Battle for Azeroth Hunter Pet Guide

By BendakWoW Updated: 2020/10/19

This guide is now outdated. Check out the new Shadowlands Hunter Pet Guide!
Shadowlands Hunter Pet Guide

Changes to Hunter Pets

All pet families have a set specialization that cannot be changed. Each pet family will be either Ferocity, Tenacity or Cunning.

All 3 specializations will deal the same damage and have the same amount of health and armor.

All specs have Growl and Dash, plus their appropriate basic attack (Claw, Bite, or Smack).

When you enter a dungeon, Growl’s auto-cast is automatically turned off to avoid pulling aggro from the tank (you can turn it back on if you want). When you leave the dungeon, it gets flipped back on automatically.

Avoidance has been changed to also reduce the range at which enemies will aggro your pet by 6 yards. This should help with your pet accidentally pulling mobs when you try to sneak by them.

Each family will have at least one special ability. There are 6 major ability categories distributed among the pet families so that each specialization has at least one pet option for each of these abilities. For example, Bats have and Spirit Beasts have . Both do the same thing. All Exotic families have at least 2 special abilities/passives.

Battle resurrection is removed from Hunter pets completely. Heart of the Phoenix, Last Stand, Roar of Sacrifice and other old passives have also been removed. Worth noting that Quilen retain the Heart of the Phoenix but are the only pet to do so.

Hunters are receiving 10 new stable slots in Battle for Azeroth to help make room for all these new pets.

Beast Mastery Hunters:TitanstrikeAnimal Companion

All hunters get 10 more free stable slots!

Pet SpecializationsFerocity

Primal Rage: Increases haste by 30% for 40 sec for the group.

Predator's Thirst: Passively gives you and your pet 10% leech.

Recommended for: BloodlustHeroismTenacity

Survival of the Fittest: You and your pet take 20% reduced damage for 6 seconds (3 min cooldown).

Endurance Training: Passively increases you and your pet’s maximum health by 5%.

Recommended for: Cunning

Master's Call: Removes all roots and slowing effects from your pet and your current target (can also be used on yourself). Can also be used to quickly recall your pet to you.

Pathfinding: Passively increases you and your pet’s movement speed by 8%.

Recommended for:
New Pet Models in Existing Familiesupdated list

NEW PATCH 8.2 Since 8.2 is an aquatic zone, many crabs, hermit crabs and other water creatures are getting new models and recolors, including these Chitterspine Deeplurker.

NEW PATCH 8.2 Fathom Ray Broodkeeper are an awesome new addition to the Nether Ray family.

NEW PATCH 8.2 Snapdragons are a new addition to the Lizard family. These can be found across Nar'anan in Nazjatar.

NEW PATCH 8.2 These cool new electric worm models have been added to the worm family. Tidal Worms can be found in caverns across Nazjatar.

NEW PATCH 8.2 He's finally here! Horridon is now tamable as of patch 8.2! You can find him in the Throne of Thunder and he will be added to the Direhorn family.

NEW PATCH 8.2 We also get to finally obtain Oondasta! Oondasta is a rare located on the Isle of Giants. He is now tamable as of patch 8.2 and will be apart of the Devilsaur family.

Click To View More New Pet Looks!

Zhevras have been a popular request from Hunters, and all of them (such as Elder Zhevra) are being added to the Stag family.

Son of Xolotal is a striking new model being added to the Wolf family.

The Moonhazed Nightsaber is a new nightsaber model added to the Cat family, found in the updated Darkshore zone.

~~Unicorns~~ Dreamrunners, such as the black and red Somber Dawn rare from the Broken Shore have been added to the Stag family.

There's sneaky snakes... and then there's giant cobras, such as Sevriss, which can be tamed as part of the Serpent family.

If you're a fan of mechanical pets, you'll be happy to see these new mech cats in a variety of colors, such as P4-N73R4, as part of the Mechanical family.

These new falcons, such as the Vale Falcon, can be tamed as part of the Bird of Prey family.

