Intimidation - “Command your pet to intimidate the target on the next successful melee attack, causing a high amount of threat and stunning the target for 3 seconds.” So sayeth Unleashed Gaming’s Create Your Own Talent Tree, so let it be done.

Scattershot disorients a target for four seconds, Intimidation for three. Scattershot has a 15 yard range, Intimidation has the same 100 yard range as your pet. Scattershot has a 30 second cooldown while Intimidation’s is one minute.

But it’s Intimidation’s “high amount of threat” that is the difference maker between these talents. The reason a hunter can do so much damage is because he has the best aggro management tools in the game, bar none. The only time a hunter doesn’t care about threat, or aggro, is when he is fighting another player; almost all NPCs and mobs base their target selection on threat.

With Intimidation, your pet becomes an even more powerful aggro management tool. He can pull mobs off of your squishies; a dead pet is always better than a dead priest. He can off-tank effectively and provide your group with more crowd-control options. If the healer is out of mana, your pet can grab aggro from a tank, thus allowing him to self-heal. Again, I’d rather my cat died than my main tank. But if you really want to see Intimidation shine, make sure you have Cower.

Cower, that much maligned and unused pet talent, is a wonderful companion for Intimidation and grants almost complete aggro control in a battle. Intimidation and Cower, used together, act like an aggro faucet that you can turn on and off. For example:

Your priest has died and your warrior is getting hurt. Smack Intimidation and Beastial Wrath to quickly grab aggro from the warrior. Mr Tank slaps on a bandage, quaffs a potion, and is ready to go. You manually cast your pet’s Cower, the warrior Taunts, is easily able to reestablish aggro and is back in business. You recall your pet, Pet Mend, and wait for Intimidation’s one minute cooldown to finish. Rinse and repeat until the mob is dead.

Ignoring the fact that you need Intimidation for Bestial Wrath and The Beast Within, Intimidation is a tremendous talent in its own right. A hunter who can control his pet and use him as an aggro regulator valve is a hunter that is invited back to the raid again and again.