Category Archives: pets

New Pets!

November 4, 2010 Pike 10 Comments

Getting a new pet can be very exciting for you and your family but your other pet may not share the same excitement when it comes to meeting your new furry family member.

Introducing your pets to one another is going to be a lengthy process and unfortunately won’t happen overnight. It’s better to introduce them to one another slowly and build a safe, healthy, and long-term relationship, rather than forcing them to get along and one becoming aggressive, scared, or even hurt in the process.

How to Introduce Your New Pet to Other Pets

There are a few stepping stones to go through before your pets become best buddies. First of all, don’t panic. The first meeting, for most pets, is going to be uncomfortable and it’s normal for pets not to get along at first. It could take up to six months for the two to get used to each other. Consider your pet’s characteristics and come up with a plan. Read Pitbull breed information articles and more to be prepared. Think of the unique factors of your pets. For example, puppies and kittens are easier to introduce as older dogs and cats have already developed their personality. You know your pet, so develop your plan based around how you think they will react.

Once you have your new pet, take your existing pet out of the house, either for a walk or a drive. This way your new pet has the chance to explore your home first and feel comfortable in their new environment, smelling the other pet without the stress of meeting them. Make sure to follow your vaccination schedule with one of these dog vaccination companies in Texas.

Then slowly bring the two pets closer together in neutral territory. Allow the two to sniff each other through a closed door. When both are comfortable and ready, allow playdates for short periods of time for them to connect, then return them to their safe space when they want to. Don’t force the interaction if one pet is not comfortable in the situation. The feeling of being safe and secure is crucial when introducing your pets to one another. Keep these playdates short, relaxed, and fun.

HANDY TIP

Try taking your pets out before introducing them. For example, if you are introducing a new dog to the house, take them on a long walk or play a game of fetch in the park. This will make your dogs use a lot of their energy and will help prevent them overreacting when you introduce the two. However, before taking your dog outside, it’s important to ensure your all of their vaccinations are up-to-date. This will prevent your four-legged friends from contracting serious infections and diseases.

During the play time, both your pets with positive reinforcement. Give them treats, praise, and playtime as rewards. But make sure you give equal love to both pets. You don’t want one to get jealous! Also, make sure you give your new pet their own new items. Don’t take away or share your older pets beloved bed, toy, or water bowl as this will lead the older pet to become confused and jealous.

If you are introducing a cat and a dog, take extra care when they first meet. Beforehand make sure you trim your cat’s nails to prevent any sharp scratches and set up an easy escape route. For your cat, create a separate area filled with food, water, and a fresh litter box where they can retreat, just in case they don’t feel safe for a few days. When it comes to the introduction, keep your dog on a leash and slowly let the two connect. Keep this time short and then allow them to go back to their safe areas where they can relax and calm down.

lists, pets

Sixteen Rarest Hunter Pets

September 30, 2010 Pike 15 Comments

Armory Data Mining has some fun info on hunter pets. Now some hunters are all into having what everyone else doesn’t have– you know, so when Cataclysm comes out and everyone is running around taming everything, you can say you tamed a pet when it was still underground– so I figured I’d go through, figure out which pets per family had been tamed by less than 1% of hunters with that type of pet, and list them here. There are really some underused jewels here. So without further ado:

Bird of Prey:
Dark Brown Owl/Brown Crow: 0.8%
Red Owl: 0.3% (Why?? This thing is awesome. And can’t you solo Sethekk now?)

Cat:
Orange Leopard (aka Travel Form): 0.7%
Lioness: 0.1%

Crocolisk:
Ghost Crocolisk (No longer tamable): 0.4%

Ravager:
Red & Purple Ravager: 0.2% (Another awesome color combo)

Scorpid:
Red Scorpid: 0.6%

Spider:
Green Spider: 0.8%
Tan Spider: 0.4%
Olive Spider: 0.4%
Jungle Spider: 0.3%

Wolf:
Dark Gray Worg: 0.7%
Ghost Wolf (No longer tamable): 0.6%

Worm:
Brown Worm: 0.9%
Green Worm: 0.3% (Best worm skin by far, you all are nuts! *nod*)
White Worm: 0.3%

Hit the link for the complete lowdown, as well as a list of pets with unique properties as opposed to unique skins. But now you at least have a start if you want something new and different.

bugs, hunter, pets

Pet Cast Time Latency

January 21, 2010 Pike 11 Comments

I’m assuming most of you who read this blog also read OutDPS, however, if you are one of the three or four people who doesn’t, I’m going to take a quick minute to bring a post there to your attention:

It appears that simply letting your pet auto-cast its attacks lags a bit and results in a DPS loss. You can find the details (and advice on how to fix it) right here.