These colorful new parrots, such as the Trained Parrot, can be tamed as part of the Carrion Bird family.

These new hermit crabs, such as the Freshwater Hermit, come in a variety of different colors and shell styles, as part of the Crab family.

These slithering eel-like creatures, such as the Cove Eel, can be tamed as part of the Serpent family.

Battle for Azeroth has a lot of dinosaurs, so you can expect a lot of new ones to tame, like this feathery Xibalan Ravasaur, as part of the Raptor family.

These skinny little theropods, such as the Sickly Saurid, have also been added to the Raptor family.

These hulking hippos, such as the Frogmarsh Riverbeast, are found in the jungles of Zandalar and can be tamed as part of the Riverbeast family.

You too can tame your very own druid! These Ankylodons resemble the Zandalari Druid bear form, and can be tamed as part of the Scalehide family.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz.... Yes, you can actually tame bees such as the Barbthorn Drone, as part of the Wasp family.

New Pet Families in Battle for Azeroth

Blood Beast

Specialization: Tenacity
Special Ability: Blood Bolt

NEW IN PATCH 8.1 The Blood Beast family includes Crawgs and Blood Ticks that are mostly found in the Nazmir zone. They are a special family that requires you to obtain a Blood-Soaked Tome of Dark Whispers to learn how to tame them. This tome drops from Zul, Reborn in the Uldir raid (on Normal difficulty or higher). Their special ability Blood Bolt is a snare with a 10 yard range (this is a little different from all other pet snares which are melee range).

Examples of tameable Blood Beasts

Pterrordax (Exotic)

Specialization: Cunning
Special Abilities: Ancient Hide and Updraft

Pterrordaxes are a new Exotic pet family which can be found in Classic, Mists of Pandaria, and Battle for Azeroth zones. Depending on the model, some of them fly and others fight on the ground. In addition to their damage reduction cooldown, they also have a slowfall ability.

Examples of tameable Pterrordaxes

Krolusk (Exotic)

Specialization: Tenacity
Special Abilities: Bulwark and Calcified Carapace

This is a new creature type being added in Battle for Azeroth and they have been given their own (Exotic) family. Their special exotic ability gives them extra physical damage reduction, in addition to their damage reduction cooldown.

Examples of tameable Krolusks

Toad

Specialization: Tenacity
Special Ability: Swarm of Flies

The long requested toads are finally here! This includes the MoP style toads you will remember from the Timeless Isle and elsewhere on Pandaria and Draenor, and the new style of toad seen here. Their special ability gives them extra dodge chance.

Examples of tameable Toads

Lizard

Specialization: Tenacity
Special Ability: Grievous Bite

In addition to the new Saurolisks (shown here), this family also includes Diemetradons and Sabertusks. Their special ability reduces enemy healing taken, which is useful for PvP.

Examples of tameable Lizards

Pet Family List

Family

Special Abilities

Catlike Reflexes
Prowl

Chimaera Exotic
Note: Rylaks have been merged to this family

Frost Breath
Froststorm Breath

Clefthoof Exotic

Thick Hide
Blood of the Rhino

Core Hound Exotic

Obsidian Skin
Molten Hide

Devilsaur Exotic

Family

Special Abilities

Trick

Feather Flurry
Updraft

Hydra

Acid Bite

Krolusk Exotic

Bulwark
Calcified Carapace

Stone Hound Exotic

Eternal Guardian
Stone Armor

Riverbeast

Gruesome Bite

Spirit Beast Exotic

Spirit Mend

Spirit Walk

Worm Exotic

Acid Spit
Burrow Attack

Family

Special Abilities

Pterrordax Exotic

Shale Beast Exotic

Shimmering Shale
Solid Shell

Aqiri Exotic

Dune Strider
Tendon Rip

Water Strider Exotic

Our 5 Recommended PetsPetopia5 Recommended Pets For Beast Mastery

Spirit Beast (Tenacity)

This will be your go to PvE pet for both Dungeons and Raids assuming the fight is not high movement. In addition to it’s natural Tenacity benefits, Spirit Beasts also give you which is huge in dungeon content and Spirit Mend which is another much needed healing cooldown. Previously in Legion Spirit Mend totaled approximately 2% of our HP and was largely not worth it. As it stands now it is about a 20% heal plus a HoT on top of it. Very good in almost any PvE content.

