If you want to know how to play a hunter in WoW, then check this out.
Hunters in World of Warcraft (WoW) are a damage-dealing class. They're also the only class designed to deal ranged physical damage (not ranged spell damage). A hunter's strengths come into play not from the knives or axes he might be carrying, but from his bow, gun, or crossbow.
And while a hunter does his biggest damage from shooting at a target, he loses that ability to do big damage if the target gets too close.
*** Which is where the enviable pet comes in.
A hunter's pet doesn't hang around to make the hunter look cool. That totally awesome panther, lion, bat, owl, crocodile (the list goes on and on) has a much more important job than scaring the pants off of you when it growls, yawns, or chirps unexpectedly.
The pet's main job is to gain aggro and hold it so that the solo hunter can do what he does best - lay down some seriously big DPS without having to worry too much about taking damage.
*** Where Does One Get Such a Cool Beast?
Several patches ago (patches are updates to the game), Blizzard made some rather fundamental changes to the way hunters and their pets work.
A new hunter has a pet right from the start. On the Horde side, Undead get a spider, Trolls find themselves working next to a raptor, Tauren end up with a tallstrider (a bird similar to an ostrich), Orcs use a boar, Goblins are saddled with a crab, and Blood Elves get a dragonhawk. For the Alliance, Draenai fight alongside a moth, Dwarves work with bears, Humans get a wolf, Night Elves hunt with a nightsaber (a panther-like cat), and Worgen use a mastiff.
Hunters have no control over their pet until level 10. That's not to say a new hunter has to worry about their pet going all crazy and attacking everything it sees though. The pet follows along passively and then attacks what the hunter attacks.
*** When Can I Get Something Other Than That Moth or Crab?
When a hunter reaches level 10, he is able to actually interact with his pet - feed it (only for healing needs and only foods the pet will eat), command it to attack, and dismiss it.
It's also at level 10 that the hunter finally learns how to tame beasts.
Unfortunately hunters have to find a stable to store their original pet though - it's not until level 18 that hunters can carry around two pets (only one active at a time of course). By the time a hunter reaches level 82, he's able to carry around up to five different pets (again, only one active at a time).
*** So What's This Stable Thing?
Hunters are able to speak to an in-game stable master. The stable master is where you can store up to 20 pets. The down side to using the stable is that your pet will end up with their talents getting wiped clean.
*** Talents? You Mean My Cat Can Learn to Tap Dance?
Pets have three talent trees (and though it would be cool to see a panther tap dancing, that's not one of the talents - yet). The type of pet a hunter has determines the talent tree used. Pets start earning talent points at level 20 and then one point every four levels after that.
The Ferocity tree is used by animals like cats, wolves, raptors, hyenas, wasps, and dogs. The sole purpose of this tree is to increase the amount of damage done (not including PvP).
Animals in the Tenacity tree include bears, boars, gorillas, and turtles. This talent tree is built for tanking, typically for solo play.
Bats, monkeys, serpents, and spiders all fall into the Cunning tree. These talents give hunter pets abilities like stun and other crowd-control options.