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| Reviewed 8/26/10 Patch 3.3.5 |
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Okay, let’s take a look at the best ferocity pet talent build for raiding, for the BM, MM, and survival hunter. This talent build assumes that you’re going for the best dps possible in a group or raid situation with a ferocity pet (because you’re a hunter, after all). Though to be honest, because ferocity pets deal so much dps and hold aggro so much better (as we’ve shown) I use this talent build on my ferocity pet for soloing as well.
We’ll cover both BM and MM / SV pet builds. We’ll start with BM, since the Beast Mastery hunter is generally more concerned with their pets in the first place. They just care more.
BM Best Ferocity Pet Talent Build
The goal in the ferocity tree is dps over everything. As a hunter in a raid (or group) your job is to output as much dps as possible, without ever pulling aggro.
BM hunter pet is so vital to their dps, we also got Heart of the Phoenix to make sure the pet is up. It just hurts a BM hunter too much to have their pet die. If you are comfortable with your pet’s survivability, you can skip this talent in the ferocity tree and take your second rank of Shark Attack instead.
A couple of other talent choices here:
Cobra Reflexes:
I bring this up only because I know that some hunters still mistakenly avoid this vital talent. The description tells us that it increases pet attack speed, but reduces pet damage, so on the surface it may look like a dps wash. This is not the case. Cobra Reflexes significantly increases your pet’s overall dps. Testing has shown the overall dps increase to be about 10%
Shark Attack
This is the big new ferocity pet talent that came in patch 3.1. It’s a straight up damage boost, and BM hunters get the full benefit of it, while other hunter specs can’t afford both ranks.
And as a final note, the Dash isn’t really essential — but I like to get my pet into the action faster. I want him there when I start shooting to get my Ferocious Inspiration! Basically your alternatives on the top row of the tree are stam or armor – and Dash can actually be a wee marginal dps upgrade. If you don’t want dash your next best bet is probably pet stam.
What About Great Resistances?
Horrible, horrible talent. Giving our pet resistance talents used to be a big deal, because raid instances have a lot of aoe spell damage. The only chance our pet had of surviving was to resist a lot of that. Nowadays our pet automatically ignores 90% of all aoe damage anyway. And 3 talent points for 15% mitigation from spells? That, my friends, is total junk.
Shark Attack vs. Wild Hunt
Normally your pet gains 22% of your attack power. Each rank of Wild Hunt increases that multiplicatively by 15% — or in other words, with one rank your pet gains a total of 25.3% of your AP, and with two ranks your pet gains 28.6% of your AP. It does not increase it to 37%/52% (if it did, that would be badass). Thus at low levels the raw 3% damage gain from Shark Attack is better, and at higher gear levels we prefer Wild Hunt. With the gear currently easily available in the game, most hunters will want Wild Hunt.
MM / Survival Best Ferocity Pet Talent Build
And now we move on to the MM / Survival ferocity pet build. Marksman and SV hunters do not get all of the super spiffy end of tree talents, alas. However they are comforted by doing far more overall dps. Here is the best ferocity raid pet talent build for MM or SV hunters:
As you can see, it’s very similar to the BM tree, and we’re still able to get most of the dps-oriented buffs. We didn’t take Heart of the Phoenix, but then a MM or SV hunter’s pet is only about 10% of their dps, so if the pet dies, oh well. We had a choice between Shark Attack and Wild Hunt, and the raw 3% dps boost of shark attack is better at lower gear levels, but with high gear levels the Wild Hunt becomes better.
So there we have it! The best Ferocity hunter pet talent builds! We hope you give them a try and measure your pet dps increase 
(25 votes, average: 4.68 out of 5)
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Your pet will not auto cower, not sure if you can manually cast cower, if you can’t, then improved cower is useless
Admin
Auto-cower currently will only auto-cast when the pet has aggro. Just one of the many, many pet bugs going on in wrath right now. It will work if you manually hit it — but that’s pretty pointless.
My hope is that the coming patch will fix many of the pet bugs, cower included. If it doesn’t then I’ll change my specs!
Why would you take Dash over Charge? Charge increases your pet’s DPS significantly over Dash from what i’ve found – and it get’s your pet into the fight same as Dash lol – plus – the CD is lower. ALSO – the minimum range of 8 yards means that Fido won’t be wasting focus to get to nearby targets.
Charge is not an option. I’m taking dash because I have to have three tier 1 talents to open up tier 2.
I chose charge instead of lick your wounds. It takes a bit more concentration on my end to make sure his health is ok but you should be doing that anyway and with good healers in the raid they’ll keep your pet healed as well. Charge not only gets your pet into the mix faster, but is also great for soloing.
In the mm tree i took Call of the Wild and sacrificed 1 point in spiked collar, i have it macroed to me rapid fire, is the 3% pet damage or the pop from cotw better?
to pass call of the wild for phoenix thingie is stupid mate!! . so what if pet dies? (though maybe except sarth and dance boss in nax u can keep him alive with nps) even in mm spec you have pts in imp revive pet?
To give up 10% AP increase for you, your pet, and whole party is really really bad.
that is amazing with bloodlust , especially when it stacks with other call of the wild abilities!
