<last edit: 06/03/2007 - "Gruul's Lair" update>

Contents:

0.Contents & Introduction
1.Background
2.Choosing a Pet
3.General Information & Advice
4.Pet Mechanics & Theorycraft <under construction>
5.BM Talents <under construction>
6.Pet Damage Buffs <under construction>
7.Pet Damage Discussion/Screenshots
8.Pet Damage Discussion/Screenshots contd.
9.Guide: Upper Blackrock Spire
10.Guide: Onyxia's Lair
11.Guide: Molten Core Trash
12.Guide: Molten Core Bosses
13.Guide: Zul Gurub part 1
14.Guide: Zul Gurub part 2
15.Guide: Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj part 1
16.Guide: Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj part 2
17.Guide: Blackwing Lair part 1
18.Guide: Blackwing Lair part 2
19.Guide: Temple of Ahn'Qiraj part 1
20.Guide: Temple of Ahn'Qiraj part 2
21.Guide: Temple of Ahn'Qiraj part 3
22.Guide: Naxxramas, Spider Wing
23.Guide: Naxxramas, Abomination Wing
24.Guide: Naxxramas, Deathknight Wing <incomplete>
25.Guide: Naxxramas, Plague Wing <incomplete>
26.Guide: Naxxramas, Frostwyrm Lair <incomplete>
27.Guide: Gruul's Lair <updated>


Introduction:

The following guide is an expanded version of my original post on the old forums: I've attempted to make it more comprehensive and to shift the focus to all Raid content, to keep it in line with Blizzard's development strategy.

Importantly, this thread is not about establishing what is the optimal hunter talent spec. It is intended as a guide for hunters who would like to use their pets more effectively in raid instances and provide general advice about pet use. To this end it explores the merits and weaknesses of pets and considers the viability and effect of BM spec talents.

You're welcome to post any specific questions/constructive comments about raiding with a pet and the BM build in the rest of the thread.

I will flag any posts, that deal with important details, with bold format titles.

Background:

This is some information about Hunters and their Pets, in raids; for new players, based on my observations as a player and forum lurker

The hunter class has a history of attracting controversy in the game; due to the large player base, the extensive list of items we can use, our strength in solo PvE, the Feign Death mechanic, our performance relative to other “specialised” dps classes in groups and last but not least our pets.

In the early stages of the game (prior to patch 1.7) it was considered to be an unfinished class by the player base, due to it's late introduction in Beta, weak PvP performance, a number of major post release adjustments and the problematic implementation of pets.

The main issues with pets were unpredictable pathing and a general lack of awareness about their utility and control. The hunter player base tended to focus on solo play for leveling as well, which meant they typically had a poorer awareness about group combat roles; even today I see hunters who will join a party and fight their own “solo” battle to one side of the party. Coupled with all the other factors, it resulted in a certain amount of frustration on the part of the main player base: signs of this are the “tranq shot” book, which was apparently introduced to Molten Core to encourage groups to take hunters there. Much of this frustration found an outlet with the hunter's companion, which was seen to be and is, to some extent, a simple mechanic to keep mobs at range in solo fights. Pets were perceived at best, as a weak dps boost unworthy of serious appreciation and at worst, as a wipe waiting to happen.

Besides the pathing difficulties, which could genuinely cause wipes in some instances, pets were often seen to chase fleeing mobs and return with a group of friends, much to the party's displeasure. The perception was that the pet had aggroed the adds. This was one of the earliest misunderstandings about the class: in point of fact, a fleeing mob will attract adds, whether there is a pet trying to kill it or not. Equally, the large number of hunter players means that there will obviously be a greater proportion who are just not very good with the class. It only takes a few in-game examples to stir up resentment in the forums: a classic "noob" mistake is to leave a pet constantly on “Aggressive”. This provoked frequent calls for hunters to put away their pets, because our companions were perceived as more trouble than they were worth, by other classes.

Furthermore, raid encounters in Molten Core involved a large amount of resist based AoE damage, which pets had no almost defence against; up until patch 1.7 (the Hunter review) it was extremely hard to keep a pet alive in MC. A number of hunters were upset by this not only because some of us grown quite attached to our companions, but due to the loss of our damage potential: hunters had enough trouble even being included in MC raids, as I mentioned before. The hunter player base split into two camps, each trying to elicit an overall solution to hunter dps from Blizzard; one calling for buffs to compensate the loss of the pet and the other asking for the pet itself to be buffed. Blizzard has since stated that the hunter is a pet class and is intended to be played as such, but the outcries at that time have produced two distinct outlooks in the hunter community.

Pets, and the hunter class, received a significant buff in the 1.7 hunter review: it was not comprehensive but did address the most glaring deficiencies in our talent trees and introduced training points for pets. There was a certain amount of bandwagon jumping and a consequent backlash against some of the changes. Additionally, the introduction of new pet abilities, including trainable resists and the development of the BM tree, did not make pets successful in raids overnight. Many hunters tried out the new pet abilities in raids, but dismissed them early on. The prevailing attitude to pets was not broken and it has been slow progress to change opinions, ever since.

I have been raiding with a pet since the 1.7 patch, because I'm a sentimental RPer and because I enjoy a challenge ^_- I am also a team player and have a lot of support from my raid group with my pet and my spec (click on the handy link next to my portrait :D ) I like to think that it's because I have demonstrated it's viability over time.

Choosing a Pet:

As you may gather, I tend to play with a single companion, and it has worked very well for me, but there is no reason not to have specialised pets for different situations, or just because you like the look of them ^^

Although the different pet types have subtley different basic stats, these are unlikely to make a huge impact on your gaming experience imo. The exception to this are pets which have mana bars before they are tamed and recieve diminished "caster stats" which you should avoid (a number of Windserpent mobs suffer from this, for example).

Far more important, are the skills they can learn, the type of food they can eat and your own talent spec. The ease and cost of obtaining food for your pet is a very significant consideration that will impact your gaming experience: it helps to have pets that will eat almost anything, especially conjured mage-bread and fish (if you make fishing a habit). Some pets are restricted from obtaining various basic pet abilities (e.g. Dash in the case of Raptors) and others have specialised species skills. Some pet skills synergise with talents (Bite and Claw can both proc Frenzy) or benefit especially from them (spammable skills like Claw, Screech and Lightning Breath benefit hugely from focus generating talents)

Furious Howl deserves special mention for raids as it can provide a dps boost to an entire group, provided they are within it's (limited) 10 yard range. It's very popular in melee groups, for those hunters who are willing to manage their pets in melee, and also because it can provide a boost to range phys dps, if the pet is within range and/or unable to engage a mob. It has a high focus cost, but is more efficient dps than Bite if over two individuals benefit from it.

Screech and Thunderstomp are noteable for being the only AoE aggro grabbing skills pets can have (and possibly Fire breath, which casts in a cone). Screech is also spammable, which makes it one of the best aggro generating skills pets can have.

Some spell based pet abilities also benefit from RAP scaling and make especially effective MM spec pets. The most noteable example is Lightning Breath, because it is also spammable and synergises well with "Go For the Throat". Lightning Breath also procs Frenzy: based on the time of writing, it is the most powerful pet dps ability by far.

Growl is an essential taunt for grabbing aggro.

