It’s patch day! That means it’s time to TAME ALL THE PETS. This is probably how things will play out for me upon logging in today:
- Get my 3 extra Challenge Mode mounts from my mailbox, which will put me to exactly 200 mounts and give me the achievement! Woot!
- Add all my toys to the Toy Box, fill up the new Void Storage tab, add reagents to reagent bank, and just clean up bags and bank in general. I’m going to be freeing up well over 150 bag slots.
- Set up addons, action bars, etc. and change my gems (more on that below)
- Tame Chimaeron!
- Do the Blasted Lands quests for the launch event and get the title and pet (as seen in the image above from PTR).
- Moar pets!
Hot off the press we also have some Survival hotfixes. Explosive Shot, Black Arrow, and Serpent Sting all had a 12% damage buff. It should help Survival a little bit, which according to sims was the lowest DPS spec in the game for 6.0, and I’m not just talking about hunters. We’ll see how accurate those sims were as we get to test things more. Survival likes multistrike, but the only way you’ll be able to get some in 6.0 is from the raid buff (one of your pets), which gives you 5%. Plus you can get a little more from Haromm’s Talisman.
Hunter guide for 6.0
My Patch 6.0 / Warlords of Draenor hunter guide was published on Wowhead today. It’s geared mostly towards new or recently returned players, but I think most hunters will see value in it. It covers all the bases in a concise manner, including transitioning to 6.0 at level 90. Go check it out!
The WHU also posted their 6.0 hunter guide last night which you should also check out. So much hunter love.
About those gems…
I mentioned this briefly in the Wowhead guide but it’s worth mentioning by itself. Your gear has tons of sockets on it if you’ve been playing in 5.4. If you want to squeeze out a little more performance, you can do so by switching up your gems.
Agility is less valuable compared to secondary stats in 6.0. In Mists of Pandaria, agility granted 2 attack power and a little bit of crit chance per point. In 6.0, it grants 1 attack power and no crit chance per point. That is a significant reduction in value.
Crit is nice for all specs in 6.0, and you can even put it in blue sockets now that hit and expertise gems have been converted.
- Red Socket: Crafty Vermilion Onyx (haste/crit)
- Yellow Socket: Smooth Sun’s Radiance (crit)
- Blue Socket: Rigid River’s Heart (crit)
R.I.P. agility gems, you shall be missed.
Pets to tame in 6.0
Hydras, Clefthooves, and Stags are all available now. Chimaeron is my first target but there’s plenty of other cool ones to tame. I did a post a few days ago about the 20 new pets I plan on taming for Warlords. Below are the ones I’ll be able to get in 6.0 from that list:
That’s looking a bit skimpy, so I may tame a few more in the interim even if I have to abandon them later in Warlords. The rare red hydra, Trigore the Lasher, caught my eye. It’s the only way to get that skin and apparently the respawn time is quite long. I logged myself out at the spawn point so it’ll be the first thing I check before doing everything else. Right outside is also Gesharahan, a rare purple hydra. I figure at least one of them has to be up, unless another hunter had the same idea as me! Maybe a black talbuk as well, just because. If you have any Basilisk pets, you may notice that they don’t have a buff right now. This is obviously a bug and will hopefully be fixed soon (according to patch notes, it’s supposed to be multistrike).
Back to Chimaeron, I have some tips for taming it at level 90 in this post. It’s not a total breeze like it is at level 100, but it’s perfectly doable solo. If you’re having trouble you can always drag in a friend. Scratch that. The scaling in place is much more generous than it was on the PTR. Chimaeron is easy, even at 90. If you’re not careful, you’ll kill it before you get a chance to tame. They changed it… again! You shouldn’t be one-shotting Chimaeron at 90 anymore.
Browse all the new pet looks on Petopia, or Wowhead, which has updated their database with the new families.
Pet buffs and abilities
Below you’ll find my fancy table of pet buffs in 6.0.
| Stats | Stamina |
| Gorilla Worm (Exotic) Shale Spider (Exotic) Dog |
Bear Rylak (Exotic) Silithid (Exotic) Goat |
| Spell Power | Haste |
| Serpent Silithid (Exotic) Water Strider (Exotic) |
Sporebat Wasp Hyena Rylak (Exotic) |
| Crit | Mastery |
| Wolf Raptor Shale Spider (Exotic) Devilsaur (Exotic) Quilen (Exotic) Water Strider (Exotic) |
Cat Tallstrider Hydra Spirit Beast (Exotic) |
| Versatility | Multistrike |
| Boar Ravager Bird of Prey Porcupine Stag Clefthoof (Exotic) Worm (Exotic) |
Dragonhawk Wind Serpent Corehound (Exotic) Clefthoof (Exotic) Basilisk Bat Chimaera (Exotic) |
| Mortal Wounds debuff | Slow Movement debuff |
| Scorpion Carrion Bird Riverbeast Devilsaur (Exotic) |
Spider Warp Stalker Silithid (Exotic) Crocolisk Chimaera (Exotic) |
| Temporary Haste Buff (Blood Lust) | Combat Resurrection |
| Core Hound (Exotic) Nether Ray |
Quilen (Exotic) Crane Moth |
| Temporary Dodge Chance | Temporary Damage Reduction |
| Monkey Fox |
Beetle Crab Turtle Clefthoof (Exotic) Quilen (Exotic) Shale Spider (Exotic) |
In addition, the following Exotic pets have unique abilities only available to their family.
