It’s About Time, Zem

BRK » 29 July 2007 » In Spec »

“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.

Spec | July 29, 2007

Comments

23 Responses to “It’s About Time, Zem”

Megan on July 29th, 2007 6:10 pm

While LOS is a concern for Hunters, it’s also a problem for other classes. The best way to succeed in Arena is by minimizing your weakpoints and working with your team with a superior strategy and coordination. If you have problems with LOS and range, you have to figure out how to get them to fight you on more favorable terms. It’s not too tricky, after a few games you should realize who on your team is a top priority for your opponents and you can use them as bait.

In my alt 3v3 (Druid/Hunter/Rogue), we chew up melee oriented teams. Our Hunter protects me by laying traps around the areas (eg pillars, columns) where I play LOS games and sacrifices his DPS to wingclip opponents that are on me so I can kite and support better. Once control has been established (melee not pressuring me enough -> Cyclone juggle their team more -> their DPS is stunted and healing is interrupted -> we draw first blood), the pet will go red, our Rogue burns through his offensive CD’s, and even I Moonfire spam.

In other words, we make them play our game first (hey look at me, run over these traps first, deal with these snares, ok woops you’re LOS and far from your own team now gg)—we would lose horribly if our only goal was to try and kill by “topping a DPS chart”.
Wowpeon on July 29th, 2007 6:40 pm

I’ve been 7/41/13 for a while now, and was 20/41/0 before that, until I started doing instances. I have no plans to raid, so that’s probably the spec I’ll stick with, as it seems good in PvP too. I probably do more FFA PvP than anything else these days anyway.
Wowpeon on July 29th, 2007 6:54 pm

Also, I don’t have a clue where those white damage numbers come from, but my AP is around 1960 with a %19.75 crit rate and my tooltip DPS is well over 290. Yes I need better gear - only one epic and four greens still - but yeah, that’s really my point, that has to be a typo. I’m guess he meant 321.
BRK on July 29th, 2007 8:19 pm

We think 213.2 is a typo, too. But 321? No. More likely 231.2
Wowpeon on July 29th, 2007 9:44 pm

Back in “Hobbes Fan Mail and Some Math” you defined “White damage” as the number shown on the tooltip of your character’s ranged damage pane. If this is what Zem is referring to, then let’s pick a random MM hunter off the Armory:

http://armory.wow-europe.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Baelgun&n=Loglinhttp://armory.wow-europe.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Baelgun&n=Loglin

Their tooltip damage is a shade over 300 DPS. Okay so 200AP if they had hawk up wouldn’t add that much, so 321 is off.

But 231? If we’re talking about the same stat and same way of measuring it, then that’s really shortchanging the MM build.

Also no, that’s no me. I can only dream of such gear. But it’s common for MM with around 2k AP and at around 20% crit to sit around the 300 mark on their tooltip damage.
BRK on July 29th, 2007 9:51 pm

Can we all agree that Zem is off/on his meds and can’t write accurately down his white damage tooltip number due to the frequency and severity of his hallucinations?
Wowpeon on July 29th, 2007 10:22 pm

Haha yes, we can agree to that
Zemulos on July 30th, 2007 1:15 pm

Ok, wow, two typos.

321.7
333.1
312.2

All numbers were close, and yes, all numbers over 300. The point of listing them was to show that BM was clearly the highest white dps, and my hybrid build the lowest.

I think BRK is just messing with me now Clearly I couldn’t have made such a noob typographical error…LOL
Zemulos on July 30th, 2007 1:29 pm

@ wow peopon, 321 is not off. I’m not sure if you’re able to do the calculations or not, cause I suck at math, but you’re free to use my armory in place of a random one. The typo was in the order of the numbers, and probably due to writing fast in hopes the boss didnt’ catch me. But I spent a lot of time pondering the switch between specs and wrote things down carefully. My gear is nothing to sneeze at. Something like 13 epics or so. Also, using adamantite shells (which were used in each of the tooltip dps readings) adds about 11dps to the white damage listing. I don’t understand why… as the bullets are only 6dps greater, but that’s how it pans out. Perhaps the bonus damage talents in MM tree are reflecting in the tooltip, IDK. With pet dps included, as BM, it was not a strain for me to do 1kdps on prince or nethespite. You will see with BRKs new upgrades, he is just a shade below me compared to MY BM spec. And it appears that he too is using the adamantite shells. Otherwise, I believe his white damage would show approximately 318-320. The difference in white damage is not much for any of the three specs. But I must say that the 0/31/30 spec is making me happy so far, however soloing is almost impossible now. My second crit in a row is almost a guaranteed pull of aggro from my pet. Luckily, I no longer have quests in outlands, so it doesn’t matter. But I was a force to be reckoned with in EotS yesterday. You may notice that my pvp is limited as you look at my armory(provided below). I have never been much into it truthfully, but lately, we’ve been doing guild premades and it’s been a blast, so that number will go up soon.