Also note that this effects all pets, including warlock and mage ones.

Just a heads-up from your Friendly Neighborhood Pike!

pets

Pet Talk (Instead of Pep Talk, get it?? shifty eyes)

November 9, 2009 Pike 20 Comments

– So between now and the last time I messed around with femaledwarf.com, something interesting has happened in regard to Beast Mastery and pets; namely, Devilsaurs appear to be beating wolves again. Only if you both have about a bajillion buffs though. (i.e., wolves are probably still superior in five- and ten- mans). Why this is different from how it was when I tested it multiple times a couple months ago, I dunno. Gear maybe? It may be worth a look, though, if you a Beast Master and are into that sort of thing!

– I did ToC25 on the weekend, like I always do if I happen to have the time slot off from work. Actually we did it twice. The first time we were going to have six hunters so I volunteered to go on my druid instead, and I healed the thing. Then I was feeling all good about how the next day I’d go and pretty much be the only hunter cause all the hunters had gone on the first day. But no, we still had like… four or five hunters in the group. The number of hunters that have joined the guild in the past month or so is through the roof. Maybe my guild is right, maybe hunters DO just follow me around, like I’m the Pied Piper or something.

ANYWAYS.

I got a whisper from one of the hunters, who was spec’d Beast Mastery at the time, if he should use his wolf, cat, or Spirit Beast. I told him that, numbers-wise, the wolf would perform the best of all three, but stressed that he should use the pet that he loved the most! So he ended up actually cycling through all three pets throughout the course of the run, giving each one a chance to do one or two bosses. Which I thought was neat.

The point is that I still support using the pet you love. That, to me, is one of the points of “Being a Hunter”. I mean, I can see not running with a tenacity- or cunning- pet, cause that makes sense, but I don’t like feeling pidgeonholed into one or maybe two pets of all the ferocity ones we can choose from.

I’ve been running as Marksmanship lately and recently discovered that, according to all the mathy stuff, I’d be doing 200 more DPS if I was using a wolf. My raptor, though, is not going anywhere, so the math can shove it. (Not saying wolves are bad though, I know a lot of people that really like them… but they are simply not my style. Well, except for the fiery Zul’Drak wolf, but Lunapike has that one already and I like when my hunters all have unique pets).

Granted, if Wind Serpents because a Ferocity pet, I wouldn’t raid with ANYTHING ELSE EVER, EVER AGAIN, but that is just a pipe dream. /dreams

– My “NaNoWriMo” book is going well, I’m at 13,500 words! I must say, the writing thing is fun. I’ve let the WoW and the blog fall a bit to the side while I work on this big book project but it’s suuuuper fun. Right now I’m just trying to dump words onto the page, but once I finish up, I plan on going back and doing a hardcore edit job. This is my profile-ma-jig by the way, and you should add me if you are doing it too. Not really for any reason, but just cause it’s fun.

…so that last one was totally not pet related. “Pet project”, maybe…? Hmm. /muses

alts, i love hunters, pets, screenshots, stories, Uncategorized

I Would Walk 500 Miles and I Would Walk 500 More…

October 12, 2009 Pike 51 Comments

I’m pretty sure we’re all clear on the fact that I enjoy rolling hunters. I can’t help it. It’s relaxing. It’s nostalgic.

Alongside this, it means I have tamed a lot of pets in my WoW career. The level 10 pet is very important to me, because I consider it to be the pet that particular hunter will have their entire life– oh sure, they’ll tame others, and may even use others in raids or PvP, but all of my hunters keep their first pet.

And one of my little quirks is that I enjoy taming the… more challinging to obtain pets.

I’ve ran level ten Hordies to Teldrassil. Twice. Once for the owl and once for a cat.

