Each week, Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the hunter class sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary. 
Damh's first pet was a bear. A regular brown bear from the outskirts of Ironforge, nothing special, not unique, no cool talents. We called out to Mrs. BRK and asked her what we should name him.
"Ooo! You should name him Googlybear!"
We love Mrs. BRK and sleep quite soundly because we take great care not to get on her Enemies List, yet this naming-travesty couldn't happen.
"Honey, he's a ferocious killing machine. Remember I showed you the movie trailer to this game, the hunter standing in the snow outside the gates to the big city under the mountain, a massive bear at his side? That's me and that's my bear. He needs a name that inspires fear, that causes our enemies to flee in terror, and you give me Googlybear?"
"He's so cute! He needs a smoosh-kiss right on the nose. And his name is Googlybear. Type it. Now."
We typed it. /sigh
Thus Damh and Googlybear joined forces and ran around killing stuff and getting not-quite-so-phat green loot and experience and everything else that goes with it and things were good. Until our pet needed a new spell and we had to train another animal to get it; that's when our problems began.
So the day eventually came where we trained a boar. Again, not a special boar, just a Loch Modan boar. He was nice but so unremarkable that we don't even remember his name or if we named him at all. So we got a spider. Nope, no feelings for the spider developed either. Then a crocolisk. We had feelings for the croc alright; feelings of hatred with all his rattling. Couldn't get rid of him fast enough.
/abandon pet PDQ
Eventually we found something that was a great deal of fun: our turtle from the Hinterlands. His name was Panzer and he was spiffy. And huge! We had to reduce our damage because he didn't generate the aggro of our bear but he didn't die, period. Super-Tankage FTW! That was Panzer. He lived in our stable for a long time and we'd bring him out to play and level him. But he didn't take Googlybear's place at our side.
Does everybody but us hate Uldaman? Sometimes it feels that way. Enchanter-trainer runs were fun; we liked them. And Uldaman had Bats! We got our first winged-pet there and thought he was the schiznit. We named him Ding. Whereas Googlybear was beefy and lumbering, Ding was sleek and velvety and glided through the air beside us. His little attack-chirp didn't inspire any love in our heart, but his great flappin' wings and Dive and Screech were tremendous. We dug Ding and leveled him along with Googlybear... until a Lower Blackrock Spire run where a tank yelled at us for having such a massive pet in his face. Ding went in the stable with Panzer to rest and, sadly, never be seriously leveled again.
Winterspring introduced us to white bears. They made Googlybear look like a rusty Tercel compared to a Porsche. We really wanted one... but the Stable Situation reared it's ugly head prevented us from grabbing one.
The Stable Situation is something with which we're all confronted and is probably the one thing Beastmasters, Marksmen and Survivalists all agree is a major frustration of our class. Yes we can have three pets, but once we get three we can experiment no further. To get something new you have to lose something important. Finding that pet that feels right, the pet that is a reflection of one's personality isn't a trivial thing. We didn't run instances with Panzer or Ding but we really liked them, but there was no way we could give up Googlybear! To get a white bear we'd have to release Panzer or Ding. We couldn't do it and we never did get a white bear.
The time came for us to get a cat when we saw the ones in northern Winterspring. We accepted that it was time to bid adieu to Panzer and found a beautiful pure-white cat that we trained. He was bouncy and happy and we liked him immensely.
Until that day in the auction house when we heard a purple cat roar. Love at first sight? With that cat it was love at first sound. We freaked out and demanded to know where the hunter had found him!
WINTERSPRING?! We were just there!
So we smacked our Gadgetzan trinket - we were a 300 engineer at the time - promptly died - we don't miss being an engineer, by the way - rezed and healed and made fast tracks back to the north. We found a purple cat, dismissed our white one, made air-hearts to our feline desire, named him Hobbes and the rest is history. He growls and roars and shakes his jowls and my Elune he is loved like a real pet.
Outland came and Ding was abandoned when the necissity of having a Warp Hunter became overwhelming. Felreaver is a happy level 70 but rarely sees the light of day outside the stable.
Googlybear survived until we wanted to try a Ravager from Hellfire Peninsula. This guy was given the boot in favor of a Nether Ray from Zangarmarsh, which was quickly sent off in favor of a Sporebat, which was abandoned with extreme haste for a Carrion Bird from Hellfire, which was turned in for a Scorpid from Terrokar Forest, which was drop-kicked over the mountains in Skettis for an Owl, which was kicked to the curb for a Dragonhawk from Shadowmoon Valley, which sat unnamed in our stable for a long time until it was finally let go to try a Windserpent from Netherstorm.