Zemulos
Anvilmar realm
http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Anvilmar&n=Zemulos
Toolio on July 30th, 2007 1:40 pm

Why would you spec that far in to Surv and not get EW? Those 30/30 specs make me cringe.
Zemulos on July 30th, 2007 1:50 pm

Trying things out right now. The reason I didn’t try full SV spec right away is because 0/20/41 just didn’t look that strong to me. And even with the increased agi from talents in SV tree… I think I’m only around 570 agi… my gear is more AP focused. So EW wouldn’t really shine for me I don’t think. Lol and a side note, after BM, my return to a 2.35 attack speed makes my steady shot feel like an aimed shot /sigh. My shot speed as BM was 1.96
Rhust on July 30th, 2007 2:26 pm

ok, so I know I’m not the only MM-tree lover that is trying 41/20/0 now…

I tried it over the weekend, in arenas, soloing “group” guests and last night in botanica with the guild.

in MM, I was 0/49/12 I had about 2100 AP with hawk and aura on, and 21% crit. with BM, I lost about 500 AP, and a good hunk of agility(?)

but I was still top-cat in the dps race in our bot run… difference: Bentley(pet) was a 13% contributer as well… he off-tanked like a pro and only died when the MT went down and he stepped in and saved a wipe… that was nice! trapping with BM is much tougher, but I was finally getting it… even witout improved traps or even 1 piece of the beast lord set a 4 trap chain was possible, but not easy.

compared to the kara run on friday night(MM spec, 2nd only to a mage in the dps chart) MY dps was about on par… but the pet’s new damage was all gravy basically, I did the same amount of damage, but he did almost triple of what he usually does.

arena: I suck either way, I’m not big into pvp to start, and we’re on a younger server figting people who were 70 before I was 60… I only got 1 kill, and that was when I was still MM spec, and it was a 2500 crit on a mage… so I can’t say 1 spec is better than another in arena, I suck equally with both.

soloing group quests… here’s the deal… I finished up quests that had been in my log since I hit 67 in nagrand and got “buying time” as a quest… I took care of that solo, and me and a feral druid did the next parts together… though I think Bentley and I could have soloed them too… we did enough damage to have the druid resound DAMN!

mana… god I hate having to drink in an instance… but I had to do it all night in Botanica… I’m thinking of dumping the 2 points out of rapid killing and putting them in Efficiency! I rarely use rapid fire unless I get low on mana in a long boss fight, and 5 min. cooldown would be fine for that… thoughts?

sorry this has been so long… this is what I’m seeing after about 14 hours of testing. Am I ready to say I’m a born again, Beast master… no, it still doesn’t feel right to me… but it definately needs more testing… I’ll stay BM through this weeks friday kara run, and see how I like it then…
Zemulos on July 30th, 2007 3:58 pm

Yeah, I agree that the pet makes the difference in dps. My actual hunter dps is not that different at all, and on short fights, MM wins hands down anyway. But I would not give up rapid killing if I were you. The 4%? improvement you’ll get from effeciency MIGHT allow you an extra steady shot… it’s not worth it IMO.
Guy on July 30th, 2007 4:16 pm

Nice write up Zem.

Way to break it down.

A couple of questions I have spawned from this..

1.) Do a lot of people use Adamantite shells? I haven’t been, mostly because I just don’t have the time to farm that much. But are they being used? And to what extent? Only for trash? Only for bosses? All the time? Fill me in, maybe I could be persuaded to use them more than I am.
2.) Damage increase.
a. So MM has TSA
b. BM has FI
c. SV has EW.

What classes or peeps are you noticing have more DPS than what you are used to seeing? For instance, as expected, when I spec’d SV we saw a rise in the DPS of our rogues and one fury warrior. When you were BM did casters get higher? Did rogues miss TSA? Which is providing the raid with more benefits do you suppose?

Lastly.. to those inquiring about not getting EW when flushing out LR…

I know I mentioned this in my article about SV posted in this blog, but here’s me saying it again differently..

EW is backloaded, TSA is frontloaded. On the very first shot a MM is going to hit with more power, as a SV needs a crit hit inorder for EW to proc. That is why his hybrid build is the way it is, remember, Zem likes his BIG crits for finishing fights fast (can’t say I blame him). And TSA is one point to front load the damage where as EW is 5 points to backload it.

Nearly everything is backloaded on SV though so it will never look good on paper but always produce damage on par with the other specs.

-guy
Anonymous on July 30th, 2007 4:37 pm

Playing a hunter in an Arena is frustrating, but it can be done. I’m on a 3v3 team with 2 other feral druids. Our strat has been to pick out the squishy of the opposing team and jump that player quickly. I think our record time for a kill was 2 seconds on a poor holy priest. The feral stealth abilities along with BW make for a very fast dead player.

