Would The Rock Be a Hunter? We Sure Hope So

BRK » 22 August 2007 » In Spec »

“Dear BRK, I have gone onto the Armory and taken your direct build, minus the gear of course. But for some reason everyone wants me to Respec MM/SURV, pretty much the standard raiding build. Their excuse is having to send pet back and forth is a pain, doesn’t do enough damage, and Pet being feared can cause unnecessary wipes. They say The SURV part of the build is for CC because without it Traps are horrible.

“I disagree with them on this and tell everyone about your blog yet I still get harassed. They say respecing would be my ticket into every Kara raid and I wont be able to do heroic or raid without respecing. Yet i still am always invited to Gruuls and we down high king on first pull and got gruul to 80% on first try. Let me know what you think, hopefully your good advice will help once again. Psychoric”

My friend, there is one bit of advice you need to heed. One small tidbit of information that shall put your mind at ease. One itsy bitsy teenie weenie morsel of truth that shall set you free:

People are stupid.

Unfortunately, too often in our lives we have to deal with People. Friends are cool. Acquaintances are nice. People are dumb. People are ignorant. People are loud-mouthed schnooks. People need to take a long quaff from a great big tall frosty glass of Shut The H3ll Up juice.

You have three choices when dealing with People: let them control you, get away from them, or shut them up. Thus, your future in your guild is on one of three paths:

Path Weasel - Respec MM/SV and go play in kara. If you want to be in Death and Taxes or any other legendary raiding guild you’ll have to play by their rules, too.

Path Sanity - Drop guild and go somewhere where you’ll be appreciated. Very few guilds will turn down a hunter with decent gear, spec, experience, and the knowledge of how to play the class properly.

Path Facepalm - Challenge the People and their smugness. “You let me run Kara through the first boss as BM, and if my pet and I combined aren’t #1 or #2 DPS, I’ll hearth to my hunter trainer and respec on the spot. But if I AM #1 or #2, you gotta say in guild-chat, ‘I am a worthless raider and a NooB for I tried to make someone respec when I clearly don’t have a clue about hunter mechanics.’ “

You can guess which path BRK would take.

As a BM hunter, we’ve raided Kara up to Prince and have always been #1 in DPS. We’ve trapped in heroics without problem. Hobbes only dies when we send him on a Save the Squishy suicide mission. He takes attacks from Maiden, Curator and Aran without so much as a complaint.

Survivalists are better trappers. Marksmen do more burst damage. Survivalist have a great melee-buff. Marksmen have a great melee-buff. BM have great pets, we do more damage, we have a great melee-and-caster buff.

A good spec does not make a good hunter, but there is no reason any of the three trees cannot be viable in raids anymore.

Do you smell what BRK is cookin?

Comments

26 Responses to “Would The Rock Be a Hunter? We Sure Hope So”

  1. Zemulos on August 22nd, 2007 6:13 pm

    LMFAO! “People are stupid” I live by this creed. I work in insurance, and believe me, I meet my fair share.
    I love what you want the raid leader to have to say!!

  2. RedForty on August 22nd, 2007 6:14 pm

    Amen brotha!
    Shout it out!

  3. MCPasty on August 22nd, 2007 6:17 pm

    The BRK is right on about telling them where to shove their re-spec nonsense. As a BM hunter, you WILL dominate the damage meters against other DPS classes in Kara unless you’re pulling agro and getting killed, are too timid with the cool-down skills, or are vastly out geared.

    As for that nonsense about not being CC viable, go prove them wrong. CC spec does make things a good bit easier, but a smart hunter understanding his surroundings and can overcome a few seconds of kiting a mob once in a while. If you find things a little difficult, equip a couple pieces of Beast Lord with its amazing 2-piece bonus and you’ll be good. I do the same thing when needed and have been BM spec for 75 heroic badges worth of heroics, plus Kara and SSC to Voidreaver.

    You can do it, just go prove them wrong.

  4. Honors Code on August 22nd, 2007 6:28 pm

    I request permission to quote this and then rewrite the Hunter specific parts to Paladin specific. Non Holy Paladins deal with similar issues and this is one of the best answers I’ve ever seen.

  5. tinwhisker on August 22nd, 2007 6:33 pm

    Ultimatums are trouble, even if you deliver you end up creating rifts between yourself and the guild.

    Better to take a softer approach to number 3 and don’t gloat over your victory.

  6. BRK on August 22nd, 2007 6:40 pm

    Honorcode, permission granted.

