|
Whether you're a Beast Master or a Survivalist
at heart, pets play an important part in being
a Hunter. Your pet is your immediate fighting
companion, helping you complete quests, mow down
mobs and consquer instances.
Like us, our pets come with talent trees and various
abilities that they can spec into. Currently,
pets are split into three categories (based on
their trees): Ferocious,
Tenacious and
Cunning. For raid
content, most Hunters choose to go with a Ferocious
pet. When you're soloing or in need of a pet tank
since a player tank is unavailable, you will want
to choose a Tenacious pet. My rule of thumb is
to have at least one of each.
Beast Masters have a total of 20 points at level
80 to distribute in your pet's tree. If you do
not have Beast
Mastery, you will only be able to distribute
a total of 16 points at level 80. Some talents
have requirements, so keep that in mind for when
you are distributing your points. I recommend
seeing what "end game" talents you want
and then planning around them.
FEROCIOUS PETS
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Click
the picture to view beast stats at Petopia.
is an exotic pet requiring
the Beast Mastery talent
|
Ferocious pets are ferocious! They
are the DPS class of the pet world and make excellent
raiding companions. Their talents focus on damage
dealing, healing aids and threat-reducing abilities.
Keep in mind that some pets have better armor
than others, making them a little more ideal for
raiding because they will survive fights better.
Personally, I stick with wolves or hyenas as my
raiding pet. As much as I like cats, I notice
that my cats tend to die more frequently and actually
lower my DPS because of the increased need to
resurrect them.
No matter what you choose, make sure it's a pet
that you're going to be happy with. After all,
you're the one who has to look at a possible eye-sore
for hours in a raid.
|
FEROCITY TALENTS
|
|
TIER
1
|
|
TALENT
|
WHAT IT
DOES
|
NUKUMI'S
OPINION
|
| Cobra Reflexes |
Increases
your pet's attack speed by [15% / 30%].
Your pet will hit faster but each hit will
do less damage.
|
IT'S OKAY:
If there were no decrease to your damage,
it would be great. I'm not sure the increase
in speed outweighs the decrease in damage.
Still, the faster your pet attacks, the more
damage it will do. |
| Dash |
Increases your
pet's movement speed by 80% for 16 seconds. |
LIKE IT:
For 16 seconds, your pet becomes lightning
fast, enabling it to get to the target quickly
and start putting out DPS sooner. |
| Great Stamina |
Increases your
pet's total stamina by [4% / 8% / 12%].
|
LIKE IT:
Since I recommend doing away with healing
abilities, more stamina will give your pet
more health. Thus, it will survive longer. |
| Natural Armor |
Increases your
pet's armor by [5% / 10%].
|
IT'S OKAY:
More armor helps your pet's survival. However,
I think Great Stamina is a better option than
Natural Armor if you're going for a survivability
increase. |
|
TIER
2
|
|
TALENT
|
WHAT IT
DOES
|
NUKUMI'S
OPINION
|
| Improved Cower |
Your pet's Cower
also decreases damage taken by [10% / 20%]
for the next 10 seconds.
|
IT'S OKAY:
Damage reduction is great but we're working
with a limited amount of talent points and
I think increasing your pet's damage with
Spiked Collar is more beneficial to your DPS. |
| Bloodthirsty |
Your pet's attacks
have a [10% / 20%] chance in increasing its
happiness by 5% and healing 5% of its total
health. |
DON'T LIKE
IT : It's the lazy Hunter's way out of
making sure their pet is happy before every
fight. And it's only a chance to increase
your pet's happiness, throwing its only high-point
of making your pet happy during fights right
out the window. |
| Spiked Collar |
Your pet does
an additional [3% / 6% / 9%] in damage with
all attacks.
