Help me with non-exotic pets

[Bastor]

When I rolled my Hunter, I did so with Pets as focus. Thus I rolled beastmaster and have been thrilled with the exotic pets, Corehound, Devilsaur, Rhino, I have them all, love them all.

When they got buffed in Cata to have 2 skills instead of one, I rejoiced because I had a reason to always run with an exotic.

Now I'm trying to learn Marksmanship Hunter, mostly for PvP, and am kinda torn what kind of pet to take.

I figure a Ferocity Pet would be good in order to add as much damage as possible, though I've seen many hunters running with Cunning and Tenacity.

So far, I've decided on 2 families, my trusty Hyena Heckler, who I've been with since level 30 and a Dog. The root for of the dog comes in very good for pvp, tho I see most hunters running a spider. So why choose cunning over ferocity? Survivability? Raor of Sacrifce?

Also, I'd love if you pet specialists could point out some more pets with great skills and personalities for a pet enthusiast like me

Thanks in advance.

[Redith]

Im a Wolf Tiger and Dog kind of guy..so Id say Dog lol

[isyris]

I think the reasoning behind the spiders is their web--holds the enemy in place while you kill it. Doesn't have so much to do with pet spec. (At least, that's true for leveling--dunno if that's the reason for their use in PvP as well.)

As for Dog vs Hyena, I haven't used a Dog type since they were added, but Lock Jaw does sound handy.

[Fafnir]

The reason why you see so many spiders is because it is a ranged fire&forget root. Dogs and crabs also have a root, but require melee range and it must be channelled... and despite this has the same cooldown as the web.

[Arcanimus]

Personally, I use a crab for PvP. The combination of Roar of Sacrifice, increased survivability through increased healing taken and extra stamina, and the overall tankiness of them just make it so much more desireable.

[Acherontia]

Cunning: Roar of Sacrifice, Roar of Recovery, PvP utility, imo. Even as BM, I swap between Cunning & Ferocity pets. RoS on a deep freeze or Throwdown is just phenomenal (assuming trink's on cd).

You could go with a Bat, too, for the stun (as an added interrupt/kiting ability)! Or a Bird of Prey/Scorpid for the disarm. But I do think that Spider (in my case, Silithid ) is pretty awesome.

[Bastor]

Cunning seems reasonable, especially since Marksman is much more expensive focus wise.

So far I've decided on:

Spider - Web
Bird of Prey - Disarm
Nether Ray - Interrupt
Sporebat - Cast Time Increase

And I still have my place for Heckler, the Hyena of Death

[Foru21dr]

I go more with the pet’s abilities than what their tree is. I’m BM, so I do use more of the exotic pets that have some of the same abilities. For the non exotics, I like the spiders for web, bird of prey for disarm, carrion bird for their screech, wolf for furious howl as examples.

I will also use tenacity pets, and my main complain is speed. Their burst of charge and boar speed does help but It’s nothing like dash or dive to get them up to the flag carrier. I love my scorpion, which has the same ability as my bird of prey… but I like using him more when I know I’m going to be in close quarters, WSG or the isles of conquest or I’m going to be traveling more within a group, AB, or BoG as examples. When we are in close quarters, it seems to be the pet get blasted more, and the tenacity survives longer.

I like my croc and warp stalker for their slow ability. The croc more because his cooldown is shorter and he keeps slow on a person longer, while the warpstalker has a bit of a range to cast. I don’t turn down because their DPS is lower. I love playing with all of them.

[FuzzyDolly]

I leveled 10-80 with only a cunning owl from outside Darnusses, and absolutely loved it. Now I'm leveling 80-85 with Aotona, again a cunning pet. I am a big fan of cunning pets.

[Bastor]

Okay, so after all of your feedback (very much appreciated), I decided on using Cunning Pets for Marksmanship PvP.

Basic Reason was given by Foru21dr: The speed of Dive/Dash is simply amazing. Coupled with Bullheaded, I can get my Pet to it's target very fast. Also, Cunning Pets have offensive as well as defensive buffs, both for the Hunter and themselves, while Ferocity tend to have only offensive and tenacity only defensive cooldowns apart from family skills.

I case anyone is wondering, I'm using this spec: http://www.wowhead.com/petcalc#0ozc0bbb0bzRz for the Pets.

As I mentioned earlier, I decided on 4 Pets to use, the obvious Spider for their Net ability, the Bird of Prey for Disarm, a Nether Ray for Interrupts and a Sporebat for 30% Cast Time increase.

Now I want to share a little about the pets I tamed and my experience with them, maybe this can help some people who want to take the same decision:

The first pet I went to tame was a spider. Easily enough, since in Tol Barad there's a lot of beautiful creatures already at level 85, so no leveling up was necessary.

