No, I'm not talking about parenting and honey-do skills. In Wrath of the Lich King, each hunter family will have its own unique skill, just as Warp Stalkers currently have Warp.
In fact, some of the pet skills are so enticing that I'm beginning to think I'm going to need about 8 more stable slots! Here is a look at some of the juicier talents:
Bats will be able to stun an opponent for 2 seconds.
Bears will be able to Swipe similarly to druids, hitting three enemies in melee range.
Birds of Prey will be able to disarm opponents for 6 seconds.
Hyenas will reduce movement speed.
Moths will be increasing their own attack power, and healing themselves.
Nether Rays will have a spellcasting interrupt, preventing any spells from that school for one second.
Are you as excited as I am? Don't forget to head over to Petopia to check out the full, detailed list. What pets will you be taming?
Tip: Don't confuse pet skills with pet talents! Read up on the new pet talent trees for more information.
Two weeks ago we covered some of the new abilities you get from levels 10 to 20 while you progress as a hunter, as well as how to use them to keep your skills sharp. The journey from 20 to 30 is a bit less topsy-turvy. At level 20, of course, you get to start playing with Aspect of the Cheetah and Freezing Trap, which can be a lot of fun, but other than that the new skills you get don't totally change the way you play until you get to level 30 and learn Feign Death. Nonetheless, they deserve a mention.
If you're following the Beast Mastery talent path I laid out last week, then reaching level 20 doesn't give you any super-exciting new abilities either. Your pet will be able to run a bit faster, and will start doing more damage. Once you get the hang of using your Freezing Trap for crowd control, it's pretty much just a straight shot till you reach 30. It may feel a little boring sometimes, but it's really better than a lot of classes have it -- often many classes feel that the 20s are the levels at which the going seems roughest and the class seems weakest because it still lacks a major portion of its abilities. For hunters, it's just more of the same stuff we've been doing up till now.
Here's a nice little bit of news for all leveling Hunters, people looking into starting a hunter alt, or people looking to switch out or tweak out their current pet: the popular depository of all things Hunter pet related in WoW, Petopia, has gotten a facelift and a few handy new reference pages. The quick links and references seem to be a lot more streamlined now, and it should be even easier to find information. Some pages are still making the transition, and some of the pet pictures have not been updated to the new color scheme, but Mania assures us she is working on that.
In the meantime, she's also added a few new pages to the library, namely the Retired Pet page and the "Fake" Pet Skills page. The former deals with formerly tamable pets that can no longer be tamed, while the latter deals with pet skills that are present during the newbie hunter taming quests, but not on any permanently tamed pet.
I rather like both of the new pages. Not only should the information be helpful (if sad) to any newbie wondering where they can get that awesome ghost wolf, but the pages were a nice walk down memory lane for this old hunter. I remember when I made first Tauren Hunter, I was always disappointed that Swoop wasn't an actual bird pet skill, and I was considering a pet crab for my Dwarf Hunter at one point, and would have loved to have a thorny pet to add a bit more damage and threat power for tanking. Crabs could probably use some love anyway, as they seem to be competing with the likes of Sporebats and Bears for most neglected pet family.
But anyway, if you're a Hunter, and you haven't checked out Petopia in a while, it's worth a look, there's some pretty cool stuff going on over there.
Every week, Brian Karasek and David Bowers bring you help, tips and advice for the leveling Hunter in Scattered Shots. For those veterans looking for high end Hunter goodness, BRK is back on active duty. This post is part of the Hunter Leveling Guide.
You probably know by now that Big Red Kitty refers to himself as "we" in all his articles. For the longest time I thought this was just him being silly, but with his return to WoW Insider after a long hiatus, he explained that this is actually a kind of philosophical statement as to the oneness of hunter and pet.
You needn't worry that we (being Brian and I) will start trying to mimic him, but he really does have a good point. When a hunter reaches level 10 and gains his or her first pet, your pet becomes an extension of yourself, and an incredible source of power. The game suddenly gets very easy, and enemies start dying very fast. In effect, with a pet at your side, you become your own tank-damage-healing group all by yourself, able to finesse the control over your character and pet alike to achieve all sorts of neat stuff.
Very cool. Other plans include resources for "mount hunters," the inclusions of Druid flight forms (do those count as mounts? and if so, should all travel forms be included?), and even a blog for mount news. Looks like another great resource for anyone looking for more ways to get around Azeroth.