|
LIKE IT:
Any straight-forward, permanent increase to
your pet's damage has "AWESOME"
written all over it. |
| Boar's Speed |
Increases your
pet's movement speed by 30%. |
IT'S OKAY:
While we've already increase our pet's movement
speed with Dash, Boar's Speed is a permanent
increase to the pet's movement speed. However,
this is movement speed and not attack
speed. It will not help your pet attack faster
so you might be better off picking Improved
Cower or Bloodthirsty. |
|
TIER
3
|
|
TALENT
|
WHAT IT
DOES
|
NUKUMI'S
OPINION
|
| Avoidance |
Reduces the damage
your pet takes from AOE attacks by [25% /
50% / 75%].
|
LIKE IT:
Raiding instances these days are made up of
AOE and any reduction to AOE damage is going
to not only help you keep your pet alive but
it will ease the stress on your raid healers
(many heal pets now). |
| Lionhearted |
Reduces the duration
of all stun/fear effects used against your
pet by [15% / 30%].
|
IT'S OKAY:
For a PvP pet, this is a great ability
to incorporate. For everything else... not
so much. If you're an avid PvPer, I'd recommend
getting a PvP specific pet so that you can
have abilities like this. |
| Charge |
Your pet charges
an enemy, immobolizing the target for 1 second
and increases your pet's melee attack power
by 25% for its next attack. |
LIKE IT:
While the movement stop effect is poor, an
outright 25% increase to your pet's attack
power is great. |
|
TIER
4
|
|
TALENT
|
WHAT IT
DOES
|
NUKUMI'S
OPINION
|
| Heart of the
Phoenix |
When your pet
dies, it will miraculously return to life
with full health.
Requires 2 points in Bloodthirsty. |
IT'S OKAY:
Not only do you have to spec 2 points into
Bloodthirsty (AKA Lazy Hunter) but your pet
initially comes back with a sliver of health
for a split second before regaining all of
its health, making for a great chance of your
pet just going right back down and you blowing
a 10 minute cooldown for nothing. |
| Spider's Bite |
Increases the
critical strike chance of your pet by [3%
/ 6% / 9%]. |
LIKE IT:
Increasing your pet's chance to critically
hit the target will increase its DPS and yours
significantly, especially since it's a permanent
increase. |
| Great Resistance |
Your pet takes
[5% / 10% / 15%] less damage from Arcane,
Fire, Frost, Nature and Shadow magic.
|
It'S OKAY:
If you have the points for it, it's a
good talent that helps your pet reduce damage.
The problem is, even if you're a Beast Master,
there's still too many better talents. |
|
TIER
5
|
|
TALENT
|
WHAT IT
DOES
|
NUKUMI'S
OPINION
|
| Rabid |
Your pet goes
into a killing frenzy. Successful attacks
have a chance to increase attack power by
5%. This effect will stack up to 5 times and
lasts 20 seconds.
Requires 3 points in
Avoidance. |
LIKE IT:
Even though this is a conditional increase
to your attack power, the fact that it can
stack up to 5 times makes up for the conditional
portion. |
| Lick Your
Wounds |
Your pet heals
itself by 100% of its total health over 4.8
seconds while channeling.
Requires 1 point in
Heart of the Phoenix. |
IT'S OKAY:
In theory, it's a great talent. But I don't
know too many fights where, if your pet is
taking that much damage, you can wait another
3 minutes before healing it... This is what
I like to call an "OH CRAP" talent.
Personally, I wouldn't want to waste valuable
talent points on an "OH CRAP." |
| Call of the
Wild |
Your pet roars,
increasing your pet's and your melee and ranged
attack power by 10%. Lasts 20 seconds.
Requires 3 points in
Spider's Bite. |
LIKE IT:
Not only does it increase your pet's attack
power, it increases yours! WIN/WIN! |
|
TIER
6
|
|
TALENT
|
WHAT IT
DOES
|
NUKUMI'S
OPINION
|
| Shark Attack |
Your pet does
an additional [3% / 6%] in damage with all
attacks. |
IT'S OKAY:
A straight damage increase for your pet
is always good. |
| Wild Hunt |
Increases the
contribution your pet gets from your Stamina
[20%/40%] and Attack Power [40% / 20%].
Requires 1 point in
Call of the Wild. |
LIKE IT:
Anything that gives your pet more survivability
and damage is great. |
In Tier 6, we're faced with a dilemma:
one talent gives you a percentage bonus to pet's
damage and the other gives you a percentage increase
to your pet's attack power (AP).