Beside that really really really nice work here – its very nice to have all this math gathered in the same page:)
Admin
I certainly would never fault a hunter for taking Call of the Wild over Phoenix (though keep in mind that as of patch 3.0.8 it will only affect the hunter and pet). CotW will increase your dps, while Phoenix will not.
I’m a bit overly paranoid about pet deaths since it’s such a huge chunk of any hunter’s dps, and an instant res at full health seems worth it to me. I also don’t take Imp Revive Pet, since I think the points are better spent in Endurance Training (though again, wouldn’t fault anyone for going either way on that one!). But again, I have Phoenix so if my pet does die, I have a insta-solution.
I just changed my cat to this spec (although with CotW instead of Phoenix). Over a 7 minute 30secs fight with the Heroic training dummy my pet increased by just over 50dps, So in this fight it gained almost 12k damage. As an MM hunter I’m happy with this.
Thanks
A quick unrelated question: if I switch to BM, train an exotic pet (spirit beast), can I then switch back to MM and continue to use that pet?
Clinh, I’ve heard that the Spirit Beast’s dps isn’t that amazing, I’d go or either a regular old cat or possibly a devilsaur, but that’s just my personal opinion. To answer your question, yes, you can still use that pet, but its talents will be reset when you respec.
Admin
Clinh: no you cannot.
If you are BM with an exotic pet and then switch out of BM, Your pet will remain in your stable, but you won’t be able to bring it out unless you change back to BM.
Quick question,
Does call of wild stack with the wolfs ( what used to be not sure if still is ) Raid wide buff? esp since CoTw is no longer raid wide
Hi. Thanks so much for all your hard work on this site!
My question is HOW BAD will i suffer for swapping 1 point in spike collar for Call of the Wild?
THanks!
Dash and Charge hello there is life outside of raiding its good for those pesty allies who bother you while farming and cower is useless your pet should never pull aggro off a tank like EVER. Cower is a Huge waste of points. Everything else is good and what ive done.
Tauren Hunter
Azgalor
Admin
Tauranimo: sure there’s life outside of raiding. We aren’t focusing on PVP for this guide — and if you’re just farming or leveling, who cares? Spend your points randomly and it won’t matter — farming and leveling doesn’t require pinpoint optimization. Raiding/grouping does.
You pet should not need to worry about aggro (though there are specific raid bosses where they could pull aggro). Improved Cower isn’t about threat, it’s about reducing all damage that the pet takes from aoe and dots and other nastiness in raids. It’s about survivability.
How come you dont put armor or stamina up?
Arcisa: Because this is about max dps, not soloing
When going solo, then sure, it’s nice to have armor and stamina talents on pet, but when it comes to instances it’s not really needed.
Respecced my old rake to be my raid pet using these advices and it works awesome, thanks for a well written post
guess ill be trying this build. this looks like my raptors build, but is different than my wolf (use hunt) but i sometimes dont send my wolf in on fights like saph and heigen (dead wolf cant furious howl). ill try it out
ha fail. wrote my name as quit. hilarious
Frost
I´m raiding as hunter bm and i really preffer
http://www.wowhead.com/?petcalc#cud00scz0hoRb
The most of bosses dont kill the pets.
Thank you for the guide but may I ask? Why is shark attack clearly better than wild hunt? My first thought was that wild hunt skales with master of tactics and is better.
Admin
I inserted an extra explanation about Wild Hunt, showing exactly how it scales the AP bonus (whic is very little). For me – for example – each wild hunt rank gives my pet about a 2.4% damage increase. In raids, your pets damage scales much faster than your ap does.
For BM — their pets do WAY more damage and they have way less AP, making Shark Attack even more of a better choice.
Only have 19 points to spend on pet points now for ferocity
Member
hey frost whats your survival rotation… i need to learn how to do a lot of dps before i hit 80 im lvl 76 now and i lvl really fast so im going by this guide to do dps and get geared and yeah but whats your rotation
The Haterade
Excellent question, craze224! Hopefully, Frost will one day make a Survival Shot Rotation guide and post it in the GUIDE SECTION that you can get to by clicking on the word GUIDE in the CATEGORY LIST!
Until that day comes, we can only wonder at the light lipped mystery that is Shot Rotation: Survival.
Just out of curiousity, why is Lick Your Wounds not considered?
uhh awfull choise of pet talents, at least for your “MM/survival” suggestion, remember that the pet gains ap on his stamina o.-
Admin
Pet gains AP from your AP, Soraph. Not from it’s own stamina.
Lick Your Wounds isn’t taken because it’s mostly unneeded, and I’d rather have a dps talent before that.
People keep wanting to get Lick Your Wounds and Heart of the Phoenix to keep their pet alive. With the 3 points in avoidance your pet should never really be dying anyway unless something is focused on it. I just laugh when I see other hunter’s pets lying at the feet of a boss because they didn’t bother to spec into avoidance and rabid.
I have basically the same spec as the surv/mm one you have posted but I have wild hunt. I thought Wild Hunt would scale better as I get better gear than just a flat 3% dmg increase. I might have to try to make sure. (Also if you have BM as a dual-spec you can get free pet respecs by switching from mm/surv to BM and then back again, and it also resets cool down on the call stabled pet ability.)
What about a Cunning pet, like a ravager. Roar of recovery is pretty damn sweet. I’ve noticed that the dps difference between a Cat and Ravager isn’t all that much since the Ravager kind-of “catches up” dps wish once the boss hits 35% and below, due to Feeding Frenzy. (16% addition damage to attacks when boss is below 35%)
Thoughts?
