Any pet can be used to level honestly. There are ones with abilities that do help some. Owls/Bats/Carrion Birds all get screech and gorillas have thunder stomp which can help keep aggro on groups of mobs. Boars have charge which is great. Cats have prowl and dash and fast attack’s can lead to more frenzy procs. But any can work. I would suggest one with a speed boost (dash or dive or charge) to get to mobs faster and pick one with a diet that is easy to feed. I prefer ones that eat fish as I can save money and refill my supply in the wild with fishing skill. As for PvP, people like cats for the fast attack speed to interrupt casters and prowl for stealth. Boars are good too. For raiding, wolves and wind serpents are generally best as wolf has the group buff from howl and serpents can do ranged damage in times they can’t be in melee range of a boss, etc.
just want to post this discussion was had on reddit about owl vs cat and such
was titled “PSA for Hunters, Pet Decision AKA: Get a freaking owl”
(changed the F word cuz language)
all of this is just a debate and is moving further away from OPs question, as now its more “I like cat better vs I like screech better”
I like owls, since they can hold aggro on multiple mobs while using multi-shot.
In dungeons, you can turn off Screech and use Claw, which is the highest dps ability and owls get a decent 7% dps increase naturally.
Not as sturdy as a boar, but it’s rare that you need it to be since you should be killing things pretty quickly anyways.
Boars because they have charge and they eat everything you give them
Gorillas are good for tanking multiple mobs… if you ever pull threat from an add then hit thunderstomp and gorilla will get aggro… keep the ability off auto and keybind it… and they look cooler than cats…
They also tack another poison on the target if you’re trying to viper sting in pvp.
I’ve been using Humar the Pridelord to great effect. Just gotta keep Bite and Dash leveled up. I don’t level with Claw as it’s a focus dump and Bite has a 10 second cooldown.
You’re a night elf so here’s what I did.
Boar till level 28. Boar charge for grinding and the horrible classic AI is amazing.
Mountain lion with 1.2 attack speed at 28.
Train prowl and dash at 30 and 32.
Teach 1.2 attack speed mountain lion growl, bite, dash and prowl.
Macro shadowmeld to prowl so you can eat Doritos whole grinding.
You are welcome.
Depends on what you want to do…
If its merely leveling on a PvE server then I would say any cats type pet “I got a Ghost Saber” or a Owl with screech or even a boars but personally I never truly liked boars since they cannot learn “claw” which is superior to bite.
Otherwise if you are leveling on a PvP server and want to do PVP in general then broken tooth or any 1.0 atk speed pet or if you cannot get any then 1.2 atk speed is fine too. (use the site called “petopia” for classic its really helpful.)
GET A BAT!!!
Run your NE butt up to the undead starting zone and tame a lvl 3 BAT.
You’ll be like the only one with a BAT, and that will show people you cool.
You need that BAT.
Should take you like 3 hours and 25 deaths but you’ll get it.
Bats eat fruit and mushrooms. Night Elves often sell fruit. Duskwood has a mushroom vendor.
Love your BAT
This is what I did, but quickly realize than owls are superior than bat since they have claws and then later on decided to just get a cat to have both bite and claw and a superior damage output.
Otherwise if you do not care about your pet DPS and how useful it truly is then yeah bat are really cool.
Owl AOE threat is the best pet for that. They also get dive.
Well I did mention that I’m deciding between cats and owls so I don’t really mind the discussion.
Utility is important in the moment. Cool factor is important for longevity. Be immersed through enjoyment then worry about the numbers.
The Rake is nice if you have someone who can escort you to Mulgore. I had a friend help me get it when I was level 10.
Still using The Rake at level 41. Broken Tooth is a little better but The Rake has a short spawn timer. I believe it’s about 30 minutes.
Just get something with screech, it’s basically demo shout on spam and makes them better than anything else for leveling.
Oh please do. 
. They can’t even dash.
Not sure bud, I don’t think that in this version of Classic any pets have different speed, except for Broken Tooth.
Bite is actually the better overall DPS ability, too. Claw is specifically only good for, as you said, a full-bar focus dump, and even then that’s really only useful in certain situations in PvP. Claw is quite a trash ability in any PvE content.
At 10 I tamed a cat and an owl. When I had enough gold to buy a third stable slot, I got a gorilla.
Retail Vel still has her original pets and 47 others as well.