Controlling Your Pet

Warlocks and hunters are the two main classes that have pets that help them with combat. It is essential to understand how to control your pet. A pet that is not controlled will wipe your group faster than anything else. So how do you keep your pet under control? Read on to find out.

When your pet is summoned and active, you will have a pet-control bar active on your user interface. All actions that your pet is capable of is represented by an icon on this bar. This bar is the tool to use when it comes to controlling your pet.

Movement

There are three buttons that deal with your pet's movement. They are the first three buttons you see on your pet-control bar. The first icon, is the attack button. This will cause your pet to run forward and attack your target. In addition to using the button for this, you can instruct your pet to attack by hitting Ctrl-1.

The second icon is the follow button. When this icon is activated, your pet will follow along behind you wherever you go. You can also tell your pet to follow you by hitting Ctrl-2. The third icon is the stay button. It causes your pet to stay in one spot until you instruct it to follow you again. If you go too far away from the place you have told your pet to "stay" in, then your pet will disappear and you will have to resummon it.

Combat

Following the movement buttons are the combat buttons. Your pet's special abilities are the next four buttons on the pet-control bar. Each pet has different abilities, so these icons will be different for every pet. These abilities will automatically go off during combat unless you toggle them off automatic. This can be done by right-clicking on the icon on the pet-control bar. If the button is not toggled to go off automatically, there will be a frame around it and you will have to activate it yourself if you want your pet to use it.

There are three different stances for a pet in relation to combat--defensive, passive and aggressive. These are the last buttons on your pet-control bar and can be activated with Ctrl-8 (aggressive), Ctrl-9 (defensive), and Ctrl-0 (passive).

The aggressive button will set your pet to attack anything within range. He will run after any enemy and start attacking. The defensive stance will cause your pet to only attack an enemy if it attacks him or you first. On passive stance, your pet will not attack anything unless you direct it to attack something using the attack button.

The easiest way to get your pet to stop attacking an enemy is to switch him to passive stance.

Tips and Tricks

Avoid having your pet on aggressive in dungeons or other areas where there is a lot of enemies and pulls must be done carefully. An aggressive pet can cause a group to wipe quickly.

Be careful when your pet is on follow and you are jumping off a ledge. Often, a pet will go the long way to get to where you are rather than following you off a ledge. If enemies are scattered along the path your pet takes, your pet may drag them all to you at an inopportune time. To be safe, you may want to dismiss your pet before jumping down, then resummon him once you know it's safe to do so.

The stay button can be very useful in PvP. Many warlocks and hunters will have their pets stay on top of a flag or other area that they do not want their enemy to reach. The pet will attack the enemy, distracting him from performing a function such as capping a flag.

You can also command your pet to stay on top of a place you know to be a monster's spawn point when you are waiting for respawn. This will give you a better chance that your pet will be attacked first by the monster (after it spawns) and you can be the first to attack it and get credit for the kill.

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