Well, Now I’ve Done It
Ever since I transferred Arinelle, my NE Hunter, to Shandris, I’ve been thinking about a good Pet to get her. She’s had the same Pet for a long, long time - a black wolf from Duskwood, who I dubbed Kate (after one of my RL dogs that looks rather similar).
I tamed Kate when I was around level 35 or 40, and I’ve had her ever since. I’ve enjoyed having a wolf as a Pet - they aren’t very common, they can learn Furious Howl, which is a great group buff, and they occasionally bark and snarl in combat. 
The downside to wolves is that they don’t make the best solo companions - they don’t do as much DPS as some other pets, and so it is a little bit easier to grab aggro from them. And on top of that, I’m just ready for a little more variety.
So I was browsing through Petopia the other day, looking for something new that I liked the looks of. I was focusing on the high-DPS Pet families - Cats, Ravagers, and Raptors - and I wasn’t really finding a lot that I liked. As much as I love my Orc Hunter’s Ravager, I don’t think a Ravager would fit well with Arinelle. Same with the Raptors. I guess I like to match my Hunters with Pets that come from their homeland (or home planet, in the case of the Orcs).
So that left Cats. There are a good number of unique looking Cats, which is something that I was definitely looking for. If I’m going to tame a new Pet, I don’t want it to just blend in with every other Pet out there. I thought about getting Rak’Shiri from Winterspring, but decided that I didn’t want to tame a low level Cat, and then have to level her up. (Remember that, because it becomes amazingly ironic later.) I also liked the looks of Sian-Rotam, but didn’t want to go through the trouble of doing the quests to summon him, and again, he is a lower level than I was looking for.
Eventually I decided to go with one of the Sable Jaguars from the Black Morass instance. I really liked the dark coloring and I don’t them often as Hunter Pets. Additionally, they come at level 67 and 68, so I wouldn’t have to spend time leveling one up.
The only problem was that the Jaguars were a couple levels above me, and I also hadn’t done OHB yet, to gain access to BM. So I kept leveling and would occasionally check Petopia out again, just to see if anything else caught my eye.
Some of you veteran Hunters might already have an idea where this is going. Any guesses yet?
Well, something did indeed catch my eye. And that something was Humar. As soon as I saw him, I thought, “OK, that’s the one.”
Then a little voice in my head said, “But he’s level 23!”
“I don’t care. He’s awesome!”
“But… but he’s level 23. You’ve already decided not to tame a level 60 because he was too low!”
And at that point I just decided to ignore the voice of reason in my head, and I went out to the Barrens to find Humar and tame him. He wasn’t there when I got to his spawn point, but I /camped there that night, and he was snoozing under his tree when I logged on the next morning. So I’m now the proud owner of a level 23 Pet. A totally awesome and insanely cool looking level 23 Pet! But… a level 23 Pet.
To be totally honest, I’m not 100% sure that I’m willing to put in the time to level him. I may decide to ditch him and go tame one of the Jaguars from BM after all. But he is so cool looking, I can’t help but love him.
So what are my options as far as leveling Humar? The first thing that comes to mind is a good rep grind that I can do at level 67-68. Killing Ogres in Nagrand can get me either Kurenai or Consortium rep, so that would be a good place to grind. I would love to get a Riding Talbuk at Kurenai Exalted. Another doable rep grind would be Sporeggar, killing Bog Lords and Naga in Zangarmarsh, which would have the added bonus of getting me the Magic Mushroom tabard. =D Are there any other good solo-friendly rep grind that I’m missing?
Another option would be to instance as much as possible, which would have the added benefit of helping me gear up nicely. The problem with this is that a lot of people are going to freak out when they see a low level Pet, and assume that he will draw aggro more easily (which is untrue). So that might not always go smoothly, but perhaps a mix of both methods would be enough to keep me going.
Any other tips that I should know about? I’m sure that there are lots of Hunters out there that have done this sort of a grind before. What else should I be thinking about?