Admin
Cunning pets do not add as much dps as the top ferocity pets.
Also keep in mind that for MM or SV, the wolf is the best dps pet (because of how it boosts your own dps with furious howl).
I just think that due to Roar of Recovery, and not having to swap to AotV for x-seconds, adds to the damage I put out on a boss. I use a ravager for every fight, in Ulduar, even Yogg, and only on Yogg do I have to switch to AotV to re-gen. (Damn all of those tentacles) So I figure not having to do 50% less damage for x-seconds is worth the trade off for my pet doing less damage in a fight.
Admin
It all depends on the value of X.
Overall, you’re better off having the boosted damage of a ferocity pet, plus the wolf ap bonus to all your shots with a 50% uptime and going into viper once during the fight. Your net dps is actually higher.
However, if you have extreme mana problems in raids due to lack of proper buffs, maybe it is worthwhile for you.
Hi there..
My Wolf “Woofums” (actually the Vargul Blighthound) only has 16 points to spend at level 80.. Is there a reason your tree shows 20? Thanks for the help and you super cool site!
Admin
Scroll down a bit — you are looking at the BM hunter pet build. The MM/SV one is below that.
hey not sure if this has been answered but i was wondering does a wolf need to get call of the wild…it doesnt stack with furious howl does it?
I do 4.9k dps on MM right now … if you want to take a look at my spec .. search Astralhero on armory (US region) … thats the best dps spec
Frostheim, Scattered Shots clearly contradicts your recommendation as to where to put the last point in the pet’s ferocity talent tree for mm/sv hunters, eg shark attach vs wild hunt.
Will you please furtehr elaborate why shark attack is better than wild hunt? Scatered Shots recomend wild hunt instead.
Their article is here. http://www.wow.com/2009/07/09/scattered-shots-raiding-spec-for-hunter-pets/#continued
thanks
Aldax
Contributor
Aldax, we can ignore the stamina increase for our pets, because it doesn’t translate to dps. So the question is which is more: 3% pet damage increase, or an increase of 2.2% more attack power transfer to our pet.
Without running a formal analysis, I have roughly 4K AP (unbuffed) in my raid gear. So with 1 point in Wild Hunt, we’re talking about 88 more AP for my pet. I can pretend to know exact values for pet dps, but my gut tells me that 88 AP is nowhere near as much as a 3% increase.
Wild Hunt is great for soloing, tanking, etc. where stamina is more useful. Or in a BM build where we have more points. But I think because of the stam increase, it was never intended to match the raw dmg. output of Shark Attack.
Contributor
Also, by “my gut tells me” I mean that a quick perusal of my pet’s stats (his dps comes from mainly AP and strength), leads me to realize just how much of a “drop in the bucket” 88 AP is. If you have numbers to contradict this, I’m more than happy to consider them. Science and math are far better than eyeball tests. But I didn’t want it to seem like it was a totally arbitrary guess.
Admin
Aldax: the thing you have to remember is when Wild Hunt says that it increases your pet contribution from AP by 10%, that’s *multiplicative* not additive. Normally your pet gets 22% of your AP. If Wild Hunt increased it to 32%, that would be awesomesauce. But it actually increases it to 24.2% (22 * 10% = 2.2). Perhaps in the article you reference the author didn’t realize this, and didn’t do testing to verify how the math works and just assumed it was additive.
As Arth very correctly point out, getting around 100 AP to your pet is far less than increasing your pets total damage by 3%.
In fact, this is the reason they’re talking about buffing Wild Hunt – it just isn’t that good for dps.
Member
can anyone help me with my cunning pet tree , i went and got olm the wise cuz i heard he is best for raids and have no idea why. i still love ol’ smokey my cat, or ash my other cat, lol. Still tryin to bug blizzard to make the undead bird from the falconers in ymirheim tamable just cuz he looks sick! was wondering if anyone could help me get set up for raids. i first visited this site and followed the survival directions and now i am doing excellent. but not sure how or what i should do about pets to accompany this spec.
Talking about pets and dps: I’m struggling to find a good balance between getting my dps up and controlling my pet at the same time. If I want my dps as high as possible, I should put my pet on defend, making him attack whatever I attack without specifically having to order it to do so. However, occasionally this might have the effect that it goes for a ranged mob that attacks me, in that way unwantingly pulling another group of mobs. Which is something that calls for ‘huntard’-remarks, so I dont want that to happen (and it hasnt happened since Gnomeregan, thank god..) But having to use a macro to get my pet to attack a new target costs a lot of time, especially because my pet needs to get to the target again aswell. He runs back after each kill, after all.
Any ideas on how to optimalize this, without risking to pull the whole instance? I’m mainly talking about HC’s here, havent tried raids yet, but any tips for either would be great!
Contributor
Brew, Cunning pets aren’t the best dps pets. The main guides page here has everything you need to get yourself set up to raid.
