Pet Specialization
This is the bulk of this post; I highly encourage you to read this section at the very least, if you don’t intend to read my entire post. I’ll briefly describe the premises, so that we all are on the same page when discussing Hunter pets and their specs.
Ever since WoW first launched in 2004, Hunter pets have had come in three different specs — Ferocity (“Offense” in Vanilla/Classic), Cunning (“General” in Vanilla/Classic), and Tenacity (“Defense” in Vanilla/Classic). The pets are classified according to their family — for example, there is the Bear family to which all the bears belong to; all the big cats like tigers and lions belong to the Cat family, and owls, hawks, eagles, and falcons belong to the Birds of Prey family (“Owls” in Vanilla/Classic), and so on. Lastly, each pet family comes with their own unique pet family ability such as Shell Shield for turtles or Prowl for cats.
For the majority of WoW’s history, the pet families come pre-assigned with a specific spec; for example, the Cat family is Ferocity — this means any lion, leopard, tiger, jaguar, or panther a hunter tames will automatically come in the Ferocity spec. The only exception to this rule was during Mists of Pandaria (MoP), Warlords of Draenor (WoD), and Legion — during those three expansions, Hunters could choose specs for their pets; Hunters could have their lion specced Tenacity, and their turtle specced Ferocity, for example. Battle for Azeroth (BFA) returned us to the old, pre-MoP model of predetermining our pets’ specs depending on their families.
The change in BFA has been rather unpopular with Hunters; the MoP model which WoD and Legion kept enabled Hunters to choose any pets they wanted to use. BFA successfully equalized pet DPS across all three pet specs, but by restricting pet specs according to pet families, BFA ended up gimping many pet families. This is primarily due to the passives of the pet specs; while the DPS is equal between Ferocity and Tenacity and Cunning pets, the passives are decidedly not.
Cunning pets are widely used in PvP with their 8% increase to movement speed buff and Master’s Call (which removes roots and slows from the target), while Ferocity pets are widely used in PvE due to their 10% leech buff and Primal Rage (Bloodlust/Heroism). Tenacity pets see far less use compared to Cunning and Ferocity pets due to their 5% increased maximum health buff and defensive cooldown (which reduces damage taken by pets and hunters by 20% for 6 seconds). Tenacity pets are considered less desirable compared to Ferocity and Cunning pets in both PvE and PvP — the sole exception is in raids, where BM hunters sometimes would run with Spirit Beasts (Tenacity pets) due to the Spirit Beasts’ family ability Spirit Mend, which is a heal. MM (Marksmanship) and SV (Survival) hunters do not often use Tenacity pets in PvE content, aside from questing.
This results in Hunters by large forsaking their Tenacity pets in group content and some of more difficult soloing challenges. Historically, Tenacity has been the “tank” spec, however the BFA change to the Ferocity spec has made Ferocity pets the superior tanks due to Ferocity’s leech passive. Currently, this is why you more often see Hunters using Ferocity pets when soloing.
In order for the reader to fully appreciate the magnitude of Hunters by-large forsaking Tenacity pets in “higher content,” here is the list of pet families which are assigned Tenacity:
- Bears
- Beetles
- Blood Beasts (crawgs and ticks)
- Carapids — Exotic (snails, gorms, and krolusks)
- Crabs
- Cranes
- Direhorns — Special
- Dragonhawks
- Feathermanes — Special (hippogriffs, gryphons, etc)
- Hydras
- Lizards
- Mammoths
- Oxen
- Riverbeasts
- Spirit Beasts — Exotic
- Stags
- Stone Hounds — Exotic (including “Special” pets gargons)
- Toads
- Turtles
- Worms — Exotic
We often see leveling and questing Hunters use those pets, such as bears and turtles, but we do not see those pets in PvP, nor higher PvE content. Those pets are rarely used by Hunters, which is a shame, since there is twenty (20) pet families on this list.
Now, onto Cunning pets: they are considered the weakest at tanking solo content — which means Hunters don’t often use Cunning pets in PvE content, aside from leveling and questing. Please look at the list of pet families which are assigned Cunning:
- Aqiri — Exotic (silithid)
- Basilisks
- Birds of Prey (owls, hawks, eagles, etc)
- Boars
- Camels
- Foxes
- Gruffhorns (rams and goats)
- Hounds (dogs and hellhounds)
- Hyenas
- Mechanicals — Special
- Monkeys
- Moths
- Pterrordaxes — Exotic
- Raptors
- Rodents (porcupines, marsuuls, etc)
- Serpents (not winged serpents; does include the “Special” pets cloud serpents)
- Shale Beasts — Exotic
- Sporebats
- Warp Stalkers
- Water Striders — Exotic
Despite the impressive-looking list — twenty (20) Cunning pet families — in reality Hunters usually use only three (3!) pet families for PvP: Hyenas, raptors, and rodents. This is because those three pet families have Mortal Wounds as their pet family ability. The other pets have Dispel, Defense (both manual and triggered), Slow, and Dodge for their abilities. Those abilities are generally considered inferior to Mortal Wounds when it comes to PvP.
It is a rather unfortunate situation, since the actual number of pet families with Mortal Wounds is twelve — but only three (hyenas, raptors, and rodents) are Cunning. If Hunters want to go with any of the nine other pet families (carrion birds, devilsaurs, ravagers, scorpids, wasps, direhorns, hydras, lizards, and riverbeasts), they lose out on the Cunning spec unique ability Master’s Call.
