Hunter pet

The hunter pet is a hunter's constant companion as they travel across Azeroth and other worlds. When fighting solo or in small groups, a hunter's pet may act as a tank, preventing the hunter from taking too much damage in combat. Pets are also a source of damage and debuffs, working together alongside the hunter's own attacks to bring a target down.

Pet families
Each hunter pet belongs to a specific family of beasts, based on its species. Some families are fairly specific, like the crocolisk family; others are looser groupings, like the scalehide family, which contains kodos, thunder lizards, mushan, and ankylodons.

Pet specializations
Each pet has one of three specializations, determined by its pet family. This specialization grants the pet a passive ability and an active ability:
 * Cunning: Pathfinding and Master's Call
 * Ferocity: Predator's Thirst and Primal Rage
 * Tenacity: Endurance Training and Survival of the Fittest (hunter ability)

Prior to Battle for Azeroth, pet specialization could be changed after taming, and it had a more profound effect on a pet's role in combat. Cunning pets, for example, did less damage than Ferocity pets but offered a variety of PvP-oriented abilities. Now, each specialization deals the same amount of damage, and the two spec-specific abilities are the only difference.

Starter pets
As of patch 9.0.1, Call Pet and other pet utilities aren't learned until level 5; as a result, level 1 hunters no longer start with a pet. Only Class Trial characters and allied races receive a starter pet upon creation.

Class Trial hunter characters start with a brown-and-gray classic worg. Its internal name is Generic Hunter Pet.
 * Class Trials

Allied race characters, on the other hand, begin with a pet specific to their race. Although the pets shown for some races on the character creation screen were changed in patch 9.0.1 (for instance, void elves are now shown with a panthara), none of the allied races' starter pets were actually changed.
 * Allied races


 * *Unique appearance that cannot be found in the wild.

Taming
Other pets can be obtained once a hunter gains the Tame Beast ability at level 5. Tame Beast can only be used on beasts (and mechanical beasts) at or below the hunter's level. During the taming process, the hunter cannot perform any other actions without canceling.

The taming process takes 6 seconds; its cast time is not pushed back by damage taken, but it can be interrupted. If the hunter loses aggro to another player, the tame will fail.

Note that not all beasts can be tamed. Only specific species are tameable, and even among those species, some rare individuals and quest mobs may be immune to taming. Other species are tameable only by Beast Mastery hunters, who gain the Exotic Beasts passive at level 65. Critters are never tameable, even beast-sized ones such as deer or giraffes.

See list of pet families for information on what species can be tamed.

Exile's Reach
Hunter characters who start on Exile's Reach get to tame a pet specific to their race, similar to a starter pet. The beast is first seen as an NPC on the Alliance or Horde ship, then it disappears until Hunting the Stalker later in the storyline. In the next quest, The Art of Taming, the hunter is allowed to tame it.


 * *Unique appearance that cannot be found elsewhere.

Taming challenges
Taming challenges allow hunters to tame beasts, but with more of a challenge, often requiring special tactics not required for normal pets. The following beasts offer these challenges:


 * Molten Front and Mount Hyjal
 * Ankha: Spectral Frostsaber Spirit Beast (white)
 * Magria: Spectral Frostsaber Spirit Beast (blue)
 * Skarr: Metallic Cat (black)
 * Ban'thalos: Spectral Owl Spirit Beast (green)
 * Karkin: Metallic Crab (black)
 * Kirix: Green Lava Spider
 * Solix: Orange Lava Spider
 * Skitterflame: Red Lava Spider
 * Anthriss: Yellow Lava Spider
 * Deth'tilac: Purple Lava Spider

A different type of challenge was introduced in Mists of Pandaria, where the following beasts would be hidden and hard to see tracks had to be followed in order to find the invisible beasts. Only Flare would reveal the following:
 * Pandaria


 * Glimmer: Water Strider, follow Flooded Tracks in Jade Forest
 * Savage: White Tiger, follow Bloody Tracks in Jade Forest
 * Patrannache: Crane, follow Barely Visible Tracks in Valley of the Four Winds
 * Bloodtooth: Turtle, follow Muddy Tracks in Krasarang Wilds
 * Stompy: Goat, follow Heavy Tracks in Kun-Lai Summit
 * Bristlespine: Rodent, follow Puzzling Tracks in Kun-Lai Summit
 * Rockhide the Immovable: Basilisk, follow Worn Tracks in Townlong Steppes
 * Hexapos: Fen Strider, follow Mysterious Tracks in Dread Wastes
 * Portent: Quilen, follow Dusty Tracks in Vale of Eternal Blossoms
 * Degu: Red, Valley of the Four Winds
 * Gumi: Blue, Kun-Lai Summit
 * Hutia: Green, Jade Forest

A hidden quest and a dropped item help you tame two challenging beasts in Warlords of Draenor including:
 * Draenor
 * Gara: A purple void wolf that can be found among the graves in the Burial Fields of.
 * Felbound Wolf: A fel-green wolf found in the Tanaan Jungle. You must use a drop from a rare NPC in order to make them tameable. Can be tamed regardless of specialization.

Feeding
Feed Pet allows hunters to heal their pets for 50% of their health while out of combat. It's a convenient way to minimize downtime between fights since it heals instantly and for much more than Mend Pet.

Renaming
By default, pets will begin with a basic name—generally the name of their pet family, such as "Bear" or "Cat". Hunters can replace this with a custom name by right-clicking on the pet's portrait and selecting "Rename" from the menu.

After a pet has been given a custom name, it can only be renamed again with Certificate of Ownership, an item created with Inscription. There's no limit on how many times a pet can be renamed, though a new certificate is needed each time.

