Minipost: Baby Beast Mastery in the Basin


Sitting at Blacksmith, watching my wolf and a teammate kill an enemy player.

My little Alliance hunter is growing up! She is now level 72 (Beast Mastery, obviously) and thoroughly sick of Utgarde Keep. Seriously Dungeon Finder, a dozen UKs and only one Nexus? Hate you.

Anyway, I've been breaking up the questing/dungeoning with occasional spurts of PVP. It's pretty weird starting on the other side of familiar battlegrounds, but I've gotten used to it. It still feels wrong to be killing Horde, though. :'(

And make no mistake, I've been killing a lot of Horde. One of the nice things about low-level PVP is that...well, people often just aren't that good yet! I'm in there with a random mishmash of questing/dungeon gear, no enchants or anything, no heirlooms, and I've been amazed at how effective basic class skill/PVP tactics have been working for me. I highly recommend it to anyone playing alts.

My favorite, though, has been Arathi Basin, for one major reason.

REMOTE CONTROL PET KILLS.

Let me explain. Let's say you're standing at Blacksmith and you see a hostile player running along the road above Mine. You mosey over to the back of the Blacksmith island and throw a Hunter's Mark on your victim, I mean, opponent, and sic your pet on them.

If they run away before your pet reaches them, your pet might despawn due to range, and you have to resummon. Shrug.

However, what happens with surprising frequency is that the player will freeze, and frantically look about for the hunter who just marked them. They'll look up the road, they'll look down the road, but they won't look across the river. And they never see your little bestial torpedo of death jaws-ing across the water toward them until it rushes over the hill and starts eating their face.

They'll be too far away for you to shoot them, true. But the important thing is that they won't be able to hit you either.

At this point, they're screwed. Most players I've done this to will continue to just flail and whirl around, trying to find me, but it doesn't work because I'm not actually anywhere near. (This is seriously one of the most entertaining things I've ever seen in-game, btw.) And even if they DO locate me, I'm far, far out of range. I'm /popcorning, basically. All the while my pet is shredding them. Usually they die without a single responsive action.


Marking an enemy hunter riding beneath Lumber Mill.
They froze, and my spider caught and killed them.

Which brings me to another point few players seem to realize - you can't ignore a Beast Mastery pet at low levels. I know it's instinct - kill the player, not the pet! - but you really can't. This can be true at endgame PVP, but it's especially important in the lower brackets before crazy gems and enchants and resilience. I mean, a Kill Command can take a clothy player's health to 50% or so in a single hit. And Kill Command has no range restrictions! Your pet can be across a river, inside a building, up a tower, you name it - if it's alive, you can tell it to Kill Command. Hit it on cooldown and watch that distant opponent disintegrate.

Some players try to flee, upon realizing they're fighting a pet whose master is apparently invisible. But pets are FAST, if they have points in Dash/Dive and Boar's Speed. A player on foot basically cannot outrun a pet unless they crowd control it.

If they're mounted, that's a little different. Players CAN outride a pet...at least, until you hit Intimidation to stun them, followed by another Kill Command. Then if they're still alive, you throw in a Web (Spider) or Sting (Wasp), maybe a Charge, all the while throwing in more Kill Commands. 99% of the time that will be more than enough to crush them.

Oh, and if they're swimming? Enjoy your free kill. >:D


Basically, their only hope is to survive long enough to get so far away your pet despawns. Which is much easier said than done, if you intercept them fairly close to you.

Their only other recourse is to kill your pet. If you're out of shooting range, you'll be out of Mend Pet range. But that doesn't mean you're out of options. If they start fighting back and it's looking like they'll overpower your pet, just dismiss it. Resummon it and it'll be back at your side, waiting for you to heal it up, while your bewildered opponent will be standing there alone on the road, half-dead, wondering what just happened.

And then you send your pet in again to finish them off, this time with Mend Pet ticking. ;)

Really, even if you mess up the dismissal and your pet dies, is that really a loss? Your pet should have taken them to 50% or lower, and you're far enough away that you can probably rez your pet before they reach you. And if they rush in without healing, not giving you time to rez your pet? Just blow them up - they're already half dead, after all.

Blacksmith is my favorite place to do this, since you can send your pet across the river towards Mine and Lumber Mill roads, keeping you safe from enemy response. I usually kill 1-2 people per match "remotely", without ever getting within spell/shot range.

However, it also works when you're standing on the hill above Mine, picking off defenders down below. Remember, your pet won't detour and go find a road to get down there. No, your pet will run RIGHT DOWN THE FREAKING CLIFF to get to its target. You either kill some defenders, soften them up for an actual attack, or lure them away as they leave the node to come chase you. It's win-win-win! (And even if they DO chase you, you've got plenty of time to mount up and get away.)


Arathi Basin is my battleground of choice for remote pet slaughter, but it works in other locations, too. Warsong Gulch, enemy on your roof while you're by the flag? /target them by name and send your pet after them. If they start fighting back, recall your pet before it dies (no LOS to dismiss it) and keep baiting them/whittling them down. This also works when fighting over nodes in Eye of the Storm, since you can have your pet chomping away while you're safely tucked out of LOS.


This player died without even hurting my pet. He was too confused.

So get your baby hunters into battlegrounds and start killing remotely! There really are few things more enjoyable than watching your pet devastate a panicking player who is frantically spinning in circles trying to find you, while you sit casually across the river enjoying the show.

6 Responses Subscribe to comments

  1. gravatar
    TheGrumpyElf

    That is fantastic. I have to do that. Never thought of just having my pet doing to work at lower levels.

    I get to caught up in blowing people up because all my shots are so over powered at low level but pet kills seem a hell of a lot more fun. Even if just for the humor factor.

    April 17, 2012 at 5:21 AM

  2. gravatar
    Mittenz

    Aw, but I just finished levelling my BM hunter :<

    April 18, 2012 at 11:18 PM

  3. gravatar
    Anonymous

    Thank you for this :)

    I had great fun last night, though i was in Eye, guarding a tower :)

    April 19, 2012 at 1:52 AM

  4. gravatar
    Redbeard

    I hate you.

    Signed,

    Low Level Warlocks and Priests

    April 20, 2012 at 8:11 AM

  5. gravatar
    Unknown

    This works at 85 too. I have so much fun in wsg sending in my shale spider to kill the idiot spying on me while im defending the flag :P

    Best part is you can rack up the killing blows while basically sitting there doing nothing.

    Also, if you have a priesty friend mind visioning ppl, you can send in the pet on the same target and totally demoralize them. Often they come to attack and give you more free KBs... lol we tend to have massive giggle fests in vent over this. Makes defending less boring.

    April 20, 2012 at 8:20 PM

  6. gravatar
    Incandesence

    I just rolled a hunter for the sole purpose of having fun with this. I think that this will be as much fun as blasting people off the Lumber mill with Typhoon on my druid. (ok, maybe more :P)

    April 28, 2012 at 10:57 AM