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Worm as a dps pet

Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2011 9:37 pm
by Qinni

Can someone show me the best way to make my pet a dps rather then a tank? Like talent tree and how to put Burrow Attack in my rotation.

Edit: Seems like I'm having pet focus problems. Any ideas how I can free up some so that my worm is able to Burrow Attack when ever I want it too?


Re: Worm as a dps pet

Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2011 10:19 pm
by Wassa
http://www.wowhead.com/petcalc#mVdhubhzb0oM

Greater Stamina, Blood of the Rhino, and Boar's Speed is filler points. You need to get a few tank points (Grace of the Mantis and Roar of Sacrifice) to get Wild Hunt.

No idea on the focus problem. Never had trouble with that on my worm.

Re: Worm as a dps pet

Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2011 10:21 pm
by Qinni
Thanks Wassa

My worm is being focus starved by using everything else. :s

Re: Worm as a dps pet

Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 12:33 am
by Lisaara

Re: Worm as a dps pet

Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 1:55 am
by Kurasu
This is what I use for my worm: http://www.wowhead.com/petcalc#mVdhh0G0bzkM

The reasons for this are as follows:

Spiked Collar, Serpent Swiftness, Culling The Herd, Wild Hunt: These are pure DPS abilities, therefore to make a DPS pet, it only stands to reason to have them!

Charge: This helps the worm get into combat a lot faster, though I find that you may need to use it manually, as when it spits, it tends to use the GCD rather than 'dashing' in first.

Guard Dog, Taunt: Always, *always* keep your growl turned off in instances unless there is an emergency. However, if the tank starts going down, or if an add is pulled, you can activate it and grab and hold threat potentially for long enough to keep someone alive. Even longer if the healer is still available.

Grace Of The Mantis: This is needed to get to Wild Hunt, but it is also extremely useful for the above situation: one crit will spell death for your pet, so crit-immunity will help keep them alive that little extra needed.

Roar Of Sacrifice: Again: needed for Wild Hunt. Honestly, if Wild Hunt wasn't such a good boost for pure attack power, I wouldn't bother with it at all.

Intercept: An add gets free? Or you want to give the tank a little extra help? Another emergency button-push, right here.

Great Stamina: This could just as easily be increased armor. I'm not sure which is more advantageous in an instance. I tend to use higher stamina because armor doesn't help against spells, and the pet is more likely to be targeted by spell effects than physical if it's not emergency-tanking.

As for having enough focus to use 'Burrow', the best thing you can do is to keep 'Bite' turned off auto, and put it on the bar so you can activate it or not. Macro it into a shot or two if you want to use it frequently. However, the pet will not 'save' the focus needed to use a burrow. If the spit isn't needed, it will automatically use 'Bite' whenever it's up. This, especially with Wild Hunt specced, will drain focus very, very fast. So if you know you'll need the AOE? Turn off auto-Bite.

Alternatively, you can pull your pet back to your side, or use /petpassive, to deactivate its attack, and let it regenerate the focus for that moment before you send it back in to unleash. This is hard on the DPS< though. Harder than simply turning Bite off and letting it auto-attack.

Finally, you may want to consider *not* speccing into Wild Hunt. The focus will vanish very quickly thanks to that increased cost. It will lower your pet's overall DPS, but if you're using Burrow instead of physically attacking, it might just be for the better. Turn those three points (2 wild hunt, 1 Roar) into Armor instead.

Re: Worm as a dps pet

Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 2:30 am
by Qinni
Kurasu wrote:
Finally, you may want to consider *not* speccing into Wild Hunt. The focus will vanish very quickly thanks to that increased cost. It will lower your pet's overall DPS, but if you're using Burrow instead of physically attacking, it might just be for the better. Turn those three points (2 wild hunt, 1 Roar) into Armor instead.
So wild hunt lowers dps over period? I'm only going to use Burrow Attack when there is a pack around.

Re: Worm as a dps pet

Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 2:44 am
by Chimera
mmm, i wouldnt say Wild Hunt lowers dps in a general sense, its just too costly if your pets having a hard time with focus, i usually have pets that dont have two focus-based attacks so i hardly ever have a focus problem with mine and they have Wild Hunt

Re: Worm as a dps pet

Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 3:31 am
by Kurasu
Yes. It's not that it lowers overall DPS. Actually, in single-target, I find that it raises DPS. Especially if you have high crit and can keep the focus flowing with GFTT. However, in the case of using Burrow, the focus drains away very quickly with this. Bite takes 25 focus normally. 50 focus when Wild Hunt is active. That means that they'll be running out of that '30 focus needed for Burrow' very fast even if you have GFTT. I tend to get one Burrow off right off the bat, and then have trouble getting a second one off if Bite isn't off autocast at that point.

Re: Worm as a dps pet

Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 2:57 pm
by Acherontia
I only take my worm out for large packs, and the rest of the time I use a ferocity pet. Means you don't really have to worry much about focus. Even in raids (= Deathwing's tentacle/blood adds) this is fast and easy to do.

Re: Worm as a dps pet

Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2011 3:07 pm
by Qinni
Well I did a heroic with my worm pet and I did pretty good. I respced it out of Wild hunt and it did more dps then normal since it had focus to do stuff. The worm spit helps a lot and I made a pet aoe macro for easy access since pressing the little button on the pet bar takes longer. All in all my tank worm dose the almost the same dps as my cunning pets but I would not suggest using it on a boss fight.

Since I spced out of Wild Hunt I manage to save the day in one of my heroics I had. The tank ended up dying in End Time and quickly turned growl on. I didn't spce into Guard Dog however since I'm glyphed for MS, I can see myself using my worm more often now.

Re: Worm as a dps pet

Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2011 4:20 pm
by Kurasu
Great news! Glad to have some confirmation on the improvement in the 'worm' area. That macro idea is a good one. I may have to consider doing that, since the pet bar can only hold so many spaces, and mine is already missing out on 'Growl' (I have to turn it on and off in the book).

Re: Worm as a dps pet

Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2011 9:47 am
by Rohanz
Kurasu wrote:Great news! Glad to have some confirmation on the improvement in the 'worm' area. That macro idea is a good one. I may have to consider doing that, since the pet bar can only hold so many spaces, and mine is already missing out on 'Growl' (I have to turn it on and off in the book).
If you put a point in to thunderstomp you can maco that for agroing multiple mobs in an emergency as well.