Good day folks and welcome to Scattered Shots. The column that take a good look at what it takes to be a Hunter in the World of Warcraft. I am Eddie "Brigwyn" Carrington from the Hunting Lodge. This week we'll be discussing the best pets to use while playing solo. So grab your traps, check your ammo and let's go Hunting!

For the last couple of weeks I have been going over raiding specs. First, we reviewed the suggested specs for each all the Hunter talent trees. And last week we discussed how to spec Ferocity pets to partner with you as you raid and down bosses.

But we all know that there is much more to World of Warcraft than just running round min/maxing your character with best in slot items and downing bosses. For example, what do you do when you are out there leveling content? How about some way to take on multiple mobs at a time as you grind through for those twelve dozen Murloc eyes or maybe you are farming Arctic Fur for that Death-warmed Belt.

So I thought this week it might be a good idea to look at our options, and pick out some pets that would make really great companions when out farming and playing solo. Let's get started by taking a look at what are Tenacity Pets and how we can use them.

Tenacity Pets

The Tenacity pet is designed to be our very own personal bodyguard. Many of the Tenacity Pets have special taunts or talents that help them maintain or grab agro and hold it. Also, these pets have more armor than their Ferocity or Cunning counterparts. These things alone make Tenacity pets the typical soloing and grinding pet of choice. However, if you add to this the proposed resilence changes in Patch 3.2 and they'll be even better pet tanks.

Solo/Farming

While you decide to go out soloing or farming your biggest issue might be pulling agro off of your pet. This will be a definite be a problem if you are running around with one of the suggested raiding specs and Ferocity pets. Basically, your wonderful DPS pet is like an Arms Warrior. It can grab agro. And help you burn through the mob, but you'll be pulling agro every other crit.

The best way to keep this from happening would be to grab your favorite Tenacity pet. There are several popular choices out there. Personally, I like to try and match a pet's special ability with the spec.

Beast Mastery has become the spec of choice for most solo and farming Hunters. Because of all the different pet centric talents Beast Master Hunters have it pretty easy when finding the right Tenacity pet. It becomes more about the Hunter's play style than compensating for threat caused by a sudden burst from crits.

One good thing about soloing as a Beast Master is being able to tame a Rhino. Granted, the Rhino used to have a knock back and could cause a constant chain of angry mobs. Now we just have to settle for an immediate 85-115 points of damage and then a 25% damage increase to bleed effects with Stampede. The Rhino is fully endorsed by Big Red Rhino as a solid soloing pet.

Even though running around with a huge Rhino is fun, my favorite tanking pet is the Turtle. I like to call it my "Pet Pally" because of Shell Shield. Shell Shield reduces the damage your turtle takes by 50% for 12 seconds. I take it as my cue to cast Mend pet every time I see my turtle bubble.

Glyphs and Hunter Specs

I would recommend a few glyphs for the solo Hunter. The one you really need would be the Glyph of Mending (Major Glyph) to increase your Mend Pet by 40%. And if you have some open Minor Glyph slots I would recommend a couple of Minor Glyphs adding Glyph of Revive Pet as a back-up just in case you pet dies. And finally, I would recommend Glyph of Mend Pet. This last one is not as important as the other two since it really only keeps your pet happy so you won't have to take as many feeding breaks.

As with Ferocity pets one of the key things is talent distribution. One can solo with either of the recommended raiding BM Hunter specs would (54/12/5 or 53/11/17). But even if you don't want to change your spec or don't have dual spec you can still farm as Marksman or Survival just make sure to pick a pet like the Crocolisk that can help add threat with Bad Attitude.

Pet Talent Distribution

So you have gotten your Hunter talents sorted out. You've spent a surprisingly small fortune in gold for the glyphs and now you're ready to distribute your pet talents. Assuming you are a Beast Master, you will have 20 talent points to distribute. If you have decided to stay Marksman or Survival then the 16 point allocation applies.

Tier 1

Charge (1 point): This is your initial charge. The nice thing about it basically gives you a free attack by immobilizing the target for 1 sec. Then it gives your pet's next melee attack a 25% Attack Power increase.

Great Stamina (3 points) Just like any other tank your pet needs additional Stamina. Putting 3 points into this one will give your pet an additional 12% of your pet's total stamina.

Natural Armor (2 points) Unlike Warriors, pet tanks are light on armor. So by using Natural Armor you can increase this by 10%.

Tier 2

Blood of the Rhino (BM 2 points/MM or SV 1 point) After you put your three points into Great Stamina you can then put one or 2 points here. Doing so will increase your pet's total Stamina by 4% while increasing all healing effect to your pet by 40%.

Tier 3

Avoidance (3 points) Reduces the damage your pet takes from area of effect attacks by [25%/50%/75%].

Guard Dog (2 points) Your pet's Growl generates [10%/20%] additional threat and 10% of its total happiness.

Thunderstomp (1 point) Thunderstomp is an AoE that shakes the ground and hits all the mobs within 8 yards with 3 to 5 Nature damage to all enemies. This ability causes a moderate amount of additional threat.

Tier 4

Grace of the Mantis or Great Resistance (1 Point) Either option here is really beneficial to your pet. You can either reduce the mob's chance to crit on its Melee attack by 4% with Grace of Mantis. Or you can choose Great Resistance to reduce damage from Arcane, Fire, Frost, Nature and Shadow magic by 5%.

Tier 5

Last Stand ( BM 1 point) In order to take advantage of this pet talent you will need 3 points into Avoidance. I like this one because it will give your pet a 30% increase of its maximum Health for 20 seconds. The only sad effect is over the extra health is lost. But if you use this along with Shell Shield and Mend Pet and you should be able to just keep on tanking.

Taunt (1 point) This requires you to have placed 2 points into Guard Dog back on Tier 3. But it is worth it by letting your pet taunt the target to attack it for 3 seconds. Basically, this is almost like a pet version of Distracting Shot.

Tier 6

Silverback (BM 2 points/MM or SV 1 point) Is basically a free heal. Every time your pet cast Growl to taunt it heals itself for 1% per point allocated.

Review

I know that there are many different Tenacity pets. Just as my favorite is the Turtle, other Hunters perfer the Crocolisk or the always favorite Gorilla. And we can't forget if you have Beast Mastery you can tame the Rhino.

For Beast Mastery (53/11/7 or 54/12/5) you get 20 pet talent points to spec, and for the ones that prefer to remain Marksman or Survival you can use the 16 point pet talent allocation.

I think this just about covers it for Tenacity pets. I'm sure you have a favorite soloing or farming pet and spec. Why not share them?

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You want to be a Hunter, eh? Well then you came to the right place. Scattered Shots is the one column dedicated to helping you learn everything it takes to be a Hunter. Each week Scattered Shots will cover topics to help you Fix Your DPS, Choosing the Right Spec, Gear Selection, Macros and Pet Selection, Pet Specs and Management.

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