From there, we overcome the LOS issues and my deadzone pretty well. Both druids have spec’d to include the instant 3k heal and it saves me when someone gets close.
Zemulos on July 30th, 2007 5:48 pm

THANK YOU BRK FOR FIXING MY NUMBERS

Let me address the arena issue before I get to Guy’s comment. I see a lot of comments about arena fights, and I will say that I too find arenas tough on hunters. But there is only one arena that I really have trouble with. The one with the bridge. God I hate that arena. It was built to destroy hunters. The others, I find relatively easy. My 2v2 team is warlock/hunter. My rating on that team is crap now, because I stopped playing 2v2 and my partner picked up a mage that’s horrid at pvp, so ignore that rating But fear spam plus dot plus my burst damage is dead people fast. Keep in mind, most people will pop their trinket to get out of the first fear very fast, so your hunter trap is golden in that case. Also, if a rogue gets on a lock, they cry like a little girl. So, as a hunter, you back up and blast the rogue tht is on the lock. You have the potential to kill the rogue faster than he can kill your lock. And probably faster than anyone else can kill you. And in case you haven’t heard, lots of people think locks are overpowered. I tend to agree. If I kill one and they kill me, and it’s left to just the lock and one other person, I know it’s in the bag. If your lock partner cant kill just about everyone one v one, find a new lock partner

3v3 is me, shaman, feral druid. We only started this team 2 weeks ago and we’re holding steady above 1500 rating, so I’m happy. Our shaman can withstand a buttload of damage. He just stands there and takes it. Unless it’s a warrior, then we will kill the warrior to get it off him. We take out mages first, or priests. I can force a pally to use his bubbles almost as fast as a rogue can. So pallys are my responsability if they’re present. Will we cut the mustard as we rise in rating? I don’t know, but for now, we win enough that it’s a blast. I’ll get a few more matches under my belt for 5v5 before I talk on that. So far, in 5v5, I must have an extra tall flag, because I get ganked before any other player…. always. They will take me out before a priest. Maybe it’s those opening crits. TSA/AotH/BoM/MotW/Bloodlust/Rapidfire/BloodlustBrooch –>multishot crits that hit for over 3k per person. It doesn’t take them long to find me. Wow I talk a lot…. I’ll get back to your question in a short while Guy
Guy on July 30th, 2007 6:30 pm

I’m STILL waiting..
Zemulos on July 30th, 2007 6:36 pm

Guy

I’ll address your pts in order.

1 - Adamantite shells. When my gear was not what it is today, I used ad shells for bosses only and for heroics the whole way through. In kara, I only used them for bosses, as going through 4k bullets a night was not helping my money woes. In arenas, I use them every time. In BGs, I stopped using them, unless someone seems to be targeting me repeatedly. Then he gets the wrath of the adamantite shells. As for recent kara use… I have stopped using them on bosses. My dps is to the point where the shells are overkill. I don’t need them to top the charts, and frankly I don’t need the aggro that the extra dps provides. Damn FD cooldown! I think more and more people are using them actually, I seem to have a few people bringing me mats to make them shells on a weekley basis. But if your dps is strong, I would only use them on bosses like gruul or in pvp, where it’s very important to put out as much dps as possible. You WILL notice a dps difference. Try them out a while.

2 - The kara groups I run have two rogues, a feral druid and a hunter or two. The rogues complained about lack of TSA immediately With TSA, it’s clear which people benefit. Our physical dps people get to top the charts almost every time, barring death. TSA is an obvious GOOD increase in dps and we structure the party accordingly. FI is harder to judge. My top dps people all appear to be closer in overall dps, so I’d say that’s a measure in itself. But since EVERYone benefits, it’s hard to say that x-class got better dps this run due to FI. And on a per week basis… well so many purples drop in kara… are they doing better due to FI? or to equip upgrades? HArd to tell. I will say this though, two FIs up at once makes shit die REALLY fast. The stacking thing is nice. I have not tried out EW yet, and still maintain that my findings would be skewed based on the amt of agi that I have. But two things I noticed with the 0/31/30 build. The one talent that adds like 6% crit appears on the paper doll. But that other talent that gives shots (3%?) extra crit does NOT reflect on paper… Also, the talent that gives hit rating… I had 135 crit rating before it… and the same after. So it doesn’t register either. I don’t like that it doesn’t show up. It makes people less likely to stick with a spec unless they’re good with making it shine, cause on paper it looks poor. So far 31/30 seems to provide approx the same dps for me as 8/41/12. But I can’t help but feel that some of the talents in SV are just pointless filler to get to the agi and crit bonus talents. And I’ve lost all ability to solo mobs effectively. I spike dps to 900 or more excluding pet and end the fight with 128dps because of meleeing the rest of the time >_< Plus I strongly advocate the 8pts in BM for pet health and armor, and I miss it But like I stated before, giving up 148 attack power for 5.5% crit plus the crit that doesn’t show up on paper doll seems worth it to me.
Rhust on July 30th, 2007 9:48 pm

here’s my prelim number crunching on TSA vs. FI….

