I’d go for speed and boar.
That said, there are uses for pets w/ area attacks. An area-attacking pet allows you, when an add gets on you, to simply move up to the area of your pets AoE – and the add gets pulled easily onto the pet. It also makes it easier to fight 2+ mobs at once – you can actually multi-shoot (at least w/ screech) and often not pull agro off the extras. The drawback of an AoE pet skill is that it disrupts cc and pulls unwanted adds. So – best for soloing.
That said – well, I have an old hunter in the 20s w/ a boar and carion bird in his stable, about the same lvl. I’ve run some experiments. Both pets do great. Even in multi-target situations, the boar does fine. I just can’t multishot and expect to not have the extra target(s) come at me. But that’s ok if I have a freeze trap at my feet. Fights go about the same. I can also move who the pig is attacking and manage agro that way. That said, the carion bird is a little easier for multi-target fights. But the boar works. And he’s fast to target – the bird at that lvl is not.
Notice, the damage component is really unimportant. At that level a stomp doing a few hundred is no big deal, imo. Well, times 1000 fights, maybe it is. But the time saving is lost given that your gorilla gets no dash and is slow to move to target.
The area attackers are:
Birds/bats – screech.
Gorillas – jungle stomp.
Dragonhawks – halitosis – er, fire breath.
Screechers are in most hunters’ minds the kings of AoE – as there is a belief that Screech has an agro component to it (does it for real? I can’t remember, but I think it might). Carion bird is the best stat-wise for – being medium, bite/claw enabled, can dive – eats meat and fish.
Owls only claw. Bats get bite. Owls eat just meat. Bats have a flakey diet.
Gorillas – pay attention to what Calabar said – he’s right on the money.
Dragonhawks – the low lvl ones are caster-stat gimped (see petotia for more info on this) – and there are no options between lvl 8 or so and lvl 63ish. That said, their area attack is good. But it’s a cone in front of them and not a radius attack (or is it – I’d like to find out more on this). Medium, diet is… meat and fish?
Anyway, it depends on playstyle. We’re hyping boars, but a discerning reader will “get” why that is – and that we’re NOT saying ONLY boars. We’re saying boars are great and that you can’t go wrong with one. We’re also saying any pet will work. We’re also saying many other pets have other tremendous advantages. TRUTH: there is no best pet. The best pet is a boar. It’s a Zen thing. Go to petopia.
An even greater TRUTH: you have two stable slots. Park your main and try out other pets. See how YOU like them. Go with what is best and fun for YOU. GL!