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==Tamable beasts==
 
==Tamable beasts==
There are 23 families of pets for hunters to tame, with five of them exclusive to the [[Burning Crusade]] expansion, and two exclusive to the [[Wrath of the Lich King]] expansion. Each family has its own skills, [[Food|diet]], and statistics.
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There are 23 families of pets for hunters to tame, with five of them exclusive to the [[Burning Crusade]] expansion and two exclusive to the [[Wrath of the Lich King]] expansion. Each family has its own skills, [[Food|diet]], and statistics.
   
With [[Patch 3.0.2]], hunter pets have been completely reworked. [[Pet families]] now are divided into the three classes [[Cunning]], [[Ferocity]], and [[Tenacity]]. All pets of a class share the same stats and the same skill tree. Each pet family has one special skill. It seems special characteristics that some rare pets used to have were removed.
+
With [[patch 3.0.2]], hunter pets have been completely reworked. [[Pet families]] now are divided into the three classes: [[cunning]], [[ferocity]], and [[tenacity]]. All pets of a class share the same stats and the same skill tree. Each pet family has one special skill. It seems special characteristics that some rare pets used to have were removed.
   
With [[Patch 3.1.0]] all Cunning, Ferocity and Tenacity pets now all have identical
+
With [[patch 3.1.0]], all cunning, ferocity, and tenacity pets now all have identical
 
* +5% Health
 
* +5% Health
 
* +5% Armor
 
* +5% Armor

Revision as of 10:32, 4 August 2009


The hunter pet is a hunter's constant companion as they travel through Azeroth, Outland and Northrend. When fighting solo or in small groups, a hunter's pet acts as a tank allowing the hunter to maintain the range hunters require to do their best in battle. When not tanking, pets can be used to do damage in addition to the hunter's shots and stings.

There have been many recent changes to how hunter pets work.

Taming

To obtain a pet, the hunter must use his Ability hunter beasttaming [Tame Beast] skill on a valid beast family monster exactly their level or lower. Upon starting the taming process, the hunter's armor is decreased by 100% and they cannot perform any other actions, or else the taming fails. The taming process takes 20 seconds, which does not increase with every hit, but can be interrupted. With Patch 3.02 Beastmaster hunters gained the ability to tame additional rare pet types.

Taming tips:

  • Hunter abilities such as Spell frost stun [Concussive Shot], Inv spear 02 [Wyvern Sting], and Spell frost chainsofice [Freezing Trap] can slow or stop a beast, reducing hits to the hunter which allows for easier taming.
    • Try this: lay a trap, and wait for your cooldown. Then pull your target across the trap. Once it is iced, lay another one nearby, and back off even further. Then begin taming. Thanks to the new combat traps, your target should not even touch you!
    • It's best to freeze some beasts, as a few of them have knockback abilities and will interrupt the taming process (forcing you to start over).
  • Using Ability hunter aspectofthemonkey [Aspect of the Monkey] can reduce hits during taming.
  • A good way to tame a pet is to ask a mage for help. It's possible to tame a pet that is sheeped. This also works with the druid spell Spell nature sleep [Hibernate].
  • The Ability druid cower [Scare Beast] ability can also be helpful in conjunction with traps and shots.
  • Draenei can cast Spell holy holyprotection [Gift of the Naaru] on themselves just before beginning a tame. Don't wait until you need it as you can't cast it after the tame begins.

Feeding

In order for your pet to maintain happiness (a good mood), you must feed it.

Pets eat up to six different types of food: meat, bread, fish, fruit, fungus, and cheese. Some pets, like wolves, will only eat meat, but bears and boars can eat any of the six food types. It is easiest to feed pets that eat meat, bread, and fish because mobs often drop meats, fish can be fished, and bread can be conjured by a mage as pet food.

Feeding pets is very important. The happier a pet is, the more damage it deals:

  • Happy: 125% damage
  • Content: 100% damage
  • Unhappy: 75% damage

With patch 3.0.2 it became much easier to make a pet happy, from taming to happy it needs only two feedings of appropriate level, and the pet will not run away because of hunger anymore.