I’ve ran a low level Hordie to Azuremyst for the moth.

I’ve ran a level 10 Hordie to Dun Morogh for the snow leopard.

I’ve ran a level 10 Alliance character to Durotar for a raptor.

A good chunk of those were on PvP servers.

I’ve also done safer but still lengthy trips on other characters: dragging a Tauren to Eversong Woods or Trolls and Blood Elves to Mulgore. (It has occurred to me that an unusually high percentage of my lowbie hunters are Horde. Hmm.)

This was all in my mind yesterday when I did something crazy and made a character on one of my non-“Home Servers”. Thus it was that I made a female tauren hunter (yes I have a billion of those, shuddup, Azeroth needs more, dangit! /shifty eyes) on Wyrmrest Accord, so I could say hello to Faeldray and Tzia, two people who have been a part of the Aspect of the Hare commenting community for a very, very long time and who both have awesome blogs of their own.

We hung out for a while and did some really nifty RP (which I may talk about later, in its own post), but always in the back of my mind as I did the tauren starter quests for the umpteenth time was what pet I should get. It had to be special, something that I could tie in to my developing character story, and preferably something I hadn’t ever tamed before.

Then I had an idea.

Snoeken (Dutch for “Pike”, albeit the fish and not the weapon =P) went on a little adventure.

First, the ride from Thunder Bluff to Orgrimmar.

Taking the zeppelin to Undercity…

And getting on a different zeppelin and going to a very scary place for a level 10:

Howling Fjord.

Then came the ceremonial removing of all the clothes (except the shirt and pants– I’m a decent tauren!) and a deep breath…

And then the corpse hop began.

So, rez timer, we meet again.

The run to Utgarde Keep wasn’t that bad though, and I soon found myself where I needed to be…

Well well well, what’ve we got here?

Brand New Birdie:

The fishertauren and her sea hawk:

My new druid-birdie has a few bugs, it would appear. He flies extremely low to the ground (as opposed to, say, an owl, who flies much higher), and when he flies after you, he remains leaned back in his “hovering” position. The way a druid would look if it was just flying in place. I’ve actually had this happen to me in my druid flight form, if I time myself carefully and jump right when I enter flight form. But it seems to be a perpetual problem for the Daggercap Hawk, and it looks kind of silly. In addition, he doesn’t “highlight” when you click on him, the way other things do.

Regardless of these issues, he is a gorgeous pet– and certainly unique, as well!

Now we just have to cross our fingers and hope Blizzard eventually fixes these issues, rather than conveniently deciding that a level 10 hunter shouldn’t have a bird from Northrend =P

pets, Uncategorized

Use Your Pet

September 30, 2009 Pike 40 Comments

I’ve noticed a disturbing trend recently both in game and as anecdotes on other blogs: hunters that aren’t using their pets. At all. Like, they don’t even summon them.

Okay guys, here’s the deal. I know that 99.999% of you are Marskman or Survival right now, but even so, you can’t afford to not have your pet out.

“But Pike, his DPS sucks!”

I asked some people on Twitter how much DPS their pet contributes in a raid setting. Here were some of the responses I got:

TheAllianceGuy (Marksman): “Above 1000 at least”
T_Jazz (Marksman/Survival): “the hundreds”
tchann (Beast Master): “40+ percent of 5k dps”
shizukera (Beast Master): “I can’t give you a number, but it hurts like hell when my pet dies”
jayesh (MM/SV, depending on fight): “16-23 percent. varies from fight to fight”
ILikeBubbles (Beast Master): “I think mine is…800/900ish DPS?”
dhollinger (Survival): “Rough estimate? My ulduar geared SV hunter’s wolf does ~450-500 from what I remember”
shieldbreakr (Survival): “536dps in my raid last night in my 25man naxx pug. I did 4132dps, he did 536. I use cats”
Eidtalheg (Survival): “my average pet (wolf) dps is ~730.”

