A Beastmaster's Guide to pets and bosses

(This guide was created by Hoju, level 70 dwarf hunter of the Wildhammer server. All credit is due to him for this wonderful guide. Date: 05/12/2007)

I've seen quite a few posts asking about the viability of beastmaster builds in kara and beyond due to pets liveability. Ever since the hunter talents we're changed I have been a beastmaster hunter and I just want to share my tips to keeping your pet up and attacking for bosses in karazhan and gruul's lair. (I dont have enough experience with Ilhoof or Prince or Nightbane or Gruul to put them in at this time, hopefully will add in strats shortly)

For spec, i've been raiding with either a 41-17-3 or a 41-20-0 depending on what we're running. For pet, i've been using a cat. He's trained with the maximum stamina, +150 arcane resist, dash, claw, and growl, and a small armor buff if i remember. The arcane resist helps in kara a lot, especially with the curator.

As far as group composition goes, a shadow priest is always a big help to help heal your pet. A warlocks stam buff is a nice addition too. Make sure your pet is getting buffed with everything you are so that he can max health.

Updated 6/2/07

Karazhan

Midnight/Huntsmen - Pretty pet friendly fight. My pet is right with me on midnight until the huntsmen mounts up. I'll pull him off to allow the tank to re gain aggro for a few seconds, and once mounted he has a cleave that does a fairly large amount of damage. If your pet gets hit by a cleave or two, pull him back to you. Usually my pet can stay on target for the whole fight, but on some unlucky encounters i will have to keep him back after getting hit by a few cleaves.

Moroes - Another pet friendly boss. My pet will be attacking with me on the adds in the order they need to go down and will be on moroes after. Once on Moroes there is little danger for your pet. I don't think ive ever noticed Moroes garrote my pet, but i suppose its possible, and would be some bad luck. The only real danger to your pet will be Lord Robin Daris, who has a whirlwind that hits very hard.

Maiden - One of the harder fights to keep your pet active for. Due to her holy wrath, your pet must be used in short periods of time. If theres a lot of melee in the group, only send your pet in after she has AoE'd and pull him out after about 15-20 seconds to try to avoid the next. Also, the timing of your Beast Within is very critical - its best used AFTER a repetence, so that you will no longer be under the effects of TBW for the next. If your are, you and your pet immune the stun, and your pet will likely be one shotted by maiden before the tank grabs her. If your pet gets hit with a holy fire, hope that a healer in your group will toss him a heal or two. Once you get the AoE timing and TBW timing down your pet will survive this fight and will do good damage, even though he wont be in the whole time.

Curator - I've tried it several different ways with curator and so far the best strategy has been to leave my pet on curator the duration of the fight. I've found the having him with me and moving on the adds will just add stress to the healers through the chain lightnings, or the flares will come right to my deadzone if targeting my pet, and healers wont waste mana on a pet for this fight. I will just send kitty right on to him from the start (this is where the arcane resist is almost a must - its a major help) so that he is still doing damage, giving FI buffs, ect, without causing much grief to the raid.

Shade Of Aran - While your pet is completley usefull during this fight, keeping him up will be a matter of luck sometimes. If shade decides to target him with a fireball or a frostball a few times your pet wont last long. However, I have been able to keep him up the entire a lot. Usually i will use TBW right away when running in and continue using it every time its up. Make sure when he does the arcane blast that as soon as you are pulled to the center, you put your pet to passive so that it will follow you out of the blast. It may also help to use dash or dive (if your pet has it) to get out of range before he does it. The same idea applies for blizzard - sometimes your pet will be safe staying on shade during blizzard, other times you may need to pull him out right away. Or, occasionaly the blizzard will eventually hit your pet, and i wont pull him out until the last second. Your position is very important for your pets surviability- make sure you are positioned so that your pet wont run through the blizzard to get to you. If someone gets conflagged its wise to pull your pet back as well so that he doesnt get hurt. Again, sometimes your pet will get nuked very quickly, other times you can use him the entire fight.

Netherspite - Easy fight for your pet. Always keep your pet visible to you, as the only danger will be the void spawns. If one pops on your pet or near your pet, call him back, reposition, and send him back in. We run out during the banish phase and my pet comes with us when we do this.

