BM DPS pet.

[Tuls]

Hey there! As I'm planning to raid as BM, I'm just wondering what is the best BM dps pet, is it a cat like Surv and MM? I have Gondria (Wiggles) and also a Devilsaur (OMNOMNOM). I heard Devilsaur's are the best but I'm not quite sure and google has proved useless this time, so just looking for some opinions :] Thanks!

P.S. I am more than willing to go out and tame something new if it is in fact better then both my current pets.

[TygerDarkstorm]

No offense, but there is no such thing as a "best pet" anymore like the days of Wrath. The best pet is dependent on your raid's composition.

Spirit Beasts/Cats offer the best buff to hunters, however, it's also provided by shamans, warriors, and DKs.
Devilsaurs were one of the best pets in Wrath--they're still good now, but only if the 5% buff isn't covered by another class (I think druids or something provide it).

[Tuls]

You're right in that sense, but Im not even considering the raid in this. I just want to know which pet and it's skills put out the most damage by them selves. I'm not sure if anyone will have an answer to this unless people are crazy like me and do extensive testing on everything.

[TygerDarkstorm]

There isn't one, actually.
All pet damage has been normalized and the only differences between ferocity, tenacity, and cunning is pet talents. And ferocity and cunning are simming about the same.

Like I said, there is no best pet anymore.

[Tuls]

Oh wow! That changes everything! I didn't know that cunning and ferocity were so close. Now I have a wide variety of choices :O Thanks for the info!

[TygerDarkstorm]

You're welcome. And yeah, Blizz did a pretty good job this expansion making it so we're not locked to one pet. You can use pretty much whichever pet you want--even bringing a tenacity pet like a shale spider for the kings buff won't utterly trash your dps the way it would in Wrath.

[evil950510]

The best way to have the right pet for the job is to keep five pets around for just raiding. I like to have a cat, wolves, ravager, and wind serpent. However, being BM you can sub a Devilsaure for a wolf. Spirit Beast are neat but the healing they offer is no were as good as a real healer, its mostly for pve. But if your want a good DPS pet then go with a devilsaure not only are they good at damage they sick looking.

[WildcatTM]

I use a dragonhawk (for the magic debuff) for survival and a raptor/boar for marks (bleed effect). I'm not considering raids or parties in this.

[Ellaran]

Cunning pets have the advantage with being able to easily keep their Focus above 50 to get the Wild Hunt bonus, plus Feeding Frenzy when the target's health gets low. Ferocity pets manage a high DPS throughout the fight, though.

You can't go wrong either way, Cunning is more burst while Ferocity is more stable, but both are great to take. And if all the buffs are covered, you can always take a pet with slows/snares like a Hyena or Chimaera to help with adds, or just summon your favorite pet and go to town.

The best way to have the right pet for the job is to keep five pets around for just raiding. I like to have a cat, wolves, ravager, and wind serpent. However, being BM you can sub a Devilsaure for a wolf. Spirit Beast are neat but the healing they offer is no were as good as a real healer, its mostly for pve. But if your want a good DPS pet then go with a devilsaure not only are they good at damage they sick looking.

Believe me, raids will appreciate the Spirit Beast heals, even if they're kinda small. They can always emergency heal someone

[Nubhorns]

No one has said Sporebat yet. :(

Sporebat. Everyone should have one.

[Rikaku]

I raid pretty strictly with either my Spirit Beast or Devilsaur. Now the Devilsaur I only found really useful in one situation, the plant-boss guy in Throne of the Four Winds (who can heal himself with an AoE floor-spell). While you do pull him out of said heal-spot, the Devilsaur's secondary ability lowers just how much he does heal.

The only other pet I've brought is a Chimera, and that was for Froststorm Breath for AoE damage (since BM's Multishot isn't as good as SV) on encounter's like Magmaw, but considering that we're further along in the raid now compared to the first few nights of raiding, this isn't as necessary for my raiding.

Buffs like Heroism, slow-spellcasting debuff, bleed dmg... all of that is *always* covered in the raids I participate in, so I really have never needed my Corehound or Devilsaur all that much. Thus...

I would say (FOR ME ONLY, NOT FOR EVERYONE) the best pet for my experience is the Spirit Beast. Even if another class brings my Roar-Buff, I can bring an extra smart heal which definitely comes in handy. Of course they are not "on par" with real raid healers, but in fights such as Chimeron (where at certain points you need to only heal up to 10k HP), guess what? Spirit Beasts absolutely can "Spirit Mend" for more then 10 by themselves So it does, in effect have some uses. Plus, my SB has saved me numerous times when our healers had to focus more on our tanks.

