Cataclysm Classic Marksmanship Hunter Pets System

Pets are separated into different families based on their types, such as cats, boars, or spiders. Each of the different pet families also falls into one of three categories: offensive, defensive, or general. As the names would suggest, offensive pets deal more damage while taking more damage, defensive pets take less damage while dealing less damage, and general pets are more balanced. Along these lines, pets have pet-specific talent trees. Pets will have one of three talent trees based on if they are Ferocity, Cunning, or Tenacity.

When deciding on a pet, there are only two important things to consider. First, what category does it fall into? In almost every possible situation in PvE, you will want a Ferocity pet. The Ferocity pets not only do the most damage, but they have an exceptional cooldown as a talent that is too good to pass up. Second, you will also notice that some pets have unique abilities, such as a Wolf's Furious Howl. These can be very useful abilities to have and it is worth having one such pet for whenever you might want that ability. Again, for most Hunters you will just use a Wolf the majority of the time.

For leveling, basically any pet will do just fine. For solo-levelers, your best bet will probably be a Tenacity pet such as a Bear because of the durability and ability to tank multiple enemies at once. For anyone in a group or if you are more sure of yourself while leveling, Ferocity pets such as Wolves will be the best.

It is also worth noting that you do not need to worry about what level of pet you choose to tame. Pets will now always be at minimum 5 levels below you. If you tame a Level 10 wolf at Level 80, it will immediately jump to 75. Even then it will quickly catch up to your level as you kill enemies.

The trademark of pets in Cataclysm is that a large number of them bring either a raid buff or a debuff that is going to benefit your entire raid. However, none of the buffs and debuffs brought are strictly unique to the pets themselves. In a normal 25 man raid, you should expect all of the buffs and debuffs to be covered by the raid members, which means your pet buff is going to be relatively useless. However, Hunters are the only class that effectively get to pick and choose a missing raid buff to bring by selecting what pet they use. For most Hunters, this is the best way to choose the pet you want to use in raids or dungeons.

Wolves are the best default pet for all PvE content as a Hunter assuming you do not have any other raid buffs. This is entirely due to their ability, Furious Howl, which gives everyone in your raid groups 5% crit chance as a raid buff. However, this does not stack with the other 5% crit chance raid buffs brought by specs such as Fury Warriors.

Unlike in TBC and original Classic, you no longer have to micro-manage your pet's training. Regardless of what type of pet you tame, it will start with the correct abilities, and it will automatically learn all of its ability upgrades as it levels with you. No need to tame new pets just to learn new abilities.

Pet training points are completely gone. Instead, pets now have talent trees. They earn 1 talent point every 4 levels starting at Level 20, which they can spend in their talent tree. The tree they have is determined by the class of pet. As a Hunter in PvE content, you should use a Ferocity pet, so we will cover the Ferocity tree below. The exact ordering of points that you should always use is below. The tree does not change ever for PvE.

1. 2/2 in Serpent Swiftness;
2. 1/1 in Dash;
3. 3/3 in Spiked Collar;
4. 3/3 in Culling the Herd;
5. 3/3 in Spider's Bite;
6. 1/1 in Call of the Wild;
7. 1/1 in Rabid;
8. 1/2 in Bloodthirsty, or 1/2 in Boar's Speed;
9. 2/2 in Wild Hunt.

The single most important point is Call of the Wild. It is the primary reason that we use Ferocity pets, as it gives Hunters another powerful cooldown.

For more information on specific pets or abilities and where to find them, you should check out Petopia.