2/18/51 Is No Lie
One can vary the 2/18/51 a little, fudge with it some, whatever. We did this damage, which is almost 500DPS more than our 53/18/0 BM spec, without trap-dancing at all.
We’re taking it to Naxx on Sunday and we’ll report what we find.
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No more spirit beast if survival spec is better
Take two points from Hunting party and put them into Master Tech. Since crits restore 40% of the shots cost anyways, more crits give more damage and cost less.
Also, I found that at least for 25 mans I maxed out expose weakness, there was always someone else there for Replenishment. Even for 10 and 5 mans, there was little time when I was in Viper, and the 4 piece T7 bonus makes it less of a hindrance.
Survival is Fun
I run with my LSD wasp of doom!!!
Good grief NOO BRK
Done.
Shot rotation?
I have to say, I was agonized by the thought of trading in BM for SV to stay competitive in raids. But once I got a taste of Explosive Shot, I was in love.
I miss my feline doing crazy enough dps that I could never pull from him when soloing, but SV is just too fun. I don’t even have to trap dance, but throwing down an explosive shot every now and then is hella fun, especially when you see LnL proc. Mmm, delicious.
And where do we shine the best, after Patchwerk?
25-man Archevon. These numbers don’t lie.
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c10/Ashtiel/Good%20WoW%20screens/stats.jpg
This was bound to happen sooner or later
You know things are bad when one of the chief proponents of the BM spec switches across to the other side.
I suggest everyone go read Ghostcrawlers recent comments on the official Damage Dealing section of the forums. It’s quite depressing. In a matter of words Ghostcrawler labelled the BM tree as a noob spec and we all just need to learn to play after the recent patch. Rather insulting and frustrating to read.
It seems Blizzard all of a sudden decided they didnt like Beast Mastery and wanted everyone off the spec. They claimed 95% of people were BM spec pre-patch, which they didn’t like and now post-patch 95% of Hunters will just spec Survival anyway. It’s just completely illogical. 2 years of developing WotLK, spending all that time on beta-testing and then to reverse everything 3 months later.
@ Ularac:
SV has my favorite shot rotation. For more than one target, ie trash in OS, Naxx, anything with more than one target, pop Serpent Sting on your focus, then for each GCD hit Explosive then Multi shot, then Steady until you can Explosive again.
For single target it’s even better with Aimed Shot instead of Multi. The thing I like best about this rotation is that you can compensate for latency, missed shots, or having to move your character. Since Sniper Training is only effective from 30 yards +, you need to move around sometimes. (Think Vault when he jumps) Three of your shots are instant, and can be cast on the move.
You might find that there is a half a second here or there that you’re waiting for a shot to come off its cool down, just keep hitting steady till you can push an instant cast. Being 1 second late for an Explosive every now and then because of a SS is better than just waiting for the GCD.
One last thing, not that Lock and Load is 10% chance to proc from Serpent Sting, the DPS difference from trap dancing is less than before. When you get an LnL proc, don’t spam Explosive, weave two other shots in between so it can tick both times on the target before being overwritten. The GCD will be long enough from another shot to get the best bang for your buck.
Sorry for posting such a long one BRK. Nobody reads my blog so I’m riding long on your coat tails.
Is this spec going to be viable for leveling or should people just stick to BM for leveling?
it is a nice spec, wat i ran with on 10 man naxx the other day after teh nerf…and i like it…but your BRK!!!! lol
But you’re BigRedKitty, the internet-celebrity BM Hunter blogger ;_;
Oh, BRK. Where did you go? Perhaps you have brain lag again.
We know the dark side has cookies, but come on…
@ Danimalx23:
Thanks for the info. How is the mana consumption with that rotation?
I forget. Who is Megs?
*sigh*
I’m willing to give some benefit of the doubt, that this is a move just to see what it’s LIKE over there and to be able to give some more feedback and guidance. But I read BRK in order to see advice and feedback on playing as a Beast spec hunter. I’m staying BM, and will be spending time fine-tuning my spec up to be as good as I can possibly be… and if BRK doesn’t help in that regard anymore I guess he’ll get deleted from the bookmarks.
Right now is when BM hunters really NEED someone like BRK around, to help them get as much as they can out of their hunters and pets. If this Survival trip extends past a fact-finding mission, I’ll be really disappointed.
To be honest, in raids I don’t use mana. We had two Ret Pallies and a Shadow Priest, so I never dropped below 80% mana. It was lovely.
Against a Target Dummy, or in 5-10 mans without Replenish, it’s not as mana hungry as Marks can be, with a higher crit, (~45$) many of my shots cost nothing in mana after a 40% value return.
Dropping into Viper to regen doesn’t hurt as much, more like a band aid; quick and in one single pull
is it on boss doll or 80 doll
BRK,
Did you use the arcane shot, stead shot macro during the survival attempt?
- Lose
or Fizzcrank
To those of you bemoaning BRK’s jaunt into SV, stop your complaining. It doesn’t mean he’s any less of a hunter, and it definitely shouldn’t warrant a boot from your bookmarks. He’s still the best hunter blogger out there.
