Pet dps, found something interesting...

[Slickrock]

So yeah, we all know, wolf is top dps (but you don't always see that boost in non-raid situations..). But I went checking to see how close other pets were, and I found something surprising.

While the wolf is on top, the next best dps pet if there is no one to apply sunder/expose for the armour reduction is the Worm, and the worm comes in at just ~20 dps less than the wolf, with the devilsaur about 40 dps less than that. (This is of course in my gear, gemming for Arp, and calculated on the online spreadsheet).

A similar thing, to a lesser extent, happens with the wasp if no one is around to give that buff.

Of course things change if someone is there to provide those buffs, but often in 5-mans, and even in 10-mans, that buff isn't there, or it might be better suited for your pet to provide that buff. And remember, that buff that the worm or wasp brings benefits your whole group, not just you.

[Anansi]

That doesn't make sense to me. Yes, the Worm's Acid Spit is nice if no warriors are there to apply Sunder but despite that a Tenacity pet will not put out anywhere near the DPS of a Ferocity pet.

The Wasp absolutely, as it is a Ferocity pet and the minor armour debuff from Sting is great if there is no Druid applying Faerie Fire. But the Worm, I think you need to recheck your numbers on..

[Chrizesu]

Tenacity is not that far off. There is actually no difference at low levels.

[Slickrock]

That doesn't make sense to me. Yes, the Worm's Acid Spit is nice if no warriors are there to apply Sunder but despite that a Tenacity pet will not put out anywhere near the DPS of a Ferocity pet.

The pet's dps is lower, but your dps is a lot higher because of it. It's the same 20% reduction.

Like I said, it surprised me when I looked at the numbers, but try it with your gear and see how it works out.

http://www.femaledwarf.com/

[Anansi]

I did try it before posting my response with my gear in a BM spec and got a 650 DPS decrease. Gemming for ArPen didn't make a tangible difference either. Now removing Growl from the pet's casting, meaning I'm not using the Worm as a tank, nets a substantial 273 DPS increase, but the lack of a Sunder debuff is still a DPS loss even with Acid Spit in play.

[Slickrock]

I did try it before posting my response with my gear in a BM spec and got a 650 DPS decrease. Gemming for ArPen didn't make a tangible difference either. Now removing Growl from the pet's casting, meaning I'm not using the Worm as a tank, nets a substantial 273 DPS increase, but the lack of a Sunder debuff is still a DPS loss even with Acid Spit in play.

Well, it is possible that there's another factor in play. I had Growl off, and I just dropped in some Arp gems, and tried it again with just my setup.

With no Sunder (or any other buffs other that HM) on, I got:

Spirit Beast: Combined: 5324.80 Hunter: 3962.27 Pet: 1362.53
Devilsaur: Combined: 5384.99 Hunter: 3962.27 Pet: 1422.72
Wolf: Combined: 5439.61 Hunter: 4029.60 Pet: 1410.01
Worm Combined: 5414.15 Hunter: 4227.82 Pet: 1186.33
Wasp: Combined: 5386.52 Hunter: 4032.07 Pet: 1354.45

So, at least in my gear, without the other buffs, the worm is ahead of all but the wolf, and the wasp has a very slight edge over the Trex.

The question is, how many others in your raid group or 5-man would benefit from the worm's Sunder? If you have any other melee or hunters, that having that Sunder is a great boost. (Same is true to a lesser extent with the Wasp and the presence or not of the FF buff).

Once Cata comes, depending on what happens to buffs, it might be nice to keep a Wasp around in your stable, as we might have room then. Of course, they are playing with buffs, so who knows what will happen.

[Slickrock]

Ok, one last numbers mention...

To see what would happen, I turned on the maximized set of buffs/debuffs in the spreadsheet, and.. Trex is on top, with raptor 16dps less, and wolf about 34dps less than the Trex. I would assume at that point the higher damage physical attack of the Trex is getting more benefit from all the buffs than what the wolf provides you (since it doesn't scale). God only knows where that crossover point is, figuring that out would be a mess.

