Best pet for farming instances?

[Hada]

What in your opinion is the best type of tanking pet for farming instances and old raids? I had heard a turtle, but am curious if there are other decent options...bear maybe? Reasons why would be really awesome for helping me decide, too.

[Vephriel]

I'd say Turtles are one of the best for pure survivability and stamina. They're hardy little things.

Another recommendation would be either a Bear or a Crocolisk though due to their racial ability being able to hit multiple mobs at once, therefore keeping aggro on packs a little better.

Probably one of those 3 would be best.

[Saturo]

I like Warpstalkers. Warp can be a lifesaver. Plus, since you probably won't spec into Charge with a warpie, you have an extra talentpoint.

[zedxrgal]

I second what Saturo says.

[Dizzy]

any pet listed above is great imo. so out of those i'd pick the pet you like the most.

i'd personally go with the crocolisk. they're noisy and cute to me, but i have weird opinions. i usually don't get charge anyway, it's up to you whether you prefer it or not.

[cowmuflage]

I use my crab hes just as good a tank as turtles,crocs,bears people forget about them.

[Rhyela]

I would personally go with one that has an AoE talent in addition to the swipe, so either a bear or crocolisk. Thunderstomp + Misdirection is really good for threat as-is, but I say it wouldn't hurt to get a pet with one more AoE ability if farming instances/raids is what you have in mind.

[cowmuflage]

My crab citizensnips has saved me from aggroing half of zg with his pin many a times XD. A skill that slows/stops mobs is very handy i have found.

[Hada]

Wow, so many different ideas! This is going to be harder than I thought. I might just have fun trying and testing them all out! It won't be until Cata though...

[Anansi]

A turtle is best for soloing, a bear or croc if you are tanking for a group. Reason being, in a solo outing, the turtle's shield will mitigate most of the damage it takes, the rest you can cover by Mend Pet. Fights will be slower but as long as your turtle holds aggro, you're good.

For groups, the bear or croc has a multi-target threat generator which will be better for holding groups against the threat of your party.

[Hada]

What about if I am running one friend through dungeons on his alts? It's one way we like to hang out in game...running things like Mara that are a huge pain to go through with a pug.

Would you recommend a different pet for this, than for say soloing old raids?

[cowmuflage]

jeez am i the only one who uses crabs..... i feel lonely

[Saturo]

Well, crabs have a useless racial as far as bosses go, since bosses are immune to CC. A warpie or a turtle has a useful racial, in that it increases their survivability.

[cowmuflage]

its not useless on other things tho and comes in handy in certan parts of raids

[Saturo]

Yeah, it's very useful to have a short melee root on a target who is highly likely to already have aggro on the pet, and even if it doesn't, the time it takes for it to channel Pin means that it can't work on building aggro.

They're neat pets, but with their racial they are more suited for PvP. Suffice to say, they are more situational than most other pets.

[Siliverin]

ive actully been thinking about getting a tank pet. i used to have a bear and loved it he was awsome at tanking. if it were me i would get a bear but again thats me

[SpiritBinder]

This is a blatant cut and paste, but I found it an excellent read. Even down to making your pet uncritable was something I never really thought of achieving.

Without question, you need to use a tenacity pet for serious pet tanking, and any tenacity pet is capable of performing the job. However, there are a couple of pets that make it to the top of the list.

Turtles with their Shell Shield special are excellent tanks and the best at damage reduction. Turtles are good if you're expecting spike damage or healing blackouts; however, their threat generation will be a bit lower.
Crocolisks with Bad Attitude are the highest threat pet tanks and are the most common pet tanking choice. Best of all, their threat generation is both single-target and AoE, making them the only real choice for packs of mobs.
Worms are also a good choice, with single-target threat generation very close to that of the crocolisk and providing the major armor debuff through Acid Spit. Worms are a good route to go if you don't otherwise have the major armor debuff.
Bears are inferior to crocs, alas. The bear's special attack doesn't do any more damage than the default attack, so it's just a waste of focus that doesn't increase single-target threat. The only advantage is that it's a frontal AoE, and the croc is a 360-degree AoE plus a single-target threat increase.

Pet tanking stats

When looking at stats for pet tanking, you have three goals:

Make your pet uncrittable.
Get your pet as much health as possible.
Make your pet generate as much threat at possible.
The first thing you need is an uncrittable pet. With lower health pools than standard player tanks, your pet could easily be killed by a single crit. Your pet talent Grace of the Mantis will reduce its chance to be crit by 4%. Since a raid boss has a 5.6% chance to crit, that means you need to lower it by another 1.6%. You can do this by getting 132 resilience rating. Your pet gets whatever resilience you have, and the 132 resilience will lower your pets chance to be crit by 1.6% (yes, it will; yes, it works to reduce crit chance, even in PvE). Of course more resilience is fine, but any extra resilience isn't going to help you at all. Note that the damage reduction benefit of resilience only works on attacks from players, not bosses or mobs. All we get is the crit reduction.

Now that your pet is crit-immune, your next task is to be at the hit cap. This is vitally important for your threat generation. Keep in mind that if you're at the hit cap, then your pet will be hit-capped and expertise-capped. This means that your pet cannot be dodged or parried, in addition to never missing. That can add up to more than a 20% DPS increase for your pet when tanking! You will need to get 263 hit rating. You cannot use Focused Aim to reach the hit cap -- while the hit all transfers to your pet, for some reason the expertise doesn't translate as fully as it should. So get all of your hit through hit rating on gear. Go buy Mark of Supremacy if you're struggling with hit.

Once you have 132 resilience and are at the hit cap, you're then interested stacking attack power and stamina. AP gives your pet better threat generation, and stamina gives it survivability. In general this means you'll either be wearing lots of PvP gear gemmed for AP, or lots of raid gear gemmed with stamina. You need to balance these two stats -- don't go overboard to either side. If you're pet-tanking ICC, you can actually go easy on the stamina since the raid buff is so big now.

You should seriously considering wearing two pieces of your tier 7 gear for the +5% pet damage bonus.

Pet tanking tips

When you're first stretching your pet tanking legs, you'll be starting out in heroics. Strongly encourage your group to hold off on DPS for a few seconds after pulling -- pets do not build up threat as quickly as player tanks, especially on packs. Make sure to brief your group on the liabilities and advantages of the pet tank.

Ideally, you want to start every pull with all your main cooldowns available: Misdirection is a must, and your croc's Bad Attitude is likewise vital. In a perfect world, you will also want your Beastial Wrath available, but it's not vital for every pull. You'll generally want to start a pull with MD, big red pet and in Aspect of the Beast. You'll have to get used to swapping from target to target, as your pet's AoEs alone are not going to be enough.

Over time, you'll develop a much greater appreciation for the frustrations that tanks face on a daily basis.

When it comes to healing, the bonus to healing your pet receives means it prefers small, fast heals over slow, big heals. The big heals, once magnified by your pet, will usually just be overhealing. HoTs are fantastic for pets. Most of the time you will not need to use Mend Pet -- the healing of Mend Pet is nothing compared to what the healers will be putting out. But if your pet is getting dangerously low, you definitely want to hit Cower to give your healers some breathing room. A favorite tactic of pet tankers is to macro Mend Pet and Cower together under the logic that if you need one, you probably want the other as well.

[Dizzy]

thank you for that spirit, i learned how to reach defense cap now xD

very useful post, and i think i'm gonna head out and tame charles the crock again when i get home, i didn't know he was that good c:

[Loridon]

If you realy want to things solo take a turtle.
Its the best tank pet for that.I'm doing zg,mc,lv 70 hc,...solo with my turtle.