This leaves us with the last pet spec, Ferocity. As has been mentioned before, Ferocity is considered the go-to spec for PvE, much like how Cunning is the go-to spec for PvP. Ferocity pets are considered the strongest tanks due to their 10% leech buff (this buff applies to both the pet and the Hunter), and considered valuable due to their Primal Rage (Bloodlust/Heroism).
Even MM Hunters have a Ferocity pet on call for use in instances and raids (more often in instances) if there is no other player who is capable of popping Bloodlust; it’s that important. However, when presented the list of Ferocity pet families, something interesting might would jump out — whereas there are twenty families for Tenacity and Cunning each, Ferocity only has nineteen (19) families… and four of those families are Exotic, which leaves only fifteen (15) families for MM and SV Hunters. They are:
- Bats
- Carrion birds (vultures and ravens)
- Cats
- Chimaeras — Exotic
- Clefthooves — Exotic (includes rhinos)
- Core Hounds — Exotic
- Coursers (horses, unicorns, and zebras)
- Crocolisks
- Devilsaurs — Exotic
- Gorillas
- Ravagers
- Rays
- Scalehides (kodos, thunder lizards, ankylodons, etc)
- Scorpids
- Spiders
- Tallstriders
- Wasps
- Wind Serpents (winged serpents)
- Wolves
There is a total of 59 pet families in the game. However, we usually only see one Tenacity pet family used commonly: Spirit Beasts, for raiding BM Hunters. We rarely see any other kind of Tenacity pet outside questing and leveling. In PvP, we almost always see pets from only three Cunning families — hyenas, raptors, and rodents. When it comes to PvE group content, we see a little more variety with the 15 Ferocity pet families for MM and SV Hunters, and 19 Ferocity pet families for BM hunters.
Still, that only adds up to 18 commonly-used pet families for MM and SV Hunters, and 23 commonly-used pet families for BM Hunters… out of 59 pet families. This is truly a shame, and an unnecessary situation; had Blizzard opted to allow Hunters to retain the ability to choose their pets’ specs like we had in MoP, WoD, and Legion, we would see a much wider variety of Hunter pets. For example, when we look at the pet families that have the Mortal Wounds ability, the number is twelve families. If Hunters can choose any pet spec, then the Hunters can tame beasts from any of those twelve families and spec them Cunning for PvP. Likewise, if Hunters can spec any pet as Ferocity, then you will see Hunters running around with uncommon pets like blood beasts, hydras, stags, aqiri (silithid), monkeys, and so on.
Before tying up this section on pet specs, there is one final consideration which we must consider — the inconsistency between Classic and Retail when it comes to the predetermined specs for pet families. In Classic, Hunters have access to 17 pet families — and six more pet families were added in BC Classic. This means there is a total of 23 pet families in the Classic client. We will be looking at those 23 pet families as they stand in Classic/BC Classic and Retail.
As unbelievable as it might seem, but when players go back and forth between the Classic client and Retail client, they must contend with the fact that 12 out of the 23 pet families (a full half) changes specs between the two clients! This can lead to some confusion and frustration on the players’ part. A pet family could be “Defense” (Tenacity) in Classic, but Cunning or Ferocity in Retail. A list of the twelve respecced pet families has been provided below — and please remember that “Defense” is Tenacity, “General” is Cunning, and “Offense” is Ferocity:
- Boars are Tenacity in Classic, and Cunning in Retail
- Carrion Birds are Cunning in Classic, and Ferocity in Retail
- Crocolisks are Tenacity in Classic, and Ferocity in Retail
- Dragonhawks are Cunning in BC Classic, and Tenacity in Retail
- Gorillas are Tenacity in Classic, and Ferocity in Retail
- Nether Rays are Tenacity in BC Classic, and Ferocity in Retail (as “Rays”)
- Owls are Ferocity in Classic, and Cunning in Retail (as “Birds of Prey”)
- Raptors are Ferocity in Classic, and Cunning in Retail
- Scorpids are Tenacity in Classic, and Ferocity in Retail
- Tallstriders are Tenacity in Classic, and Ferocity in Retail
- Warp Stalkers are Tenacity in BC Classic, and Cunning in Retail
- Wolves are Cunning in Classic, and Ferocity in Retail
As has been shown, there is one rather large problem stemming from the fact that Hunters are no longer allowed to choose pet specs; they are not free to play with any pet family they wish to — they only have a limited list of pet families to choose from according to the content they wish to play (3 pet families for PvP, and 15 non-exotic pet families and 5 exotic pet families for PvE). This leaves 37 pet families largely unused — which in turn hurts the Hunter players’ ability to truly customize their characters. Blizzard has been making large strides in encouraging customization for player characters, including loosening transmogrification restrictions — so why cannot Hunters choose what pets they want to play with?
Please consider returning to Hunters the ability to choose between the three pet specs for their pet families; allow Hunters to run Cunning-specced turtles or devilsaurs or wasps or cats. Allow Hunters to run Tenacity-specced raptors or mechanicals or scorpids. Allow Hunters to run Ferocity-specced bears or cranes or foxes.
The current equalization of DPS between the three pet specs is very, very good; Hunters don’t suffer a damage penalty for running a Tenacity or Cunning pet. However, the passives needs some working on — specifically, with the Tenacity spec. This aside… by returning pet speccing to Hunters, Blizzard could really open up the pet world to the Hunters. Hunters will be able to freely utilize any of the 59 pet families, rather than restricting themselves to 18 families (MM/SV) or 23 families (BM)!