Beastmaster Instance Talent Build – The Uber DPS
Building a talent spec for an instance is no simple thing. What’s cool about being a hunter is that we are adaptable. If you need a pet for tanking, we’ve got that. If you need a pet for uber dps, you bet we can bring it. Want a pet for caster-interruption or maybe just all-around ready-for-anything mayhem, we’re all over it.
So the problem comes about in that our talents are very flexible for each situation. Maximizing our potency for each pet requires a different talent spec. To say, “This is the Instance BM Spec” would be silly; your pet’s role in the instance influences how you should consider spending your talent points.
BRK prefers the uber-dps role, but has his Warp Hunter, Felreaver, for tanking duties. Since BRK is performing different roles every night, he would soon go broke were he to respec every frickin’ time he brought out a different pet. As such, his talents do not always reflect what you’re about to see here.
Beastmaster Instance Talent Build – The Uber DPS Marksman Side
BRK almost never changes this basic setup. Pet and hunter dps is the main appeal of this spread. Crit percentage and damage is boosted, we shove Focus down our pet’s throat, we increase the attack power of everybody attacking our marked mob, and Rapid Killing… if you’re not a Rapid Killing Addict, you should be.
Beastmaster Instance Talent Build – The Uber DPS Beastmaster Side
Our basic 40 point build from the previous post remains, but with a few exceptions. We do not choose Bestial Swiftness; we’re in instances and indoors, so it’s pretty useless. Likewise, we dump Catlike Reflexes. Our pet is not supposed to be tanking; he supposed to be ripping our mobs apart while allowing our tanks to handle the damage mitigation.
These four talent points we shove into Improved Aspect of the Hawk and bring the fastest-rate ranged weapon we have. IAotH is best utilized with fast weapons; the more often you fire the greater the number of IAotH procs you will have.
Do you have a fast and a slow weapon? There is nothing wrong with keeping both on your person at all times. In fact, as other classes collect armor, BRK recommends hunter collect guns and bows. You never know when you’ll need something special. For example, it’s great to be able to whip out that weapon that adds Nature damage for a mob that is specifically weak against that class of magic. Your arsenal is your Safe Place, your Shangri-la, your history of past glory. Don’t deprive yourself; keep your weapons and don’t vendor them.
But anyway, back to the talent build. So we spent 40 points in BM and 20 in MM, thus we have one left.
Many hunters recommend Scattershot. In fact, the other hunter officers in BRK’s guild went that route.
BRK shakes his head in disappointment.
The Beast Within gives you three awesome abilities for eighteen seconds:
1) 10% additional damage
2) Reduces mana costs of all spells by 20%
3) Say it with me… “While enraged, you do not feel pity, remorse, or fear and you cannot be stopped unless killed.” Does that not send shivers down your spine and goosebumps down your arms? As I type this, my fingers curl and my teeth grit…
You want a piece of BRK now? You best bring it, and bring it hard. BRK and I are Death Incarnate. When we pop this and crank Rapid Killing, you cannot stop, stun, slow, fear, control, or otherwise prevent us from bringing over combined 900 dps into your grill. We’re in your face, nose to nose, teeth bared, daring you to blink, and what the *bleep* are you gonna do about it.
Die. Thats what you’re gonna do! COME GET SOME!! AAARRGGGGHHH!!!!
…
um…
ooo… sorry about that, gentle readers. BRK kinda lost it for a minute. What’s sad is that he actually talks like this in Vent under the right circumstances. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, you don’t need to tell me.
It’s cocoa time, methinks. Next time, (or later, depending on how well BRK’s Vegas “entertainment” does in the tournament), we’ll talk about building a Hunter Pet-Tanking build.
Just where the heck are the marshmallows? I need to calm down.
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19 Responses to “Beastmaster Instance Talent Build – The Uber DPS”
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LMAO!
As fun as all that sounds, I think I’ll happily remain a “piece of artillery”
At least for now.
No impr conc. shot? Why if I may ask? dps>all? But it’s soo god in saving casters.. imo.. I agree with the rest I guess.. Today i may respecc as a BRK.. it definatelly worth a try.. and I promise I put up my mails too =D
The only thing I don’t like is the lack of efficiency. Now sure the imp hunters mark is nice. But that 10% extra mana you are spending is going to make you into a useless autoshot machine halfway through any boss encounter.
Dear BRK,
I think I love you. There, I said it. You’ve elicited my undying affection and (dare I say it?) respect with this entire site. You get +10 Raaxis coolpoints* for pretty much everything.
