This. Scalehide is definitely the way to go for contant farming. Best thing is that the 1 min CD is up practically every pack you pull and the leech scales very good with beastcleave meaning you can AoE tank quite well with a Scalehide (or Corehound if you prefer exotic pets).Sarynotsorry wrote:Rora wrote:lvl 120, admittedly only 280 item level I'm still finding the pets to be much squishier than before. I've been doing solely tenacity pets and I still have to heal rather often. Stag, Devilsaur, ect hasn't been any better. Anyone else had better luck?
Keep in mind that “tenacity” doesn’t mean “tank pet” anymore. Tenacity does give a bonus to pet and hunter health but it’s not as tanky as it used to be. Your best bets for tanking solo pets are actually pets from the ferocity group - namely core hounds, scalehides, and gorillas. My scalehide has been my favorite - he’s got a 1min cd damage reduction ability (50% for 12 sec) and all ferocity pets have hero and provide leech. I rarely have to mend my scalehide. Core hounds are slightly better I think but I hate core hounds personally.
Simply MD barrage everything on the pet, pop mend pet for some extra early healing and kick ass. Most important aspect is to never drop beastcleave. Beastcleave'd claw/bite/smack heals your pet up to nearly full every time it goes off, if one of the basic attack goes off without beastcleave your pet is likely to die.
You can also opt for clefthoofs/gorillas; but I found the 1 minute cooldown to be more consistent and up for nearly every pack.
Tenacity pets simply aren't tanky pets anymore. (Bit of a shame since turtles and several other tenacity pets make much more sense as tanks).
I somewhat hope blizzard fixes this, maybe by giving tenacity a different bonus (e.g. 100% extra healing received from mend pet) to make them better tanks; if not for AoE then at least for ST. A lot of these changes would have virtually no impact on end game PvE or PvP if done right.
ATM the only tenacity pet that can slightly hold it's own is the spirit beast due to the strong heal.
Tenacity is now the raid / mythic+ branch of the pets. The extra health and cooldown are quite good and you generally don't need BL for raids and for M+ you can swap between uses.
Cunning is still best for PvP and also really good for just running around or doing old content as the speed bonus adds up.
In that regard all pet talent branches still have their uses, only ferocity and tenacity are kinda swapped if you try to think of it in a logical manner.