SFK worg has a deadly anti-caster speed. Not BT, but 1.2 pretty fast. Hell in BGs
I have a black widow spider because they are cool.
Full stop.
Statistically spiders are identical to cats, they just don’t get claw, prowl, or dash. Both are fragile but do pretty good damage. If you try taking on 2-3 mobs of equal level at the same time with any Offensive pet (see Petopia .com) that pet is going to die. Fast.
Defensive pets are tougher (slightly) but do less damage (slightly).
Whoever said Gorilla for PvP… ??? Brokentooth is best for PvP because his 1.0 speed offers pushback against casters.
That’s it.
He has no advantage against warriors, rogues, etc. JUST casters, and just spell pushback. If you want a slight advantage against casters (I do) you’ll camp for him. Otherwise it’s not a big deal.
A 1.2 or 1.3 speed pet is going to do fine against casters too. I used a boar for a lot of PvP in Vanilla (got rank 10), that charge is handy even tho they are 2.0 speed and lower damage. If you’re really in love with Gorillas for PvP and Thunderstomp is game breaking when you employ it, hey go ham. No reason not to.
The biggest choices you have to make are aesthetic ones, because if you get to 60 and then decide you want to tame a black widow spider from Duskwood and that leveling that spider from 25-60 is no big deal… well, you’d be wrong. I may or may not have direct experience with that question.
tl;dr - Get whatever pet you like and love it. Just get it as close to your level as possible.
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I’m genuinely curious how gorillas are good for PvP. Can anyone who knows enlighten me?
^ This. I like my bear. He may not be the best or most efficient, but he’s still a good pet. pats Daffodil 
Edited to add that I also like my bear because he eats fish, which makes feeding him cheap and easy.
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I get a cat because it actually does enough damage to reliably out TPS your damage.
Fair enough, have you decided what you are getting by chance?
Also there is a lot of people talking about claw vs bite. While Claw in practice is a great focus dump, it can prevent other abilites if on autocast. What this means in practice is that if you’ve got Claw on your Pet and set it to auto attack, they will spam Claw until their Focus is empty (or close enough to it) and then every time they reach 25 Focus they’ll Claw again. What this does in practice is functionally dedicate all available Focus to using Claw as fast as possible, so if you’re wanting to use Focus for something OTHER THAN Claw, you should probably not have trained Claw in the first place. Since Bite takes more focus to cast, it can be used with growl more effectively, this is actually why I chose going bat over owl, as the bat gets screech, and bite. The owl, while great uses claw. Both pets have a food problem though, Owls only eat meat and bats only eat fungus/shrooms.
If you like the flying pets, I’d go carrion bird. They get bite and claw so can pick the one you like, they get screech and dive and a less picky diet with eating both meat and fish. They have slightly less damage than an owl or bat but for leveling this is negligible and in compensation are a bit more robust with health/armor.
Never liked Owls always stuck with Carrion Birds because of their diet.
yea, I know all about them as well. I just cannot get past how ugly they are lol. I dont mind the pickiness of the bat I use, but I know others can be annoyed so I like to let them know what they eat as a forewarning. (learning how many fungus/shroom vendors there are is actually kind of interesting btw)
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I think the red ones in Tanaris look pretty cool. The other color skins are meh. Definitely like these old school models vs those 2 headed monstrosities that came out in BC.
I never cared for any of them aside from the albatross, but those were in wrath if I remember right.
Im currently using at Boar on my 19 level hunter, but after reading this thread, i may go grab a carrion bird. The thing with the boar though, its super good, so far as i can tell, at holding agro, especially with charge.
Owls and Bats have the same skills, Bats just look cooler.
that’s what I did. I have a cat too, but it isn’t nearly as useful while grinding.
I’ve been using a Carron Bird. Has all the abilities that you need. Bite, Claw, Screech and Dive. Plus, more tanky then and Owl and better dps then a boar.
Boar to level 30. It is tanky and has charge
After 30, cat. It gains dash and does more damage
The WC black raptor (same skin as takk the leaper. Used to be one of the strongest pets aside lupus because of his insane base movement speed and burst phys damage with bite+claw).
Even though those raptors didn’t get stealth until TBC, they looked awsome in black and with the highest rank bite/claw they did the most damage of any pet.
They just lacked the utility of swoop or screech that other popular pets had.
The Rake is a level 10 rare cat (1.2 atk speed. Level BM and he’s a tank that does good damage)in Mulgore. Get him and keep him until you get Brokentooth (1.0 ark speed)around 38 i think. That’s all you need for pvp.
Alternatives for leveling: Durotar tiger 1.3 atk speed.
The Slavering Worg in SFK is a wolf with 1.2 atk speed. He’s awesome for dungeons.
Level BM and it’s really just preference. /shrug
If you have both claw and bite on auto, you will almost never see your bite getting used since claw cost 10 less focus and has no CD. So once your pet reaches 25 focus, it will always cast claw until the focus is 0 again. Most of the time it is better to not even learn bite on pet who knows claw, and spend the TP on resistances.
In retail my 120 hunter uses his original Turtle (south Tanaris) pet. But retail had good pet AE, which was nerfed later. My other 2 hunters use the red triceratops pet, purely for looks.
In Classic my 17 hunter got a red raptor outside Orgrimmar, for looks. (plus I can’t use a pet that flaps or wiggles too much). It’s been working well so far, once I found out about pet abilities and buffed it. But it doesn’t have Dive/Charge/Dash. I tamed a Boar and learned Charge, but I couldn’t teach it to the raptor.
I’ll try a boar pet, just because of the charge.