I would ensure that your pet had either Claw or Bite but not both, with a preference for Claw unless you plan to use high focus cost abilities as well (Claw has no cooldown and will burn focus). Claw, is less efficient than Bite but will deal more damage ultimately: this is because Claw will cast more often within a given period of time. They are both useful dps options for spell immune foes.

Dash/Dive is immensely useful for repositioning your pet in fights and will help save your pet from taking damage/being killed if you need to pull them back.

When assigning the majority of your talent points, I would recommend investing in resists in preference to health or armour. 90 points in each resist is a very flexible and cost effective compromise: the level and type of damage dealt in raid encounters makes slight improvements to pet health and armour less useful, relative to resists. Specialising is perfectly viable too, but I would not obtain less than a base of 90 for any key resists your pet might need.

This is an illustration of my current pet build:

http://www.direhornshuntershut.com/petcalc.php?build=8x0x0x9x1x3x4x5x3x3x3x3x3x4x6x0

General Information and Advice:

Controlling a pet efficiently and playing your hunter effectively in a raid is harder than many suspect. It takes practice and very good situational awareness, as well as an extensive knowledge about mob abilities. You need to learn about the type and direction of damage mobs do in melee, as well as what issues can be caused with positioning in melee.

One very important piece of knowlege is that a mob/boss cannot parry or block your pet in melee if your pet attacks from behind :)

As a rule of thumb: watch what the rogues do, and copy them with your pet.

Always default to keeping your pet on Passive in instances: with the changes made to pet AI it is the best option for general control and your pet will automatically disengage if the mob it's attacking is CCed.

When asked to make a pet pull, do so from a sufficient distance that you can cancel the pull, by clicking on the "Eyes of the Beast" icon and have her vanish as soon as she's gained aggro. The mobs will come to find you, and you can feign/re-summon after the tanks have aggro.

Try to keep an eye on your healers and be willing to send in/sacrifice your pet to pull aggro off them; the Intimidate Talent and/or Dash/Dive make the pet one of the most effective and appreciated lifelines for an aggroed priest.

Between fights, develop a good relationship with your healers and keep the Fortitude and Mark of the wild buffs on your pet. AP buffs are exceptionally beneficial (BoM, Battleshout and TSA) and BoK, while it does not have a dramatic impact on your pets dps, will provide a very valuable health boost (consider providing reagents yourself if you have reluctant buffers ;) You may also recieve some "non-essential" Blessings, if there are Warlocks in your raid: their pets need even-handed buffs too.

Don't forget that your Pet will also benefit from scaling from any buffs you have that increase stamina, armour or RAP.

Do not demand for your pet to be healed: they are your responsibility to keep safe and even the best, most useful pet is not as useful as a player. Having said that, a good healer will undoubtedly keep an eye on them if they can afford to.

There are occasions where you will not concentrate, you will just be unlucky enough to have your pet one-shotted, or a healer cannot assist her in time. Don't worry about it too much. If you've Improved Revive Pet, combat ressing may be an option, plus there are some occasions where a pet is useful because they are expendable and can buy time for a healer with one too many things on their mind.

It's often very useful to command your pet to stay, once you've sent them in to attack: that way your pet is likely to remain closer to the other mobs and avoids them wasting time running back and forth. Stay is also very useful when using your pet "defensively" against multiple weak adds; command them to stay with the camp and set them to be aggressive: your pet will automatically engage the adds, and hopefully stay clear of other mobs (always try to keep an eye on them though).

Pet Mechanics and Theorycraft

Pet damage efficiency vs healing

Pet efficiency is based on a simple concept: the damage lost to keep the pet alive should not exceed the damage the pet does in an encounter:

With a 45/12/3 spec (link next to my avatar) my pet usually does between 30% and 40% of my total damage in lvl 70+ instances, as well as almost 5% of our collective damage, through talents. Mend Pet has a fixed 5 second casting time; this means that the damage you lost in 5 seconds has to have been dealt by your pet before it is worth healing her again. The way to arrive at this figure is to divide your total damage (100%) by the proportion of damage your pet does (e.g. 25%) and then multiply the result by 5 (seconds). You may then subtract 5 seconds, due to the damage your pet is dealing during the heal.

In the case of my example this would be 100/25 = 4 *5seconds = 20 -5 = 15 seconds after each heal.

It is important you guage the relative proportion of damage that your pet deals, irrespective of spec, in different scenarios i.e. vs trash mobs and in various boss fights, with and without buffs if needed. Use a mod like "Recap" or some form of damage meter that will accurately record your damage and your pet's damage: white paperdoll dps is a misleading comparison.

The most difficult consideration when mending is mana usage: it is a horribly inefficient heal. Only experience will tell you whether you can afford to use the mana to sustain your pet. You need to weigh the frequency of heals i.e. the mana/5 cost of keeping your pet alive vs the duration of a fight, your mana pool and the respective value of spending mana on your pet vs shots.

I find it very helpful to break down things into mana/5 cost

e.g. My pet does 200dps and may require 1 Mend Pet every 30 seconds in a fight (an example). Mend Pet costs 620 mana, thus you can treat the pet as a DoT with a casting cost of roughly 20 mp5.

In contrast, you might have Steady Shot dealing 200dps at a casting cost of 110 mana every 2 seconds or 275 mp5

With a knowlege of mana pool size and approximate fight durations it is possible to balance your playstyle with different encounters and tailor your mana pool size and mp5 regen to your particular spec.

This example illustrates how mana efficient Mending a Pet can be, in terms of damage. Of course, it is preferable not to lose 400 dps for 5 seconds out of every 30: an 11% potential dps loss (400*5) / ((200+400*30)/100) in our example. So some form of outside healing is ideal if healers can spare it at all.

I am sure most casting classes would love a DoT that did 6k damage over 30 seconds at a casting cost of 415 mana (one untalented Rejuvenation every 30secs): it may help them to think of your pet in those terms when she is not tanking :)

BM Talents

Improved Revive Pet

Improved Revive Pet is an excellent if situational talent and one I would recommend to all hunters who enjoy playing with their pets because it takes away an awful lot of frustration, improving your game experience as a hunter and can help save a situation that goes bad.

Revive Pet restores your pet to life in 10 seconds, with 15% health at the cost of 80% mana.

Improved Revive Pet Rank 2 gives you back a pet in 4 seconds with 45% health at a cost of 40% base mana.

It is unusual in that it's easier to use and then sink a pot to make up for it, if you have a smaller mana pool. It's effectively a combat res that will return your pet with 2-3k hp at a cost of 2-3k mana, depending on various factors. It used to have a fixed mana cost but this was changed in TBC to prevent it becoming a more efficient "heal" than Mend Pet.

If my pet dies in a fight I will always use Improved Revive Pet if I have enough mana available and I think the fight will last more than 30 seconds and that my pet can survive those with 50% health (an easier decision if I know my healers are usually willing to drop a quick heal on them). Revive the Pet, Feign Death, feed the pet and send her in when she's "green" (which usually takes 5 seconds waiting on top of the 5 to Revive and feed her). If Paladins can give her a quick BoM buff, then she'll be doing almost max damage again. and will make up for the 5 seconds downtime in the remaining 20 seconds (similarly to Mend Pet's downtime).

For non-BM hunters the equation is slightly different, but they are still likely to see a net dps return if their mana reserves are healthy and there is more than 40 seconds left of the fight.