Scyff, I run almost exclusively in defensive. It’s fine 99% of the time. The other 1% is just about playing heads-up baseball, and knowing when to keep him rooted in place or near you. There’s a jump most groups make in Nexus, for instance, where I have to tell my pet to stay, then I call him back later so he doesn’t run around the long way and pull mobs. Otherwise, he should go after whatever you attack first, which should be the tank’s main target, so there shouldn’t be too many problems.
well, the jump-off moments in Nexus or Gundrak are not a problem, I’m very keen on those. What I want to prevent is things like pets pulling the first boss in AN while we’re still killing the last group of mobs, like I have seen several times now. Or going for that archer in Nexus that is just a bit to close to the next group…
My sollution sofar is like yours: defensive most of the time and passive when I think it míght get to be a problem. I still think, being on the safe side, that this costs me dps, but if thats the only way I’ll except that.
Is it any different in Raids? Or is that mostly the same?
why not 1 point in “Wild Hunt” for marksman hunters?
-more stamina keeps your pet alive
-should the AP bonus come close to the 3% gained from shark attack?
Admin
Because Shark Attack is significantly more damage. Keep in mind the Wild Hunt AP increase is multiplicative, not additive. So 1 rank in Wild Hunt means your pet gets another 2.2% of your attack power. Not nearly as nice as Shark Attack.
could u plz give a best cunning build ,i know they wont do near as much damage as a ferocity pet ,but i am a fan of wind serpents (^_-) .. maybe if u got lucky with owl focus procs it may be comparable …if uve the time maybe check out a cunning pet on a target dummy
Admin
I have in fact tested cunning pets, and they are not close to the dps advantage of feroicy. Cunning pets exist for pvp, and that’s about it.
Honestly, if you’re at the point that you’re taking a cunning pet, you may as well just spend the talent points on whatever you think is cool or neat, because you’ve already made a decision not to pursue dps. At that point you should just do whatever you think is fun.
guess ur right m8 ,might be fun to solo with i guess also lol ,gonna stick with my wolf for raiding then …epic name *Carlsberg* ….probably the best pet name in the world (of warcraft) haha .cheers again for the advise ,great site btw m8.
horatio. ppl love that name
Why not put charge and dash together
1 rank of wild hunt isn’t 10% it’s 15% so would be 3.3% increased AP not 2.2%.
Admin
We don’t take charge because we have better places to spend those talent points. We only have dash because there’s nothing else on the first tier that will increase our pet dps.
What level do you recieve your first point to spend for pets?. Im a 16 now so im very curious ^^?
Call of Wild vs. Shark Attach? Your opinion please
Actually check that. Call of Wild vs. Shark Attack vs. Rabid? I do not like having to put 3 points on Avoidance to get Rabid. How important is it for DPS? I would much rather have Boars Speed, charge, Pheonix, and Call of Wild for one dps move and a useless talent. Your thoughts on this please? Thank you
Admin
Call of the WIld vs. Shark Attack is covered in this article. Boar’s Speed really does nothing for you since you already have dash. Rabid is a good deal since if you’re raiding you wan the avoidance anyway. Every raid has tons of aoe that your pet will be eating. You need a minimum of 2 ranks of avoidance, and I don’t think there’s any serious raider that would hesitate for a second at getting all 3 ranks.
So the rabid prereq is something you’re taking anyway, so not a downside at all.
Frostheim, I apologize if you already said this or someone already commented but there’s a LOT of comments and I’m a lazy man. I see that in the MM/Sv spec you put Call of the Wild in there, but isn’t that affected by the law of diminishing marginal returns? If I’m a Marksman hunter, Trueshot Aura already gives my attack power a 10% increase, with Call of the Wild, that changed to 11% which is let’s face it not that big a deal (don’t worry, I’m not one of today’s kids).
The way I see it, like you said, my pet is about 10% of my DPS/Damage (whatever you wana call it), if I go for Heart of the Phoneix, I can keep my pet alive more time, which means more damage done (10% to be more specific) and I lost 1% Ap which isn’t such a huge loss compared to the 10% more damage I’m doing with a living kitty.
Frostheim. I’m not sure you’re calculations are right. doing it 22 x 10%. which iI belive it should rather be 1.22 x 1.10 = 1.34, which is 34% of your AP.
Crop,
22 x 10 % ( 0.10 ) is 22×0.10 = 2.2 ( on tenth of 22 or 10 % of 22). And it appears the Wild Hunt has changed to 15% wich would be 22 x 0.15 = 3.3. So at this point Shark and Wild Hunt at this point are a wash, it comes down to the Hunter’s AP vs. the 3 % dmg increase on the pet’s ( Base ? ) AP. I have no proof to back it up, I’m just theorizing based on the comments and posts above.
I think it’s worth mentioning the upcoming changes to cower and improved cower in 3.3…
Wouldn’t another point in (2/2) Wild Hunt Improve your pets DPS + make it harder to kill kinda making Heart of the Pheonix not needed as much? Let me know what you think.
Admin
It does not make your pet harder to kill in any significant way. If your pet is going to die in a raid, it’s because it’s taking tens of thousands of damage (usually). Personally, I think that pet dps is just so massively important to BM that’s it’s worth losing the small wild hunt advantage for the safety net of the insta pet rez.
In most raid fights your pet will be fine ;however, if you’re distracted for a moment and let your pet attack, the wrong thing, etc., you’ve suddenly lost 40% of your dps.
Alright, I will add my pennies here and make some comments based on my experience with a Beast Hunter and regarding some things I read throughout the guide and replies.
