I'm thinking of going through the pain-in-the-ass of lvling a gorilla for my third pet to use when I am soloing (I already have a pvp and raid pet). I am a BM spec. The reason I am interested in a gorilla is their aoe special attack (I think is called thunderstomp). My thought is that this special attack will allow the gorilla to be an excellent tank since he can agro any mob within 8 yards and focus aggro the mob he is attacking allowing me to focus dps on what he is attacking without having to worry about the adds coming to me in a multi-mob pull.

Since the highest rank gorilla is lvl 55, I'll have to endure the time and effort gettign him to 70. I've never seen a gorilla pet above lvl 55 and there must be a reason for that? Before I go through that trouble, I was wondering 2 things:

1) Will his aoe thunderstomp break crowd control (sheep, sleep, trap, etc) if the crowd controlled mob is within the 8 yards?

2) Is the threat generated by thunderstomp significant enough to hold aggro over the adds when I cast a mend pet on the gorilla?

Thanks for your thoughts.

I don't think it's a good idea. In exchange for a single AoE attack every 3 pulls or so, you lose major pet DPS because gorillas have no claw/gore focus dump! You may be better off with a pet that can screech. The threat from Screech builds slowly but if you mis-time the ability you aren't SOL for the next minute.

http://www.thottbot.com/s26188

1 Minute of Cooldown and only a decent amount of threat, there are only 3 ranks of this spell (highest level 50) out there.

http://petopia.brashendeavors.net/ht...l#thunderstomp

I didn't know about the one minute cooldown on thunderstomp, that definitely stinks and changes my plan. Yet another broken pet Blizzard, (like turtles) great job.

This is definitely not worth the effort of leveling, so I'll probably be looking for something level 70 with screech for my solo pet.

These replies and this topic made me think of some other questions:

When leveling low level pets I know that the pet only gains experience for kills that would give you experience (if you could gain exp at lvl 70). This of course is what makes it a pain in the rear to level low level pets as it forces you to melee until the pet gets close to your level (a lvl 23 pet wont survive long against a lvl 70 mob, much less hold aggro). Melee + hunter equals slow slow slow kills. On the other hand, from what I can tell, pets do not suffer from reduced experience gains while in parties (and maybe raids?)? Is this true? (What I mean is the pet gets the same expereince off every mob killed regardless of whether you kill it while in a party, raid or solo.)

If so, in theory, the fastest way to level a low level pet would then be to run 5 man's or possibly 10 or 25 mans. As a BM spec this would definitely hurt my DPS, but if I could convince the group to let me it would make my pet level a lot faster, or would it?

Also, does the pet actually have to participate in the kill to get experience or can it simply stay in passive mode by my side and level?

It also seems that a pet does not get exp for a kill if the pet actually dies before the mob. Is that true too?

Sorry for so many questions, but I've not been able to find a good site or thread that actually discusses the mechanics of pet experience gains.

Saillaw,

perhapst you want to consider getting a nice owl.
These pets got screech which does aggro over area as well without breaking crowd control. As a nice by-product, the AP of the mobs is lowered considerably (210, if i remember correctly), and therefore your pet will survive a bit longer as tank.

Thanks I will... as a result I will end up with these three pets:

Cat for PVP (I like using prowl dash and claw)
Owl for solo grind (I think i will like the aoe tank ability and AP reduction)
Scorpid for Instancing and Raiding (The Scorpid poision ticks +claw for a BM hunter, when Scorpid poision is initially applied while TBWin is active, is pretty sweet)

What are others of you using for your pets?

You dont have to melee mobs. Go find ranged and dps them down or mobs that are kinda squishy. I lvled a 50 boar up from 50 to 66 in the eastern ogre cave in nagrand. Kurenai rep, consortium rep, and pet lvls all in one place

Meh, my main problem with WS's is that when they back up for lightning breath, its a waste of time for them to go back into melee range, and can be particularly annoying when trying to hit Kill Command. In any event, if you can get ur scorpid to keep up poison, it really is worth it in boss fights. For trash, claw spam is just as well. I'm too lazy to lvl a ravager from 63 after doing my boar, but i have no doubt that it would be better than a windserpert as Gore > LB because of the stupid WS pathing as well as the fact that ravagers have the +10 pet DPS modifier and WS's only have +7

Wind Serpent AI for Lightning Breath can be circumvented by disabling auto cast and adding /cast Lightning Breath (with parameters if wanted) to whatever button you spam.

I should've quoted in my post so it was a clear response to
I try not to get my head too deep into hunter matters (dropped by this thread to see if there was some new cool discovery related to gorillas), but I know he's done his research and it shows in his damage output. Scorpids are indeed good pets, but he makes the WS work.

A Windserpent teamed with a survival hunter would be a great combo but nothing can touch a Scorpid's DPS right now.

My pets are:

Cat: PvE, PvP - all purpose
Boar: PvE Solo grinding, PvP
Scorpid: PvE raiding

I find boars to be the most useful pet as far as holding aggro goes.