WotLK Classic Marksmanship Hunter Pets Guide

Pets are perhaps the most iconic part of the Hunter's toolkit. At Level 10, you will be able to pick up a quest from any Hunter trainer that will allow you to learn how to tame a beast. After completing the quest, you will be able to go out and tame whatever pet you would like, allowing the pet to fight by your side in combat.

In Wrath, pets are still a significant portion of the Hunter's damage. Pets in Wrath gain a portion of a Hunter's ranged Attack Power as their melee Attack Power, allowing pets to scale their damage with our gear. This enables pets to be a significant portion of our damage, especially as Beast Mastery, for the entire expansion. One of the most important things to remember for scaling pet damage: pets only gain a portion of your AP. They do not benefit directly from any of your other secondary stats.

The single biggest change for pets is that all pets now have talent trees. There are three possible talent trees, which correspond to the three categories of pets: Ferocity, Cunning, and Tenacity. The vast majority of Hunters will always use a Ferocity pet for all PvE content, so that is the tree we will focus on.

Taming pets can be quite dangerous. The cast is long, and you are left completely vulnerable during it. It is recommended to either have a friend help early on by tanking the animal while you tame it, to slow it using Concussive Shot before starting the cast, or most preferably to have a Freezing Trap set up ahead of time to freeze it while you cast Tame Beast.

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. Unlike in past expansions, this is now done through 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.

Wolves are the best pet for all PvE content as a Hunter, regardless of spec. This is entirely due to their ability, Furious Howl, which gives both the Wolf and you an AP buff with 50% uptime. It is easily the strongest pet ability there is, as it is the only one that also increases the Hunter's damage too.

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 Cobra Reflexes;
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. 1/2 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.

Pet loyalty is completely removed in Wrath; you will never again need to worry about your pet running away. Pet happiness is still in the game, in basically the same form. Pets have three distinct moods that they can be in: happy, content, or unhappy. You always want your pet to be happy, as their mood affects the damage they deal. Happy pets deal +25% damage, Content pets deal normal damage, and unhappy pets deal -25% damage. Unhappy pets are also in danger of running away if they remain unhappy for too long.

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