Stabling
Up to five pets can be kept active at once, depending on the hunter's level. In order to tame any more pets, existing ones must either be stabled or abandoned.

To stable a pet simply talk to a stable master, select the "" option, and drag the pet's icon from an active slot on the left to a stable slot on the right. Up to 50 pets can be stabled at once, allowing hunters to "store" pets for later use or for collection purposes.

Abandoning
To get rid of a pet, right-click its portrait and select "Abandon Pet." Keep in mind that this is permanent, so be careful not to abandon the wrong pet.

Fighting alongside your pet
Generally, a Hunter will send the pet in from a distance and allow it to get aggro on a mob before opening fire. Try to keep the mob on the pet so you can use the full power of your ranged weapon to take it down.

A nice trick is to use your pet to pull mobs that are out of range towards you. Use Attack to send your pet in and as soon as it attracts the attention of the mob, use Follow to call the pet back. The pet will start running towards you and the mob will follow. Once the mob is within range, use Attack again. The pet will turn around and attack the mob, and you can use your ranged weapon on it. This pull works over quite a long distance and even around corners, as long as you can get a mob targeted. It also ensures that any additional mobs will have aggro on the pet, rather than you. It does not work as well with mobs who have a ranged attack. Also, be careful that the pet does not pull any extra mobs on the way to the mob and back again.

It is possible to have the pet fight one mob while the Hunter attacks another. Note: the Hunter will not gain loot or experience from a mob that the pet kills solo. This is a deliberate decision by Blizzard, not a bug. If you intend on pulling multiple mobs and having your pet kill one or more of them while you focus on others, it would be best to try to get at least one shot or hit on each of the mobs and then allow your pet to do its work on them.

Raiding alongside your pet
With all pets being equal in terms of damage-dealing, it falls upon the special abilities of the pets, the encounter, and what other classes are present which determines which pet a hunter would use. Often it would be wise to talk amongst the other hunters in the raid to determine which pet each one could use since their buffs/debuffs will not stack with each others or other player's abilities. It is common for a raid consisting of several hunters to no longer have duplicate pets.

Although each pet family comes with a default talent specialization, you can change your pet's spec at any time so long as you are not in combat. Cunning, Ferocity, and Tenacity. Ferocity pets are good for continuous damage, tenacity pets make good tanks for soloing, and cunning pets have unique abilities which can be very useful in certain situations, such as PvP, as well as being almost as viable as Ferocity in PvE.

Pet skills
Pet skills come in two types: passive enhancement skills, and active skills.

Passive skills change the pet's stats and do not require resources.

Most active skills require Focus, a constantly-recharging point pool that works much like a Rogue's Energy bar. Some active skills are free. Every pet has 100 Focus, and Focus regenerates at a base rate of 5 points per second.

Active skills can be activated in several ways: An active skill does not have to be in the pet action bar to be used, even on autocast. It is perfectly okay to leave Growl in the spellbook and have it on autocast. If using a /cast macro, the skill can be addressed as if it were a Hunter skill, so if the pet has the skill "Taunt", /cast Taunt will taunt the current target.
 * Automatically, through setting them on autocast by right-clicking the skill icon in either the spellbook or pet action bar.
 * By clicking the skill icon in either the spellbook or the pet action bar.
 * By macros like /cast.

From patch 1.7 onward, Blizzard started introducing special active pet skills. Each skill can only be used by a specific type of pet and the benefit is quite useful, usually in PvE. This increases the diversity among Hunter's pets and often promotes Hunters possessing several pets at the same time. It is expected that, with time, Blizzard will continue to add special skills to other beasts' types as well.

With patch 3.0.2, the following aspects of hunter pet training became obsolete: pet trainers, learning skills from wild beasts, and loyalty.

Newly tamed beasts will automatically have their level increased to the hunter's level.

Choosing a pet
There are several factors beyond combat ability to consider when choosing a pet:

Appearance
Many hunters choose their pets based on visual aesthetic: cool-looking, menacing, cute, etc. Collecting pets with unusual appearances is a common hobby among hunter players. Some hunters even like to match their hunter pet with their companion pet and mount. For example, Takk the Leaper and Leaping Hatchling make a good matching pair.

Petopia is an excellent visual guide of pet appearances.

Prestige
Certain pets are considered especially interesting or cool among players. Some choices of prestigious pets include:
 * Pets with unique skins, like Mazzranache.
 * Hard-to-obtain pets, like a level 19 Horde character with a ravager or a level 19 Alliance character with a dragonhawk.
 * Anything that can no longer be tamed. This one's quite difficult to achieve; you have to either luck out or have an eye for creatures that likely weren't intended to be tamed or may be removed in the future. Grimtotem Spirit Guide and Spirit of Ha-Khalan are examples of this.

Size
A pet's size is directly related to its level. Many beasts will dramatically shrink the moment they are tamed, then regain size as they level. However, certain species are still larger than others; for example, rhinos are large enough to be a sight obstruction in certain areas, which can be to the player's advantage (PvP) or disadvantage (dungeons and raids). Flying pets can have a similar effect with their constantly-moving wings. This can work both for you and against you, but you will probably find it at least a little annoying. Both of these issues can be at least somewhat fixed with Glyph of Lesser Proportion.

Short pets, like crabs and scorpids, can fit into places taller pets cannot go. This is not a highly significant feature, but it may occasionally come up.

Hunter pets that keep their name after taming
In patch 8.1.5, some mobs keep their name after being tamed, the following is a list of them (work in progress):