Bat (Ferocity)

In certain PvE content, your group will need blood lust (Primal Rage) and a purge. Bats are Ferocity which provide Primal Rage, but they also give you in case you need a purge/tranquilize.

Alternative: Ray

Clefthoof (Ferocity)

For questing, Ferocity pets are especially tanky due to Predator's Thirst. In particular, Clefthoofs are extra tanky. The defensive cooldown from Thick Hide and extra healing/armor from Blood of the Rhino make them especially tanky and able to solo world content with ease.

Alternative: Core Hounds provide Obsidian Skin for defense and Molten Hide, which now does a notable amount of damage to attackers.

Aqiri (Cunning)

This will be one of your go to PvP pets. With the additional movement speed from Dune Strider plus the 50% slow it gives from Tendon Rip, it will be difficult for your opponent to escape. This also has benefits in PvE as well. Currently, pet damage makes up a huge portion of our damage breakdown so having pet extra movement speed is a huge plus. If there is a ton of movement in a boss fight, having maximum up time on your pet is crucial. Cunning pets are perhaps the best pure dps spec in a raid environment (assuming no blood lust or any additional defensives other than baseline cooldowns are needed).

Raptor (Cunning)

Another PvP oriented pet. Raptors are Cunning so they give you the extra movement speed and Master's Call but instead of a slow like Silithids, Raptors provide Savage Rend, a Grievous Wounds debuff. This is very useful to counter healers in both Arenas and Battlegrounds.

Alternatives: Hyena and Rodent

5 Recommended Pets for Marksmanship and Survival

Waterfowl (Tenacity)

This will be your go to PvE pet for both Dungeons and Raids. In addition to it’s natural Tenacity benefits, Cranes also give you . This will be useful in most dungeons.

Alternative: Stag.

Scalehide (Ferocity)

For questing, Ferocity pets are especially tanky due to Predator's Thirst. In particular, Scalehides are extra tanky. The defensive cooldown from Scale Shield make them especially tanky and able to solo world content with ease.

Alternative: Gorilla

Bird of Prey (Cunning)

This will be one of your go to PvP pets. With the additional movement speed from the Cunning spec plus Talon Rend, it will stick on your target.

Alternatives: Basilisk, Hound, and Warp Stalker

Raptor (Cunning)

Another PvP oriented pet. Raptors are Cunning so they give you the extra movement speed and Master's Call but instead of a slow like Birds of Prey, Raptors provide Savage Rend, a Grievous Wounds debuff. This is very useful to counter healers in both Arenas and Battlegrounds.

Alternatives: Hyena and Rodent

Back to TopAbout the Authors

My name's Bendak and I've been maining a Hunter since the launch of WoW. There is no better class! In addition to the Beast Mastery Guide here at Wowhead, you can find me at my personal Hunter blog Eyes of the Beast, as co-host of the Hunting Party Podcast, on Twitter @BendakWoW, and Discord at Bendak#0001.

I'm Moofz. I've been playing Hunter since Warlords of Draenor and have never looked back. I have recently taken over the Marksmanship Guide in BFA for Wowhead. In addition to the class guide, I have written both the Marksmanship M+ Guide and Beast Mastery M+ Guide here at Wowhead for Legion and plan to maintain them through BFA. I am also a Moderator and Expert in the Trueshotlodge Hunter discord. If you wanna chat, feel free to ping me in TSL, swing by my Twitch stream Moofzy, on Twitter @Moofz2 or add me on Discord at Moofz#6427.

Comments

Comment by Gotnov

ty for the guide

Comment by Tulabear

Now if I only had the stable slots to tame some of these awesome beasts!
EDIT - Ten slots is a good start, but really not enough, tbh.

