A pet to tank with Part 1

I used to want a turtle. I'd QQ every time I saw a level 70 hunter with a turtle. I didn't have the forward thinking to pick on up early on and now it makes me sad. Until 70 I never ran many instances and the ones I did never really required an off tanking pet so I stuck to DPS pets. The Rake until 34, then Brokentooth to 63. Then I picked up a Ravager for damage. At 70 Skippy was dying almost every fight in instances. Something needed to change. I tried to level a turtle from 56 to 70. He made it to 57.5 before I said f**k that. I tried wolf from Burning Edge but I didn't feel that bond you need to have with a pet. That bond that makes you want him or her to survive the fight.

I started looking for *any* defensive pet that was already 70. While I was doing my daily quests for the first time in Skettis I saw a Warp chaser that fit the bill. Warp Chasers have +5% armor. Not the 13% that turtles have by any means, but still a good defensive bonus. I flew back to town, put Slappy (my new cat) in the stable and went back out to get my new tank.

Kitty is now Rank 6 loyalty and has Natural Armor Rank 11. Unbuffed he has 12k armor. With a Prot Pally giving him protection aura he's close to 16k armor. He also has Stam rank 8. With a priest stam buff he has close to 9k health. We've been running Shattered Hall every night so I tossed on Fire resist Rank 2 as well. Kitty will tank a caster in Halls with little more then a pet mend and a renew.

On a few occasions I've had him OTing two mobs (a sharpshooter and a non elite) and more then once my tank has commented on the amount of aggro the Kitty accumulates. This makes us happy.