Now the Windserpent we liked and named Calvin, but he too is a stable-denizen; Hobbes just can't be supplanted.
But we're up against the Stable Situation again and cannot train another pet to play with until we abandon one of our level 70 pets. It's a calculated risk; we did a one-for-one trade with Ding for Felreaver, but it took for-bleedin' ever to replace Googlybear.
But what's next? If one tries the Public Test Realms and does pet-research, one will find that the level 70 Ravagers in the Netherwing cave are trainable and that Raptors can be given Dash. Do we want another Ravager? Not really. Would we like to try a Raptor with Dash? Oh you bet we would! Unfortunately, we'd have to give up Felreaver or Calvin to do so. Choices, choices, choices.
How do you feel about your pet? Do you know we've received pet-adoration email about every species? We have, you better believe it. We get mail from a rather infamous player who collects crocolisks; his name is Irwin and his pet Steve is his no-so-quite-huggable friend. He must do 1v1 arenas or something because we don't know anybody who could stand being near a croc for too long without going insane, but he does love his crocs.
We've been told about the Tallstrider-lover who takes his Pink Flamingo of Death into battlegrounds. We know of an arena-player who uses his Bat to just flap in the other team's healer's face the entire match. Our Raptor-owning friends who tell us running Karazhan with their dinosaur is the highlight of their Warcraft careers.
My Elune, we don't need to tell you about the Boar-fanatics, right? Well there are Bear-freaks who demanded our head on a platter after we omitted them from our previous WoW Insider pet-roundup column. When we said we'd received no emails about people and their Scorpids, our in-box overflowed with tributes like, "I LOVE MY PINCHY!" and, "His name is Feathers and he is the meanest SOB of a pet there is, bar none."
Remember when we said that the one thing all of us will agree is a major disappointment with the hunter class is the lack of stable slots? Well think about that again. If you're like us and the people who have written to us and have a pet with whom you've connected and bonded and can't imagine PvPing or running instances or questing without, are you really going to ever replace him? Yes, we'd love to experiment and try new things, but we're never ever going to replace Hobbes. The lack of more stable slots isn't really killing us, is it? Yes it would be a sacrifice to lose Calvin to try the new breed of Raptor, but in the end Hobbes is still going to be there.
"But... but I wanna Raptor and run Kara with him, too..."
Yes, we know; we're right there with you. But at the end of the day, you're not going to replace your Best Friend either, are you. You'll logon today and see him there and remember that the world is a pretty good place with him beside you. You'll smile... give him some food, see his little happiness-face turn green... you'll forget all about the Stable Situation and move on to more important things. Like getting enough pet food and making some bandages... and creating that petition to make Felboars trainable and put Gorillas in Terrokar Forest! Gorillas, baby!
But you know, if that ever does happen we're going to need more stable slots.
Daniel Howell continues his quest to be able to run with two pets at the same time - wouldn't that rock! - as the hunter-pet duo extraordinaire known to lore as BigRedKitty. More of his theorycrafting and slanderous belittling of the lesser classes can be found at bigredkitty.blogspot.com.
[Fan art by Moony]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
8-15-2007 @ 1:13PM
Attapooch said...
The only appropriate use of referring to oneself in the third person is when a man's talking about himself and his penis as a team.
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8-15-2007 @ 1:15PM
Balasan said...
@#1, Maybe for a hunter, his pet is almost as equal to his penis? I'd think so, especially a BM hunter.
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8-15-2007 @ 1:22PM
Balasan said...
Err and WRT to the topic at hand, yeah, even though my hunter is only 30, stable slots aren't enough, at all.
It's always fun to experiment with different pets, and I've been planning (they're all still in the air, mind you) of sticking to BM at 70 and get a turtle pet for off-tanking in instances. At the same time I *just* can NEVER abandon my lovely little owlie I got from darnassus (I'm horde). That basically leaves me one slot for pet skill training and pet testing. Not fun at all.
One more slot would be nice, but I guess I'll probably have to live with 2 slots.
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8-15-2007 @ 1:24PM
lfnotter said...
At this point, I'd pay 50 or 100 gold per additional stable slot and do so gleefully. Even though I use a warpie full time, I have my ghost saber Moonstone sta-, er, retired and available for stud services at ver reasonable rates. I couldn't think of abandoning him.