First thing I noticed in comparison to my dog was the range on their web ability. Plus it's not channeled, which is a plus. Coming from pure ferocity pets, I had to get used to skills like Roar of Sacrifice, but in the end it worked quiete well. Web is an awesome PvP ability and now I wholeheartly understand why it is used to much. Both for defensive and offensive purposes it serves you quiete well.

I find my Spider, whom I named Parker, to be a pet of great personality, he clicked with me pretty quickly, since he's such a beast and wants to pvp all the time (his idle animations are almost impatient, as if he wants to say "Are we gonna kill something soon" all the time).

The second Pet I tamed and leveled to 85 was a sporebat. Now of all the skills I chose, I chose this one as the least important. Since Sporebats and flying Pets in general never really got to me, it was more a decision that I wanted to try one of those, because of their die hard fans within the realms of this forum.

I was not to be disappointed. From the first moment I tamed "Sponge" I fell in love with him. He looks absolutely stellar next to my goblin hunter, so I chose to level him by doing daily quests to spent some time with him. I love his skill, too. Since he casts an ae that is not dispellable he works best when used on more than one target. The radius on the spell is actually quiete huge, covering up to 3 target dummies in Ogrimmar.

When he was 85, I took him to BGs and have not touched another pet for BG's since. He's just so gorgeous and since there will often times be more than one caster in one place in a BG he's actually quiete useful. A huge plus is, he looks amazing in the char selection screen, so I tend to log out with him out all the time.

Currently I have my Bird of Prey leveled up already, and have been working on my Nether Ray, so I'll post something and maybe some pics about them next.

[Lisaara]

Or you could pvp as BM and take an awesome Shale Spider.

[Royi]

Nice! I have a scorpion myself for PVP (SV). I like the disarm thing, and I also like tanky type pets for PVP (spec them max dps)

[Tyuriwen]

I use a Spider when I'm MM, and I alternate between my Chimaera and my Silithid when I'm BM =3 Copernicus (my Olm) will be levelled and might be used for the Disarm, but we'll see. I like my Hyena for PvP too!

The story of your Sporebat was very touching, I could never get rid of Andromeda (my Sporebat). =3 Many more savoury Peeveepees to you!

[Araela]

My favorites are the wolves, but I would suggest trying a few that look interesting to you, running with them, and seeing if they click or not. My top 3 non exotic favorite wolves: Snarler, Old Cliff Jumper, Deathmaw.

[Lisaara]

Nice! I have a scorpion myself for PVP (SV). I like the disarm thing, and I also like tanky type pets for PVP (spec them max dps)

Madexx is a champ in pvp. x3 Also I love my chimaera. He pisses off rogues and eats them for breakfast.

[Bastor]

So after having leveled the sporebat and played around with the spider, I started to level the rest of the bunch. Namely my seagull, currently called "Meins" which is the German version of the typical Nemo-joke.

Shortly after playing with him, I was sure I'm going to rename him tho. The way he attacks enemies really can only be described as vicious. I'm gonna call him Hitchcock. His snatch ability is pretty awesome and he tanks like a beast, although he's pretty small. I took him into a battleground. As opposed to sponge his ability is on a pretty long timer, so its use is situational at best. Although, whenever I got into a sticky situation, with a rogue stunning me, I'd have Hitchcock snatch the rogues weapon when I was stunned. I could practically smell the frustration of the rogue, not being able to do much while I was stunned getting pecked on my a seagull.

Then I went to level my Nether Ray. Nether Rays are like the evil brothers of spore bats, really tempted me to call the pair Jeckyl and Hyde, but I love sponge to much to rename him. His special makes up for some really awesome interrupt chains with silence shot, nether shock, scatter shot, feign death on the next cast, silence shot again. Only bad thing, people rarely hard cast in the face of a hunter, they use mostly instants. Against the typical healer that sidelines the battlefield he's pretty awesome, although I prefer sponge for these, as his special will do good in long terms.

So far, out of the bunch, only Parker, my spider, Sponge the Sporebat and Hitchcock get the medal, although Hitch is pretty far behind the other two. Time to test some more pets, I haven't gotten around to test a monkey, which is probably what I'm gonna try next.
I also want to level a dog, since their special isn't dispellable by anything short of freedom.

Any other suggestions?

[Foru21dr]

Try using a carrion bird. I just love mine. I use him mostly in close range bg's. Defending of towers or flag bases. I love his ability to reduce damage and send him mostly against melee fighters. Especially when they are fighting with one of our ally. Their ability, though short range, is not just against the one they are attacking and his screech is always up.

Another pet I'm going really try out is the Croc. I love my chimeara, but the croc has an even shorter CD that I think he might be better to use. I know the melee fighters hate my chimeara when trying to kill me, but how much more will they be pissed with a croc always biting their ankles and their slow almost always up.

Now has anyone tried a serpent? I like their ability to reduce armor, but in the past hated the hesitation they did in their dash to do their first spit. Do they still do that hesitation?