Kel’Thuzad as Post-3.0.8. SV
Regular 10-man Naxx cleared. No hunter-loot. The other hunter is SV as well.
We love being a BM hunter. We love out pets, we love Bestial Wrath and The Pain Train’s Comin’!
We play the game to top the damage-meters in raids. That’s what makes us happy, what makes us believe we’re doing our job. We get invited as fill-in for 25s in other guilds because they know we’ll do what we need to do to fight for our spot atop the meters. That’s just how we roll. That doesn’t mean that you have to dedicate yourself to the damage-meters; you can run as a BM hunter and still have a blast.
But no matter how good you are, a competent SV is going to clean your clock, because that’s the way the talents are built now. It’s not our fault, and it’s not our responsibility to tell you that raiding as a BM hunter has the promise of riches and accolades. It doesn’t. It can be loads of fun, but you’re not going to be atop the meters.
Do with that info what you will.
(Just a note: Sapphiron was not “good stuff” as we did the whole fight with Viper cooking. /uber-epic-mongo fail.)
Sure was a lot of misses. Our Hit Rating was a poncy 209 and we had a Draenai enhancement shammy in the raid. Pretty stunned we missed that much. Basically, we are fifteen Hit Rating points from being hit-capped and, normally, we wouldn’t see any misses with that miniscule a margin.
Lookie! No Arcane Shots! We’re learning! /woot
Our pet is 21% of our DPS. Even as an SV, keeping one’s pet alive is Important.
Three Kill Shots in one fight? We’ll take that, with a side of coleslaw! /yum
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So sorry.
And while I feel your pain you really can’t be BRK anymore if your Kitty can’t get Big OR Red.
Thank you Blizzard for snuffing the spec.
That thank you was meant as sarcasm btw.
“That doesn’t mean that you have to dedicate yourself to the damage-meters; you can run as a BM hunter and still have a blast.”
Amen.
SV may kick my butt in damage meteres, but I play for the fun of BM and no raids gonna change that. =) It’s you $15 a month, play it how you want.
Go go BRK!
BRK,
Those “misses” were most likely dodges and the like. If you go into an expanded view of the misses on WWS, you will see that you probably do not have any actual missed shots.
BRK you are the best!
I ran SV last year for about three months, loved it.
I repsecced to MM after the latest patch and loved it too!
But, in reality, since I dont raid (see:never) I figured “Why am I not BM?? I love BM for my style of solo-alot and chat with guildies.
The bottom line is, as you posted, its all in how you roll.
Im back with Pepper (gorilla) and SharkBait (worm) both very tough, tenacious pets and I love ‘em!
Thats what BM is really about is the pet, our companion, buddy, sometimes saviour, and best friend.
Thanks for all the great posts BRK, I will continue to read your blog everyday and enjoy the stories. I guess Im like the old man on the front porch, sitting quietly in my BM rocking chair, chuckling quitely to myself and muttering…”You’ll be back someday”…
Remember, one man’s nerf is another man’s opportunity.
You play the game to top the damage-meters in raids because that’s how you roll.
That’s cool, keep rollin’.
I shell out my 15 a month to be virtual buddies with a blood-red Tamagotchi that eats rogues.
That’s how I roll.
(Blizz saw me rollin’, they be hatin’.)
Was BM before it was THE endgame spec, gonna be BM now its not… You’re right. Its about enjoyment. Thats how everyone should roll!
BM4ever.
We will be back. Seriously, it may take time, but I believe Blizz will try to get the 3 specs better balanced. Meanwhile, I will be happy with what I can get.
Glad you are topping the charts BRK. Just remember to keep writing for your original, and most loyal fans.
No arcane shot… good! One aimed shot?! … BAD! Aimed shot is working great in the BM rotation and not just as a LnL filler.
Aimed Shot is still totally viable if you have the mana to spare for use when you don’t have LnL up and Explosive is on CD (let’s face it, Steady sucks now). I personally weave in Aimed when it won’t cost me DPS elsewhere, and that’s probably why I’m able to break 3-4k DPS in heroics. With EW and MT up, those Aimed’s hit quite hard with 6k RAP.
I still feel that maxing out Master Tactician and Expose Weakness is going to give you more benefit than Hunting Party for you 25 man raid situations. Expose weakenss is a Crit based percentage, and even at 66% on critical strike it could fall off, for example in fight where you need to be on the move. 100% on crit reduces the chance of fall off substantially.
Along with that, Master Tactician rank one is 10% on ranged attack to increase critical strike %. All rank are 10% chance. You’re gimping yourself a bit when you don’t get the full 5/5 and 10% CRIT chance added when it procs.
Believe me, having 103% chance to Crit on Loatheb is nothing to sneeze at. Fury Warriors can’t even boast that
I hear ya when it comes to topping the meters. I usually raid with my rogue and I do not feel I am properly fulfilling my responsibility to a raid unless I am fighting tooth and nail to be all the rogue I can be. There are few things that give me more pride than a job well done, seeing myself dominating the dps meters and proving to all the raid that I am top dog of stabbing.
Roll on dual specs, it will make this all easier cos we can spec both instead of the torture of choosing favourite style vs mega dps.
OK, I did it. I went survival this morning. Used BRK’s spec from the last post, with a minor tweak (took the 2 points out of IAotH and put them into Focused Aim, since I’m still a bit short on hit). I spent a grand total of ten minutes practicing the rotation before running a 1000-rounds test and never really got the feel that I knew what I was doing, but still managed to pump 350-400 dps more into a heroic dummy than I did as BM.
Then I got into a group to kill Omen and did almost 3k dps while the tank bitched about my threat. I’m still not even I want to be, gear-wise, so that’s only going to get better.