First of all, I used to use Phoenix and Lick your wounds. I found Lick Your Wounds MOST useful, as your pet stops and insta heals pretty much–however you must sacrifice dps to get this ability (not good). The problem with Phoenix is most of the time your pets bar disappears when it dies–leaving you unable to activate the rez ability. Then, the WORST part is that when you DO use the rez ability, the pet ressurects right where it stands, and briefly for about 1-2 seconds, it has no health and then shoots up to max health once the server has realized your pet is alive again. Why is that a problem? Well, your pet, 80% of the time, gets 1-shot during that 1-2 seconds where it has no health yet after the rez–leaving the Phoenix ability useful about 20% of the time. Heroics, not so much–it’s quite useful in heroics to a far greater degree. Ulduar, etc., those stats are quite accurate on large, extended boss fights.
I have found my DPS increase significantly by simply removing those healing/rez abilities and putting it all into DPS, and rezzing my pet normally when it dies using improved revive pet and the minor glyph to remove pushback.
Next, regarding your quote (by Frostheim), “Why Not More Wild Hunt?
Normally your pet gains 22% of your attack power. Each rank of Wild Hunt increases that multiplicatively by 15% — or in other words, with one rank your pet gains a total of 25.3% of your AP, and with two ranks your pet gains 28.6% of your AP. It does not increase it to 37%/52% (if it did, that would be badass). Thus the raw 3%/rank from Shark Attack is a better overall choice, especially with the way raid buffs scale your pet vs your ap.”
I must honorably disagree with you here. This pet talent does not work the same as other numerical values of multiple transfer from hunter to pet. Why? Well, it is a talent and it does precisely what it says it does. I’ve tested it, and both ranks give the exact same increase: 20%/40% stamina, and 15%/30% attack power–exactly the way the tooltip reads.
How do you test this? Very simple: Untrain it from the pet and dismiss him, and resummon him so his stats clear up. Now he has base stats. Train 1 point into the ability. Now, dismsis him again and resummon. You’ll notice a value at which the bonuses have given him an increase. Now, train in the 2nd point, and dismiss him again, and resummon him the third time. You guessed it–exactly same amount is awarded to him in both Health and Attack power. So, as you stated–”it’s badazz”–though, not could be, but is!
Conclusion: Wild Hunt is much better than Phoenix in my experience, and I recommend it to anyone. Phoenix fails to work so often, it’s more of a hassle than anything.
I endorse the spec Iratenax mentioned above at the following link: http://www.wowhead.com/?petcalc#cud00scz0hoRb
If you want the top DPS pet, also, get a Wolf. Devilsaur falls in second place–but sometimes falls further below because for some reason it reaches boss mobs and stands there doing nothing because of some targetting bug. Wolf lands all of it’s attacks, and gives both you and himself an AP increase that far surpasses the dps any other pet can provide.
Hope this helps, and good luck. Great guide, and I appreciate the time you put in to creating this here. Thanks a lot.
-Sal
Admin
Salvini — My arguement for Wild Hunt is that it’s worse than Shark Attack. Also, I think your math is incorrect. I just retested Wild Hunt and it confirmed my conclusions. Let me walk you though it and see if we can get the same results:
Normally your pet gets 22% of your AP.
I’m suggesting that each rank of wild hunt gets you 22% * 15% = 25.3% of your ap
Your suggesting that each rank of wild hunt gets you 22% + 15% = 37% or your ap
I untrain my pet. I have 5051 AP at the time. I see that my pet has 642ap base + 1111 ap from me (22% with no talents confirmed).
I train my pet in 1 rank of Wild Hunt and it now has 642ap base + 1919 ap from me. That is now 25.28% of my ap transferring. So we confirm that it is stacking multiplicatively. In other words, the actual ap transfer increase is 3.3%, far worse than Shark Attack in terms of dps.
Whoa, check your math, mate. It is not adding up at all. You’re claiming that your pet gained 808 attack power from 1 point in Wild Hunt, and that’s impossible. You must have made a typo. Nonetheless, you must remember you’re working with percentages here, and the amount of DPS you collect is based upon your attack power–not the percentage itself. The only way a raw 3% or 6% damage increase would be higher than Wild Hunt’s increase in terms of DPS is if your attack power is low enough to cause such an effect.
What you are trying to do is compare 3%-6% damage to an Attack Power % increase, and you cannot make that judgment without an accurate math formula which does just that. I never suggested that the increase was added as an additional 15-30% on top of the 22% innate transfer bonus to give some ungodly 37%/52% transfer integer. In fact and on the contrary, the percentages are applied directly to the final attack power gain, and figuring the percentage of transfer will not determine your damage at all. Your formula leaves out half of the equation, which is why I told you I disagree with it.
The ideal solution is to always have Shark Attack and Wild Hunt for the maximum DPS (if a Beast Master of course—Wild Hunt only if not). We can work the math backwards or forwards, but I think you’ve misunderstood exactly how the bonus is calculated and to where it is applied. Allow me to elaborate and make it simple for anyone to understand.
Since statistics showed the average attack power for level 80 hunters overall is 4217, let us use that figure with a ferocity pet as a common medium. In this formula, we are going to assume all hunters have trained Cobra Reflexes for their pet for the 30% speed increase (which substantially increases the effect of Wild Hunt in regards to DPS). Next, we are going to calculate Animal Handler 2/2 into the equation to account for the additional 10% of attack power that most Beast Hunters fail to realize is also calculated in the green attack power buff on their pet (this bonus is applied AFTER Wild Hunt–which allows it to stack).