    Tinwhisker, you’re absolutely right that it’s probably not the best idea in the world to alienate yourself from the rest of the guild by showing up the GM or the raid leader and then making a giant @ss of yourself.

    But it’s fun to dream, right?

  7. Anonymous on August 22nd, 2007 6:50 pm

    BRK time and again you amaze me with your witty banter. I honestly think it is the whole military thing. I guess it is true about the old saying, Birds of a feather, flock together. Plus I can even overlook you being affiliated with the “Chair Force” instead of the other services. Nothing but love from that last comment.

    But to respond to the OP of the email, I am what you would call a BM stuck in a MM body. I am 10/47/4. It is a very weird build but it works for me. I have never once respec’ed for anyone except myself.
    Even without the Surv Imp trap, with the Dungeon 3 (2) bonus I can even trap fairly well if I time my traps and do a little kiting like another poster has already stated.

    Like BRK said though, DO NOT LET ANYONE tell you how to spec EVER. I had a Hunter ask me what he should spec for to run my Kara run. My only reply was, spec with what you know. He didn’t like that and wanted me to tell him how to do it. I couldn’t bring myself to dictate his spec.

  8. Grimia@Magtheridon on August 22nd, 2007 7:09 pm

    Just to test myself here, for bufs you’re talking:
    BM: Ferocious Inspiration
    MM: Trueshot Aura
    SV: Expose Weakness

    Right? So wouldn’t physical rather than melee be correct? I say this because it always bothers me when my raid says “melee only time” for those wyrms on the way to Shade that are physical damage only (so I stand back and pew/pew/steady shot)

    And yeah, unless it’s your guild’s hunter class leader telling you to respec, they need to learn to play your class before telling you what to do.

    CC’ing is a very easy timing game (with a little practice) even with a whole 10sec of kiting. Before I had D3 stuff (and before I went Survivor) if I was doing CC I’d make sure to tell the tank to wait for my Ready signal before doing the main pull. If they want me to CC, they can let me burn down part of my CD before doing the pull, and I’ll give ‘em that mob trapped past the sheepin’ mage even.

  9. Guy on August 22nd, 2007 7:12 pm

    I personally like path facepalm myself, but it has one problem…

    If Psychoric has never been to kara or has piss pour DPS, he’s going to suck with any spec. This will lead to him going into kara with a good spec but totally sucking it up and being sent back mid raid to respec and suck even more.

    The bottom line is this: Your guild is as nub as I was once to not recognize the power of BRK’s spec. It’s a tried a true tour de force.

    You have to play YOUR way and find the guild that will accept that. Right now hunters are good. Regardless of spec, someone that knows how to play this class is a great asset on a raid.

    It incenses me that your guild would say such stupid things about our class. They must be made to learn that they know NOTHING and need to STFU.

    Damn… I’m just getting angrier as I write this.

    The MM/SV spec has nothing to do with traps. The limited amount of trap talents available with this build don’t make or break a kara run. The SV part of that build is about ONE thing and ONE thing only, surefooted. Everything else is picked up only cause you need to put more than 3 points in SV to get this talent.

    You’re guildies Psychoric are wrong. YOU are your ticket into a heroic or a raid. Not your spec.

    Someone PLEASE show me an armory of a raiding hunter these days that uses the mm/sv “raid spec” I refuse to believe this ever even gets used anymore. Infact, a quick look over of the top 3 guilds in US realm progression shows BM as being the overwhelming spec of choice followed up by some kind of SV/Hybrid. I found ONE MM spec in all the top three guilds and he’s only got 5 points in SV.

    SEE!!!! You understand why I’m pissed now!!!! Your guild is telling you what to do and they know NOTHING!!!!!!

    Psychoric, seriously bud, have them contact me so I can personally tell them to go fuck themselves.

  10. Anonymous on August 22nd, 2007 7:28 pm

    Hey Psychoric,

    Tell your GM/Raid Lead to get a clue!

    Fact #1 - BM hunters give the best dps output of all specs, survival comes in for a close second but only in obscene gear levels (900+agil raid buffed).

    Fact #2 - BM hunters give the second best buff to the raid of all hunter specs, it stacks and work on physical and caster classes.

    Fact #3 - BM hunter pets don’t get feared their carefull master saves BW for those oh crap fear moments and they don’t die easily. With the advent of avoidance my pet rarely dies and when it does, its my fault. Due to the fact BM saves mana over MM you can afford to keep mend pet up all day.