I would like to get some suggestions about an add-on that will make my L&L procs a little more obvious. It’s a bit tough to pick it out of a full buff bar while also watching cooldowns and making sure I don’t stand in the fire/blizzard/void zone/poison/slime/whatever. I’m sure I saw BRK list his mods somewhere in the last couple of days, but I haven’t been able to find it.
Elkano’s Buff Bars http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/elkbuffbars.aspx
You can make a seperate bar just for LnL pop up in the middle of your screen or where ever you’d like. That’s what I use and I find it very Helpful.
“I would like to get some suggestions about an add-on that will make my L&L procs a little more obvious. It’s a bit tough to pick it out of a full buff bar while also watching cooldowns and making sure I don’t stand in the fire/blizzard/void zone/poison/slime/whatever. I’m sure I saw BRK list his mods somewhere in the last couple of days, but I haven’t been able to find it.”
TellMeWhen is a nice addon for that, especially as it can also monitor cooldowns on your shots. Plop it up near the center of your screen and it makes paying attention to your surroundings much easier.
The other major addon I’ve heard praised is PowerAuras.
Someone yesterday suggested ShotProc, which makes a noise like a shotgun loading when LnL procs.
We’re going to tease you here, ready?
Lrn2ReadWWS
/giggle
Of the total X number of Aimed Shots, there was 1 Hit, and 67% of our Aimed Shots were Crits.
If 67% of our X number of Aimed Shots were Crits and there were no Misses, then 33% of our X number of Aimed Shots were Hits.
0.33 * X = 1
X = 3
We used 3 Aimed Shots, 2 of them Crit (67%) and 1 of them Hit (33%).
No, they were Misses. We didn’t publish the expanded-WWS report because it’s just huge.
Your explosive shot misses based on your spell hit, that’s why it’s 2%. The other ones are in line with the hit rating you have, assuming you are sometimes out of range of a draenei.
I switched to SV last night to practice the rotation on Malygos…as for seeing/hearing your LnL procs, use an addon called “Power Aura”. There’s a thread in the official hunter forum as to how to configure it. I downloaded a sound clip from Platoon where the guy yells “LOCK AND LOAD!” and used it as the audio piece of the warning…everytime my LnL Procs, I hear “LOCK AND LOAD!” over my headphones.
Now that most folks understand the spec and shot rotations of an SV hunter, what about gear/stats? Are there any little differences in what stat to stack (gem, enchant, etc.) as SV versus BM now? Lets assume that I have already balanced my stats broadly and reached the hit cap. From there, should I be gemming for agi or crit over atk pwr now? Should I be interested in haste at all? That kinda stuff
So what was the point of nerfing BM and buffing SV, I don’t get it.
95% of hunters were BM, now they’re SV.
Hunters were @ top damage meters. Nerfed, they still top meters.
BM was overpowered, SV pathetic. Now BM is pathetic, SV overpowerd.
So what? I mean… what’s the point of making 1 spec horrible, 1 decent and one “must have if you want to find a spot in a raid”?
Doh…
This thread reminds me…I should get paid to be a mind reader.
OK, SV sounds like nice DPS, but not like fun to me. I am more interested in the MM spec after I heard Nassira on the podcast as it makes a bigger impression regarding DPS to me. Of course I will need to try the MM spec first, but I generally wait for your opinion BRK.
Will you try the MM spec too, or have you made up your mind staying SV until BM is fixed?
Was this a Trap Dancing BRK, or just Sniping ?
I suppose now SV is the way to go Hobbes is safe for a little while longer
So… Will there be a name change? Stumpytrapdancer maybe? Seriously, I admire everyones ability to adapt to the changes. I’ve been using Arcane and Aimed as BM anyway and I don’t/can’t raid, so I’ll just wait for the big Blizzard pendulum to swing slowly back in my direction.
I love our 25 man Naxx/Sarth raid mistress. She just wants everyone to have fun. I think maybe that’s why the raid works so well. No one is forced into any one niche or spec. She even says, if you don’t want to raid on a raid night sometimes, just let her know so she can fill the spot for that night. It won’t lose you your raid spot.
She has already said she hates damage meters. And to never EVER post them in raid chat. You can run them for yourselves, but that isn’t what her raid is about. It’s about fun, and we’re progressing just fine for a group that’s made up of several guilds. Tonight will be 5 weeks of raiding, with saturday being 4 weeks at going 2x a week. We run about 3ish hours both nights. Tuesdays are Vault/Sarth/Naxx. Saturday is Naxx. Patchwork is down as of saturday once our healers figured out WTF they were doing. Hated Instructor Raz is our only sticking point because we have no shadow priests. Our holy priests are doing the MCing and don’t have the +hit a shadow priest would. This usually leads to 3-4 wipes/resets before we get the bastard down. DPS is not our problem.
What does that mean? I don’t have to change my spec. I’m already topping 3.5k dps in various fights as BM with a side of MM. In my gear, yes, I’d probably be dong a LOT better as SV spec. But i don’t like SV spec. So…. No one has to change their spec. Everyone just has to be able to do their job, keep bosses from enraging, and have fun.
Raiding is not Srs Bzns. Raiding should always be about fun. If you can’t raid as the spec you want, you’re probably better off saving yourself the seething hatred at arsehat raid leaders and sticking to heroics anyways.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be the best you can be, just be the best you can be and still thoroughly enjoy yourself. If you have to be #1 on the damage meter like BRK, so be it. Just don’t make everyone else feel they have to be the same way.
I think the biggest letdown here is that many of us came here in the first place because BRK was an icon for BM hunters. He was good at what he did, he showed what the talent tree could do, and he was funny and good looking while doing it.
What we are seeing now is effectively our Michael Jordan telling us that he’s quitting Basketball in order to play Baseball because the money is better in baseball and his priority is to make as much money for his family as possible.
And I agree, how can we call it Big Red Kitty if the kitty can no longer get big and red?
