Pet abilities
- For warlock minion abilities, see Minion abilities.
A hunter pet can have different abilities, depending on its pet specialization. Each specialization is generally focused around a specific role. Cunning has high utility and is good in PvP. Ferocity is focused on DPS and is good in dungeons and raids. Tenacity is focused on pet survival and threat generation; good for soloing.
Although each pet family comes with a default specialization, you can change your pet's spec whenever you are not in combat. Each pet family—or beast type—has a special ability; some have a bonus ability. Some pet families are only usable by Beast Mastery hunters and have an exotic ability.
Damaging pet abilities scale with the pet's melee attack power or bonus spell damage. Physical abilities generally gain bonus damage equal to 7% of the pet's melee attack power, while spell abilities generally gain bonus damage equal to 1/3 of the pet's bonus spell damage. See the attack power coefficient article for further details.
Contents
General abilities
Universal abilities
| Ability | Focus | Range | Cooldown | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 [Avoidance] |
Passive | n/a | n/a | Reduces the damage your pet takes from creature area of effect attacks by an additional 90%. |
 [Combat Experience] |
Passive | n/a | n/a | Increases all damage done by your pet by 60%. |
 [Growl] |
0 | 30 | 8 sec | Your pet growls at the target, generating threat, taunting the target to attack the pet, and increasing threat that your pet generates against the target for 3 sec. |
Basic attacks
These abilities are also known as focus dumps because they are often used to expend excess focus while more efficient or useful abilities are on cooldown. Each pet has one. The differences between these are cosmetic; they are effectively the same.
| Ability | Used by | Focus | Range | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 [Bite] |
Basilisk, Bat, Beetle, Boar, Carrion Bird, Chimaera, Core Hound, Crocolisk, Devilsaur, Direhorn, Dog, Dragonhawk, Fox, Hyena, Hydra, Nether Ray, Quilen, Ravager, Riverbeast, Rylak, Serpent, Shale Spider, Spider, Turtle, Warp Stalker, Water Strider, Wind Serpent, Wolf, Worm | 25 | 5 yd | Bite the enemy, causing X damage. Deals 100% more damage and costs 100% more Focus when your pet has 50 or more Focus. |
 [Claw] |
Bear, Bird of Prey, Cat, Crab, Porcupine, Raptor, Scorpid, Silithid, Spirit Beast, Tallstrider | 25 | 5 yd | Claw the enemy, causing X damage. Deals 100% more damage and costs 100% more Focus when your pet has 50 or more Focus. |
 [Smack] |
Clefthoof, Crane, Goat, Gorilla, Monkey, Moth, Sporebat, Stag, Wasp | 25 | 5 yd | Smack the enemy, causing X damage. Deals 100% more damage and costs 100% more Focus when your pet has 50 or more Focus. |
Cunning abilities
| Ability | Focus | Range | Cooldown | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 [Boar's Speed] |
Passive | n/a | n/a | Increases your pet's movement speed by 30%. |
 [Bullheaded] |
0 | n/a | 3 min | Removes all movement impairing effects and all effects which cause loss of control of your pet, and reduces damage done to your pet by 20% for 12 sec. |
 [Cornered] |
Passive | n/a | n/a | When at less than 35% health, your pet does 50% more damage and has a 60% reduced chance to be critically hit. |
 [Dash] |
0 | n/a | 32 sec | Increases your pet's movement speed by 80% for 16 sec. |
 [Roar of Sacrifice] |
0 | 40 yd | 1 min | Protects a friendly target from critical strikes, making attacks against that target unable to be critical strikes, but 20% of all damage taken by that target is also taken by the pet. Lasts 12 sec. |
Ferocity abilities
| Ability | Focus | Range | Cooldown | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [Dash] |
0 | n/a | 32 sec | Increases your pet's movement speed by 80% for 16 sec. |
 [Heart of the Phoenix] |
0 | n/a | 8 min | When used, your pet will miraculously return to life with full health. |
 [Spiked Collar] |
Passive | Melee | n/a | Increases the damage done by your pet's Basic Attacks by 10%, and increases your pet's attack speed by 10%, and increases your pet's critical strike chance by 10%. |
Tenacity abilities
| Ability | Focus | Range | Cooldown | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 [Blood of the Rhino] |
Passive | n/a | n/a | Increases all healing effects on your pet by 40%, increasing your pet's armor by 20%, and reduces your pet's chance to be critically hit by melee attacks by 6%. |
 [Charge] |
0 | 8-25 yd | 25 sec | Your pet charges an enemy, immobilizing the target for 1 sec, and increasing the pet's melee attack power by 25% for its next attack. |
 [Great Stamina] |
Passive | n/a | n/a | Increases your pet's total health by 12%. |
 [Last Stand] |
0 | n/a | 6 min | Your pet temporarily gains 30% of its maximum health for 20 sec. After the effect expires, the health is lost. |
 [Thunderstomp] |
20 | Melee | 10 sec | Shakes the ground with thundering force, doing X Nature damage to all enemies within 8 yards. This ability causes a moderate amount of additional threat. |
Family-specific abilities
Past changes
Originally, there were 6 basic pet abilities: Bite, Claw, Cower, Growl, Dash and Dive.
- v1.8.0 added eight more
- v1.9.0 added 3 more.
- v2.1.0 added 2 more.
- v3.0.2 removed all previous skills and replaced it with a pet talent system.
- v5.0.4 removed pet talent system and replaced it with pet specialization system.
- v7.0.3 removed pet raid buffs.