    If all else fails tell him to look towards more progressed guilds. Death and Taxes - 2 hunters 1BM 1Surv. Heck if he has real questions have him talk to my guild. We don’t even run kara anymore except for sh@ts on the weekend, we farm HKM,gruul, Voidreaver and are working mag and starting SSC. Our raid group uses 2-3 hunters depending on attendance. 2BM and 1SV. I’m one of the two BM and absolutely smoke the meters. I don’t even look I worry more about my misdirects for tank threat and FI for group buff than my dps because its just there. I sustain 900+ dps on most boss fights, thats 900 dps while dodging arcane balls and caveins. The biggest news from the dps camp was a mage beating me by 530 dmg total on voidreaver last night, mainly due to dodging arcane balls and I stopped to bandage 2 people!

    So give him the facts and ask him to allow you to demonstrate. Sure you may get an odd trap resist but if you kiting a mob for 5 seconds wipes a raid theres other problems. Once you’re done with that smoke the raids dps :P I mean it embarras them!

    Shifttusk

    US Mannoroth Horde if your GM wants to bug someone.

  11. Erwinor on August 22nd, 2007 7:30 pm

    You should always try to get people to let you play YOUR spec, face it, it’s what you know, and it matches your playstyle. I’ve only gone to Kara twice and both times I was #1 on damage, against players with much better gear than myself. I did it with a 40/21/0 build. Why? I do my research, and play to my full potential. If you do that, you’ll be sucessful

  12. RabidPoultry on August 22nd, 2007 8:23 pm

    Though telling folks to get a clue is beneficial (usually to the one being slighted) we all know the ignorant remain so for the most part. I say just do BM, max the meters, say nothing, not even thanks to the half-assed acknowledgments, remember that the best gloating is by saying nothing. And after all they won’t USUALLY tell you they are wrong anyhow, best to not expect the vindication.

    Just my 2copper

  13. tinwhisker on August 22nd, 2007 8:24 pm

    If Psychoric has never been to kara or has piss pour DPS, he’s going to suck with any spec. This will lead to him going into kara with a good spec but totally sucking it up and being sent back mid raid to respec and suck even more. - Guy

    Yes remember that while BRK leads the meters in his own raids, he’s also been there from the beginning and has at least as many or more epic pieces than other members of his raid group.

    Take it with a grain of salt and remember that you are gear dependent. Walking into a group that outgears you means that you will be out-DPS’d (regardless of spec).

    Maybe it’s just me, but I’d like to see BRK PuG’d into a higher guild for some higher content. He could use a lesson in humility sometimes. :P

  14. Anonymous on August 22nd, 2007 8:31 pm

    @tinwhisker - gear is nice, and sure more is better but in reality the jump in dps to be had from epic pieces is not the be all end all. In swapping my kit from 5man blues to purples with the exception of my pants I’ve seen maybe a 3% dps increase. This excludes the dragonspine trophy as its just amazing. I went to a pug kara with another guild at one point who were geared in SSC/TK/T5 drops. I proceeded to demolish their “best” warlock on the meter.

    Skill then Spec then Gear determine dps output.

  15. tinwhisker on August 22nd, 2007 8:51 pm

    @ anonymous

    So you’re saying with the right skill and spec I could walk right into TK/BT?

    After all, gear isn’t important, is it?

  16. Anonymous on August 22nd, 2007 9:09 pm

    Tin,

    Sorry that was shifttusk before forgot to type my name at the bottom.

    And to an extent yes. Who was the first to full clear BT? Did they spend their days farming Kara, Mags, Gruuls etc to get loot for TK/SSC? Nope they steamrolled boss after boss in crafted gear and whatever they happened to pick up. On my server the most progressed guilds skipped Kara entirely and went gruul->Voidreaver->SSC->TK+ without spending months farming content. With the exception of farming resist gear for fights like Solarion and Hydross and to some extent tanks (although they can hit uncrushable/uncritable in blues) your raid has the stats to do any fight its just learning and playing well.

    In all reality gear is not a be all end all. Two cases

    Mage 10/48/3 can have 850 fire dmg in crafters/blues. Upgrading to all the T5 epics will provide him probably around 1100 fire dmg. 250/3sec fireball = 83dps a nice gain but not earthshattering. Moving quickly in the case of an arcane orb on voidreaver and firing off your next fireball 3 seconds earlier will make up this dmg.

    Basicaly my take is when I was in 5man/quest blues I was able to pump out 850 dps reliably. Now in crafted epics and gruuls/kara gear I can pump out 900 reliably. Is 50 dps helpfull? Yep, is it needed to kill our current progression bosses? Probably not.