What reason is there to DPS if not to DPS well? Why play a game if you do not want to succeed in the game? No, the game shouldn’t be life or death to you, but there’s no reason to be slovenly or lackluster in your efforts either. If your aspiration is not to be at the top spot, even if it’s impossible to attain (based on class limitations), then you’re not giving yourself enough credit, or setting your eyes to the right prize. A marksman may fire at the sun and not strike it, but so long as he can hit a target higher than he did last time, all that matters is that he gave it his all.
I’ll never understand the rationale of deciding that you’re content with not giving your all, and no you cannot roll out of bed, have no materials prepared go to the raid and say you “gave it your all” — you can’t not play the character for 6 days, show up on the 7th and do 2,000 DPS and say you “gave it your all”, and you can’t ignore what you’ve done in an attempt to deny the fact you’ve improved and say you “gave it your all”. We are each different people and as such have different capabilities, but each and every one of us — the healer, the dpser, the tank, or the hybrid that swaps between two of the three — has the ability to do his or her best. It’s a concept that you should have learned playing sports or whatever you did as a child, and one that is applicable to many events that we experience in life.
No, everyone cannot be #1, but everyone should want to be. Being the best player that you can be makes the game not only enjoyable for yourself, but those that run with you as well, and if playing a game isn’t about fun, then I don’t know what it is about.
Anyone that calls his or herself a DPSer has no reason to not look at DPS charts. It isn’t a matter of “e-peen stroking” or whatever adolescent/juvenile aspect people that don’t try attempt to construe it as. It’s a way to chart your progress, and if that means you’re only doing 5 more constant damage than you were last week, then that’s all that matters. The fact that you are improving… that you’re taking the things you are doing incorrectly and rectifying, is what truly matters. Re-gem, re-spec, investigate how you can squeeze blood out of the stones that hinder your progress.
This weekend, Vanguard took a step forward and decided that we weren’t being tested enough so we moved into 25 Man Sartharion with only 9 people. If each member of our team, from healer to DPS to tank didn’t believe that they were doing the best that they could do — if they didn’t squeeze out every ounce of DPS that they could, then we would have failed. But we didn’t, and it’s not because everyone was tied at 5,000 DPS with the leader: it’s because everyone knew their role, played it well, and sought to improve upon what mistakes they’d made in the past. We play as we practice, and if you practice without effort then your end result is shoddy.
No, everyone cannot be #1 on the damage meters, but that doesn’t mean everyone shouldn’t try to be. This is indeed a game and as a game it should be fun. For it to be fun you should know your role and how to execute it responsibly and effectively; in that way not only you, but your team also are capable of accomplishing feats that may have seemed daunting at their outset, but are truly rewarding in their defeat. The damage meter is a compository of information gained from play and ignoring it doesn’t make you any more of a “casual” gamer than people that study and adjust. It simply makes you unwilling to admit that you are capable of error, and in that true “e-peen stroking” is revealed.
There is no excuse not to strive for excellence. If nothing else, you should know that you give it your all and leave with no regrets.
Raiding as SV might be fun and worth it for damage right now…
But seeing as I don’t get a lot of play time, I’m still levelling.
Soloing as SV, as I learned, is hard. You have great mana regen, but unless you get a gorilla, you’re kiting the whole way to 80.
But for raiding, I probably will have to spec SV or MM in order to get a spot. Because replenishment doesn’t stack. =D
If you lag too much to trap dance and you don’t have a range meter to stay 30yrds away you will lose as much DPS as having a dead pet and if your pet dies too, well now you’re below the tank.
Also you cannot play SV in BM gear.
If you have the inclination to practically roll a different class then the BM -> SV switch is feasible else you will be sucking wing and your gouild will think your SO is playing your toon because your dps plummeted.
BRK, get the addon ‘Vipernotify’, and you’ll never run with Viper on longer than you need to. It comes up with a message when you’re at full mana and still have Viper switched on.
Striving to do your best is good and all but what if you’re not enjoying it? Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t the definition of a game something that is done, usually as a hobby, that is fun to the person playing it? What’s the point of being the best if you’re not enjoying it? If my guild forced me to respec survival I’d probably quit playing WoW altogether because I don’t like being forced into something I don’t enjoy just for some pixels.
On the matter of personal enjoyment over raid contribution…there’s a fine line and an issue that can cause a lot of contraversy in my opinion. If your guild is reasonable, they’d accept the fact that you like to play as Beast Mastery or Marksman. If you’re being forced into something you don’t like just for the sake of getting a raid slot, then maybe you should look for another guild. I honestly could not spec survival now without feeling like a sheep.
@shatter
I hear you. And I agree on the point that if you want to do something then do it well. But like you said and like a lot of people have said this is a game and it is about having fun. I learned the very hard way that what people find fun in this game is unique for each and every personn. There’s a lot of people for whom topping damage meters is what it’s all about. BRK said himself that’s what he loves, you seem to be like that and I used to be like that too. And there’s nothing wrong with it either. But some people don’t enjoy that part of the game. And you can’t tell them that their way of enjoying the game is worse than yours and that they should play like you.
What it all comes down to is the time we have to play. Suppose you only have an hour to devote to WoW each day. If your goal is to socialize then that hour will be spent talking to people and not looking up how to max your Dps. If your goal is to max your dps then you’ll use that time to max it out. The thing is that both people can end up in the same raid. One to max his gear and the other just to do something with his friends. The guy in there for his friends will have lower dps and will probably know less. Does that make it a bad player? A bad personn? A slacker? No, he only invested his time in a different manner. When your saying that someone only logs in the 7th day maybe that’s all that he has. Maybe that one day of raiding is much more of a commitement to him than to you.
If you truly mean that everyone should play for fun then don’t expect everyone to play the game the way you want to them to.
