Despite practically spamming my pet heal, my pets are dying at least once in any difficult fight. I also have a hunter that is 120, it didn’t use to be this way. Were pets nerfed or something? Or did the class just get broken again?
I’ve tried with growl on or off, it doesn’t make a difference in pet survivability when questing. Even in dungeons, where Growl is automatically off, my pet died on every boss despite me using my heal on it.
Or does the class just suck in low levels now?
Neither.
In dungeons it can just be that certain mobs target the pet specifically, resulting in it dying(some mobs target random players/individuals with their attacks, regardless of threat levels).
I leveled a Mag’har Hunter from 20-65(lost interest in the mog so I stopped leveling that one). I never had any issues with my pet. Neither in dungeons nor in the open world. I mostly just went around pulling entire camps at once, when possible.
In short, you shouldn’t have such problems keeping your pet alive. Especially not when doing solo-content.
If you’re intending on playing BM spec, I would recommend picking up a clefthoof for general activities like solo play, etc.
For groups/raids, I would also get yourself a spirit beast for the awesome utilities they bring as well.
I was leveling my vulpera bm hunter and noticed the same thing. Apparently growl didn’t automatically switch off when i entered the dungeon. Maybe check to see if this is the reason for you too!
Your pet should rarely die in dungeons. That’s a sign that its stealing aggro from the tank and getting attacked. This can happen if you have a bad tank or if your dps output (through your pet) is so high that the tank just doesn’t have the tools to keep aggro. I’m not sure when hunters get misdirection but misdirecting onto the tank helps keep aggro on them.
If the pet is frequently dying while you’re solo questing, either you’re in content above your head or you’re pulling huge mobs or you need to upgrade your gear (it’s health and damage scales with yours).
Eventually yes, Clefthoof is king of solo but they are exotic pets and he can’t tame those until level 60-66. Until then scalehides are normal pets but fairly survivable.
If your pet is dieing in instances blame the tank. Your pet is not taunting, it’s likely a dps tank thinking he can hold agro but failing.