Pet DPS - Cunning v Ferocity

[Porra]

My situation, im currently SV to get a feel for it since it's the best spec in Cata, was wondering if there's a HUGE gap between Cunning and Ferocity pets.

I would like to use my Wind Serpent for 8% magical damage since SV is mostly magic with Black Arrow, Serp Sting, and Explosive Shot... but if Ferocity is enough of a gap to trump something like that, I wont use it. I havent found any solid results, wtb Kripparian advice? [COLOR="red"]

[bamfrosty]

Playing solo a wind serpent is definitely best for survival. Raiding you'll most likely have that debuff covered.

[Zeherah]

Cunning and ferocity pets are actually pretty close in damage for SV- in fact cunning may be better. From ferocity you get 9% pet crit, rabid and call of the wild. From cunning you get owl's focus, feeding frenzy, wolverine bite and roar of recovery.

Owl's focus in particular is very valuable because your pet will be a lot more focus starved at 85 (although SV will have access to Sic'em, our crit rates will be much lower). Feeding frenzy's value varies a lot depending on the type of fight- some fights it may get you more than the expected damage and some less. Wolverine bite was nerfed some in 4.0.3a so it's not as good as it used to be, but it's an extra pet attack that should still get a fair amount of use (with less crit at 85 it won't probably be used every cooldown, but still fairly frequently).

I don't have the math perfect yet, but my early math is showing a cunning pet at about 70 dps more than ferocity (with 1 pt in shark attack, 1 in wild hunt- 2pts in wild hunt doesn't work too well without owl's focus) in the premade gear setup from beta. Of course you can't easily simulate the value of the cooldown stacking from Call of the Wild, so they're probably closer to a wash.

[Porra]

Thank you very much Zeherah and to Bam, Im running 10s in Cata and the 8% Magic Damage actually isnt covered.

[3clipse]

Zeherah! Good to see you on the MMO-Champ boards.

[Sidorenko]

If it's not covered, go for it!

[Zeherah]

Zeherah! Good to see you on the MMO-Champ boards.

Can't say whether I'll be around longer term- it's tough to track multiple forums, but I've been keeping an eye on things right now with all the chaos of patch changes