True you should change gear if you make the switch from BM to SV, but you really should have a bunch of stuff that works in the bank still. Just because I was BM didn’t mean I sold all my haste gear. Not only that, but re-gemming with a few less than perfect gems is still not a bad start. Switch mele weapons, get a few lesser enchants (until you get the gear worth spending the gold) but the biggest thing is practice.
Try trap dancing. if you hate it, try getting to long range. change your addons and make them work for you. If you still hate SV after giving it a serious try, no worries. It’s worth trying at least though. I have honestly found that I enjoy SV. I miss BM going big and red, but it’s not like I don’t still play my hunter. I just play him differently. I still have a pet that I monitor and control, it just does 50% of the damage it did before.
I have played MM as well, and to be honest, if MM were the chart topper, I may still be BM. I think everyone needs to try playing different ways, but it doesn’t mean that you have to play in a way you don’t enjoy. Don’t give others crap for enjoying BM but finding SV more enjoyable now. I would say that if I enjoyed BM at a 9, I enjoy SV at an 8. The 23% DPS increase as SV pushes the choice over the BM spec for me. MM is about a 4. It would take a LOT more DPS to make MM my choice.
I agree with Shatter. I don’t top the charts to stroke my ego. I play the best I can to have fun overall. I get more group invites and raid positions because I bring the MQOSRDPS. I like raiding. I like running instances. If I didn’t enjoy either of those, I’d probably stay BM. I’m not betraying my enjoyment of the Beast Mastery tree, I’m enjoying the Survival tree and the extra raiding that comes with it.
@Shagrat and Draazel
I just think narcissism is the defining point of “e-peen”. If you believe that all you have done is the best that anyone could do, then you’d never improve.
I’m not saying that a person has to be the highest DPS, or have the best gear possible — but s/he should have the highest DPS for his/herself, as well as the best gear that s/he could attain in his/her given play time. If you have only 3 hours to play WoW and you spend 2 hours of it standing around in the Park in Stormwind, then you’ve every right to say you’re having fun, but you can’t also said you gave it your all because you didn’t hit an instance and pick up some new gear to help you along the way. You chose to not prepare for your raids, and as such you don’t get to say that you put any effort into what you’re doing.
If your goal is to socialize over play the game, then why bother with raiding? That’s between 135-360 dollars of other people’s money depending on your one slot to be able to pull its own weight, and an excuse like “Well, I was at an RP wedding” just doesn’t seem fair when placed against the fact they (theoretically) put the work in to be prepared and ready to go. I wouldn’t call that person a bad person, but I would call them a slacker.
If you have too much food on your plate, give some to someone else that’s hungry. If you can’t put the time in to raid, then you shouldn’t make raiding your focus. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t raid, but you shouldn’t also criticize people that do use raiding as their focus as being too “serious” about the game. It’s not about being lax or aggressive, it’s just about dedicating yourself to perfecting your craft.
And as for respeccing, I’m not advocating making someone respec. Well, not entirely. I think that a person should be able to play their preferred spec, so long as they have specced responsibly in that build. If you’re an enhancement shaman with Anticipation and Toughness for PVE, then you need to go talk to Nobundo and get your mind right. I’m not saying you should go BE ELEMENTAL, but by the same token you should look up specs (or logically come to the conclusion of what gives the most DPS as I generally do), and work from there on your build. My enhancement spec has evolved 3 times as I’ve gained more gear, and probably will continue to.
I’m not saying that the person that plays 50 hours a week is any better of a gamer than the person that plays 2. But if you’re honest with yourself you KNOW if you could do more than you currently are, and you KNOW if you’re holding back your group or not. If doing damage in a raid isn’t fun to you, then don’t be DPS. If healing and tanking aren’t fun to you, then don’t raid. If you see damage meters as an evil thing that shows you things you don’t want to know, then don’t raid. I mean, it’s like if someone ate themselves out of shape and then blamed the mirror for what they saw in front of them.
Our actions shape reality, you can’t be angry at reality for how things turn out.
(Edit for less gender-masculine pronouns. >.>)
@BRK
Extremely well said, BRK!
And thanks for educating us about the new survival options and da facts of wow raid dps life.
If you love the mambo but others are relying on you for your tap dancing skills, tap dancing it will be. (for now…change is the only wow constant…and for some adapting is part of the fun and challenge…and my hat is off to em).
Besides my computer keyboard has run outta QQ ink
about your hit rate. i was looking at your character sheet and comparing it to my own to see what kind of dps i should be able to do and i noticed that your hit rate is only 3.20%. isnt the hit cap 8%? i donno but it seems like you are like 4.80% under. i could be wrong. just a thought.
@shatter
The number one reason damage meters are banned from our raid (and have been perma banned in previous raids I ran, from MC onwards) is because they often cause people to not just e-peen, but to become reckless and stupid just to try to top the charts. This usually happens with rogues and mages being aggro whores and dying quickly. Then crowing when the meter is posted that “hey look, I still topped the chart even though i was dead most of the fight!”. Yeah dumba**. Imagine what you could have done had you not been a moron and lived.
You can argue that damage meters are a tool all you like. But mostly, it’s the tools who use them to stroke their e-peens rather than using them as a constructive tool.
@ Suzanne
That’s exactly why our guild banned the dmg meters too.
In Wrath, I find it pretty hard to believe that a disciplined tank couldn’t keep aggro over his/her most reckless of DPSers.
But then again, I guess I run with a standard of people that can diffuse their egos from the numbers that are revealed by the WWS. Let this not be misconstrued as me thinking it’s good to post damage meters in raid chat — that should be saved for your personal recount, as well as WWS after the raid, but a WWS is still a vital tool.
It’s like saying because you can kill someone with a knife, you shouldn’t be able to use a knife when cooking. You should be more concerned with the maturity of the people you play with than whether or not they can do damage, first and foremost.
@Shatter
I run with a mixed group. And inevitably, 1-3 pick ups because someone couldn’t make it, or is simply missing. Some of those pick ups from previous weeks have stuck with us. Some for the good, some for the bad. Maturity is -not- a given.