Moral of the story? Maybe I won't worry about having a wolf or not anymore.

[Chrizesu]

BTW guys, female dwarf is horrible at calculating pet damage.

[Anansi]

BTW guys, female dwarf is horrible at calculating pet damage.

Neither agreeing nor disagreeing, but upon what do you base this claim?

[Slickrock]

BTW guys, female dwarf is horrible at calculating pet damage.

Neither agreeing nor disagreeing, but upon what do you base this claim?

I would like to know too, and if the standard spreadsheet (which I can't use on my Mac) has the same problem?

[Chrizesu]

I found out while calculating out pet dps. I'm not sure if it's the over time effects not being calculated correctly or a problem with ability prioritizing.

[Slickrock]

I found out while calculating out pet dps. I'm not sure if it's the over time effects not being calculated correctly or a problem with ability prioritizing.

Then that sounds like a problem the main spreadsheet would have, or any spreadsheet for that matter.

Regardless, it's the best comparison tool we have, outside of very careful personal testing.

[Dweezill]

Here's an idea! Throw away your spreadsheets, stand in front of a test dummy and fire away tillyour mana runs out. Do this repeatedly but with a different pet each time.; See what pet does the best dps for you. I have done this several times myself, and i always come up with the wasp as my top dps pet (me and pet combined). Yeah, spreadsheets are nice, but I personally think they are not as reliable as my own personal trial and error. Look at all the different answers you get on this forum. Everybody's spreadsheet tells them something different. wanna get your own best personal dps? Trial and error on a test dummy will get it for you. That's what the dummies are there for.

[Ryno]

Here's an idea! Throw away your spreadsheets, stand in front of a test dummy and fire away tillyour mana runs out.

So many people will argue that this doesn't work unless you get gobs and gobs of trials in it. Like, 6 hours worth or something... or at least, I assume people would argue that. Spreadsheets keep all the data nice and even, without fluctuations me thinks.

[Slickrock]

Here's an idea! Throw away your spreadsheets, stand in front of a test dummy and fire away tillyour mana runs out.

So many people will argue that this doesn't work unless you get gobs and gobs of trials in it. Like, 6 hours worth or something... or at least, I assume people would argue that. Spreadsheets keep all the data nice and even, without fluctuations me thinks.

They'll also say that the test dummies don't show the proper balance of buffs/debuffs (things like sunder especially).

[deadman]

If you are in a 25 man raid w/ 10x physical damage dealers AND have no druid applying FF, then a wasp will increase overall raid dps a whole heck of a lot more than a wolf (provided everyone is at least 5% below ArPen cap ^^;;

I've been on an extended break due to RL issues, but in my last ICC25 that I ran (about 2 months ago,) we didn't have a druid and I convinced our raid leader to let me try out my wasp... IIRC, overall raid dps went up about 3k in each boss fight against the first 4 bosses compared to past runs, (we tend to run a bit heavy on melee though, so your results may vary.) My guild was rather surprised when they compared the numbers ^^ I was also declared the guild's default "buff bitch" due to my willingness to sacrifice personal dps for group dps increases wherever it was possible to do so. (IHM, TSA, Glyph:HM, toolbox pets available, and I fish up my own feasts to keep the raid well-fed XD)

I never made it to LK before I had to drop out of the game, but from what I have read on forums, it seems that in BiS gear, the dps loss from taking ferocity pet other than a wolf is actually pretty small (like 50dps or less,) and that is before taking into account raid dps buffs like Sting/Acid Spit. At some point, the benefit you get from the static AP buff from FH will decrease, but I have yet to run into any test results or math that explains where that magical AP number is, but as your AP goes up, the benefit you gain from FH goes down (as a percentage of you+pet dps.)

Moral of the story: Raid dps > personal dps. If your group does more overall dps vs bosses if you sacrifice your own epeen numbers, then go for it as long as the leader is capable of understanding this concept ^^;;

edit: Forgot to mention, I find a good way to test pet dps is to run a few heroics with 4 buddies (not random pugs.) Players who know you and know what you are doing are more likely to be willing to assist you by keeping buffs standardized throughout the test run and not complain about you using "non-optimal" pets.

