Highest DPS pet?

[schmearcampain 0]

Affliction lock here.

So with the nerf to GoSac, I tested out the DPS of the 4 pets (with GoSup active) against a practice dummy.

I went in thinking the Observer would win, since that's what everyone always says is the best one.

Imp = 11.4kdps

Shivarra = 9.6kdps

Observer = 8.9kdps

Voidwalker = 8.4kdps

I let them run for about 5 minutes each with CoE on them and nothing else.

I guess my question is, "What gives?" How come the pet with the worst reputation for DPS is far and away testing the best?

[Zagam 1,982]

Your tests differ from many other tests.

[schmearcampain 0]

Your tests differ from many other tests.

I'm aware of that. Hence the question. There is no simpler test than the one I ran, (and am running right now). with GoSup up, imp is 20% better than observer against a boss level training dummy. Try it yourself. I'm fine admitting when I"m wrong, but I can't see how much more straightforward I can make the test. Am I missing an element? Do raid buffs change things?

Edit: ah. I see where there could be a problem... Recount is probably not taking the delay in attacks into account and shortening the time part of the ratio for the imp. I'll check raw damage numbers over a set time using my own stopwatch.

Edited March 5, 2013 by schmearcampain

[Zagam 1,982]

Your Imp doesn't cast spells full time. If he's on full duty while you're passive, the damage meter will stop recounting during periods of inactivity and begin again inflating his DPS shown on Recount because Recount shows damage dealt over time recorded in Recount instead of damage dealt over actual time. Run the same test for 5 minutes with your Imp and then 5 minutes with your other pets. Close Recount. Instead, count the number of attacks they do and multiply by the damage average of the attacks. This can more easily be done with World of Logs. Trust me, I've run over 1,000,000 iterations testing different pets. The days of using an Imp are over unless you truly adore his sarcasm.

[Sam 1]

Yep Zagam is right, if you let the pet atack by itself it only accounts the dps when the imp is casting the firebolt, but a large part of the time he will be doing nothing until his demonic energy is high enough for another cast, it's better if you set a timer and then check the total damage done

[Stunlocked 8]

The other issue with just testing each pet once for five minutes each is that it's not really accounting for RNG. One pet may just have a lucky streak of crits, another may get no crits. That's one reason why things like simcraft run thousands of simulations.

[Necropotence 0]

Sorry if this has been answered elsewhere...I did try searching but couldn't find it.

Assuming I want to stick to affliction at ~485ilvl, is my best option to go GrimSup with the improved succubus? Zagam I tried searching your posts but couldn't find the results of your test.

[Peste 0]

Sorry if this has been answered elsewhere...I did try searching but couldn't find it.

Assuming I want to stick to affliction at ~485ilvl, is my best option to go GrimSup with the improved succubus? Zagam I tried searching your posts but couldn't find the results of your test.

If you want to stay afflic your best DPS option is Supremacy with an Observer.

[Necropotence 0]

Thank you - that's what I originally thought but ever since the PTR I was starting to see some numbers with the Shivarra pulling ahead.

[Zagam 1,982]

If you want to stay afflic your best DPS option is Supremacy with an Observer.

This is incorrect. Sacrifice is still the best Grimoire for Affliction. The Grimoires are close, however, but in terms of pure benefit, Sacrifice not only provides a slight edge in DPS, but it also removes the trouble of moving your pet around on target switching and gives you 2% of your max HP every 5 seconds. Coupled with the potential 20% HP buff from Soul Link, you see great survivability with the best DPS option.

Destruction, however, is a different case. Destruction almost loses DPS by taking Sacrifice. Since Sacrifice made it live at 30%, it is the best option all around.

[Stunlocked 8]

I'm confused - is GoSac 25% or 30% for Affliction? The patch notes say 25%, the tooltip says 30%. If it's 25% would that finally bring GoSup ahead?

As for Shivarra vs. Observer: I haven't seen any 5.2 numbers. I think in 5.0 (if for some insande reason you used GoSupp instead of GoSac) that while the Observer was slightly ahead of the Shivarra, it was by a pretty small amount (a couple hundred DPS). Same for Felhunter vs. Succubus if you used GoServ. I don't think anything has really changed in the pets that would change that, unless they scale differently. Not a huge difference, but still there's probably no reason to summon the Shivarra unless you really want to look at her thong. Blizzard has said they want 'all pets to be viable', so they are probably trying to get them all close to each other.

Edited March 6, 2013 by Stunlocked

[Zagam 1,982]

GoSac is 30% live...proved by the tooltip and actual testing done by me last night. Unless a hotfix went into place last night or today while I'm at work, the value that went live is 30%.

Pet choice is largely irrelevant. The pets were designed to do the same DPS but provide a different feel and give different buffs or perks. Just because an Observer simulates 100 DPS better than a Shivarra doesn't mean this is always the optimal choice.

[Stunlocked 8]

GoSac is 30% live...proved by the tooltip and actual testing done by me last night. Unless a hotfix went into place last night or today while I'm at work, the value that went live is 30%.

Interesting...

I think there were rolling restarts this morning, so it might have been hotfixed there.

I was kind of looking forward to using a demon again. I love the new demon skins.

Edited March 6, 2013 by Stunlocked

[Zagam 1,982]

I can't check until 5pm Eastern...if you take a look, please update me as I'm running tests in Simcraft.

[Bozzley 4]

as of right now at 6:52 pm gosac is 30%

[Teranous 0]

Hello,

I am reading a fair amount of conflicting stuff recently about max pet DPS for a Demo lock. Some say "wrathguard" while a few are saying "voidlord". I would like to see what the group thinks.

[Zagam 1,982]

Who the hell says a Voidlord is better than a Wrathguard? There are a lot of trolls and not-smart people out there. In the guides, both mine and the Icy-Veins version, show that the Felguard or Wrathguard is the best choice.

[Teranous 0]

The below is one of several examples I have seen including some results claiming higher DPS for the Voidlord:

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/5492390127

Didn't sound right to me, but this is what is being said.

T

[Zagam 1,982]

Yeah people who say things like that never really paid attention in statistics class where you can't base an argument or valid point off of a few data points. Anyone can say what they want, but it doesn't warrant merit. What Simulationcraft allows is thousands and thousands upon thousands of iterations...and what it calculates is the same thing I see from a very variable stand point...they're close enough that it doesn't matter what you pick.

The side note to think about here is your Voidlord's special abilities are defensive, which are often not useful at all. Not often you can Disarm a raid boss or even adds that are spawned. However, the Observer offers an interrupt and a spell steal. Pretty useful here to allow your Observer to steal a buff on a boss.

[Omaric 246]

Yeah people who say things like that never really paid attention in statistics class where you can't base an argument or valid point off of a few data points. Anyone can say what they want, but it doesn't warrant merit. What Simulationcraft allows is thousands and thousands upon thousands of iterations...and what it calculates is the same thing I see from a very variable stand point...they're close enough that it doesn't matter what you pick.

The side note to think about here is your Voidlord's special abilities are defensive, which are often not useful at all. Not often you can Disarm a raid boss or even adds that are spawned. However, the Observer offers an interrupt and a spell steal. Pretty useful here to allow your Observer to steal a buff on a boss.

What about Voidlord in a concentrated area add fight, like Horridon? Let's say you have his taunt on auto cast, but not his threatening presence. If he's getting hit by a single mob he's proc'ing his shadow orbs in an AoE. You think that would skew it a bit?