But if you will let such a trivial thing get in the way of enjoying a damn fine blog, away with you. Begone.
http://wowwebstats.com/4qqrqbcrxx2tu
I am using a Vodafone Mobile Connect Card as a form of connection (Mobile 3G data card)…yeah they are poor for internet browsing let alone playing an online game with them.
I think Im still staying BM…I pray this is the SPEC GC was talking about when he said they reward the hardest to play with high dps…(At least thats what I am hoping it will be not counting my internet connection ofc…)
For Armory’s sake:
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Stormrage&n=Toombs
5300 dps on 25 vault today with 6/14/51, same gear with BM spec would top at ~4500.
SV is highest raid dps out of all 3, and before explosive shots get “tuned” down, I’m gonna stay with it.
I was wondering when you’d wake up and proclaim SV > BM. When you go to Naxx Sunday, you’re going to do alot more DPS than you ever did as a BM.
Hey BRK, we have very close gear. I just got done with the 2nd half of naxx 25 man tonight. Here is our WWS if you would like to take a look.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Bonechewer&n=Seaneous
http://wowwebstats.com/3kekgpcpfilcq?s=291882-336961
Is Wyvern Sting really viable for a raid spec though?
I’m thinking take out “Noxious Stings”, and put those three points into “Hunting Party”, while you max out “Expose Weakness” with the one point from “Wyvern Sting”.
Or maybe I’m just being stubborn >=]
You know, I was fully committed to staying BM until I saw that BRK had gone SV, so I decided to test it out. Granted, I’m still in the mid 70s and doing about 1200 dps, but my results were not the significant DPS boost that people have been talking about.
Without a pet, I was doing about 100 dps more than I was as BM, also without a pet. When I added a pet into the equation, my overall dps actually went DOWN about 100. It’s possible that this could have been due to still getting used to watching for Lock and Load procs, but I was doing ok and in order to switch from BM and lose my exotics, I would have to see my dps go up by 200-300 or more. It just wasn’t drastic enough to change.
What I did notice about the SV spec were much larger crits, which some people seem very enamored with. And yea, it was kinda cool to watch… if I didn’t have to FD immediately afterward.
I would be interested to see a test of BM vs. SV with the same pet, because I’m wondering if maybe the wasp’s special has more to do with this than specing SV. I used a moth for both my tests.
@Jahka:
I will continue to read BRK for everything else – but if he isn’t going to continue to theorycraft BM-huntering, who will?
One of us…
One of us…
One of us…
One of us…
One of us…
One of us…
Seriously ghostcrawlers comments on Bm did seem a little on the harsh side at first, it was just an inch away from calling BM players noobish button mashers :-s. He did say later that if it continues to be low they will change it, and there’s meant to be a hunter overhaul in 3.1.0 so who knows what the future holds.
Have fun with explosive shot BRK
@BRK
-1 point in gftt, +1 point in aimed shot, expect another dps boost.
You do NOT need 2/2 GftT with the amount of crit you get.
@Jordan
…
Seriously? Noxious stings is your own personal FI to compensate for the loss of FI. (It also supposed to stack with sanc. ret)
We will soon see MM BRK? Come back from dark side!
Now u must change your nick
No more Big Red kitty.. Maybe EDW? Explosive Default Wasp…
Stop complaining about BRK testing or even switching to SV. Once a toon dings lvl 80 and got sick of spending time in heroics he wants to raid. As a pure DPS class we want to max out DPS as much as we can.
I never played vanilla WoW so i am lucky i never encountered the time when hunters couldn’t reach top of the dmg meters (they were just not meant to be). Since i started raiding in Karazhan i was BM all along, never switched to another spec. I really felt for the gameplay, watching after my little buddy, knowing if he dies, so does my damage output. Througout BC good BMs were able to reach top place in dmg on most of the bossfights (not all).
As a BM scorpid abuser in WotLK i could easily top almost every bossfight (as well as trash using volley). Agree, scorpids did too much dmg, and so did BMs. But i knew BMs that weren’t able to put out too high numbers..
Come 3.0.8 Blizzard just patched away a whole Hunter tree. No one serious into raiding will spec BM again (other than for fun). I switched the day the patch came after being BM for more than a year. Hunters were toned down, everyone can see that now. SV still does provide good dmg, MM also but not as much (depending on skill a MM player can outdps a SV of course..).
So what’s really pissing me of is not switching to a new spec, learning how to play it, getting used to it and (hopefully) enjoy it sometime…
It’s how huge the nerf was to BM. And how unvalueable it is to play for DPS. It’s like they just removed a whole tree. The argument from Ghostcrawler that BM is nooby gameplay is really a splap into my face and a lot of other good BM hunters.
So long story short. BRK is a really fine hunter blog and it will continue to be. And no doubt he will stick to SV for serious raiding if it works out to stay the max DPS spec.
It’s a time where we hunters have no choice but to switch. Hope is high for a change in 3.1 … maybe BM is back in the game then.