If you want to know how much Attack Power your pet is receiving from your attack power transfer at the 22% base, then you must scroll over your Hunter’s portrait and hover over your Ranged Attack Power–where it will show what amount is being delivered to your pet (this amount will NOT take Wild Hunt or Animal Handler into account). We will also assume this Level 80 Ferocity pet has Beast Mastery’s Unleashed Fury, Serpent’s Swiftness and Kindred Spirits for the 20% attack speed and 35% damage bonuses. Additionally, the Pet’s talent tree also includes Spiked Collar and Shark Attack as an understood given 15% damage with all attacks. No external buffs are applied or considered in the below calculations. I am not sure why, but even though the talent states it awards 15%/30%, the actual real time calculations are always 14.99% and 30.1% increases for all tests I’ve conducted regarding the increases to the attack power transfer.
Keep in mind, using the formulas below, you will find immediately that 1 point in Wild Hunt is instantly 3.8% more damage than 2 Points into Shark Attack for a Beast Hunter with 4217 Attack Power, and a staggering 95.5% more damage than 2 Points into Shark Attack if you add the second point into Wild Hunt. In fact, 2 points in Wild Hunt is 291% more damage than 1 Point in Shark Attack in the same formula. Shocking and lovely at the same time, isn’t it? Find out how below.
Level 80 Hunter – 4217 Attack Power
Level 80 Pet AP 22% Bonus: 4217 x .22 = 927.74 (927) Base Attack Power Contributed
Level 80 Pet Base Stats: 706 Attack Power; 1.28 Attack Speed; 515-571 Damage; 423.7 DPS
~NO WILD HUNT 0/2~
Pet’s 22% Bonus: 927.74 (927)
Animal Handler: 927.74 x 1.1 = 1,020.51 (1,020)
Total Pet Attack Power: 706 + 1020 = (1,726)
Total Pet Damage: 515-571
Total Pet DPS: 423.7
~WILD HUNT 1/2 (14.99% Increase to Attack Power Contribution)~
Pet’s 22% Bonus: 927.74 (927)
Wild Hunt 1/2: 927.74 x 1.1499 = 1,066.8
Animal Handler: 1,066.8 x 1.1 = 1,173.48 (1,173)
Total Pet Attack Power: 706 + 1173 = (1,879)
Total Pet Damage: 551-607
Total Pet DPS: 451.7
Net Gains: 153 Attack Power; 36 Damage; 28 DPS
Damage Increase %: [1 – (515/551)] + [1 – (571/607)] / 2% = {6.23% Average Damage Increase}
DPS Increase %: [1 – (423.7/451.7)] / 1% = {6.2 % Sustained DPS Increase}
~WILD HUNT 2/2 (30.1% Increase to Attack Power Contribution)~
Pet’s 22% Bonus: 927.74 (927)
Wild Hunt 2/2: 927.74 x 1.301 = 1,206.99
Animal Handler: 1,206.99 x 1.1 = 1,327.69 (1,327)
Total Pet Attack Power: 706 + 1327 = (2,033)
Total Pet Damage: 587-643
Total Pet DPS: 479.9
Net Gains: 307 Attack Power; 72 Damage; 56.2 DPS
Damage Increase %: [1 – (515/587)] + [1 – (571/643)] / 2% = {11.73% Average Damage Increase}
DPS Increase %: [1 – (423.7/479.9)] / 1% = {11.71 % Sustained DPS Increase}
These formulas show that in the end, attack power gains to your pet substantially increases the overall damage and DPS of your beast over any other ability or attribute. This is specifically why no pet in the game can come close to the DPS of a wolf—which buffs the attack power of both itself and the hunter.
I hope these numbers have assisted you in your search for fine tuning your endgame DPS to be at its best premium output. Of course, I’m in no way trying to argue with you—I am only presenting facts in an area I think you might have misunderstood at first glance. Enjoy specializing into Wild Hunt—as I am quite sure you’ll consider it with a little more enthusiasm after reading this post.
Sincerely,
-Salvini
Admin
First of all, Animal Handler is already reflected in your tooltip, so you don’t need to apply it again.
But more importantly, it looks like what you’re doing is just reading the numbers off of the pet’s tooltip. What that is telling you is your pet’s white damage (auto attack) not counting crit. In addition to ignoring crit it’s ignoring Bite, which makes up around 45% of your pets damage.
Now your ap will increase your bite damage as well (ap/14) however a straight % damage increase like shark attack increases both the ap damage (more favorably) as well as the base damage.
Further, we have to factor in crit chance. Again, crits will increase the bonus damage from AP; however, they also increase the base damage. So again, the straight damage increase yields a larger dps increase than the equivalent ap percentage increase.
Basically for shark attack vs wild hunt you’re choice is a 3% damage increase to your pet, or a 3.3% overall ap increase. I’ll agree that the numbers are close; however, not only is shark attack better, but it scales better with raid buffs/debuffs.
