Hunter is one of the two pet classes in World of Warcraft. As such, each Hunter spec (with the exception of Marksmanship) relies heavily on a specific type of pet to excel in combat. Pets come in a variety of shapes and forms, each bringing different passive and active skills to the table.
Today we’ll explore the world of Hunter pets and discover what is the best Hunter pet in World of Warcraft and how you can obtain it.
@ Blizzard
Best Hunter Pet in World of Warcraft
Before we talk about the best Hunter pets in World of Warcraft, it’s important to first establish some basics about Hunter pets.
Like we said earlier, pets come in all shapes and sizes but they all boil down to three main categories of pets:
- Ferocity
- Cunning
- Tenacity
These are called Pet Families and each family serves a distinct purpose and has one unique ability all pets from that family share.
Ferocity Pets
Ferocity pets are the designated DPS pets for Hunters. They deal the most damage through active and passive pet skills, but most importantly, Ferocity pets possess an ability called Primal Rage.
This is pretty much your regular Bloodlust/Heroism ability that Mages or Shamans bring to the raid. If you have none of these classes in your group, having a Hunter can help tremendously.
Cunning Pets
Next we have the Cunning pet family. These pets are mostly used in PvP due to their special skill Master’s Call. This is an ability that removes all root and movement impairing effects from you and your pet, and it’s on a 45 second cooldown only. Furthermore, these pets provide an added 8% movement speed buff, which is invaluable for kiting in WoW arena and climbing WoW ranks in Solo Shuffle.
Tenacity Pets
Finally, we have the Tenacity pet family and these guys are all about tanking and mitigating damage. Tenacity provides a passive 5% increased maximum health along with a 3 minute defensive cooldown called Survival of the Fittest. This makes Tenacity pets the go-to pick for progression raiding and high Mythic+ keys since the defensive capabilities far outweigh the Ferocity ones.
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Exotic Pets
Beast Mastery is the only Hunter specialization able to tame Exotic pets. These pets are unique in their looks and have extra abilities that other pets don’t.
These Exotic pets are usually those bulky animals you see in the world such as Core Hounds, Chimaera or Clefthooves. There’s also smaller pets like Worms, Shale Beasts or Water Striders.
However, the most unique Exotic pet family are the Spirit Beasts.
@ Blizzard
Spirit Beasts
These pets are special in many ways and can only be used by Beast Mastery hunters. They inherit all the Tenacity skills by default, but have new abilities on top of those. Spirit Mend is one such ability – a 30 second cooldown heal. If that alone wasn’t strong enough, they also come with Spirit Pulse, a 10 second dispel. And lastly, Spirit Beasts can use Spirit Walk to enter stealth and deal 50% more damage on their first hit upon exiting.
These magnificent beasts have a unique look, with a spectral haze aura around them. That is why they’re the go-to pets for any WoW fashionista and many of the top World of Warcraft streamers use them.
What pets should you use?
Here we’ll discuss what pets you can use and how to tame them. We’ll focus on pets that excel in different roles and aspects of the game.
Clefthoof (Beast Mastery)
These pets are incredible tanks able to withstand any punishment. The unique thing about Clefthooves is that they’re the tankiest pets who are also from the Ferocity pet family. This means you’ll get the best of both worlds combined in one single pet.
Clefthooves have massive leech from Predator’s Thirst (15% leech with BM talents) and they also have two other passive skills – Thick Hide and Blood of the Rhino. These skills give the Clefthoof unmatched armor and sustain, which makes them perfect for all types of content.
Iron Horde Clefthooves are the coolest looking ones and can be found all around Draenor.
Hounds (PvP)
The hound is a great pet choice for general PvP in World of Warcraft for the 10 second Lock Jaw slow they bring, and they also look pretty cool.
Many Hounds you can tame from all around Azeroth and beyond. For those of you going for a simple look, the dogs from Exile’s Reach or Mountain Mastiff from Gilneas will do the trick.
There are some great Hunter transmog options from the WoW Trading Post that match these pets extremely well.
Alternatively, you can tame the new Hounds from Dragonflight who come with an updated new model. There’s plenty of other choices, but we’ll let you discover them for yourselves.
Lesser Dragonkin
These are the new Ferocity pets from Dragonflight. Their main selling point is the Shimmering Scales ability, which comes with a 1.5 minute cooldown and reduces magic damage taken by 70% for a brief period. Of course, they also look incredible.
In order to tame these, you’ll need to obtain a special tome called “How to Train a Dragonkin” and use it. Kaestrasz in Valdrakken awards this item once you reach Renown level 23.
@ Wowhead
Go out and collect them all
We’ve shown you some of the best hunter pets in WoW, now you just have to go out and look for them. They are pretty easy to find, but to make things simpler, we recommend checking out Wowhead and Petopia as those sites have a plethora of information that can help you out on your taming journey.
There’s even some best World of Warcraft addons you can install to help you pinpoint exact pet locations on your minimap. We recommend an addon called RareScanner. It will show all the rare pets on the map and notify you when you’re close to one.
FAQ:
Hunters can have as many as 205 pets in their Stable at all times. However, you can only pick 5 pets to use actively and will have to visit the Stable Master if you wish to swap them out.