But the kicker is this: a 2008 Petopia wall calendar. Featuring fun screenshots (and even some original art) of the best and most favorite pets in the game. I love it. Echeyakee, Humar, Takk the Leaper-- all the greats are here to count down 2008 with you. At $25 it's a little pricey, but on the other hand, any Hunter would love to have that as a gift this holiday season. Very cool idea to put that together, and totally fun to see your favorite virtual pets show up in a setting like that.
Everybody's favorite pet database/hunter resource Petopia has been made ready for 2.3 a day early (and it's because Mania is going to take an AFK-- I hope it's for something relaxing, because she deserves it!). The closest thing we have to a changelist is a running tally of 2.3 news over on Mania's blog, but there are definitely new pets (including this hot obsidian raptor above), skill updates, and lots of other new information in the database.
I'm especially excited because I've purposely left my BE hunter at about level 29 since all these 2.3 changes were announced, so his eyes are the ones I'm going to be seeing patch 2.3, the new Dustwallow Marsh, and all the updated pre-60 instances through. Petopia is a great guide for all Hunters, but I'm especially excited to use it for myself.
Hunter supreme Mania of Mania's Arcania and Petopia reports that Blizzard does indeed have a plan to help with pet leveling if it turns out that they need one. My wife turned me on to Petopia a long, long time ago and even though I rarely play a hunter (I like to melee too much) I do enjoy browsing the site, so I'm well aware that Mania generally has her thumb on the pulse of pet developments.
Also, it seems as though various hunter abilities will be scaling with ranged attack power. The abilities mentioned include Serpent Sting and Immolation Trap. Since hunters tend to want to stack RAP anyway, these seem like pretty decent changes to the class in my opinion. Also, Arcane Shot is now dispelling one magic effect when it hits.
I don't know if this buff love is enough to balance out the fact that hunters tend to be under-represented in arena teams, but I'll leave that up to you hunters to decide.
Mania's posted a ton of updates for Petopia-- and all done while planning a cross-country move! Doesn't this girl ever sleep?
Lots of untameable pets have been added (which you can see by the strikethrough on them), and pet family damage, armor, and health modifiers have returned. There's a new Tips and Tricks section that's got a few good guides in it already, and the pet skill calculators have also been supplemented and updated.
Petopia is just an amazing resource for Hunters (in fact, I can't think of nearly any class-specific resource that's so useful-- when is someone going to start up a "Totemtopia" for Shamans?), and Mania's great work on it just keeps making it better and better.
I was reading a post on the Hunter forums that asked a simple question: how do I separate my beloved hunter from the millions of huntards out there. The reply was a resounding: learn to play your class. With that in mind, I was excited to find someone had created not one, but two excellent guides to help newbie Hunters with the basics.
Alanoymous of Vek'nilash is responsible for creating both 'A Guide To Choosing A Pet - BC Revised' and the follow up 'A Beginners Guide to Pet Taming, Training and Care.' In the first post, he covers the wide range of pets available for various PvP and PvE situations. He also recommends the best pet in those scenarios. Then in the second post, he talks about what is involved in keeping your new pet happy and well-trained.
If you are looking for more in-depth information about pets and their abilities, you can also check out two well done hunter pet sites: TKASomething and Petopia.
Basically, using a newly tamed pet, a stopwatch, and a notepad, she determined that in order for a pet to go from loyalty level 1 (Rebellious) to level 2 (Unruly), the pet needs to gain 5% of the experience the Hunter needs for his next level. So a level 11 hunter needs 8800 experience to get to 12, which means a pet (of any level and family) needs to kill for 440 XP (5% of 8800) to go up a loyalty level with that Hunter.
Interesting. And the formula apparently works even when the pet isn't actually earning experience (ie when your pet is the same level as you are). However (and this is a big however), time is also playing a factor, and Mania's not exactly how it does-- she let her pet sit happy for a few hours, and then on the very next kill, the loyalty level went up. So it seems to be some combo of experience earned together and time (where more experience or more time can replace the other if necessary), but the exact numbers aren't there yet.
At any rate, good stuff, and Mania is being really thorough with it. If you're a Hunter who changes pets often, it's worth a read.
I feel like I keep mentioning Mania's Arcania, but she keeps doing things worth mentioning! This time around, it's a big one: Petopia has received a big refresh-- it's mostly a code update (the site has been brought over into CSS, which will make formatting changes easier, and the information has been put into a real database), but there are still a few navigation changes that might make it easier for you to find the pet of your dreams.
