What pets do you take into raid?

[The huntress]

What pets are in your list to take to raids and why?

[Shirubia]

Depends what the raid needs, but I usually bring ravager/spirit beast/core hound/Dragonhawk/devilsaur when raiding as BM.

If im raiding as SV/MM, it's cat/ravager/dragonhawk/wolf/fox

[Miacoda]

Krush. Because Krush. <3

Except old world stuff, I have specific pets for certain raids. Madexx almost always accompanies me into Tmepest Keep, Paul the cat goes to Black Temple, and Ponto the rhino goes to EoE/VoA/Ony/OS. I believe that they are good luck in those respective raids.

I will take other pets into current raids on occasion, just to give them some use or if the raid needs the buff, but mostly it's just Krush. ^^

I always have Krush with me for the first time I run a rain, though. Like, he was with me for my first firelands, and first dragon soul. I like him to be with me for special occasions.

[Sesamee]

I don't know how hardcore I'm going to be raiding for at least this tier but it would depend on what the raid needs. If I get lucky and all the buffs are covered I'm going to rotate my pets so they all get some fresh air. Ferocity spec'd of course!

[The huntress]

Ah ok, so Is there a comprehensive list of the buffs they give, I know the basic ones of wolf, cat, carrion bird now spirit ones give mastery just want to brush up on the buffs they all give

[Elanas]

Wowhead has a nice page for it.

I run with a 10-person guild, but we have one of those great spreads of classes where there's not a lot I need to think about to cover essentials. Therefore, I mostly get to amuse myself, and therefore, these days I like to bring my fen strider. I do keep a ferocity shale spider and Chromaggus on hand for when needed.

[Lisaara]

In my semi-hardcore raiding team, we usually have all the buffs covered so it's whatever you want. On occasion we have someone bring a dragonhawk.

[Magli]

Back in Cata I would bring cat/wolf/serpent/ravager/core hound in order to try and cover important buffs, but 80% of the time would end up using my ravager to cover the physical damage debuff.

Not sure what's going to end up happening in Mists. In this thread Slickrock posted a list of what pet buffs best benefit each hunter's spec, so I'll probably use it as a guide when planning my stable. Looks like crit and attack speed are good buffs for all specs, so go and tame yourself a wolf and a hyena.

[GormanGhaste]

Looks like crit and attack speed are good buffs for all specs, so go and tame yourself a wolf and a hyena.

Aww, don't forget serpents; they have the attack speed buff too!

[Magli]

Bah, you're right. Knew I forgot something.

[Sesamee]

I'm surprised the 5% Agility buff brought by shale spiders isn't on that list. I figured it would rank pretty high!

[Agravaine]

I'm surprised the 5% Agility buff brought by shale spiders isn't on that list. I figured it would rank pretty high!

I have a gripe about that... before Dragon Soul and the Hour of Twilight heroics came out I was running ZF with a dungeon finder PUG and we were wiping on Hakkar. After the first few tries I figured our collective DPS wasn't good enough so I went BM and brought out Jadefang. The tank noticed and said, "Hunter, why are you BM? Go MM." I replied it was for the group DPS buff from the shale spider and linked it. He said, pretty much word for word, "Let us take care of the DPS" and demanded I go MM. So I did.

Now in ZF I was usually patient enough to let groups wipe around 5 times or so on Hakkar before they learned the fight and got him down. So it was probably at around the 10th wipe when I told them "You are not learning. Learn." ... and left.

Come to think of it, I should probably do BM/Jadefang in LFR now.

Nowadays I generally use Spiteflayer for the carrion bird AOE debuff on trash, and a wolf or cat on bosses.

[Shirubia]

I'm surprised the 5% Agility buff brought by shale spiders isn't on that list. I figured it would rank pretty high!

