Mists of Pandaria Classic Beast Mastery Hunter Pets System

Pets are separated into different families based on their types, such as cats, boars, or spiders. Unlike in previous expansions, regardless of pet family, you can choose to make any pet any specialization, focusing on damage, durability, or utility. The specific names for these specializations of pets are Ferocity, Tenacity, and Cunning. Also unlike previous expansions, pets no longer have specific talent tress; every pet of the same classification (i.e. Ferocity) will have the same basic abilities along with a couple of specific buffs or abilities based on the actual animal family.

When deciding on a pet, there is only one major thing to consider for PvE content: what buff does your pet bring? Mists of Pandaria have a high number of raid buffs available, and Hunters are the only class with the unique ability to fill missing buffs through pets. There are generally a few most likely buffs to bring that will either provide you personally the best benefit or are the hardest buffs to fill in raid groups. For optimization however, you will need to determine what buff is missing from your raid group and plan accordingly. This usually means having several pets available in your stable to choose from.

Regardless of what pet you choose, you should always specialize the pet to be Ferocity. Ferocity offers the most damage and the best cooldowns out of any pet specialization.

For leveling, basically any pet will do just fine. For solo-levelers, you will want to make your pet Tenacity for the tanking ability, but for group play you will want to make it Ferocity for the damage. As a general recommendation for personal use, a Wolf is always and excellent choice for the Furious Howl buff, which is 5% crit chance.

It is also worth noting that you do not need to worry about what level of pet you choose to tame. Pets will now always be at minimum 5 levels below you. If you tame a Level 10 wolf at Level 90, it will immediately jump to 85. Even then it will quickly catch up to your level as you kill enemies.

The trademark of pets in Mists of Pandaria is that a large number of them bring either a raid buff or a debuff that is going to benefit your entire raid. However, none of the buffs and debuffs brought are strictly unique to the pets themselves. In a normal 25 man raid, you should expect all of the buffs and debuffs to be covered by the raid members, which means your pet buff is going to be relatively useless. However, Hunters are the only class that effectively get to pick and choose a missing raid buff to bring by selecting what pet they use. For most Hunters, this is the best way to choose the pet you want to use in raids or dungeons. Below is a list of the best pets to have in your stable to choose from, along with the buffs they bring.

• Wolves/Hyrdas - 5% crit chance;
• Hyena/Serpent - 10% haste;
• Water Strider - 10% spell power;
• Cat - Mastery;
• Dragonhawk/Wind Serpent - +5% spell damage taken by the target;
• Boar/Ravager - +4% physical damage taken by the target;
• Raptor/Tallstrider - 12% reduced armor on the target;

Unlike in TBC and original Classic, you no longer have to micro-manage your pet's training. Regardless of what type of pet you tame, it will start with the correct abilities, and it will automatically learn all of its ability upgrades as it levels with you. No need to tame new pets just to learn new abilities.

Unlike in Cataclysm, pets no longer have talent trees. Just make your pet Ferocity and they will have the same set of buffs and bonuses.

For more information on specific pets or abilities and where to find them, you should check out Petopia.