Well i dont know what to say anymore.. need to tame a wasp today and compare it to my zul’drak raptor
@ atla
Unfair comparison is unfair, because raptor bleed is way stronger than the sting in a raid situation, while the opposite is true in a solo situation.
BRK… You too? How many more will high-tail off the BM caravan and onto the SV bandwagon just because of a severe mistake Blizzard made? I just started this game when WotLK came out because i thought it was better and because reading this blog inspired me greatly. Now to see my hero turn into a SV hunter is so depressing. Where’d u go BRK?
R.I.P. BRK and Hobbes
well i am sort of fed up with Blizzard having, as said above, patched away the bm tree, I ran OS 25 yesterday but it was quite difficult to get a group, been kicked twice of a 25er pug because of being bm hunter and thats so not acceptable. Blizzard basiclly killed the BM, full stop
Anyway I managed 2400 dps on average including trash (thats with pet included). Ended up 8th in damage done. I lost overall about 900- 1000 dps, no gear changes, pre-patch or post-patch. One could say that this isnt a bad result but since evry other class seems to have been buffed the fun of BM is gone.
I will give SV a shot but since i find watching my buttonbar and my cooldowns + paying attention that i dont miss that 10sec LnL proc that interesting. And who is going to watch out for healers when they overaggro if Hunters are busy watching the GCD?
It seems my lvl 22 shaman healer will become my main and my hunter only been used for grinding money and leather,
The hunter is dead, long live Gorilladin
BRK, what glyphs are you using currently on that new spec?
Welcome to the new home, mate!
Comple points with your spec, you only need 1 pt in GftT. With such a high crit rate 2 points is a waste at times, depending on your pet possibly. But even with 1 point you can find that your pet never runs out of focus.
I would suggest either put the 2nd pt from there into Hunting Party (if you dont have a ret pally) or put it into iAotH. 3pts in iAotH + glyph, you only need 32 haste to cap steady down to 1.5s, whereas 2 pts in iAotH you need about 120ish.
Sry for double post, edit button dont want to work on my pc.
Best glyphs are without a doubt
Serpent Sting
Steady Shot
Improved Aspect of the Hawk
I have been BM since Vanilla WoW, it’s always been my thing. But I’m a raider. A raider needs to bring the best they can to their raid. After seeing the harsh truth in the figures post todays Naxx 25 running as BM I’ve just specced Surv and reitemised for it.
I am sad that BM got smacked so bad with the nerf stick, but I’m not going to let some misplaced sense of loyalty get in the way of my ability to contribute to my raid.
Bleh, all you guys who claim GC was being ‘mean’ or ‘heartless’ need to develop a thicker skin. All he said, in essence, was that more challenging specs should offer greater DPS to compensate. It’s like that in all things and it makes perfect sense. In comparison to the other two trees, SV and MM are more challenging to play vs BM, and therefore should offer greater potential output.
If the disparity becomes too much then Blizzard will re-address it.
I have no faith in Blizzard addressing anything. People were telling Blizzard for months their nerfs were too much and they didn’t listen. How many people put hours into the PTR giving genuine feedback only for it to be ignored. Now the patch is live and people are irate because Blizzard effectively killed a popular spec because they didnt like it and Survival is now doing better then BM ever was. They have no intention of listening to the playerbase.
People are giving him details about what the nerfs have done and he doesn’t believe them, instead bearing his head in the sand and saying we need to provide more data and give the patches more time. Blizzard complains 95% of Hunters were BM, yet their patch pushed that 95% over to Survival. It’s insulting and condescending, then they have the audacity to ban people from the forums because they don’t like what they have to say.
Dangling a carrot in front of us saying 3.1 will have some changes to Hunters means nothing to us now, it could be still months away and is no excuse to make us wait for changes. The frustrating thing is they could’ve easily just done the obivous things that needed rectifying in the BM tree and boost Survival, but they decided to smash BM to the ground and then wonder why so many people are up in arms. We put alot of time into our characters, more then we probably should, of course we are going to be passionate about our class.
Gee, who was saying that throughout the entirety of Burning Crusade and being hung out to dry by the ruling Beast Mastery syndicate? I wonder…
The nerfs were too much, and there is no balance currently. This is not fair. But what GC said is not inaccurate, IMHO.
Omega:
You say that, but let’s flip the argument around for a moment. Is it fair that other classes, who struggle with complex and/or intricate rotations, tracking cooldowns and procs, yet still cannot beat a BM Hunter in quest rewards and just facerolling SS or Volley, have to wait months?
I mean, it just seems to me sometimes a little ridiculous that some people are all “OMG, my old rotation no longer does outrageous DPS”, when the entire purpose of the changes in the patch were to stop exactly that.
The spec is still competetive, you just need to change things up a little.
The issue I have with Ghostcrawler’s position on BM and it’s relationship to the other Hunter trees is that he seems to infer that it’s the players who made and broke the spec. Blizz made the spec, but we’re getting punished for using it.
I don’t think he suggested that BM is a noob spec (at least not in any comments I read) but he does essentially say it’s easy to play and an easy to play spec shouldn’t do a lot of damage.
