Pet Talent Points - Make ‘Em Happy
Once again, we applied anti-spam and pro-porn filters to the vats of email at the BRK Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence and Party Favor Emporium and found an actual question from an actual BRK-reader on Wildhammer asking about pet training points. Well ain’t that a kick in the pants, we wanted to go to lunch today, and now we have to do more writing. Shoot, the BRK April Fools Day post is never going to be done at this rate. Sheesh.
Respecing your pet is one of the great joys of being a hunter. We all know that respec’ing our own talent points can be frustrating having to spend all that gold. But do you know the initial cost of respecing your pet?
A whooping 10 silver. Yeah. Hie thee to the pet trainer and let’s respec.
The first thing we want to identify is: What Kind of Pet Do We Have. Look at your pet and tell me, is he DPS, Tanking, All-Purpose, or Crap.
Crap Pets? Yup, you bet your bippy there are. There are certain BRK-Approved Pets, and while BRK may not particularly “like” certain families, we admit they are viable and you won’t get banned for using them. Let’s look at the list.
DPS
cat
ravager
windserpent
Tanks
boar
gorilla
scorpid
turtle
warpstalker
All-Purpose
wolf
dragonhawk
serpent
carrion bird
Which leaves the remaining pets in the ole Crappola bin. Why? Well, also listed are the {guffaw, snork} spells they can learn.
Crap
crab - claw
spider - bite
bear - bite and claw
netherray - bite and dive
tallstrider - bite and dash
crocolisk - bite
raptor - bite and claw
bat - bite, dive, and screech & huge wings, which tanks hate
owl - claw, dive, and screech & huge wings, which tanks hate
hyena - bite and dash
sporebat - bite
You can like your crappy pet, just don’t try to convince BRK that it’s anything but an affectation. If you like your crab, dump it and get a scorpid. If you like your hyena, dump it and get a wolf. And if you like your owl, get a carrion bird. Period.
Do you hate having to train multiple pets? Get an all-purpose pet. Are you a pet-freak? Get one of each. Just don’t bother getting two pets with the same purpose; don’t duplicate effort.
By having three pets, you can have one of each family and, for each situation you are going to encounter, bring a pet that will most effectively participate.
If you’re doing an instance and know you’re going to need an off-tank, bring your defensive pet with the monster armor. If the LFG channel is looking for damage-dealers, you bring your dps pet with his ears pinned back and blood-lust in his veins. Capice?
If you PvP, get the BRK-Approved pet that makes you happy. Do you dig kiting warriors? Get your ravager with Dash and Gore. Do you love to seek-and-destroy shamen? Try a scorpid and Scorpid Poison, (have you ever seen Snake Trap, Scorpid Poison, and Serpent Sting stack? It’s schaweet). Are you a priest-killer like BRK? Cats, baby. Dash and Beastial Wrath, what else is there to say.
Fine then. You’ve got your specialized pets, now let’s train them.
Training points should be distributed based upon the function your pet is designed to fulfill. Boosting the armor on a cat is a waste. Cranking the dps on a turtle is silly. Make sense?
Now that we know we can have multiple pets and employ them in multiple situations, we can deduce that there is no single best way to use your talent points. Sorry, but there is no perfect way to configure your pet. However, we do have a tool that will help us tremendously.
Make your pilgrimage to Lassira’s blog, visit her Hunter Pet Talent Calculator and fall in love. A triumph of html coding, this is your pet’s best friend. Never respec without consulting it. And that’s an order.
Shall we perform a BRK talent point respec? Lets pretend we’re going into Shadow Labs and we need max dps for our level 70 cat. This build uses all 350 pet talent points; waste not, want not. Remember, this is not a build we’d use for PvP, grinding, or any other instance where we weren’t facing the combo of Nature and Shadow. So here’s what BRK comes up with, (Growl is maxed and free, of course).
Great Stamina Rank 9 for +32 to Stamina
Natural Armor Rank 3 for +160 to Armor
Nature Resistance Rank 3 for +90 Nature Resist
Shadow Resistance Rank 5 for +150 Shadow Resist
Claw Rank 8 for 43-59 Damage
Dash Rank 3 for +80% Movement Speed for 15 Seconds
It is more important for a Beastmaster hunter to keep his pet alive in instances than it is for a Marksman, so we really give our BM pets some good resistances in Labs. Remember, hunters have Aspect of the Wild for an additional 70 resistance to nature damage, so we can cram more into shadow resistance and not worry.
Now the next day, we’re going to Mechanar, so off to Ironforge for a respec.
