Tanking pets?

[Isabeau]

I am getting into the excitement of being able to solo some old content on my hunter. I notice almost every guide/discussion I see people are using a turtle pet. I am wondering if there is much of a difference between the different types of Tenacity Pets?

I currently use a shale spider named Roxie lol. I love her.

I see turtles have shell shield but does it really make a huge difference?

Thanks

[Cerele]

beetle and turtle will be the answer youll get most often. use what ever you want but they have the damage reduction, so it helps

[Vephriel]

Turtle/Beetle are popular because they come with an extra cooldown, which certainly is VERY handy, but honestly I can solo a lot of stuff using other Tenacity pets as long as I'm smart and keep Mend Pet up and use Cower at opportune moments. Besides that one extra 'oshit' button, there is no difference, and some Tenacity pets may even be more useful with their species talent depending on the situation.

[peanutbuttercup]

I agree that the shield makes turtle and beetle the best choices, however I've been doing my solo runs with a boar or crab (and I keep forgetting about cower so I don't use it, oops!). I did have a beetle before but the shield didn't make as much difference as I thought it would. I think the talents you choose and your glyphs make more of a difference. Make sure you're glyphed for mend pet and give your pets survivability talents like the grace of the mantis, and you can turn almost any tenacity pet into a decent tank.

[GormanGhaste]

As no one's mentioned them yet, bears are good against melee groups.

[Kurasu]

Turtles and Beetles are definitely far and away better against things tat deal heavy damage. The extra cooldown will save their butt, and thus yours, too. If you're dealing with something that gives you a little more wriggle room, then any Tenacity pet comes in handy, and there's a few who are much better with threat generation and general damage reduction (as opposed to personal Shield Wall).

[CrystalKitten]

I use my turtle, Ardenset, for any heavy tanking. Like if I'm soloing some of the harder wrath heroics, or older raids. Or when I'm running other people through stuff, to make sure there's less chance of death on anyone's part. I'll use any of my other tenacity pets though in other situations. So for running 3-5 man guild groups for guild run acheivements, or working on wrath glory.

I will say that turtles are awesome as far as brute survival goes. I was soloing MC a while back with Ardenset, and I wasn't sure how the corehound packs were supposed to be dealt with. I'd guessed, but by that time i already had the entire room pulled. The two of us took down the bosses, and then continued fighting for maybe 10 minutes, with Ardenset only really dying when I'd stopped healing him to do a quick google search for strategies, heh.

However, for generic content, I've used Squiggles, Bubbles, Nine, (worm, crab, scorpie) and a few others, with no problems. They aren't all even specifically tank specced in their talents.