I just boosted my hunter last night. I need help understand how to use my pet or pets in Dungeons, Raids, and Myths. Do I use them? Which ones should be used? Should growl be off or on?. Anything thing you can think of that would help me be a better hunter.
Thanks
First question first, which spec are you?
If you’re BM or SV, pets are a big portion of your DPS (especially BM). If you’re MM, you have a bit more flexibility; you could take Lone Wolf for a small flat DPS increase or you could run with a pet for the increased utility (example: Bloodlust, which Ferocity pets provide).
As for the “best pet,” all 3 pet specs do the same DPS. All pet families do the same DPS. So it’s really up to what utility you want and which family you prefer.
Cunning pets provide a small speed buff (Pathfinding). Tenacity pets provide a small buff to your maximum health (5 percent). Ferocity pets provide a small buff to Leech.
BTW, those buffs apply to both you and your pets.
Most Hunters tend to run with Ferocity pets because of the Leech passive and the Bloodlust active. Ironically, due to the Leech, Ferocity pets actually are superior tanks to Tenacity pets.
BM Hunters in particular like to run with Spirit Beasts in raids because of the Spirit Beasts’ special ability (which is a heal). They also make sure they have a Ferocity pet at ready for Bloodlust if necessary.
Lastly, Blizzard has made it so that Growl now automatically toggle off when you enter an instance/raid, but it’s occasionally bugged so you’re better off just manually toggling it on THEN off to make double-sure.
Ultimately? BFA pets actually are pretty flexible and well-balanced, especially compared to the past expansions. You can’t go wrong with any pet spec, and you can’t go wrong with any pet family. I do recommend looking up the Petopia website to look at the family abilities and choose pets whose abilities would benefit you and your group the most.
This is my toon. Thanks for your help Watermist. This was my first toon I made. Back in 2004. I still have my cat pet from the home town. The black and grey tiger.
By the way do you think you could explain misdirect shot to me.
The way Misdirect works is, it temporarily transfers your threat/aggro to the target for 4-6 seconds (this number changes expansion-to-expansion).
How you use it, you cast it on your pet or the tank. It’ll show up as a 7-10 second “buff” (again, this number varies expansion to expansion). THEN with your first attack (including auto shoot!), the “transfer” timer starts.
So typically you want to use your strongest attacks during this “transfer” window to help build the threat/aggro. Even if it’s temporary, it still helps considerably!
I tend to use Rapid Fire or Double Tap-Aimed Shot with Misdirect to dump a lot of aggro onto my pet. Barrage works nicely for this too.
During that “transfer” window, have your pet spam Growl/Thunderstomp (tenacity)/Beast Cleave (BM pets)/family abilities that cleaves or AoE. Since the mobs are already on the pet, it makes it super easy for the pet to build their own aggro.
To absolutely maximize the benefit of a Misdirect, you can even Feign Death afterwards to drop your aggro.
I hope I’m clear in my explanation!
Hi, thanks for the lengthy explanation, I’m a new hunter as well but I used lone wolf on my whole leveling process so I never dabble in the pet business before. I was hoping to find an answer in older thread but I think you might’ve answered it:
So there’s no “better” pet family for different types of content? Is there a more “superior” pet for soloing horrific vision? Let’s say I want to try to do big pulls and AoE them down, which pet do you recommend? Just want to know before I start wasting my vessels but couldn’t find the answer anywhere.
“So there’s no “better” pet family for different types of content? Is there a more “superior” pet for soloing horrific vision? Let’s say I want to try to do big pulls and AoE them down, which pet do you recommend? Just want to know before I start wasting my vessels but couldn’t find the answer anywhere.”
Best Utility pet is SB, with heals and cleanse. Best tank/soloing pet is Clefthooves (BM)and Scalehides(non-BM), both provide that Ferocity leech while being tanky(though clefthooves are better with additional armor and healing received, while scalehides just have shield) If you want a more passive pet, Chimaeron has the slowest attack speed in the game(good for Barbed shot) and Deth-tilac has the fastest(bad to get Attack speed buffs, peaks attack speed limit).
This got me curious, does that mean it has higher damage but slower speed?
Why do hunters need a tank pet when you can spam revive?
DPS-wise, they’re essentially all the same.
It’s the survivability that varies. As mentioned previously, Spirit Beasts are popular with BM Hunters for raiding because of the heal.
Some pets have an active shield ability (turtle and beetle to name a couple); you can manually toggle those shields. Others have a passive shield ability (bear and gorilla, for example). There’s a lot of overlap between pet abilities, but those pets are assigned to different specs. There are about ten to twenty different pet ability functions, if I recall right.
For example, the bear and gorilla. Both have a passive shield that reduces damage taken by 60% when their HP falls below 40%. However, the bear is a Tenacity pet, which means the buffs they provide are increased HP (passive) and reduced taken damage (active). The gorilla is a Ferocity pet, so it has the Leech passive (10%), and the Bloodlust active.
It takes some creative thinking and light research on your part, but I do recommend Petopia. They show which specs the families are at a glance, and they list all the pet abilities.
I’m afraid I don’t quite know them off the top of my head, but that’s the gist of it. 
I forgot to reply to this.
The guy is right, Scalehides and Clefthooves are considered the best AoE tanking pets because of their shielding ability. Gorillas are also considered to be reliable due to its shield (albeit passive) in addition to Leech.
The Revive ability isn’t all that great. It’s on a 10-second cooldown, is on the global cooldown, and it has to be casted. It’s at least two seconds the last I checked. And it’s very easily interrupted/pushed back.
Reviving pets while you’re being attacked is a huge pain in the butt. It’s so much easier to avoid pets dying in the first place.
