HUNTER TANKS

     Got my first email today, whoot! The sender asked not to be mentioned because he doesn’t want “to sound like a noob”.  I’ll respect your wishes but just know that imo the fact that you’re seeking knowledge and advice about your class makes you a smart hunter not a noob in that respect.  So with that said, on to the email.

The question is, “I just got the expansion and am excited to level again after having been away for a couple months.  What is the best tank pet right now that I should be leveling with?”

Great question.  While all the tenacity pets are designed to be a “tanking” pet I’ve found my top 2 picks are the bear and turtle.  Now there’s a lot of love out there for the crocolisk but I just don’t have time to carry around 3 tank pets and level em all so I’ll explain why I’ve passed over this guy in a bit.

     First of all the bear, the bear will be a great help not only as a tank but his swipe will help to add to your dps.  Now his special is not a full 360 effect but rather only a 180 so attackers from the rear won’t get the aggro from this.  But you have Thunderstomp in your talent tree to to help with this.  For single target tanking he’s just about the best you can do though.  Now to counteract the problem of swipe is simple, you’ve got misdirection which if used with the glyph of misdirection, which you should be using especially when leveling, will reset the cooldown if used on your pet.  Good deal!  Also if you’re dealing with an unusually large mob wait for the pet to get in there and get the aggro and if any pull away feign and reapply misdirect.  Keep in mind I would reapply misdirect anyway since you don’t have the cooldown knee capping you with the glyph.  Plus the bear has a great special ability Demoralizing Roar which reduces the enemy’s physical damage by 10%.

     Now the turtle is a great pet to keep with you as well.  He is a bit situation dependant because he doesn’t hold aggro as well as the bear but is more resilient imo.  His ability of Shell Shield which when activated bubbles him and reduces damage to him by 50% keeping him alive longer.  Great for extreme soloing or if you’ve got a quest against a difficult boss type target.  Again you can compensate for aggro loss with misdirection the same way that I stated before with the bear.  So if you find yourself in a situation where the bear is hard to keep up it’s nice to have the turtle on the bench to bring out when you need him.

     So I chose the bear over the croc because even though I’m sacrificing the extra aggro (the croc has a 360) there’s a way around it with misdirect and Thunderstomp, and I’m not losing dps.  The croc is definitely less damage per single or double targets than the bear.

Also check out Petopia for a complete listing of all the different bear and turtle looks available.  Hope this helps and welcome back to the game!  Good luck on your way to 85.

Anyone else with a question feel free to email me at warcraftzone@att.net