The biggest change is the navigation column itself-- instead of having lots of different options, the column is organized solely by pet family, so to see information, for instance, about all the gorilla pets, you click "gorilla." Easy enough. But those old options aren't lost-- in fact, they're easier to browse, because since Mania's put all the info into a real database, that database is now searchable by criteria. Want to see all the pets that can Prowl, or every pet that eats fruit available in your level range? Plug your queries into the form and get your own customized list. Nice changes, and we're told we can expect more to come.
The always interesting Mania's Arcania has more great news for Hunters from the PTR blog. Apparently in 2.2 (and right now on the PTR), Raptor family pets will be able to learn the Dash ability. Previously, I believe, Dash was primarily available from the cats in STV (Bhag'thera, the elite panther down there, gave Dash rank 2). But now Raptors are getting in on the speedy fun, too.
Now, Raptors can already learn to both Bite and Claw (they can Growl and Cower, too, but those are the standard pet abilities that every pet has), so you might think a third ability would make them a little OP. But it turns out Raptors have been getting the short end of the stick for a while-- Cats can do all those things and Prowl, and Boars even get an extra Charge ability. Heck, even Tallstriders can Dash, so a Raptor doing it is no problem.
Bears, it seems, are stuck with the short of the stick, as they only have the Bite and Claw. But Bears get extra HP and Armor, plus a lumbering bear isn't exactly sprightly, so Bear-owning Hunters don't have much to complain about. If you're a Raptor kind of Hunter, make sure to stop by the pet trainer after 2.2, because your pet, clever girl, has picked up a new skill.
Mania's Arcania (the official Petopia blog) points out their new Pet Skill Calculator, hosted by Petopia and put together by Draketh of EU Moonglade. Basically, it's more or less an easy way to simply show off your pet's build-- you start with 350 skill points (what you'd have with a level 70 pet and maximum loyalty), and then you can just throw those points into all the different abilities available to your pet's family.
So for showing off your pet's build, it works just fine-- there's even a real simple "Link to Build" button that's perfect for inserting into a forum post or signature. But personally, I'd like to see a little more output-- at the very least, the calculator could show off your pet's resistances (yes, I know they're on the tooltips of the skills, but it wouldn't be hard to show an at-a-glance visual output of your choices). And I haven't had a 70 hunter (I leave the heavy hunter lifting to BRK), but aren't pet stats standardized by pet family at 70? Draketh would probably have to add in some Hunter talent toggles, but wouldn't it be possible to actually show, via Hunter and pet talents, your Pet's standard DPS and armor. Maybe that's a little tough to calculate, but I'd like to see it if possible.
Still, if you've been looking for a way to show off your pet's build (or get advice on it from other Hunters), this calculator is a great tool.
Mania's Arcania, which is the new home of the Petopia blog, has a really interesting look at a frustrating problem for hunters-- leveling a lowbie pet with a high level character. Say you're 70 and you want a Ghost Saber. Because the Ghost Saber spawns at only 19 or 20, the only way to currently level it is to basically let the hunter tank (or kite, more likely), and simply bring the pet along for the ride.
So how could we fix this? One of Mania's commenters has an interesting idea-- whenever a pet is tamed, it is automatically brought within a few levels of the hunter taming it. If you're 70 and taming a level 20, then when the little green ding flare rises up after taming, the pet suddenly becomes level 65, which is good enough to make the pet not so useless. It doesn't quite make sense (why would a pet be so much more powerful just because you tame it?), but it does take out the unnecessary pet grinding. Mania has other ideas that work well, too-- either make the pet experience relative to the pet (not the hunter, as it is now), or reduce the amount of experience needed anyway. Another idea mentioned is to make the latest rank of Growl open to any tamed pet of any level, but I don't see that working-- even if a level 20 could hold aggro against a level 60+ mob, it's not going to last very long.
The only other suggestion I'd have is just to implement a different way to level pets-- maybe a turnin or a special quest at pet trainers that cuts down on the grinding time and method. But no matter how you do it, there's no reason hunters should be forced to go through all this just to get the pet that has the look they want.
Hunter supreme Mania of Mania's Arcania and 
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The always interesting Mania's Arcania has more great news for Hunters from the PTR blog. Apparently in 2.2 (and right now on the PTR), Raptor family pets will 
Mania's Arcania
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