Welcome to our in-depth Hunter Pets guide for WoW Classic: Season of Discovery! If you are a Hunter in Azeroth, your pet is not only your friend, but also an essential part of your gameplay. In this guide we'll go over the nuances of pet taming, training and management so that you can bring a reliable friend with you on any raid or quest.

 

• Understanding Pet Taming Basics
• Rare Pets in Season of Discovery
• Choosing Your Pet
• Pet Taming & Training
• Pet Categories: Offensive vs Defensive
• Unique Abilities and Species Traits
• Selecting Pets for Leveling
• High-Value Species for Damage
• Importance of Pet Attack Speed
• Boosting Your Pet's Skills
• Retaining loyalty and beefing up your pet
• Quick Tips

 

 

↖ Understanding Pet Taming Basics

There is no rush to tame pets in the early levels as certain abilities will unlock at level 10. Until then, focus on leveling and gaining experience quickly. Once you hit level 10, you'll unlock several necessary abilities for pet taming. Each race (Orc, Tauren, Night Elf or Dwarf) will have specific quests to complete which will fully unlock all Hunter abilities. Make sure not to skip these quests!

 

↖ Rare Pets in Season of Discovery

For collectors there are pets with unique looks or abilities that are rare and worth seeking out. Some notable ones include:

Mazzranache in Mulgore (level 9 tallstrider)

 

The Strider Clutchmother in Darkshore (level 20 tallstrider with turquoise colour)

 

Humar the Pridelord in the Barrens (level 23 cat with fast attack speed)

 

Naraxis in Duskwood (level 27 spider)

 

↖ Choosing Your Pet

After level 10 you can do whatever you want! Every creature with beast type can be tamed by a hunter. They all have unique characteristics which make them useful under different conditions. Some have high HP but low DPS, others the opposite and many are somewhere in between. This allows you to choose based on your preference and play-style.

 

Beast Mastery Hunters: Why Wind Serpents Reign

As a Beast Mastery Hunter raiding Wind Serpent is undisputedly the best choice available for every single one among us. The reason behind it is the Lightning Breath spell that scales with hunter's BM runes, talents and boasts the highest damage per focus point among all other abilities. It'd be the best option if you are looking for solid damage throughput in a raid.

 

 

Marksman Hunters: Cats or Raptors

If you're a Marksman Hunter then Cats or Raptors are your go-to choice. Between these two, attack speed is the most important factor to consider. Slow attack speed (2.0) animals are better as they sync well with flanking strike rune thus amplifying its damage output. Make sure your cat or raptor have level 4 claw and bite which will make them deal excellent performance in the game.

 

 

↖ Pet Taming & Training

Taming a pet is just the start of it all. Once done, you'll notice that each pet has an experience bar, dietary requirements, loyalty level and training points assigned to it. A happy pet is important because an unhappy one deals less damage and loses loyalty or even leaves completely! Keep this furry fella content by providing meat for carnivorous ones and fish for piscivores.

 

↖ Pet Categories: Offensive vs Defensive

Pets can also be categorized into two main groups which are offensive and defensive. Each group has species with different attributes like health points, armor and attack damage modifiers. Bats for instance belong to offense species with a 7% damage modifier but lack unique abilities while boars fall under defense category with health modification of 4%, armor by 9% and charge ability.

 

↖ Unique Abilities and Species Traits

Out of all tamable species including bats, bears, boars, carrion birds, cats, crabs, crocolisks , gorillas , hyenas , owls , raptors , scorpids , spiders , tallstriders , turtles , wind serpents and wolves only seven have unique abilities. Most come under offensive or defensive classes but carrion birds; hyenas and wolves are generalizations at least having an armor modifier of 5%. Carrion birds plus hyenas also do not possess any unique ability.

 

↖ Selecting Pets for Leveling

When leveling as a Hunter, choosing a pet that can maintain threat and deliver consistent damage is vital. The bears, raptors, owls and cats can all perform dual attacks like Bite, Claw and Screech among others while on the PvE mode. PvP choices may vary based on Blizzard's ongoing game adjustments.

 

↖ High-Value Species for Damage

Species with high damage modifiers or unique abilities such as wind serpents, raptors, scorpids, and cats are particularly valuable. Currently, wind serpents are in high demand for their ranged attack capability, especially in later phases like the Zul'Gurub raid where a serpent capable of Rank 6 Lightning Breath can be tamed.

 

↖ Importance of Pet Attack Speed

Pet attack speed is a crucial component of pet selection that ranges from 1 to 2.5 seconds. The fastest pet available now is the Slavering Warg with an attack speed of 1.2 seconds found within Shadow Fang Keep. At higher levels (of course), Broken Tooth is a tempting choice because it is a level 37 cat with an impressive 1 second attack speed.

 

↖ Boosting Your Pet's Skills

Pets acquire new abilities while they also improve their previous skills through training and leveling up. For instance, cats can learn Prowl, Claw and Bite while they cannot learn Scorpid Poison or Charge from scorpions respectively. To know the fundamental pet abilities visit any major city's pet trainers who are usually located next to your class trainer. Importantly, remember that each species of pet has a list of cannot and can do abilities.

 

↖ Retaining loyalty and beefing up your pet

As time goes by, the loyalty of a pet will increase hence reducing the amount of food required to make it happy. Nevertheless, be careful not to keep a sad animal for too long because it might disappear forever. Pet abilities also have different ranks and you should monitor their development if you want them to learn and upgrade skills accordingly.

 

↖ Quick Tips

• Always have some food that can be eaten by our pets in handy.
• Your pet's loyalty and happiness status should always be checked regularly.
• Frequently engage your pet in combat with you so as to train its abilities.
• Petopia and Wowhead are examples of some good resources available for players seeking more detailed info on the creatures they adopt as well as their skills.

 

Finally, this guide aims to provide you with a good starting point but we know the best learning is experience so go out there and get some practical experience.