WoW Petopia Community

Or, somewhat more accurately, Burrow vs Froststorm Breath

This is something I have been considering, myself. Blizzard tries their best to keep a balance between pets, so one doesn't WAY outstrip the others... or at least that's the idea. There's obviously some that do, but that's mostly for another place. What I want to discuss here is the relative merits, and disadvantages, between Worms and Chimeras. I'm curious if there's definitely one that's way better, and one that's way worse.

PROS FOR WORM: The burrow is centralized and works in an AOE around where the worm is. This means that it's easy to set into the middle of a bunch of enemies and have it 'burrow' its way down.

CONS: The worm's Burrow doesn't move. If the enemies are dragged away, perhaps by a tank who sees the rumbles and thinks it's an enemy attack (it's happened; trust me), then it can't follow until the channel is finished. Plus, worm Burrow drops aggro completely. You can't use it solo, unless you're willing to stand in the AOE area your own self and take the hits.


PROS FOR CHIMERA: It is less expensive than the worm ability (by 10 base), and does the exact same damage, other than ticking once every two seconds rather than every second. This means the damage is more per 'tick'. The chimera can actually move while using this, allowing you to position it properly and blast away. It is not a channel, meaning that if the Chimera is struck, it shouldn't interrupt it. I may be wrong about the 'interrupt' part, but if it's not a 'normal' channel, it seems to me that it should work that way. And finally, where the worm's attack is considered physical damage, this is 'Froststorm' damage. Thus, defense can't lower the damage.

CONS: This is not a circle, but a cone, like dragon-fire. This means that the enemies you're attacking have to be in front of the chimera, and the chimera has to be at least somewhat facing them. Again: think of it as dragon fire for 'aiming' it. If not being manually controlled, the chimera may move a lot more than you like. As mobs are moved around, the chimera will move, thus making the cone move around and not keep enemies within it. This is especially problematic in larger groups, where they may be 'shifting' about. Which, of course, is when you want to use AOE the most.

Of course, there is the general Pro/Con of Worm vs Chimera:

WORM: Its ability, +4% physical damage, is one of the most under-supported abilities in 5-mans, I find. 60% of the time, it comes in *very* handy.

CHIMERA: While the slow is of extremely limited use in PvE, it's *AMAZINGLY* useful in PvP. Plus, in the PvE arena, it's Cunning, where the worm is Tenacity. Thus, it will overall tend to do more physical damage, thanks to having a larger number of physical talents.

Anyone else care to add to this discussion? This is something that I, at least, feel should be shuffled about a bit. We only have two AOE pets, and it might be good to get a feel for if one is *too* much better than the other!

Hmm, an interesting discussion!

I have not had too much experience with it. I grabbed a random Chimera for the new instances since a lot of them have tons of groups and decided to try it out. I had some decent AOE and was quite pleased!

However, I haven't even tried a worm yet and I might do that. I'd have to give both a decent run to see which I preferred personally.

I forget, can chimera breath work off a friendly target still? Basically mind sear for pets (and it would explain that old PTR bug...). <3 mind searing the tank and having my AoE move with him.

Hmm, I'm pretty sure they can't do that. I think you have to have something to attack.

However, if you do "assist" and multi-shot a time or two, the pet automatically moves to the next hostile target once the first is dead. At least, most of the time they do!

I prefer my worm over the chimera. I love chimeras but Froststorm breath ended up being almost useless compared to my worms Burrow. My DPS was better off with the worm.

Kalliope wrote:I forget, can chimera breath work off a friendly target still? Basically mind sear for pets (and it would explain that old PTR bug...). <3 mind searing the tank and having my AoE move with him.

Actually, I'm pretty sure this is the case. In fact, it seems to me that, unless it's been changed, Chimrea Froststorm was like mage's Dragon Breath (and the Warlock one whose name I can't recall). I.E. you don't need a target. You can just 'spout off' in that direction and run around firing it. So you can just place your pet with 'move pet' and use the cone, potentially.

... that could actually be an interesting idea to keep the chimera from moving. I may have to try and see if that works.

Also, Wassa: I forgot that advantage of Froststorm. No CD. That could be a *huge* thing in an AOE-heavy battle, when you want to spam your AOEs.

I tested out a worm last night in a friend's raid, during a Dragon Soul fight (the one with the oozes. I'm brain-farting on the name of the guy) and did decently. I'm having trouble keeping Burrow on cool down though.

Any suggestions to help with that? Should I just shut off anything but that and Bite maybe?

"Chimaera / Worm


Beast Mastery hunters can bring exotic pets, and in AoE situations this means we can increase our damage by bringing a Worm or a Chimaera.