Let's say that your pet, according
to Blizzard's pet profile in-game, has 2204 AP
and does between 420-458 DMG. If you spend 2 pet
talent points in Shark Attack, you'll be getting
6% added onto your DMG, which is about 27.48 DMG
more for a total of 447.28-485.48. By Blizzard's
calculations, that will take your pet's DPS from
about 285 to about 302 DPS. That's a pretty good
increase in damage.
For every 1 RAP you possess, your
pets gets 0.22 AP from you. Speccing into Wild
Hunt, the contribution your pet receives from
your stats will be increased by 20%. If you have
4662 AP (without any aspects) and your pet gets
0.22 AP from every 1 RAP of that, you're contributing
to 1025 of your pet's AP. With Wild Hunt, that
contribution will be increased by 20% that will
translate into about 205 more AP for a total of
1230 AP. Based on the figures, 5 RAP is equal
to 1 DMG for your pet. So you will be increasing
your pet's DMG by 41 DMG for a total of 326 DMG.
Not only do you end up getting more damage through
Wild Hunt, you end up increasing your pet's health
through the stamina contribution.
>> Return to Top of
Page
TENACIOUS PETS
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Click
the picture to view beast stats at Petopia.
is an exotic pet requiring
the Beast Mastery talent
|
Tenacious pets are specced in Tenacity.
Their talents focus on survivability and tanking
tactics, making them an effective pet tank. As
a Hunter with a pet tank, your role isn't just
DPS anymore. You become a team player with the
ability to mitigate damage dished out to party/raid
members. Remember to spec your pet accordingly,
too. Sure, it'd be great if a tenacious pet put
out more damage, but its purpose is to pet-tank.
Spec in talents that will help boost its tanking
abilities. Work its strengths, not its weaknesses.
Personally, I think that every Hunter should
have a Tenacious pet for instances where they
need an especially effective pet tank. While the
pet wouldn't be used very much (pet tanks are
no match for Paladin or Warrior tanks and can
be the bane of a healer's existence to heal),
it's still good to have such a thing on the back-burner,
especially if you are interested in running level
60 and level 70 instances for achievements. For
lower instances, pet tanks are remarkably all
you really need if you're short-handed on a player
tank.
|
TENACITY TALENTS
|
|
TIER
1
|
|
TALENT
|
WHAT IT
DOES
|
NUKUMI'S
OPINION
|
| Charge |
Your pet charges
an enemy, immobolizing the target for 1 second
and increases your pet's melee attack power
by 25% for its next attack. |
IT'S OKAY:
If the immobolize effect lasted longer, this
would be a great skill. Unfortunately, with
such a temporary immobolization effect and
the focus of the talent being your pet's attack
power, there's a long list of better talents
for a tank pet. |
| Cobra Reflexes |
Increases
your pet's attack speed by [15% / 30%].
Your pet will hit faster but each hit will
do less damage.
|
DON'T LIKE
IT : A tank pet doesn't really need to
get to its target super fast and it certainly
doesn't need its damage decreased any further. |
| Great Stamina |
Increases your
pet's total stamina by [4% / 8% / 12%].
|
LIKE IT:
More Stamina will give your pet more health.
Thus, it will survive longer. |
| Natural Armor |
Increases your
pet's armor by [5% / 10%].
|
LIKE IT:
More armor helps your pet's survival and increases
its capability in tanking. |
|
TIER
2
|
|
TALENT
|
WHAT IT
DOES
|
NUKUMI'S
OPINION
|
| Blood of the
Rhino |
Increases your
pet's total stamina by [2% / 4%] and increases
all healing effects on your pet by [20% /
40%].
Requires 3 points in
Great Stamina. |
LIKE IT:
Not only does your pet get more health out
of this talent but healers are also going
to have an easier time healing it. |
| Boar's Speed |
Increases your
pet's movement speed by 30%. |
DON'T LIKE
IT : Again, a tank pet doesn't really
need to get to its target faster. |
| Pet Barding |
Increases your
pet's armor by [5% / 10%] and chance to Dodge
by [1% / 2%].