[Anansi]

Here's an idea! Throw away your spreadsheets, stand in front of a test dummy and fire away tillyour mana runs out.

So many people will argue that this doesn't work unless you get gobs and gobs of trials in it. Like, 6 hours worth or something... or at least, I assume people would argue that. Spreadsheets keep all the data nice and even, without fluctuations me thinks.

They'll also say that the test dummies don't show the proper balance of buffs/debuffs (things like sunder especially).

This is correct. The training dummy is useful for testing your rotations on, procs, specs and so forth, and spreadsheets are excellent for modeling raid DPS, gear choices, effects of buffs and so forth along with the things a dummy is used for for. Both are useful and ideally are used together. Just using a spreadsheet is not good, but it is efficient time-wise, but just using a dummy is also not good as it will not give you the info you really need.

Because Hunters scale up so well with buffs, it's impossible to see the effect of a raid on your performance unless you convince your entire raid to hang out with you at the dummy for all your testing. The dummy also does not facilitate the damage bonus of Improved Tracking nor will your Kill Shot damage ever play a role in modeling your DPS.

Now, spreadsheets assume that you are executing the fight flawlessly, never miss firing a shot and so forth - basically models on a Patchwerk-type fight. The real raid is clearly very different, and so stats like Haste tend to be over-valued so spreadsheet users need to be aware and use proper judgment (of course, the dummy is also a static fight).

What it comes down to is that the dummy is no substitute for a spreadsheet, but dummy tests can help you model spreadsheet information. Ideally, you will do both. But people looking to optimise their Hunter will get more from a spreadsheet than dummy testing.

With regards to pet DPS, most Ferocity pets are essentially going to model the same on dummies as the real fluctuations and impact on your overall DPS are the result of the pet's special ability. Furious Howl for example improves the Hunter's DPS, the Wasp's Sting provides a de-buff that helps the physical DPS and so forth. Some pet abilities like Monstrous Bite or Rake boost the pet's own DPS so those, on a dummy, will likely score higher than a Wolf or Wasp. So again this is where the cohesive modeling of a spreadsheet is beneficial.

As for being a "buff bitch", welcome to Cataclysm. Pets will provide a number of buffs or debuffs rather than something that directly helps personal DPS, so that's what we'll all be doing in Cataclysm.

At some point, the benefit you get from the static AP buff from FH will decrease, but I have yet to run into any test results or math that explains where that magical AP number is, but as your AP goes up, the benefit you gain from FH goes down (as a percentage of you+pet dps.)

Well, if you're using FH as a static buff then yes, it's not that great. The strength of FH is when you use it to coincide with other procs to gain a multiplicative effect. For example you use FH when Greatness or Paragon procs (this is the ideal combo as both FH and the trinkets share the same CD), or when you get Agility of the Vrykul up (this is more erratic unfortunately). If you just leave FH on autocast it will be a very small DPS gain, as AP isn't that great, but it's still the best personal DPS buff from a pet, however the gains are much more when you use FH manually to fit with procs, then it's a substantially larger DPS gain.

[kairii]

with pet dps again ive always ... well when i could .. make sure i had a pet that was better for the raid then myself (this was back when i was MM) cas well i didnt really need a pet back then we always had a warr and a pala so the wolf 'buff' wasnt gonna effect me much

like what has been said always if you want to go with a pet that helps your raid

then again theres just going with a pet you like
i use to go with a raptor cas for me it did more dps then a wolf but that might of just of been me and my raids
target dummy and let your pet loose for 5 mins max
then again im not a AMG I GOTTA BE TOP DPS! maybe back in the day when i was and still am worse geared then most and out dps them -.- even as BM i have 5 spirit beasts they all do the exact same dps but some people tell me my skoll does more then my loque's and gondira and take more damage ....