In my case, it's at least because in every raid there is at least a pally or a druid! And because shale spiders were bad dpsers pre-patch

[Katzbalger]

I just made this post on forums in response to a guy who was upset thinking he had to dump some pets to cover the buffs, compiled it via a flowchart posted on hunter forums and the wowhead buffs list:-

Not needed:-
+10% Attack Power - Supplied by you so no pet needed.
-10% Physical damage dealt for 30 seconds ( Weakened Blows) = Bear/Carrion Bird - supplied by all tank specs so not needed.
Healing reduction ( Mortal Wounds) = Devilsaur, can be supplied by you so no pet needed

+10% Melee and Ranged Attack Speed = Hyena/ Serpent
+5% Spell Haste = Sporebat
+5% Critical Strike Chance = Wolf/Quilen/Devilsaur/Waterstrider
+3000 Mastery Rating = Cat/Spirit Beast
+4% Physical damage taken for 30 seconds ( Physical Vulnerability) = Boar/Ravager/Rhino/Worm
-4% Armor for 30 seconds, stacks 3 times ( Weakened Armor) = Raptor/Tallstrider
+5% Spell damage taken = Dragonhawk/ Wind Serpent
Casting speed reduction = Corehound/Sporebat/Fox/Goat

BM Only:-
+10% Spell Power = Water Strider
Bloodlust/Heroism = Corehound
Combat res = Quilen
+5% Strength, Agility, Intellect = Shale Spider
+10% Stamina = Silithid

So to cover all buffs you'd need, choosing where possible pets that cover 2 buffs/debuffs:-

NON-BM:- 7 pets.
Sporebat(5% spell haste/casting slow), Hyena(10% attack speed), Cat(mastery), Ravager(4% phys dam), Wind Serpent(8% magic dam), Wolf(5% crit), Raptor(12% reduced armor).

BM:- 9 pets
Quilen(5% crit/combat res), Water Strider(10% spell power/5% crit), Corehound(lust/casting slow), Silithid(5% stats), Shale Spider(stam), Spirit Beast(mastery), Wind Serpent(8% magic dam), Raptor(12% reduced armor), Sporebat(5% spell haste/casting slow).

After checking through his stables I worked out he only needed a sporebat (if raiding as non-bm) and a quilen (if bm) to have everything covered

[Magli]

I'm surprised the 5% Agility buff brought by shale spiders isn't on that list. I figured it would rank pretty high!

Oh, hey, I forgot to update this: I checked with Zeherah's spreadsheet, and the Kings buff was just a few hundred points behind the Crit buff for BM. So a Shale Spider should be on your short list of pets to bring if you're BM.

[Shade]

My King Krush-Gojira-and my Loque'nahak-Faí.

Thats all I ever really need or bother to use given that the only raiding I do is LFR and usually all the buffs are covered by others.

[Agravaine]

So I followed Frostheim's guide and reforged for 7.5 hit and expertise, set up my BM talents and glyphs, learned the new rotation, fetched out Jadefang and queued up for LFR. On Morchok I was in 14th place for DPS After similar disappointment on the next couple of trash packs, I switched back to MM, got my wolf out... and managed to stay in the top 5 DPS for Zon'ozz and the rest of Siege of Wyrmrest. There was another BM hunter in that run I was trying to persuade to stop aspect dancing (I hadn't yet found out about aspects being taken off the GCD again) who stayed below the top 12 DPS.

Since then I have seen BM hunters in the top 5 in LFR... but I have to believe they're in better gear then me to be up there.

[pop]

The only debuff I always notice in lfr is the physical debuff, so I would always have any of the physical debuff pets on my hunters based on my hunter's race.

[Bristlenose]

I haven't done serious raiding on a hunter since WOTLK (almost always a wolf then) but when I did run my hunter in Cata via LFR I took whatever I wanted. Usually it was a spirit beast or occasionally a cat. But I haven't done LFR in months either, since well before the 5.0 patch and all those changes. This time around it'll be whatever is required. Maybe a vanity pet (something flashy) if no buffs/debuffs are required.