@bbr: Oh trust me, if crabs knew Gore, I’d have that tamed in a heartbeat.

@Carol: You bring up a good point. Although I haven’t actually experimented on that, from my own experience Claw doesn’t share a (global?) cooldown with Stra’s “white” damage. In other words, Claw is used at the same time as a normal hit. This is all from appearance though so it’s something I can look into.

You and the previous commentor seem to both be making the assumption that Claw’s damage comes in addition to the melee damage – like icing on the attack cake. But when Sta makes a Claw attack, does that not take time from the next melee attack? I know it is instant cast, but I still assumed it was replacing or at least delaying a melee attack – and maybe I’m completely wrong about that.

If it does replace a melee attack, or slow it, then you can’t just add it on top of the melee damage, you’d have to figure out how much it replaces, then how much extra it adds back in.

I’m still trying to move from competent hunter working by feel, to expert hunter who understands the underlying mechanics, so I appreciate any clarification – or if you can send me somewhere else with an answer instead.

Cheers!

Also, Gore > Claw

http://rrvs.blogspot.com/2008/05/hunter-pet-dps-part-1.html

“If you think an 25% increase in pet damage is important, than yes.”
If we put claw’s damage at 25% of the pet’s entire damage, it’s actually a 33.3% increase in damage. If we assume that the pet’s total damage is 100, and of that the pet’s normal damage is 75 and claw’s damage is 25, then without claw the pet would do 75 damage. If we increase it’s damage by 25 from 75 (to 100), that’s a 25/75 = 0.333 = 33.3% increase.

It would also be interesting to see some similar tests with bite.