Welcome, great Draenei hunter-to-be, to Azuremyst Isle, the starting location for misplaced Draenei that survived the crash. This guide assumes you’ve done the basic initial questing for the island, starting in Ammen Vale and working your way to Azure Watch with the help of your hunter trainer in Ammen Vale, Keilnei. You’ve most likely even gotten directions to check out The Exodar as well. These generic quests will familiarize you with the island and its inhabitants, all while providing the kind of new scenery you’d expect from an expansion. Hunter is not a new class, so if you’ve already got a hunter character, this will seem very familiar to the process you went through at level 10 to learn your taming abilities on your other character, just with different locations and NPCs. Hopefully this guide will make completing your essential level 10 class quest a little easier and give you clear direction as a new hunter. Some basic hunter class information is also introduced, for those who are new to the hunter class.

So… you hit level 10 questing from Azure Watch. Now what? Chances are you’ve met the hunter trainer at Azure Watch, Acteon, who is under a tent on the southeast corner of the camp. By now, he has probably trained you once or twice, (remember that you can visit and learn new abilities for your class every even level,) and maybe even given you a quest or two since you arrived at the camp. Azure Watch is parallel to the tiny town of Dolanaar for Night Elves. It’s the in-between questing area that connects the starting location to the race’s capitol city. You’ll notice around level 8 or 9 that Acteon has a greyed out exclamation point above his head, indicating that he will soon have a quest for you when you “come of age.” That age is level 10, so be sure to chat with him when you level to get his quest, “Seek Huntress Kella Nightbow.” This will begin the quest chain that will teach you all you need to be able to tame and handle your creature companions, one of the most important foundations to build a successful hunter’s career.

You’ll find Huntress Kella Nightbow near the docks at Valaar’s Berth, which are west of The Exodar. Just follow the north and south running road in front of The Exodar down south to the coast of Azuremyst Isle, and you can’t miss her or the docks. For future reference, the boat that arrives at the docks of Valaar’s Berth will take you to Auberdine. Chat with Kella to complete Acteon’s quest, and she will then give you the start of a three-part series of quests called “Taming the Beast.” In each part, Kella will give you a Taming Totem to use in attempting to tame three different beasts of her choosing. Each Taming Totem has 3 charges in case you make a mistake or your taming attempt fails once or twice on a creature, which is always possible. Each time you return to Kella with the beast that she has asked you to tame, you will be asked to return the Taming Totem to her. She will then re-issue it to you for each separate taming task until you have completed all three parts of the quest and tamed all three different creatures. For convenience, I dragged the Taming Totem out onto my taskbar in an empty slot. You also might find that this makes the task easier.

Part 1: Barbed CrawlerKella will hand you a Taming Totem and ask you to go in search of a Barbed Crawler to tame. Barbed Crawlers are the crabs that wander the shore along the western coast of Azuremyst Isle. You can easily find them along the water behind Kella. I found mine just under the water off the shore, and it was a level 8. Target the Barbed Crawler and either right click on the Taming Totem in your inventory or press the hotkey that you associated with where you placed it on your taskbar.

The creature will immediately run to you, and you’ll see hearts appearing over its head. Do not move or try to perform any kind of spell or action while the taming bar is counting down its progress across the bottom of your screen. The taming process takes 15 seconds, and the creature you’re attempting to tame will be attacking you during this time, but that’s ok. After 15 seconds, as long as your tame attempt does not fail, the Barbed Crawler will suddenly change from a combat target red color to blue, and its name will appear in blue above its head saying [Your Name's Pet]. A system/status message should indicate that you have successfully tamed the Barbed Crawler. Now return to Kella to complete the quest. She will take the Taming Totem from you and give you a second quest, and you’ll find a new Taming Totem with 3 more charges ready and waiting in your inventory.