Gruul's Lair

High King Maulgar - For this fight I have been one of the two tanks on Kiggler. Our guilds been running this with two hunters - myself and a marksmen hunter. The marks hunter does the intial pull with a misdirection on the MT for Maulgar while I pop TBW and get some aggro on Kiggler. Beastmaster hunters help a lot for this, since we will be immune to his sheep for the duration, allowing us to grab a lot of aggro and also allowing the other hunter to do the pull and get aggro on kiggler. As for my pet, he will initially be right next to me to prevent any LOS issues when trying to use TBW, but then will be attacking whichever target the raid is attacking. It helps for this fight to have a macro for your pet to assist a raid memeber that will be on the appropriate targets the entire fight. When it comes to Maulgar time, be mindful of the whirlwind and other times when melee needs to back off.

Gruul - Very pet friendly fight after 2.1. As someone has said, pets are no longer affected by shatter and so can be used freely throughtout this fight. The only issue is the cave ins. If u notice your pet getting hit by it simply pull him out and send him back in when its gone or reposition slightly and resend him in.





BONUS INFO ADDED BY LEVEL 70 ORC HUNTER ZARAGA OF THE SERVER HAKKER AND LEVL 70 NIGHT ELF HUNTER ISHAAEL OF THE SERVER AZGALAR
(10/06/2007 )

Prince Malchezaar: Pet friendly fight. Not affected by Enfeeble, all you have to worry about is recalling pet before Shadow Nova and avoid Infernals. Phase 3 can be difficult to determine when Shadow Novas go off due to no Enfeeble.

Gruul: Pets are not affected by Shatter or Stoned now in 2.1! Feel free to keep him on gruul at all times and throw a Mend Pet on him with Cave In. Huzzah for free dps!

Illhoof: Send it and forget it pet fight. Just keep pet always on Illhoof and dont worry about him the entire fight.

Nightbane: Due to the narrow location, Charred Earth can take up the entire area your pet is attacking, which sucks. Also pets CAN be targetted for Rain of Bones. Not my favorite fight as a BM hunter.


SSC:

Hydross: Generally a fairly friendly pet fight, only issue is if you dont pull your pet off the boss as the phases transition as with its insanely fast attack speed it could cop the first autoswing and die.

Lurker: With current changes pets no longer take spout. End result, you leave your pet on lurker whenever hes "emerged" and keep up a mend pet. in the "submerged" phase you call him to you, fd drink for a few seconds should you be of the "i dont spend money on excessive mana pots" opinion, then re-send your pet onto the main melee add to be dpsed *dont attack the front, it cleaves*. your pet can take multishots. rinse repeat, res your pet if your any more than 20% of the fight to go.


Morogrim: Completely pet friendly. You start the fight with your pet on the backside of the boss, and it never for any reason moves.

Fathom-lord karathress: this fight depends ENTIRELY on your guilds tank positions. Generally start with your pet on the shaman who is usually the first dps target. Once he and his spitfire totem are dead stick your pet on the hunter and afterwards his pet. Most guilds then dps the priest, however she has heavy aoe which your pet will eat and probably die to. Much preferably stick your pet on fathomlord himself and then shoot the priest with the rest of your guild (entirely optional. was an amazing option when you could scorpid as it was generally about that point in the fight your cooldowns came up so you got a huge dmg boost by not breaking the poison stacks. still a good idea though).

Leotheras: you start dpsing the adds, the boss comes out and one of the hunters generally uses an MD. you then start dps on leotheras, making sure you have a boss-mod with the whirlwind enabled. around 5 seconds prior to his first whirlwind (10 seconds into his popping up) call your pet back and get to a decent range. NOTE: during this fight you can often fd and drink to full if you dont have the potions / mana efficiency. You can also use any of the times your pet dies to whirlwind to res him and FD feed him as generally you have a few seconds tanks are regaining aggro. The first time leotheras appears he will do 2 whirlwind phases. For the next 75% he will only do 1 per "human phase". Basically you pull your pet out nice and early, and you and he keep it safe, after the whirlwind you have another 20 or so seconds of humanoid form, then another minute of demon, and a further 10seconds of human before the next whirlwind forces you to call him back.

vashj: helps to give your pet lots of nature resist. Pull your pet back whenever a melee gets the lightning shield (name escapes me) in phases 1 and 3. for phase 2 pretty simple, almost all hunters are on the elementals, you're given an area to cover and you do just that, killing anything that comes across your path. If a tainted spawns in your area, or near enough to help with, you drop w/e your doing, blow any cooldowns you can and burn it. For phase 3 your pet should take zero damage from the spore bat poison cloud, and your guild will probably ask you to dps spore bats as they come in. Without hawk's eye it requires multiple hunters to coordinate on them, and after a while it wont be worth keeping up.