*Raaxis coolpoints not associated or related to BRK’s point system in any way, shape, or form.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve given those slavering mongrel MM Hunters the exact shbiel (schbiel? shbeil? Pfft, whatever) about Serpent’s Swiftness that you posted in several blogs.
And I’m proud to say that I’ve been a hardcore BM player since I began playing WoW, almost one and a half years ago, despite much whooping, hollering, teasing, and spamming from the more “respectably-specced” Marksman Hunters. I was once told that pets were’t allowed in raids. I promptly sic’d Bigglesworth on that person and he “Went for the throat”, so to speak. It wasn’t pretty. /sighshakehead
Anyways, kudos on the amazing site and clearheadedness to see that Beastmastery is just bad-ass.
~Love, Raaxis
@ Anonymous from Apr. 12th:
I am a BM hunter without points in Efficiency. In my personal experience, I have never had a constant problem with mana in an instance. Only when we have mobs that run and aggro a second or third group, and I have to use more cooldowns am I in a fix.
Oh, and I still top damage meters 85% of the time. (The other 15% is when I luck out and a 70 Druid tanks for our group in Bear form.)
If an instance is going smoothly, I take my time and ration my mana. There’s no need to worry/overreact/blow cooldowns when the tank and the healer are doing their jobs well. I try to keep above 50% at all times in case things take a wrong turn.
Also, I found out that if i’m OOM all the time, i’m probably doing something wrong. I mean, i’m a hunter, not a mage, right? Steady, not burst, damage?
And hey, if I went all out every time, I would pull aggro off the tank, which nobody likes
I only ever really go all out when a boss is at 20% health or less and our tank has been keeping solid aggro the whole fight. That way there’s no risk of me pulling aggro, even when I do use Bladefist’s Breadth and Rapidfire at once.
When it comes to boss fights, I really try to be mana efficient. I have one mana pool, so I try not to drain it too soon. I know that i’m not going to 2-shot Magetheridon, so why go all out at the start?
Thank the Naaru I wised up and started using Scorpid Sting for instances. Talk about a difference in mana efficiency. To quote the most excellent BRK on the subject;
“Tank survival is Raid survival.”
Think about it.
I’m only level 62, but i’d like to think that I know my stuff.
Hey BRK, awesome site! I LOVE being a hunter!
~Tyrussel of Bloodscalp(PvP)
Ya, Tyrussel and BRK have it right here.
A. There is nothing wrong with being an auto-shot machine and going sure and steady beats burst damage spam I find.
B. Everyone loves Imp HM, and BM hunters should especially.
Imp Con and Eff are nice for PvP, but I happily go without them for this setup, it is hard to go wrong in PvAnything with this setup.
Question: If the majority of your BM/MM talent points are spent improving ranged attack, why bother Improved Hunter’s Mark. Why not put 5 points toward Improves Concussive Shot? The gamble on stunning your target has to pay out if you are a rapid killing machine, as BRK recommends.
Just a thought.
It would actually be awesome if I could get a link to this build so I can actually see what the full thing looks like.
u can get a link to the complete build in WoWs Armory.
And BRK i love the site. Im a huge fan. i tell all the hunters in my guild about ur site
Boada
This build is for a pure DPS hunter, for use in instances, assuming you have a good enought tank, you shouldnt need to stun anything. He/She should be good enough, to hold the aggro off yourself and the healer.
The points in huntersmark, are for A) the hunters dps benefit, and B) the buff on that mob it gives to the group. any class, (barring mages) would bite your arm off to have the added damage buff from the hunters mark improvments.
Huma said :
No impr conc. shot? Why if I may ask? dps>all? But it’s soo god in saving casters.. imo.. I agree with the rest I guess.. Today i may respecc as a BRK.. it definatelly worth a try.. and I promise I put up my mails too =D
Why?
1) Ok, and what if it don’t proc? You need “reliable” ability to save your healer life, not a proc.
2) If your healer pull agro off the tank, the problem isnt in your spec and a proc won’t solve it.
I did some napkin math on rapid killing vs gftt before, and gftt came out ahead. The dps that rapid killing adds for raids is unimpressive, since you seldom get the killshot.
Think about it, rapid fire talented is 15s every 4 minutes, or 1/16th of the time (6.25%). Rapid fire untalented is 15s every 5 min, or 1/20th of the time (5%). This means that your total increase from Rapid Killing is 1.25% of what a rapid fire usually adds.