  17. Rhust on August 22nd, 2007 9:10 pm

    word!

    I’ve always said a guild should never dictate what your build should be… they are playing with you, not through you… play what YOU like…

    my GL and officers had reservations when I switched to BM, but they wanted me to be happy first… and helping them go 8-2 in the arena and still combining with the pet to be #1 in DPS made them much happier :D

    a rogue in our guild said after a Arca run “usually you are above me in the damage meters, now you are #2…” I said, “last time we were combining pet and hunter on the meter, this time we have them seperate… they re-tallied the score to realize that though she was doing 22% of the damage, I did 21% and the pet had done 17%… last I checked, 38 was MORE than 22 :D she apologized, not that there was a need…

  18. tinwhisker on August 22nd, 2007 10:10 pm

    @ Shifttusk

    That’s the exception, not the rule. We’re not talking about that here.

    We’re talking about a guild/player that is getting into Kara almost 7 months after the expansion.

    Gear progression is how most every player advances through raid content. It allows you some room for mistakes and nearly all the player base makes mistakes.

    Did you want me to say, “Yup, your guild is wrong about your spec. Go raid BT instead.”

    Any player who is just now getting into Kara is not going to be able to play at that skill level.

    Then again, I could be wrong. Maybe he bought WoW 2 weeks ago, leveled to 70, mastered being a hunter… and is now being held back by his guild and looking to BRK for advice. /sarcasm (This is not meant to be a slight to Psychoric or BRK.)

    Pie-in-the-sky dreams are great, but set realistic goals.

    Psychoric - convince your guild nicely that you should be allowed to play the spec you want without some silly “test of skill”. If they won’t let you, find another guild.

  19. Galoheart on August 22nd, 2007 10:36 pm

    Amen Brother!!

    Thou shall not be Stupid! Amen again!

  20. Chromaoran on August 23rd, 2007 3:19 am

    I’d have to agree with Shifttusk 100%. “Skill then Spec then Gear determine dps output.” From my own personal experience, skill with pre-kara gear out dps’d a full kara geared hunter with the same spec.

    Tin’s argument might hold some weight if all people were created equal and each person only had one toon and thus all came to kara with no experience. But that doesn’t happen.

  21. Wisp on August 23rd, 2007 6:48 am

    If they argue about your spec, tell them to lookup the raiding hunters in something like Nihilium and your see that most are BM.

    At least they where a month ago.

  22. tinwhisker on August 23rd, 2007 1:01 pm

    Tin’s argument might hold some weight if all people were created equal and each person only had one toon and thus all came to kara with no experience. But that doesn’t happen.

    My argument holds weight because everyone is not created equal.

    Psychoric is new to BC raiding (which is different than pre-BC), has not been to Kara before and is going to start running with a guild that has both gear and experience in this area.

    Coming in there with both an experience and gear disadvantage means your chances of hitting #1 in DPS are limited to your skill alone.

    And we’re not talking about just hunter skill, we’re talking about group-hunter skill. We all know that those are two different things.

    All I’m saying is that Psychoric should not expect to walk right in and dominate the meters.

    Can you walk into Kara/elsewhere in level 70 blues and beat the instance? Sure you can, but gear is important for most player progression. My guild toppled the Prince for the first time in March on our 5th trip into Kara. The fight took us almost 9 minutes. Now that we have gear it takes us half that to grab a helm.

  23. For the Pie on August 23rd, 2007 3:38 pm

    I’ll disagree.

    The Rock would be a warrior. A bad ass fury warrior with two blades and a bad attitude and he might even drop the swords and body slam the mob.

    His rage meter would be the People’s eyebrow, the higher it gets the more rage he’s building.

  24. Anonymous on August 23rd, 2007 3:40 pm

    as hunter class leader, my only rule is “whatever spec u pick, make it work.” so do ur homework.

    we have amazing hunters of every spec in our guild and for most fights, it’s 1 2 3 hunters and the rest fight to break that up.

    enough said ….

    Secndworst

  25. Anonymous on August 23rd, 2007 5:59 pm

    Word, pie, Word…

  26. Anonymous on August 24th, 2007 1:16 am

    Grrr. I’ve been wanting to try BM for a while now in a raiding environment, but the hunter leader in my guild is stuck on MM and will not even consider BM. I’ve said “can we just try this” for a boss we can beat easily, to no avail. Why the hate? I’m fairly new to the 70 game, did BM used to suck or something?

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