Can hunter pets tank 5-mans in WotLK?

[Hambown]

I'm curious about this. Are they viable tanks for 5-mans (not heroics)?
Im not necessarily talking about lvl 80 5 mans. I'm talking about while levelling up, while you are getting to level 80, will they be viable tanks?

[Slade]

My guess is no, as threat will probably be too high from DPS to stay under any pet. However, some instances could be tanked by pets just for fun, where they are healed as DPS purposely nerfs themselves to stay under. I've boar-tanked low level instances while leveling my hunter... that was fun.

[Hambown]

My guess is no, as threat will probably be too high from DPS to stay under any pet. However, some instances could be tanked by pets just for fun, where they are healed as DPS purposely nerfs themselves to stay under. I've boar-tanked low level instances while leveling my hunter... that was fun.

You're probably right. It just seems that with the addition of the tenacity tree, hunter pets might actually have a chance. I would looove it if they could.

[MrMcFlurry]

I've healed a pet tanking a 5 man at fresh lvl 70 (whole group was in blues)

and now pets can spec to be tanks specifically. I would say that's a resounding yes. Heck, they can very likely do well enough in a heroic if you take things carefully.

[Hambown]

I've healed a pet tanking a 5 man at fresh lvl 70 (whole group was in blues)

and now pets can spec to be tanks specifically. I would say that's a resounding yes. Heck, they can very likely do well enough in a heroic if you take things carefully.

Sweeet
That makes me happy. I really like the black bears from loch modan, and they get a good multi target tanking ability
also, warpstalkers seem like they could be very good single target tanks

[dsswoosh]

If you use a pally healer, felguard can tank every normal instance sufficently in the game (talking tbc, not tried in nothrend). Not tried him on heroics but i wouldnt say its impossible.

So i guess hunter pets are pretty much the same.

[Hambown]

If you use a pally healer, felguard can tank every normal instance sufficently in the game (talking tbc, not tried in nothrend). Not tried him on heroics but i wouldnt say its impossible.

So i guess hunter pets are pretty much the same.

How come just a pally healer? Just curious

[Slade]

Pally healer because they do the best hard and concentrated healing, considering the lower mitigation of a pet tank. Plus cleanse and BoF to keep him up and active.

I would concede that a pet could tank most 5-mans provided you had great crowd control and threat from the restructured beast mastery and pet training was sufficient.

[Taryble]

Also, a pally healer generally helps in a 5-man with ae pulls. Pallies get 50% the normal threat from healing, which is already on a 2:1 ratio (2 pts of healing = 1 pt of threat). So while a priest gets 50% general threat on a heal spell on the tank, the pally only gets 25% general threat. (4000 heal = 2000 threat for priest = 1000 threat for pally).

[Slade]

Which brings up another obvious point... Blessing of Salvation for you and your dps makes the pet tank scenario much more realistic.

[Krypt]

before it was removed, yes.

[Rollo]

there are also worms in HFP, BEM, and i believe lvl70 worms on the Netherwing floating island in the caves.

and didnt they add that new pet feature where a pet that is below more than 5 levels of the hunters level is tamed at 5 levels below you? (slightly confusing sorry)

what i mean is can tame a lvl 10 cat at lvl70, and when it is tamed it auto becomes lvl 65. you still ahve to do some lvling, but its not as bad.

[Phylacista]

Well in the time between the last patch and bc release my pet was able to tank Hakkar without problems. We gave my pet about 50 seconds for getting aggro and it was enough to hold it until Hakkar died... but then BC was released and the generated threat was lowered to nearly nothing... I hope that this won't happen again.

[Prefix]

there are also worms in HFP, BEM, and i believe lvl70 worms on the Netherwing floating island in the caves.

and didnt they add that new pet feature where a pet that is below more than 5 levels of the hunters level is tamed at 5 levels below you? (slightly confusing sorry)

what i mean is can tame a lvl 10 cat at lvl70, and when it is tamed it auto becomes lvl 65. you still ahve to do some lvling, but its not as bad.

That is correct. If you tame a pet that is a lot levels lower than you, it will be 5 levels below you.
So your example is correct.

[Deleted]

Some of the new pet abilities will indeed be very nice for tanking with, especially that bear swipe.

It would be nice to see pets able to actually do some half-decent tanking roles, though obviously Blizz need to be careful that the pet isn't too good.

I doubt they want to see scenarios like patch 2.0 where hunter pets were being used to tank bosses in Naxxramas (Anub'rekhan) because it was *easier* than getting a warrior to do it!

Hell, pre-TBC, I got my hunter pet tiger to tank Onyxia and it did better threat (immune to the knockback) and was easier to keep alive than any of the normal tanks, in T3 gear ....

[chaz079]

hunters pets hp has been higherd by alot and damage lowered alot so yes if you are lvl 80 the pet can probs tank mechanar or mgt

[Puffy]

I highly doubt pets being able to tank anything in the instances save for some incredibly weak hitting bosses.

Blizzard said they don't pets to become too strong in the survivability department. Strong yes, but not at the level of a real tank.

So i doubt it.

[Ghash]

5-mans should easily be possible, although maybe not the level 80 ones. Heroics are out of the question though as pets cannot become crit immune.

[Feandah]

Well currently i can tank, with my raptor, in TBC normal instances at least all the lower levels none of the heroics..

So in my opinion it should be very easy to do it in WOTLK especially since they are desiging some pets for just this...I have heard and read in the forums that apes seem to be best for holding mutiple mob tanking...

[Offhand]

I'd go to the point of saying you don't even need a tank for non-heroics. While leveling up ret I "tanked" sethekk halls more than once. And the healer only made me throw on a shield for bosses.

Prot is obviously the better choice so I wouldn't expect tenacity pets to do anything better than a non-heroic.