Felhunter instead of imp?

[RawrlockZz]

I have tried dpsing as destro with felhunter out and it seems like the dps is roughly even. In some cases, it does more than an imp.
Shadowbite crits for over 40k as destro and that seems beastly compare to the 5-7k imp crits + burning embers. Felhunter is doing 6-8k dps while the imp is doing a mere 4-5k. I know the class well enough, but this was simply a case where i was messing around with the pets.
Is this intended?

[Deleted]

Well I haven't tried it, so can't "really" comment, but as always, your sample is far to small to prove anything. It may be very true that the Felhunter is doing more dps than the Imp. Just remember that the Imp provides burning ember, which counts as YOUR dmg, aswell as providing Instant Soul Fire.

[gakpad]

I tried this a month or two ago because we were missing the mp5 buff and no, you will do significantly less dps with the felhunter instead of the imp. Mainly because of burning embers.

edit: if your felhunter is doing 6-8k dps then something's not right with whatever method you're using to test.

[RawrlockZz]

well, the felhunter is gaining 15% damage buff to shadowbite for every dot on a target. 6-8k is about right for any spec using a felhunter.

[gakpad]

in full best in slot gear the felhunter only does ~7k dps as affliction. The imp does ~5-5.5k dps in the same gear as destro and provides the benefit of providing both instant soul fires and 100% uptime on your burning embers, with the addition of not suffering from any dps loss due to latency when a target is mobile. The glyph of imp also proides a bigger damage boost than using glyph of incinerate so you'd be losing out on the difference in that dps as well. You're not going to get better results using felhunter over imp as destro unless something isn't righ with what you're doing.

[Gohzerlock]

I tried this a month or two ago because we were missing the mp5 buff and no, you will do significantly less dps with the felhunter instead of the imp. Mainly because of burning embers.

edit: if your felhunter is doing 6-8k dps then something's not right with whatever method you're using to test.

mp5? how old is this thread?

also it's posts like this that will get ur felhunter nerfhammered

[gakpad]

blessing of might and mana string totem both still give mp5. we were putting attempts in on sinestra and healers were ooming because we were getting used to the fight and I figured I'd see if I could help them out without giving up too much dps.

[shapow]

They're going OOM on sinestra, so you offer to do less dps to make them less OOM.

The amount of things wrong with that statement.

First off, the only time they can be going oom is in p3 after the buff wears off, and they'll have the buff for more of the fight if you have the imp out for more dps.

The real solution to this problem, is just go affliction.

[gakpad]

I said I TRIED it to SEE if it was a big dps loss. It was, and I didn't continue to do it. And I don't know why I said Sinestra, I meant 10m h rag. derpa herp. And on top of the fact that I simply enjoy destruction more, regardless of the relative dps I was the only person supplying replenishment as well. Very constructive post to the topic, by the way.

[avengingbt]

Quick test on simcraft. Tested using imp, and then tested using felhunter and swapping glyph of imp for glyph of incinerate.

LIVE:

Imp 34,583 dps
Felhunter 34,550 dps

PTR:

Imp 37,739 dps
Felhunter 36,873 dps

Imp wins every time. It was kindof obvious that it would, although apparently on live it's close.

[gakpad]

I wouldn't quite call 1000 dps "close" lol

[sinisterwyvern]

I wouldn't quite call 1000 dps "close" lol

The numbers on live are off by 33 dps... "lol"

[gakpad]

The numbers on live are off by 33 dps... "lol"

my acute dyslexia is acting up again

[impending doom]

Quick test on simcraft. Tested using imp, and then tested using felhunter and swapping glyph of imp for glyph of incinerate.

LIVE:

Imp 34,583 dps
Felhunter 34,550 dps

I tried this too, and with T12H gear and 50k iterations the difference was only 2 dps. If simcraft is right, seems that felhunter is currently very viable for destro, and it has more utility than imp, although imp doesn't need to run so much. Also you would get 2 "extra" talent points when using felhunter.

[gakpad]

Well, I wouldn't have guessed that losing 100% burnnig emers uptime, the instant SF procs and getting a shitty demoun soul would be that little of a difference. Interesting.

[Aethilus]

I tried this too, and with T12H gear and 50k iterations the difference was only 2 dps. If simcraft is right, seems that felhunter is currently very viable for destro, and it has more utility than imp, although imp doesn't need to run so much. Also you would get 2 "extra" talent points when using felhunter.

Very surprising, I don't suppose you've run a sim on where you might put those 2 extra talent points to push the felhunter ahead, and see how much smaller the gap to Affliction and Demonology is?

[gakpad]

Those two points are part of the 31 you need to finish off the tree so there's no way to do that, the only place the 2 points can go is in the destruction tree.

---------- Post added 2011-11-14 at 03:28 AM ----------

I also imagine that not being in melee range to shadowflame would hurt felhunter dps much more than imp just because of the extra dot it provides.

[helheim]

problem with using the felhunter over the imp is glaringly obvious. imp firebolts proc instant soul fires which increase isf uptime. no imp = more hard casting soulfire, and nobody wants to do that.

further, as i've stated previously in another thread, i do believe that imp procs have been buffed. i have seen considerably more instant soulfire procs on ptr than i do on live. either i've gotten extremely lucky with rng or there has been a slight buff. i say this after roughly 5 LFRtards pugs, multiple runs of the new 5 mans, and probably 20 test dummy runs.

just my 2c tho. perhaps i'll be proven wrong. we'll have to wait until the 29th to find out one way or another.

[LTCrystallite]

The Felhunter does too much single target damage because of Shadow Bite scaling, regardless of specs.

It's something they'll probably fix for 5.0 when they make all the demons competitive in damage.

[impending doom]

I also imagine that not being in melee range to shadowflame would hurt felhunter dps much more than imp just because of the extra dot it provides.

Yes good point, using shadowflame makes felhunter on par with the imp, but without shadowflame the numbers are like this:
Imp 34109
Felhunter 33752

With DTR the difference is even bigger. Without DS the felhunter comes ahead again, but I won't be trying to sim pet switching, and in 4.3 imp seem to be better. However in some cases it may still be good to use other pet than imp, if some buff or utility is needed, because killing bosses is not all about dps.