See Pet Feeding for more info.

See also below on Abilities that generate happiness.

Fighting alongside your pet

Generally, a hunter will send the pet in from a distance and allow it to get aggro on the mob before opening fire. Try to keep the mob on the pet so you can use the full power of your ranged weapon to take it down.

A nice trick is to use your pet to pull mobs that are out of range towards you. Use Attack Attack to send your pet and as soon as it attracts the attention of the mob, use Follow Follow to call the pet back. The pet will start running towards you and the mob will follow. Once the mob is within range, use Attack again. The pet will turn around and attack the mob, and you can use your ranged weapon on it. This pull works over quite a long distance, and even around corners, as long as you can get a mob targeted. It also ensures that any additional mobs will have aggro on the pet rather than you. It does not work as well with mobs who have a ranged attack. Also be careful the pet does not pull any extra mobs on the way there or back.

It is possible to have the pet fight one mob while the hunter attacks another. Note: the hunter will not gain loot or experience from a mob the pet kills solo. This is a deliberate decision by Blizzard, not a bug. If you intend on pulling mutiple mobs and having your pet kill one or more of them while you focus on others then it is best to try to get at least one shot or hit on each of the mobs then allow your pet to do his/her work on them.

You can set your pet on aggressive and have it auto-attack. This is generally not a good idea. However, this is a very good idea if you would like to gain a few levels faster then you normally would in another mode. An aggressive pet will typically draw in additional mobs that you and your party are unprepared to handle. Failing to control your pet is a sure route to causing a wipe in an instance. The aggressive setting have somewhat more useful results in a battleground, but optimal use of a pet would be a coordinated attack with the hunter, not off on its own.

Tamable beasts

There are 23 families of pets for hunters to tame, with five of them exclusive to the Burning Crusade expansion and two exclusive to the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Each family has its own skills, diet, and statistics.

With patch 3.0.2, hunter pets have been completely reworked. Pet families now are divided into the three classes: cunning, ferocity, and tenacity. All pets of a class share the same stats and the same skill tree. Each pet family has one special skill. It seems special characteristics that some rare pets used to have were removed.

With patch 3.1.0, all cunning, ferocity, and tenacity pets now all have identical

  • +5% Health
  • +5% Armor
  • +5% Damage

bonuses.

(exotic) means the pet can only be tamed by hunters with the 51-point talent Beast Mastery.
(WotLK) means the pet is only available in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.