Great Stamina Rank 10 for +40 to Stamina
Natural Armor Rank 2 for +100 to Armor
Arcane Resistance Rank 5 for +150 Arcane Resist
Claw Rank 9 for 54-76 Damage
Dash Rank 3 for +80% Movement Speed for 15 Seconds
And we have one talent point remaining. Please note that BRK doesn’t like Bite as it chews up Focus that BRK believes Claw can use more efficiently, so we just leave that single point hanging. Mechanar is filled with Arcane bombs and missiles and AOE, so we max that. The fire elementals at the second boss are so powerful that maxing Fire Resistance is a waste; your pet is probably going to die here anyway, unless you can separate the boss from her little fire buddies by skipping this boss, killing the 3rd boss, then coming back and kiting her away from the fire @sshats.
So there we are, some insight into pet talents and pet respecing. Have a question or a deeply-felt hatred about this post? Please drop us a friendly email at bigredkitty@gmail.com and, remember, spelling counts.
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29 Responses to “Pet Talent Points - Make ‘Em Happy”
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Good write-up! I’m away from my home computer, so I’ll have to check to confirm, but I’m pretty sure ravagers can’t learn charge. Mine knows dash and gore. I have learned charge from a EPL boar and, if my memory serves me, I unsuccessfully attempted to teach it to my ravager.
Also, as a note, I found out that there are no boars in outlands. I think they’re the best tanking pet (especially with gore as a focus dump), but you can’t find one above 60. I figured I’d pick one up when I was 60 so I could avoid a long levelling process later. Unfortunately, the way the pet XP is working, I can hardly keep one pet at my lvl. I believe my ravager is now 64 (I’m 65) and my boar is at a mere 61.
You are correct, Dash not Charge. Blog corrected, and +5 BRK Cool Points to Borrodir.
Dude, you are the hunter GOD. I have a 63 blood elf hunter that I started on a whim who has now become my main, and I fully admit I am absolutely clueless on how pet skills work, other than if I don’t train my new growl the minute it’s available, my cat is screwed for holding aggro.
I’ve spent my leveling time up until now working with one pet only (a cat, with the tiger skin from STV), and one open stable slot so that I could pick up other skills as I went, having been too cheap to pay the 5g for the other slot. I just recently went and picked out what pets I want to tame by the time I hit 70, and oddly enough, had decided on a dragonhawk, a warp stalker, and a cat. Pretty well rounded there, I’d say.
Don’t mean to be a downer or anything, because the last thing I need is a BRK nipping at my heels, but please take a look at the bottom right screenshot on this page that was posted on the WoW website and take note of the chat.
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/items/tinfoilhat.xml
Okay, I must surely be missing something. With normalised attacks homogenizing the pet world’s attack, why do you believe a warp stalker makes a better tank– is there a site that holds the basic stat information for each pet? It seems from what I have read that a ravager at lvl 61 when reaching 70 will have the same basic stats as a new Ravager trained at 70 (no pts to spend)
You are correct that a level 61 Ravager pet, when leveled to 70, will have the same base stats as a pet as a Ravager trained at level 70.
Basic stat information for each pet is easily found at Petopia:
http://petopia.brashendeavors.net
BRK links to this site in our “BRK Research Site” section.
From Petopia, they say about the Warphunter:
HP: Medium (+0%)
Armor: Medium (+5%)
DPS: Low (-6%)
All cats, on the other hand, are classified as DPS:
HP: Medium (-2%)
Armor: Low (+0%)
DPS: High (+10%)
And remember - do not train a Warp Stalker. Get the Warp Hunter or Warp Chaser.
And Portend the Lost gets +5 BRK Cool Points for “homogenizing”. D@mn skippy.
And what else makes the Warp Hunter so cool as an off-tank is “Warp”! But that’s another blog post, and I’ve got to stop commenting on my own blog.
Is there any downside to pumping up the armor on a DPS cat? I’ve had my little lynx since I started my BE hunter and usually try to PvE solo-grind my way through the levels, and it doesn’t seem to be a disadvantage to have the armor on there. Is it just a waste if you have fewer Training Points to spend on your pet?
- Faz
Sarcastyx 40 Hunter (BTW: Bestial Wrath Pwns. EVERYTHING)
In my personal oppinion Carrion Birds are one of the WORST pets available.. I had many of them, they were low dps to me.. to low.. I always pulled the mob off him..
In my opinion, if u wanna choose a flying bird, choose owl (Oh yeah, there’s a black one in HP) if u wanna choose DPS, choose a cat, what u like, all the same, (except the buggy King B., which has a “viper swiftness” ability when tamed, but I guess u all know that) my choice is the brown lynx, becouse it went well with my leather stuff before :-D, to mail, i guess the Sian rothem will be the winner. If u want a well rounded per, well wolfs are FTW.. they can howl to the moon, too
Gorilla is also not recommended by me, since they are slow..
