Buff food for us hunters is pretty self-explanitory. We like food that gives us Attack Power or Crit or Agility, or possibly even Hit or Haste, depending on our gear, spec, and circumstance. Don’t forget, though, that our pets can get buff food too:
Currently, as far as I am aware, there are three foods in the game that will buff your pet. These are they:
Sporeling Snacks: An Outlands recipe available from Sporeggar rep, this food will give your pet 20 stamina and 20 spirit for 30 minutes. Requires level 55 to use.
Kibler’s Bits: An Outlands recipe from the Shattrath cooking daily, this food used to give your pet 20 strength and 20 spirit for 30 minutes– now it has been revamped and gives your pet 30 strength and 30 stamina for one hour. Requires level 55 to use.
Spiced Mammoth Treats: A Northrend recipe from the Dalaran cooking daily, this food has the exact same effect as Kibler’s Bits: gives your pet 30 strength and 30 stamina for one hour. Requires level 70 to use.
Now by looking at these three foods, it’s pretty clear that our poor old Sporeling Snacks have been outclassed. It doesn’t last nearly as long as the others and the stats are subpar. Still useful for leveling through Outlands if you happen to snag the recipe and mats, but even then, not really worth reaching for.
The other two, though, are your pets’ new best friends in raids or heroics!
Most cooks find that the Kibler’s Bits are much easier to make due to the easier-to-obtain ingredients. Me, I don’t have the recipe for either so I stalk the AH for both of them. They tend to be pricey when they pop up (though I can occasionally find Kibler’s Bits for quite a steal– I’ve bought a full stack of 20 for 3 gold) but the benefits they provide are pretty nice: a DPS boost and a survivability boost for your pet.
Plus, c’mon, he’s just so happy when you give him a treat!
So don’t forget to bring some with you alongside your hunter buff food: your pet will thank you. Oh, and also remember that the food doesn’t work like normal “pet food”… you don’t use the Feed Pet command to feed him. Rather, you “use” it like you would a food for yourself.
And no, I don’t know why an Outlands recipe and Northrend recipe with a usable-level discrepency are exactly the same either. I sort of suspect this may randomly change in a future patch, but hey, who knows?
In closing, I was a “caster tank” on Four Horsemen today. It was really fun, and I got a shiny new sword. *swings it around and hums contentedly as her pets dash for cover*
ohhh new shiny sword! >_<
Kohaku happens to be the person on the server who has the patience to go back to Hellfire, grind up vultures for the buzzard meat, and cook for the AH. Posting them up 5 at a time, 12g buy out. It sells ^_^ May I suggest doing some OL cooking daily?
Grats on sword! I used that for ages till 3.0.8 made Druid staves viable before breaking Undeath Carrier out of the bank. 😀
I was pretty surprised when the Northrend pet food was the same as the old Outland one… was a waste of spices and awards, /sigh.
Grats on the gear!
I was wondering what the differences between mammoth treats and kibler’s bits were, but there aren’t any.
Odd.
lol I find that confusing as well, confusing but awesome 😛 Considering my cooking is pretty low, I need to hit the AH for some Kibbler’s Bits.
I’ve done farmed those vultures in Hellfire and got me 80 kibler bits. Need to go back and get some more.
Ive found that the buzzard meat is often really cheap. I’d find a cook friend who either has the recipe or would be willing to get it for you, and just have them make it for you when you can find the mats cheap.
I bought several hundred buzzard meat over the last few weeks for under 15g…
I agree with Euripides, farm the mats yourself (or buy them) and then find a friend or someone in Trade that can make Kibler’s and stock up for awhile. Usually you can get a lot more for cheaper and faster than stalking the AH.
Hmm. It never occurred to me to sell Kibler’s Bits on the AH. I may have to go spend some time in HFP killing buzzards.
Kibler’s Bits and Mammoth Treats could be the same buff-wise just because the difference between them would have been too small. My gut’s telling me that the Northern Spices ingredient will be removed from Mammoth Treats before their bonus gets improved, but ya never know.
I’m glad that the bonuses are the same–I leveled some alts through Hellfire recently and still have a surplus of buzzard meat. 🙂
Gratz on the sword.
On the pet food front, what some of my friends who have hunters (but aren’t cooks) did was to farm the mats and then have me (or someone else who had the recipes) cook them for them. Saves you haunting the AH and is normally cheaper. Personally, I leveled my cooking mainly to get buffs for my pets but I know there are a lot of people who don’t even bother with the secondaries. Anywho, just an idea. GL.
Gunsnbutter on Uther
I send the Death Knight out to get Vulture Meat so my Hunter can make Kibler’s Bits since he still gains experience from killing Vultures.
Congrats on the sword!
It’s funny, I find it really easy to make the Spiced Mammoth Treats. I’m in the Basin all the time, farming leather for money. So instead of killing rhinos all the time, I just switch to mammoths when I need the meat. They almost always drop one or two pieces so I get a stack in no time. And I do the cooking daily every day so I certainly have no shortage of Northern Spices. Then again I have all the cooking recipes so I can just spend all my cooking awards on spices. But even then, it would be more of a hassle for me to go to the Outlands and kill vultures that I can’t skin 🙁
Ya, the Mammoths are great, they drop 2 at a time sometimes, and there are 2 groups of 5 that roam around. Farming the Mammoths is good for not only the meat; engineers can pick-up any clouds that spawn nearby (there are at least 2 that spawn in the area), miners can pick-up ore, and skinners skin! You won’t get any Arctic Fur from a buzzard! 😛
The reason they have the same stats is because one is obtained by luck. The other just takes time. So if you dont want to do old cooking dailys for x amount of time just take the easier route. Do that will make the treats more expensive to make though.
So, not to rain on everyone’s parade but, on the latest PTR build, Kibler’s Bits has been nerfed to be 20stam/20spirit.
Looks like it’s time to stop farming buzzards
Grats on the sword!
I recall that you had a pretty high cooking level, probably enough to do the outland cooking dailies. Perhaps you could do them until you get a lucky drop of kibler’s bits!
My favorite would be “manalicious”
http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=11380
the quest which makes you hunt for mana berries in netherstorm.
Just take the portal from dalaran to shattrath, fly over there and pick some berries
hearth back to dalaran, que up for a quick battleground (like arathi or strands of the ancient), and pop in back through to shattrath to turn in the quest before zoning into the battleground!
You might also want to save up your spiced mammoth treats for after patch 3.1, as the above poster mentioned, and use up your kibler’s bits first before they get nerfed.
My lion “Bubbles” from the BARRENS doesnt like Kiblers bits. I;ve tried it twice and had to sell them back on AH?
If you need a treat chef, I’m always available!
My Gorilla doesn’t seem to like ANY of the pet food buffs. All he likes is bread, berries and fungus so I thought he would at least like Sporling Snacks but nope so besides Pumpkin Pie or Gingerbread Cookies there is no other buff food. Any ideas?
@ Neeko – You don’t feed it to him like a traditional pet food. (aka, don’t use the Feed Pet tool.) You use it like you would a normal item. See if that solves your problem!