It’s 25 people. You’re going to get a few immature arsehats.
Our raidmistress just isn’t concerned with numbers. She’s concerned with the final results. And the final results are that the raid is progressing just fine.
Ah, yes therein lies the difference. We’ve chosen not to pick up people that are otherwise annoying for the sake of doing 25-mans. Hence why we ended up going out of our way to 9-man 25 Sarth. It was more fun and less stressful in terms of dealing with immature jackanapes.
Your prerogative is yours to cherish and I won’t decry that. I just don’t think it’s ever conducive to advance to ignore the ways in which one can improve. The raid material won’t always be as easy as Naxx.
WOW! There are a lot of huge comments on this post so sorry if I repeat anything. I’m in class and don’t have time to read all the posts.
MSBT is very customizable. I added a bell sound and a message for LnL procs. I also added a “duh dun” sound for SpS falling off. That, plus having it macrod similarly to Mend Pet keeps it from ever falling off. (I sting everything) Also, I find rotating through trash and stinging a couple before attacking skull helps give more LnL procs. Almost every 30s.
On “BM fo life” vs “mqosrdps” I’d say if you are in a raiding guild and still progressing please please please dont gimp your guildies. It’s not fair to any sacrifices theyve made. (Hybrid classes swapping for whats needed etc.) However, if youre going to faceroll through the content and it’s fine with your RL, go BM, have fun.
Also, about damage meters. They are very important tool for RLs. Recently my guild was noticing some issues with dps in our Naxx runs. I had a guildie (I was unable to raid at the time) I had a friend save all the boss recount reports for a week with various guildies. Funny thing is we noticed that a particular class was falling particularly low on the meter.
So I called in some help. I asked a friend of mine from outside the guild if she would mind helping these individuals out. The difference is phenomenal. Without the meter, we still would be gimped and all we could say would be “come on guys, we can do better” without ever knowing how.
The above can also apply to PuGs. DpS pulling aggro left and right? Find a new tank. Tank dieing every trash pull? A new healer may be in order. Bosses taking so long to kill the healer is going oom? DpS issue. But who? /show recount. /g hey guys, would one of you mind filling in for a dps? this guy is a little out of his league on this one.
@Suzanne
If people are being reckless because of meters they need to leave the raid. period. I’d rather do a boss in an extra 30s if it means we don’t wipe, lose moral, and eventually call it at 3am.
Happy Hunting and sorry again if I repeated anything.
@Suzanne – First if your guild is comfortable running in a casual manner, then that’s golden. Everyone knows their role and is comfortable with that rate of progression. I’m truly glad (really) that you have a good place to have fun with friends in game.
But.. now you are calling the damage meter folk tools.
I used to see it more like you do, but.. now that I’ve geared up, I look at the meters a lot. First, I look to see how I am doing in a fight. (patchwerk is a great test). Second, I compare myself to other hunters. Is someone outdoing me? am I competitive? Remember, meters show a LOT besides raw dps. Look at BRK’s post again for good examples of what you can glean from meters.
But.. I also inspect other classes. Esp those at the bottom. Do they need gear advice? Are they TRYING? I see a lot of lazy people at the bottom of the meters… people without gems in sockets, missing enchants, rogues not building combo points, mages spamming one spell, etc. Those folk are impacting MY $15 a month by not putting forth an effort.
If someone is fresh and needs advice, I’ll point them when I can to sites where they can get info on their spec. But if they are just lazy….
From my experience, the epeeners are falling by the wayside a bit. At least they are gone from my guild.
But tell me Suzanne, what would you do with a hunter in your guild that refuses to mix in Arcane shot, even though it is clear that Blizz wants BM hunters to need to use Arcane?..
@Suzanne – Also remember that we are talking about raids. Some raid encounters are designed purely as DPS checks (Patchwerk for one). That’s why raid bosses have enrage timers. You need to provide a certain amount of dps in a given time. Do it faster, you might get an achievement.
So don’t knock the folk who watch meters. Blizz encourages us to do it as well.
I’m currently a BM (a wotlk-less BM…) but am becoming a believer of the SV tree. I’m going to spec as a SV hunter for today after the servers come back up and test it out in one of the Caverns of Time instances. I’m excited but I’m gonna cry for my cat, Watermelon. She’s going to be so weak… Hopefully I’ll be able to turn back to the light someday.
I’m glad your that being the top of the damage meters makes ya happy. Heck I would love to just be lvl 80 and doing these Instances. But I love being a BM hunter. It’s what makes me happy and I won’t compromise that just to do some more DPS. The game is about having fun and I think your doing what it takes to keep it that way, and I commend you for it.
“what’s the point of making 1 spec horrible, 1 decent and one “must have if you want to find a spot in a raid”?”
Because Blizzard doesn’t believe in tuning a little at a time and watching the results, doing a little more tuning, analyzing, etc. you know, actually “tuning”
Blizzard believes in huge resets and swings from one extreme to another, which is not “tuning” in any industry.
Basically you are right, they took a spec that was wanted not only over other specs but also other classes, and rightly made it less powerful, and in addition created a new spec that not only does the most damage but offeres more group utility too.
“we don’t want one must have spec and class, so let’s create one!” what?
meh either way I’m glad I don’t have any exotic pets, though I will miss those 4 extra points
MISSES
It’s because Shaman as a class give +Spell Hit, not +Ranged/Melee Hit.
I meant Draenei Shaman.
@ ieakittens
After getting Hit capped:
- Get Agi gems
- Get Agi enchants
- Get Haste capped
If you have the talent points for it:
- Get as many Intellect as you can without losing the above
- Get as many Stamina as you can without losing the above
Try a Wasp and a Moth . The Wasp has a very usefull raidwide buff. The Moth increases it’s own DPS and heals itself.