Geez, your confident and brilliant..who are you anyway, lol.
just spent like 3 hours during realm reboot reading all your articles…you seem to be right on the mark with everything… guess research and testing has its benefits.
thanks
GQ
Hey, just thought I’d mention that this says it’s “3.3 verified”, but you’re still listing avoidance instead of culling the herd. I also note that you’re still saying to take the one point in shark attack instead of wild hunt, but Frostheim’s wolf has that reversed (according to the armory).
Cheers…love this site!
Admin
Aye the guide was updated right after 3.3; however, at the time wowhead had not yet updated their graphic for Culling the Herd (so it was the CtH talent, with the avoidance graphic). I’ll get the graphic updated at some point
Been trying to copy your build into wowhead pet calculator, but it dosen´t seem to fit. wowhead only gives you 16 points to distribute you have used 20, where does the last 4 come from? (may have missed it during all this reading)
Contributor
The last 4 points are for Beastmaster only, Morogh. There’s a little + sign near the build that you click to get them.
Excellent, I thank you so much, Arthemystia.
The article you point to about Ferocity pets holding aggro better than Tenacity pets is dated from 2008; is the data still valid?
Admin
The numbers have gotten bigger across the board, but yes, ferocity pets are still best at holding single-target aggro. Even better compared to tenacity with higher gear levels available now.
The icon for Culling the Herd appears to have changed. Could you please update your screen shots?
you have a guide for best ferocity and best tenacity pets, but no guide for cunning pets. is there a reason for this? because as I understand it; Ravagers are one of the best choices and they are cunning pets. I would like to know how to get the best out of him. Thank you for your awesome website. ^_^
Just wanted to chime in about the Shark Attack vs Wild Hunt debate. I’m surprised that Euripides hadn’t commented about it as over on OutDPS he advocates the use of Wild Hunt over Shark Attack. I also found that my pet is doing more overall damage specced into Wild Hunt as opposed to Shark Attack.
The pet tree is a little out dated. Culling the Herd has been added to the 2nd tier.
Would it be possible for you to add a link for each of these to their respective WoWhead builds? =) Keep up the great work Frost!
http://eu.wowarmory.com/talent-calc.xml?pid=1&tal=210000030301003010101
the above talent build i changed bloddthirsty for charge based on the idea of gettin that extra 25% extra on nextattack with killcommand active just that lil added dps cause there really is no use for bloodthirsty cause of the minor glyph of mend pet and food before u start yur boss attempt. i get if i was yur lvlin or farmin stuff which i hav noticed helps a lot in thos situtations and when i didnt hav it lvlin i was constanly feedin while farmin
I was looking at a optimal ferocity build for leveling. I’m guessing I should take lick your wounds/charge, and 2/2 shark attack. but what talents are best to sacrifice to get those?
To add, I was thinking of dropping wild hunt, and either call of the wild, or rabid. Rabid seems a better solo talent since it can be used more often, is this correct?
Just thought of another option, dropping rabid+2xculling the herd, to get call of the wild + 2/2 wild hunt.
Member
This is probably just more fuel on the fire, but from my experience in working with spreadsheets and sims, wild hunt has always beat shark attack in DPS, for BM, MM, and SV. This is again, assuming full raid buffs, so you might be basing it off of soloing, I can’t say for sure.
Also, in your second spec for BM w/ Heart of the Phoenix, Spiked Collar and Shark attack are multiplicative. Putting 2 points in spiked collar and then 2 points in Shark Attack would yield slightly more DPS. 1.03 * 1.09 < 1.06 * 1.06.
For BM hunters, I believe there are more points to spend than are reflected here. I have maxed shark attack AND wild hunt, and absolutely believe in Charge (great in duels too lol – set pet to aggressive before duel begins, and it will flash to/pin your opponent before they even know it’s started!).
Here is my build:
Cobra Reflexes 2
Dash 1
Bloodthirsty 2 (really cuts down on mend pet mana)
Spiked Collar 3
Charge 1
Spider’s Bite 3
Heart of the Phoenix 1
(for soloing – having pet pop back up has saved me more than once)
Call of the Wild
Lick Your Wounds
Rabid
Shark Attack 2
Wild Hunt 2
I know, I know; I am missing “Culling the Herd” but took some like Dash just for fun and convenience. This whole spec is for soloing/questing which I do as BM; I prefer a cat because the prowl (combined with Night Elf shadow meld) makes us a stealthy duo. Prowl + Charge is also a great 1st burst!
For raiding I switch to MM spec and bring out a cunning pet to aid mana recovery.
HEART OF THE PHOENIX?
If you spend a lot of time soloing (and most hunters do), losing your pet doesn’t just mean losing dps – it means losing your tank! Suddenly the Mobs are looking at you! Which is never a good thing. That’s the reason I use BM spec with HoP, and MM spec with Cunning Pet’s “Roar of Recovery” when joining groups.
I tamed the wolf in hellfire rampards when i was lv 80. the pet became lv 75 but i did not get many talent points. i dont got enought points to spec what is speced over here. do i need to lvle my pet from lv 10 to 80 to get all talent points?