Spirit Bond

Spirit Bond restores 2% of your Pet's and your own hitpoints every ten seconds, starting from the instant you take damage. Most importantly it scales with all sta increases. A well equipped hunter could expect their pet and themselves to regenerate between 100 and 150 health every ten seconds at level 70, possibly more with buffs. It is an especially strong ability when the pet and/or the hunter are taking moderate, intermittent damage and are in extended encounters e.g. many boss fights and trash pulls in instances Despite the fact it may not sound very impressive, in my experience it makes a noticeable difference to survival over several runs and the effect is even better with inflated HP pools.

Improved Mend Pet

Rank 1 Mend Pet makes an excellent mana efficient "cleanse" if you have the Improved Mend Pet talent. Improved Mend Pet is a good solo and tanking talent. It can remove disease, poisons and dispel polymorph among other things, but in most raids and groups I would expect pets to be on the cleanse/dispel list, where needed; in my own group's experience it is far more efficient to do so.

Pet Damage Buffs:

Scaling is one of the more frequent complaints about pets.

As a first point, it's important to be aware that attack power has a linear effect on damage i.e. two different hunters will gain the same benefit from AP, irrespective of the amount they already have, assuming both are the same lvl (quivers, etc).

Agility bonuses also boost crit% though which is a naturally scaling talent: in other words, the higher your top end damage; the more damage a crit will be worth. Thus 1% crit gives a bigger absolute damage boost to someone with a high AP than someone with a low one. Nonetheless, the range is not enormous and crit% gives diminishing returns, the more you have, as a percentage.

The major factors that influence damage scaling are talents: those that give any form of percentage buff to stats.

These include, Mortal Shots and Improved Aspect of the Hawk...but the only two which sit outside the range of a BM hunter, and provide a damage boost, are Ranged Weapon Specialisation and Lightning Reflexes. There are also basic crit% and hit% boosting talents, in all three trees.

These are very stong talents that provide greater returns: ranged weapon spec provides a bonus to all ranged damage, while lightning reflexes offers a smallish AP boost from agility, and a boost in crit% combined with slightly improved armour and greatly improved dodge%.

Without going into a direct comparison, I will add that what is often ignored, is that the BM tree has these types of talents too.

Hunter pets, when happy, do 125% of their base damage: a lot of people forget about that fact, but it remains true. If you give a pet a damage buff, then they will gain 125% benefit from it.

Pets have very low basic stats: buff them with kings, or with mark of the wild, and their damage will only increase by 3-4dps. However, AP buffs will have their "usual" effect, providing an absolute dps increase +25% more. This bonus affects the kings buff too, but is much less noticeable :)

BM talents provide a sequence of abilities that synergise with this effect: not only providing a boost to the pets base dps, but a complete bonus to all damage buffs too.

from 125% base (happy) damage they gain an additional 20% improved return on damage, followed by a 15% crit boost, followed by a 30% haste buff (which enhances _all_ damage by 25%). Further, the bestial wrath effect, of a 50% damage boost, is applied to _all_ pet damage too.

Since BM pets will spend most of their time frenzied, they will gain:

1.25*1.20*1.25 = roughly 1.8 times their basic damage (not including the crit% boost or bestial wrath).

That means all damage enhancing buffs on frenzied BM pets provide 180% of their normal bonus: try testing it with AP buffs :)

A BM pet with Blessing of Might, Battle Shout and True Shot Aura can gain in the region of 60-70 white dps from those buffs, which in a sense is the BM tree's answer to scaling equipment stats, if you have concerns about this aspect of pet viability :)

Pet Damage Discussion/Screenshots

An edited discussion about Pet Damage with Elsia, taken from the previous forums: many thanks to her.

---

Q u o t e:
"Just out of curiosity, how much time does a Raid-buffed cat spend frenzied (i.e. to get the nightsaber from 1.5 attack speed down to 1.0)?

Another would be: Now do you handle pet buffing, I mean pala buffs? Groups buffs aren't a problem. Clearly BoK and BoM would be very good on the pet. as would be BoS.

We had a BM specced hunter with us in MC tonight. Her pet did roughly 80 dps per my recap, which is twice what MM/SV hunter pets did but that was by far not enough to make up the damage she lacked in marks. However I'm sure the pet didn't receive proper pala buffs.

As for the pet, how crucial is claw for the damage output?"

---

My pet will usually frenzy within the first three seconds of attacking, from a combination of at least 3 claws and three regular attacks and a 21% crit rate. Once she's frenzied she'll usually stay that way until the end of the fight (I have five points in the talent). She has a base attack speed of 1.3; reduced to 1.0 by Frenzy.

For pet buffs, I usually have Mark of the Wild, Fortitude, Blessing of Might (I provide the reagents because pet Blessings have to be cast individually) and either TSA or Battleshout, but rarely both. BoK only provides 3dps and 1 crit% for my pet, far less than Might, so I usually go without it. Blessing of Sanctuary is not necessary.

TSA usually gets leeched in a raid, so I would not be too suprised that with a little luck/experience a BM hunter can be competitive, even with the drawbacks pets have (I have provided some evidence to that effect I hope ^_-). It took me some time to learn how to use a pet well in raids.

180dps is what her white damage can rise to (including claw and crit) with a full set of buffs, including BoM, TSA and Battleshout. Usually her white dps is around 150, in raid, due to complications with group setup/tanking needs.

Claw typically provides about 10dps additionally. It's not crucial, but it's a substantial benefit; Bite provides similar damage; Furious Howl can provide better damage returns, in a melee group, however (but will not help proc frenzy for BM hunters).

---

Q u o t e:
" Hmm, very interesting. I was wondering why you were carrying around all those Symbols of Kings in your bag, but I guess it makes sense now ;)

I'm mostly intrigued about frenzy, if the pet stays frenzied all the time that translates into a permanent buff of 33% increase in white damage, which is certainly a heck of a lot and clearly account for most of the differential of my pet at roughly 40dps (post-mitigation as you put it ;)) vs a BM pet. Bite shouldn't be as good a bootstrapper for it as claw though, given the cooldown."

---

This is a screenshot of my pet without frenzy and with BoM and Battleshout (both unimproved versions). TSA would add a further 100 AP (at 145% of it's normal damage effect; all pets do 125% of base damage when happy, +20% for BM talents; refer to my pet buffs post on the previous page). The pet will also benefit from additional claw damage and a crit rate of 21%.

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/7050/petbuffed0gt.jpg

This screenshot shows my pet Frenzied: She's now doing roughly 180% damage (RE: Pet Buffs post, previous page; this boost would also apply to all other buff damage contributions, including TSA). Bestial Wrath would enhance this total damage by 50% and also contribute to greater damage over time.

The increase in damage from frenzy is *1.25 to all attack speed based damage, due to the way Blizzard calculates haste bonuses i.e. 100% haste = 50% more damage.

http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/5686/petbuffedandfrenzied1zv.jpg

Claw is certainly more useful than Bite if you've the frenzy talent.

---

Q u o t e:
Hmm intriguing. As I just happen to have the exact same pet but without any points in BM here comparison shots.