Also, in a raid setting on a 8+ minute boss (which is really where it will matter since talented RF will come up twice, untalented possibly only once), without efficiency you will be switching to Aspect of the Viper sooner, and in doing so losing damage. I’m pretty sure that going to AotV 10% earlier will lose you more than an extra rapid fire will add.
I similarly did some math on Imp. Aspect of the Hawk. It only procs from “normal shots”, which means autoshots. With approximately 1 Autoshot every 2 sec, it will proc every 20 sec with “regular bm hunter crit” (around 20%). It also does not lower the casting time of Steady Shot, so one runs the risk of clipping.
Anyway, 12s every 20s is a nice 60% uptime. Autoshot makes about 35% of a hunter’s dps (raid numbers from 3 different raids, so slightly on the high side.) And the increase will be 12% of that.
12% * 35% * 60% = 2.52%
Not by any means an imperative talent, but still nice. Here’s a suggested alternative build:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=cqbM0gxRwuVoViboV
Only 1 “leftover” point in IAotH guarantees no clipping. Animal handler for pet hit gives you higher FI uptime. 4/5 points for “pet flurry” is usually enough with the uptime and attackspeed pets have.
Lemme know what you think.
Hi BRK,
Having recently adopted your 41/20 build and its increased dps output I have a question.
I have looked at your armory profile and noticed your hit rating is 141 whereas I have been advised hit rating for hunters has a cap of 120.
Can you shed any light on this for me please.
Many thanks
Seabhac – Aerie Peak realm
Perhaps you never get the killing blow on a mob but I just about always do, and the method for this is incredibly simple.
When the mob in question is around 2-3% hp (give or take depending on how much total health) you make sure to not cut off your steady:auto rotation until the critical moment of firing off your arcane shot (and then resume immediately if not dead).
Very simple.
Also I see imp hunter mark as very tempting whomever the talent points (to me) would truly be better spent in efficiency. It’s not very fun to have low mana and not only be hindered in your shot rotation but as a BM hunter you’re going to want to use mend pet any time your pet is in trouble.
Worse case scenario even casting revive pet for BW/KC to be available to you again.
I just hit 50, and have used your *New* BM Leveling Tree (1st 40 pts.), quite happily!
Now I’ve turned to this guide for my remaining points, but I see a discrepancy, if I’m not mistaken. I don’t see where the 4 points in Improved Aspect of the Hawk come from. You talk about dumping Catlike Reflexes, but the New tree doesn’t use those, but it does use Bestial Swiftness.
If going from the New BM tree, should I then skip Improved AotH, go directly to the MM talents, and then add The Beast Within?
Btw, I play PvE, mostly solo, a few instances.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, as I have an unused talent point burning to be used. Thanks for the fabulous info!
btw, what name/server should i look for on armory?
Oom,
This is an instance build to respec into once you start doing instances at L70. Use the tree you were using before as long as you’re still leveling.
First, this build is crap now, IHM only give the +40% to MELEE hits so WTF would a mage want it?
Second I am BM/SV went Eff and almost never have a porblem with mana now
and 3rd I hit RK 90% of them time…
Im deffinatly not an expert butyou need to update this build or something man
Ok i dont use this build at all and I am 90% of the time on top of all damage meters in all my raids. Yes the build is nice, but if you have crap gear or no enchants on your items etc.. then it dont help you succede in raids. To many times have I seen hunters brag about their abilities only to be out done by me. I am a bm with 11 points in mark n 8 in surv. I out DPS full mm specs and even people that spec hybrid. The problem is people spend the gold to respec and never realize its their gear. Sure they have nice gear, but they socket +stam etc more then anything else. You dont need 10k life in an instance as a hunter if you cant even be in the top 5 of damage. Do yourselves a favor, get gear with +hit rating +crit +agi an even +ap. And no a full PvP set is not an acceptable alternative to a good raid set. Do yourself a favor get two sets of gear. There is a reason it is call PvP gear and not Raid Gear. The tree is nice, but really it is a matter of what you have not just where your points are.
I am about to repec into a more bm/mark only tree as I can see where other talents will up my overall DPS. Which ask any healer in any instance. the faster you kill them the happier they are.
Az
Lvl 70 Hunter
Lvl 70 Mage
Lvl 70 Shammy
Lvl 69 Holy Priest
Vek ‘nilash
Amen man! BM > ALL. Specced bm from the day i made my first hunter, still specced BM today.
Clangeddin
Khaz Modan