GrimTotem Spirit Guides are no longer tamable, but if you managed to get one already, you get to keep it!

Through a hotfix we’ve recently removed the ability to tame a Grimtotem Spirit Guide. Players who have already gone through the trouble of taming the creature will be able to keep them unchanged. This hotfix only removes the possibility to tame this creature from here on.

The removal of the spirit guide has been debated within design discussions for a while now as to what impact the pet and its precedent has on the game. The unintended nature of the taming, the undead status of the guide, appearance of the wolf in relation to the feel of the hunter class, and the complex processes of taming were all issues touched upon and discussed.

Ultimately the discussions brought us to the conclusion that this should not be a permanent addition to the pet selection available to hunters; however, those that have already tamed them should be allowed to keep them due to their efforts in obtaining one.

A big debate on the now well known Hunters Axe that they can purchase for only 1000 points. A blue poster points out that it is just meant to be a stats weapon like a wand... but have you seen the stats on wands - they are crap!

This is intended and is considered to be more of a stat item much like a wand.

The hunter dead zone is being removed!

We're planning to shrink the min range on ranged attacks to reduce or eliminate the "dead zone". The only point to the dead zone was to ensure the min range on ranged weapons was enough such that ranged weapon attacks wouldn't be used while also being melee'd (at least by mobs... players have a bit of slush built in).

Here's a cool challenge - some hunters had to tame the pet of a horde stable master, and they did it!

A couple days ago I issued a challenge to serious pet tamers on the Alliance side to infiltrate Shadowmoon Village and tame Detrafila, the stable master’s pet wolf. I certainly wasn’t able to do it — the Horde NPCs kept walloping me. But two brave souls did, and sent me the screenshots to prove it!

According to the site Petopia, the Ghost Saber is the most popular pet in World of Warcraft...

For instance, what’s the most popular hunter pet right now? Well, it depends on how you define popular, I suppose. But I can tell you that the most popular individual pet page on Petopia belongs to the Ghost Saber. The Ghost Saber page (not the Gallery, but the pet page itself) is the 9th most popular page on Petopia so far. The Ghost Saber Gallery is #19 most popular page. Add them together and the Ghost Saber would actually come in about #7.


Well, that makes sense. I’ve plugged the Ghost Saber a good bit recently, and I know a number of other people have been talking about him also. So what’s the second most popular individual pet? Maybe Hawkbane or a scorpid? Or a windserpent? Nope! It’s that old trusty classic, Humar the Pridelord, coming in at #12. (He’s #11 if we include the page for his appearance, which is fair since he’s the only black lion in the game.) In fact, as you might expect, cats are disproportionately represented in the top 50 pages, although the usual suspects (boars, ravagers, scorpids, windserpents) all make an appearance as well.

Here's the start of a new Hunter help column at WoW Insider, this time teaching you the "jump shot" or as it is otherwise known - kiting!

1. While you're running away from your target...
2. Jump into the air
3. Spin 180 degrees so that you are facing your target
4. Fire an instant-cast shot
5. Spin back 180 degrees so that you are facing away from your target again
6. Land
7. Continue running

A little post on pet loyalty, happiness, and how the pet talent points are awarded to spend....

Now loyalty is another matter. When you first successfully tame a pet, it's at its lowest loyalty and happiness. Loyalty comes in Rebellious, Unruly, Submissive, Dependable, Faithful, and Man's Best Friend (your dog would be jealous). Higher level pets gain more training points from loyalty compared with lower level pets.

Training points are much like skill points only for pets. Pet skills are acquired and level through training points. Pet skills have several ranks, you can choose not to use some but it will cost the same as if you did. Skills are divided into two types: passive (resistance, armor) and active (only a maximum of four - bite, rake). Respeccing the pet would require going to a pet trainer - just like you would go to a trainer to respecc your character.

So you want to fly your mount in Azeroth? Contrary to what Blizzard intended, it is actually possible, but you will need to be a level 70 hunter funnily enough.

1. Level a hunter to 70
2. Put 1-2 talent points into Animal Handler (BM talent that increases pet %hit/mount speed)
3. Go through an instance portal, and you'll still be mounted. This works for flying mounts so I'm assuming it works just as well for regular ones too. 

Up until now the Hunter and Shaman tier T5 sets were not viewable (not the complete set anyway).

What does everyone think of them? I think the Shaman one looks pretty sweet, same with the Hunter one, not bad at all !