No Love for RaptorsFollow

short, yet rather complicated:
There is no best pet, your pet is the best pet.

(it might take some thinking, but it makes perfect sense once you understand it.)

also, i personally have a Carrion Bird as pet, and i have seen maybe 4-5 other hunters with a carrion bird in the months that i have been playing.
that is no reason to be insecure about your pet, as you say. you know petopia, so you know what your pet can, and what others can.

ask yourself: are you happy with your raptor?

if you are not sure if raptors are the pet for you, stable your faithful companion. and tame other pets to see what they are like.

The important question to ask is, do you have Beastial Swiftness? If you do, a Raptor won't function too much different than a cat. But, for PvP, where dash is almost a necessity (if you don't have a range or another movement ability...i.e. LB/charge/warp) then you pretty much need dash or BS. Also keep in mind that prowl can be very useful for certain things, so a cat has a lot more to offer.

That being said, if you like your raptor, go with it. It's better to play with a raptor you like than a cat you don't. If you want something with a similar feel to a raptor, but has more to add, here's a few options:
Cat - uses the same skills, plus some. If you want dash and/or prowl, you could use a cat.
Ravager - same DPS output, minor fluctuations in defensive ability, but gore will pump out more DPS than claw. And ravagers get dash.
Boar - I hate boars, but I still recommend them (among others). The DPS you lose from stats will be picked up by charge and gore.

So, I don't recommend raptors, because most people say "OMG WHAT IS TEH BEST PET" there ARE better pets. Not a whole lot, but a little bit.

Chuucky, if you want to have a "helpful advice" crusade, could you do us a favor and be a bit more lucid in your eloquations? You use a lot of big words, which help make you look smart, but most of your posts seem to use a lot of big words to say not a lot of content. Understand that the noobs you want to reach probably dont have a vocabulary, and to reach them you shouldn't use 40 words when 10 will do. Otherwise they'll only read half your post and move on.

If it weren't for the fact they can't learn Dash, I'd have a raptor. And Bestial Swiftness (IMO anyway) is no substitute for rank 2+ of Dash.

But that's not to say there's anything wrong with raptors. If you like yours, and don't mind waiting a little longer for him to get to your target, then good for you. The battle isn't finding the best pet, it's finding a pet you're happy with.

I love the look of the green + black raptors in Blade's Edge. When I level my strider to 70, I'm going to tame one and test it out. I did have a raptor from 10-20 before I got my strider, so I'm familiar with them. I am concerned I'll go insane from the lack of Dash, but if I only use it while instancing (for DPS), it may not be a big deal.

Any pet is good for pve. Most or all of them can learn Growl and Bite, and those 2 are the primary means of keeping aggro. Secondary would be, to keep the pet near the level of the mob so that his attacks are more effective, thus increasing his aggro. I’ve seen my pet lose aggro a lot then get one level, and now he holds it just fine.

It’s in pvp that pets like a cat or boar may shine. (or another one with some ability, such as the warp hunters whose teleporting abilities makes them better than cats at dashing).

So many hunters who post a lot are interested in pvp, and therefore in pvp-type pets.

not entirely, i am not a PvPer.
in fact, the last pvp i have done was at lvl 49..
yet, i do want to have the right pet for me.
for just pve grinding its my Carrion Bird, because it can hold aggro like no other pet.
for instances with a lot of warrior type mobs my carrion bird oins for the debuff.
for instances with a lot of caster mobs, or an AoE heavy instance, my wolf comes along to raise my damage.

Most people do not have Crocolisks because most people find their hissing very annoying. Not everybody does, but most seem to. The hissing never really bothered me, but I don't have a Crocolisk either.

As far as this dash thing, um...outside of pvp, why? I've been meaning to ask and I never got around to it honestly. I've never had dash on any of my pets, I always saw it as a way to suck up focus which could be used for attacking/growling. Unless I do battlegrounds where that speed boost is just beautiful to have, I've never seen any real use for it? Is the pet walking to a mob really that big a deal?