I just don't try new pets anymore. No new pets, no new attachments.
And boy, does it suck.
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8-15-2007 @ 1:27PM
lfnotter said...
@2: It's close, but my penis can't teleport or tank elites for me. You have to use the right tool for the right job.
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8-15-2007 @ 1:38PM
Regis said...
First sight I thought it to be too long, but I enjoyed reading it.
We sure hope for additional stable slots, as it's fun to experiment. But we could never part, Dawn - my little red feline friend - and me.
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8-15-2007 @ 1:38PM
ThorinII said...
Early on I had my share of pets, a bear named Fuzzywuzzy, a hyena named Ed, a gorilla named Spank, and the list goes on. But, the hardest one for me to let go of was Bagheera (aka Baggy).
I dinged lvl 40 completing the quest to kill Bhag'thera. I then turned in the quest and quickly ran back to find him respawned. So, I dropped my iceblock trap and sent the hearts a flyin.
Baggy and I were buds up to 50 when I picked up Wilbur, a Ashmane Boar from blasted lands. The three of us became the best of friends rest of the way to 60. Once they both caught up to me I picked up a purple tiger. Frostbite knew Prowl which I found very handy in WSG and AB while working on my GM gear waiting for BC to come out. While in AV someone told me all about his Wintersping Owl. It had more stamina, more armor, higher dps, and limited the oppositions field of vision. I had to have one. But, who had to go? You guessed it, Baggy. It was sad to see him go. We'd been through so much together. But, Guano and I have become great buds kicking butt in AV and doing BC quests. I ditched Frostbite to try out other BC pets, but none so far are a match for Guano. I may someday even go back and catch Wilbur up too.
We must remember that the abandoned pets will never truely die. For one thing they were never truely alive, but for another they will live on in our memories and screenshots.
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8-15-2007 @ 1:38PM
Farrunner said...
Ever since I went with a bunch of the other hunters of the world and released Snarler back into the wilds of Feralas, playing the hunter was never the same. Sure, my boar Porkrind isn't a bad pet, but he's not Snarler. I didn't have to camp him for days on end to actually catch him, almost losing him to a fade out and another hunter.
Ah well.
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8-15-2007 @ 1:44PM
Dave said...
I think you should be able to sacrifice a bank slot or a bag slot for another pet slot. Or have a talent skill that lets you have more slots somewhere deep in the beast mastery tree, enough that if you want to have 5 pets, you have to be a beastmastery hunter, not a marksman (who clearly doesn't rely on their pets).
It'd give you the ability to add pets to experiment and gain skills and all that crap, then respec and dump the pets you don't need/like if you have to go all marks for raids.
Honestly though when i played a hunter I used 2 pets and that was it. I had my big slow tank for soloing (started with bear, went to boar later), and my quick annoying pet (speedy kitty) for PVP. Then again, I look at it as a video game and there are certain abilities and stats to look for, rather than some sort of esoteric emotional attachment or aesthetic one needs to look for. If you want to roleplay or have some other non-gameplay reasons for having certain pets then knock your socks off... but it's at the cost of having the most useful pet.
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8-15-2007 @ 1:45PM
dyna18 said...
I have 2 hunters. Each L70 with a pet they had since the lowbe zones. I can't imagine having to loose them. There was quite a scare when my pet cat named Pussie recieved a GM bash, but luckily she could be renamed to Kittie. On my other hunter I wouldn't know where to be without my pet boar Pumba from RFK... best tank I ever had.
I'm not even using the pet in my 2nd slot.
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8-15-2007 @ 1:51PM
fealubryne said...
It's funny, I was just whining about this to a friend yesterday. While they may not be vastly unusual or rare, I've worked hard for my pets and I love them! From running a level 10 orc hunter to the Night Elf starting zone simply because I had to have an owl, to camping out a rare spawn for hours, or just because that particular pet managed to tank five consecutive red things... pets have got a nasty way of growing on you.
I agree, I'd gladly save up and pay for extra stable slots. There's other pet families I'd like to try, but I don't wanna get attached to any more pets just to get rid of them!
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8-15-2007 @ 1:51PM
Aveda said...
I think 3 are plenty. Sure, I could have one of everything, but because my choices are limited I have to find a pet I really bond with.
