Welcome to this straightforward guide to hunter pets in WoW Classic Season of Discovery. Two things classified pets: category and species. They classified pet categories either by defense or offense, and each species carries specific traits, so it’s important to know them. Of course, if you happen to have enough WoW Classic SOD Gold, don’t miss the next content.

Bats, Bears, Boars, Carrion Birds, Cats, Crabs, Crocolisks, Gorillas, Hyenas, Owls, Raptors, Scorpid, Spiders, Tallstriders, Turtles, Wind Serpents, and Wolves are the entirety of tameable species in WoW Classic. The traits for each species range from health to armor and damage modifiers.

Some pets can also possess a unique ability. For example, we consider bats an offensive species. While they do not possess a unique ability, health, or armor modifier, they do have a 7% damage modifier. This is much unlike the boar, a defensive pet which has a 4% health modifier, 9% armor modifier, -10% damage modifier, and the unique ability of charge.

Only seven pet species have unique abilities, while 10 do not. While most species are either defensive or offensive, the Carrion Bird, Hyena, and Wolf are considered being general, gaining only a 5% armor modifier, and with the Carrion Bird and the Hyena, no unique abilities.

When leveling as a hunter, having a pet that maintains threat, and damage output is extremely important. Alongside the unique abilities, certain pets will have more or fewer basic attack skills. Bears, Raptors, Owls, and Cats are all capable of two attacks, such as Bite, Claw, and Screech. In PvE situations, you want to ensure you are utilizing these species. PvP can be more situational and reliant on the ebb and flow of Blizzard’s ever-changing nerfs and buffs that plague this class.

The shining stars seem to be the species with the highest damage modifiers and/or unique abilities. This includes the Wind Serpent, Raptor, Scorpid, and Cat species. Currently, Wind Serpents are the only species that have a ranged attack, making them highly sought after. In later phases of Season of Discovery, players will attain a serpent from the ZG or Zul’Gurub raid, which is the only serpent with the ability to do a rank six Lightning Breath.

Pet attack speed is also extremely important to note. These speeds range from 1 to 2.5 seconds. To check the speed of your current pet, make a target and run this macro.

As the level cap is currently 25, the fastest attainable pet currently is the Slavering Worg found in Shadowfang Keep at a 1.2 second attack speed. With the proper consumes and RNG, one could theoretically attain Broken Tooth, a level 37 cat that patrols the entrance to the Badlands south of Loch Modan, with an attack speed at the highest of just 1 second (or should I say the lowest). It’s a high-value target. Once the level cap is raised to 40 and at level 60, I’ll be going for that ZG Wind Serpent.

For those of you out there wanting to collect rare pets, let’s talk about some of the rarest pets available with unique looks or unique abilities.

Inside of this phase, Season of Discovery, the first, at level 9, is Mazzranache in Mulgore. This is a Tallstrider, extremely easy to get. The next Tallstrider, however, is a level 20 rare named The Strider Clutchmother. This has a really nice Turquoise look to it and can be found in Darkshore.

If you want to go for a little higher of a level, we have Humar the Pridelord, a level 23 rare cat with a fairly high attack speed. Or, I suppose, a low or fast attack speed and can be found patrolling the Barrens right here. Finally, we have one you may not want to go after, but if you have some consumes, there is a level 27 spider rare in Duskwood named Nefarious. Now, this is one that I’m extremely excited about testing out.

We can learn some of these skills from a pet trainer, but most of these skills come from taming a wild creature that already has the skill. Once you hit Level 24, if you want to make sure and recheck that a pet has the skills you want, make sure you’re using Beast Lore.