Neshura asks about pet training

So, fellow BRK acolyte from my guild, Neshura, asked about how to train her gorilla to be a better tank. While there will be pretty graphs in this post, there may also be just the teensiest bit of math. You've been warned.

I did some preliminary research, stopping at wowwiki first and finally ending up at petopia. While I've always found wowwiki to be particularly good especially in the formulas area, in this case they failed me. Petopia give me the information I wanted (almost).

The two pet skills she asked about in particular were Great Stamina and Natural Armor. Both of these skills have ranks that run from 1-11 and are available from your local pet trainer. I quickly produced two graphs (one for each skill)

Stamina Graph

Here, the orange line shows the number of stamina points received for training point. Notice how it starts high, gradually falls off into a bowl, and then shoots up at the lip. You're getting the most effect for training points up to about rank 6. The purplish line tracks for Neshura, using a gorilla and having her current stamina the effect on pet health for various ranks. The formula in question here is:

Pet Health =(Base+(30% hunter's stamina+ great stamina+spells)*10)*EndTrain*PetMod

Petopia only has base health for up to level 69, so I used that number (3941). I also used Neshura's stats & talent build from the armory to do my calculations.

Armor Graph
Here the orange line again shows the armor per training point spent and has roughly the same shape (without the lip on the right). The purple again shows the armor increase as the ranks increase.

The formula in question here is:

Pet Armor = (Base*Gorilla Adj.+(35%NeshArmor+Natural Armor))*ThickHide

Petopia only has base armor for up to level 69, so I used that number (6495). I also used Neshura's stats & talent build from the armory to do my calculations.

So what does it mean?

Knowing how Neshura plays, she's not doing a lot of raiding. And not much instancing. Basically, she's still burning through her quests. With this in mind, she probably doesn't need Avoidance (which cuts down on AOE damage) until she does instance. If she's fighting things that primarily do melee (not spell) damage, she'll be better off with putting priority on Natural Armor. However, if she's fighting casters, she'll do better with Stamina. Since the gorilla's thunderclap is one of 3 pet skills that can affect threat (the others are growl and cower) Daffodil shouldn't have problem HOLDING aggro. The only concern is her living through the aggro she holds. If I were training the pet, I'd max Growl, take the highest rank of Thunderclap available (I know she trained Daffodil in STV, but don't know which gorilla she got), get some points in bite and spend the rest in Armor and Stamina. And I'd give priority to one over the other based on what I expect to fight.

Hope that helped, Nesh.