Requires 2 points in
Natural Armor. |
LIKE IT:
More survivability! |
| Spiked Collar |
Your pet does
an additional [3% / 6% / 9%] in damage with
all attacks. |
IT'S OKAY:
This is a talent that's a better fit for a
Ferocious
pet. |
|
TIER
3
|
|
TALENT
|
WHAT IT
DOES
|
NUKUMI'S
OPINION
|
| Avoidance |
Reduces the damage
your pet takes from AOE attacks by [25% /
50% / 75%].
|
LIKE IT:
Raiding instances these days are made up of
AOE and any reduction to AOE damage is going
to not only help you keep your pet alive but
it will ease the stress on your raid healers
(many heal pets now). |
| Guard Dog |
Your pet's Growl
generates [10% / 20%] additional threat and
10% of its total happiness. |
LIKE IT:
Growl is actually good (for once) for a tank
pet and it's even better if it generates additional
threat. |
| Lionhearted |
Reduces the duration
of all stun/fear effects used against your
pet by [15% / 30%].
|
DON'T LIKE
IT: It's infrequent that your pet is stunned/feared
outside of PvP and tank pets have no business
in PvP because of their low damage. Nothing
about this talent is beneficial to a tank
pet. |
| Thunderstomp |
Shakes the ground
with thundering force, doing 3 to 5 Nature
damage to all enemies within 8 yards. This
ability causes a moderate amount of additional
threat. |
IT'S OKAY:
Generating additional threat is good and doing
additional damage along with it is great but
I think that there are better talents out
there for the amount of points you have to
spend. |
|
TIER
4
|
|
TALENT
|
WHAT IT
DOES
|
NUKUMI'S
OPINION
|
| Grace of the
Mantis |
Reduces the chance
your pet will be critically hit by melee attacks
by [2% / 4%]. |
LIKE IT:
Comparing it to Great Resistance, I consider
Grace of the Mantis to be the better option
even if the protection is a low percentage.
It's more helpful to resist critical hits
than just a type of magic. |
| Great Resistance |
Your pet takes
[5% / 10% / 15%] less damage from Arcane,
Fire, Frost, Nature and Shadow magic.
|
It'S OKAY:
If you have the points for it, it's a
good talent that helps your pet reduce damage.
The problem is, even if you're a Beast Master,
there's still too many better talents. |
|
TIER
5
|
|
TALENT
|
WHAT IT
DOES
|
NUKUMI'S
OPINION
|
| Intervene |
Your pet runs
at high speed toward a group member, intercepting
the next melee or ranged attack made against
them. |
LIKE IT:
Okay, come on. It's just plain cool to have
your pet play the part of the hero! One thing
to consider if you take this talent, though:
your pet jumping across the screen to save
your buddy may cause complications if they
are pet-tanking another target already. |
| Last Stand |
Your pet temporarily
gains 30% of its maximum health for 20 seconds.
After the effect expires, the health is lost.
Requires 3 points in
Avoidance. |
IT'S OKAY:
This is a cool talent and I like it except
that, once again, I feel like it should be
sacrificed for others since it's only a temporary
increase. |
| Roar of Sacrifice |
Your pet absorbs
damage done to you, transferring 30% damage
taken to the pet. Lasts 12 seconds.
Requires 2 points in
Grace of the Mantis.
|
LIKE IT:
This is probably a little bit safer than Intervene
as far as your pet keeping aggro so it gets
two thumbs-up from me. |
| Taunt |
Yout pet taunts
the target to attack it for 3 seconds.
Requires 2 points in
Guard Dog. |
LIKE IT:
Taunting generates threat and that's exactly
what a tank pet wants to do. |
|
TIER
6
|
|
TALENT
|
WHAT IT
DOES
|
NUKUMI'S
OPINION
|
| Silverback |
Your pet's Growl
also heals it for [1% / 2%] of its total health. |
LIKE IT: While
healing talents are a little lost to your
DPS pet, it's great for a tank pet, especially
since Growl is an ability your pet is going
to be using almost non-stop. |
| Wild Hunt |
Increases the
contribution your pet gets from your Stamina
[20%/40%] and Attack Power [40% / 20%].
