To tame, or not to tame

I've been playing Ahami a LOT more than Ideale this week, and on my way into work, I thought about why. It's not the play style — I've been having a blast on Kresha, too, and Ahami can be REALLY frustrating at times (although now that I have the air totem, and thus the Grounding Totem, I'm finding that most of these frustrations are about gone). And, really, I love range. I love the challenge of getting back into range in PVP or out in the world, I love sending my pet in to tank three mobs and burning them down, I love snake trap (I know, it doesn't go with the theme, but I love it!).

So if I'm not bored of hunters (so, so not), then what's the issue?

Well, part of it is the stupid gun. It's now in the bank and I'm back to my bow. I'll pull it out for PVP, but the PVP bow is next on the agenda, ugly-ass boots be damned. (And screw the SSO bow also. I hate dailies, they're so BORING. I'll do them when I need the jewelcrafting recipes.)

Part of it is Alterac Valley. I love AV, and it has spoiled me for other battlegrounds. Arathi Basin is my favorite as far as strategy/action goes. But there's just something entirely lame about being in a group of 10 or 15 after epic, 40-man battles on the Field of Strife (story about this later) and two-raid defenses of Orgrimmar versus even more Alliance. WTB more large-scale battles, plz. So I spend half my time in AV and the other half funding AV and avoiding Nagrad.

The big part of it is Nagrand. It's gorgeous, but it's also boring. I've been killing ogres for weeks and I'm tired of it. I want to move on to Shadowmoon Valley or whatever, but have been holding off for Consortium/Sha'tar rep. I still want to be honored with both before moving on, but dammit, I need a break from Nagrand (and I hate Netherstorm, so that's not gonna do it).

So, I'm going to skip to the end of my to-do list, especially since my mining is almost the right level for it now. Ideale will be fighting the Scourge in the Plaguelands from now until I get bored. Why? Well, I really like the Plaguelands (I know, I'm so weird!), it fits her backstory and personality, and I really, really want the Argent Dawn tabard.

And the final part of it is, Ide tamed Saffron in the Badlands at level 40. Which means that she has had the same two kitties for AGES (I'm not complaining — I <3 my kitties and would never give them up! — but there are so many others I want). With the pet talents and mechanics getting released by Blizzard, it looks like that third stable slot might actually become useful for something other than learning new abilities. However, I'm not positive on this (I haven't read enough to figure it out).

Which brings me to my main debate. With Saff a bar from 67 (almost entirely in AV), I think it would be safe to tame a third pet after all. But do I really want to tame a pet and drag it up to 70 only to have to abandon it and weep and weep if something changes before the expansion hits the shelves? Do I really want to tame a pet before the expansion (because what if there are new skins)? And if I do decide to tame a third pet, do I want a Zulian Stalker (in which case I will need to actually enter an instance with, like, an actual group), a Frostsaber, or to try for Gutripper (OMG NOT A CAT)?

I do really like the Frostsabers and I really, really want a panther, but I feel like I'm not a very good hunter if I only ever tame cats. If it comes down to it, I can grab a panther on Kresha soon — I'd want to avoid a Frostsaber since she already has a tiger. And I would like to play around with one of the other pet trees come December (although the main reason I've kept a few of my lowbie hunters is specifically to experiment with).

EDIT: Another reason to wait for WotLK to tame a third pet: "If a hunter tames a pet that is more than five levels beneath their own level, the pet will then have their level increased to five levels beneath the hunter’s own level" (from Petopia). Might open up some other cat-related options, too (although this is kind of cheating).