Battle of the Pets! Round 3 – cat versus moth

Yes, I know I said I would bring you Count Ungula the Nether Ray in round 3, but the Count was being difficult and refused to use his special family skill, Nether Shock, on the target dummy.  Target dummies aren’t perfect there are a few player spells that are not working on them too.  So before reporting the Count’s score, I will go test a nether ray on some live animals/casters to see how his Nether Shock works.

Instead, this fight, I present, the Moth! The not-so-humble moth is causing a lot of excitement.  He’s a force to be reckoned with, and is overlooked at your peril.  There are no named tameable moths until level 71 Aspatha in Northrend.  But several of them have uncommon colors.  Tin chose the aptly named Vicious Teramoth, because she liked the color and it matched her hair.

‘Sid Vicious’ gave the CatWithNoName a run for his money.  Sid beat cat on the level 60 and level 70 dummies when using just growl or just growl and focus dump.  He could not, however, match the cat when the cat used Rake.

Sid’s family special skill is an interesting and useful one – Serenity Dust – increases the moth’s attack power and heals it.  It does not do much in terms of damage on its own, but it adds a big boost to the damage of the pets focus dump.  Sid could not beat the cat, as his slightly overpowered (there I said it) Rake, but this special did show an interesting effect when compare to the devilsaur (currently no. 2 in the dps stakes).

The devilsaur either beat or was fairly similar to the moth on other rounds, but when the moth had both focus dump and special skill running, the moth out dpsed the devilsaur.

So, at the moment the cat is still the king of the hill, followed by the moth, then the devilsaur, then the wasp (although the wasp also benefits the hunter, and the hunter’s party with its reduce armor debuff).

Are these ranks going to remain?  Probably not.  Some changes in beta build 9095 and some recent announcements by Ghostcrawler suggest that the cat’s prowess could be upset and that exotic pets could be given a boost in future.    In this build some pet skills are getting small buffs, many are getting focus reductions, but one – Rake – is getting a big nerf – “Rake – Damage ranges decreased, max rank is 24 to 34 damage down from 59 to 83.” (This is still on the beta, not the live realms yet, and could still be changed.)

Level 60 target dummy

growl only – cat 216dps   moth 219dps

growl and focus dump – cat 264dps   moth 276dsp

special skill only – cat 301dps   moth 228dps

Focus dump and special – cat 360dps   moth 320dps

Level 70 dummy

growl only – cat 82dps   moth 99dps

growl and focus dump – cat 131dps   moth 145dsp

special skill only – cat 146dps   moth 87dps

Focus dump and special – cat 180dps   moth 166dps