Right click the portrait of your Barbed Crawler pet that’s located just under your portrait on your screen, and click the “dismiss” option. In most cases, your pet will just disappear, but there is a chance your pet will turn on you when you let it go, so be prepared to fight back if that happens. Now that you’re rid of your Barbed Crawler, head off to tame the next creature in the quest series, a Greater Timberstrider.

Part 2: Greater Timberstrider You will now rinse and repeat the same actions on a Greater Timberstrider. Greater Timberstriders can be found just north of The Exodar. I followed the north and south running road in front of The Exodar just north past the Elekk handlers and immediately ran into them amongst some Nightstalker cats off to the side of the road. Just like with the Barbed Crawler, you will target a Greater Timberstrider (mine was level 7), and right click on the Taming Totem in your inventory or press the hotkey associated with where you placed it on your taskbar. Allow the creature to “attack” you as you tame and the hearts appear over its head until the taming process is complete. When the nameplate for the Greater Timberstrider turns blue and your quest log is updated that you successfully tamed it, head back to see Kella back down by the docks.

Part 3: NightstalkerNow that you’ve got this system of using the Taming Totem on a creature that Kella directs you to, the final stage of this three-part quest series will seem very simple. The last creature you must tame is a Nightstalker. These, too, are found just north of the Exodar, in the same area where you found your Greater Timberstrider. When I dismissed my Greater Timberstrider in order to tame a Nightstalker, my Timberstrider turned on me, so I was forced to fight back and kill it before I could move on. The Nightstalker I selected to tame for the final part of the quest was level 9. It took me two charges/tries in order to sucessfully tame it. After the first 15 second taming process the Nightstalker was still attacking me, so I quickly cast Gift of the Naaru, and was able to use up a second charge and try again to tame it. The second time was the charm. Once you have tamed your Nightstalker, return to Kella.

Now that you have completed all three parts and tamed all three animals for Kella, she will take the Taming Totem from you for the last time, and grant you the Taming ability and 850 experience. You now are able to use the tame, call, and dismiss commands on tameable creatures in Azeroth. Remember that you can only tame creatures that are your same level or lower, but never creatures that are above your level. Also, not every creature of Azeroth is tameable. Later in your career you will get an ability to cast on animals to find out their stats and if they’re tameable before you attempt to tame. If you try to cast the tame ability on a non-tameable creature of Azeroth, you will get an error message that says you cannot tame that.

Before you leave Kella, she has one final little quest for you called “Beast Training”, which asks you to seek out Ganaar in The Exodar, a pet trainer. He can be found in the far southwest corner of the Traders’ Tier, inside the Hunters’ Sanctum there. When you speak with Ganaar, he will teach you four more abilities and give you a special silver crossbow useable only by the hunter class, that does 7.4 dps, a nice upgrade at this stage of your career. The four abilities that Ganaar will teach you upon speaking with him include Growl ranks 1 and 2, Beast Training, Feed Pet, and Revive Pet. He also will be the man to speak with ever so often to learn new abilities to teach your pets via the Beast Training ability, found in your spell book. You can now feed your pet to keep it happy and loyal, and ressurect your pet if it dies in battle. The Growl abilities and any other optional abilities you purchase for your pet from Ganaar (or any other pet trainer) make your pet more versatile and help it to fill specific roles in your play style. Growl, for example, works much like a taunt for your pet, which helps to keep mobs on your pet and not on you, so you’re able to stand back and shoot from a distance while your pet keeps the mob busy. Ganaar also has Great Stamina (rank 1) and Natural Armor (rank 1) available now for you to learn and possibly teach to your future pets.

