Hi Ghostcrawler,

I was hoping you could help answer this question: Why is Spirit Strike rank 6 doing less dmg then Rake rank 6?

I have tested this in 10man Naxx and found that Rake provides a 200 - 300 dps increase, this is further supported by "Shandara's Spreadsheet" formerly Cheeky's work. Infact the spreadsheet shows almost a 450dps increase between the two. So my numbers are definitely on the conservative side. To top this all off I was under the impression that Exotic pets should do around 10% more dmg then normal pets? I know this can't hold 100% of the time but a loss in dps is frustrating to say the least.

I'm wondering if there is currently a bug that 1) doesn't allow Spirit Strike to crit and 2) only refreshes spirit strike after 10 seconds instead of 7 given 3/3 in the longevity talent.

If this is the case then can you speak to when we might see a fix?

If not then it seems that there needs to be some change to at least bring this wonderful pet on par with a cat. It definitely makes me sad to think that I'll have to put Loque'nahak in retirement after the effort put in to tame him! Or is it possible that Spirit Strike has to be macroed to force a cast? (I'll try this next raid).

Lastly, I'd love to here from others who have had similar or differing experiences raiding with a Spirit Beast, concerning dmg output compared to other pets in the ferocity tree.

I appreciate your time and I look forward to your response!

Longevity is currently preventing the second component of the spirit strike ability from hitting, since longevity doesn't reduce the 10 seconds it takes for the secondary damage component of the ability to hit. Reapplication of spirit strike after 7 seconds results in the secondary damage component never actually happening because of the reapplication of the debuff. If you spec longevity you bone spirit strike. It should be fixed, but there's your answer as to "why".

Edit: I know some of that was part of your post, but it's really a mechanical issue. I don't know if they can make the duration of spirit strike scale with Longevity or not due to tech issues. Allowing the ability to stack so that the first application could proc it's secondary damage while considering a second application to be separate, instead of the secondary application refreshing the countdown, may be a viable option.

I'm sure it's not a technical issue, it would seem like a ridiculous oversight not to be able to have an internal time component scale with a specific ability. GC I think tried to suggest on the beta forums that it should scale down, or something like that, but I don't really think he understood the initial question when it was asked last time (not to be insulting, it was just a confusing series of events).

Basically, GC, if you could be so kind, are you guys working on this at all, because it makes the coolest looking exotic pet, the most useless exotic pet.

I had a post on the hunter forums regarding spirit beast dps compared to devilsaur and cat. On the test dummies in Org, I found that the spirit beast was doing up to 150dps less than a devilsaur, who was a level lower than the spirit beast. The really scary part though is that the cat was doing almost as much damage as the devilsaur (more without me helping with gftt and cobra strikes) and so again leaving the spirit beast way behind.
As I get higher in level I'm also finding I need the extra pet talents less, I'm just throwing them into things that to be honest I'm happy with or without. So at this stage, it's pretty hard to justify taking the 51 BM talent over say readiness, especially when the only pet who can in situations put out more damage than a cat is not a great option for instances due to his tendency to mass aggro...

I would also like to request a fix to Spirit Strike - this pet is one of the rarest tames around, and very much sought after. I love my Loque, and would really enjoy having him in raids, but unless his SS is fixed I can't.

I've also heard that SS cannot crit on initial hit, on ticks, or on the detonation. I'm not sure why this is, considering DOTs can now crit. I've never actually seen a crit myself, so I can't disprove it.

I realize that making Loque a superior pet would cause some trouble (there's only one of him :s), but could he be brought up to a point where he's a viable raiding pet? If we're trying to get to the point where not every raiding hunter comes armed with the same pet, having the Devilsaur being the obvious choice for BM hunters seems to be at odds with it :s

Thankee much!

Forced to agree here. I got Loque a couple days ago, and leveled him to 79, and his damage is WAY below my wasp, or my Devilsaur. Honestly, he even seems a fair bit below my RHINO for pete's sake.

Just feels like a rip off, even if i still use him if only because.. i want to. Heh.

Bump for attention

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Q u o t e:
I would also like to request a fix to Spirit Strike - this pet is one of the rarest tames around, and very much sought after. I love my Loque, and would really enjoy having him in raids, but unless his SS is fixed I can't.

I've also heard that SS cannot crit on initial hit, on ticks, or on the detonation. I'm not sure why this is, considering DOTs can now crit. I've never actually seen a crit myself, so I can't disprove it.

I realize that making Loque a superior pet would cause some trouble (there's only one of him :s), but could he be brought up to a point where he's a viable raiding pet? If we're trying to get to the point where not every raiding hunter comes armed with the same pet, having the Devilsaur being the obvious choice for BM hunters seems to be at odds with it :s

Thankee much!

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Just to clarify dots cannot crit yet. You can (if you're a lock or DK) talent your dots to have a chance equal to your crit chance to do double damage. It sounds the same, but it's not critting the in the way you would want to (i.e. it wouldn't take advantage of the crit based procs in BM tree)

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Q u o t e:


Just to clarify dots cannot crit yet. You can (if you're a lock or DK) talent your dots to have a chance equal to your crit chance to do double damage. It sounds the same, but it's not critting the in the way you would want to (i.e. it wouldn't take advantage of the crit based procs in BM tree)

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Which makes the ability that much worse.
Spirit strike has the capacity to be good, but at the moment, it simply ISNT. At this moment, its terrible.

Another point of note is that it doesnt even work with prowl as far as i can see. It seems to hit for roughly the same amounts if the beast is prowling, or not prowling.

