Lethal Shots

Last week we covered choosing a spec. Next on the list is to pick a pet and get it ready for end-game.

I know that you already have a pet, but just because that pet was great for leveling and soloing does not mean that it will be great for end-game. Tenacity pets are great for solo work and Cunning pets can be fun, but they are far from optimal for heroics and raids. So leave the bears, boars, gorillas, sporebats, wind serpents, ect. in the stable and go out and get a Ferocity pet.

When looking for a Ferocity pet, you can choose from the following pet families. You can check either WoWHead or Petopia to see what skins are available and where to tame the different skins. The family skill is also listed after each family:

• Carrion Bird – Demoralizing Screech
• Cat – Rake
• Core Hound (Exotic – BM only) – Lava Breath
• Devilsaur (Exotic – BM only) -Monstrous Bite
• Hyena – Tendon Rip
• Moth -Serenity Dust
• Raptor – Savage Rend
• Spirit Beast (Exotic – BM only) – Spirit Strike
• Tallstrider – Dust Cloud
• Wasp – Sting
• Wolf – Furious Howl

One thing you need to keep in mind when choosing a pet is the family skill. Some, such as Furious Howl, provide a buff for the player and/or group. Others, such as Sting, apply a debuff to the pet’s target. Then of course there are the straight DPS skills such as Rake.

Once you have chosen and tamed your pet, you will need to level it to 80. If you don’t it will miss an insane amount of the time, seriously gimping its DPS, in turn gimping yours. And feel free to try out different pets. You have 5 stable slots, so there is no reason you can’t have different pets to suit your mood.

And Now you just need to spec your pet. As with your own spec, feel free to spec your pet however you want but keep in mind that some talents will be better for raiding. You are taking a Ferocity pet for their damage, so talents like Great Stamina and Natural Armor are not ideal, while Cobra Reflexes and Spiked Collar are. Here are a few example builds that you can use or modify to your liking:

• Build 1
• Build 2
• BM build (The 51-point BM talent gives your pets 4 extra talent points)

Also, one last thing. Don’t let some one tell you that you have to use a certain pet because it provides the highest DPS. Pick a pet you like, one that you enjoy playing with. After all, this is ultimately just a game. I raid with a Moth. When I first started raiding with my guild, they laughed at it. They absolutely could not believe that I had brought a Moth to a raid. But they stopped laughing when they noticed me and my Moth consistently come in no lower than third on the meters, if not top them completely.