As you grow, you will gain other abilities that will make taming easier and less damaging to your health, such as ice traps and other immobilization effects that keep the pet from attacking you during the full duration of taming. As a young hunter, I’d start the Tame Pet spell from as far away from the creature as allowed, which has a 30 yard range, so that it’d take awhile for the animal to reach me, thus less time spent attacking me. It’s always wise to have health potions handy to pop between tame attempts (if it takes more than one), or use your Draenei race spell, Gift of the Naaru, on yourself before or in between attempting a tough tame to ensure the creature doesn’t kill you before you’re able to complete the tame. Remember that you cannot attack back, move, or perform any other actions once you’ve started taming, or it’ll cancel the action and you’ll have to start over on a very angry animal. Some pets are more resistant to tames than others, especially named, rare, or elite creatures you may come across that you’d like to have.

So now you can go out and tame your first pet. What will it be? A boar? A bear? Perhaps a cat or bird? Maybe a crocolisk? The type of pet you choose for a companion is up to you. Each type has its own different trade offs with stats or abilities. Some pets are better tanks than others. Some do more damage than others. In the end, the “best” pet is one that fits your play style. Once you have selected and successfully tamed your very first pet with your shiny new Tame Beast ability, it’s time to learn a little more about how to take care of it. You’ll notice that your pet has a little portrait and health bar underneath your character’s portrait. You’ll also see a little icon to the right of your pet’s health bar. The little face icon is an indicator of how happy your pet is. When you first tame an animal, the icon will be a red sad face. This means that your pet is unhappy. There are three levels of pet happiness: Happy (green smiley face), Content (yellow straight face), and Unhappy (red sad face). To increase your pet’s happiness, you must feed it! But first you need to know what it eats.

If you right click your pet’s portrait, you’ll be given four options, Pet Details, Rename, Abandon, and Cancel. Pet Details will take you to your pet’s skill sheet, much like your character’s skill sheet. (keymapped ‘k’ by default, and accessible when your pet is out by looking at your own skill sheet and clicking the “pet” tab). Here you will see your pet’s stats, see what loyalty level it is, and find out what it likes to eat so you know how to keep it happy. Hover your cursor over the little green smiley face in the upper left corner of the pet skill sheet, and it will tell you your pet’s diet. These are the only kinds of food you can feed it. Feeding your pet will increase its happiness, and over time, your pet will gain loyalty. A happy pet performs at 125% damage capacity, while an unhappy pet does only 75% of its possible damage output. If you don’t tend to your unhappy pet, it will abandon you and run away, so don’t forget to keep an eye on the icon and feed your pet when necessary!

Pets gain experience and loyalty as they level with you. The more you work with your pet and spend time with it, the more loyalty it will gain. There are six levels of loyalty, and all pets start out at loyalty level 1, “Rebellious.” Your pet is more likely to run away when it’s unhappy at a lower loyalty level, another important reason to keep watch of your pets happiness at all times. You already know that you cannot tame a pet that is higher in level than you, but you may not realize that your pet gains experience when it aids you in killing mobs, too! To monitor the progress of your pet’s leveling, check Pet Details from the pet portrait menu, or click on the “pet” tab in your character’s skill sheet for more information. You’ll see its experience bar on that screen and see how far it has to go before it levels. You’ll notice that your pet gains experience a little slower than you, and will typically be just a little behind you in leveling.

With the Rename option from the pet portrait menu, you are able to give your pet a name. When you select Rename, a box will pop up asking you to type in the name you wish you give to your pet. Choose a name wisely as you can only name your pet once, and it’s not possible to rename them something else next week if you change your mind. Pet names should follow the same naming rules as your character as far as its appropriateness in Azeroth.

Note that “dismiss” and “abandon” mean two very different things now, and using the wrong one could cause you to lose your faithful companion forever. Dismiss is a command you’ve learned, and means that you temporarily “store” your pet. It disappears temporarily until you use your Call Pet command to bring it back out for battle. Abandon, found under the pet portrait menu, means that you are completely getting rid of your pet for good. Essentially, you are letting it go back into the wild, and it will no longer be your pet. Now that you have a permanent pet, be sure to use the “dismiss” pet command when you don’t need your pet instead of accidentally abandoning it. You will need to use the abandon command from the pet portrait menu if you ever decide you want to discard the current pet and go tame a new one.