TSA (rank 7) increases AP by 125… knowing that 14 AP = 1 dps(according to theorycraft website, that means everyone that does PHYSICAL damage, gets 9 DPS… regardless of if they had 250 dps or 350 dps before… it is up 100% of the time.

FI, from this weekend’s test looks to be up most of the time, we’ll call it 75% for arguments sake… and it increases DAMAGE by 3%… this is more complicated, since it’s not a direct DPS modifier, we have to plug it into a formula…

from the theorycraft website:
using my character profile from before the BM respec:
Damage: 671 - 789, 2.4 attack speed, 300 DPS

this can differ based on weapon, scope and ammo… but this is what the FI increases…
and assuming the numbers magically stayed the same after respec(they did not), and FI came on..
damage would be: 711.73 - 812.67 after the 3% increase we’ll use these for comparison, and assume everyone can do this damage when fi is up…

ok, now… lets say they have a weapon speed of 2.4(they don’t get serpent’s swiftness)…

1st scenario, 3 other PHYSICAL damage dealers:
TSA:
3×309 = 927 DPS
FI:
(711.73+812.67)/2 = 317.58 each
952.75 DPS when on (75% of the time, for arguments sake)
900 (300×3) when off
that comes out to an average of 939.56 DPS, on average

but now one of your 300 dps fury warriors(as if) leave and you get a mage that does 300 dps, but spell damage, now you have 2 physical damage dealers and a caster…

TSA:
(2×309)+ 300 = 918 dps

but FI stays 939.56 on avg.

of course if the pet isn’t getting FI, the number can drop fast… say it’s 50% instead:
the FI avg dps is 926

30%: 915

so if you are lucky and getting a lot of pet crits(which you should) FI is better, or if you have casters in your group… but if you are with physical dmg dealers, TSA may inch out the competition…
Guy on July 30th, 2007 10:59 pm

Very interesting..

So using 300dps as our benchmark…

You find:

FI bumps DPS to 309.
300*1.03=309

TSA bumps DPS to 309.
125/14=9+300=309

It certainly seems as though these two talents are being balanced against each other. The difference being that FI increases all damage, where TSA only benefits physical damage. The other offset being that one is up all the time and the other seems up only 75% of the time.

If we work backwards is it possible to find a new threshold for EW and the SV tree? If we need 14ap for 1 DPS and we’re looking to hit 309dps then we need 125 AP (TSA anyone?) so EW must equal 125, which means agi must equal 500. Which is only 435 agility BEFORE LR.

So… when I’m raid buffed and sportin 890 agility my EW provides physical DPSers in the WHOLE raid a 16 DPS increase which I can maintain on my target. 890/4=223RAP. 223/14=16.
16+300=316.

Yeah.. serpents swiftness gives personal DPS the edge once again.. but really. When put in terms like this, who’s the selfish hunter now? Who’s the one depriving the party and the raid of increased damage?

I say it’s the BM hunter. Yup.. these guys are only in it for themselves. Hypocrite.
Rhust on July 31st, 2007 1:52 pm

1)FI isn’t a 9dps increase… it’s MORE than 9…

using the same numbers, but applying the serpents swiftness to the 1 hunter, which I didn’t add in the previous example, because it was about the 3 OTHER people…

the BM hunter’s DPS jumps to 412!
while the other 3 people get a boost to 313.58(average, for when BM not active) each.. so now, in cluding the hunters, a MM’s group would be 4×309 = 1236, while a BM’s group would be (3×313.58)+ 396 for the BM hunter’s avg(including that FI is up 75%) =1336dps for the group, avg 334 each…
3%damage means MORE than 3%DPS…

that said, I know nothing about EW, but anyone can see that the survival tree is the “team player”… better crowd control, great buffs and more health, leaving the priest to spend more time on the tanks. An SV hunter is the least selfish of the bunch… PERIOD
Guy on July 31st, 2007 5:54 pm

FI is a 3% increase.

with a base DPS of 300…

to auto shot damage (which I probably should have clarified before..) this means a 9DPS increase.

All things being equal as it were..
Rhust on August 1st, 2007 8:08 pm

ok, 1, it’s a 3%damage increase not dps… but maybe they are the same thing… I don’t think so, but hey…

if you are correct, then yes, at 300dps, they are =… FI and TSA will BOTH only give 9dps…

what about at 350? TSA still gives 9, but FI gives 10.5.. what about 500dps? TSA=9 again, FI = 15 so it scales… whereas TSA will always be “9″