Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Ravager vs. Windserpent

First off I should preface this with the easiest way to figure this out is to go download cheeky's spreadsheet, and compare your pets in there. This is only for people who want to verify the math.
Cheeky's Spreadsheet - http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t9816-hunter_spreadsheets_--_development/

Gore vs. LB Gore Lightning Breath
Base Damage 73.5 106
Damage per focus 2.94 2.12
+dmg from 2k AP 0 25
Modified DPF 2.94 2.62


A Windserpent's Lightning Breath only pushes past a ravager's gore 3280+ AP, and will always do 3% less on regular attacks so why would we choose it? The problem comes when a BM hunter's focus production starts moving past 25 focus per GCD or roughly 17 focus per second.

A pets default focus regen is 18 per GCD (12 per second) with bestial discipline (9/6 without), so you need the go for the throat talent to increase your pets focus regen past the 25 per GCD point.


To calculate your focus regen per GCD:
(Crit %) x (shot rotation) (1:1 is 2, 1:1.5 is 2.5)
(previous answer) / (attack speed)
(previous answer) / 100
(previous answer) x 1.5
(previous answer) x (Go for the throat amount) (no ranks is 0, 1 rank is 25, 2 ranks is 50)
(previous answer) + 9 (if you have bestial discipline make this 18)

Or Over-Simplified for BM hunters with both talent points:
((Crit %) * .5) + 18 = Focus per second
(previous answer) x 1.5 = Focus per GCD

Now to determine if a wind serpent will be better than a ravager for your hunter.

take your ravagers DPS from a raid subtract gore (so only auto attack and Kill Command) multiply that by .03, That is the number that lightning breath must increase your wind serpents DPS by to pass the ravager.

Now take your focus per second and multiply it by your modified damage per focus for both gore and lightning breath. If the difference between lightning breath is greater than your ravager's DPS * .03, then a wind serpent will be better DPS for you than a ravager.



A few other things to consider is a wind serpent will 7% more health than a ravager making it slightly easier to keep alive in a raid. Wind serpents can eat mage bread which is a cost saver and handy since I now feed my pet before every boss fight so he doesn't randomly drop from happy in the fight. The other thing is if you have an elemental shaman your wind serpent will remove his elemental debuff and reduce your shaman's dps slightly, rogue poisons do the same thing though so it will be up to your raid leader to decide if you can bring a windserpent with an ele shaman.

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