Well, not everyone that plays a Hunter in WoW is an amazing player who is able to handle a lot of micromanagement (eg people with some health issues or physical impairments/difficulties) so why hinder them?
Just balance all three trees to similar damage points with the differences being purely in how you deliver that damage. I had thought that was the plan but seeing how far ahead SV is now, all they’ve done is swung the pendulum from BM to SV.
I really just get the feeling Blizz have no idea what they want the Hunter class and it’s specs to really be.
So I’ve always raided surv and I always will far after they nerf it like BM to make everyone MM . BUT I do agree with blizzard on one point and disagree with them to another. Unfortunately 95% (if not more) of hunters WERE in fact BM. The fact was good BM hunters such as most of you and BRK here were in fact a valued raid utility. UNFORTUNATELY…. any retarded chimp with a keyboard and a mouse could take the advise of the good players for spec and gear and ignore any skill at all just spamming one shot and rezzing pet when needed, all the way to the top of the dmg meter. BM did need a serious nerf 99.9% of hunters are in fact huntards and suck at the class, and just like new arcane mages and bolt crazy warlocks, could do significantly well while in a coma. THAT being said… no one deserves a nerf like that. BM was pretty OP but even pre BC I as surv was never out dps’d by a BM hunter. (maybe for lack of having a good one around maybe not but I’m not too shabby myself.) Please don’t take this the wrong way I loved BM and BM hunters but it’s a double edged sword.
*salutes the Horde Banner* Welcome good hunters to surv may your prefered spec be restored to its former glory…. and welcome huntards to surv… get out of my spec and go play something else.
Noah:
However, there’s a problem with that. If we assume that all 3 specs, when played to their fullest, can do roughly equivalent DPS, then would you rather play the spec where you need to watch cooldowns and procs, and do awkward rotations, or would you rather play the spec where you basically send the pet in and fire a few shots?
500 DPS is so over the top, I thought blizzard was trying to balance the game. What happened? I mean I can understand making bringing SV up even to BM but to blow us out of the water like this is disappointing at best. Do those numbers include pet damage?
@
Kallanthros
Why should not quite so good hunters have to not play survival just because you in your arrogance say so?
I personally will not be moving from BM/MM to SV/whatever due to the fact that I want to keep running with my spirit beast and corehound, though I will be willing to experiment when the dual spec comes down the pipe (got a 80 Cursed offspring of Harakoa just for this)… However first I need to figureout how to get my DPS (not combined with my pet’s in Recount) higher than 800-900 on white damage (nothing but auto shot on a 80 training dummy). I consider myself a average (maybe even a little less than, white-dam-dps-wise) hunter and am using the 53/18/0 spec + glyphs that BRK posted on patch day…
Let’s face it, BM is now the leveling/grinding and “casual” spec. I won’t say noob, because it’s not that. I know quite a few hunters who play 3-4 hours a week or so, and there is NO way they would ever master MM or SV, or should need to.
GC made it clear that BM is supposed to do less damage, and we are a pure dps class. IF you are a raider, then your job is the bring the most dps you can. SV is the way. (Sorry Riglon).
I expect BM will get thrown a bone in the next month or so, but it’s clear that it will still be less dps than SV.
It seems that they might leave SV alone until the patch, but you never know.
IF you are not a raider, then I heartily encourage BM as a spec, because the hunter/pet synergy is the best, and is fun. But it just isn’t their for raiding anymore.
And to those who are upset with BRK trying SV… how many times has he said our job is to bring max dps?.. (hint, it’s a lot).. that’s exactly what he is trying to do.
@bartskin – no one is saying you HAVE to play SV… but, we are saying it is higher DPS. GC confirms as much.
@ BRK
Please I send yoi 25.000G right now if you CHANGE blog software. I’m starting to lose the count of how many times this f*king spam-comment system eats my posts killing my BACK button and deleteing everything. I usually copy/paste stuff before submitting and today I forgot, after a wall of text full of opionions and ideas.
This system is boring, just too much.
>:-|
here is a thing why couldnt they left BM’s as it was and boosted SV, this way all would have been happy. especially the ones who pride themselves doing shot rotations manually
If as a bm i would still do the same damage as before the patch but now the SV would outdamage me i couldnt give a damn
as a bm now you will have problems to get in raids due to the big nerf. Thats what bothering me most. they pratically force u off the bm spec.
@Jaylene – that is the big issue.. not being invited anymore
For those that are upset about BRK raiding as an SV…
Do you remember his earlier posts, before he became BRK? If you look back in the archives, he first raided as an SV build, because it was most useful to his Raid Group. This is important, and might not be caught by many of the solo-hunter crowd. If you look back at his writings, lo these many moons, you’ll see a person that is concerned with the group just as much as he seems to be worried about himself. He has said it before, perhaps he’ll say it again…but, he has said that he will specc to that which is most advantageous to his Raid.
This game can be enjoyed by those that solo content. However, it can be just as enjoyable in a team environment as well.
Zwingli
p.s. I doubt he’ll be deleting Loq from his stables any time soon.
The day of the BM will come again.