I had a snow leopard for a while when I first started. When I got to the right level, I made a long, death-riddled journey to Horde country and tamed Gorefang, a rare, elite Worg. I liked him but he looked so dirty... then I read about a silver wolf that roams the Duskwood forest named Lupos. It took 2 days, but I finally found him, and I let a well-fed Gorefang free.
Lupos and I were a good team, until a quest for Darnassus rep took me to Blackfathom Depths and I met a big elite turtle named Ga-moorah! I can tame him, I said, and I did. And in a world full of tigers and ravagers, it was so cool to have a turtle!
I felt he was a little too cool, however, as I went all the way through Thousand Needles with Gamoorah and Lupos sat in my stable. Now I'm 4 levels ahead of Lupos, and his once moderate DPS is totally insufficient now.
So at 30, I made my way to STV and tamed a tiger. He is unnamed right now, because I don't want to keep him. I want my wolf back, but he's too little for where we are right now. What can I do?
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8-15-2007 @ 1:53PM
Sinnersaint said...
I have a 64 hunter and the cat I have was a level 7 when I nabbed her at level 10. I have no need for additional slots except for the one where I caught a rare in Winterspring. He hasn't come out since I put him in there. It's me and Duncan all the way!
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8-15-2007 @ 2:01PM
Baluki said...
I've been so happy with the performance of my boar (a brown armored one from Razorfen Kraul) that I haven't really bothered with anything else, and I'm up to 59 now. I'd like to try one of those colorful Kaliri in Skettis once I get to 70 though.
I used to raid with a guy named Grenno, and he usually used a pink tallstrider called Grennobuddy. If you take the same pet from lvl. 9 to lvl. 60, you're never getting rid of it. Too bad that tallstriders aren't very versatile. They should at least be able to learn Screech.
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8-15-2007 @ 2:04PM
Tseran said...
I actually had a naming tradition for bears for a while when I was levelling my hunter. As us hunters know, bears eat just about everything, even bear meat. So, my first bear was named Cannibear. Any bear I got after that replaced the previous one and was named he same. The story was that he ate his predecessor.
As for cats, they tended to be named a variation of Felis. For example, Felis Catus (a homage to Data's poem about spot), Felis Magenta (purple kitty!) and such. However, the last one is a dedication to LOLcats, and is named Harbl The Pridelord. Guess where I got him from.
Windserpents were never touched until level 60, when I soloed into ZG to get one of the Son's of Hakkar that changed colors. His name was Fufu. He left and was later replaced by a blue FuFu from Netherstorm as a PvP pet, for the same reason mentioned, in your face, hard to dismiss.
I tried a warpstalker, and while I agree they are cool, and they were hillariously fun to watch when you were mounted (before the 2.1 patch) and their little tails would wiggle at high speed following behind you. But, they were only for novelty.
Sporebats? Cool to look at, but unremarable. Same with Rays.
Now, Ravagers. Nice armor, nice damage....Vorepuppy is his name, and he is fun.
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8-15-2007 @ 2:25PM
Foussa said...
Nowadays, you can tame a pet even if your stable is empty. Just dismiss your pet, train the beast, and voilà. The dismissed pet will sit in an invisible slot in your stable, waiting for one of the others to move out in order to appear. It works. I do it all the time and never lost a pet.
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8-15-2007 @ 2:26PM
Foussa said...
I meant "even if your stable is full".
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8-15-2007 @ 2:34PM
Michael said...
Ugh, this rambling, unstructured narrative makes it difficult to find any substance. I'll have my secretary brief me later.
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8-15-2007 @ 2:50PM
Nookni said...
*looks around, sees even the comments are empty of certain things, and laments*
Does no one in the entire land of Azeroth enjoy a faithful Crab? I've have my Kayrab since he started following my on the Echo Isles, and never looked back.
Sure, I've tried to be nice to boars, bats, and kitties, but none of them stirred my heart than that big red friend of mine.
He may only growl and claw things, instead of swipe, charge, stomp, and screech at them. but I wouldn't trade him for the world.
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8-15-2007 @ 3:14PM
Urthona said...
Is there any reasonable game mechanic that necessitates the restriction to 3 pet stables?
I know pat of having a pet is using it, and there are several that just sit in the stables, but WHY NOT have 3-6 additional stable slots?
I know a hunter that keeps a high defense tanking pet for group quests, a DPS grinding pet, and a ranged DPS pet for those situational encounters. Now he WANTS to get a DPS pet and load it with resistances, but he can't.
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