Try diferent shot rotations, choose the one you’re more comfortable with and excel doing it. Don’t rely on Steady Shot to do it for you no more.
And that’s it.
Enjoy the new Specc!
@ Stupid Mage
Heroic Presence – Racial Passive (Dranei)
Increases chance to hit with all spells and attacks by 1% for you and all party members within 30 yards.
@BRK – as someone else posted, Viper Notify is a great mod to remind you to switch out of viper. I love it!
While I love topping the damage meters, I’m not sure I’m ready to give up using my Spirit Beast for a little more damage (I take it you’re spirit beast is living in the stables since you can’t take him out while SV spec?).
I was really excited when I saw you had just cleared Naxx and posted the end boss stats, since we did the same last night, but then I noticed yours was 10 man and mine was 25
. Anyway, here’s my WWS report from last night’s fight on 25 man http://wowwebstats.com/1bi2cbzzeptwc?s=173417-222741
Your gear is a bit better and you were in a 10 man… so there’s no real good way to compare them all I can say is damn, you’re doing a lot of damage!
As to the conflict about damage meters, I’ve heard it time and again. So much so, I wrote a post about it myself: http://mostlywow.com/?p=109 A little maturity goes a LONG way.
BRK, your blog is the best and I want to thank you for all your great info and all the help you have given me and my fellow hunters!
[...] mammoth meat for AP foodings. I need to find a new BM-centered blog to read because BigRedKitty is neither big nor red, and will probably retire his kitty soon. He might have given up on Beast Mastery, but I [...]
-Mage
Correct me if I’m wrong, but hit is the same now. A draenei caster will give ranged/melee hit to a hunter or a rogue the same as they would a mage or warlock.
(someone beat me to it. Blast you spamfree)
-Shatter
I agree with your points. In all honesty, I think it boils down to how the other 24 people you’re raiding with expect you to perform. Ultimately, if it came down to it I would spec survival if my guild really, really needed and wanted to me to. It contradicts what I said in my previous post but I in all honesty don’t think I could quit over something so trivial. I’m not happy with my damage output as MM but that is I think due to the fact I’m undergeared compared to the rest of my guild and that’s only a matter of time (if anyone cares enough I’m in Turalyon under the same name) before my gear catches up and my DPS improves.
Although I do know if I spec surivival my procwatch would use a sheep ‘baa’ to alert me to LnL procs
http://www.friendsoffoamy.com/videos/forum-bore-em-episode-164
That is all i have to say ……..
obey the Foamy
From your Lord and Master
Zalenna , Last of the Beastmasters
Wierd! I’m sorry, I didn’t know they changed it =)
In that case I don’t know what the issue was. I do believe there are different levels of +Hit needed for spells and physical attacks. 8% for shooting/melee and 16%? (15%?) for spells?
Not everybody, but some of you are arguing pretty nastily.
On the one side you are calling folks who want to stay BM as ‘willing to gimp’ the raid, and even worse, face-rolling, such a pretty image etc…
On the other, people who change spec are elitest jerk (in the worst sense of the phrase), no lifer, epeen strokers.
OK, first (since I am staying BM) it is possible to stay BM, gear properly, gem properly and not top the charts, not perhaps, raid with the guys that push the envellope, but still do good damage, even in 25 mans. I have not raided in Wrath at all yet, but when I do, I will be ready.
On the other hand, there are people who switch to another spec to contribute the best possible damage, but who seriously do it in the spirit of contributing and using meters to fine tune their damage, with only a tiny bit of ego involved.
Be nice! Why not?
@Kunukia
I said facerolling, bc as BM I could roll my face across the keyboard and do decent dps. It’s easy to play. Very fun, but easy regardless. I’m not being negative but when I can hit 1 button and do 3-4k depending on my buffs, it’s easy. That’s part of the reason I am enjoying SV now. Having to work my @$$ off to get 3500 feels a lot more rewarding. To each his own and I will never bash a BM hunter for sticking with what they enjoy.
@Drizzt
I understand why you said facerolling, but your implication that all BM do easy mode is indeed insulting. Just because that is the way YOU played BM it is not the way everyone does. Perhaps by working harder you would have done better than decent. It was an insult.
Viperwatch is a nice mod that boings at you when you’re in viper with full mana.
@ kunukia – You should be upset with GC then, because he said that exact same thing.. “BM can be easy to play, and can do top dps, but it shouldn’t do both” to paraphrase GC slightly.
It’s clear from GC’s comments that they see BM as the easy to play class, and don’t want it doing the top dps as well. (Why they suddenly had this revelation is a mystery to me.. GC also was concerned that BM was becoming “the” leveling spec.. wtf? where has he been?)
So, let’s be clear, the nerf to BM was not only because BM was scaling too well, it was also because they had an agenda with bringing down BM.
They won’t admit to it, but I have a feeling that they wanted to push players to other specs. GC seemed to look down on BM quite a bit.
So.. can you raid as BM?.. sure! but…
“pushing the envelope” is where the difference is. If everyone is trying to do that, and you are tied to a spec because of love to it (or stubborness) that everyone knows does less dps, what does that say to the other 9 or 24 people?
Again, if you are not raiding seriously, you should be able to play whatever spec you want, but if you are serious about it (and the rest of your raid shares that level of commitment) then you should do your best to provide the most dps, because that is really all that hunters do today.
@Fearstalker
Indeed, I said I knew that I would never be the best, or run with the best raiders. In my guild we do not try to hit the peaks. We are a family guild. Yes, we have some hardcore raiders, and they run with friends, and then also raid with us lesser folks. All I am saying is, with my spec, I work hard and do my d@mndest, I do not just mash one button. I work to be the BEST BM I can be. Do you not see how being accused of essentially laziness is an insult?
