Skettis and Khaz Mandate a Small Talent Change
We’re doing boat-loads of damage in Khaz and we’re dumping lots of pet heals, so we’ve decided to run with Aspect of the Viper for a while. During Curator last night, we ran out of mana even after quaffing two superior mana potions.
Also, we’ve been farming our Sha’tari Skyguard rep by murdering Arakoa by the thousands. When we can see the Talon Priests, we’re taking on three, and sometimes four, of these guys - invisible and regular - at a time. It sure would help if Hobbes were a little stronger defensively in these situations.
What does these situations mean? Improved Aspect of the Hawk is gonna go away. Remember, IAotH will only proc if you have Aspect of the Hawk active. Without it, IAotH is a worthless talent. So, while our current spec is very high DPS, we’re gonna throttle it a bit by running AotV and dump IAotH. For that sacrifice, we’re gonna buff our pet a little to handle the Skettis questing we’re enjoying.
This new spec is not a “better” spec, but a “different” spec built for our specific situation.
The five points from IAotH have gone to 3/3 Thick Hide, Bestial Swiftness, and 1/2 Bestial Discipline.
Why Bestial Discipline? Because we’re gonna run Growl a lot. In Karazhan, we have it turned off 99% of the time. In Skettis, it’s always on and we need that Focus to turn Hobbes into a better tank; something he is not used to being.
Could we have done without Bestial Swiftness and gone 2/2 in Bestial Discipline? Sure. Would we argue against such a spec? Nope. But we love speed here at BRK; the faster something dies, the less chance it has of killing us first.
thrstn on 28 May 2007 at 8:01 pm #
thats the build i’ve been using since 2.1. Except i have 2/2 BD an no point in AH. Works well for rep grinds and instances.
Anonymous on 29 May 2007 at 12:53 am #
Dude…seriously…you aren’t running a proper BM build without 2/2 in bestial discipline. It is a core defining BM talent. Without it your pet suffers a big dps drop.
Anonymous on 29 May 2007 at 4:16 am #
Bestial Swifness? C’mon Damh, you know better than that. That point should go to Bestial Discipline.
Joe on 29 May 2007 at 11:50 am #
He is finally coming to see the light. *proud of our young Damh*
Borrodir on 29 May 2007 at 12:26 pm #
I think I experienced a slight slip in damage after my 0/20/41 respec, but I’m not really sure. I do know that the trap talents have made a big difference in my 5-mans.
They holiday weekend was very good to me. I replaced my necklace with Necklace of the Deep (+37 Agi!), cleared BM (got laughing skull battle harness and finished kara attunement), grabbed a new ring, and finally picked up scaled greaves of patience (12th run).
Now if I could just find someone on my server who could cut Delicate Living Rubies, I’d be set. I’ve spent 2 days saying “LF Jewelcrafter to cut Delicate Living Ruby. Need 5 cuts, have mats, tipping 5g/cut. Please pst”
The battleharness needs to be gemmed and enchanted before it can replace my current piece, and the same goes for the scaled greaves of patience. This will increase my agility another 14. For now, though, I’m up to:
728Agi/1640AP/28.5%Crit
And yes, I have screen shots of master tactician, some buffs, and a feral druid pushing that crit up over 44%. It’s much more difficult to solo as SV, but I’m having a great time with it.
Damh on 29 May 2007 at 12:53 pm #
“Bestial Discipline” is a great talent, but completely unnecessary if you have 2/2 in Go For The Throat AND a healthy crit percentage.
Zemulos on 29 May 2007 at 1:25 pm #
Hi guys! Ok, so I’ve been on vacation and haven’t been to the site in like 10 days
Imagine my surprise when I saw BRK’s new survivalist…er..BM spec? So what happened to the EW craze? Is that over with? I considered switching to 20/41… but decided not to bother. I’ve gotten a ton of equip upgrades lately, and I don’t think they fit the SV line at all 
Plus I totally understand what you’re saying about the pet needing to tank. For that I have maintained my 8 pts in BM and just don’t see me changing any time soon.
To Borrodir: Wow…
728Agi/1640AP/28.5%Crit
these stats are pretty. My agi sucks lately, but all the good gear i’ve found is low on the Agi scene. I believe i’m at the following now.
415agi/2008ap/20.49crit
My dps is listed as like 307 or something, but i’m steady dps around 400-500. Toss in a few crits and multishots and it just gets scary. In SH, on those group pulls where you can pull them at half life… you know, the gladiators, we aoe them. My dps spikes at over 1000dps when i drop multishots and rapid fire. So my question to you is this. How do you handle that much crit? Even with a misdirection aimed crit boosted with ap trinkets and 5 sunders on a target, I am still sometimes pulling aggro in a fight even while doing nothing but auto/steady rotation. If I throw in arcane, I’m almost guaranteed aggro, which is why i only use it towards the end of a fight. I don’t run out of mana much because I can’t unleash anyhow. My crits seem to hit more than 20% of the time. How do you handle your high crit rate? Does it make soloing and keeping aggro on your pet impossible?
On a side note, i have two BL pieces and the trap cooldown talent from SV. I’m a chain trapping god now
And I would like you guys who are motivated to check me out of the armory and view my beautiful newly crafted engineering helm 
And if any of you are on anvilmar server… do you know any jewelcrafters that are exaulted with consortium? I want that meta gem for my helm so bad 
Guy on 29 May 2007 at 4:18 pm #
My name is guy, and I approve of this change.
-guy
Damh on 29 May 2007 at 5:25 pm #
The Survialist Craze… where is the BRK Armory God when you need him? Llew?!
We’ll get right on this.
BRK didn’t go Survivalist because we wanted to see how Avoidance and Cobra Reflexes did in Karazhan. After two highly successful runs topping the damage meter, we just cannot make ourselves try anything else yet.