Some pets know an ability or two already when you tame them, but most pets need to be trained. In order to teach your pet a skill, you must first know it yourself. There are two ways for you to learn a pet ability: some abilities you can learn from a pet trainer in town, and some abilities you learn from taming creatures that already know the ability.

Special Family Abilities

The following tables list the special abilities each family receives. Families each have at least one uniquely-named core ability (two for Cats and Spirit Beasts). These abilities are more varied and less standardized than in the retail version of WoW, so we couldn't easily group them by ability type.

Basic / 'Focus Dump' Abilities

Each pet family has one of the following basic, 'focus dump' abilities. Other than the name and textual description, all three abilities are identical. 'Focus dump' abilities have no cooldown timer - so they can be used every time your pet has enough focus with no waiting. Skills like this as a way to 'dump' focus that isn't being used for some other skill and turn it into damage.

• Bite
• Claw
• Smack

Defense & Threat Management Abilities

All pet families have these two skills for decreasing damage taken and increasing threat during combat.