The Gaming Lizard

Sit around and listen for a while. Hunters of Warcraft have always been the definitive pet class. No mages, locks or even deathknights depend more on their pets than hunters. They're not just part of the Hunter's repertoire but also part of their trophy collection.

Rare pets are symbols of the Hunter's dedication to catch 'em all!(tm) since camping one usually takes hours and hours of mindless flying. Yet for many years in Warcraft history, pet family choices didn't matter. Despite adding many tamable family in both expansions, Blizzard has always somehow missed the mark with Hunter's pets, relegating them to being mere DPS increasers.

BUT Cataclysm has changed how Hunter pets work. No longer will you find every hunter and their gun trotting mom using a wolf cause no other pet matches up. Now, pet families are useful and every hunters that know his stuff will bring a wide variety of pets to a raid.

Huntering 301 is a new class for all hunters, and your first lesson will be knowing the different benefits each pet family brings.

There are mainly 2 categories of pet abilities: Those affecting allies, usually providing raid wide buffs & Those affecting enemies, usually providing debuffs.

Ferocity, Cunning and Tenacity pets are color coded for easy reference.