The awesometacular Anna of Too Many Annas sent me some raid info from Totally Raids, Inc, on Feathermoon. Here is what she sent me:

First 3/4 of Ulduar + VoA Clear
Surv Hunter Pet – Cat – 950 DPS, 3.3 mil damage
Surv Hunter Pet – Moth – 900 DPS, 3 mil damage
Surv Hunter Pet – Wolf – 920 DPS, 2.5 mil damage

Yogg, Ony, VoA, ToC Normal –
Surv Hunter Pet – Cat – 850 DPS, 2.2 mil damage
Surv Hunter Pet – Moth – 800 DPS, 1.9 mil damage
Surv Hunter Pet – Wolf – 650 DPS, 1.5 mil damage
Marks Hunter Pet – Cat – 750 DPS, 1.5 mil damage

It’s worth noting that the marks hunter, whose pet is at the bottom of the chart, had never seen Yogg-Saron before (he’s our “sometimes” hunter, and we’ve not been doing Yoggy a lot), so he’s got a bit of a gear disparity from the other three!

Last half of ToC plus 11 wipes on Heroic Northrend Beasts
Surv Hunter Pet – Cat – 950 DPS, 2 mil damage
Surv Hunter Pet – Wolf – 700 DPS, 1.3 mil damage
Surv Hunter Pet – Wolf – 1000 DPS, 1.1 mil damage

Extremely variable numbers as you can see, and I know this is dependent on things like gear, level of content, group makeup, etc. But look at even some of the low-end numbers from Twitter and tell me that’s not helpful. Would you say no to a free 400 DPS? And check out some of the stuff Anna is doing– those pets are doing twice that! If you’re min/maxing your gear and your spec, why would you say no to using a pet?

“But Pike, I can’t keep him alive, I’m not BM like you!”

There seems to be this weird misconception floating around the blogosphere and the WoWosphere in general that raid-spec’d BM pets are magically much easier to keep alive and/or are better tanks than non-BM pets. Here’s the deal, I could spec for pet survivability, but I don’t, because I spec for DPS. The only things my pet has that yours probably doesn’t, from a standpoint of pet survivability, is one extra point in Wild Hunt, one extra point in Bloodthirsty, and one point in Improved Mend Pet. Possibly one point in Endurance Training, if you are Survival and don’t have it. That’s it. (I don’t count Improved Revive Pet because that is assuming your pet is already dead, and we’re talking about keeping him alive.)

This means my pet has a little more stamina than yours, and a slightly greater chance to regenerate a minute amount of life in combat. Improved Mend Pet is extremely situational– it’s helpful on Heigan and that’s about it.

If I can keep my pet alive, you can too. It just involves some situational awareness and a Mend Pet keybind.

“But Pike, this is [Insert Some Ridiculously Pet-Unfriendly Boss Here]”

Now, believe me, I know that some fights are a royal pain in the butt in terms of pet survivability. I understand that not all fights are created equal.

So keep your pet by your side.

Most Marksmanship builds include 2/2 Focused Fire, which is free DPS just for having your pet there.

And on top of that, a good number of you are using a wolf right now. I don’t, myself, partially because I like other pets better, partially because my stable is full, and partially because I’m a stubborn idiot making a stand against what I see as an unfair pet status quo. But guys, the wolf is free DPS just from standing there because of Furious Howl.

“But Pike, he dies on Mimiron anyway, even if he’s standing by my side!”

Yeah, I know >.> We won’t talk about Mimiron. /cough

“But Pike, it’s just a couple hundred DPS.”

And yet that new piece of gear you are drooling over will get you what, like, 15 DPS?

And what about those 1% boss fight wipes? Betcha wish you’d had a couple hundred extra DPS there.

In Conclusion:

You have no reason to not have your pet at least out and summoned. It’s free DPS. And besides which, look at your favorite pet’s face. Go on, do it.

Who could say no to a face like that? >.>

Pet control is vital, in my opinion, to all hunter specs. It’s part of what makes you a hunter. It’s part of what makes our class difficult to play, regardless of what other classes may occasionally think or rib us about. Because when the raid leader says that “ranged has to do this and melee has to do that”, we have to listen to both those things because part of us– our pet– is in fact melee.

We are the ones who have to make sure our pet is not DPS’ing the same lasher as we are on Freya.

We are the ones who have to make sure our pet is DPSing the big add on Onyxia while we focus on whelps or Onyxia herself.

No other class has to worry about this kind of thing, except maybe demonology warlocks (and Unholy Death Knights..?). It’s a big responsibility.