@ batkinson001
I should have been more specific. It’s not to bad hunters in general it’s Hunters who are respecing but still complaining. If you love your spec play it. But play what you love and play it to the best of your abilities don’t hope to the cookie cutter and complain you don’t like it. If you don’t like don’t play it or re-roll something you will like.
I played BM for years because I like the spec, I like having high-DPS pets, and the recent changes to pet specs was just great.
Now, BM is the noob tree, so if we LIKE playing it, we get no groups, raids, or respect (not that we got much to begin with.)
As far as I’m concerned, Ghostcrawler can get bent.
@ Jaylene
They couldn’t have left us alone because we were topping dps the instant we hit 80. If they just boosted SV, hunters would just be more OP than we already were. And if they brought the other dps classes up to par with us then you’d have guilds blowing through content too fast. So rather than retuning all the content, it’s easier to nerf the tree that is unbalancing things. I have no problem with a nerf, it just went too far.
Happy Hunting, and see you SV hunters on the other side.
P.S. for those of you whose posts get eaten, if you just hit Back on Google Chrome it saves all the text and you can just hit Submit again.
can someone link that Ghostcrawler forum post please?
also….will it really matter when Dual Specs kick in?
I really don’t get all the “I like BM” posts. It IS the noob spec. You mash one macro for 4 hours and top damage.
The only reason I was BM while it was viable because did most raid damage and my guild doesn’t care if I mash one or 5 buttons, as long as I deliver DPS.
So I have to conclude it’s a l2p issue.
BM will not die because of Blizzard. Devs did not refund talent points, they did not lock you out of the tree, they did not post a huge sign saying “BM IS NOT RAID ALLOWABLE”. Any damage the BM tree takes in terms of popularity will be at the hands of players who champion min/maxing for their raiding.
These are the same players who said MM or nothing in vanilla, the ones who said BM or nothing in TBC, and the same ones screaming SV or bust now. I read, and respect BRK because of his constant reminder of doing what you enjoy, find fun and to experiment while thinking for yourself. He has it right and I don’t forsee him staying BM unless his idea of fun is solely doing massive damage. His glee in pets have pretty much convinced me that BM is where he’ll be back to in no short order.
SV and MM should do superior damage to BM if the skill required to master them reflects this. Should the delta be on a magnitude of 500DPS? Probably not. Will this be addressed? If it becomes an issue of lemming hunters rushing to SV only to top the meters, you bet Blizzard will. The 95% of hunters being BM who are now SV.. only shows that 95% of hunters are slaves to the damage meters.
@Jaylene
That’s exactly what Blizzard should’ve done, they could’ve fixed BW/Readiness synergy, toned down volley and fixed the CotW stacking issues but they didn’t, they went further and for no valid reason. They affected two talent trees and boosted another, with Survival now doing as much or more damage then BM previously. This totally invalidated their statement that Hunters were doing too much damage compared to other classes, who as they got better geared started taking over us.
Blizzard tells us we need to wait and let the patch settle for a bit, but they were unwilling to wait and fine tune the patch when the evidence was there they were going too far. They were developing changes on earlier results and not to the current state of play on the servers.
Something no one seems to answer is, if BM hunters were so OPed, why was this not picked up in beta? They had months of testing, what were they doing duing that time? Their current reasoning is ludicrous and does not give me much faith they know what they are doing, especially if they can do such an about face so early after a major expansion release.
Back to looking at BRK’s spec, and taking into account EJ’s suggestion of taking Aimed Shot and 1/2 instead of 2/2 in GftT…
I’m wondering if having only 1/5 in Hunting Party is sufficient to keep the raid buff up at all times, or if it’d be worthwhile to move those two points in IAotH over to HP (or into something else, like Focused Aim).
“The 95% of hunters being BM who are now SV.. only shows that 95% of hunters are slaves to the damage meters.”
I don’t understand this at all. Is the hunter not supposed to do damage and just sit there and look pretty?
Ghostcrawler has confirmed that BM is currently designed to give lower dps than MM and SV.
“My comment was that BM can’t be both easier to play and do more dps.”
He indicates this may change in the future when everyone leaves BM behind.
“If BM becomes too unpopular with these changes, if it becomes no longer viable in PvE or PvP, then we will fix it.”
http://www.worldofraids.com/wow-blue-tracker/us-forums/14578748409-hunter-bm-and-mm-are-broken.html#106
so what’s the hunter leveling spec now? is it easy for pet to lose aggro with sv spec?
The Elitist Jerk:
This implies that BM or MM do no damage at all, which is hardly true. They do plenty of viable, competitive damage. Do they do the most? Maybe, maybe not.. and in a game that continuously evolves, what is true today is not promised to be true tomorrow. Paladins are prime example of changing, evolved game design. Vanilla saw them as only healers. TBC made them great tanks AND healers. WotLK made them strong in any one of their three roles.
The game isnt finalized, the last patch isn’t written. Believe it or not, Blizzard does change their standpoints on previous design decisions and the game evolves.
Talent trees should be reinforcing a style of play you enjoy, not mandatory points to make your character ‘the best’.
