Why won’t they taunt World bosses, or group boss type mobs?
Real tanks complained that pets steal threat away from them, so Blizzard made pet taunts turned off in instance content and not override player taunts.
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In the open world, they still do. So do warlock pets, it’s funny watching them battle for aggro. As a tank, I just let it happen till one of them dies, then my taunt will hold aggro.
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…you taunt after the pet dies?? I don’t and just let it happen as it’s supposed to. 
I know that, but they can be turned back on, however the pets dont use them and if you manually use them it does nothing. Even solo it doesn’t work on the mobs.
Yes it does. If your pet’s Growl isn’t pulling agro then something is wrong. My hunter pets only have problems with agro when I’m under geared and they aren’t doing enough damage to hold it.
What level is your hunter and where specifically are you having problems?
The only reason it bothers me in open world stuff is because if the boss isn’t hitting me and there isn’t stuff for me to stand in I can’t throw as many kegs in the air. Otherwise I’m fine letting a pet tank a thing.
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Are your pets taunt failing all the time in open world or only against certain mobs?
There are a select few powerful mobs that are taunt immune.
Off the top of my head, there’s one in the Ritual Site in Eversong, the big bulky Naga that targets the Hunter regardless of taunt or misdirection.
So you don’t do that, because hunters are notorious for failing to turn growl off. MD your pet if you don’t want threat not a big issue.
Most hunters don’t actually manage their pet and just treat it like a passive dot, so if it’s tanking something in a puddle of bad, or resetting a boss, it’s a bad time for everyone.
It’s 2026 and twice in a week hunters didn’t dismiss and caused near wipes when half the dungeon came for us.
I just don’t even…
Lol
To be fair, my hunter’s pets can tank most open world bosses, except maybe the big weekly ones (and sometimes them, later in an expansion).
Are all pet taunts the same?
Do any pets have a stronger taunt?
I can’t imagine that’s the case but wanted to ask.
Go to the World Boss outside of silvermoon, send your pet in. Watch as Taunt never goes off, use it manually and watch as the boss ignores it. Its very testable.
Pet taunts are all the same. They don’t actually add a certain amount of threat, what a Taunt does is put the pet at the top of the threat table regardless of the actual threat they have generated.
And yes the behavior is limited to certain mobs it appears. The World Bosses (even when solo), that big Dino in the tree zone, and a hand full of others.
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Ok I tried this, Growl didn’t auto apply like you said. I could not test if it ignored it when I manually activated it though because even without it my pet held agro. I assume because it is a mob that is tagged for groups, auto Growl is turned off even though it still indicates it being on in the pet bar.
Yes, and that is probably the bigger problem. Pets generate agro through damage. Your pet isn’t doing enough damage to grab and hold the agro even when it’s put at the top of the list. Like I said, I couldn’t pull agro from my pet even without Growl because my pet is doing enough damage.
For soloing anything tough you need to use Misdirection and front load as much pet damage as you can at the start.
Use Misdirect, Barbed Shot with stomp and Thundering Hooves talented and even Wild Thrash so your pet gets as much as possible damage in early. And spec your pet Ferocity for the lust so you can get as much damage in yourself in the Misdirect window.
And on top of all that, gear up. Your stats make your pet stronger. Like I said before, the only time I have agro issues is early in an expac when my gear is crap. Or once in a while if a boss mob has an agro reset ability before my pet Growls. Heck sometimes I turn off Growl for things and forget to turn it back on and even then I don’t seem to have the problems you are having as a BM.
ugh…broke out beastmaster recently…used to be my favorite spec in the game…I cant stand to even play it now.
Great job, Ion…youve destroyed yet another fun class..
I was thinking about this the other day,
Why not put a cap on what percentage of agro a pet can get to, and then allow players to go above that cap, so the taunts fall off if below that of the actual tank?
I’m sure there is other code in that idea I’m not considerig.
Naaa, I’ve played BM all my wow career. When you need the taunt, you do want it to work. And it’s really easy to turn off growl after I Rez my pet on a world boss.
Also, saved many wipes by taunting a boss after a tank died. My pet lives just long enough for someone to Rez the tank.
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