First unbuffed:

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c311/elsia_row/WoWScrnShot_053006_004930.jpg

For pre-mitigation 56.3 dps

Then buffed with the same Battle Shout and Blessing of Might (both not improved):

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c311/elsia_row/WoWScrnShot_053006_004950.jpg

For pre-mitigation 100.3 dps

A solid 44 dps increase from just these 2 buffs. Again no TSA in either case.

Of course there is no frenzy so no way to show those numbers. Still even a MM/SV pet benefits loads from just these two buffs.

MM/SV pets lose 20-56 with this pet from not having BM talents base damage. This ignoring differences in special abilities which sure exist. Ferocity giving extra crit and Bestial Discipline giving extra focus to mention the two obvious boosters not in base. Bestial Wrath definitely also a clear damage boost.

Minor thing that confuses me... where are the last 5% from BM base damage talents coming from? I see 15% from Unleashed Fury, but that's it... guess I'm blind right now. Clearly my 100 + 20% should be 120 which is what you have...

Conclusion: darn buff your pets ;)

---

Importantly, AP buff your pets for damage (although extra hp + resists are also very useful, as is dodge/crit%).

Basically, I've done some testing, and you are welcome to do so yourself: in theory an AP buff will always give you the same amount of dps, because 14AP = 1dps. Therefore, compare your pet's damage at "happy" status, buffed and unbuffed, then compare your pet's damage at "neutral" status, buffed and unbuffed.

With the same set of AP buffs, your pet should exhibit the same dps bonus in each case...however, if you hover your cursor over the happiness icon you will notice that it says "neutral: your pet does 100% damage" and "happy: your pet does 125% damage". When you look at the dps gained from the buff, in each case, you will find that the happy pet will gain 125% of the amount of dps that the neutral pet will. This bonus applies to all (happy) pets and their damage enhancing buffs.

You do not notice this, in the comparison, because both of our pets are happy ;) (your pet also has a slightly slower attack speed, although that's not important for this ^_-)

Unleashed Fury provides a further 20% increase in damage (it was upgraded from 15% a few patches ago, at the same time when BW was changed to give a 50% damage boost for 18 seconds) which is the difference you see.

Frenzy will multiply this all by roughly 1.25 (in fact slightly more; as you can see from the two screenshots above).

Stat enhancing buffs (motw and kings) also benefit from this, but because the pets basic stats are relatively low you will hardly notice it (or the damage bonus they will give you). They are still very good for other reasons though :)

Just as something extra: I've been able to put together a screenshot of my pet's dps "fully" buffed and frenzied and there's also one of her wrathed. The info on pet buffs/dps has been posted before, but this is a step beyond theory craft, plus pictures are nice and they complete the "set" with the shots of frenzy/wrath^^

This is just more general info for people reading this thread and I assure you that non BM pets can still benefit to a very great extent from the buffs at work here (please refer back a couple of pages in the thread for an explanation as to why) and it would be great to have another good set of pictures from a non-BM hunter (with Imp BoM, Imp Battleshout, Imp MotW, TSA and BoK) :)

Frenzied + "fully" raid buffed (frenzy contributes roughly 20% of the listed damage):

http://img161.imageshack.us/img161/1580/hypercat3pm.jpg

..with Bestial Wrath (which is contributing around 14dps over the entire period of it's cooldown here; far more if the pet is not doing damage for some of that period):

http://img161.imageshack.us/img161/679/supersaiyancat7nx.jpg

These totals are actually a little bit more than I worked out on paper; there's still Claw damage on top of this and a 23crit% rate.

Upper Blackrock Spire

Upper Blackrock Spire will be many players first experience of a Raid: it introduces players to the ideas of class dynamics/utility within raids and provides a taste of the sort of encounters that are to come. However, the majority of foes in Ubrs are not unlike those you will encounter outside the instance. The level design does pose some neat challenges, but few that directly impact on pet use: I will highlight those points where pet tactics come into play. FR is the most useful resist here.

Guard Cells

The encounters here are fairly straightforward, but it's important to keep an eye out for runners and to deal with Summoners quickly. It's an effective pet tactic, to dispatch your pet into one of the guard cells and set her on Stay/Aggressive. The close confines make targeting tricky and this set of commands will allow you to focus on your own positioning. Be aware that your pet will break CC on Aggressive: use Stay/Passive and assist-targetting if your group makes heavy use of CC here.

Pyroguard Emberseer

This fight is straightforward: moderate FR helps, and the Stay/Aggressive tactic is a useful way to supplement AoE on the Orcs.

The Hatchery & Solakar Flamewreath (aka the Leeroy Room)

You'll face waves of Dragonkin here: focus your pet on the Hatchers and any whelp spawns first. Stay/Aggressive works well here too. The Boss fight is not especially challenging. Don't worry to much about the eggs, just don't walk into them :)

The Galleries & Goraluk Anvilcrack

More Orcs and Dragonkin will face you up here. Your pet is safe from the knockback effect, which the Orcs deal when they charge. The Mobs here can be quite closely packed, so Passive is the best choice (I only use Defensive if I want my pet to aggro a mob off me). It's possible to offtank some of the mobs, but best to avoid doing so if you can. The boss fight is nothing out of the ordinary.

Rend's Room

You will face waves of Chromatic Dragonkin and Orcs in this room, before fighting Rend & Gyth. There are two ways to enter this room; either through the tunnels at the back, or by dropping down off the ledge into the room: this is an infamous place for "pet wipes". Dismiss your pet before jumping down into the room and resummoning her: it's possible that you can manage safely without doing so these days, but it's not worth the hassle/risk.

The Dragonkin/Orcs should be easily dealt with; focus your pet on the whelps first and be ready to intercept any that aggro on the casters.

Rend will eventually fight you, mounted on the dragon Gyth: this fight should be simple enough, provided your MT can keep Gyth's breath attacks turned away from group. The only other critical point is when Rend himself leaps off the dragon at 50% and tries to run loose: if he makes a break for your casters, be prepared to intercept him with your pet.

The Beast's Room

Before you take on The Beast, there are some large groups of mobs to be dealt with outside. There's a good chance that your casters will pull adds in these fights, and there are also stealthed Blackrock Assassins to look out for: focus on dpsing the Dragonkin casters and be prepared to offtank/buy time for your party with your pet.

The Beast itself can be somewhat nasty, but will typically ignore pets: it has a fear that a well timed Bestial Wrath could counter.

Drakkisath's Room

The Room needs to be cleared before you can take on Drakkisath and these fights are similar to the ones immediately before The Beast's Room: your pets role is to add dps and help control the fight.

Drakkisath's adds can be dealt with in a number of ways, including the reasonably well known "hunter trick". Your pet either will not play a role against them, or will dps them as normal. Drakkisath himself is far more challenging and your pet will need good FR to survive the fight. Drakkisath deals a very nasty AoE centered on a party member: a backup tank should reposition him away from the AoE, but the pet is not so smart and can sometimes remain in it's area of effect: call her back and heal/resend so she'll be clear of it's effect.

Lord Valthalak

Lord Valthalak is a Tier 0.5 boss that can be summoned in the instance.

Good SR is essential for this fight. Keep plenty of space between yourself and the melee group. Ideally stand to one side, away from the ranged camp, so that you can recall your pet safely for a heal (if it's needed). Lord Valthalak has a cumulative, chaining, shadow based attack that could wipe out the ranged group if it jumps to them. He will run out of mana at points in the fight: this is the best time to recall your pet for a heal, as he will not be able to cast Shadow Wrath for a period.

