Tank Pets

[malikith]

OK so pre Cata I really only had my Black Bear (Onyx) as a Tank pet. [I have the Hydra (Pitt) as well but..he never seems to leave the stable. I know. I know. Uber rare so why keep him there??] Since I only use a Tank for Soloing its just never much of an issue. Raids and Groups really recquire Ferocity pets to be fully effective.

Anyway since Cata came out Ive started using Tanks more. I got the Purple Croc (Sobek) and I like him a lot. Onyx has come out to level and Pitt has as well. I also grabbed the hard-to-tame Orange Beetle (Lucy- Beetles reference). Last night I also grabbed the Blue Warpstalker ...sheesh too many cool tanks.

Aside from looks is there a practical reason to have so many Tank pets?

(i guess if we are going practicality you only need about a half dozen pets, but just sort of "picking peoples brains" as it were.)

[Comett]

Before Cata I never had a tank pet. I was about 95% ferocity with a tiny bit of cunning thrown in. Then Cata hits and suddenly all the cool pets are tank pets haha! Now I have a firey turtle, a gorgeous dark warpstalker, a corehound, and a shale spider...

So far I have found an efficient use for three of them lol. The turtle, Vulcan, has been specced purely for tanking, so theoretically if the tank dropped he can (and has) taken over. The warp stalker, Toothless, is a sort of dps-tank, specced as well as I can for dps but with a few moved such as Roar of Sacrifice which can help him keep the tank up or otherwise be beneficial to a group. I've found this VERY useful so far to use in dungeons! Then of course the Core Hound, who I have never actually used before (tamed as my boyfriend wanted it) but is more or less a "must get" these days for ancient hysteria.

Poor little Jadefang though. Don't even know if I want her. If my stable get filled she'd probably be one of the first to go. >__>

[Kurasu]

When we had a five-slot stable, four of mine were holding tank pets. I've done all sorts of tanking, and various tank pets have different plusses and minuses to them. Even at the moment, I still have a *lot* of tank pets hanging around. And they all have different abilities that would make them handy in different situations.

... well, all but the turtle and beetle combo I have now. I just don't want to let my Venomous Skitterer go, now that I've actually got it! But there's no way I'm releasing my turtle. Even if it *wasn't* Terrorpene, Panzer is my personal favorite pet.

[Mousie]

After taming my first "hardcore" pet tank (Terrorpene), I've found that he's incredibly useful and reliable not only when soloing (MDing mobs all over the area to him [Glyph of Misdirection ftw] and multi-shotting them all down at once) but also in the new heroic instances.

A few of the tanks I run with in my guild are pretty undergeared still, so they tank trash pulls and Jalapeño (my turtle) tanks the heroic bosses with ease. Healers are able to focus more on healing the DPSers who are still learning fights because the 60% extra healing (plus Mend Pet, which you should be keeping up at all times). He's able to hold threat easily, especially with Glyph of Misdirection, the only problem is positioning, I'm still learning how to control my new mini-tank's movement, but overall he's such a great little tank, I love him to pieces. We're maybe looking to incorporate him into certain raid fights once I get a stamina set to buff up his HP.

:p I'll get a few screenshots of him tankin' tomorrow!

[Kurasu]

the only problem is positioning, I'm still learning how to control my new mini-tank's movement

Welcome to the hive. But seriously, positioning used to be done with the pet being put on 'follow' and the hunter running with it. Now, you can set the pet on passive (otherwise it'll turn to keep attacking the boss defensively) and use the new 'move pet' command. If it's between two spots, you can also put the pet on 'stay' at one spot and have them engage the boss from the 'stay' position. When you /petpassive, they will return to their set 'Stay' position.