Hunter Pet Guide

I. You''re level 10, now what?

So you''ve ran through the first 10 levels like a scalded dog and now you need to do the level 10 pet quest in order to be able to get your pet eh? Well here is how. Thanks to Graytalon for his synopsis. I have plagiarized most of it and updated where appropriate. (Is it plagiarism if I give him credit?  )

Hunters, like warlocks, get pets. The difference is we get them from the environment and not some otherworldly plane. They have introduced 2 quests into the game to gain your taming skills. They are simple. You might have to explore a bit, but it’s really not difficult. Note: Watch what they ask for. There are many different varieties of wolves and cats and so forth. Make sure you are taming what they want you to tame. If you fail, abandon the quest and get it again.

The big note here is to note that a thistle bear is NOT the same as a rabid thistle bear. So don''t spam General chat wondering why you can''t finish your quest while you''ve been charming the wrong MOB the whole time.

Now that you finished the quest you''ll have 6 skills available to you in your Beast Mastery tab of your spellbook; Tame Pet, Feed Pet, Call Pet, Dismiss Pet, Train pet, and Revive Pet. Here is how they work:
•  Tame Pet
Pick a beast that you want to tame and cast this spell on it. The beast will immediately aggro you and little hearts will float above you while you try to tame him. Your armor is substantially reduced during this time so you can get into trouble if you try to take on a tough beast. If you succeed then you will now have a new pet and it will be very unhappy and disloyal. You can tell how unhappy it is from the icon next to him; red = unhappy, yellow = neutral, green = happy. These states equate to 75% damage, 100% damage and 125% damage respectively. You need to Feed him!
•  Feed Pet
Select this spell then select a piece of food in your pack. Your pet will now start to gain happiness. How much he gains depends on the food type. Also, it may take a few pieces of food to get him to the Happy state. *Note, not all beasts eat everything. To check what diet your pet has go to the character screen while your pet is out (default key is ''c''), then to the ''Pet'' tab, and look for the same happy face icon and hover over it. It will tell you what your pet will eat there. I like cats the best, they eat meat and fish. Both of which I can find in abundance in the wild.

Also note that as your pet gets higher in level he might not like the same food as much as he did as a low level pet. (Meaning that it doesn''t give as much happiness when you feed him with it.) That beef jerky gets old after a while for him too.

Here is a macro to feed your pet. It will feed the pet from the first slot of the far left bag. If that slot is empty then it will open the bag to let you know. Also, it will ignore accidental key presses during combat. Note: This macro should all be on one line. Thanks to Thericia for this.

/script if (not PlayerFrame.inCombat) then if (not
GetContainerItemLink(4, 1)) then OpenBag(4); else CastSpellByName("Feed Pet"); PickupContainerItem(4, 1); end end
•  Call Pet
This one is pretty self-explanatory, when you don''t have your pet out cast this and your pet appears.
•  Dismiss Pet
Again, self-explanatory. if the pet is out you can cast this and your pet will be stored. Your pet likes you so as such he doesn''t like being dismissed. He loses some happiness when you use this, but not enough to be worried about unless you do it over and over. You can avoid this by simply zoning or catching a ride on a transport of some kind. Your pet will automatically store then without loss in happiness.
•  Train Pet
Selecting this ability will bring up a window where you will be able to train your pets once you learn skills from other beasts. Initially you can train Growl 1 and Growl 2 to your pet assuming your pet has enough skill points for it.
•  Revive Pet
No fear! All is not lost when your pet dies, this is what you use to get him back!

II. Getting New Skills for Your Pet

You don''t want your pet to just be a dumb meat shield do ya? You want him to do some damage and hold aggro! Well here is where you get the skills that you need to do that.

After your level 10 quest you now know that you have to use the Train Pet skill to actually train your pet and now you''ve trained him how to Growl. This skill causes him to taunt the target which will allow the pet to hold aggro while you make the target a pincushion or blast holes in it.

Now you want other skills that add damage or *GASP* detaunt! These are Claw, Bite, and Cower. Each skill can only be learned by certain types of animals. Cats can learn to claw and bite, but turtles can''t claw. There''s a logical sense to what animals can and can''t learn. However, all pets can learn Cower which is a detaunt. (this is useful in groups when you don''t want pet drawing aggro)

Each skill has ranks associated with it and you can only learn the skills and higher ranks from other beasts that you tame in the wild. You''ll have to stable your main pet, go tame the beast, fight with it for a little while, check the Teach Pet skill window to make sure the new skill is there and then abandon the new pet. Now you''ll go recall your main pet and teach the new skill to him assuming he has the skill points available.

A great compilation of beast and what skills they have is located here.

When you tame a beast from the wild that beast loses any special attacks he had there. So that spider with the uber web attack no longer has that when you tame him.

III. What is the ''Best'' Pet?

I''m going to quote Dixo_mojo with a few edits:

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There are a few things to consider when picking a pet
•  Stats
•  Food
•  Look (cool factor)
•  Abilities able to train

It''s really a personal balance of the above.

I dont want a pet just because he has the best all around stats, if he looks stupid and requires really expensive food you might not want him.
•  Cats: Great for fishers because they will eat your catch as well as meat from animials you kill. They look good, but often have lower defense, meaning they wont be able to handle two mobs on them for very long.
•  Raptor: As good a damage as cat, doesnt eat fish, looks cool, able to take a little more damage than a cat.
•  Wolf: Same as cat really except he wont eat fish.
•  Bird: Good dps, worse at taking damage than even a cat, looks great, but sometimes gets in the way visually as he''s always up high when trying to target. Swoop I got didnt eat fish that I recall
•  Turtle: Good defense, decent dps, eats fruit (boo), small, looks cool, has both bite and growl.
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You can tame quest mobs and named mobs, however they do not retain their increased stats, only their special colors or markings.

One kind poster on the official boards used beta information to draw these conclusions about a level 60 pet:

-- Basic Calculations --

TYPE - HP %RDC EHP DMG+ABL(TYPE)

Cat - 2963 58.3 7105.5 62.2+53.0(Claw)

Scorp - 3036 58.6 7333.3 57.5+53.0(Claw)

Rapt - 2853 59.0 6958.0 66.0+53.0(Claw)

Gorla - 3143 58.3 7537.0 63.8+12.5(Bite)

*ehp=effective hp: amount of real physical dmg it takes to kill the pet.

you can also increase the base dmg done by another 49.5% and the dmg of claw and bite by another 15%(Im sure that there critical strike went up after I got higher critical strike from talents).

in other words a raptor can do 159.62 dps at the most.

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Oh and just for Koneg:

All Hunters of all races can train all weapon skills except 1h Mace/2h Mace. That includes Guns and Night Elves... 

This is hopefully a good start on a pet guide, please post here any new ideas or tips and I''ll update over time.