[top]Burrow Attack


The Worm can channel an AoE attack called Burrow Attack. When this is used the pet burrows underground for 8 seconds dealing damage every second. Burrow attack does 11.52% of our RAP + 205 damage per second over 8 seconds, so at 10k RAP burrow attack does 1357 dps to each enemy in the attacks radius. Burrow Attack is on a 30 second cooldown.

[top]Froststorm Breath


The Chimaera also gets a channled AoE attack, Froststorm Breath. FsB does less damage as a base since it does 11.52% of our RAP + 205 every 2 seconds over 8 seconds, so at 10k RAP FsB does 678.5 dps (half of Burrow Attack). Froststorm Breath, unlike Burrow Attack, does not have a cooldown, so if the AoE situation lasts more than 16 seconds, Froststorm Breath will do higher dps while AoE'ing."

The previous passage from Nooska's Beast Mastery thread over on Elitist Jerks talks about how you should use a Worm if the AoE situation lasts 16 seconds or less and the Chimera if the AoE situation lasts longer than 16 seconds. I don't know if this info has been updated to include the 4.3 buffs but since the title says so, I'll assume Nooska has updated them.

Hmmm, when I go again, I'll try a Chimera. It was a boss fight with lots of small adds so it lasted 4-6 minutes (don't remember off the top of my head).

The only thing I know about Worms is: I miss them holding aggro when they burrowed. Farming Frostweave with one was so great with the converted heroes. Pull a bunch then dive under ground and down aoe them down.

Tankperson wrote:The only thing I know about Worms is: I miss them holding aggro when they burrowed. Farming Frostweave with one was so great with the converted heroes. Pull a bunch then dive under ground and down aoe them down.

Actually, I'm glad, glad, *GLAD* worms don't hold aggro with burrow. We don't need another Gorilladin situation on our hands. If worms held aggro with burrow, they would be the 'only go-to tank pet', and all the others would fall by the wayside.

That's IMO, though.

Tankperson wrote:The only thing I know about Worms is: I miss them holding aggro when they burrowed. Farming Frostweave with one was so great with the converted heroes. Pull a bunch then dive under ground and down aoe them down.

Yeah this makes me sad too.

Raun wrote:I tested out a worm last night in a friend's raid, during a Dragon Soul fight (the one with the oozes. I'm brain-farting on the name of the guy) and did decently. I'm having trouble keeping Burrow on cool down though. Any suggestions to help with that? Should I just shut off anything but that and Bite maybe?

Qinni wrote: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.

I have had my Chimaera forever, and I love him to death, but in PvP I tend to use my Spirit Beast more than anything. I have been using a worm for AoE in PvE, and I figured I'd give my Chimaera a try.

I was sorely disappointed. The cone seems to have an extremely short, or perhaps buggy, range, and it seems like it covers only a tiny angle. It was hitting 50% of the time, at best, and the majority of my time was spent trying to reposition it.

For multiple trash packs, the worm is definitely the way to go in my eyes--the ability has a big range, the pet won't get aggro, and it's off cooldown by the next pull anyway.

Maybe if you can get used to the Chimaera's AoE, and are on long-lasting raid trash, the Chimaera would be more useful?

Acherontia wrote:I have had my Chimaera forever, and I love him to death, but in PvP I tend to use my Spirit Beast more than anything. I have been using a worm for AoE in PvE, and I figured I'd give my Chimaera a try.

I was sorely disappointed. The cone seems to have an extremely short, or perhaps buggy, range, and it seems like it covers only a tiny angle. It was hitting 50% of the time, at best, and the majority of my time was spent trying to reposition it.

For multiple trash packs, the worm is definitely the way to go in my eyes--the ability has a big range, the pet won't get aggro, and it's off cooldown by the next pull anyway.

Maybe if you can get used to the Chimaera's AoE, and are on long-lasting raid trash, the Chimaera would be more useful?

That's pretty much how I feel on it too. It sucks cause I love the chimearas so very much but the worms AoE has proven better for me(unless the tank is being dumb and moving mobs away from his aoe).

Hmmm, with what others are saying, I think I'm gonna have to go hunting and find a nice worm pet that suits Raun for his raids.

Raun wrote:Hmmm, with what others are saying, I think I'm gonna have to go hunting and find a nice worm pet that suits Raun for his raids.

My personally favorite is Grubthor from Silithis. :3

Jessibelle wrote:

Raun wrote:Hmmm, with what others are saying, I think I'm gonna have to go hunting and find a nice worm pet that suits Raun for his raids.

My personally favorite is Grubthor from Silithis. :3

That's the worm I have at the moment. His name is Grub.

Grubbeh! Mine is named Grimm. X3 Named him after Ben Grimm aka The Thing.