Scattered Shots: The right pet for the right situation

[Mania]

There is a new Scattered Shots, the hunter column on WoW Insider (which I supposed I had better start calling WoW.com at some point), up today. Now I usually don't pay much attention to Scattered Shots, not because I don't like the column but because it's not normally about pets. And I am hunter only because of the pets, pretty much.

But today the column is about pets: Scattered Shots: The right pet for the right situation

Leaving out the fact that the 'right situation' seems to be high-end raiding only, I was still a bit surprised by some of the conclusions in this column. (Worm? Really? And rhinos just barely missed the cut?) But I know that I am usually rather out of it when it comes to grouping, raiding, DPS ... all that stuff that most hunters seem to know about.

So I was hoping that the more group-savvy hunters here could help me understand the conclusions. Anyone want to take a stab?

[Tahlian]

It's all about being able to cover important debuffs that other classes normally bring, Mania. If you don't have a warrior in your raid to Sunder Armor, then the worm's Spit becomes important, because it provides that debuff. If you have no warrior, no arcane mage, and no ret pally in your raid, then the beast master becomes doubly useful for once, sacrificing their own "leet deeps" to bring the Sunder Armor-style debuff and 3% bonus damage to the rest of the raid via FI.

Not to mention in a 5-man or a heroic, your pet might can take over tanking duties for a little bit if your tank dies and things start to go all pear-shaped.

[Anansi]

Yep, it's pretty much about what gaps a pet can fill in the raid when certain buffs aren't brought by actual players.

I'm surprised he didn't go into more detail about the advantages of Carrion Birds, Birds of Prey and Tallstriders though. I guess the focus of the article was buffs and not debuffs, but both can be equally important.

[Saturo]

The armor debuffs they're talking about they also classify into two categories. Major debuffs, for example the worms spot or a rogues expose armor. Major debuffs stack with minor debuffs, but not with other majors. Minor debuffs are for example a Wasps sting or a Druids Faerie Fire. Minor debuffs stack with majordebuffs, but not with other minors.

Hope this cleared it up a bit.

[Chrizesu]

I don't think they looked completely into pet roles enough. Even cunning pets have utility as dps pets.

Worms are great. That armor debuff they do actually makes a huge difference when the major debuff is supplied by no other class.