Pet Fundamentals - classic-hunter/forever-hunter GitHub Wiki
🐺 Pet Fundamentals
Core Hunter pet behavior and progression mechanics in WoW Forever.
This page covers the systems that govern how pets function: leveling, loyalty, training, Focus, autocast behavior, attack types, threat, range, and general combat behavior.
Detailed stat inheritance is documented in Pet Stat Mechanics.
Damage formulas are documented in Pet Attack Formulas.
Family modifiers and unique abilities are documented in Pet Families and Abilities.
Summary
- Pets require 20% of the Hunter's XP requirement for each respective level
- Pets gain XP only from kills that grant non-rested XP to the Hunter
- Pets cannot level above the Hunter
- Loyalty has 6 ranks
- Loyalty ranks require both 5% of the Hunter's level XP and a time requirement
- Maximum Training Points at level 60 and Loyalty 6 is 300
- Pets have 150 maximum Focus
- Focus regenerates continuously at 10 Focus/sec
- Pet autocast priority is determined by left-to-right action bar order
- Pet auto attacks are white attacks
- Pet abilities such as Bite and Claw are yellow attacks
- Different pet attack speeds remain, but melee damage is normalized around attack speed
- Pets despawn at roughly 100 yd from the Hunter
- Pets no longer receive normal player stat buffs directly
- Growl adds threat without dealing damage, but its exact Forever threat value still needs testing
📈 Pet Level and Experience
Pets level independently from the Hunter but cannot exceed the Hunter's current level.
For each pet level:
Pet XP Required = Hunter XP Required for that Level × 20%
For example, if the Hunter requires 100,000 XP to complete a particular level:
Pet XP Required = 100,000 × 0.20 = 20,000 XP
This uses the Hunter XP requirement for the corresponding level, not the Hunter's current total XP.
Earning Pet Experience
Pets gain experience from kills that award experience relative to the Hunter's level.
The pet receives experience based on the Hunter's normal, non-rested XP gain.
Rested XP does not increase the amount of XP awarded to the pet.
Conceptually:
Pet XP Gain is based on Hunter Base Kill XP
not:
Hunter XP after Rested Bonus
A kill that is too low-level to award the Hunter experience also does not provide normal pet experience.
This means a significantly underleveled pet may need to fight enemies appropriate for the Hunter's level, rather than enemies appropriate only for the pet.
😊 Happiness
Pet happiness modifies pet damage.
| Happiness | Damage Modifier |
|---|---|
| Unhappy | 75% |
| Content | 100% |
| Happy | 125% |
For a Happy pet:
Pet Damage × 1.25
Happiness therefore remains one of the largest baseline modifiers to pet damage.
Happiness Decay
Happiness still decays over time.
Decay is significantly slower in Forever than in original Classic behavior.
The exact decay rate should be treated as a practical maintenance mechanic rather than part of the pet damage formula.
🍖 Feeding and Happiness
Feeding increases pet happiness.
Appropriately leveled food provides the full happiness gain.
Food substantially below the pet's level provides reduced happiness.
The pet's accepted food types depend on its family.
See Pet Families and Abilities.
❤️ Loyalty
Hunter pets have 6 Loyalty ranks.
Increasing Loyalty requires both experience and time.
| Rank | Loyalty | XP Requirement | Time Requirement |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rebellious | — | — |
| 2 | Unruly | 5% | 0 min |
| 3 | Submissive | 5% | 30 min |
| 4 | Dependable | 5% | 45 min |
| 5 | Faithful | 5% | 60 min |
| 6 | Best Friend | 5% | 90 min |
The XP requirement for each loyalty increase is:
Loyalty XP Required = Hunter XP Required for Current Level × 5%
Both requirements must be satisfied before the pet advances to the next Loyalty rank.
Earning enough XP immediately does not bypass the time requirement.
Likewise, keeping the pet active long enough does not increase Loyalty until the required XP has also been earned.
🎓 Training Points
Training Points are used to teach pet abilities and passive upgrades.
The total Training Points available are:
Training Points = Pet Level × (Loyalty Rank - 1)
At level 60 and Loyalty 6:
60 × (6 - 1) = 300 Training Points
Therefore:
Maximum Training Points = 300
Training Points are a limited resource.
Choosing active abilities, resistances, Armor, Stamina, and other training therefore requires tradeoffs.
📚 Learning Pet Abilities
Many pet abilities are learned by taming beasts that already know the desired ability or rank.
The process is:
- Tame a beast that knows the desired ability.
- Fight with that pet.
- Have the pet repeatedly use the ability.
- Continue until a chat message appears indicating that the ability has been learned.
- The ability or rank is added to Beast Training.
- It can then be taught to another eligible pet.
The important distinction is that taming the beast alone does not necessarily teach the ability.
The pet must actually use the ability until the Hunter learns it.
Once learned, the ability remains available through Beast Training and can be taught to any pet that:
- belongs to an eligible family
- meets the required level
- has enough Training Points
Generic abilities such as Growl, resistances, Natural Armor, and Great Stamina are learned from a pet trainer rather than from wild beasts.
See Pet Families and Abilities for family eligibility.
⚡ Focus
Pets use Focus for active abilities.
In Forever:
Maximum Focus = 150
Focus regenerates continuously at:
10 Focus/sec
This differs from Classic's periodic Focus regeneration.
Because regeneration is continuous, sustained ability availability can be modeled directly.
For example, an ability costing 25 Focus requires:
25 / 10 = 2.5 sec
of Focus regeneration once stored Focus is exhausted.
Starting Focus
A pet can begin combat with a full:
150 Focus
This allows several abilities to be used immediately before regeneration becomes the limiting factor.