Yes. I heard about what GC said. Meh. What he thinks or does about the game is beyond my control. I will wait patiently for changes, and enjoy my Spirit Beast. I refuse to QQ about Blizz, because I have had 5 years of great times playing, through all the changes.
Or is it four years? Whatever, I have played since a week after release…
There’s a lot of stuff that has to do with game design philosophies that not all people agree upon. And since WoW came out the people working on it changed too and each new personn bring new ideas. I think overall Blizzard is doing a great job and they have 11 million people to support that. Now as far as raiding and everthing associated with it goes they are changing it nearly every big patch. I think that part of the game was never fully agreed upon and what we are seeing is constant experimentation.
I’d be really curious to see what kind of endgame blizzard would have planned if they knew everything they know now when they created the game. I’m not even sure we’d have raiding as we know it today.
Shame, BRK I thought I had you pegged as someone who followed his own advice by playing with what was fun and enjoyable rather than just to be ‘uber’. =/
I just wanna say that while I love being BM, I love SV a whole lot too. I am one of the few that actually got to tame Loque after hunting for about 40hours, who is now sitting in my stables waiting patiently. SV is way more fun to play in a raid setting for me. As BM I always topped the meters. In 25mans I’d get whispers from the other hunters who would ask what my shot rotation was and I would just laugh and say “are you serious? There is no shot roation for BM! It goes Hunters mark, serp sting, steady for 18 seconds rinse and repeat”. I’m not even joking! Now there is the pet management side to being BM that is almost like a shot rotation, but it’s only BW and KC, and Mend pet every so often. As SV it so much more involved and I love it. Mark, kill command, sting, ex shot, steady, steady, ex shot, did LnL proc? another ex shot, steady, ex shot, multi or aimed, ex shot, steady, ex shot, steady, steady, ex shot, multi, and so on. It always different based on GCDs and what I feel I should do next to maximize my DPS. Way more involved for me. I still top the DMG meters, but at least now I feel like i earned it as opposed to just being OP in PVE. I”m not gonna lie, I hated seeing under geared hunters beating out our better geared mages and locks and rogues. It wasn’t fair. Now the other hunters have to work for it and I like that.
@kunukia – I can understand. I felt the same way when certain MM bloggers ranted and steamed about how MM was “real huntering” and BM was the lazy way.
I’ve never said that. I’ll never accuse BMers of being lazy (unless I find thing unchanted and gemmed wrong).
Wow. Sad day. The best BM blogger gone SV. Suggest changing the name.
If you want to contribute actively to your raid group as a DPS character, run damage meters and pay attention to them.
Call it e-peen if you will, that’s the yardstick by which anyone playing the DPS role must measure their success. Deciding to a good job isn’t e-peening or elitism or anything like it, and shrugging off poor performance because you “only play for fun” is a disservice to the people who are counting on you.
off to find a new BM blog if i wanted to read about Max DPS well MaxDPS.com covers that…. good luck BRK
@Nick S
Agreed. Any one who gives a darn runs damage meters, to fine tune their DPS.
@Jeanos, and others. BRK is the best HUNTER blog IMO. I trust he will continue to serve the BM community, and also continue to be the funniest, classiest, kindest hunter blogger on the net.
Don’t let me down, BRK.
(The check is in the mail, right?)
When I first found this site, I took it as a resource for HUNTER tips, not BM central.
Back then BRK was espousing how a BM hunter could be a max DPSer (contrary to a lot of opinion at the time). True, he reveled in the BM spec, but it was also about using it to bring the pain. So now SV is bringing the pain and BRK has gone to where the action is. It’s still a hunter’s blog.
I’m a BM hunter from day one (hey-any tree that buffs my partner in carnage is my tree), and I don’t care how BRK rolls, I’ll be here for the info and lulz.
I like that they’re flopping the top dps from one spec to the next. Adds to the flavor of life. We get to play all sides, not just one tree. I <3 variety.
Still use range weapon: check
Still have pet to manage: check
Still do not melee: check
Still ninja’ing all raid loots: check
Still supplying MQoSDPS: check
Hm, stills look like a hunter to me.
Just waiting for Dual specs so I can keep my fun pets and fun solo ability
So where do we send PayPal donations to change the name to Trap Dancing Kitty?
Go tame a red lynx from the Blood Elf starting area and give it some of those pet treats that make it huge and you can still have a Big Red Kitty as SV
Or Stumpy Trap Dancer
(STD)
HAHA
Wow… all those people being so shallow about BRK’s change.
Yes, you are freaking shallow! And you should be ashamed of yourselves.
BRK WANTS to be BM, he decries the impossible difference. But he is a realist, he knows what his raidjob is. If BM ever becomes close to comparable again you can bet that he will be back, even if it is less DPS (just more reasonable). That is actually rather likely as I doubt that BM is supposed to be that far behind.
Have you really only been visiting this place because BRK was BM, or did you visit because he is the damn best Hunter blogger? If it was the first then you have missed the entire premiss of his blog. He posts 80% about general Hunter issues, gear, enchants, buffs, what to do when, where to grind X etc etc. I doubt he will ignore BM issues either. If Blizzard adds another Spirit Beast skin you can be sure he will look it up and add an entire update about it. Why? Because it is something that affects all Hunters, because pets are universal to all Hunters. Sure Extotics are BM alone, but don’t say that SV or MM Hunters can’t look with interest at those pets, so it affects them too.
Is BM still a leveling spec? If so SV must be the Raid spec. I’m not level 80 so then I’ll still play BM for all of my pet’s glory.
Latest response from Blizzard (Ghostcrawler) is that they’ve agreed that the nerfs to the BM tree were too severe and will look at buffing the spec back up.
This is what he said:
“We talked about it a great deal today and agreed that we probably over-nerfed BM. Marks is in a good spot and Survival might be too high once we look at the changes we are making to all other classes.