Aelphea:
You’re right, the last patch isn’t written, or more prudently it wasn’t written (pun intended) well but what looks like hastily put together mish-mash of nerfs. Blizzard has lied to us and completely blind-sided the Hunter community in light of Ghostwalkers recent comments. Saying we will be rebalanced at 3.1 is no compensation for what we have to put up with now.
I agree talent trees should be reinforcing a playing style you enjoy, but for a DPS class you either DPS well or your a hinderance to your raid group. This is what is happening now to BM and MM. I’ll conceed that many people didn’t like the play style of BM spec and were happy with the changes done to Survival and enjoy that more, but just as many Hunters enjoyed BM spec because it emphasised our pet more seeing as we are a pet class. Yes people complained before that their only option to DPS well was to be BM, but Blizzard wasted an opportunity to equalise the talent tree performance by overnerfing one tree which had knock-on effects for another.
If a DPS class is underpeforming then everyone else in the raid suffers.
Omega, it’s really unfair to suggest that doing 500 DPS less (using BRK’s numbers, though others suggest much less) is suddenly a hinderence to your raid. Seriously, you’re doing everyone a gigantic disservice.
Are you seriously going to argue to me that just because you went from 3k DPS to 2.5k DPS that suddenly your raid is going to fail? Because if so, your raid group must be some real fail if -one- person makes or breaks it.
@Xoshe my experience post patch is 3.5-3.8k down to about 2-2.2k. So it’s basically feeling like nerfed in half (and that’s not counting volley). Raid placement wise it takes moi from 1st down to somewhere near the bottom, with all the crossover dps classes above me. It really doesn’t help to just insult people Xoshe. In my last 25naxx alone there was at least 3 wipes with the boss under 2%. Yes, a single damage dealer can make all the difference in raiding. The problem is there is a real dps loss in the BM build which exceeds just “class equalisation”. This dps loss is obviously important to an overall raids success. Later patches will undoubtedly bring BM dps back up a bit (which I hope you will accept as proof it was nerfed too much) but until that point arrives our raids deserve better utility or competency from a pure dps class than BM is demonstrating.
Xoshe:
More like down 1000DPS, despite adjusting to the new shot rotation and keeping serpent sting up, using all my cooldowns regularly etc. My gear isn’t crap, I’m missing 1 piece from my T7 set and have the second best range weapon currently in the game. I’m not blessed with any 25man Naxx gear however. I am probably the best equiped Hunter in my guild and they relied on my DPS to do 10man Naxx, now I can barely keep up with our DKs (one who can easily pull 5k DPS and slaughters everyone) and our Shaman.
It does impact others, comments have already been said off the cuff to me about my decline in DPS and it makes the game less enjoyable when other classes think you are no longer a benefit.
The fact is, BM doesn’t bring anything to a raid other than DPS and FI if a ret pally isn’t there. SV actually brings more utility than BM, and now more DPS as well.
It’s fine if you are in love with BM, and you aren’t a raider. The nerfs don’t really effect you much. Or if you are a casual raider, or just doing heroics with freinds, that’s fine too. BM is still good.
But…
SV brings higher dps. If you are progression raiding, your job is to DPS. Period. Just as your job is to chant and gem properly, so you have to spec properly as well. If you won’t respec to benefit the raid, you might not have a spot. This is not the same as a pally tank being told to respec healing or ret to be invited. You are being asked to spec the best dps you can. Is there something wrong with that?..
Xoshe.. that dps loss could be 150k to 300k damage on a boss over the course of a 5 minute fight. or up to 1500k damage over a long fight like KZ. Think that doesn’t make a difference?.. That is the difference in a 2% wipe situation….
[quote]can someone link that Ghostcrawler forum post please?[/quote]
See Omega’s comment in BRK’s Mission Impossible article (I’m not including a link because that delays the comment for review).
I’m sure that someone is gonna bite my head off for saying this – but I would dispute that BM is not quite the noob spec that everyone seems to feel it is. Granted, our shot rotation is simple (and I’m actually glad that Arc Shot is workin its way in) but we have to deal much more with the pet mechanics in compensation for it. Knowing where to position my pet in order to keep it out of the aoe or to get it to jump across certain platforms (lookin at you, Thaddius) is much more interesting to me than keeping tabs on all the cooldowns in my shot rotation / trap dance. Maybe I’m a little too much of a “casual” raider, but this is how i like to play, and I’m lucky enough to have a guild that lets me.
How is the dps if you take the 2 from BM and toss them into Rapid Killing? Negligible difference or just a matter of preference?
@fearstalker
I see no problems someone respeccing to benefit the raid, and you are right BM no longer brings anything to a raiding group except their DPS, and if that is below standard a raid group is better off swapping them out for a hybrid that can do as much or more DPS but with greater utility.
My issue is Blizzard’s reasons and approach to nerfing the BM tree and Hunters in general. They need to be taken to task for this because they have deceived the community and it feels like they are treating us with contempt. Thankfully many people are calling their bluff instead of just rolling over and accepting whatever Blizzards reason is for the hour.
My prediction!
