azeroth. When used it will tell the Hunter if that particular beast is tamable, what abilities the beast possesses, what it eats, and other important information.

What level can I start taming beast?

The actual taming of a pet cannot be completed until level 10 is reached. However as of Patch 4.0.1 Hunters are given a starter pet at level 1. Once level 10 is reached simply seek out your local Hunter trainer and he will teach you the Tame Pet ability as well as several other useful pet related abilities.

Is there a difference between Unique, Elite and Normal beast after taming?

No, there is no real difference between Unique, Elite, or Normal beasts except Unique and Elite beasts may possess more desirable skins. Anyone telling you different is basing this off old information.

How long does it take to use the Tame Beast ability?

Previously the Tame Beast ability took a full 20 seconds to complete, however Blizzard has mercifully lowered that time down to 10 seconds making taming a beast easier than ever!

Is there a difference between a leveled up pet or one that is tamed at higher level?

No there is no difference in base stats between leveling up a pet or getting a new one at high level.

Do any beasts have resists?

At one point in time several types of pets had natural resistances to certain types of damage. However, now they must all be trained using training points to gain the resistance abilities taught by the pet trainers.

How do I gain pet Loyalty?

You gain loyalty by feeding your pet and keeping it happy. Form my experience you do not need to do anything else. I have had pets gain loyalty when sitting in town making potions. I have also gained loyalty by fighting with my pet. Some pets seem to gain loyalty faster then others so the personality of the pet might effect how fast it gains loyalty.

What does Happiness do for my pet?

Happiness level affects the pet's dps. Unhappy pets do 75% damage, Content pets do 100% damage, and Happy pets do 125% damage. Keep the pet feed to keep it happy. Also Happy and Content pets gain Loyalty. Unhappy pets lose loyalty and if they lose enough they will lose loyalty levels and eventually run away.

What does Leveling go for my pet?

Leveling will increase your pet’s stats, health, dps and armor and will also sometimes provide a talent point which can be spent in your pets talent tree.

How do I level my pet?

Level your pet by simply killing mobs and having the pet participate. The best way to achieve this is by going out and soloing mobs. Leveling your pet in a group setting is not suggested although not impossible.

How do I learn skills form the beast I tame?

First put your pet in to the stable. Then go find the beast with the skill you want to learn. Tame it. I feed them and get them happy, others only feed them to content and others don’t feed them at all. Then fight some mobs with the pet. It seems that if you fight close to the pet you will learn the skill faster. In other words get in there and melee next to the pet. You can have the skill on auto or manually trigger it, but make sure the pet uses the skill. You will get a message when you learn the skill, but you can also check in your beast training to see if you have learned it. Once you learn the skill you can let the pet go or keep as you see fit.

How do I teach my pet new skills?

To teach your pet a new skill, have your pet active. Make sure the pet can learn the skill, that it is high enough level to learn the version you are teaching and that it has training points available. Then open the beast training icon. You can open it form the spell book or move it to your hot bar. Then select the skill you want to train and push the button. The icon should appear on the pet’s hot bar.

I have a dead pet in my stable/ that I can not revive, what do I do?

Ok go to the stable if the dead pet is in the stable. Make the dead pet your active pet. Now you need to force the game to recognize that you have a dead pet. There are a few methods, zoning to a new continent has worked for me, other methods are logging out and back in or zoning to an instance. Now you should be able to revive the pet.

How do I use the pet bar?

The pet bar has 10 slots on it. The first slot is Attack, left click on this and the pet will attack your target. The next two are Follow and Stay, left click to make active, the active one will be highlighted. The next four slots are for your pets skills, growl, bite, claw and cower. Right clicking on these will set them on auto, you can tell they are on if there is a flashing ring around them. You can also manually tell a pet to use a skill by left clicking on it. The last 3 are Aggressive (attacks reds that are close), Defensive (attacks anything that attacks you) and passive (will not attack until told to), the one that is highlighted is the active one, left click to change these.

I lost my pet skill buttons how do I get them back?

Open the pets spell book and drag them back onto the pet bar. You have to have your pet active to do this.

How to I name my pet? How to I abandon my pet?

Right below your health and mana bars there is a smaller set of bars for the pet, its health and focus bars. If you right click on the picture of the pet you will get a drop down. There are several options on that drop down. Name pet (only shows up till you name the pet), Abandon pet, Show pet Stats. Clicking on Name pet will pop up a window where you can type your pets new name in. Once you name a pets it can not be renamed. Clicking on Abandon pet will release the pet never to be seen again. Do not Abandon the pet unless you are sure you don’t want that pet anymore, it can not be undone.

The base damage reduction goes up with level.

Base damage reduction starts out low and increases until about level 16. Then it will stay the same until about level 36 where it will start increasing again until in the low 40's when it will stabilize again. The base damage reduction for the beast family will be the same for leveled up pets or newly tamed higher level pets.

How do I feed my pet?

A commonly asked question from new pet owners is how do I feed my pet. To feed you pet open up your pack to see the item you are going to feed them. Then click your Feed Pet skill and then click on the item you wish to feed them. If you select your pet you should see an eating icon under their bars and their happiness level should increase if you have fed them enough. If you try to feed them food that they do not like a message will appear on the screen stating this and you will have to try again with another food item. Cooking can help provide you with pet food that requires less bag space. Clam meat for example will stack to 10 per slot. These can be cooked into stacks of 20 clam chowder, thereby freeing up 1 inventory slot.

What is the best behavior?

Pets can be set to three behavior modes: Aggressive, Defensive and Passive. A pet set to aggressive can be very dangerous, expect to have a very exciting time in an instance. Defensive pets will require attention when it runs to attack ranged targets and can cause some issues if not careful. Passive pets only requires attention after you command it to attack. This requires the most attention but is the safest setting. There is no best setting, a lot depends on your preference.

How do I heal my pet and control aggro?

You heal your pet by using Mend Pet. Since mend pet became a cast instead of a channel spell, you can put it up on your pet and go back to DPS. In difficult fights you should ensure you recast it every time it expires.

How does AFK affect my pet?

If you go afk, you may want to dismiss your pet first. While you are AFK your pet continues to require feeding and care. There's nothing like coming back to find an angry pet, or worse, no pet.

Which is the best pet?

There really is no best pet. It all depends on your play style. If you solo alot, then a tank type pet may be best. If you PvP then a DPS pet is best. If you raid then you may not even use a pet. It's all personal choice.

For even more detailed information regarding Hunter pets head on over to that fantasic resource for all things pet related; Petopia !