Saturday 8 November 2008

[Which Pet?] Part 1: Which Pet does the most DPS?

Welcome to Which Pet? a series of undetermined length and quality, released at sporadic intervals, concerning the Hunter pets of patch 3.x.

Which pet does the most dps? I wasn't sure so I compared a few different pets and their dps output. Here's some results and notes about my method.
Being too lazy to actually get stuff to 70 (I actually leveled a Boar from 48 to 70 in 2.3, almost exclusively in Nagrand, which took aaaaaages), I tamed a bunch of 65 pets and let them loose on a level 60 training dummy. So these numbers aren't representative of anything you should expect, but are solely to compare different pet families.
My current spec is 51/10/0.
Each pet was completely unbuffed (no Hunter's Mark even) except for the 25% Happiness bonus, and was allowed to hit the dummy for a few minutes (long enough to get over 50k damage).
Each pet used only it's focus dump, plus it's special skill (prioritising the special), and in the case of Cunning pets, Wolverine Bite (although I don't think the dummies dodged much). So none of the specials like Rabid etc were used.
The Cunning pets were spec'd thus: link.
The Ferocity pets were spec'd thus: link.
The Tenacity pets were spec'd thus: link (admittedly less than ideal).

Results (rounded to 2 s.f.):
Cunning:
Silithid (X) (65): 270 (62.5% melee, 27.5% FD, 10% Venom Web Spray DoT)
Dragonhawk (65): 290 (66% melee, 22% FD, 8% Fire Breath DoT, 5% Fire Breath DoT)

Ferocity:
Core Hound (X) (66): 300 (70% melee, 21% FD, 9% Lava Breath)
Devilsaur (X) (65): 350 (70% melee, 22% FD, 8% Monstrous Bite)
Wasp (65): 300 (70% melee, 17% FD, 10% Sting)
Cat (65): 320 (67% melee, 20% FD, 7% Rake DoT, 6% Rake) - NB with Longevity, the DoT gets overwritten with 2 seconds left, reducing DPF (damage per focus)
Beathooven in Catform (70): 750 (35% Melee, 25% Mangle, 23% Rip DoT, 14% Rake DoT) - NB: This pet cannot currently be tamed, presumably NWAI (not working as intended). Besides 750 dps on a level 60 target is quite pathetic, since I can probably do twice that as a Moonkin (but Moonkin aren't beasts).

Tenacity:
Gorilla (69): 340 (58% melee, 25% Thunderstomp, 12% FD) - NB: Thunderstomp was only used on one target

So what pet does the best DPS?
The clear winner is the Devilsaur, the 9% increase from Monstrous Bite is just nuts.
Of note is the fact that the Wasp's Sting has an armour debuff component, which will increase hunter dps by quite a bit as well.
The Gorilla's Thunderstomp will quickly become top of the table with 1 extra target, and will go insane with 5-6. Also Gorillas are a lot more awesome than some shrunken anachronism from a giant outdoor Science Fair experiment.
For those that aren't 51+/x/x who want a high-dps pet, Cats will probably be the best choice, and are the most popular pet in the game.
Other pets can be tested if requested, and may synergise better with the Hunter. These are just the five I had on me, plus a couple running around Eversong Woods (testing done in Silvermoon City).

NB: this was a pretty unscientific test, and the results should be considered as a relative comparison only.

So Big (it doesn't fit on the screen)! (It shrunk loooads when tamed :( )

No comments:

Post a Comment