Comment by sikhjatt23

Kinda strange that spirit beasts are tenacity pets but oh well. They'll still have their uses

Comment by Grimora

"Battle resurrection is removed from Hunter pets completely. Heart of the Phoenix, Last Stand, Roar of Sacrifice and other old passives have also been removed. Worth noting that Quilen retain the Heart of the Phoenix but are the only pet to do so."

What the flippity-frik is this %^&*e!

They keep making us more and more useless. >=(

Comment by Durendillehunt

Short and to the point. From what I've seen, even as BM leech is vastly overpowered compared to a little more stamina in solo situations (at level 110), so tenacity tanking pets (ex: turtle) may take a backseat in solo unless changes are made.

Comment by Castrum

Ugh, Spirit Beasts. I don’t like the look of any of them for my Hunters’ themes and most are stupidly-hard to acquire. I wish Blizz would knock them down to just being another family already, instead of a must-have pet.

EDIT: Lul, the downvotes. I get that you guys wasted 3 years waiting for Loque to spawn, but come on.

Comment by Castrum

Also, no increase to stable slots is a crime. Anyone who thinks hunter pets aren’t just like transmog doesn’t roll Hunter. Every xpack should increase the limit by at least 5. What’s the point of adding more tamables if dedicated Hunters have no room for them? I’m not tossing a pet I went through the effort to acquire. This is the same idiot mentality behind the 50 toon account limit.

Comment by pheonixxfoxx

I do appreciate you guys taking the time to make this guide. It has helped to ease my mind about some worries that I did have. However, there is still one thing I am worried about and that is not having anymore stable space for the possible new pets I will need to add to my utility. I do not have a Quilen on my main Hunter, but they are the only pet to retain Heart of the Phoenix. I don't feel that I should be forced to abandon a pet I'm attached to in favor of another because Blizzard makes changes to the pet system but refuses to give more stable space to compensate.

Comment by Khae1

Clefthoofs are not Ferocity on the section "5 Recommended Pets For Beast Mastery"

Comment by Sp33dey

Wonderful guide!
And actually, I think that the changes are overall very good. Makes pet families more important again while not killing all choices!

Comment by Dejo93

Here's my biggest gripe. When will they decide which pet family Ravens will belong? They are either Carrion birds or Birds of prey. It's really confusing. Where can I ask Blizz to fix that?
I'd really appreciate it Perc ;)

Comment by Dejo93

Comment by arexu

Thank you!
Tank spec for pet is not awful as i can see now. Great. Love my spirit beasts.

"If you want to have a second pet"
I want Hati :(

"This pet will obey your Kill Command, but cannot use pet family abilities".
I'm afraid this talent will be very bad for +dps.

Comment by Deihjan

I still don't agree with the spec changes, but I am chuffed that they FINALLY made growl auto-turn off. (Hopefully) No more newbie hunters who have zero clue.

Comment by avatarofshadow

Step one: add more pets.
Step two: basically give us five pets to use and tell us to ignore the rest.
Step three: profit !

Comment by Atticon

Is the loa model toad really tameable? That would be enough to make me play hunter in BfA.

Comment by b0928

Thanks for the guide. I play a hunter alt casually and it's helpful to have a quick guide to recommended pets.

Comment by SquirePip

I'd give up all my stable slots in an instant for the ability to go to the pet trainer and re-train your pet. System I would love would be your pet has a default family special ability (out of the 6 major categories) and specialization when you tame it, but after taming you could go to the pet trainer and pay to have it learn any of the other basic pet family special abilities that a pet you have tamed has instead of it's default one and to change it's specialization to one of the other 2. This would give incentive for hunter's to tame pets to cover all 6 ability categories (which all hunter's have probably already done) and it would allow you to use the pet / skin you want with the ability you want. So you could use a cat with the snare ability, or a turtle with the wounds debuff for examples.

Comment by Grymvild

I'm a bit on edge about these pet changes.