Pet Family Class Special ability Diet
File:IconSmall Bat Small.gif Bat Cunning Ability hunter pet bat [Sonic Blast] Fungus, Fruit
File:IconSmall Bear Small.gif Bear Tenacity Swipe Meat, Fish, Cheese, Bread, Fungus, Fruit
File:IconSmall Owl Small.gif Bird of Prey Cunning Spell nature natureswrath [Snatch] Meat
File:IconSmall Boar Small.gif Boar Tenacity Gore Meat, Fish, Cheese, Bread, Fungus, Fruit
File:IconSmall CarrionBird Small.gif Carrion bird Ferocity Ability hunter pet vulture [Demoralizing Screech] Meat, Fish
File:IconSmall Lion Small.gif Cat Ferocity Prowl, Rake Meat, Fish
File:IconSmall Chimaera Small.gif Chimaera Cunning (exotic) Spell frost ice shards [Froststorm Breath] Meat
File:IconSmall CoreHound Small.gif Core hound Ferocity (exotic) Spell fire windsofwoe [Lava Breath] Meat, Fish
File:IconSmall Crab Small.gif Crab Tenacity Ability hunter pet crab [Pin] Fish, Bread, Fungus, Fruit
File:IconSmall Crocolisk Small.gif Crocolisk Tenacity Ability hunter pet crocolisk [Bad Attitude] Meat, Fish
File:IconSmall Devilsaur Small.gif Devilsaur Ferocity (exotic) Inv misc bone 09 [Monstrous Bite] Meat, Fish
File:IconSmall Dragonhawk Small.gif Dragonhawk Cunning Spell fire burnout [Fire Breath] Meat, Fish, Fruit, Raw Meat, Raw Fish
File:IconSmall Gorilla Small.gif Gorilla Tenacity Pummel Bread, Fungus, Fruit
File:IconSmall Hyena Small.gif Hyena Ferocity Inv misc monsterclaw 09 [Tendon Rip] Meat, Fruit
Template:MountIcon Nether ray Cunning Spell shadow soulleech 3 [Nether Shock] Meat, Raw Meat
File:IconSmall Moth Small.gif Moth Ferocity Spell arcane massdispel [Serenity Dust] Cheese, Fungus, Bread
File:IconSmall Raptor Small.gif Raptor Ferocity Ability gouge [Savage Rend] Meat
File:IconSmall Ravager Small.gif Ravager Cunning Ravage Meat, Raw Meat
File:IconSmall Rhino Small.gif Rhino Tenacity (exotic) (WotLK) Stampede Cheese, Bread, Fungus, Fruit
File:IconSmall Scorpid Small.gif Scorpid Tenacity Ability poisonsting [Scorpid Poison] Meat
File:IconSmall SpiritBeast Small.gif Spirit Beast Ferocity (exotic) (WotLK) Spell nature starfall [Spirit Strike] Meat, Fish
File:IconSmall Serpent Small.gif Serpent Cunning Peticon-beast Ability creature poison 02 [Poison Spit] Meat, Fish, Raw Meat, Raw Fish
File:IconSmall Silithid Small.gif Silithid Cunning (exotic) Spell nature web [Web] Meat
File:IconSmall Spider Small.gif Spider Cunning Spell nature web [Web] Meat
File:IconSmall Sporebat Small.gif Sporebat Cunning Spell arcane massdispel [Spore Cloud] Cheese, Bread, Fungus, Fruit
File:IconSmall Tallstrider Small.gif Tallstrider Ferocity Inv misc dust [Dust Cloud] Cheese, Fungus, Fruit
File:IconSmall Turtle Small.gif Turtle Tenacity Ability hunter pet turtle [Shell Shield] Fish, Fungus, Fruit, Raw Fish
File:IconSmall WarpStalker Small.gif Warp stalker Tenacity Spell arcane arcane04 [Warp] Fish, Fruit, Raw Fish
File:IconSmall Wasp Small.gif Wasp Ferocity Spell nature slowpoison [Sting] Cheese, Bread, Fungus, Fruit
File:IconSmall WindSerpent Small.gif Wind serpent Cunning Spell nature lightning [Lightning Breath] Fish, Cheese, Bread
File:IconSmall Wolf Small.gif Wolf Ferocity Ability hunter pet wolf [Furious Howl] Meat
File:IconSmall Worm Small.gif Worm Tenacity (exotic) Ability creature poison 02 [Acid Spit] Meat

Pet diets

Meat is the easiest food type to obtain. Pets that will only eat meat are not difficult to feed. Fish is not much trouble either, if you are willing to fish; you can hunt coastal humanoids, like murlocs, as well. Pets that will eat neither of these take a little more effort and planning. Dumpster pets, boars and bears, that eat just about anything, are really nice from an inventory management standpoint. You can toss the odd food drops at them. Besides food, however there are now abilities that generate happiness such as Guard Gog and Ability racial cannibalize [Carrion Feeder].

Pet skills

Main article: Pet abilities

Pet skills come in two types—passive enhancement skills, and active skills.
Passive skills change the pet's stats and do not require resources.
Each pet family has one special skill (usually active).
Further skills can be learned from the pet skill tree depending on the pet class.

Most active skills require focus—a constantly-recharging point pool that works exactly like a Rogue Energy bar. Some active skills are free. Every Pet has 100 focus.

