“Dear BRK, I played BM for like two weeks, in soloing, arenas, battlegrounds and Karazhan. BM’s damage seems to be higher than MM, which I have been ever since using my first five talent points in pet health. So I don’t like BM. Having highest DPS in raid groups is nice, but I had that already. The only difference is I don’t even have to think about whether or not I’ll top our two big DPS-rogues, I just do.

“For mana consumption however, I find that BM costs me more mana. More Steady Shots plus Bestial Wrath every 2 minutes in addition to Rapid Killing and troll racial adds up fast. As BM, I have to use Aspect of the Viper, as MM I did not have to.

“In arenas, it seemed nice at first but now I think MM is better. Yes, being immune to crowd control is cool. But in arenas especially, it doesn’t matter as I still can’t get away from them to get at range and all that faster attack speed is wasted. Basically, my normal arena plan is that I’m letting them beat on me while I fire at one of the casters or someone farther away from me while being healed by our shammy. So I have to micromanage my pet more and do less DPS to others in a short amount of time as BM. In battlegrounds I really hate BM. My pet needs to go in first because I can’t do enough DPS quickly enough to scare ANYONE with high resilience rating. So I just send in a big red “gank me” flag and… well… get ganked. I miss my huge crits!

“Traps, yes trapping requires more work as BM. In tighter areas I now hate it. I didn’t used to mind, but once you have points in trap duration, when you take them out, it’s VERY noticeable. And I waste DPS moving further away to put more traps down.

“So, I was about to spec back to my 8/41/12 build last night. But I decided I may as well try out the other option. However, after scrutinizing the SV tree, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I made a compromise. 0/31/30. Is this a good spec? We’ll see. I had written my stats down as all three trees.

MM ap is 2142, crit is 23.46 white dps 321.7
BM ap is 1748, crit is 23.46 white dps is 333.1
MM/SV ap is 1994, crit 28.96 white dps is 312.2

Zemulous“

Let it be known that there was a final paragraph from Zem that we have omitted for overall clarity of the blog. It wasn’t horrible or cruel, it just confused the issue at hand.

What issue, you ask? The Spec-You-Like Issue.

Do you think BRK is gonna tell Zem to use BM if he doesn’t like it? Nope. However, he tried it, for which we award +5 BRK Cool Points, and he acknowledged our favorite BM commandments:

1) BM is the highest-DPS spec, (both in tool-tip in in instance use, BM is the schiznit, although we wish he had also included his pet’s white damage DPS for each spec)
2) Pets are not point-n-click destruction machines; they require micromanagement
3) Playing BM is not easier than the other specs
4) Arenas, regardless of spec, are painfully frustrating for our entire class

As for his new 0/31/30 hybrid Raiding Spec, we think it’s pretty cool. We’re not that big of a fan of the 8/41/12 or other variations of the X/41/Y school. Now 0/41/20 we understand and bless, and 7/20/34 is interesting, too. But the 0/31/30 is a proven raiding spec and the only BRK-Approved Hybrid Spec we can think of right now. We think Zem will like it.

As for the whole arena issue, we have read some blue posts where the GMs acknowledge the lack of representation of hunters in arena-uberness. Zem nails the half the problem as being able to get to range, but the line-of-sight issue is what keeps us out of arenas. There is an obvious terrain issue when hunters dominate the total-damage-done and total-kills statistics in battlegrounds - Alterac Valley, Eye of the Storm, etc. - but are consistently destroyed in arenas. Big crits and massive burst damage is necessary in arenas because players know if they move just a couple feet in any direction, some obstacle will save their @sses from a hunter. This is why MM do better than any other spec in arenas. If you like arenas and want that gear, go MM; it’s really the best option.

If you’ve got something to say and want to see it on BRK the Blog, just send it in! We love posting reader emails. As Zem will attest, we do some light editing for clarity, spelling, and maybe some grammar. We’re not an English teacher, though; we don’t grade or give quizzes.

Edit: Zem’s numbers have been corrected.