Pet abilities and training

How it works

1. Your pet doesn't learn abilities just by levelling. You learn each ability first, then teach it to your pet.
2. Once you know an ability, it's yours for good: you can teach it to any pet of a family that can use it, as long as the pet is high enough level and has the training points.
3. Open Beast Training from the general tab of your spellbook. It lists what you can teach, what your pet already knows and what each rank costs.
4. A pet can have as many passive abilities as it can afford, but only four active ones at a time.

From the pet trainer

These work for every family and don't need taming. You buy them from a pet trainer in a capital city (or a few outposts), then teach them with training points.

1. Growl: makes monsters attack your pet. The main tool when your pet tanks.
2. Great Stamina: more health.
3. Natural Armor: more armour.
4. Arcane, Fire, Frost, Nature and Shadow Resistance: less damage of that type. Good for dungeons with lots of one kind of magic.
5. New ranks open up as you and your pet level. Visit the pet trainer every few levels.

From wild beasts

1. Everything else (Bite, Claw, Dash, Dive, Cower and the family abilities) is learned by taming a beast that already knows it.
2. Use Beast Lore on a wild beast to see which abilities and ranks it has before you tame it.
3. Stable your own pet (or abandon it), tame the beast, then fight with it. When you've learned the ability, chat shows a message saying so and it appears in Beast Training.
4. Now stable or abandon the beast, take your main pet back and teach it the new rank.
5. Beta players report learning Bite 2 from Worgs and Claw 2 from Grizzled Bears in Silverpine Forest, and Bite 3 and Claw 3 from spiders and crabs.

Learning faster

From Classic hunters' experience: you learn the ability by seeing the pet use it, so give it lots of chances.

1. Turn off autocast on the tamed beast's other abilities, so the one you want gets used as often as possible.
2. Let it fight easy monsters on its own. A long fight against a weak monster gives it more chances to use the ability.
3. Don't kill the monster yourself. Let the pet do the work.
4. Some abilities, like Prowl and Furious Howl, can be learned out of combat by using them over and over from the pet bar.

Ranks and training points

1. Most abilities have several ranks. Each rank needs a higher pet level and costs more training points.
2. You can skip ranks. When you teach a higher rank, the points for the lower one are given back, so you never pay twice.
3. Out of points? The pet trainer can untrain your pet for a fee, which refunds everything so you can choose again.
4. Points come from level and loyalty (see Hunter pets: taming and care). Keep your pet happy and it earns more.

Beta problems to know about

From Blizzard's notes and player reports. These may be fixed by launch.

1. On October 1 Blizzard fixed some tameable beasts that knew ranks above their level. Pets may "forget" a rank they shouldn't have had.
2. Players report that pets from the new Skyborne areas sometimes lose their abilities after dismissing, logging out or dying. Blizzard hasn't confirmed this.
3. Which beast teaches which rank isn't in the game files (the server decides), so the best guide is Beast Lore and reports from other hunters.

Tips

• Learned a new rank? Post the beast and zone in ONN chat so other Olympus hunters can find it.
• Keep Growl on while solo and off in groups.
• Spend points on the active abilities you use first, then fill up with Great Stamina and Natural Armor.

Sources

• Blizzard: Beta development notes
• Blizzard forums: hunter pet skills in the beta
• Petopia Classic: pet abilities
• Petopia Classic: how to train your pet
• Warcraft Tavern: WoW Forever hunter pets