On one hand it's fantastic that pet identity becomes a thing again. Now every pet has an ability that does something useful in some context, which makes it feel like the pet pool of choices is larger. But on the other hand it feels like my pet choice pool just became significantly smaller since certain pet abilities just aren't useful to me.

Personally I will be very much a PvP player, random battlegrounds, War Mode and some arenas. I don't care about dungeons, I'm not planning on making any crazy solo content and thus the pet choice to me is only about what's good for PvP.

Thus, any pet with a tank ability is straight out the window. My pet doesn't need to survive damage, it won't be attacked.

So PvP wise, all of the three categories of Ferocity, Cunning and Tenacity are good in their own ways, though with the healing cut in PvP I feel like Ferocity is probably going to be the least useful as the heal should only be 1/3 of the stated number, so 3.3% leech isn't going to help all that much. So that's probably going to be a category I don't want to pick PvP wise. Luckily, the Ferocity pool doesn't have any pet categories I'm particularly interested in.

But out of the two remaining pools, these are the pets I want beside me from a visual perspective:

Tenacity: Crane, Direhorn, Feathermane, Gorilla, Hydra, Toad
Cunning: Bird of Prey, Fox, Goat, Hyena, Raptor, Rodent

These categories have the pets I would want to have with me. But due to how the abilities are now, I'm locked out of Feathermanes, Gorillas, Toads, Foxes and goats because they have a tank ability.

So my only options here left, are Crane, Direhorn and Hydra for tenacity and Bird of Prey, Hyena, Raptor and Rodent for Cunning.

Then, because the amount of dispels we'll have in BfA I feel like the dispelling pets are a bit on the weaker side, meaning Crane falls short in terms of the ability.

And lastly we have the choices of Direhorn and Hydra for Tenacity and Bird of Prey, Hyena, Raptor and Rodent for the Cunning.

This feels really awkward to me, because if I want to have the tank ability, the only pet I visually enjoy, that has a good ability PvP wise, is the Hydra or the Direhorn. What if I want a small pet? What if I just want a toad pet while going around my toad mount whenever I get that?

I'm entirely locked out of that option, due to the pet offering NOTHING to me for my gameplay purposes.

Previously it felt like I had a lot more choices, because I could change the spec at will meaning I could just get a pet with the ability and have the talent choice abilities on top of that. But now if I want a Tenacity pet for the Tenacity abilities, with a pet ability that helps me, I only have two possible choices, and only one ability, the mortal wounds effect.

I like that they're making pets have more unique identity again, but I feel like they should have gone a whole different route with it.
Instead of this system, I feel like we should have been able to get any pet of our choice to be anything we wanted it to be, through effort.
Remember the good old times of pet friendship and learning pet abilities? Bring that back and refine it to be a good, non-punishing system. Make it so you have to do stuff with your pet, level it, evolve it and train it to be the pet of your dreams. Make it to be something, where it doesn't become necessary. We can have the current system there, allowing people just pick a pet for maximum effectiveness immediately, but having the option to get a pet that can be anything through effort.

Perhaps add a system of breeding? Breed pets in to combinations and ending up with pets that do different things than their normal counterparts.

My main gripe with the current pet system is that I really just want to use a Toad and Toads suck for what I want to use them for.

Comment by Kretran

"Battle resurrection is removed from Hunter pets completely."

Does this concern only the pet CR abilities, or does it mean we won't be able to revive our pet mid-combat anymore? Because loosing the CR won't change much for me, but if I can't revive my pets mid-combat it changes a lot for the BM and Survival specs. My MM Hunter runs with Lone Wolf all the time anyway so it won't affect him.
Maybe it's just me and I apologise for the dumb question, but it doesn't look like 100% clear wording there. ^^

Comment by Gwynneth

Wonderful guide, thank you!

Comment by honorshammer

"Sorry, but there is no sign of more stable slots or an upgraded stable system yet."

Engineering gets a portal Stable Master, an oft requested upgrade to the stable system.