But again, Sporebats are not crap.. I had a sporebat fron 62-68lvl, and it was great.. It’s not effective, as a pet with dash/dive, but it was fine.
To pvp server the general rule that u MUST have a pet which has Dash/Dive AND also a DPS.. (I think it’s obvious why)
^_^
Lower level hunters and their pets have more training points than spells you can train. Get everything. These recommendations are for level 70 pets.
BRK will examine more pet families in detail so Huma and others will learn why carrion birds rock, gorillas too, and why sporebats are truly crapolla.
If u can convince me about the sporebat too, never expect to change my mind about the carrion birds.. thats my whole WoW-life experience.. As I have written I’ve tried many of them, all was rather a “parrot” than a “hawk”..
But still, I’m looking forward to read your post about these pets..
^_^
For any pet, its base damage is only a small factor in whether or not you can take agro from it. Growl and special abilities are much more important. You should not notice any difference in agro-holding between a carrion and an owl with the same training. If you find you tend to pull agro off one pet much more readily than another, you probably don’t have max growl on the “weak” one, or your pet is lower level than your target which increases the target’s chance to resist growl.
The three flying pets that can learn screech, that is carrion, owl and bats, are excellent at holding agro. Growl, of course, on any pet, generates much of their agro. Screech, whether on a high DPS bat/owl or on a medium DPS carrion generates a small amout of additional agro each time it is used, and can be spammed farily frequently on auto cast. Add claw and base damage and these flying pets are among the best at holding agro.
Now if they just didn’t flap so much…
Bat +7%DMG , Owl +7%DMG
< => Carrion Bird +5%ARMOR.. even with claw (which cost EXTRA FOCUS) the carrion birds generate LESS threat, than an owl, or a bat.. When I use my pet, I want him to HOLD the mob.. and thats the important thing.. Yes, you can use carrion bird also, but its slower(u have to wait to him to build aggro) and less effective then the DPS birds.. (yep, I’m in PvP server, so DPS is the most important, right next to it is the speed).. We can argue about this, but if I hope you understand what I mean. I won’t be convinced to use a carrion bird ^_^
agreed on the owl thing they are clearly better especially seeing as against magic damage mobs the armour really wont do anything
Damh, how can you not train Bite on a cat? I haven’t seen Bite and Claw scaling damage with RAP. At base values, the average Bite 9 is 119 damage for 35 focus = 3.4 damage/focus, compared to average Claw 9 of 65 damage for 25 focus = 2.6 damage/focus. Even if there is increased damage from RAP, the breakpoint for focus efficiency is about +70 damage, and I’m don’t think anyone’s getting that. By not training Bite on a cat, you’re nerfing your pet for no good reason. In my opinion, the talents on a pure DPS cat should be Bite, Claw, Dash, and Prowl. You can leave Dash out if you want to save training points, but I’m usually too impatient for that.
As for Prowl… Turn off autocast on Bite & Claw. Turn Prowl on, send in to attack, pop Devilsaur Tooth and Wrath, and you have one hell of an opener for an attack out of stealth. (Turn back on Bite & Claw after breaking stealth of course.)
Hello BRK,
I am a Horde hunter and you are by far the most mature Alliance player I have ever come across. I do have a few questions though. I cant seem to decide on a boar or cat for leveling. I know that a car does more dps and I have leveled to 70 before using a cat and nothing else. My kitty Amber has saved the squishies more times then they could count. I have started another hunter on a different server and have been using a cat. I recently aquired a boar and really like them. I know the dps is gimped some. I have visited the Big Red Boar site and franlky I am completely unimmpressed. I thought myself a Pretty sesoned hunter and then I found your site and my guildmates have been astounded at how much i have become a better asset to the team, so thank you for the great site. Do you think you could go more in depth on boars as pets. I know this is not your specialty but I would like your opinion cause honestly ‘d listen to you over BRB.
Thanks
Tailoff of Maelstrom
I’d love to see this for each lvl 70 instance… or at least which resistances are NEEDED in the instances.
Why no Wind Serpent love?
Actually, I just got a wind serpent. I play a tauren hunter (level 70) and just tamed the Fel Sworn one. Besides the freaking cool looks, I was pleasently surprised at the damage Lightning Breath (Rank 6) can do. I have mine trained with both that and Bite (Rank 9) but only use Bite for times of spell reflect or if Nature damage is resisted. I leave Bite off most of the time but keep LB up. It negates armor and is just pure DPS. Plus, I put Stam 10 (he is only level 68 now) as well as avoidance and cobra on him and he does hold agro and DPS like a machine. But, the cool thing is he will not pull agro from the tank…good thing because I have forgotten to train him with Cower. But, so far, haven’t had to worry. Just unclick Growl and we are rolling.