3.1- SV gets a nerf to dps, bringing it in line with MM and BM specs, because 95% of the hunter community moved from BM to SV overnight. The other 5% are still using MM, because they are hard headed and like TSA =)
@ Teridom – It’s not the noob spec as GC infers, but, they did beat it down badly. As I said before, if you enjoy the spec, and if you are not dragging your group down, then it’s not an issue. A BM spec with Imp Arcane is still viable, esp if you manage your pet well.
@ Arawn – hard to know yet.. more testing needed, but, the thinking is IAOTH provides more dps.
@ Omega. – I agree, but, Blizz doesn’t really listen that well. The only thing they will respond to is when 80%+ of raiding hunters are SV, and when they see drops in hunter participation in general.
@ PT – That’s what I’m afraid of. And if they do that, raiding with a hunter might be dead. BM specs are in the 7 to 8 slot in progression raiding guilds right now. That can’t last for a pure dps spec.
Fearstalker:
Ok, I’ll be fair. I’m always assuming that the player will be in a raid that should be in Naxx anyway, and not that he’s just carrying everyone.
I don’t know about your guild or anyone else’s, but I find it hard to believe that any even partially serious guild that’s currently running Naxx that has a BM Hunter doing (then 3~k, now 2~2.5k -unbuffed-) DPS doesn’t also have a bunch of other players doing just as much if not more. With that in mind, one player suddenly doing a bit less is not going to make or break the raid, because that raid group is actually -already ahead of the curve-. If your raid group can do an average 2.5k DPS, then you’re already ahead of Naxx and are ready for Ulduar. With that in mind, any “2%” situations wouldn’t be dealt with by more DPS, since at that level the problem is positioning and execution, and not how much damage everyone is putting out.
And besides, geez. You guys did realize that BRK’s posted tests were without raid buffs, right? 2.5k~3k combined DPS unbuffed is a hell of a lot of damage for anyone.
Xoshe,
Point taken. And in most raiding guilds, providing you are a good player, then you still should have a slot. But reports are already surfacing about people getting kicked from groups because of the perception of the nerfage.
And GC made it worse, basically saying that BM was the noob spec (even though he said it wasn’t, he then made the case for it), and that the “more challenging” specs should provide greater damage.
What’s a raid leader to do with that information?.. the better players will spec SV and provide greater damage?.. hmm…
But the fault is on GC, as a poster child for bad game design, because of the approach to the nerfs. The nerfs should have been surgical, but with a plan. What we got was nerfs to almost every part of BM dps. A big wet blanket.
What they should have done was use it to help redefine the spec. I would have actually increased pet damage, and reduced hunter shot damage, so BM truly became the “beast masters”. Make it unique and interesting.
But right now, BM is just a watered-down version of SV. SV times ES the way BM timed BW. BM, apart from more pets, isn’t compelling, at least in a raid environment (PVP might be a different story, and solo, BM is still very strong).
If BM is a weaker version of SV, why wouldn’t I go there for raiding?..
I truly hope that the 3.1 changes will bring someting compelling for BM. GC hinted at pet talents that improve hunter damage. That’s a start, but it needs more. The pet needs to stand out more. Give them back some of the damage.
For that matter, SV needs a fix as well. Ironically, SV with sniper training is really doing what MM should be doing (Sorry Rilgon, SV is the new MM). The 41-point talent in SV needs a major fix or replacement. NO ONE uses the melee/survival talents in SV. Why are they there? Blizz has to know this is broken.
Not trying to be insulting, but if the solution is so obvious, what do you think should have been done? I’m interested in hearing.
I’m not really so convinced that anything to modify BM’s damage is all that easy, because of how much of a percentage pet damage is and what BM shares with the other specs. This and other similar things I’ve seen have made me agree with GC’s opinion that pet classes should rely a lot less on their pet’s damage.
I mean, with a BM’s pet taking up 30~50% of the total damage, anything that affects a pet’s damage has a large effect on a BM’s damage (but also affects MM and SV). In addition, they would need to do a larger change to a BM’s shots in order to reduce total damage, but those changes would end up affecting MM and SV quite a bit.
Not to mention that with pets being that much of a percentage, then there’s a lot of pressure to make the pet more and more survivable, which makes them even harder to balance. A BM is basically made or broken by the pet; if the pet does down that’s an absolutely gigantic DPS loss that no other class except a Demo ‘lock can really compare with. How many abilities do you see out there that give a 30~50% total damage loss?
Ideas…
Make Volley a trained shot (or talented) that BM couldn’t pick up.. and reduce the bonuses to the BM hunter from SS. Heck, maybe even remove SS or, just give the bonus to the pet. Then the pet could be boosted by the higher tier BM talents that MM and SV couldn’t get.
It would be pretty easy to change it around, and make BM viable and interesting…
But, we got the wet blanket instead…
I don’t really see how making a talented Volley fixes anything. Yes, Volley was too powerful, but that was inflating every spec, not just BM. Making Volley trained only murders Hunter AOE, which forces everyone to spec into it. Depending on how high up in the tree that is, it would also basically kill any tree other then that one harder then these changes did.
