Please make "merge pets" the default option

[Artack]

I have often been asked to make the merge default, this is good for hunters but can produce some very odd numbers for "same-name-pets" like mages elemental or in a couple of MC'd mob situations. (2 different priests mc 2 different mobs with the same name)
In general there are situations where merging pets adds up to too much damage. (The Virtual raid pet is the only one that won't add up to much)
The combat log only has a name in it - Cat hits Ted for 100 damage.
This is fine if we only have one hunter. Now another "lazy" hunter (he didn't rename his pet) comes to the raid and he also has a pet called "Cat"
SW Stats only has one internal unit called "Cat" - Any damage BOTH pets make are merged to one, because there is no way to differentiate which "Cat" did the damage. (Remember the combat log message above?)
W/o merging we are still ok - the damage was made and is added correctly. Now if you merge pets to owners SW stats goes through the list of pet holders and sees Hunterones current pet is "Cat" - and adds them up. We get to Huntertwo - ah his current pet is "Cat" and adds them up. Effectively the damage "Cat" did is now added twice.
A simple solution that's obvious is to divide "Cat" damage by the amount of people that have a pet called "Cat" and add that fraction of the damage to each hunter. Hey but Hunterone is a "leet" beastmaster and Huntertwo is not and a total noob that forgets to control his pet. Wouldn't be fair to Hunterone then, right?
All in all non merged data is accurate - merged pet data CAN be misleading and show wrong (to high) values if you have "same-name-pets" in the raid.

[Morgannon]

Naming a hunter pet the same as another PLAYER in the raid yields interesting results as well.