Valthalak also summons spectral assassins which you need to kill fast, but that your pet should ignore. At 15% he will deal heavy Shadow damage, so try to ensure your pet has full health at this point.

Onyxia's Lair

Onyxian Warders

These warm up mobs feature a powerful Fire based AoE; your pet will need very high FR, including the benefit of set bonuses, to be able to stand toe to toe with them. It's perfectly possible to use your pet as extra damage on these mobs, but it may be wise to send them in only after the mob is below 60% health (alternatively, call your pet back if they are near 2k health).

Onyxia Phase 1

During this phase you should be almost entirely safe to dps Onyxia once the MT is holding aggro. Focus on doing as much damage as possible and take note of the larger slabs of rock on the ground. Eventually Onyxia will take off and move into Phase 2.

Onyxia Phase 2

While Onyxia is airborne your pet will be unable to hurt her, but will still try to, unless you call her in line (the dragon must look like a big birdie I suppose). She can be usefully employed against the Whelp spawns, around the egg chambers, with the Stay/Aggressive command set. Be ready to pull her back onto the walls, with Dash ideally, in case of a deep breath: keep her at your side once the Whelps are dealt with. Onyxia will land after a while and enter Phase 3: disable Dash/Dive when she does so.

Onyxia Phase 3

Try to find a position on the rock walls or in the middle of a large rock slab, but beware of Onyxia's Tail Swipe attack (don't stand too close to it) and standing too close to the egg chambers. Onyxia will fear the Raid periodically and then stomp on the ground, causing lava to jet up between the slabs and hurt anyone directly over the cracks. Disabaling Dash/Dive will prevent your pet from running too far during the fear and positioning her in the middle of a large slab reduces the chance she'll be hurt. Good FR is a must if you want to avoid frequent healing/pet deaths. Your pet will be immune to the knock back effect of the tail swipe, which deals very little damage, so consider positioning her to the rear of Onyxia too. If Onyxia is tanked at the north end, then there are some good spots to stand on, near the ridge in the cave. With a good team, she should not be difficult.

MC Trash

Molten Giants/Destroyers:

Pet's are in relatively little danger against these mobs. However, be aware of your pets health throughout the fight as it will degrade (more rapidly vs the Destroyer's AoE). Heal/pull your pet out of the fight once it's health drops close to 1k.

Firelords:

Pets are in almost no danger in these fights with good FR. Send them in to do damage.

Surgers:

Pose little direct threat to your pet but your pet will occasionally take damage from a 1k surge. Be aware of your pets health and heal/pull them clear before it drops below 1k

Annihilators:

Are almost no threat to your pet: send them into melee.

Core Hounds:

With good FR, pets are safe to attack Hounds from the rear. It's important that you keep you pet clear of the Hounds Firebreath/Cone attack to the front. NB: sometimes pets have positioning problems with hounds, which you will usually notice when they start to die fast...however, this is rare and should not deter you from using them.

Core Hound Packs:

Pets are fairly safe in these fights and are best used simply, as additional damage. Very rarely a pet will "eat" a rend from one of the hounds, usually this is not too dangerous but try to avoid switching pet targets, as multiple rends will quickly kill your companion.

Imp packs:

Pets are of limited use against these, and will quickly die if caught up in the middle of a pack, so keep them clear; send them in to engage any strays.

Lava packs:

These can be very dangerous and your pets survival will depend on the positioning of the pack (their facing and the distance between them). The debuffs/dots will rapidly kill a pet: experiment with these fights, but pull your pet clear/heal as soon as it's health starts noticeably ticking down. Avoid sending your pet in until the first "wave" of debuffs has gone out; this will be a visible effect on most of the raid.

Hunters with improved mend pet have a distinct advantage in these fights: as a general precaution, do not let your pet's health drop below 50%.

MC Boss Fights:

(quotes by Elsia)

Lucifron

Pets can provide good damage in this fight, but will benefit greatly from decent SR and/or improved mend pet.

Keep an eye on your pets health and pull them back for mending/cleansing, especially if it drops close to 2k.

Magamadar

Magamadar poses little direct danger to your pet, and you should send them in to do continuous damage for most of the fight. FR will help a great deal. Recall/heal your pet if needed and try to keep it above 50% health but do not let it take priority over tranqing.

Gehennas

Gehennas and his adds are little threat with decent FR and SR.

Send your pet in against the adds and then against Gehennas: be wary of Gehennas's Curse range and above all move your pet out of the way of any AoE Firestorms.

Garr

Pets work well against Garr.

The only real threat to them are the explosions from the dying Fireguards: pull your pet clear at 30% and they should comfortably avoid it.

---

Q u o t e:
I use pets as extra support for warlocks between banishes. Yes, it's less DPS but it's more safety for locks. Works great for this function requiring an occasional mend.

---

Baron Geddon

Pets are fine against Geddon with good FR.

Send them in and out with the rest of the dps melee (save dash for the return trip if possible). Generally speaking, avoid his AoE; with practice you should be able to anticipate the timing. Dispel/Imp mend pet will help a great deal with his debuff.

Note: Pets are in no danger of becoming the bomb.

Shazzrah

Pets are hard to use here.

The exception is a pet with decent Arcane resists (150+ buffed) and a hunter who has Improved Mend Pet: Shaz's regular AoE bursts do between 200-400 on my pet but this more than doubles while she has the AoE debuff, which needs to be cleansed.

Give the MT plenty of lead time on this fight, to hold aggro and then send you pet in when he's more or less stable. Your pet, if they can survive well, will be a very effective damage dealer in this "controlled aggro" fight. This adds efficiency to frequent use of Mend Pet, because your pet will be doing a higher than average proportion of damage, as you hold back slightly here.

The 3part GS bonus helps a very great deal here, but you should be prepared to pull your pet out at points and heal her up. For basic debuff cleansing, do timed 3 second Rank 1 Mend pet bursts. This is a short enough period of time that you should be able to fit it inside a multi/aimed cycle, while only disrupting an autoshot: an aimed/multi combo is feasible in this fight after successful tanking and repeated feigns (build up to it very cautiously though).

Sulfuron Harbinger

Another easy fight.

Send the pets in to do extra damage on the adds then sick them on The Harbinger.

Golemagg

FR helps a lot in this fight.

Pets can provide good continuous damage but their health will degrade and they need a degree of supervision/healing.

There is a stacking DoT/debuff that can hurt a great deal as the fight progresses; pulling your pet out of combat for a period will encourage it to expire before the damage becomes too great; Damage in the fight may become unmanageable after the enrages, at 20%. Pull your pet out if they are below 50% health, past this point, and focus on dps.

Majordomo

Pets can be used effectively in this fight and benefit from decent resists.

Use them as to damage the guards/priests but be prepared to pull them back when the phys damage shield goes up.

---

Q u o t e:
We use pets as extra teleport distractors on Domo. Works great, again less raid damage but much less disruption to the Domo tank.

---

Ragnaros

Pets can work well against the Sons of Ragnaros and can do decent damage against the firelord. However, this depends wholly on having a high FR, which is reliant on set bonuses which might compromise your hunters FR. If you can manage 150+ FR buffed and achieve the same on your pet, then you are in a good position to give it a go.