Active skills can be activated in several ways:

  • automatically by setting them on autocast by rightclicking the skill icon in either the spellbook or pet action bar
  • by clicking the skill icon in either the spellbook or the pet action bar
  • by macros like /cast.

An active skill does not have to be in the pet action bar to be used, even on autocast. It is perfectly ok to leave Growl in the spellbook and have it on autocast. If using a /cast macro, the skill can be addressed as if it were a hunter skill, so if the pet has the skill "Taunt", /cast Taunt will taunt the current target.

Beginning with patch 1.7, Blizzard has started introducing special active pet skills. Each skill can only be used by one type of pet and has a specific benefit that is quite useful, usually in PvE. This increases the diversity among hunters pets and usually promotes hunters possessing several pets at the same time. It is expected that with time Blizzard will continue to add special skills to other beasts' types, as well.

With Patch 3.0.2, the following aspects of hunter pet training became obsolete: pet trainers, learning skills from wild beasts, loyalty.
Newly tamed beasts that are six or more levels below the hunter´s level will have their level increased to five levels below the hunter´s level. Pets also level much faster, and gain happiness faster from feeding.

Training your pet

Pets below your level gain experience by fighting alongside you (as long as the mob killed is green or higher). When the pet reaches the hunter's level, it stops gaining experience until the hunter levels up. Pets gain approximately the same experience from kills as an unrested character of the same level, and require a much lower amount of experience to level as a character of the same level. With Patch 3.0.2 the experience required to level was drastically reduced.

The pet's available talent points at any given time are determined by its level, with a maximum of 16 reached at level 80. A beastmaster hunter can add four more pet talent points with the 51 point talent Beast Mastery. You can assign the pet talent points in the talent window, pet tab. Hunter pets can unlearn their talents at hunter pet trainers. A visual pet calculator is available at Wowhead Petcalc.

Pet scaling

Pets receive attribute bonuses depending on their master's stats. The amount is 15%:

Appearance

As WoW is an MMORPG, you may find that you want a pet that looks visually appealing to you, be that "looks good" or "looks menacing." Be aware that there are a couple of other appearance factors.

Size

The pet's size is directly related to the level of the pet. Many beasts will dramatically shrink right before your eyes the moment they are tamed, though they will enlarge as they level. Pets such as rhinos are large enough to be a sight obstruction in certain areas, which can be to the player's advantage (PVP) or disadvantage (instances and raids).

Flying pets

Flying pets maintain a more or less fixed distance above the ground, essentially hovering rather than flying. Flying pets' models, particularly the wings, interfere with mouse clicking, blocking access to select what is beyond them. This can work both for you and against you, but you will probably find it at least a little annoying. Note that as the pet levels, it gets bigger, and the wingspan gets larger, making the effect greater.

Low-slung pets

Low slung pets, like crabs and scorpids, can fit into places taller pets cannot go. This is not a highly significant feature, but it does occasionally come up.

Bragging rights

Face it, this is important. If you want a prestige pet the obvious choices are:

  • anything that can no longer be tamed - Blizzard grandfathers current owners. You have to either luck out and fall into this, or have an eye for a problematic pet which will become untamable. Death Ravager is an example. Grimtotem Spirit Guide is another.

Matching pets

You can match some hunter pets and small pets, or even mounts, if theme is your thing.

Non-tamable beasts

Many types of beasts in the wild cannot be tamed as a hunter pet. These are:

Not all beasts within the tamable families are tamable. Normal rank and file beasts usually are, individually named beasts may or may not be, and any beast that is notably odd is probably not tamable.

Beast size critters, like cows and deer, are never tamable.

Abandoning

To abandon a pet you should target the pet, on its portrait at the top of your screen, right click and select "Abandon Pet." Keep in mind this is permanent, so be careful not to abandon the wrong pet.

Patch changes

  • Template:Patched
  • Template:Patched

External links