Combat pet

World of Warcraft provides two primary combat pet classes: hunter pets and warlock pets. In the Burning Crusade, other classes can summon pets. Mages can summon water elementals, priests can summon shadowfiends, shamans can summon spirit wolves as well as create fire elementals and earth elementals by summoning totems, and druids can summon treants.

Hunter

Main article: Hunter pet

Hunters must tame wild beasts so that they can become their pets.

The hunter's pet is his or her constant companion as he or she travels through Azeroth. The pet usually acts as a tank when the hunter solos, allowing the hunter to maintain the range hunters require to do their best in battle.

(See also, Hunter pets 3.0.2 changes)

Warlock

Main article: Minion

The warlock can learn spells to summon minions to his command (see Warlock Spells).

Warlocks have the ability to summon or enslave demons under their control.

Warlocks gain the ability to summon an Imp demon early in the game through a quest. Imps are not proficient at melee combat (due to the fact that they are completely incapable of performing a melee attack), and are mainly useful for assisting your party from a range.

The Warlock can gain the ability to summon other demons as pets through quests. Each pet quest has a level limit on it — players may not attempt the quest until they have reached the required level. The voidwalker quest is received at level 10. The succubus quest begins at 20, felhunter at 30, infernal at 50, and doomguard at 60. The felguard becomes available with the appropriate 41-point Demonology talent.

Patch changes

• Patch 1.6.0 (12-Jul-2005): Pets will now enter passive/follow mode when their masters mount.
  
• Patch 1.5.0 (2005-06-07): Pet speed has been increased when out of combat and following their master.
  
• Patch 1.3.0 (07-Mar-2005):
  • Pets in defensive mode that respond to attacks will no longer flag their masters for PvP. If the master issues an explicit attack command, the master will be flagged.
  • You can issue pet commands while you are stunned, fleeing, etc.
  • Pets and summons no longer get stuck when you get on a boat or zeppelin.
  • Non-aggressive enemy NPCs no longer attack pets and summons.
    

External links

Hunter pets

Petopia A picture guide to hunter companions

goodintentionsguild.info Hunter Pet Abilities from the Good Intentions guild

maniasarcania.com Hunter pets in the World of Warcraft blog