Our plan is to buff BM before Ulduar, but I can’t give you a timetable more detailed than that, and things could change for any number of reasons. We are unlikely to touch Steady Shot for the reasons I have mentioned before. We are more likely to look at Kindred Spirits and Serpents Swiftness again.
Again, huge caveats: Predicting changes we are discussing making but haven’t made yet is fraught with peril. I only wanted to address this issue because it caused a lot of consternation in the community.
I don’t mind admitting when we make a mistake in the hope that it builds our credibility in the community. This was one. It won’t be the last.
”
Source: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=14578748409&sid=1&pageNo=49
This is good news for BMs and I hope it means reversing some of the nerfs instead of reworking the talents, they should also include Unleashed Fury but we’ll have to wait and see. It seems Survival is in for a nerf as well.
Thanks, Omega.I knew they did not intend such a harsh difference. I will wait patiently…
@Kunukia
BM was easy. By following BRK and EJ with a few modifications to fit your raiding situations you would use a SpS SS rotation with trinks, RF and BW every CD on your basic fight. Possibly throwing in a multishot in specific situations and AS while on the run. Just today I ran OS 10 and 25, Naxx 25, and 2 heroics, averaging between 3.5k and 3.8k, peaking at 4.3k and bottoming out at 2.8k. I got very similar numbers as BM with the above rotation. By putting the long term CDs in a macro with SS you end up hitting 3 buttons. Your HM/petattack macro, your SpS macro, and your SS/CD macro. Go to EJ or any other theorycrafting site and they’ll tell you that is the optimal rotation, as BRK has said many times.
BM being easy is not my fault. If you’re making it any harder you’re only gimping yourself. (granted now you can weave in AS. just change /cast SS to /castrandom SS, AS, AS, AS, AS, AS, AS, AS and you’ll be close as hell to optimal)
I loved playing BM, I miss it, but I won’t deny the relative ease with which it can be played to it’s potential.
@Driizzt
Did you have a particular point? I think I missed it. Oh, I see, BM is easy. OK.
I love BM, because from day one (back in vanilla WoW) the whole point was the pet. I like my pets, I like them being strong, a big chunk of my damage. I like managing them, having them rescue squishies, while I keep dealing damage to the main target. That is the game I like to play. If you want to emphasize the ease of my shot rotation, go for it. I will go so far as to say you must be a very special and cool person, because you are using a more complex shot rotation. Happy?
No offense intended here, but I thought the advantage to playing BM was that it was a comparatively easy spec to play with a very high damage output. Until Sunwell came out, BM hunters weren’t doing astronomically high damage yet, so the other pure classes offered just as much utility and versatility. BM always seemed to benefit from having a very useful macro that could make the less dedicated players perform exponentially better than they might have if they used a different class. Before that comment encourages argument, I’d only ask if a person upset by it used “the macro” — if you didn’t, why not? And if you did, there’s nothing to be ashamed of, it was a logical thing to do.
All of that said, it seems a bit silly that people would be defending the playstyle at all. BM was good for what it was, and it offered people to see content they probably couldn’t otherwise. But you’ve clearly opted to drive an automatic and can’t say that just because it has a wheel like a stick-shift, that one is just as difficult to master as the other.
I played BM when it was crap in vanilla WoW, I played it when it was king in BC. Never once did I say to the two Survival and one Marks hunters that I regularly raided with in BC, “Why do you choose to gimp yourself?” It…just would have been rude. Clearly a lot of people did tell you that, Shatter, or you would not be quite so deliberately offensive in your post, which starts out with, “No offense intended here…”
I think you’re just being overly defensive, because nothing in that was offensive. Saying “no offense intended here” is more a method of saying “I’m going to be pragmatic, so please lower your defenses.”
Because you played BM when it was terrible, does that somehow make you a messiah for the spec? As I said, in TBC BM didn’t outdps Survival by much until after SW came out. I knew “good” BM hunters and they all agreed the macro made it what it was to play.
@Kunukia
Shatter is precisely correct in what he is saying. We’re merely saying BM is an easy to play spec. Since you have conceded this point I’m not sure how you can take offense to Shatter restating my thoughts more eloquently, especially after you have just confirmed them.
I’m sorry that you seem to take offense to the truth, but then mocking my dedication to damage with my “more complex shot rotation” is the same as if I had criticized you for playing BM because of your love of the play style.
Shatter you wrote the main advantage was that it’s easy, and wonder why people were defending the playstyle.
Nobody else is saying that, no BM hunters want to only hit one button most of the time unless you have to move your pet. That’s just how you have to play. And I have yet to hear of anyone defending hitting one button as a playstyle.
The advantage of BM was that is did tons of damage, and some enjoyed the RP-like aspects of a pet as more than just another dot, people wish they still could do those things. No one is lamenting “oh no i have to hit more than one button now”.
I give up.
Yunk, I have absolutely no idea how what I said translated into “you’re just mad because you lost your macro”.
I said that the relative ease of the style was a lot more intriguing to some people, especially when considering how much damage it did. If people were simply interested in pure damage pre-SW, they could have gone warlock (same goes for the pet).
That being said, it isn’t fair to say that BM was “just as involved” as other specs, because it simply wasn’t, and that was part of what drew many people to it. Simply because you state something doesn’t make it true.
@Shatter
Thank you for reading my mind and then stating my thoughts in a much more concise and level headed manner. Therefore, I have nothing left to say. =D
Unless of course I remind you all that the whole point of the nerf is so that hunters will turn on each other and be eliminated from the game entirely. And thus GC will rule the world! BWAHAHAHA
Happy Hunting
@Drizzt
Very few people realize that Clairvoyance is a hidden talent of enhancement shamans!
An example of this would be that I know I’m always about to die.
[...] reason that I’m making this post is because of something I read in a post on Big Red Kitty. The thread itself was about BRK deciding to go Survival over Beast Mastery, which unleashed a [...]