Marksmanship Hunter Pets Guide — Dragonflight 10.0.5

In raids, due to our Lone Wolf talent in Dragonflight, you will rarely use a pet as Marksmanship, as the DPS loss is too great.

One valid reason to summon a pet is if you are down a healer and worried about dying to slow ticking damage. In this case, having any Ferocity pet active will grant you 10% Leech, which heals you for 10% of all damage dealt. This is valuable self-sustain for difficult moments in fights, and surviving is better than dying, even if you lose a bit of DPS.

Another would be that you, for some reason, are the only player able to provide a Bloodlust effect to the group. As unlikely as this is in a raid environment, it is another practical reason to have a Ferocity pet (any type will do) at the ready.

While any good-looking Ferocity pet will do well in most situations, Healing Reduction pets like Carrion Birds, Ravagers, Scorpids, and Wasps can be situationally useful. These will reduce enemy healing, and this effect works on bosses that heal themselves and can be invaluable in niche scenarios where no one else is providing this effect.

For Mythic+, the first consideration you need to make is whether you need to be the Bloodlust for the group. If you do, you are locked into using a Ferocity pet to activate it every 10 minutes. You do not need to have it active otherwise.

The best way to use Bloodlust as a Marksmanship Hunter is to pre-cast Dismiss Pet. Then, when only ~0.5s are left on the cast, you activate the Primal Rage. You can do this while casting Dismiss Pet, since it is a pet-activated ability.

If you do not need to Bloodlust for your group, then you should rarely use a pet, as the DPS loss, especially in AoE, is massive.

Still, it can be worth having a Damage Reduction Tenacity pet prepared. These can be used to taunt mobs for heavy tankbuster mechanics to spare your tank a lot of damage. With their 50% damage reduction on a 1-minute cooldown and 5% extra max health, these pets can take heavy hits regularly.

For open-world content and soloing in Dragonflight, Ferocity pets are preferred, as their Leech will allow them to heal themselves for a bit of their damage. The best Ferocity pet for tanking things is a Scalehide, as they have 50% reduced damage taken on a 1-minute cooldown.