You can't go wrong either way, Cunning is more burst while Ferocity is more stable, but both are great to take. And if all the buffs are covered, you can always take a pet with slows/snares like a Hyena or Chimaera to help with adds, or just summon your favorite pet and go to town.

This exactly. Especially that last part most of the time. If most of the buffs are covered (aka 25m raids especially), take whatever pet you love and have fun!

[Bastor]

Not counting raids in, as that was covered already, but when grouping for heroics the first thing I do when the dungeon loads is:

Look at the healer. Is he a shaman? If not, is there a mage as dps? If not, I pull out chromaggus and the grp loves him for Ancient Hysteria.

Healer a shaman? Is there a druid oder paladin otherwise? If not, I pull out my shale spider for kings.

If there's a druid or paladin, look for a warlock or priest. If there's none there, get your silithid for the fortitude buff.

Druid/Paladin, Shaman/Mage AND Priest/Warlock around? Look if there's a subtlety rogue, fury warrior or if the druid is feral. Otherwise get the devilsaur for 5% crit.

Now if you have everything ruled out, you can watch for Shaman/DK/Warrior. If not, the spirit beast buff will help.

If every single buff is covered (little to never in random heroics), I pull out Ghostcrawler for off heals anyways.

Oh and since you do a little more damage plus offhealing with an SB, you can tell a warrior to health shout if no priest is around and provide the str/agi buff in addition to offheals.

[Acherontia]

A note--Hyenas are currently bugged, so you may want to just forget bringing a Mangle debuffer to your heroic group if you were going to do that. Their Mangle used to be a snare, so anything which is immune to snares (all bosses, pretty much) are immune to the Mangle >.<

I generally bring along, on random pugs:

* Agi/Str (Spirit Beast)
* ArP (Raptor)
* 5% Crit (Devilsaur)
* BL/Hero/Ancient Hysteria (Core Hound)
* Emergency Tank (Beetle: with heals and sometimes with just Mend Pet, can easily tank most Heroic bosses)

Agi/Str can be also be covered by Cats; the crit can be covered by Wolves, and Turtles mirror the Beetle's tanking skill, too.

Personal DPS wise, Spirit Beast/Cat will do the highest dps for a solo hunter due to it benefitting from its buff, and it being the best buff for you, too.

[Shade]

Sporebat. *nod* Youtube Video

Bah.

I tend to rely on my Spirit Beast the most. I'm not a hard core raider, and what raids I do get on don't tend to need the buffs from other pets-and I'm too lazy to remember them all. But the SB is a good BM raiding pet, considering that extra heal ability, and the cat's Roar of Courage.

Then again, I use my Loque'nahak for every so I might be biased.

With the way Bliz evened out the pet's stat and dps it is really a matter of dealer's choice. Take a couple of pets and see which works best with your play style and your raid. We don't have to bring one of a specific kind anymore, it's up to you what you work best with.

[Samskeyti]

Does anyone know if there's a list that links each pet skill to the buff/debuff provided by a player class/spec?

I'm a noob, and don't know by heart which buffs are already provided by a class and which to bring via pet.
Also, that Pick-a-pet addon is still broken.

[Bastor]

[Kalliope]

Does anyone know if there's a list that links each pet skill to the buff/debuff provided by a player class/spec?

I'm a noob, and don't know by heart which buffs are already provided by a class and which to bring via pet.
Also, that Pick-a-pet addon is still broken.

http://forums.wow-petopia.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4753

This thread has everything you need to know about class buffs, debuffs, and cc.

[Tyuriwen]

Bastor beat me to it!!

That flowchart is a favourite of mine, I usually have to use the 'whichever is prettiest' option

[SgtMakkie]

Sporebats!

[Nachtwulf]

I actually don't usually use devilsaurs... if only because I ALSO play a warrior, and if there's one thing I hate, it's being unable to see the fire I'm supposed to move out of because my whole screen is full of a wall of lizard. It's sort of a courtesy thing.

That said though, I'll back up the opinions of cat/wolf/windserpent/ravager.
Generally speaking, as I'm usually Survival these days, I rely mostly on my windserpent, but that's because getting a pug without a DK (or warrior or shammy, but mostly DK) is largely a non-event.

BM does get a bit more use out of Ferocity pets than other specs; they are very similar, but Feroc gets a couple more pure-dps talents (and BM gets enough points to reach them) that then stack with the inherent pet bonuses associated with the spec. One doesn't really need to rely on exotics at all unless you want to; one of the abilities they offer won't even do damage, and many exotics are really just too large to bring into an instance. Raids are slightly less worrisome since Blizzard believes in hieratic scaling, so raid bosses are always so freakin' huge you can see around them far better than a regular instance/heroic boss.