BM’s only “bonus” from SS is that it has a chance to proc Cobra Strikes if they spec into it. Other then that, it’s really just a baseline normal spell that happens to be BM’s staple since they don’t get a special talented shot. But since so much of BM’s damage comes from pets, you still need to reduce SS’s damage by a ton to get a noticable reduction in BM’s total damage, which affects SV and MM as well.
The pet doesn’t need to be increased by deep BM, since the pet is doing too much damage right now -anyway-. It needed to be toned down as well. It’s not a problem that MM and SV are getting too much from their pets (in fact, it could even be argued that they should get more from their pets, but that’s besides the point).
A slightly better spec, at least for my gear level, is 6/14/51, taking 3 points from Improved Stings and 1 from GftT, finishing off IAotH and getting 1/2 in Focused Fire.
As for whether to put 2/3 in Expose Weakness and 1/3 in Hunting Party or a simple 3/3 in Expose.
Well, raid buffed my Explosive Shot has something like 66% chance to crit, with 66% chance that it will give Expose Weakness. That’s a pretty high chance and could almost keep it up alone, never mind crits from the rest of my shots.
Also, Hunting Party is extremely useful, for yourself included, when you do 10 mans, or Heroics, and you find (as I often do), you’re now the only person with Replenishment. Even so, it can still give that little benefit in 25 man and 66% in Expose Weakness is more than enough.
Personally haven’t tried Trap Dancing sine the patch, it adds more to an already relatively complex rotation, and now that Lock n Load has a 10% chance to proc from Stings, with a 30 second internal cooldown, it means if your sting procs it can send you out of whack.
Add to that bosses that move where trapping can be difficult, to that bosses with huge hit boxes where you have to move a long way for the trap to proc, then back out to be in range to shoot, I didn’t really think it was worth it.
Static bosses with normal hit-boxes will allow you to never move, though, and that should increase DPS so perhaps it’s worth going for a hybrid build with Hawk Eye and Sniper Training for mobile bosses or those like Sapphiron with huge hit boxes, but keeping the point in Trap Mastery for bosses where that’s a viable option.
Even without Trap Dancing, though, I am loving Survival through and through. I pulled off my best performance yet on Patchwerk 25, getting 5.5k DPS even with server lag making all my casts take 1 second longer.
The rest of the DPSers in my guild hoping to now catch up because of the ‘nerf’ were not impressed.
Editing my comment doesn’t seem to work very well. As for the 2/5 IAotH vs 2/2 Rapid Killing, there are very few fights that even last as long as 6 minutes, and if you can’t use Rapid Fire twice that talent becomes very weak.
@Xoshe
I think the solution was easy, reduce the damage of Volley, remove BW from Readiness and correct the Call of the Wild stacking issues, then we may of seen an even playing field and viable alternatives for all Hunters. The fact BM pets make up nearly half a BMs DPS output is inconsiquential, we lose our pets and our DPS plummits to tank level. It’s a risk vs reward balancing act which we have to manage.
Castrating the BM tree the way Blizzard did was very poor, reactionary and disrespectful to the Hunter community. I was reading one of the older threads on the Damage Dealer forums about Exotic Pets and it was a dishearterning read know how things transpired with the 3.08 patch. There is no point having a exotic pet now with pet damage nerfed so much, nothing you can do can get you close to SV DPS.
I was on a 25man OS raid before, there were 4 Hunters on the raid: 2 BMs and 2 SVs. Both of us BMs were neck and neck at 2.4k DPS but the SVs were miles ahead at about 3.7k DPS and were only just behind a DK who was #1 for DPS. I did have some lagging issues but both us BMs should’ve been pulling alot more DPS then what did.
@ Omega
So you had a 25-man raid where all 4 hunters couldn’t do jack shit for DPS?
Amazing.
Adaptation –>
Seriously, it took me 30 minutes to completely master SV rotation after TBC’s worth of faceroll macros because they had a mechanical advantage over hand weaving.
It’s not hard, l2p.
Hey Mate what macro do you use for the shot rotation?
Cheers
I too have gone to the dark side. I must now figure out the shot rotation, but am not seeing any guidance on this from fellow hunters. Anyone? Give a brutha some lovin’!
*BTW, for those who are “bashing” those who are button “mashing”, they are simply showing their ignorance. Whether I am playing my DK, Pally or previously BM spec’d hunter, I write my own macros. Maybe cuz during the day I am a professional geek, but I think it’s cool they give us the in game ability to do so. When you bash someone for hitting one button instead of 5, it only shows you have not figured out how to correctly tune your character, and your macros to employ the proper shot rotation into a single macro.
why hit 5 buttons when you CAN choose to hit only one?
[...] new raid DPS king. The virtual proof is in the linkage: Elitist Jerks cookie cutter survival spec Seeing Big Red Kitty respec Pikes dilemma and its resolution Reading creative storywriting over on Mirshalak’s [...]
/script UIErrorsFrame:UnregisterEvent(”UI_ERROR_MESSAGE”);
/castsequence reset=3/combat Arcane Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot;
Can never seem to get this macro to work !