Generally speaking, you need to keep your be able to stand with your pet in range for heals and ensure that they do not crowd other melee. The GS 3 part bonus makes this much easier and is a very viable option, as the set has some good FR bonuses.

Keep a close eye on your melee group: order your pet to attack when they do and click passive when they pull back.

Your pet will require infrequent heals but should only die if you are unlucky/the melee group steals aggro.

Command your pet back for the Son's phase, to help kill them, and avoid massive AoE bursts from the center of the room. Once you are in place for Raggy again, use Eye of the Beast to quickly reposition her in her old place, on stay, and resume.

Zul Gurub

This instance is quite sprawling and there are many potential pathways and a lot of conventional encounters: I'll highlight the ones that affect pet tactcs below.

Trash mobs:

Gurubashi Axe Throwers

Move your pet out of melee with these mobs if they start to spin.

Gurubashi Berserkers

These are unlikely to threaten your pet, but have an AoE thunderclap and a fear that Bestial Wrath can break.

Gurubashi Blood Drinkers/Blood Priests

These mobs have a shadow based AoE lifedrain ability, that triggers periodically: the lifedrain is resistable with good SR. Your raid will determine the tactics here: send your pet into melee if the rest of your melee dps moves in and throw in a stun if you can, once the Blood Drinker is low on health.

Blood drinkers are accompanied by Blood Priests, at Hakkar's Temple. These self heal and need to be MCed/perma stunned. Intimidate may help here.

Bat Rider Packs

You find these mobs in Jeklik's zone. These need to be dpsed down rapidly after they emote a "getting ready to explode" effect. Move your pet far away from them at this point. The Bat adds can be killed quickly and easily.

Spider Packs

These pop up in Mar'li's area. Off tanking can occasionally come in handy here, but beware letting your pet become overwhelmed with adds. The Broodwidows produce lots of little spiders when they die, and are usually cced; avoid using the Aggressive setting unless you can keep your pet clear of the cced mobs.

Voodoo Slave/Mistress Packs

These are only found in Jin'do's play pen: they can cast a debuff which will increase the amount of physical damage you take, dramatically. Use the pet on them once they are tanked/rooted and be ready to cleanse her if she gets the debuff.

Sons of Hakkar/Soulflayers

Sons of Hakkar create a poison cloud when they die that it's best to move out of and cleanse. They are sometimes accompanied around Hakkar's Temple by Soulflayers; these do not produce a poison cloud.

Optional Bosses:

Bloodlord Mandokir & Oghan

Your pet can dps Oghan fairly safely, but the Bloodlord does a Whirlwind that is very hard to avoid and deals a substantial amount of damage. I usually pull my pet out of the fight once she's low on health and heal her, taking breaks in healing/pet dps if the Bloodlord is having a good day. That said, it's a reasonable fight to leave the pet out of if you wish.

Jin'do the Hexxer

The pet is very effective dps in this fight and can be left on Jin'do for it's entirety: have her assist with eliminating the totems he drops too.

Gahz'ranka

FrR (frost resistance) is useful against this boss but not essential. Have your pet attack and heal her if needed.

Edge of Madness Bosses

None of these pose unusual problems for the pet, except Wushoolay, who has a poison cloud and casts a lightning AoE you should move your pet away from. Good NR will help a great deal against him.

Zul'Gurub Bosses

High Priestess Arlokk

Your pet should be fine in this fight but will occasionally pick up damage from Arlokk's cleaves (in panther form) and the occasionally from the panther adds. Depending on your groups tactics, either use your pet on Agressive/Stay to help clean up the panther spawns or use her on Arlokk. Pull her out of the fighting for a heal if she drops below 2k.

High Priestess Jeklik

The principle threat to your pet in this fight, which you avoid, are the Bomb Bats: they cast a small radius AoE which deals substantial fire damage. Try to keep your pet in melee, but be prepared to Mend/reposition her if she's hit by one.

High Priestess Mar'li

Mar'li deals out AoE nature damage and good pet NR is preferable for the fight. Use your pet to dps her and the adds she spawns and save Bestial Wrath, if you have it, for her Web attack (in order to break the effect). You will probably need to heal your pet once or twice during the fight: try to keep her above 50%

High Priest Thekal

Thekal has a weakish melee range Physical Damage AoE in Tiger form, that you may have to heal. The fight is straightforward in terms of pet maintenance.

High Priest Venoxis

Once the adds have been dpsed down (which your pet should assist with, or can help by offtanking) Thekal himself will hopefully have been drained of mana and you can safely send your pet in to help dps him. If your group is not draining his mana, then keep your pet well clear of Venoxis until he transforms.

Good NR is very important for this fight: At 50% he will transform into his serpent form and periodically release poison clouds around the room. Staying in these clouds hurts, so your MT will hopefully be moving him (and your pet) around the room to avoid their effects. Be prepared to drop in heal if your pet is badly hurt, or pull her out/reposition if the MT is not moving far enough from the clouds.

Hakkar the Soulflayer

If Hakkar is fully debuffed then your pet is in little danger throughout the fight. She may be hit by a shadow damage DoT (resists ftw) during the fight and it's likely you will need to heal her once or twice. Pets are immune to Hakkar's Blood Siphon Ability and do not need to enter a Son of Hakkar's poison cloud before he casts it.

The Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj

This is a circular instance, and the order in which you attempt the areas can vary: this guide assumes you work through the instance in an anticlockwise fashion.

Hive'Zara Drone Packs

These are the first mobs you will encounter in the instance and are relatively easy to deal with: the main threat to your pet is the poison from the Lashers, which should be cleansed/healed. Good NR is a help and should prevent your companion from being seriously endangered in these fights. Make sure that your pet does not break any cc on the drones, as well. Watch out for loose mobs.

Qiraji Swarmguards

These also drift around at the start and can be a threat when they add to the other packs. Intimidate is useful against them but their AoE cleave will hurt your pet, so keep a close eye on the healthbar/choose alternative targets in case it becomes a problem.

Kurinnaxx

The viability of pets in this fight is heavily dependant on your companion's NR and how well the tanks handle the encounter.

Kurinnaxx has has a frontal cleave and one especially dangerous attack: sand bubbles will form beneath players at points in the fight and burst open to deal NR damage in a small area of effect. To avoid these, players need to be alert and to keep moving throughout the fight. Your pet can be left doing continuous damage on the rear of Kurinaxx, so long as the tank keeps the boss moving away from sand bubbles. Your pet may lag behind slightly and be hit by bursts, if the tank is feeling sluggish. With good NR and general group awareness, you should manage with occasional Mends, but it will not be sustainable if the frequency is too high; you will have to use your own judgement about your groups abilities here.

General Rajaxx

This is a wave based fight, where your pet is best employed as a damage add: keep her clear from the swarmguard cleaves: she can be usefully focused on the "leader" of each wave.

General Rajaxx has a resistable NR AoE which will halve a character's current health. If Andorov is alive and/or you have a PoHing priest/good NR this should not be too great a worry: the General will switch to the next target on his aggro list every so often, but is unlikely to pick your pet. Consider healing her only if her health drops very low.

Qiraji Gladiator

These come in pairs and demand some supervision: they have an AoE trample effect that will deal slightly less than 2k every so often and once one dies the other will enrage dealing additional damage. Your pet can be used in combat here, but you will need to pull her out of combat to Mend during the fight. If your group is fast, you might be able to get away with a single mend, as the melee group switch targets. Pull her out of the fight if the enraged mob has her down to 2k or so.

