OutDPS!

The best DPS raiding pet since patch 3.1 is the wolf. This post will go over how to get one, what to do with it, and how to “configure” it. Heh, “configuring your wolf” is such a min/maxer way of putting it :)

Getting one

As you can tell from the first tab in the above pet link, there’s tons of options for you when you want to find a wolf. Anyone who’s a little picky about what the pets they get look like will have a blast because there’s a ton of rare skins. Untextured cube people like myself will be happy as well- there’s a few level 80 tamable wolves in there that won’t need to be trained up.

The one I got was from the sons of hodir, with whom I spent a lot of time and money getting exalted for the best shoulder enchant in game (outside inscription). It was with great trepidation that I carefully declared war with them, trapped and tamed the wolf I wanted, feigned death, and then undeclared war, the whole time keeping my fingers crossed that taming wouldn’t cost me any reputation points like I assume killing one would.

Now that I have a silly looking wolf named Bowmore, what to do with it?

Why get one?

Furious howl now stacks with raid buffs like blessing of might and warrior shouts. It’s no longer raid wide and has a 50% uptime (unless you’re a beast master), but still. That’s sick. This makes the wolf the best non BM pet by a fair margin. Better than cats and raptors. It also doesn’t require the wolf to be chewing on boss butt in order to give you the benefit of the special. Sometimes you just can’t afford to let your pet get close, and in those times, the wolf will still pass a huge part of his benefit on to you by standing next to you and howling while you work. See the last part of this post for details.

Speccing one

Here‘s the build I use. In order to get to the second level of abilities, you need to take a point in one of the top abilities that won’t increase your DPS. I chose stamina over armor or dash because armor doesn’t help against magic attacks, and dash takes focus and is mostly irrelevant if you take charge. Also, you need to take your second to last point somewhere below shark attack and wild hunt in order to gain access to those- I picked charge because I wanted it, however as with that third point, you could take anything you fancy. As for choosing between shark attack and wild hunt, I used the DPS spreadsheet to check their DPS gain, and it was really really close, however most hunters will get more DPS from wild hunt. Check it yourself if you want to be sure.

Using one

Here’s the coolest thing about your wolf. You know how when you use a cat, you only benefit from its special attack when it’s attacking, and thus get no benefit at all if the boss is airborne or if you can’t micromanage your pet’s positioning fast enough to get him out of a void zone? Well, your wolf will cast furious howl even if he can’t attack. If you’re good at micromanaging him out of it, I suggest you continue to send your pet into harm’s way. Cast follow/passive and defensive/attack every time you need to make him move out of an aoe or the like. Be aware though, that if you leave him on passive by your side, you’ll lose less DPS than you would if you left some other pet next to you.