Building up the stable

I decided to go out and get myself a couple new pets for my hunter to use. I pretty much planned it out in the beginning that I was going to get three different pets: one DPS, one tank, and one all purpose. Up until this point I have been using a cat (which fulfills the DPS role), the one I grabbed from Eversong in the beginning, but now I have reached the level I needed to get the other pets I wanted. Both of these guys were found in the Hinterlands, one a turtle and one a wolf. The turtle I got from the coast on the east and he is colored a dark reddish orange with a black shell, while the wolf I picked up from in front of one of the troll temples and he is all black. The only reason I picked these specific mobs to tame was their coloring as that's really all that you should be looking for in a pet once you've decided what type you want.

To decide what type I wanted I looked at the skills each type could use and depending on the situation in which the pet will be used I decided on a pet that had the right skills for the job. As a tank I think the turtle is the best choice as pure damage reduction, with the Shell Shield ability they can learn it makes him the perfect tank if you could care less about DPS. As far as the wolf, I think the Furious Howl ability makes him a good choice just for a pet I can bring out when I want a change but don't want to sacrifice too much in DPS or tanking ability. The only bad thing about these particular pets is they don't have these type specific skills when you first tame them, I'm going to have to tame different turtles and wolves right off the bat in order to teach them the skills I want them to have for their purposes. I don't mind this too much though, as I had a pretty easy time learning my new skills last time. I think the most time consuming part will be getting their loyalty level up to the top, since it pretty much only depends on how long you keep your pet happy. Either way, the only other factor in my choice was what the pet was going to look like. For that I just checked out the available colorings of pets you could get and picked the ones I liked best. I'm sort of glad they changed pets in the respect that any pet of the same type at the same level and the same skills will have the same stats, this means that once you decide you want to get a wolf you can get any wolf you want and he will be just as good a choice as any other wolf. They used to vary attack speed between pets and have special pets that were rare and were a little different than others, but they have since changed this, and although it makes some of the rarer pets seem a little less prestigious, I like that I can choose the look of my pet without worrying about sacrificing its stats.

The black wolf is really my second choice out of the wolves, but since my first choice is that ghost wolf that needs to be tamed in less than 8 seconds, I think I'm going to just be happy with this one. I don't think that wolf is able to be tamed anymore anyway, seems like they changed that in a patch, but let everyone who had already tamed one keep it. Does anybody know any differently? If this pet is still tameable but just ridiculously hard to get I would like to know since I might try for it at some point when I can get the items to boost my haste enough.

I'm also not sure if I should respec my cat. Right now he has the the highest level of Natural Armor and Great Stamina that he can get with the points he has left after bite and claw are maxed out and he also has prowl and cobra reflexes. I never use prowl unless I want to hide from somebody, which doesn't happen often, it's just too slow watching the cat sneak up on the enemy and the bonus it gives on the first attack doesn't really seem worth it. I'm thinking of giving him dash instead, as I think it would come in handy more often. I also am not sure if I need both claw and bite on this pet, as it seems redundant to have both of these on at the same time. I think I would like to keep claw and get rid of bite, since claw not only costs less focus, but also doesn't have the 10 second cooldown that bite has. This would also open up some more pet talent points to be used elsewhere. Any other hunters out there that can give me some insight on what sort of skills a cat should have? For that matter I'll take suggestions on what I should be shooting for on my wolf and turtle as well, since I have a good idea of what I want, but maybe someone out there will open my eyes to something I hadn't though of before. I welcome any suggestions you might have.