And spec’ing MM or SV doesn’t automatically clear you from that pet responsibility. That arrived when you chose to roll a hunter. If you want to be the best hunter you can be, that includes your pet. You’re both in this together.

To mangle a quote by a toy cowboy, “Pets. If you don’t have one, get one!”

classic wow, pets, screenshots, Uncategorized

Solo Artist

July 30, 2009 Pike 29 Comments

Being part of a band isn’t for every musician, what with splitting the creative control, collaborating ideas or sharing the spotlight. Some artists prefer to go it alone after starting off in a band, and while it’s not overly common, some who cut ties with their popular band to pursue solo endeavours actually end up becoming much bigger than their original claim to fame. Improve your musical hearing experience with one of the Best true wireless earbuds.

Here are seven musicians who are examples of successfully becoming more relevant and recognisable than the bands they were in originally:

1. Peter Gabriel

Genesis was a big, influential and well-off band in the 70s – but all was not well within the band itself. Peter Gabriel was experiencing some personal drama, which made working with the rest of the band extremely hard and unproductive, especially considering there were some questions as to what direction Genesis should take with their music. While fans wanted the group to work out their differences and keep Genesis together, Peter Gabriel decided differently. He left the band, which left it in disarray, and started building his solo career where he always had the final say creatively. It was an incredibly successful move, with Gabriel reaching the heights of popularity Genesis originally had, and going further, selling millions of records, experimenting with sound and outliving the band creatively for many years.

2. Eric Clapton

Being inducted in the Rock n’ Roll Hall Of Fame is a great honour and means that you’ve reached a certain level of fame and cultural importance, so being inducted three times is a pretty good sign you’ve done well with your career. Eric Clapton first had success in the mid-’60s with the legendary Yardbirds recording a hit song ‘For Your Love’. The track prompted the band to move towards a lighter pop-oriented sound, which didn’t sit well with Clapton – he left the band right after the song was released. His next project Cream was something more suitable to Clapton’s interests – the power-trio innovated the blues-rock genre with lengthy arrangements, emphasis on technically difficult instrumental parts, and jazz elements that made the band an instant hit. The project was short-lived though, disbanding just after two years and three studio albums.

Clapton, being hailed as a guitar God at this point, began working on his solo material producing the cult classic ‘Layla’ as one of the first singles. Eric Clapton has since become one of the most successful musicians in the world selling over a hundred million records.

3. Sting

Sting’s original band the Police had been getting progressively better and more popular throughout the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, reaching an absolute peak with its 1983 album ‘Synchronicity’ becoming the biggest band in the world in terms of commercial success and demand. Leaving the band at that stage was seen as an insane move, but Sting was really dissatisfied with the collaborative process, wanting to explore different genres of music – so he left to pursue a solo career. No one expected him to have quite the phenomenal success he did with his solo albums. Hundreds of millions of sold albums later, Sting is a great example of an ultra-successful career, while his ex-bandmates Stuart Copeland and Andy Summers, despite doing well for themselves, never reached even a fraction of the success.

4. Phil Collins

Another ex-Genesis member, Phil Collins was originally just the drummer for the band, but after Peter Gabriel decided to leave the project in 1975, Collins also became the singer. Having a voice eerily similar to that of Gabriel’s, Collins was quickly accepted by the fans and things were great for a time, but soon Collins’ solo career was hard to ignore. Producing hits right from the start, Collins soon realised his solo career might be a better focus for him. He eventually split from the band in 1996 after successfully doing both Genesis and his solo recordings for 15 years at that point. While Genesis had great hits like ‘I Can’t Dance’ and ‘Jesus He Knows Me’ and sold millions of records, Collins was still more successful as a solo artist.

5. Ozzy Osbourne

This one may be a bit controversial, with it being debatable whether Ozzy eclipsed Black Sabbath in terms of importance and influence, but there is no doubt who is more commercially successful of the two. Ozzy has had millions of sold records, Ozzfests, a reality-show, so much more recognition it’s ridiculous, and that’s not counting the fact that without him Black Sabbath’s albums were hit and miss, while the records that The Prince Of Darkness made constantly sold well. And as a surprise to anyone who is aware of Ozzy’s involvement in the world of heavy drugs, he actually creatively outlived his original bandmates, with his last album ‘Ordinary Man’ released last month.