Requires 1 point in
Roar of Sacrifice. |
LIKE IT:
Even though the Attack Power portion of Wild
Hunt may be a little lost on your pet, the
substantial increase in Stamina (and therefore
Health) makes this talent a winner. |
>> Return
to Top of Page
CUNNING PETS
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Click
the picture to view beast stats at Petopia.
is an exotic pet requiring
the Beast Mastery talent
|
Cunning pets are specced in Cunning. Their talents
focus on battle tactics that ultimately amount
to more DPS/survivability. When I looked at this
tree, I was really excited. On paper, the talents
were really impressive and I couldn't wait to
try it out. I tried it out and felt a little disappointed
with it. The damage wasn't bad but it felt unfinished
to me. Almost like Blizzard felt obligated to
create a middle ground that was neither good at
DPS nor at tanking.
I'm hoping that, in the future, Blizzard can personalize
the tree a little more. It wouldn't make sense
to lump any of these pets into the Ferocity and
Tenacity trees but, with the way it is right now,
there's really no advantage in using them other
than liking the pet itself. If your pet could
actually use battle tactics on your targets because
it was "cunning," now that would
be something...
|
CUNNING TALENTS
|
|
TIER
1
|
|
TALENT
|
WHAT IT
DOES
|
NUKUMI'S
OPINION
|
| Cobra Reflexes |
Increases
your pet's attack speed by [15% / 30%].
Your pet will hit faster but each hit will
do less damage.
|
IT'S OKAY:
If there were no decrease to your damage,
it would be great. I'm not sure the increase
in speed outweighs the decrease in damage.
Still, the faster your pet attacks, the more
damage it will do. |
| Dash / Dive |
Increases your
pet's movement speed by 80% for 16 seconds. |
LIKE IT:
For 16 seconds, your pet becomes lightning
fast, enabling it to get to the target quickly
and start putting out DPS sooner. |
| Great Stamina |
Increases your
pet's total stamina by [4% / 8% / 12%].
|
LIKE IT:
More Stamina will give your pet more health.
Thus, it will survive longer. |
| Natural Armor |
Increases your
pet's armor by [5% / 10%].
|
LIKE IT:
More armor helps your pet's survival and increases
its capability in tanking. |
|
TIER
2
|
|
TALENT
|
WHAT IT
DOES
|
NUKUMI'S
OPINION
|
| Boar's Speed |
Increases your
pet's movement speed by 30%. |
IT'S OKAY:
While we've already increase our pet's movement
speed with Dash, Boar's Speed is a permanent
increase to the pet's movement speed. However,
this is movement speed and not attack
speed. It will not help your pet attack faster
so you might be better off picking Improved
Cower or Bloodthirsty. |
| Mobility |
Reduces the cooldown
on your pet's Dash/Dive ability by [8 seconds
/ 16 seconds].
Requires 1 point in
Dash/Dive. |
DON'T LIKE
IT : Dash/Dive is only really useful on
the initial pull since it increases movement
speed and not attack speed. In this
great tree, it seems like it would be a waste
of a talent point. |
| Owl's Focus |
Your pet has
a [15% / 30%] chance after using an ability
that the next ability will cost no Focus if
used within 8 seconds. |
DON'T LIKE
IT: There's really no need for speccing
into this talent since it's easy for you to
spec for your pet's Focus |
| Spiked Collar |
Your pet does
an additional [3% / 6% / 9%] in damage with
all attacks. |
IT'S OKAY:
This is a talent that's a better fit for a
Ferocious
pet. |
|
TIER
3
|
|
TALENT
|
WHAT IT
DOES
|
NUKUMI'S
OPINION
|
| Avoidance |
Reduces the damage
your pet takes from AOE attacks by [25% /
50% / 75%].