Over a long fight, Focus regeneration rather than starting Focus determines sustained ability usage.
🔁 Ability Autocast Priority
When multiple pet abilities are enabled for autocast, the pet prioritizes them according to their position on the pet action bar.
Priority is evaluated:
Left → Right
The pet attempts the left-most autocast ability that:
- is ready
- has enough Focus
- is currently usable
If that ability cannot be used, the pet moves to the next eligible ability.
Why Action-Bar Order Matters
Pet Focus is shared between active abilities.
This means action-bar placement can directly affect how Focus is spent.
For example:
Bite → Claw
can produce different Focus usage from:
Claw → Bite
Higher-priority abilities can consume Focus before lower-priority abilities have an opportunity to fire.
Autocast order is therefore part of pet rotation optimization.
⚔️ Pet Attack Types
Pet attacks use melee-style attack tables.
There are two primary categories.
White Attacks
Normal pet auto attacks are white attacks.
They can:
- Hit
- Crit
- Miss
- Dodge
- Parry
- Glance
They use the pet's normal melee swing timer.
See Pet Attack Formulas for damage calculations.
Yellow Attacks
Pet abilities such as Bite, Claw, and damaging family abilities are yellow attacks.
They use the special melee attack table rather than the white melee table.
They do not produce Glancing Blows.
🐾 Pet Attack Speed
Different pets can retain different base attack speeds.
Attack speed determines how frequently the pet performs normal white attacks.
It can affect mechanics such as:
- Frenzy uptime
- spell pushback
- on-hit effects
- attack frequency
Damage Normalization
Forever normalizes pet melee damage around attack speed.
A faster pet attacks more frequently but deals less damage per swing.
A slower pet attacks less frequently but deals more damage per swing.
Conceptually:
Faster Speed → More Hits, Lower Damage per Hit
Slower Speed → Fewer Hits, Higher Damage per Hit
Attack speed therefore does not inherently provide higher white-attack DPS by itself.
It can still matter substantially for effects that depend on the number of attacks performed.
See Pet Attack Formulas.
🗯️ Growl and Threat
Growl generates threat on the target without dealing damage.
Conceptually:
Existing Pet Threat + Growl Threat
Normal damage generally produces threat approximately in proportion to damage dealt, while Growl adds a separate threat amount directly to the pet.
Growl Threat Values
Classic Growl uses fixed threat values by rank.
The current Forever implementation appears to generate more threat than the Classic values would predict, and may be approximately doubled, but this has not yet been verified cleanly.
Until controlled testing is complete:
Growl Threat = Unverified Flat Threat
The Classic values should not currently be treated as exact Forever values.
Testing Needed
Growl should be tested against a known competing threat value while preventing additional pet damage from obscuring the result.
Useful checks include:
- establish the Hunter's or another unit's threat
- prevent the pet from adding normal damage
- use Growl
- determine the point where the target changes or refuses to change targets
- repeat across multiple threat values
- test more than one Growl rank if possible
If the resulting threat consistently appears approximately twice the Classic value, that would support the doubled-threat hypothesis.
See Hunter Testing Methodology.
How Threat Works
Enemies maintain a threat table containing units that have generated threat against them.
Normal damage generally produces:
1 Damage ≈ 1 Threat
Growl adds threat directly to the pet's existing threat total.
Having the most threat does not always immediately cause the enemy to change targets.
To pull aggro from the unit currently being attacked, another unit generally needs approximately:
110% of Current Target Threat while in Melee Range
or:
130% of Current Target Threat while outside Melee Range
This threshold depends on the unit's distance from the enemy, not whether the unit is a melee or ranged class.
Example
If the Hunter currently has:
1,000 Threat
and the pet is within melee range, the pet generally needs approximately:
1,000 × 1.10 = 1,100 Threat
to pull the target away.
Growl can help push the pet across that threshold.
Growl and Focus Priority
Growl costs Focus, so leaving it on autocast competes with damaging abilities for the same resource pool.
Focus spent on Growl is Focus that cannot immediately be spent on:
- Bite
- Claw
- family abilities
Growl is therefore useful when the pet needs to hold threat, but generally undesirable when another unit is intentionally tanking.
🛡️ Pet Class Behavior
Hunter pets are treated as the Warrior class for applicable class-based interactions.
This can affect buffs or mechanics that internally check the unit's class.
✨ External Buffs
In Forever, pets no longer receive normal player stat buffs directly.
Effects that would normally add player stats such as Strength, Agility, or Stamina do not simply apply those stats to the pet.
Instead, pets primarily gain additional power through Hunter stat inheritance.
See Pet Stat Mechanics.
👁️ Pet Range
Pets can travel a considerable distance from the Hunter but do not remain active indefinitely outside the Hunter's range.
In Forever, pets despawn at approximately:
~100 yd
from the Hunter.
This creates a practical maximum separation between Hunter and pet.
🎯 Pet Command Behavior
Pet state and commands affect how the pet responds to targets.
Common states include:
- Passive
- Defensive
- Assist
Commands include:
- Attack
- Follow
- Stay
Some Forever pet command behavior is currently affected by known bugs, particularly Defensive / Assist and Stay interactions.
See Forever Hunter Patch Notes for current known issues.
🔬 Known Behavioral Quirks
Several current pet behaviors are worth keeping in mind during testing:
- autocast abilities may fail to fire under some circumstances
- pets can lose family abilities after relogging or automatic dismissal
- Passive / Stay behavior may not always prevent target-follow behavior
- spell avoidance behavior appears inconsistent between some pets or effects
- unique pet attack-speed behavior can sometimes be lost after training or pet state changes
These should be treated as current implementation issues rather than intended pet mechanics.