Interdimensional Companion Repository

Comment by honorshammer

I'm disappointed to see my Crane will continue to be my go to pet all expansion. My regular M+ group has a Mage so I bring the Crane for BRez in Legion. I was hoping the new system would give greater freedom in selecting the pet to bring.

Comment by Lezz2014

I'll be leveling a BM Hunter in BfA as always and the spirit mend buff (fix) is wonderful so time to dust off Loque’nahak :)

Comment by bobafett6669

So let me get this straight, as someone who has played wow since launch date they remove pet race specific attacks and abilities cause everyone complained about them only to bring them right back.

Comment by LoDvampire

If I'm not wrong, the last time we got more stable slots was back in Cata (2010), I'm only got 2 slots on my stable, and a lot o people will say - you only carry 5 pets, why you want more slots? With this line of thought , why do you collect battle pets when you can only take 3 to fight, and what about mounts, you can only ride 1 each time.
Blizz can go with some like this https://wow.curseforge.com/projects/hunter-pets, a system similar to mount and pets journal, then you could collect all colors from all the pets available to tame, and when you go a stable master, you just assign 5 of those you already collect .

Comment by MelanaAdara

I guess my main hunter won't be taming any new pets. She's close to her limit and I won't release pets anymore than I will delete characters.

Comment by frank3n

Thanks for the guide. Does anyone know what will become of The Apex Predator's Claw until we lose Legendary equip effects at level 116?

Comment by FaolanHart

I'm starting to warm up to these changes thanks to your guide Bendak so thanks dude.
Though that mainly has to due with some of my favorite pets like Loque, raptors & my wolf being useful again.
Plus not needing to carry around a Core Hound & Quilen is a breath of fresh air.
I'm gonna miss battle res but I'm an Engineer so that shouldn't be an issue.
Now if only I had more stable space to keep all these new beautiful beasts.

Comment by 935620

You mention a couple of times that all three pet families will be the same in regards to health and armor, and yet tenacity clearly has a passive to give them a 5% health increase. So like, the tank family retains its tankier health pool.

Also, as everyone else has already mentioned, no new stable slots is ridiculous. Guess the "fun" of the new expansion is going through and deciding which of my cool, hard-to-get pets I can deal with releasing in favor of taming new ones, rather than just being excited about the new ones. :(

Comment by wisedada

Blizzard has increased the size of the stable by 10 slots in the upcoming expansion. Hunters can have 65 pets in BFA.

Some of those beautiful beasts will be ours! For the others, wait another 3 or 4 years ;)

Comment by RavenDunbar

I'm just excited that I can tame toads and unicorns now ... I really wish the Dreamrunners were made tamable at the beginning of Legion .... Can't wait to have a unicorn! LOL

Comment by ksaf

Was hoping we could tame the Blood Troll beasts. Really like how those ugly bastards look.

Comment by TheRealGiovanni

Is the Falcosaurs also considered a Raptor and have the ability Savage Rend?

Comment by Cyberium

Love my Arcturis. Hopefully Animal Companion would be fixed so I could get a spectral wolf to my side as well.

Comment by Catnipp

What pet are you using in PVE content like dungeons and raids for BFA as a beast mastery hunter? I was using a spirit beast cat in a dungeon recently but was told to switch because they said that spirit beasts are now tank pets and not good for high dps? I am confused since this guide says that spirit beasts are good for dungeon and raid content :( I want to maximize dps so which pet would you recommend? I tried out a core hound for ferocity and hero buff.

Comment by 1918644

Thank you so much for taking the time to make this amazing guide! It was super helpful. :)

Comment by BiggamingG

Is anyone else taming pets outside of their Specialization? I've been taming Saurolisks and Sabertusks different than their known Specialization.

Comment by keara48

I have been trying to find out how to remove of release old pets or mistake pets. I have tried clicking on the pet tag when at a stable but I get nothing and still have the old pet. Anyone have any suggestions on how to do this, I would very much appreciate your help.

Battle for Azeroth Hunter Pet Guide

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