By default, all hunters have one stable slot to store a pet and keep another with them, for a total of two pets. If you already have one pet, you’ll need to store it in a stable before you go out to tame another. Stable masters can be found typically in front of all inns around the mailbox area or close by its entrance. You may also purchase an additional stable slot from a stable master (allowing you to have a total of three pets) for 5g. That means you’ll have two in storage and one with you at all times. Keep this in mind! As you grow and develop your hunter, you’ll find that different types of creatures are better for different types of situations and it won’t take long to fill those stable slots. You’ll be able to tweak your pets a little bit with the different pet abilities you learn from a pet trainer, such as adding more stamina or armor to a pet that may be lacking in those areas.

What kind of professions are good for hunters? I’m glad you asked. It’s fairly traditional for hunters to take up skinning and some form of leatherworking, mostly because skinning fits in naturally with a hunter, and leatherworking allows you to craft armor for yourself. Hunters can choose whatever professions they want, though, and are not limited to just those two primary professions. Do what you think would be the most fun and most helpful to your character. There is no wrong answer here!

There is no limit to the number of secondary professions you want to train in, unlike primary professions, where you can only train in two. There are two good secondary professions for hunters that I feel I must suggest. It is wise as a hunter to undertake cooking as a profession. Since cooking is a secondary profession, it will not interfere with your two limited primary profession slots, so you are able to learn and level it alongside your main professions without consequence. Why cooking? Because your pets will need food from time to time to stay happy and loyal, and cooked food gleans more nutrients than raw food, making cooked food better for your pet. The happiness effects from cooked food last longer as well. Your pet requires food that is close to their level. You can feed your level 70 cat raw slitherskin mackerel (level 5), but you’d need to feed it several stacks to achieve the same happiness level and duration that a single bite of high level cooked food would provide. In a nutshell, it takes less cooked food to keep your pets happy longer than it does raw food, which saves you money out of pocket. The cooking profession seems natural, since you’ll be able to cook the raw food you harvest from creatures out in the wild on the fly and always have food on hand for your pets, which means less trips back and forth into town.

If you’re interested in taking up cooking, you’ll find the initial cooking trainer down at Odesyus’ Landing, just south along the road from Azure Watch. There are many quests to be picked up here as well. “Cookie” McWeaksauce can give you basic cooking training to get you started in the culinary arts. For future reference, you’ll find a higher level cooking trainer and a cooking supply vendor just inside The Exodar to the left of the Inn, at the top of the ramp leading down to the Seat of the Naaru. Mumman will teach you new recipes as you level, and Phea will have the ingredients you need to make culinary masterpieces worthy of both you and your creature companion! Cooking is not only handy for pets, but some recipes you encounter and learn on your journeys will allow you to make tasty morsels that will temporarily buff your various stats, so you’ll be a hit at parties and raids.

Along with cooking, fishing is another fun secondary profession that you can take up, regardless of what your two primary professions are. Fishing goes hand in hand with cooking and hunters because a lot of hunter pets eat fish, such as cats, bears, and birds. Having the fishing ability means you can fish for food to feed your pet while out in the wild, and then cook it for added benefit as well. As a Draenei, you’ll find the fishing trainer, Diktynna, standing under a tent at the river crossing on the path between Ammen Vale and Azure Watch, so you can’t miss her. Have her teach you the fishing skill, and then accept her simple quest… the reward is a free fishing pole and bauble to get you started in the profession. Fishing may seem a little boring, but I find it to be an incredibly relaxing way to pass the time when nothing else is going on in-game. Relax, chat, and fish. Ahh… this is the life.

Welcome aboard, new hunter! Best wishes on a successful future in Azeroth.

Articles may not be republished elsewhere in whole or in part without permission. Feel free to link directly to this post. ©2005-2008 by Lesley Karpiuk (Toque of pinktoque.com)

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