WoW Petopia Community

In T11 and blue Heroic level gear, this applies. I haven't tried it outside of either set yet.

Pet tanking/offtanking is not only viable, for BM hunters at least, it's advised. BM hunters can provide two reliable forms of CC, and this should be used, so long as your group is warned. I haven't tried this as anything but BM yet.

Part of a BM hunter's rotation is Kill Command, an attack that comes from the pet. At T11 at least, this can and does hit for 20k or more on a crit. Every six seconds, in ideal situations. When trying, pet threat is through the roof even on a ferocity pet. Thus OTing/tanking in a normal is effortless, and DPS will have a hard time pulling off your pet even if they're trying. If your tank is having trouble, warn them, drop your pet on one target and turn growl back on, trap another and thus as one person lock down two mobs. In normals, generally, just mend pet will keep your pet alive.

If you want to tank/offtank in a heroic, however, bring a Cunning or Tenacity pet. Both are uncrittable spec'd right, and both have big health pools. Given Cunning's slightly higher DPS, I prefer them. (and shale spiders, omg so cute) OTing in a heroic is a little harder, and you may need more than mend pet to keep your pet alive, but they'll still hold aggro like a pro. Most healers, if warned that you're using 2 forms of CC to make their job easier, will toss a hot on your pet to help. This is all you'll really need.

The key is warning your group. If you're pet tanking or offtanking, your DPS WILL be lowered, your priorities are keeping your mobs locked down, not pewpewing your heart out. But there's little that can describe the feeling of being told you're awesome at the end of an instance run for reliably locking down any stray mob that crosses your path or tries to eat the healer. As DPS, it's our job to be as useful as possible to our group. Sometimes this doesn't mean just mass quantities of sustained ranged DPS.

It is gloriously fun. Pet tanking is back and unbelievably solid.

I'm one of those crazy, dedicated pet tankers with a suit and everything. I did main tanking of several heroics before the change, and even handled OT on couple of raids. So I'm here to toss my hat in as well.

The biggest problem that hunter pets have is TPS and crittability. With the rotation of Kill Command and Glyph Of Misdirect, you can keep threat rolling on your pet literally forever. And with the new talent change coming in Cata (6% crit immunity... WOOT!), that means that the pet cannot be critically hit by the average raid boss. All in all, this does make pets entirely viable for the Beast Master hunter. So as Albain said, pets are extremely useful now for tanking duties!

My suggestion is to stick with Tenacity pets for tanking, as they have far better TPS thanks to their improved Growl, and will give you a bigger boost toward those players who don't know how to hold their threat. In addition, Tenacity have an actual Taunt (with a 42s cooldown at full spec; not terrible) and Intervene, not to mention Last Stand and Blood Of The Rhino (your healing will be ticking for hellish amounts of damage and the healer will have no problem keeping them on their feet).

Don't forget your tanking cooldowns. If you're running a turtle or beetle, you have two: Shell Shield/Hardened Carapace and Cower. If you aren't running one of those power tankers, then you only have Cower; use it liberally!

Good article on it over at:

http://www.warcrafthuntersunion.com/2010/11/tanks-ahoy/

I'd originally thought the Guard Dog talent would make a tanking pet better on sheer threat, but I actually found in practice, personally, my cunning pets were holding aggro better due to their slightly higher DPS. That's threat only; I can have my spirit beast or silithid hold aggro off a random 14k dps rogue in a heroic, but my beetle and shale spider couldn't.

For sheer survivability, definitely you will need a tanking pet with those talents.

There's an entire board dedicated to the art (such as it is/was) of hunter tanking: Big Red Rhino. With Cataclysm coming up, a lot of the data there is presently and sadly outdated, but the articles are catching up as fast as they can.

http://bigredrhino.wordpress.com/

</shamelessplug>

I like that pet tanking is not only viable again, but stronger than ever. xD

What 'bout BM solo spec?
Is it still in the game?

I remember when in naxx, the 4horsemen. We didnt have enough tanks for them, so I offered to set my pet on one (a worm) and the other hunter opted to put thier wolf on the other. And it worked wonderfully. We had our pets in the back, and I had a macro set up to notify the other hunter when we needed to switch our pets onto the opposite bosses. It went off without any problems.

There has also been far to many cases where I've seen a tank thats really squishy or unable to hold aggro, and healers that for some reason have poor healing. So I've made it a habit of having a tankpet ready to call if need arises. And I've had to pull my pet out so many times to act as an emergency tank, and sometimes, as the full tank in some runs.

It's good to see that pet tanking will be even better!

Although cunning pets do more DPS, and therefore may generate more threat, doesn't the Blood of the Rhino talent for tenacity pets give them an edge? 40% bonus healing from any source is surely a fairly hefty bonus - and as for threat, the MD glyph means that a pet doesn't need to generate that much threat on its own as you can continually funnel what DPS you can find time for straight into your pet - especially with MD being without a focus cost (and also mend pet with no focus cost is fantastic).

Re: healing, I really have little issue keeping my pet, be it ferocity, cunning or tenacity, healed in normal instances and heroics. Literally all I have to ask for is the occasional HoT on a heroic, Mend Pet handles the rest like a pro. (I expect it'll get nerfed.) The mobs can't chew through 170k HP that quickly, and if you put them on a spellcaster, they take damage even slower due to innate resistances. Blood of the Rhino is icing.

And don't forget the automatic 90% resistance to all AOE. For bosses that use a cleave, this is *pants*.

That's the first time I've ever seen pants being used in that context. o__o

Albain wrote:That's the first time I've ever seen pants being used in that context. o__o

I thought that too. xD

Yeah, I thought "pants" had a negative connotation to it.

No....THESE are pants.



That post gave me a very sad/disturbing mental image of hunters skinning their tenacity pets and making pants out of them.

170k health...?

Seriously?

The Insect Man wrote:170k health...?

Seriously?

Ayup! 8D That's with hunter T11 and shiny free epix admittedly, but this is still the equivalent of being in naxx gear.