Marksmanship Hunter PvP Pets (The War Within Pre-Patch)

As a Marksmanship Hunter, you will always want to play with a pet except for very specific matchups where:

• Your team already has a Mortal Strike effect
• You don't need the mobility from Master's Call or Pathfinding
• You aren't worried about dying in a stun (you can use Fortitude of the Bear when stunned if you are using a Tenacity pet but you cannot use it when stunned if you do not have a pet)
• The enemy team does not rely on critical strikes to do burst damage (because if they do, Roar of Sacrifice is required.)
• The existence of your pet will drain your healer's mana

Having Roar of Sacrifice even when stunned for the enemy team's first set of offensive cooldowns and the utility from your pet when you need it is more important than the negligible damage increase from Lone Wolf.

The explanation of pet choices in this guide goes into a lot of detail, but the following pet Families have Mortal Strike (also known as Mortal Wounds) and are your default choices.

• Undead Raptor (default)
• Rodent (if facing a Retribution Paladin).
• Riverbeast (if you are worried about dying in a stun)

You can use other pets when your team already has a Mortal Wounds effect, but doing this does risk your team having slightly lower uptime on the Mortal Strike debuff (e.g., when your partner isn't able to connect or when you switch targets).

Pets do not have talent trees and instead have their own types of specialization (Cunning, Ferocity, or Tenacity).

Each pet specialization gives an active ability and a passive ability.

• Cunning pets provide Pathfinding and Master's Call
• Tenacity pets provide Fortitude of the Bear and Endurance Training
• Ferocity pets provide Primal Rage (which is not usable in arena!) and Predator's Thirst

Usually, your default pet should be of the Cunning specialization. This specialization will keep you the most mobile and help you avoid sustained damage by making it easier to kite.

When you are facing a composition that can only kill you by bursting during stun windows, kiting becomes less important, and Tenacity pets become very powerful. The very common examples of matchups where you would use a tenacity pet are RMP (Rogue Mage Priest) in 3v3 or Subtlety Rogue + Mage or Priest teams in 2v2. Be aware that you cannot use Fortitude of the Bear while your pet is in crowd control (which is particularly relevant when you are facing RMP and the Mage uses Ring of Frost on your pet).

Occasionally, you will still want to use Ferocity pets for the leech despite their active ability not being useable in arena. You would choose this in a matchup where the enemy team does not have many snare or root abilities but has high overall damage that your healer may need help with. The most common example of a comp where you may prefer Ferocity pets is Shadowplay (Affliction Warlock + Shadow Priest + Healer).

• Raptor Family (choose an undead raptor)

Use an Undead Raptor against teams that have a Mage, Shaman, Druid, or Hunter (so your pet is immune to Polymorph, Hex, Hibernate and Scare Beast).

• Rodent Family

Use a Rodent against a team that has a Priest or Paladin (so your pet is immune to Wake of Ashes, Turn Evil and Shackle Undead).

• Mechanical Family

Use a mechanical pet as it is immune to all category-specific crowd control and has the automatic Defense Matrix to boost its survivability (and reduce how often you need to use Mend Pet).

• Riverbeast Family

Use a Riverbeast because it is a Tenacity pet with Mortal Wounds.

• Beetle Family

Use a Beetle pet because it has the automatic defensive Harden Carapace to boost its survivability (and reduce how often you need to use Mend Pet).

• Wasp Family

Use a Wasp because it is a Ferocity pet with Mortal Wounds.

• Scalehide Family

Use a Scalehide pet because it has the automatic defensive Scale Shield to boost its survivability (and reduce how often you need to use Mend Pet).

Pets have their own ability based on their pet family. Some families have the same ability with a different name, but they all have the same effect as the categories below.

• Defence: eg. Bristle
• Dodge: eg. Agile Reflexes
• Magic Defence: eg. Shimmering Scales
• Mortal Wounds: eg. Infected Bite
• Pet Cure / Dispel: eg. Serenity Dust
• Slow: eg. Tendon Rip
• Triggered Defence: eg. Hardy

If your team does not have a Mortal Wounds effect, you should always use a pet that has mortal wounds.

If your team already has a mortal wounds effect, you're free to pick from families with the other abilities. When that is the case, you almost always want to use a pet with the defense family ability, which makes it much harder for the enemy team to kill your pet. You can set the ability to auto-cast, and it will automatically use the defense ability (e.g., Bristle) when it gets to low health.

All NPCs in World of Warcraft have a category (e.g., humanoid, beast, undead, demon, or mechanical). Certain crowd control abilities will only be able to affect certain categories.

For example:

• Polymorph can only be cast on humanoids and beasts
• Scare Beast and Hibernate can only be cast on beasts
• Shackle Undead can only be cast on undeads
• Turn Evil can only be cast on undead and demons

Pets can be of the categories Beast, Undead, Demon, Mechanical, or Dragonkin.

Ideally, if you are facing a team that can only use a crowd control ability on certain categories of pets, you would use a pet with a different category. This is because the other team can potentially crowd-control your pet before a setup, and you will not be able to use important pet abilities and utility (eg. Roar of Sacrifice, Master's Call, Fortitude of the Bear or Intimidation).

For example:

• To avoid Polymorph Hibernate, or Scare Beast, you would use an Undead/Demon/Mechanical pet
• To avoid Wake of Ashes, Turn Evil, or Shackle Undead, you would use a Beast/Mechanical pet

The main moment that this is relevant is against Retribution Paladins. When a Retribution Paladin is bursting; they will use Wake of Ashes, and if you are using an Undead pet, you will not be able to use Roar of Sacrifice on the burst.

The other time it may be relevant is into Mages, who may Polymorph your pet before bursting, so you are unable to use Roar of Sacrifice. Note that if a Mage uses Polymorph on your pet, they are unable to also Polymorph your healer, so it is not vital to avoid running Beast pets into Mages if it means that you lose a more important pet bonus (e.g., not being able to use a Tenacity pet into a setup comp like Rogue Mage Priest, where you need to survive burst while stunned).