Here are seven musicians who are examples of successfully becoming more relevant and recognisable than the bands they were in originally:

1. Peter Gabriel

2. Eric Clapton

3. Sting

4. Phil Collins

5. Ozzy Osbourne

pets, screenshots, stories, Uncategorized

Farewell (I'M NOT LEAVING, IT'S AN RP STORY POST I SWEAR)

July 29, 2009 Pike 19 Comments

There they were, high in the hills of Crystalsong Forest. Tawyn and Perezvon. They’d flown there atop the broad, red wings of Spirakistrasz, Perezvon the wolf enjoying the ride as he always did, ears flapping.

Tawyn had grown attached to him since nursing him back to health some time ago, but she had since discovered that they were not the best fit for each other. He was loyal, and he fought as hard as he could, and his howl was inspiring to her. But he lacked the pure unbridled storm that Wash seemed to possess, and the cunning of Eltanin and Tux, and the stealthy movements of Locke. Perezvon was a good friend, a companion– but Tawyn needed a fighter.

They stood there and Perezvon wagged his tail a bit, as if to ask what they were doing out here. That tail, Tawyn thought. She was convinced by now that he was only half-wolf, and half-domestic dog. She was also convinced that he’d had an owner at some point, before her, which is why he had warmed up to her so fast– and it was time to return him to his home.

“Perezvon,” she said, in a gentle voice that none but her pets ever heard, “It’s time for you to go.”

The wolf looked up at her and blinked once or twice. He of course could not understand Common, but Tawyn’s training as a Beast Master had given her enough of a bond with her pets that she was able to get the gist across with little more than the tone of her voice. She looked down at him. “You were hurt, and you needed someone to fix you up. I think you are going to be okay now.” She looked back up at the horizon. “And I don’t know where your home is. But I know you know how to get there.”

Silence. The wind blew a bit, rustling some nearby leaves.

And then he was on her, licking her face, and Tawyn sprouted a lopsided grin and cackled, “Git outta here, boy… go home.”

And he did, running through the snow.

The last thing Tawyn heard was a furious howl.

beast mastery, enchants, guides, pets, stats, Uncategorized

Tuesday Chat: Agility, Attack Power and Pets

May 19, 2009 Pike 23 Comments

It’s Tuesday morning, the servers are down and some of you even have extended maintenance. Whether you’re at work or at home, there’s a good chance you’re bored. Never fear, Pike is here! To answer a few huntery questions I’ve been getting relatively frequently in comments/e-mails/Google searches/postcards. Except without the postcards. All I get in the mail are bills. /sob

~~But don’t take it from me. See for yourself what tragedy lies ahead when the paths of star-crossed lovers meet.~~ And now: On with the show!

How much Attack Power does Agility give you as a hunter?: This is a flat 1:1 ratio. One Agility is one attack power. If you heard differently somewhere, you heard one of two things: either that Agility actually is worth more as Survival (which it is) so in a roundabout way, you do get more AP for it– or somebody who used to play a hunter a long time ago and then probably rerolled shaman/paladin in BC informed you that Agility gives you two attack power. Important: This stopped being the case with Burning Crusade. It’s 1 Agi = 1 AP now. A surprising number of people out there still aren’t aware of this. Don’t worry if you were led astray! Totally not your fault. *nods*

As a Beast Master hunter, should I be focusing on Agi gems or AP gems? Your “Stats for a Hunter” guide says Agi, is that still true?: That particular guide was written during the era of Burning Crusade and as such, while the basics of it are still correct, not all of it entirely is anymore. This is one of those points that has changed. At this time last year Agility was sort of the stat du jour for gems and enchants; AP and crit were still both very good, but “real hunters picked Agi”, so to speak.

These days, with your pet doing a bigger percentage of your damage (probably about 45-50% of your total DPS on a Patchwerk-style fight, as opposed to 30-35% of your total DPS in Burning Crusade) and Kill Command no longer having anything to do with your crits (and Cobra Strikes in general not proc’ing enough to justify stacking tons of crit), Attack Power is worth a lot more to you as a Beast Master than it was before, because it does, in fact, affect your pet’s Attack Power. Combine that with the fact that, for example, there have been no upgrades to Agility-based two-handed weapon enchants but some yummy AP ones, and you can see why AP is coming out the winner for Beast Masters these days.

