How do you guys see pet swapping?

[Pandra]

My account is down and I haven't experienced Beta, Test realms, or 4.0 on live so I might really not know what I am talking about but was curious how you guys plan on using pets or currently use them? I really love the expanded stable since I will be able to have multiple rare pets and not have to release hard to find or even untameable pets since I do not have stable slots open.

Are you guys using one pet currently? Do you have top 5 that would be useful for groups then use best one based on your group set up since pets now give group/raid wide buffs? Do you swap pets out between trash and bosses? I have heard Cataclysm is going to use a lot of cc but each class seems to have been given a reliable aoe and each hunter spec has aoe. BM has Worms and Chimaera (Which I love! and used it for BG pvp, I love dragons and the feeling of being a Dragon Knight with my pet : )

So how much are you guys planning on taking advantage of the new pet benefits and the large stables? I know this might seem like a pain for people worrying about min/maxxing but for me this really is exciting and everyone will no longer just use a wolf. Do you still think there will be a set raid pet as a 25 man will likely have most buffs/debuffs and hunter pets seem to be slightly weaker than what classes can bring. In pvp what pet you have out I think will be important in arena based on your comp and if say you have Fortitude or Kings buff by whatever pet and it is dispelled can you have your pet spam the buff whenever its dispelled or is it only castable out of combat or have long cool down?

Do you see Spirit Beast as being the top pet in 2s? Now hunters are going to be even harder since they will never need to go viper and they can have their pet offheal (not sure how great the heals are though) so Hunter+healer teams are going to be even more of a challenge than in Wrath + all healers seem like they are trying to be made viable as assisting for kills better than in Wotlk. So I would think as long as hunters are not totally gimp that if they play with whoever is the top mana conserv healer class and play relatively smart a Spirit beast BM + healer team would be dreadfully hard to beat.

Anyways the changes seem to be really cool involving pets and seem to be what a pet class should be about. Thanks =D

[Om1]

first thing you want to do is gather up one pet from each pet family, if their skin is cool or not is not really that important, that's all up to you.

secoundly, and in my opinion a big pain in the ass, level up your new pets because they are all going to be level 77. I think and I belive most people will agree that blizzard should just make our pets the same level as us just like warlocks minions are. (crosses fingers)

third, choose which five pets you want to carry around with you at all times. This is based ofcourse your personal preference but for raids spescifficly I choose to have with me the pets that has a buff that will benifit me, you might be asked by raid to bring a spesiffic pet hence get every pet family. at the moment I am bringing a wolf(+5% crit), hyena (+30% bleed dmg), cat (+agi) and wind serpent (8% spell dmg(I tend to change from fight to fight for testing purposes)). those are the only once that I have bothered leveling up for now, I do however plan to level up a serpent (armor reduction) and a ravager (+physical dmg).

last but not least you should just get whatever pet you want. personally, when I'm not raiding, I've got my tank specced turtle for soloing purposes and my wind sperent for whenever I don't need my turtle for soloing (I solo as surv at the moment). the last few spots I keep open in case I come over a beast I want to tame. I want to get myself a spirit beast too but I just can't bear the thought camping spawns :S

[Pandra]

Not sure how it is after patch but no one really camps spirit beasts anymore on my server. I had tamed em all before but didn't have stable room since I needed raiding and pvp pets but before my account closed I tamed all 4 in a day or maybe 2 . Just look up their spawn locations and run around. Arcturis being the newest one still gains a random hunter here and there and since he is so close to a town you gotta worry about someone killing it if it is up but the other ones are no sweat but have to check multiple spots.

I tamed em all so I will never need to go back to Northrend except I need to tame the parrot from Sholazar Basin, then get the Chimaera from Netherstorm again and get some other cool rares and like you said get one of each type (Gotta catch 'em all!!!!). Leveling is not that hard except for my BM pets since I always had BM as a pvp or tanking spec but usually a heroic dungeon gets at least a full level so do a few heroics and get from 77-80 easily.

Is hunter tanking any better by chance? I'm sure not too much has changed but for me I know I will enjoy better pet aoe. I hate some packs in old world raids and having good pet aoe damage and threat will make it go smoother in my opinion. Too bad ZA is no longer around the dumb packs before the Tiger boss and the dumb re spawning corehounds in MC are the ones I want to see get smacked by Burrow Attack IN THE FACE the most.


Thanks for response!