And oh, I have a wolf as well. Vile branch wolfs are the best. A black, menacing wolf looks awesome. Lastly, a ripfang lynx. The DPS on both the wind serpent and lynx are great in instances plus the WS can do surgical pulls for me with LB from 20 yards. Good to do if I cannot get to the target or its bugged.
While it is true that the focus efficiency of Bite is superior to claw, have you considered the added benefits of the faster claw’s increase on your procs? He will have more critical strikes (although weaker) which cause +3% damage for the entire party for 10 seconds. His crits will also increase his attack speed by 30% for 8 seconds.
So once Raptors get Dash is BRK going to upgrade the Raptors status as an approved pet? Wish it was Charge and then there would be no questions, but Dash? Humm….
One thing that I am confused about here that I didn’t see mentioned, perhaps they changed it? I thought that there was a further penalty for redoing your pets points, in that you have to feed them more. They loose their happy factor more quickly. Thus even though the initial change may only cost you 8 silver, the over time cost is much much more. Did they change that?
Crying over slow bears…
I have have a guilty secret, I am a level 63 BM hunter who loves bear pets. I used to be a cat person, until I trained a bear for a higher level bite or claw at 48 and found all his stats (bar dps) to be better than my cats. Playing with him I found him much better to solo with with his high health and armor. I just wish he could have charge like a feral druid or warrior. I have recently trained up a wolf for dash, but want to continue to level my bear alongside him, in case Blizz ever show bears any love. I know BRK thinks bears are in the crapola bin (is this just cause they are slow or your prejudice against bite?) What would they need to do to a bear to make you love them? And are there any other bear lovers out there? Btw I replaced the level 48 bear with a white polar bear from winterspring.
Doesn’t it make more sense to go out and train up a low level pet than it does to get a high level pet of the same type. You get 5 TP per level right? When you train a high level pet, do you automatically get (pet level)X 5 training points to spend? I am confused.
The pet will get the same number of training points once it is fully happy when tamed at a high level as the one you brought up from the lower level.
Remember that happiness also determines training points as the level multiplier is 5 if the happiness is 6 and it is 4 if the happiness is 5 etc..
hey BRK. Been reading for a while now as I level my first hunter up with BM and he is currently lvl59. I love your posts and your other one about claw really helped me out on talent placement for my cat. Nykeru thanks you.
Anyways, so based on this do you end up repecing your cat for each instance/raid like this? I’ve repec’d mine a few times but still have yet to see it go over 1g, so i’m wondering how high the cost goes, where it caps.
I also wanted to ask about your other pets. I think I recall you saying you used a warpstalker or something else to tank and I was wondering what situations you used such a pet for? I’ve pretty much stuck to my one cat and hope to tame certain special carrion bird when i hit lvl65 (thanks to another post of yours that convinced me about their worth), but I haven’t really needed to be anything other then DPS and my Nyku holds aggro nicely when needed and can even OT pretty well for my lvl range. Maybe you can post an example or two about your use of defensive/tank pets? I’d really like to read it. Thanks
[...] Pet guides [...]
Someone mentioned a sporebat as being a OK pet. Depending on your focus generating talents, I’ve found that pets like this will always have enough focus for the full 12 growls a minute it can let off where pets with a lot of instant attacks will often sacrifice extra damage for growl and be less sticky to mobs - and my experience till now is that no amount of pet damage is better than growl for keeping aggro (except maybe LB crits)
My two cents, but I just respec’d from survival to BM and am still inexperienced with this build - and Bestial Discipline really changes things. (e.g., I used to keep ferocious howl turned off when soloing with my wolf since growl/bite/dash used up everything, but now he can let go the full 6 howls a minute and still have focus for all the growls and bites and still have focus to spare.)
and HEY striders make GREAT tanks :^) Health is a frogs hair higher than a gorilla and it can dash and is most entertaining when it goes postal on a gnome. But he has had a serious diminishing return after the respec to BM - whereas my WindSerpent now does sick damage.
(I loved being able to CC 4-5 things at once as a survival hunter, but damn if your instance group didn’t find a way to break it after a few seconds - If you think a mage can get touchy about his sheep being broken, try breaking a SV hunters quintuple CC move - FRUSTRATION - so BM for me for a while!)
Question regarding Armor vs Stam. Whats generally better?
There are many who attack ignoring armor, or spell attacks so It seems to me Stam would be better over armor.
Any Thoughts?