Now remember, none of this means that agility or crit is bad. We still love them both. Just that AP gems are going to get you a bigger bang for your buck. Oh, and if you are dual-spec’d BM/Survival, I’ll say figure out which one you play more and gem for that. (Agi for Survival, and AP for BM).

So which pet really is the top DPS pet for Beast Masters?: There is some confusion here and I think it comes from the fact that there are some discrepancies on the list between “top DPS pets alone” or “top DPS pets when combined with the hunter”. Here’s the deal:

Devilsaurs are the current top DPS pet for Beast Master hunters.

Fortunately, for those of us who don’t like the large size/wonky hitbox/etc. of the devilsaur, we have some options.

Wolves do not do particularly high amounts of DPS alone, but in conjunction with Furious Howl applying to the hunter they are the second best DPS pet– yes, even for Beast Masters— last I checked the theorycrafting sites. Remember, combined with Longevity, that buff is gonna be up some 66% of the time for us. That’s pretty good.

However, they are only a smidge ahead of Raptors, the third best choice. Raptors on their own do rather more DPS than wolves do, but they lack the buff so the combined hunter-pet DPS theorycrafts out to be a little lower. They are still a top-notch pet especially for Beast Masters: Savage Rend crits a lot which self-buffs the Raptor and I have personally found it makes a big difference. I have both a wolf and a raptor at level 80 and I usually bring the raptor to raids. I find, in my situation, that I tend to perform slightly better with him (aside from the fact that I am more attached to him >.>). So remember, the theorycrafting numbers aren’t always everything, you have to see what works for you.

“But Pike, I love my Spirit Beast/Cat/etc.”! Good! Please keep using the pet you love. Cats and Spirit Beasts are still quite viable, they just aren’t in the current “top three” on paper. But “on paper” is just that, on paper, and in my humble opinion it’s not as important as raiding with a pet you have had since level 10, or took forever to find, or just love dearly.

Well, hopefully all of that cleared up some confusion. As always, this site would not be complete without the comments, so feel free to leave ’em!

guides, hunter kindergarten, pets

Pet Specs: 3.1 Beast Master Edition

May 4, 2009 Pike 24 Comments

Pet specs have been shaken up a bit with the advent of 3.1, so let’s talk about how you will ideally spec your three types of pets. First up, pet specs for us Beast Masters (I’ll cover you non-extra-talent-points folks in a later post!)

Ferocity:

You will probably want your Ferocity pet’s talent tree to look like this. This scoops up everything you need to ensure your pet is the instrument of your vengeance in your average raid or heroic. Of course, there are adjustments you can make if you are solo’ing or leveling and would rather pick up, say, the stamina or healy-type talents. But honestly, Heart of the Phoenix never once worked for me anyway, so I didn’t really have a problem with ditching it… >.>

Cunning:

Your cunning pet is a very versatile creature who can be used in a variety of situations, and as such I consider his talent tree to be the most flexible in terms of talents that you do/don’t want to take. I have found that this works very well from a solo’ing or questing standpoint. I know Cunning pets are often overlooked these days but honestly, equipped with things like Owl’s Focus, Feeding Frenzy, Wolverine Bite and Roar of Recovery (now with a shorter cooldown), they are not to be underestimated. Try one out and see what you think.

Tenacity:

With Thunderstomp no longer Gorilla-exclusive and some great new tanky–talents, the Tenacity changes were really great. I have found this to be a very good pet-tanking build. You purposefully bypass some of the typical “DPS” talents in favor of making your pet able to take it, if not dish it out. There is some flexibility here if you’re not a big fan of Last Stand and would rather put the Avoidance+Last Stand points somewhere else, although I’ve found it to be quite a lifesaver in multiple tricky situations, myself… I wouldn’t go without it.

Welp, there ya have it. Toss me your questions and comments, and the “non-Beast Master edition” is coming up soon!

HANDY TIP

Everyday I'm Huntering