- Core Hound: Molten Hide (thorns)
- Water Strider: Surface Trot (water walking)
- Worm: Burrow Attack (AoE damage)
- Spirit Beast: Spirit Mend (heal)
- Spirit Beast: Spirit Walk (stealth), Cats also have Prowl
- Devilsaur: Feast (heal/focus regen)
- Chimaera: Froststorm Breath (AoE damage)
- Rylak: Updraft (slow fall) *not until Warlords
- Direhorn: Reflective Armor Plating (spell deflect) *Note: Not an Exotic pet
Enjoy the patch!
The Chimaera is exotic?
NVM
Nope, every spec can tame them.
Nvm misclick wrong comment :/
shale spiders do crit too, correct?
And side note for Gorilla’s stats buff… it’s called ‘Blessing of Kongs’ – that’s good stuff…
So is Bark of the Wild for dogs.
Fixed, thanks
You’re not going to run UBRS?
I will for sure, at least one for the heck of it. Don’t need any gear though.
No gears in UBRS, unless you needed the 550 ring, like I did, buuuuuuut… There’s three (3) Draenor wolves to be tamed: black fur with blue eyes, grey fur with red eyes, and (my fav cuz it matches my xmog and belf eyes) brown fur with green eyes. FYSA.
V/R,
Vala
Oh dear, so really, no longer gem for Agility at all? So go Crit > Haste now? Also strange that blue and yellow are crit, is that just now or also in WoD?
WoD gems are all prismatic.
I accidentally killed Chimaera…. Another freeking week to wait now… sigh…
Me too! I killed it in literally 3 seconds. When I originally tested it on the PTR it was a tough fight at 90. Anyway, I updated the post with a note to be careful.
Same here. I did it on the PTR and the Beta and it took some time. So much so that I brought a healer with me. This time he died in 2 seconds.
almost killed him, FD to reset. 2nd time I went in with no pet, and didn’t even need to pop deterrence.
also on a side not of this being easier, I also went to Firelands and cleared in about 10 minutes, things where easier than expected, well except pulling of great dps atm 🙁
Not sure what I am missing here, but I struggled with him (and ended up accidentally killing him). I think maybe it was that I went in as BM, so had no KCs at all, so my output was very low… Will try as MM next week I guess.
Can also try using your pet to around 50% to take the hits, then dismiss it. Just DPS very very slowly 🙂
themarty247 you cant tame him as MM he is a exotic so you have to be BM. Also BM has KC but the target has to be below 20% but you shouldnt use it because it might die
Hydra’s aren’t exotic according to Petopia. Should be able to tame as MM. Chimaeras are exotic, but Chimaeron is a Hydra.
Saicam – does your Hydra (almost) constantly make sounds? I tamed the one in Netherstorm because I preferred that look – but it’s a noisy little beast. I might try getting Chimaeron later tonight – but I assume it would be the same since it would the same animations/sounds.
Yes you can tame and use as MM, also @Ancksanura, yes he makes the annoying sound, there is actually a addon on curse to disable it now. I for the most part play in silent mode so I dont notice it either way.
Hey Bendak! Basilisks may be bugged in live, currently? Mine does not have any Multistrike buff… or any buff, actually. I’ve checked in both Survival and Beast Mastery.
They are bugged, no ability right now. Should be multistrike.
Hi all, I’m afraid of one BIG problem. My Cya and Cida are bugging, they are not anymore “bigs after tamed”. Do you have this problem too ? :p
What pet do you get from the Blasted Lands quest? I didn’t get a chance to do them yet and didn’t want to read without going through them first in-game.
So what stable pets do you recommend to have ready for a raid/LFR situation? It seems like good old Magebuddy the sporebat can go into retirement and my hyena can take over.
Despite how seemingly useless the Riverbeast ability is I feel it will be my preferred pet in BGs due to the loss of Widow Venom. All my buffs will likely be provided by my fellow soldiers on the battlefield, and since pets no longer have crowd control the River Beast will be quite useful.