A Guide to Choosing a Pet - Revised for BC, Part 2

A Guide to Choosing a Pet - Revised for BC, Part 2.
Date: 05/07/2007

a) Group dynamics:
When you are in groups the dynamic of the group and the group’s makeup will be a major factor in the decision as to whether you want a high dps pet or a tank pet or middle of the road pet. Your expected role in the group is probably the biggest consideration; are you to be off tanking or providing the majority of the CC? Then probably a tank or at least middle-of-the-road pet that can grab aggro and take a bit of a beating before he dies is going to be a good choice. Such a pet will be better able to handle his job of keeping a mob occupied and off other party members. On the other hand, is your main job to assist the tank and the group by being a dps dealer and killing things fast with lots of quickly dealt damage? If so, a dps pet is likely a better choice. You’ll have growl and other aggro. generating skills turned off or their use at least manually controlled so your pet is less likely to become the focus of a mob and die and it can deal a steady stream of damage and help take down targets quickly. Is your role kind of mixed; some CC and some damage and assistance to the tank and the groups overall dps? Then possibly a middle of the road pet will be better since it will balance the off tanking ability of a true “tank” pet and the dps ability of a pure “dps” pet.

b) Pet Abilities:
In a group setting the family abilities like charge, screech, etc. can have a major impact on the group’s abilities in an encounter. As you consider your role in the group, you should consider how your pet’s abilities and your talents can help. Some of the most important pet skills for group PvE include:

i. Screech: An AoE aggro grabber and debuff to mobs (-210 AP at max rank). Helps makes mobs less likely to kill the group or your tank. Available on dps pets (owls & bats) and middle-of-the-road carrion birds. Downside is that it can grab aggro. away from the tank and big flappy wings of flying pets don’t always work well in a dungeon setting.

ii Furious Howl: Boosts the dps of the group’s ranged and/or melee attacks; only available on wolf/worg middle-of-the-road pets. Down side is the range is pretty limited and it won’t affect spells, only physical attacks also the cool down of 10 seconds is rather long.

iii. Intimidation: A talent in the Beast Mastery tree that stuns a target for 3 sec. and generates a large amount of aggro. There isn’t much better when it comes to having your pet save the priest than popping intimidate and having the mob hitting your priest stunned for 3 sec. and then focusing his attacks on the pet. Downside is that it is an aggro grabber and can ensure that your pet dies in the encounter since the mob starts to attack it also the cool down is a few minutes so it is usually only useful once in an encounter.

iv. Charge: Immobilizes (but not stuns) a target for 1 sec. Also gets your pet to the target fast and generates some aggro; only available on boars (a tanking pet) Also a good skill for saving clothies from certain death, but has the same downside as intimidate. In a group where the hunter’s pet is expected to be a significant off tank, a BM hunter with a boar should be able to handle the job very effectively.

B. Damage Dealing ability

Pets, as noted in the foregoing, get divided into 3 groups, dps pets with higher base damage, middle-of-the-road pets with “average” damage and tank pets with below “average damage dealing abilities. Which way you need to go with your pet will depend on the factors noted above. But as you evaluate your pet’s damage dealing abilities, you need to consider a few factors that affect a pet’s ability to pump out the damage.

1. Prowl: Prowl is an ability learnable by cats that will increase the base damage they do on their first strike. Since cats are high dps pets, the initial strike out of prowl will be about as big a burst of damage as any pet can give. In PvP where burst damage is king, prowl is very useful as a result. The downside is the significant slowing of your pet's movement speed while prowled.

2. Ferocious Inspiration: A talent deep in the BM tree, FI will boost the damage your pet (and other party members, including caster spells) does. Very useful skill for any pet to up their damage.

3. Cobra Reflexes: Available at the pet trainers at a cost of 15 Training Points and teachable to any pet at level 30; Cobra Reflexes will boost the attack speed of your pet by 30%. The amount of damage per hit by your pet is slightly reduced, but the overall dps of your pet is increased by ~10 – 12%. On the downside, because there is a slight reduction in damage pet hit, the damage from a “Kill Command” is also reduced somewhat (not enough to offset the overall dps gain though).

4. Improved Hunter’s Mark: A talent near the top of the Marksmanship tree, Improved Hunter’s mark will serve to boost the melee damage done to a marked target by your pet (and others) by a decent, though not huge, amount.

5. Gore: A skill learnable by ravagers and boars, gore allows for the occasional “double damage” burst from a pet’s hit on a target. On ravagers in particular it makes for a great dps booster for your pet allowing the ravager to pump out serious dps in an encounter. However, on a boar, it is also exceptionally useful in that it will bump a boar’s dps and make the traditionally low dps boar into a pet approximating a middle-of-the-road pet in his damage dealing abilities.

6. Lightning Breath: Only learned by wind serpents, LB is an important damage dealer because it is ranged (20 yards) and also it is not mitigated by the mob’s armor so in pumps out consistent damage over time making wind serpents a great dps pet. Also, because it is ranged, it can be used in encounters with mobs that have large AoE or Cleave abilities that would otherwise kill a pet.

7. Furious Howl: A nice skill for wolves/worgs that will boost the melee and ranged attack (but not spell) damage of those within 15 yards of the wolf. Very good when the pet is assisting a tank or off tank since the damage done to the targets is upped. Also good in encounters where a pet can’t melee since he can sit by the hunter’s side and cast FH and boost the hunter’s damage from his ranged attacks.

8. Frenzy: Another BM talent, when this procs your pet’s attack speed and dps also go up. When coupled with Cobra Reflexes and the BM hunter talent “Serpent Swiftness” the hunter will have a pet with a 0.99 Attack speed and a major dps boost in the middle of things.

9. AoE & DoT family skills: Scorpid Poison, Poison spit and Flame Breath are other pet damage effects worthy of note due to their potential downside. Their damage dealing ability is decent, however, the two poisons are DoT’s that will break CC on a mob and can be an issue and Flame Breath is has a cone AoE that can also serve to break CC if not paid attention too. These are not bad skills, but because of their CC comprising ability, hunters using scorpids, serpents and dragonhawks need to pay more attention to what their pet is attacking and what the CC targets are.

10. Charge: the Boar skill charge is not only a great PvP ability and aggro grabber, it should be noted that it will also boost the boars AP for his first attack after the charge and that can result in a nice burst of damage or large crit. If BM hunter then that means frenzy procs immediately which is nice.