So long as longevity clips the timer for the periodic part of Spirit Strike, then it's significantly reduced from it's potential.

Most sane BM hunters take the Longevity talent to reduce Bestial Wrath among other things, so for this to happen with the Spirit beast's special ability I can only take as not working as intended.

With the clipping, you get the initial strike damage every 7 seconds. Fine but significantly less damage than most any other pet.

However, if the periodic damage timers are allowed to keep going, then you have the initial damage every 7 seconds and periodic damage every 10 seconds after, and the perodics overlap. The end result is after a minute it builds up to having the damage hit every second. It's not exactly "stacking" except as in the timers could stack for the damage after each unitial hit.

The damage from that would be stunning, and still fairly balanced and only really applicable to PvE. It would be not so useful for PvP because you can't maintain steady DPS against a target for a minute. Against Bosses in PvE though %-player or raid, especially raid, it would be greatly effective.

If Blizzard can fix it, Spirit Beasts can be among the best PvE pets, but at the moment they're mostly cosmetic, and I'll keep my cat TYVM.

I remember GC mentioning that Spirit Strike should be effected by the invigoration talent but regardless it still only refreshes every 10 seconds, even with 3/3 in invigoration.

I'm really hoping this is just a bug and that we'll see some action around it but I'm concerned that this is just a "minor issue" and that with many other pets being available it'll just get left to the wayside.

I guess we'll just have to wait and pray! Thanks for all the input and please keep it coming.

Any news on whether they've fixed the bug? This puppy should hit slightly higher than cat to justify it being exotic.

Another factor is that cats rake can take advantage of a warriors bleed-effects buff.

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Q u o t e:

If Blizzard can fix it, Spirit Beasts can be among the best PvE pets, but at the moment they're mostly cosmetic, and I'll keep my cat TYVM.

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You're all over the place with your post. All that's needed is for this pet to be on par with a normal cat. We went 51 BM, we put in the time to find and tame it, we want to use the pet in raid not just stand around Dalaran with it. Having the damage on par with the normal cat would still seem to be below what it *should* be doing considering the buffs the exotics got, but I'd be happy for it to do the same damage as a normal cat.

/edit. Just to clarify it doesn't have to be the best pet, just competitive.

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Q u o t e:

You're all over the place with your post. All that's needed is for this pet to be on par with a normal cat. We went 51 BM, we put in the time to find and tame it, we want to use the pet in raid not just stand around Dalaran with it. Having the damage on par with the normal cat would still seem to be below what it *should* be doing considering the buffs the exotics got, but I'd be happy for it to do the same damage as a normal cat.

/edit. Just to clarify it doesn't have to be the best pet, just competitive.

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Actually, I disagree. This pet should NOT be on par with a normal cat. It's exotic, cats aren't. It SHOULD be on par with a devilsaur.

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Q u o t e:


Actually, I disagree. This pet should NOT be on par with a normal cat. It's exotic, cats aren't. It SHOULD be on par with a devilsaur.

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This cat is a beautiful creature and it's disappointing that it's dmg is gimped to less than a non-exotic.

I don't believe it will be changed though. I remember reading a GC post where he said this pet was put in to be unique for the avid pet hunters to collect and that they had no intention of changing it's dmg mechanics.(probably to keep it unique....if it's sweet DPS AND looks great...everyone would have it. And that runs counter to his stated reason why this pet was put in).

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Q u o t e:
We're aware of the Lovegevity bug. We'll get that fixed and then adjust the dps as necessary. It should be a choice equivalent to a Devilsaur, but we don't want the Spirit Beast to be far and away the best pet choice. I don't think any of you are asking for that, but sometimes my quotes have a way of being taken out of context. :)

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Yes. It seems I misunderstood. I do apologize.

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Q u o t e:
We're aware of the Lovegevity bug. We'll get that fixed and then adjust the dps as necessary. It should be a choice equivalent to a Devilsaur, but we don't want the Spirit Beast to be far and away the best pet choice. I don't think any of you are asking for that, but sometimes my quotes have a way of being taken out of context. :)

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What hunters have asked for is a decent passive buff for pets when speccing into 51pts BM.

4 talent points != decent passive buff, especially not at 80.

Readiness = an indirect passive buff that is way superior to 51ptsBM.

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Q u o t e:
We're aware of the Lovegevity bug. We'll get that fixed and then adjust the dps as necessary. It should be a choice equivalent to a Devilsaur, but we don't want the Spirit Beast to be far and away the best pet choice. I don't think any of you are asking for that, but sometimes my quotes have a way of being taken out of context. :)

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Thank you very much. Spirit Strike is pitiful at the moment with the way it functions. I am glad you are fixing the longevity bug with the ability. I might also suggest to have it do ticks like a normal DoT (spell version of rake) and give the initial hit the ability to crit.

One minor issue (outside of the main ones) is that the 2nd part of the spell doesn't do damage until the debuff timer expires, that can hinder DPS as well if the mob dies before the 2nd part of the spell is used. That is not a problem with say a devilsaur which does all of its special abilities damage at the start (plus gets buffed) or a cat where it does rake damage every 3 seconds.

Edit: one last thing, since the pet does spell damage for Spirit Strike it gets less benefit from our attack power (compared to melee), so consider that as well when looking at the abilities damage range (as I am sure you will).

I appreciate you taking the time to help address this issue Ghostcrawler, and no I don't think any of us are asking that it become the best pet ever, just that it to competitive dps to other exotics and be above the dps of a cat!