|
LIKE IT:
Raiding instances these days are made up of
AOE and any reduction to AOE damage is going
to not only help you keep your pet alive but
it will ease the stress on your raid healers
(many heal pets now). |
| Carrion Feeder |
Your pet can
generate health and happiness by eating a
corpse. Will not work on the remains of elemental
or mechanical creatures. |
LIKE IT:
HOW. COOL. IS. THAT?! Not only do you turn
your pet into a man-eating beast but it heals
itself, too. A++! |
| Lionhearted |
Reduces the duration
of all stun/fear effects used against your
pet by [15% / 30%].
|
IT'S OKAY:
For a PvP pet, this is a great ability
to incorporate. For everything else... not
so much. If you're an avid PvPer, I'd recommend
getting a PvP specific pet so that you can
have abilities like this. |
|
TIER
4
|
|
TALENT
|
WHAT IT
DOES
|
NUKUMI'S
OPINION
|
| Cornered |
When at less
than 35% health, your pet does [25% / 50%]
more damage and has a [30% / 60%] reduced
chance to be critically hit. |
LIKE IT:
Great for giving your pet a little extra defensive
ability, especially if it's taking a bit too
much damage in comparison to the health being
generated by Mend Pet. |
| Feeding Frenzy |
Your pet does
[8% / 16%] additional damage to targets with
less than 35% health.
Requires 3 points in
Spiked Collar.
|
LIKE IT:
Even though this is a conditional talent,
it's conditional in the right way (condition
being that the target must be below 35% health).
|
| Great Resistance |
Your pet takes
[5% / 10% / 15%] less damage from Arcane,
Fire, Frost, Nature and Shadow magic. |
It'S OKAY:
If you have the points for it, it's a
good talent that helps your pet reduce damage.
The problem is, even if you're a Beast Master,
there's still too many better talents. |
|
TIER
5
|
|
TALENT
|
WHAT IT
DOES
|
NUKUMI'S
OPINION
|
| Bullheaded |
Removes all movement
impairing effects and effects which cause
loss of control of your pet and reduces damage
done to your pet by 20% for 12 seconds.
Requires
2 points in Cornered.
|
IT'S OKAY:
The movement impairment aspect of this talent
isn't anything to write home about but a 20%
damage reduction is pretty good. |
| Grace of the
Mantis |
Reduces the chance
your pet will be critically hit by melee attacks
by [2% / 4%]. |
LIKE IT:
Comparing it to Great Resistance, I consider
Grace of the Mantis to be the better option
even if the protection is a low percentage.
It's more helpful to resist critical hits
than just a type of magic. |
| Roar of Recovery |
Your pet's inspiring
roar restores 30% of your total mana over
9 seconds.
|
LIKE IT:
What a fabulous, unprohibiting way to regenerate
your mana pool! Using Aspect of the Viper
get rid of 300 AP for you. A talent like this
could really help you keep your DPS up in
long fights. |
| Wolverine
Bite |
A fierce attack
causing a hefty amount of additional damage
that your pet can use after its target dodges.
Wolverine Bite cannot be dodged, blocked or
parried. Damage is determined using pet level
multiplied by 5 and adding 5.
For example, pet level 80 * 5 + 5 = 405 damage
hit.
Requires 3 points in
Avoidance.. |
LIKE IT:
This is a huge gauranteed hit of damage, which
makes it great. Even if it only occurs when
your pet's target dodges, it's still a skill
I consider worth having. |
|
TIER
6
|
|
TALENT
|
WHAT IT
DOES
|
NUKUMI'S
OPINION
|
| Roar of Sacrifice |
Your pet absorbs
damage done to you, transferring 30% damage
taken to the pet. Lasts 12 seconds.
Requires 2 points in
Grace of the Mantis.
|
LIKE IT:
A great way for your pet to mitigate damage. |
| Shark Attack |
Your pet does
an additional [3% / 6%] in damage with all
attacks.
Requires 1 point in
Wolverine Bite.. |
IT'S OKAY:
A straight damage increase for your pet
is always good. |
>> Return
to Top of Page
|
