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Hunters can be very picky about the pets they choose. If you've gotten your hands on our hunters guide we give you a full run-down of the best and not-so-good choices when it comes to actual pet abilities. Now some people may very well like pets that are not as effective statistically, and that's fine. You should use what you like, but when you look at the numbers, there are simply some pets which really shine in certain areas.

Most hunters will use a cat. Cats are one of only two pets which get a 10% bonus to damage. Cats are also easy to feed and learn a most of the best pet skills. You can't really go wrong with a cat, especially if you are a Beast Mastery specialization hunter. A cat will do more damage than any other pet you can have - except one.

We want to put up for your consideration the Ravager. Before the Burning Crusade expansion, cats ruled DPS, but now they have a serious rival. Ravagers look cool and have the potential to do more damage than cats. Possibly the only drawback to a Ravager instead of a cat is that they don't get the prowl skill, but that may not be a big deal to you - especially on a PVE server.

Why are Ravagers at the top of the DPS pile? They get to use the really wicked ability Gore. Gore is an instant cast ability that uses 15 focus, and works a lot like claw (which we prefer over bite - check out our hunter guide for all the details). Even though Gore does similar base damage to claw, it has a 50% chance to do DOUBLE damage. When you average that out, it means that Gore will do 125 damage in the same amount of time as claw will do 100. When you stack the 50% chance at double damage with beast mastery hunter skills like frenzy for the critical hit bonuses, it can get seriously high.

Ravagers have a little more armor than cats, but lower health. They only eat meat and raw meat, and can learn Bite, cower, Growl, Dash, and Gore. Gore is a great skill only used by boars and ravagers. Unfortunately, for Horde players, a ravager can be a real challenge to tame before level 62 especially on PVP servers. The other problem with gore is that there are no known mobs from which to learn gore 5 or 6. So you're stuck with Gore 4 until you get to blasted lands at level 48. Also Gore 3 is only learned from the named mob Bellygrub in Redridge Mountains; and he can be a load to handle at level 24. Overall, gore is the best offensive pet skill to have, but for horde characters, you might not want to consider a ravager until you get to outlands. Even for alliance, for 20-40 levels, your main pet attack skill is going to be way off the pace. Boosting stamina through pet training is also more expensive as far as training points than boosting armor. So we normally give pets with more stamina a better score than pets with higher armor stats.

All of that being said - it could be argued that ravagers have the ability to deal more damage than any other pet in the game. If you can be a little patient and wait for one until outlands, you might consider one if you go Beast Master. To save focus and use the really wicked DPS skill, gore, teach this guy Gore, Growl and Dash. Gore is instant cast with no cooldown, so if he gets a few double damage hits in a row, it can really be a killer. We're not sure if giving up prowl is worth the added dps and extra points spent on stamina, but on PVE servers it may be a winner.

Gavin Garrett is one of those nerdy World of Warcraft players who forsakes a normal life in favor of a life within a virtual game. When he returns to the "real world", he posts really great World of Warcraft tips and tricks on his blog, Dominate Your Server.