"Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms." - George Eliot

Hunters are deadly marksmen, capable of bringing their enemies down from a distance. Skilled survivalists, they can track enemies or lay traps to damage and entrap their foes. Hunters also possess a primal connection to the beasts of Azeroth, capable of taming and training them to keep as loyal guardians. It is this aspect of the Hunter class which makes us unique in all of Azeroth. No demonic presence, like the Warlock's summons, our pets are flesh and blood companions. Much thought is given to the choosing of a Hunter's pet and, while your choice is never permanent, it's very easy to get attached to a certain beast quickly.

The Basics

While getting a pet is usually the primary concern of a new hunter, you cannot obtain the ability to tame a beast of your own until Level 10, at which point you will receive a quest series from your closest hunter trainer entitled 'Taming the Beast'. This series will require you to tame three seperate types of animals in your starting area. Pay close attention to what type of animal is asked for. If a quest asks for a Nightsaber, for example - a Mangy Nightsaber or Feral Nightsaber won't work. Once this series is completed, you will then be sent to the nearest major city to speak to another trainer who will complete the series with a quest entitled 'Training the Beast'. You will then have all the necessary abilities to tame and take care of a beast of your own.

While the vast majority of beasts are tameable, some are not. Basilisks, kodo, zhevra, giraffes, devilsaurs and chimera are just a few of the beast types that are currently not tameable. Dragons are not considered beasts, and as such, cannot be tamed. As a general rule, beasts that are under the control of an NPC (be it lioness cubs or a troll and his tiger) are also not tameable, even after the controlling NPC is dead. There are also some beasts that, although they come from a tameable family (such as hyena) cannot be tamed (like the Gordok Hyena in Dire Maul).

A hunter cannot tame any beast that is higher level than the hunter - they must be of equal level or below. The process works as follows: 1. Target the beast that you would like to tame. 2. Click the 'Tame Beast' icon. 3. Your character will stand still while a bar appears and the beast will run up and start attacking you. This represents the creature's resistance to your efforts to tame it. 4. If you manage to withstand the attacks for 20 seconds without being interrupted, you will tame your target and it will stop attacking you.

No other action can be taken while taming or it will fail. Nobody else can interfere by healing you or tanking the beast. You must simply weather the attacks, but there's nothing keeping you from trying to not get hit. To help in taming your pet, make sure nothing else is around that will attack. Use Aspect of the Monkey, which will help you dodge the beast's oncoming attacks. Drop a Freezing Trap if you that ability. Stand at max distance from your target to buy extra time and fire a Concussive Shot (if available) to slow it down. A mage can also sheep a pet you're attempting to tame or a druid can hibernate it and it will not disrupt the process. Finally, taming can fail. This is not a bug - sometimes it happens, it can even happen if you're attempting to tame a beast much lower than your character's level. If this occurs, you'll just need to try again.

Once a hunter has tamed a pet, it can be housed with the Stable Master which can be found outside many inns throughout Azeroth as well as the major cities. The Stable Master has room for three different beasts. The Current Pet, meaning the pet the hunter is currently using, as well as two other places for stabled pets. Each stable slot costs additional coin to purchase. 5 silver for the first and 5 gold for the second. This enables the hunter to choose between pets as the situation dictates. There is no way to switch pets without returning to a Stable Master. Many hunters only keep two pets and leave an additional slot empty with which they are free to tame other beasts in their travels to obtain special beast skills which then, in turn, can be taught to their other pets.

Pets gain experience as the hunter levels. Quest experience does not count towards levelling a pet, nor does rested experience. A pet will not gain experience when it is your level, to keep the pet from outleveling you. The pet tab in the character window will show the pet's experience bar. Pets do not require as much experience as players do to level, but because quest experience or rested experience doesn't help them, some new hunters find it difficult to keep multiple pets levelled. A rule of thumb for this, if you're attempting to keep two pets at the same time and keep them relatively equal to you in level, is to make sure you're returning to the Stable Master as soon as one pet levels and then exchange them. Each level makes your pet an effective level higher, raising stats and increasing their chance to hit and be missed.

Keeping a pet means that it needs to be fed, and diet may be a consideration in at least chosing your first pet. There are a variety of food types available - Bread, Cheese, Fish, Fruit, Fungus, Meat, Raw Fish and Raw Meat. Pets which eat bread will also eat summoned mage foodstuffs. Some beasts, like bears and boars, will eat anything. Other beasts, like spiders, have a far pickier diet and will only eat meat. If food cannot be obtained readily during a hunter's travels (by slaying NPCs), you can look for vendors within cities or inns who can supply what is needed. You can find out what your pet likes to eat by opening your character pane, selecting the pet tab, and mousing over the happiness icon in the top left corner. If a hunter does not feed a pet for an extended period, it will run away.