Obsidian Destroyer

Are not threat to the pet: focus dps and use cooldowns.

Flesh Hunter

Deal AoE NR damage that good resists should handle, but monitor your pets health, especially if one adds.

Scarab Packs

Your pet will suffer random physical and NR damage in these fights, but should be fine provided she does not aggro too many mobs. Keep an eye on her health and throw in a heal if needed: intercept any loose adds on the healers. Aggressive is a viable command in this situation.

Moam

AR resistance is very useful, if your pet has it, in this fight. Moam is tricky, but is mainly a dps race for you and your pet: watch his mana bar and try to pull her back out of range if it ever gets close to full (there will be a large AoE explosion if it does)

After 90seconds Moam will spawn Mana fiends that deal arcane AoE and turn to stone. Hopefully these will be cced/dpsed quickly. try to keep yourself and your pet clear of them and consider sending your pet in to continue dpsing Moam, as an option. The fight is challenging.

Anubisath Guardians

These prowl between the pillars in Ossiran's "Room" before you encounter the Boss himself. Each Anubisath will have a random combination of either Meteor or Plague attacks and Shadow Storm or Thunderclap. The Meteor does Fire AoE Damage that is divided between all individuals in it's area of effect (more people equals less damage per person). Plague will target players (and pets) with an NR DoT that inflicts damage within a small area around the individual. Shadow storm is a shadow bolt volley that will hit everyone outside 20yrds range. Thunderclap deals NR damage to everyone within 10 yards.

All the damage is resistable and it is entirely possible to avoid the Shadow damage attack. NR is the main priority followed by FR. With good resists you pet will be able to weather the damage from the effects: the principle danger is the plague effect which can massacre a group if an inflicted individual remains standing near other people. The lack of fine control with a pet, makes this scenario problematic, however it is possible to overcome this issue:

Place your pet on stay some 15 yards to one side of the tanking spot, away from the group, Send her in to attack as normal, but it your pet recieves the plague effect, click on "Passive" to return her to her spot away from the raid. This is not a perfect solution; if your tank repositions the mob it may leave your pet vulnerable to Shadow volley/move the raid too close to her plagued position. If this happens, either reposition her (clicking Follow then Stay, at a new spot), dismiss her, or allow her to die: the main thing is not to AoE the raid. There's no actual need to move the mob however.

Ossiran

This is an especially, unique and exciting fight. The Pet's role in it is simple however: Stick her on Ossiran to bite at his ankles.

Ossiran has a weak short range AoE. This damage can be healed whenever you pet is low on health: the fight is constantly moving for location to location, so your pets damage will become more valuable, since it is impossible to maintain an efficient damage cycle. Make sure to keep up.

If Ossiran is not kited correctly or is allowed to enter Supreme Mode, then there is a good chance your pet will die. Given the nature of the fight, I'd recommend Reviving your pet if you have the Improved talent, but it's unlikely to be worthwhile if that's not the case since it's difficult to feign/drink during the encounter.

Also watch out for the two whirlwinds that circle the map and keep yourself and your pet clear of them :)

Hive'Zara Wasp Packs

NR helps considerably in these fights: focus your attacks on the Stingers and cleanse the debuff from the Wasps if possible. Offtank a wasp if it's giving your healers a hard time and use Intimidation on them, if you have it. Mend your pet, if she drops below 3k health.

Grub things

These spew a toxic poison cloud when they die and can complicate fights if they are allowed to add.

Ayamiss the Hunter

This is a somewhat complicated fight with different roles and two distinct phases. Ayamiss deals a nature based AoE so good NR is a must. NR, group healing and the occasional mend should help ensure your pets survival. Keep your pet dpsing Ayamiss throughout Phase 2. It's not practical to use your pet against the maggots or swarms.

Hive'Zara Soldiers

These have the retaliation ability: while active, your pet will receive melee damage whenever she attacks them.

Hive'Zara Sandstalkers

These bugs stealth/burrow; your pet can sniff them out, but there is nothing out of the ordinary about them otherwise.

Buru the Gorger

Another very unique and different fight.

Your pet is best used to deal with the adds, that break out of the eggs after they "hatch". You can also use her to help "hatch" the eggs. Try to keep your pet clear of the eggs when they do hatch (there's minor AoE damage). Focus your pet on Buru once it drops below 20% (there's a good chance your pet will die, but it's a dps race at this point).

Black Wing Lair:

Razorgore

There seem to be a number of different ways to approach this encounter and your mileage may vary depending on the strategy.

The pet remains very useful, in phase 1, if you are involved in dpsing mobs.

In phase 2 the pet can be sent in against Razorgore at right angles to the two tanks. She'll take quite a bit of damage, which you can opt to mend yourself and/or pull her back as needed. Ideally, a kind priest will be PoHing your pet and the entire group :)

Vaelestraz

The pet is useful dps throughout this fight, with good FR and provided the group setup includes a PoH spamming priest: in most circumstances there should be no real reason you raid cannot manage this and the extra dps will be especially beneficial in this fight.

It is important that you do not compromise your own FR, heavily, in order to boost your pets: I always aim to keep at least 200, buffed.

Pets do not receive burning adrenaline (because they have no mana) and are not in danger of blowing up provided they do not steal aggro from the MT (which should not happen^^)

Position your pet so that it is attacking in the same place as the rogues in your group.

Important note: if you have a wolf with furious howl, turn off autocast before the start of this fight (you can turn it on shortly after; it risks drawing Vael's attention otherwise).

Dragonkin Packs

Your pet should be fine against these, provided the MT keeps the captain turned away and the mages are kept asleep and dealt with one at a time.

It's pretty straightforward but you might need to drop in a single mend at some point.

The Supressor Room

The thing to beware here is the AoE damage/debuff the hatchers emit. Your pet can survive for a while in it, but it's not advisable for long.

I find it far more useful to keep the pet in camp, using the "stay" command, and set her to be "agressive": She'll attack any whelps that come within range and will hopefully stay away from the dragonkin if the tank keeps it from AoEing the camp.

You can safely send her in to help finish off hatchers, and to provide added damage against any orc casters.

Learn to be aware where your pet is at all times, and keep her moving with the group.

Broodlord

The Broodlord has a blastwave ability, that will knockback most melee. This triggers at regular points in a fight and makes it possible to avoid.

Provided your pet is on full health and has decent resists, a single blast wave will not kill her; it takes off 2.5k to 3.5k health from my pet. It's sensible to keep your pet healed up above this point. With close to 200 Fr she will resist most of the waves.

Lab Packs

These fights can be very chaotic, and a lot will depend on what others do, with respect to your survival as much as the pets.

Generally speaking, keep well away from the goblins (who can spell trouble in a group) and pay particular attention until the warlocks are down (Their rains of fire are a bit unpredictable and rather nasty unless you move quickly).

The warlocks are fine to attack, provided they're tanked and there's no AoE effects causing damage where they are.

