What is the Best Pet (long answer)
You’re still here?
OK. I don’t know why you’re asking me of all things, I feel like I’m trespassing on BRK and all the other Big Reds‘ hunting grounds.
First things first. There is no best pet. There are a couple of pet families which are better for certain specific tasks. If you truly want to understand which pet family is the best at whatever you plan to do, there’s exactly one resource you need to add to your bookmarks now: Petopia. It’s the one stop Universal Center of Hunter Pet Knowledge ™. And if this isn’t enough information for you, Petopia’s editor, Mania, runs her own blog, which provides more information and experimentation with pets than a normal player could accumulate in a lifetime.
Second, due to what everyone reasonably believes to be a bug, the current highest damage pet you can get for boss fights appears to be a scorpid. Big Red Kitty (again) has a nice explanation about it in his wowinsider feature.
Third, the pets fall into three broad categories, offensive pets with above-average damage, defensive pets, with above-average health and or armour, and well-rounded pets which present a middle ground. Typically, having both an offensive and a defensive pet (or a good well-rounded one) will allow the levelling hunter to be prepared for most situations.
Fourth, pet skills can make a wealth of difference in how the pets perform. Again, do your research on the matter and select what works best with what you want to achieve.
So why did I tell you to get a boar in the previous post?
Simple. It’s the year of the pig. And beyond that, the boar is a defensive pet which comes with two practical skills: Gore, which produces, in average, higher damage than claw, and Charge. Charge is nice because it produces a good chunk of damage up front, which will make it harder for you to overaggro while you’re learning to control your skills. It’s also nice if you want to BG a bit while levelling, as Charge immobilizes your target for 1 second. And last but not least, boars eat anything. So for anyone too lazy to do actual research, a boar will serve them pretty well until they start to do their homework.