Member
After building both wolf and wasp to this spec, I was toying around with other options after reading the back and forth about Shark vs. Wild Hunt, as well as the speed vs. damage of Cobra Reflexes. running 2 min avg. on both wolf and wasp, with 2 or 0 pts in Cobra, and 1 pt in shark vs 1 pt in Wild hunt. The best overall pet dps, slight as it was about 10-12 dps, was zero pts in Cobra, and 1 pt in Wild Hunt. This was straight hunter, no raid buffs, just dragonhawk, and True Shot Aura, MM spec for me, per Frosts, build model. YMMV, but for me it was there, repeatable, and just better. Again only 10-12 dps, but over an entire run, or 4-5 minute boss fight, that adds up. Just my .02 test it yourself, ans see how your results clock.
Admin
I’m not sure exactly what you’re trying to say here… 0 points in cobra reflexes? But you have to have 3 talent points spent in the top row (and by the way, cobra reflexes is actually a big dps gain).
And how exactly did you test this? Were you attacking, or *just* your pet attacking? For how long were you attacking? How many attacks did your pet get off? What were the total dps numbers with each spec?
I’m trying to get an idea here of what a reasonable margin of error would be, to see if 10-12 dps has any statistical relevance.
Member
First of all, WOW that the man himself responded! Your site is awesome, and I had a blast at the raid! I did see blowing the 2 top tier talents on non-dps as seemingly bad, but was wondering about the speed vs damage loss of Cobra from your comments. So I did it. I had both pets attacking solo, to measure just their dps, with as few other things happening as possible. I do note that seldom, if ever will MangyFlames, or Hyper-Dermic be attacking without me, but I was just trying to gauge, the +/- of Cobra, and shark vs W. Hunt.
The attacks were 2 min. each, I did not count individual attacks, sorry.
I noted the numbers, while doing it, I will try to get them posted after work, lowest result was 279 I believe, which was 2 Cobra, 1 shark, which would put high at 299-300.
My only measurement tool is recount, so that may totally blow the deal, or my Scientific Method (or lack thereof), may be sorely lacking.
I do accept your much broader knowledge of this topic than my own, and was not in ANY was casting aspersions on your guide, or you. Since coming here my 5 man dps went from sub 2K to mid 4K in no time.
I will gladly redo this in whatever way is best to measure and report my results, so yes, any tips toward doing that are welcome.
Admin
Recount is a fine tool for measurement. The problem here is that your tests were so short and the dps difference small enough that it fell within the margin of error — in other words you didn’t determine anything conclusive.
I just ran out to the target dummies and tested. Did 10 minute tests with only the pet and only it’s melee auto-attack (which is all that’s affected) to eliminate as many variables as possible. I made sure no one else was attacking the dummy, and kept my pet happy the whole time. I was hit capped. This was about 300 attacks with no cobra, and about 400 attacks with cobra.
With NO cobra reflexes my pet did 139.3 dps
With cobra reflexes my pet did 145.7 dps
This is about a 4.5% melee damage increase for the talent with a nice small margin of error. And since there are no other dps increasing talents at all on the first level of the tree, the talent becomes pure win
Member
Thanks for the time and incredibly prompt feedback. 1 question were you 1 deep in shark or W. hunt? And I will go back and redo it as well. Again thanks!
Member
ok, got home did an informed “redo” 10 min runs, straight melee, no specials.
Pet 80 wolf
Here goes:
beginning from Frosts “best ferocity dps, spec”
2 Cobra, 1 Wild hunt, etc.
389 attacks
239 dps
total damage 144,063
Next:
No cobra, 1 Wild hunt, all else same
282 attacks
228 dps
total damage 129,756
Next:
2 Cobra, 1 Shark, all else same
390 attacks
230 dps
total damage 138,748
And lastly,
No Cobra, 1 Shark, all else same
288 attacks
216 dps
total damage 125,042
While Nobody likes being wrong, I don’t mind if the result helps me, and it absolutely does here. Clearly my little 2 min. runs were 1 way or another skewed, screwed, and just wrong. I did wonder about the Shark vs. Wild Hunt, and that panned out as I thought. Thanks to you Frost for being here, and for motivating me to spend 1/2 my evening play time gawking at a target dummy!! Thanks again
“And as a final note, the Dash isn’t really essential — but I like to get my pet into the action faster. I want him there when I start shooting to get my Ferocious Inspiration! Basically your alternatives on the top row of the tree are stam or armor – and Dash can actually be a wee marginal dps upgrade.”
Now that Ferocious Inspiration is an instant, permanent group effect, you may want to reconsider a different talent? Dash is always fun to have of course, but now its not as helpful because of the change in Ferocious Inspiration.
So in exchange for that, would stamina or armor be better? I know in the guide you say stamina, but if your pet is better armored wont the time it takes your pet to get killed be about the same? (That is if your pet is being attacked for some reason. Obviously the tank should be the focus, but accidents happen and so do bad tanks :/)
Hi!
There are just so many areas of my play experience that you have improved that I could probably right this comment in at least a half dozen other threads. I have only been playing this game for 2 months and was having difficulty with different aspects of the game until I was directed to your site by my son (TY LOTS son) and I can honestly say while I was enjoying the game I am now enjoying it so much more. So, TY, TY, TY and I look forward to learning so much more……………Thanx
I’m current a lvl 55 Hunter and have had Dash for all ferocity pets since early on. It’s nice that the pet can bolt at the enemy, but the initial focus use is hard to justify any more. I’ve since unlearned my pet talents and taken Stamina instead. Are there official tests for Dash vs No-Dash?
i only have 15 talent points for my pet what do i do