Pet Type FAQ
Pet Types:
- What is a pet family?
- How are pet families different?
- What’s the coolest looking pet?
- Where do I find a ____?
- Are elite beasts better pets?
- What are caster pets?
- What pet should I choose?
- I keep hearing about boars. Should I take one?
With very few exceptions (usually bugs), the game is set up so that the only difference between two beasts of the same type, is the skin such as being red or green, or slight variations to the model such as some cats having manes. Since there is no difference, we call these groups families. If you tame a cat at level 9 and level it up to 55, it will have the same stats as if you tame a level 55 cat. Basically, a cat is a cat is a cat.
How are pet families different?
Between different families, there is variation to their stats, their diet, and the abilities they can learn. For instance a crab has lots of armor, while a cat has high DPS. You can get more detail here.
What’s the coolest looking pet?
Obviously, that’s a subjective question, but I have an answer. Here is a complete list of every pet skin available. Happy taming.
- bat
- bear
- boar
- carrion bird
- cat
- crab
- crocolisk
- dragonhawk
- gorilla
- hyena
- nether ray
- owl
- raptor
- ravager
- scorpid
- serpent
- spider
- sporebat
- tallstrider
- turtle
- warp stalker
- windserpent
- wolf
No. Once tamed, every beast reverts to its family’s stats. Although elite pets may have unique skins.
Some beasts are considered by the game to be casters, which like their humanoid counterparts use mana. Once these pets are tamed, they do not completely revert to their family stats, but instead maintain high int and spirit, and lower hp, armor, and dps. But int and spirit are useless stats for a pet. More info can be found here.
Recently, the tooltip on caster pets found that int increased spell critical strike chance by 5%. Should this prove to be true, it could be a nice boost to hunters with the beast master’s talent ferocious inspiration. Though there are many abilities that cannot crit at all.
For now, I recommend avoiding taming one.
Until you hit level 50 and really start getting higher bonuses to gear, the type of pet doesn’t matter that much. You will kill things faster with a high damage pet, need to heal less with a armored pet, take more damage with a high hp pet, and be in between with a balanced pet. There are also pet abilities that can influence your pet choice.
The short answer is take a cat, ravager, owl, windserpent, or raptor (should they get dash in 2.2), but if you really have your heart set on a crocolisk, go for it. It’s been 2 years and they haven’t been improved, but that just means they’re 2 years closer to actually doing something… right?
The long answer is here.
I keep hearing about boars. Should I take one?
Boars are great for soloing, PvP, and even a bit of off tanking. Not so much for raiding so keep that in mind. The main reason is charge generates a lot of threat which is generally an issue for pets with high armor/hp especially once the level cap is hit. This means that lots of level 70s want them. Which leads to the 2nd reason boars are recommended quite a bit. The highest level boar in the game is only level 60. And it’s ugly. Uglier than the crowd at a Packer home game where they run out of beer. The next highest boars are 47-50. Beyond that, the cooler looking boars are even lower level.
So what you’re really hearing is a bunch of level 70s that were happy with whatever pet the leveled with, complaining about having to tame a pet 20 levels below them (or 10 if they don’t mind being ugly).
Again, for leveling up ANY pet will be fine. It’s only as you get to endgame that differences become exaggerated. If you don’t mind a pig following you everywhere try one out.
Xorne said,
November 12, 2007 at 5:20 pm
This is a great read so far–and I agree that the most important part of your pet choice was this: What pet model do you want to look at for the next 60 or so levels?
That out of the way, I’ll also agree that a boar is probably the best PVP pet for the charge, though a cat’s Prowl combined with a night elf can be nice as well. However for solo PVE I would say hands-down the best pet you can choose is anything that can Screech. (Owl, Bat, or Carrion Bird) Since Screech is an AOE Focus Dump, this becomes the best aggro generator available. Screech allows a pet to actually keep aggro on multiple mobs while being healed because of the Screech aggro.
I personally use an Owl for PVE, and a Cat for PVP (I’m a night elf). But I still say that if you find the Crocolisk model the most appealing, damn Screech, tame yerself a gator.
Michael said,
November 14, 2007 at 3:07 pm
A quick question for you… is it a benefit, beyond the loyalty, to have a pet from the begining. Or can you tame one later and have it be even in stats?
ty,
Michael
Znodis said,
November 15, 2007 at 1:13 pm
All pets of the same family will have exactly the same stats.
And since it’s been asked before, you do not get more training points by taming a pet earlier. Pets at the same exp level and loyalty level will have the same number of training points. It follows this formula:
training points = (loyalty level -1) x pet level
max training points = (6-1) x 70 = 5 x 70 = 350.
VoidAngel said,
November 25, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Wolves also have an AoE offensive ability. Of course, you can always tank multiple opponents the old-fashioned way, by swapping the pet’s target and having it briefly smack the secondary and tertiary targets (particularly when an ability like Growl comes up). This may necessitate using Feign Death sooner (as it’s an aggro dump), or slowing DPS, but you should know how to do it anyway. Explore your class. =p
Airenea said,
February 6, 2008 at 11:17 am
This is a bit off topic, but reguarding the taming of lower level boars by level 70 players…if you’re already capped out at 70, and you tame a pet X number of levels below you, since you don’t get exp anymore, does that mean you can’t level the low level pet anymore?
Znodis said,
February 6, 2008 at 11:45 am
That’s actually a good question for everyone. Your pet only gains exp from mobs that are not gray to you, even if they wouldn’t be gray to your pet. For instance a level 30 hunter tames a level 10 boar. You’d have to kill mobs that are level 24 (or so) or higher for your pet to gain exp. Killing level 10 mobs would do nothing. Similarly, if you are level 70, that level 10 boar will only gain exp from killing mobs level 62 or higher. This still holds true even though the hunter is technically not gaining exp.
In other words, the range of mobs is dependent on the level of the hunter not the level of the pet.
Malacar said,
April 13, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Another thing to note about boars, and really one of the most wonderful things about them. They are garbage disposals. They will eat anything. Everything you pick up that is ‘food’ can be fed to the pig, which makes them very easy to feed.
Bob said,
May 23, 2008 at 3:07 pm
What is ‘Loyalty’ all about? whats it do?
TS said,
June 7, 2008 at 12:00 am
I think I may have skipped my “Training the Beast” quest and abandoned it. I can’t get Growl now, right? Can I get this quest back?
Znodis said,
June 7, 2008 at 7:31 pm
You can get Growl, but you can’t train your pet with it. You certainly can get this quest again from the hunter trainer in the first town with an inn you found.
cosmo said,
June 8, 2008 at 2:18 am
i recently tamed a wolf and niticed that the training points on it were -25 until he leveled will that happen to every creature that istamed until they level?
Znodis said,
June 8, 2008 at 12:54 pm
When you tamed your wolf, it already knew some ability and those points were deducted resulting in negatives.
Yossir said,
June 12, 2008 at 5:49 pm
You should really consider up datings some of the info on Raptors. 2.2.0 came out several months ago and they’ve had Dash ever since. I think they currently deserve a slightly higher score than 6/23, too.
shadowhunter said,
August 17, 2008 at 10:51 am
wat pet do u suggest for a 31/30 hunter? i have a snake, cat with prowl and wind serpent
Znodis said,
August 17, 2008 at 11:56 am
My thoughts on different families can be found here:
http://themystichunter.wordpress.com/guide-2-pet-family-review/