Thank you for being a friend, part 2

This is a guest post by Gildor.

Take a wild guess at which talent tree we’ll be looking at this week… pencils down, the test is over! You are correct, Tenacity is the word of the day. Pets in the Tenacity tree are near and dear to me. You see, I live on the West coast and for some silly reason, I made an East coast server my home. So, I tend to be on when most of my guild is nestled in their beds with sugarplums dancing in their collective heads. I often find myself solo questing and in need of a meat shield… enter, Koko the Monkey. He’s outgoing and hand’s-on, loves being the center of attention… basically the polar opposite of a survival spec hunter, aka: me!  

Tenacity pets don’t put out a lot of damage. Their main responsibility is to keep the enemy focused on them and not you. They have extra health and armor to help them solo tank whatever you want them to. Gorillas are especially noteworthy in this regard since they possess Thunderstomp. Thunderstomp is especially great for aggroing multiple mobs. However, once patch 3.1 drops, Thunderstomp will become an ability for all tenacity pets!

Here’s the list of bruisers and their unique abilities:

• Bears – Swipe
• Boars – Gore
• Crabs – Pin
• Crocolisks – Bad Attitude
• Gorillas – Thunderstomp
• Rhinos (Exotic, Beast Masters only) - Stampede
• Scorpids – Scorpid Poison
• Turtles – Shell Shield
• Warp Stalkers – Warp
• Worms (Exotic, Beast Masters only) - Acid Spit

Once again, all pet trees have 17 total talents (9 are common throughout all three trees, 8 are unique to the particular tree) spaced over 5 tiers. The second tier requires three points in the tree, third tier requires 6 points, fourth tier requires 9 points and the fifth tier requires 12 points. Your 9 commonly shared talents are: Cobra Reflexes, Charge, Great Stamina, Natural Armor, Spiked Collar, Boar’s Speed, Avoidance, Lionhearted and Great Resistance. These are your meat and potato talents, they transform your wild animal into a domesticated menace. I use various combinations of these talents in all of my pets. I’m a huge fan of Natural Armor, Boar’s Speed and Spiked Collar. On the flip side, I avoid Cobra Reflexes on every pet I tame. No matter how good the increased attack speed sounds, I won’t sacrifice damage.

In tier two we begin to mold our little friend into a tanking beast. Blood of the Rhino and Pet Barding are designed to keep your furry little warrior alive that much longer. I fully recommend ranks one and two of these talents. In tier three, we see Guard Dog and Intervene. These talents teach our pet to care for the hand that feeds them. Again, I recommend grabbing these talents as soon as you can. Tier four introduces us to Grace of the Mantis, which is a so-so talent at best. However, you need to have at least one point in GotM to unlock a really swell tier 5 talent in Roar of Sacrifice. The other choices of tier 5 talents are Last Stand and Taunt. I like RoS because of it’s short cooldown and damage sponge qualities, seems like it really sums up what a tenacity pet should do.

Of all the trees, tenacity has to be my favorite. It keeps me alive long enough to pew pew to my little heart’s content. Koko is at my side more often than not, the only time I put him away is if I need a bit more DPS during a raid, in which case the kitten comes out. The talent build I use has been tinkered with more than a few times. I’ve done impromptu tests on target dummies and raids alike, nothing official, more of a gut feeling. It works for me and my play style, Koko is able to hold aggro whilst I roll through my shot rotation. Things die quick enough and all the simian needs is a little band-aid every now and then. In fact, I tend to run low on mana before he loses health.

Koko the Monkey…that chimp’s alright.