Unborn Val'kyr

The Valk used to be very rare, but is easy to capture now. It also used to suicide in battle with Unholy Ascension often, but wild pets use that ability much less often now. It spawns in all zones of Northrend, and every zone has at least one up at all times; as soon as one is captured, another spawns. The Valk comes in two breeds, B/B and H/H, and both work equally well for most purposes. Why not pick up both?

The Valk is most used as an amplifier for a Bleed and Stampede pet. Lay down Curse of Doom, then Haunt, and let your Bleed and Stampede pet increase the Haunt's DoT with Shattered Defenses. Then the Curse of Doom explodes while Shattered Defenses is still up, and your Valk resurrects on your back line. Just beautiful.

Most used with a simple Curse of Doom, then Haunt. Sometimes, you may delay a round or two to get the timing of Curse of Doom right.

Of the filler attacks, Shadow Shock does slightly more damage on average, with higher RNG, so the choice usually doesn't matter.

In some Tamer battles, Unholy Ascension is occasionally used instead of Haunt to amplify the damage of the other pets. For example, if using it with a Nuke pet like the Nexus Whelpling rather than a Bleed & Stampede pet like Ikky, Unholy Ascension may deliver more overall throughput than Haunt.

Discussion: Curse of Doom + Haunt is the Valk’s trademark. The Valk takes two rounds of damage applying these, and then does about 1200 while “dead” and invulnerable. Often even more powerful, its “death” offers you a free swap to another pet of your choice, with no time lost. After its Haunt is complete, the Valk comes back to life in the backline, ready to fight again.

Unholy Ascension gives you 25% damage over 9 rounds. Obviously, if you choose UA, you would ideally use it on the Valk’s Undead round,

The choice between Haunt and Unholy Ascension is interesting. You may expect to get at least one Haunt off during a battle, giving you 600 damage. If you use UA and do an average 280 damage in those 9 rounds, that adds 630 damage to to your total.

From that point of view, these two abilities are roughly balanced. However, it does raise opportunities for targeted strategies. If you have two other very high-damage pets, glass cannons, to follow the Valk, there is an opportunity for Unholy Ascension to be very powerful. Haunt is easier to work into a team, especially if it can be used twice, or with a Bleed & Stampede follow-up, but in some special cases, UA can be decisive.

In PvE, while the Valk’s Haunt is powerful on its own, it is often paired with a multiplier in a Bleed and Stampede strategy.
For example, with
Ikky: Curse of Doom + Haunt + Black Claw + Flock
Zandalari raptor: Curse of Doom + Haunt + Black Claw + Hunting Party
Blighted Squirrel: Curse of Doom + Haunt + Woodchipper + Stampede

The addition of the Shattered Defences debuff makes the later rounds of Haunt, and the Curse of Doom, hit for an extra 50%. This is one of the most common tactics in PvE.

After the Valk resurrects on the backline, it has a few rounds of waiting before it can Haunt again, but it still has a spammable attack if needed quickly.