Spellbinders have an AoE effect that is troublesome, but can be silenced/stunned. Avoid sending your pet to attack these until the rest of your melee raiders have caught up to them. Once they're "controlled", your pet's dps will help get them down faster :)

Drakonids have a chain cleave that hurts a lot, but only links to 3 melee attackers at most: wait for at least three melee to engage, then send your pet in to attack at the back^^

Summoned Felguards pose no real threat to your pet, on their own: they only have very weak AoE.

Remember that your pet does not have to be attacking what you are: you can use to it help dps a Drakonid, while you pick off those annoying goblins ^_-

Try to keep your pet above 1/3 health and keep it at your side if it gets to be a drain: no one's dps is especially efficent in these encounters, so no worries :)

Firemaw

Firemaw's tactics involve hiding from him, running out to do dps and running back into hiding before his LoS debuff stacks up too high. Most of the raid does it; with good FR your pet should do it too :)

Command her to stay, in cover, and click "attack" to send her in: to pull her back, simply click on "passive" and she will return to the spot you told her to stay at. As a rule of thumb, recall her before her health reaches below 1/2.

There's plenty of time to heal her and yourself, while you wait for the debuff to disappear.

Drakonid packs

These have different abilities/weaknesses, I recommend sending your pet in to attack them from behind (to avoid cleaves) but pull her out quickly if she suddenly takes a big chunk of damage.

It's not a complicated fight but if your pet goes down, it will go down faster than you can heal them. This also applies to the large Draconid packs before Ebonrock and Chromaggus.

Ebonrock

Ebonrock is a really simple fight: your tanks should keep her turned away from the raid group, while she's dps'd from the rear. Send your pet in with the rogues and that's about it :)

Flamegore

Flamegore is straightforward, but needs to be tranqed to prevent her from triggering the same type of LoS damage as Firemaw. This should not be a problem with a good rota, so just send your pet in with the rogues, and keep the Dragon down ;)

Chromaggus

This fight takes a bit of practice, but is basically like the Firemaw fight, in that you need to dodge his breaths. Command your pet to stay somewhere out of sight and click on passive to pull her back before a breath casts.

Also, it's very important that you keep an eye on the Brood Afflictions your pet recieves (too many and things go very bad). These must be cleansed and can be a drain of your groups mana: you should check with your healers before using a pet here, unless you have two ranks in the Improved Mend Pet talent and can cleanse them yourself.

To avoid wasting lots of mana, use Mend Pet rank 1 to cleanse your pet if they have two or more debuffs (these will be clearly displayed under your pet in the party screen). It's perfectly doable, but make sure your tranqing is solid before attempting it :)

The Bronze Brood Affliction will randomly freeze your pet for a few seconds at a time, so once she receives it, try to pull her back ten seconds before each breath.

Nefarion

If you have Improved Res Pet, then I recommend using your pet in both phases: Send her in to attack the Draconids in the first phase and command her to "stay" at the tunnel entrance, on "aggressive". Focus her on the Chromatic Dragons whenever possible.

In phase two, when Nefarion lands, he'll breathe Shadowflame everywhere: this will almost certainly kill your pet if she's out (You can dismiss her just before hand if you're quick). Use Improved Res Pet, then feign, feed and heal her up, or simply summon you pet at this point.

Dpsing Nefarion with the pet is simple: just have her attack him from the side at all times, except if there's a paladin call (he becomes immune to phys dps, and it's tricky from the tanks to hold aggro during them). If she's feared, just check to make sure she's not drifting towards his head, and recall/send her in until he drops ^^

The Temple of Ahn'Qiraj

Obsidian Eradicator

These are straightforward and pose no threat to your pet

Anubisath Sentinel Pack

These packs have a mixture of abilities, including AoE, which your group should be managing. The basic advice here is to watch where you are standing/your pet is fighting and avoid the the ones with Thorns.

Shadow Volley AoEs can be avoided and Thunderclap is fine with good NR and a spot of mending.

If your pet sticks close to the rogues, you should be fine unless your group is in the habit of burning mana against these packs.

The Prophet Skeram

As Far as your pet is concerned, this fight should not be a great problem, however it's useful to have some points in Arcane Resist:

Skeram spams Arcane Explosions when more than four people are within melee range of him. Fortunately, pets do not count towards this limit.

However, duting the fight he creates duplicates at regular intervals that have identical abilities but less health. These also teleport around and invaribaly there will be some AoE as a result.

Unless the fight goes really pear shaped, then that's all you should have to worry about, pet wise. However, be aware that a number of positions on the stairs will block LoS to your pet, so it's best to recall her if she's in need of a heal.

As an added bonus: if you set the pet to attack Skeram, she will automtically "sniff" out the real Skeram whenever he "divides". Neat huh^^.

Vekniss Warriors

These are straightforward, but when they die it's worthwhile putting your pet on aggressive and letting her help clear up the bugs they spawn before moving onto the next one.

Keep an eye on her health though, in case the critters decide to gang up on her.

Vekniss Guardians

When these things die, any fellow guardians will rush in to do a nasty stackable DoT. Avoid this by pulling your companion out of combat (hopefully with the rest of Melee) when they drop below 20% health or so.

If you're unlucky you still might get one or two, but that should be fine.

Quiraji Brainwashers

These are generally not a problem unless they decide to pick on your pet and mindflay it. If this happens, you can try to heal her/hope it resists a bit...but she'll prolly die. However, it'll rarely happen.

All other damage that they deal is manageable with the occasional Mend Pet.

The Triad

This optional Boss encounter plays differently depending in what order you kill the three members of the Triad.

Generally Speaking: Kri is the nasty one and Vem the weak one. Kri has a poison Volley that will hurt a lot over time, and I do not suggest sending your pet against him without Improved Mend Pet, to Cleanse the stacking DoT. Attack him from behind if you do send her in though.

Yauj and Vem can Be attacked by the pet; with little to no risk of harm.

Battleguard Sartura

Your pet's usefulness is limited in this fight, along with most melee dps. Generally speaking, keep her out of the way and send her in to do dps when the Guards/Sartura are controlled/not Whirlwinding. If you have Intimidation, this is also a very good time to throw in a pet stun.

Learn to time their vulnerable periods and you should be able to get in a little extra dps without taking any extra hits (hang about though, and your pet will go down in three cleaves). In many ways the stun will be more useful in this fight, if you have it.

The "Gauntlet"

Mobs will continuously repop in this corridor: your aim is to survive getting to the other side .

There are little bugs and there are big green bugs.

It's best to keep your pet attacking the green bugs as you move from one to the next in the corridor, and your own dps should be focused on them too. Other than that, keep up and don't draw aggro :)

Fankriss the Unyielding

This is a straightforward fight for pets: they can do continual dps on Fankriss herself, without any risk. If you've intimidation, then it might be worth occasionaly peeling your pet of, so they can use it on a Spawn of Fankriss, to help prevent it enraging (a very, very good thing).

Viscidius

This may be doable with Shaman, but I cannot comment, other than it's virtually impossible otherwise.

Vekniss Hive Crawler

These scorpions are straightforward: send your pet in and they should be fine :)

Vekniss Wasp Packs

Nature res helps an awful lot in these fights, but basically your pet will be at little risk, unless a Quiraji lasher is with the pack. If this is the case, you need to kill the Lasher asap and keep your pet claer of it.

Often the best policy is to send your pet to dps one of the Wasps, which typically will not move around much. If there's no lasher, you can also help against the Stingers, which are higher priority targets.