“does that mean it has higher damage but slower speed?”
Yes. Pets having a lower attack speed means they have higher damage on hit, and goes the other way for faster pets. The difference in dps overall is negligible until you consider the extremes of Chimaeron and Deth’tilac in one being quick, but limits, negating the AS buff. Chimaeron is better in that case in having that higher hitting damage plus the attack speed buff still works.
Trust me, you want your pet to stay alive and to not die on you. Keep 'em up and going.
I just go through the Hati questline and got my first Spirit beast, I must say tho, Clefthooves with taunt are much better than Spirit beast in the open world. 
I can misdirect everything to my Clefthoof but if I do that to Hati it dies rather quickly.
That’s kinda why SBs are better in group content. They’re not needed as much and can help allies with healing groupmates and cleansing allies.
Can you give me some guidenace on SB. Like the name of a few. I only see 3 class on Petopic
That’s the pet specs. Tenacity, Ferocity, and Cunning.
When we talk about pet families, we mean the kinds or the species. Bears, bats, cats, wolves, and so on. Spirit Beasts are labeled as a “family,” specifically an exotic family (which means only BM hunters can take them).
Pets come in layers: the family, and the spec. Pets used to be able to freely choose specs but Blizzard changed it so that a pet’s family pre-determines what spec it is.
So, a bear is gonna be a Tenacity pet. A wolf is gonna be a Ferocity pet. A spider is gonna be a Cunning pet (last I checked. I haven’t used spiders in a while).
There’s the family abilities: all cats can use Prowl (stealth). All wolves can use a movement-impairment special attack. All Spirit Beasts can cast a heal.
Then there’s the spec abilities: each spec provides one passive and one active. Ferocity’s passive is a 10% Leech buff and active is the pet version of Bloodlust/Heroism (Primal Rage).
When you go to Petopia, go to the home page. You’ll see the icons for every pet family in the game; notice how they have colored outlines? These outlines show you what spec those families are. You click on these icons, and you go to the family-specific page that shows every single possible tame-able pet (called “skins” or “colors”) for that family.
Spirit Beasts are a little unique because they’re… spiritual beasts… that comes in a wide variety of forms: a spirit bear, a couple spirit wolves, a lot of spirit cats. But it’s the only family that has so many forms.
Do you need anything else clarified? I’d be happy to do my best to explain!
First off Thank you Watermist for all the help you have given me. I wish you well.
I went out and tamed Stone dragon turtle and Myonix. which one would you use for the spirit pet. I like Myonix. Or does it make a difference.
Also I’ve ran these to pets together on some quests. And the turtle seem weak and takes a lot of damage. Seem like I had to heal him a lot even on a 2 mob fight. Should I run some different pet with Myonix, like a cat? Or a totally different set of pets.
The SBs on Petopia is on the lower side of the page and also under Exotics. They’re some of the harder pets to go after, even depending on which one you want. Besides them, I recommend you got for a Clefthoof(as BM) or Scalehides(SV/MM) because they’re the best pets in the game right now for most content.
Those two pets are in different families! The Stone Dragon Turtle is part of the Turtle family. Myonix is part of the Spirit Beast family.
They’re both Tenacity spec. This means the two spec abilities they get are “Endurance Training” (passive 5% health buff) and “Survival of the Fittest” (active reduced damage for 6 seconds).
The turtle gets the Turtle Family specific ability “Shell Shield.” This is an active ability which you can either leave automatic or toggle yourself. This reduces the damage the turtle takes by 50% for 12 seconds.
The spirit beast Myonix gets 3 abilities because it’s an “exotic pet family” (meaning only BM hunters can tame them). Exotic pet families gets extra abilities. So Myonix has: “Spirit Shock,” which removes 1 enrage/1 magic effect from the target, “Spirit Walk,” which puts your pet into stealth and gives a 20% bonus to the first attack, and “Spirit Mend,” which is a heal that you could put on any friendly target.
“Spirit Mend” is the reason so many BM hunters run with Spirit Beasts in mythics and raids, to help out with healing.
Turtles are a little tricky to use, because their pet ability (Shell Shield) has to be carefully timed. If you use it at the wrong moment, it turns into a penalty instead of an assist. That’s why some hunters prefer to run with pets which has passive shielding abilities (like a bear or a clefthoof).
Also, like I mentioned before, due to the way stats work, Ferocity pets actually are better tanks than Tenacity pets. It’s because the Ferocity pets have passive self-healing due to the 10% Leech bonus. Tenacity pets don’t have that, which means they require a LOT more active healing.
Please feel free to experiment with pets! You have 55 stable slots, and can carry 5 pets around with you. That gives you 60 options.
I do highly recommend trying a Ferocity pet. If you want an exotic Ferocity pet (which means they come with 2 to 3 extra abilities), you can try a: Chimera, Clefthoof, Core Hound, or Devilsaur.
These are Ferocity pets, which means they come with the 10% Leech buff and the Bloodlust (“Primal Rage”) active buff. Being exotic, those 4 families come with 2 extra pet abilities.
If you’re fine with trying the non-exotic Ferocity pets, they are: Bat, Carrion Bird (like vultures), Cat, Crocolisk, Gorilla, Ravager, Ray (like mana rays), Scalehide, Scorpid, Spider, Tallstrider, Wasp, Wind Serpent, and Wolf.
So far, it seems like you’ve tried mostly Tenacity pets (turtles and spirit beasts). Don’t be shy to try out the other specs!
Just so you have all the information, Cunning pets provide: “Pathfinding” passive buff (a 8% movement bonus) and “Master’s Call” (pet removes impairing effects from target. AKA pet frees you from a trap. This is a PvP ability).