A pet can disappear for a number of reasons. These include running away, dying, going out of range, being dismissed or abandoned, being stabled, or taking a flightpath somewhere. If your pet is not visible, use the Call Pet ability (which looks like a whistle). Unless the pet was neglected due to lack of feeding and it ran away, it is always somewhere, even if it isn't visible. Calling it back is the easiest way to return the pet to your side. Sometimes, though, your pet dies - after all, the world is a dangerous place. But this does not mean it is gone forever. Use the ability Revive Pet. This costs a signifigant amount of mana. Your pet will come back to life but with low health and lower happiness. This means the first order of business once ressurecting the pet is to feed it.

By feeding a pet, its happiness increases. A pet has three different states of happiness: Happy (where the pet deals 125% damage), Content (where the pet deals 100% damage) and Unhappy (where the pet deals 75% damage). Ideally, a hunter's pet should always be 'happy'. Keep in mind, that a pet does not need to be force fed. Allow it to finish eating one piece of food before giving it another (when a pet is fed, it will gain an icon under its portrait that says 'Feed Pet effect' - once this vanishes, another piece of food can be given to the pet). Once a pet becomes happy, feeding can stop. A pet's happiness will go down over time, although opinions vary whether this occurs quicker if you are fighting or not. As a pet gains levels, it will need higher quaility food for it to become happy. A level 60 pet will turn up its nose at level 10 food.

The other benefit of happiness is pet loyalty. Pets have six different loyalty levels. All pets, once tamed, begin at Rebellious. From there, it goes Unruly, Submissive, Dependable, Faithful and Best Friend. As a pet becomes more loyal, it will gain training points, with which the pet can be taught special skills. How pets gain loyalty seems to be somewhat tricky - when a player is lower level, loyalty seems to come fairly quickly, but at higher levels, the gain seems to be slower with new pets. The general concensus is that you need to be fighting NPCs that would give you experience for pets to make any sort of loyalty gain. This seems to work the best for most people. Training points are not infinite. When the pet obtains enough points, it will be a matter of picking and choosing, because there won't be enough training points, even at Level 70, for the beast to know every skill available to its maximum level.

Specifics

Is there a best pet? This is a very common question. The simple answer is - no. No matter what hunter you ask, everyone will likely argue for their specific favorite but in the long run, you'll be happiest if you research the different pet types and then choose one that you think will suit you.

Pets fall into three very basic archtypes. Defensive or 'tank' type pets, offensive or 'DPS' type pets and pets that are considered 'middle of the road' that tend to have an equal mix of both but do not excel at either. Defensive or 'tank' type pets often have high hit points, high armor class, or both. Offensive or 'DPS' type pets tend to deal more base damage. Pets that are 'middle of the road' are just as the name implies. Prior to pet scaling, the baseline (middle of the road) for pets was 3052 Hit Points, 3562 Armor Class and 51.2 Damage Per Second.

As these lists demonstrate, there's no pet that's good at everything. There's give and take. If you want a pet that does a higher amount of DPS, like a cat, it will suffer in the hit point and armor class category. But the differences are slight. So, if you're looking for a pet that has high armor class, if you choose a boar instead of a turtle, you won't be worse off.

For the most part, all beasts within a species will be identical and this applies to elite or rare pets as well. Elite pets have their portrait ringed with a gold dragon, rare with a silver dragon. So, for example, a turtle obtained from Blackfathom Deeps (a dungeon) will have identical statistics to a turtle from Hillsbrad Foothills, assuming their levels are equal. The exception to this rule are those few pets that have 'caster stats'. This means their health and strengh are not on par with pets of the same species without 'caster stats', although their intelligence and spirit will be higher. 'Caster stats' pets are usually identifiable pre-taming by the fact that they will have a visible mana bar.

Training Points can augment a pet. Pets can be trained to have higher health (Great Stamina) or armor class (Natural Armor), as well as all the major classes of resistance (Arcane, Fire, Nature, Frost, Shadow). There are other offensive and defensive skills available. Some are taught by a pet trainer, which are found in most major cities. Others, are learned as the hunter journeys around the world. (See: Beast Training, a How-To Guide).

The other factor that influences a pet's statistics is called Pet Scaling. This means, the pet gains bonuses based on the hunter's stats. Scaling factors also differ based on the pet's "archtype", so a pet with +10% armor actually scales armor more off the hunter than those without aforementioned bonuses. From the hunter, based on gear, the pet gains:

How does a hunter choose a pet? Here's a simple checklist:

Other Facts

All beasts shrink when they are tamed. Originally, pets did not, and the general complaint was that some beasts were too big and obstructed line of sight, especially in dungeons. So, as a result, pets now shrink but will grow about 1% every level. So, over time, it will grow larger but it will never be gigantic. Each species of beast has a size they grow to, so a cat won't ever be as big as a bear. Too, the pet growing won't really be noticeable as you level up because its growth is such a small percent. However, if a hunter goes back and tames a LV10 beast of an identical species and compares it, the difference will be more visible.

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