Is My Pet P.O.V. Incorrect?Follow

Maybe this is a bad question to ask, or maybe it isn't. I'm not really sure, but I feel compelled to ask it. Before I do though, I must make a little note.

For a long while I wanted to have, by endgame the 3 top DPS pets available. One cat, one raptor, and one ravager. I wanted to teach them the highest available DPS skills, Bite and Claw. And last but not least, I really liked the advantage of dash, so I wanted the highest of that also.

I have all 3 of those pets now. I have learned Bite 9, Claw 9 and Dash 3. As a BM spec my pets are pretty robust with high armor and what I would think to be fairly decent HP. However....

The last few nights I have tried to do some group quests that had turned green in my log which called for fighting a mid 60s elite mob. In all those instances, I found my pet got destroyed. Handily, not even like it was a close fight, my pets would take altogether too much damage.

So my question is this: Is wanting the 3 top DPS pets a skewed point of view? If I had a boar, or even a crab (listed as having +4% and +13% Armor Rating on Petopia, respectively), would I have been more successful in these attempts to fight those elites that were lower than my level? Or would their lack of DPS have hindered me in another area?

I had a boar for a good 10-12 levels but eventually traded it in, as I was unable to discern any real noticeable difference in DPS or survivability. Should I have paid closer attention? Am I huntard for wanting 3 high DPS, low armor pets?

Edited, Nov 13th 2007 2:38am by Tavarde

I tend to look at different kinds of pets the way I look at Warriors with different specs. If you need something resilient between you and certain death, you want a pet ideally suited to tanking. Like a Prot Warrior, however, the tradeoff comes in the dps department.

On the other hand, if you want something that's going to contribute damage to the mix moreso than anything else, a dps pet will fill the bill but will do so at the expense of tanking ability...similar to an Arms/Fury Warrior.

From level 12 to level 70 I used a Boar. Piggles saw me through a great many tough fights. As a BM spec Hunter, I couldn't have asked for a better pet. Good HP, very respectable armor, and the ability to spike threat at the start of a fight like no other (Charge stun (threat) + AP boost from Charge (threat) + Growl = 3000+ threat at the start of a fight, assuming no resists. This is as reported by Omen, which also reports my Ravager pet at best generating 900 threat at the start of a fight.)

As my game experience shifted from solo to group play at 70, a dps pet started to make a lot more sense to me which is I why I tamed and leveled a Ravager. I don't recall the exact numbers, but easily +15% tooltip dps over my Boar. I still have Piggles in the stables waiting for WotLK to come out (and I also bring him out when I'm doing some solo grinding and want that extra threat generation).

The real test, however, came when I decided to go back and work on the quest series from Altruis the Sufferer in Nagrand involving the demon camps there. Lots of elite mobs in the 67-68 range involved in those quests. My poor Ravager just couldn't keep up with the pounding he was taking, and he wasn't generating enough threat for me to keep a constant Mend Pet on him and dps without pulling aggro. After one attempt where Buggles nearly died with the mob at over 80% HP, I adjusted my strategy altogether. Instead of the standard pet tank pew pew, I kept my pet beside me and just chain trapped the mobs. Trap, wait, Aimed Shot -> Concussive Shot -> Auto/Steady/Arcane -> Trap. Repeat until dead.

It worked very well, and it really highlights the different strategies employed by SV Hunters over BM, but it also highlights the dramatic difference in pet roles. My dps pet is good for soloing same level non-elites. Same level (or even near same level) elites render him nearly useless.

My Ravager is made of paper. Very sharp paper. My Boar is made of bacon. Mmmm...bacon.

Wait what?

Edited, Nov 13th 2007 11:05am by AureliusSir

You must know that some group quests in OL are just that - group quests.
There is no chance that you can solo them so easily.

Durn for example. We 4 manned him but with a really well coordinated guild group.
I saw a 10 man raid on him made of few 70ies and 65+ that failed miserably.
Or Ring of Blood maybe? Doing it in 5 man group without single wipe seems like quite a goal sometimes.

Just check with what kind of NPCs hp and dps are you dealing with next time.

Thank you all for the replies and the non-flames, I do appreciate it.

I was also wondering if anyone would mind posting some comparative pet stats for me. Last night bed I took down the following statistics for my pets.

Ravager
STA 449
DPS 150.8
Armor 9737
HP 5375

Raptor
STA 444
DPS 150.8
Armor 9767
HP 5438

Cat
STA 454
DPS 152.9
Armor 9767
HP 5776

If nobody minds I am most curious to see these stats on the more defensive, tank-oriented pets. If not, I'll just axe the raptor or ravager and go tame one of those lv 60 boars in EPL and level him up.

Can't ever lose the cat. It's the white lion from that horde only quest line in Winterspring.

Sian Rotam. I had to solicit horde help on their trade channel to get him. I am surprised it worked.

Remember that in all reality the stats mean next to nothing. Remember that a pet with more DPS means more TPS, and thus will allow you to do more DPS. That means you'll burn the target faster, even though your pet is being burned faster. What really matters is the skills they have. That's why my bat, which is a "DPS" pet (+7%) is a really good tank, and why scorpids used to be top DPS even though they're like -7%.

Thats what I meant by skills. But I was talking about was just the stats...i.e. how cats are +10% DPS and boars are -10%. In all reality THAT doesn't matter much.

I love my spider.